Excerpts from the San Francisco Chronicle
A simple, low-cost blood test that could help assess one's risk of heart disease could soon become part of regular medical exams along with blood pressure and cholesterol screenings, says Dr. Anthony Steimle, chief of cardiology at Kaiser Permanente's Santa Clara Medical Center. Known as CRP, the test measures whether people have elevated high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels, an indication of inflammation that can be associated with increased risk of heart disease.
Bonnie - the fact that CRP is not already part of a routine physical is a joke. Inflammation accounts for approximately 50% of cardiac risk. Cholesterol is only a small piece of the pie when assessing total cardiac risk.
If Big Pharma has its drothers, statins will be the "band-aid" treatment for CRP (as evidenced by the JAMA study released yesterday). Of course, fish oil and getting to the root of the cause works just as well and is the best long-term solution.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
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Although many people think of heart disease as a man's problem, women can and do get heart disease. I was in the same misconception regarding the heart disease, but was made aware by a medical checkup campaign. In fact, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States. It is also a leading cause of disability among women.
The most common cause of heart disease is narrowing or blockage of the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart itself. This is called coronary artery disease and happens slowly over time. It's the major reason people have heart attacks. Prevention is important: two-thirds of women who have a heart attack fail to make a full recovery.
The older a woman gets, the more likely she is to get heart disease. But women of all ages should be concerned about heart disease. All women can take steps to prevent it by practicing healthy lifestyle habits.
Actually, right now I am suffering from a blockage in the coronary artery and was once blocked up to 85%. I got the stent implantation which is a mesh like spring which is used to broaden the artery and hence restoring back the blood flow. You can see further information regarding stent operation from www.heartsite.com/html/stent.html. I got to know everything regarding my stent operation from this site. I was really unaware of such a blockage. I sometimes feel dizzy, restless, lazy , but thought that to be something related to mental ability, and hence never worried about it. Once I got my basic medical checkup at Elite health medical office in Los Angeles. The ECG report went to be something suspicious. So, they advised me to have further advance diagnosis to determine and assure regarding the problem in the heart. After my MRI , CT scan and other such scans it came to me as a shock that I was facing a problem of blockage. It was quite surprising to me, and as I was not aware of anything regarding this, I was really frightened. The doctors explained me every information regarding my health and its treatment, and suggested me to have stent operation. That was some dreadful days of my life, which I faced only because I was careless about my health. It was my luck that I somehow went for a basic checkup at elite health, but every woman out there may not be so lucky.
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