Alright, we are back with
two year well-being, Dr.
Gayatri Acharya is here and
she is with cone Health,
Medical Group, heart care.
At Northline Ave we were just
talking about what are the
preventative things that we can
do right now to prevent heart
disease and let's talk about
physical. What can we physically do?
I like to keep this really concrete
and make it make a lot of sense
for my patients, which is just
get 30 minutes of activity a day.
The American Heart Association
recommends 150 minutes a week,
but sometimes that's a bit of a kind of OK.
How much do I need to do 30 minutes a day?
Climb the stairs,
walk park far away and walk into the
grocery store and add those five minutes
at a time to your 30 minute total.
OK, so move more,
that is number 1 all right?
How about our diet?
Can you give us some examples of things?
To eat or not to eat for
a healthy heart diet.
What we know right now about healthy diets
for the heart is that a primarily plant
based diet with a lean protein source
is really going to be the best thing.
Whether you choose to make
that plant based protein,
which you know plant based diets are
really kind of emerging as a heart healthy
diet even worser than we thought before.
But some healthy things would be fresh
fruits and veggies, lean meats and fish.
Healthy fats like avocados and olive oil
and then a really small portion of nuts.
And then they leave a little
room for some indiscretions.
He's, he's and things,
uh, huh. Cookies and other
things like that. I'd
ideally keep those in moderation.
I tell my patients if you like steak,
you can have a steak on your
birthday and your anniversary,
but try to really limit it to sparingly. OK,
let's talk about alcohol consumption,
'cause that really was an issue,
especially during COVID,
the pandemic 2020 and 2021.
What is moderate alcohol consumption,
and what is that?
The equivalent for men and women?
So the Mediterranean diet
really is the diet, the heart,
one of the most heart healthy diets that
gives a recommendation about alcohol.
Really the only alcohol that's been
shown to be heart healthy is red wine
and it ends up being a 5 ounce pour for
men or a three ounce pour for women,
ideally not daily.
So the the kind of party line
is none is best,
but that much in moderation is
really what's felt to be heart
healthy and not dangerous.
Right
so so many of us, especially women,
think of heart disease as a man's disease,
right? They're the ones that are
having the heart attack, but that
is not the way that it is.
Not at all. It equally affects women,
and in fact women have some unique
risk factors for heart disease.
The inflammatory conditions one
might see a rheumatologist for.
We know that those folks are more
prone to getting heart disease in
the future earlier than others,
and pregnancy itself.
As part of pregnancy,
we watch for heart failure after pregnancy.
It's not very common,
but when it happens it has to be
addressed right away so absolutely
it can affect women all right?
Well then, let's talk about
the differences because I think we've
seen movies and television shows and
things and we always see the guy you know,
clutching his chest or whatever.
So how does heart disease show up
and women are different than men?
So men and women both can
have the typical symptoms,
which just as you described,
the elephant sitting on your chest.
But I have a lot of female patients
that come and say, you know,
I was dragging my trash bins
to the curb and I just was so
short of breath or carrying that
laundry basket up the stairs and
I just was so terribly winded.
Shortness of breath,
particularly with activity,
not something I think you should
go see your doctor about,
but some of the other ones.
Sometimes people will talk
about and indigestion that just
doesn't respond to your typical
heartburn medication so.
Those are really two of the big ones
that a woman could come in with all
right. And So what are the two myths you
would say about heart disease that you
kind of wanted debunk since we have the
time to talk about it?
Right, so the first one is if you have
a family history of heart disease,
you are not doomed.
And I have a lot of patients who almost
throw in the towel before they get a chance.
We have so many tests and therapies
that we can use for prevention,
or at least to kind of stave
off that heart disease.
You can't change your genetics,
but you can certainly there's so many more
things available now than there were for
our parents and grandparents generation,
so we can really attack things early
and try to prevent the same diseases
that affected your family members.
The other myth I would
like to debunk is that.
If you've had a heart attack,
if you've had heart failure or a stroke,
this is not the end of the road for you.
We can work together to have
really full and meaningful lives.
For these patients active lives again,
we have therapies that can help that
specific population of patients where
we call it secondary prevention.
Let's hit it.
After we know it's happened and those are
two things I want my patients to know.
All
right with COVID still in our community,
even though things are lessening and
that kind of thing, some people may
still be hesitant to go the doctor.
For the emergency room,
even when it could be something
as serious as their heart,
what do you say to them?
When do they need
to go to the emergency room?
Go at the same frequency and
timing as you would pre pandemic.
I can't stress to you enough.
Do not avoid going in for fear of
long wait times and things like that.
I have to take a second to give a
recognition to all the people who
work in the emergency department.
The doctors, nurses, staff,
EMS they've worked tirelessly for
two years but they still have your,
you know they're looking out for you
and really the safest place if you're
having symptoms of severe chest pain,
shortness of breath or stroke like symptoms.
The safest place for you is
the emergency department.
Alright, and we've got just
about a minute or so you and I during
the break we were talking about a
specific test that folks are getting now
that could really help out.
If you're not having cardiovascular
symptoms yet, there's a test
called a coronary calcium scan.
It's a, it's a cat scan of the chest,
but it doesn't involve any contrast dye,
and what it does is it screens
for calcium in the heart arteries.
We can actually count that calcium
and do a little math and determine
what your overall risk maybe,
and from there we can decide.
Do you need a cholesterol medicine
and and do you even need a further
cardiovascular work up so we
save that for patients generally
who aren't having symptoms to
start the course of prevention?
All right,
and we do want to make it clear that
it's not covered by insurance. It's
about $100 or so, but I think to myself that
is something that weighs on my head,
and so I think anybody else
who has that in their family
or is concerned about that.
It would probably be money well spent.
Absolutely, and it can be coordinated
by your primary care provider or can
be coordinated by your cardiologist.
Cone Health offers it,
and so we'd be happy to do that for
you if you come see us. Alright,
thank you so much for your
time and expertise. We
so appreciate you and we want
to make sure that if you missed
any of this about heart
disease and how to prevent it,
especially in women that you go
to our website wfmynews2.com.