(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome to House Calls: Real Docs, Real Talk.
I'm your host Marcedes Fuller
and we are back for more healthy conversation.
Today's topic, what can you do right now
to manage heart failure?
We hope you'll be able to walk away from this conversation
with some solid advice for enhancing your health.
So get ready to take good notes.
Let's get started.
With me this morning is Dr. Shannon Dunlay.
She is a professor of health services,
research and medicine at the Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Dunlay welcome, good morning.
It's good to see you.
- Thank you for having me.
- Absolutely, we're so happy that you're here
because we definitely need help on this topic.
But before we jump into our conversation,
let's jump right into our discussion
with health in the headlines.
(logo whooshing)
Good health is always newsworthy.
So each week we select one current headline that ties back
to our topic at hand, and then we ask our expert to respond.
This week's entry comes to us from Healthline
and it's called what are the risk factors for heart failure?
Dr. Dunlay can you help us understand
the differences between heart failure and heart attack?
- Sure, heart attack is an event
that occurs when blood flow to a part
of the heart muscle is blocked.
And that usually happens because there's a blockage
in one of the big blood vessels or arteries
that run on the outside of the heart.
And if that blockage is happening for a long time,
then the heart muscle can become permanently damaged.
Heart failure on the other hand
is when the heart muscle can't pump blood
as well as it should.
And this can happen because the heart muscle
is too weak to pump the blood,
or sometimes because the heart muscle is very stiff
and has trouble relaxing and filling with blood.
- Absolutely great explanation.
And thank you so much for that.
I think now we're ready to get into our main segment
to answer live viewer questions.
We call this segment, you ask, we answer.
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Doctor, we have a few questions waiting for you
in our queue.
Our first question comes to us from Mina in Hartford,
Connecticut, Connecticut, excuse me.
And Mina is asking
what are the underlying causes of heart failure?
- Great question.
Well, one of the most common causes of heart failure
is having prior heart attack or heart attacks.
If you can imagine,
if you don't have blood flow to your heart muscle
for a lot of the times,
so you have one heart attack that's pretty big,
or you have multiple heart attacks.
Then the heart muscle might not be able to pump blood
as well as it should
and you can develop heart failure.
Patients can also get heart failure.
Individuals can get heart failure
for a variety of other reasons,
even if they haven't had a heart attack.
So for example, if they have a problem
with one of their valves
or if their heart muscle becomes stiff,
or if a virus attacks their heart muscle.
We also know that some other conditions can make individuals
at higher risk for getting heart failure.
So things like diabetes and high blood pressure,
or if heart failure runs in your family.
- Awesome, awesome explanation.
I hope our viewers are taking notes
because I definitely am taking notes over here.
Lucy from Neptune, New Jersey,
she wonders what are the warning signs of heart failure?
- Great question.
One of the most common symptoms of heart failure
is feeling short of breath,
especially when you walk and do things
or feeling short of breath when you lie down
to go to sleep at night.
Heart failure can also cause you to retain fluid
usually in your legs, but sometimes in your belly.
And it can also sometimes cause you to feel very tired
and fatigued, especially when you're active
and doing things.
- Now here's a question from Quincy in Montana
and it's also my tongue twister for the morning.
I have atrial fibrillation, what is that?
And how does it affect heart failure?
- Atrial fibrillation is a really common condition.
It basically is abnormal heart rhythm,
where the top chambers of the heart
they're called the atria,
they are beating really fast and irregularly
and the bottom chambers of the heart can't really keep up.
So they're sort of beating irregularly too.
When this happens and your heart rate
is going fast for a long period of time,
sometimes that can trigger the onset of heart failure,
or if you already have heart failure,
it might make your symptoms worse.
Those things like shortness of breath and retaining fluid.
We also know that people with heart failure
are at higher risk for developing atrial fibrillation.
They share some of those common risk factors,
things like diabetes and high blood pressure.
So, that's a little bit about what atrial fibrillation
is and how it can affect your heart failure.
- Awesome, awesome, Jonathan, he sent us a question
and this is what Jonathan wonders,
what are the most important things that I can do to manage
my heart failure and AFib?
- Well, I think one of the most important things
is working with your doctor or healthcare provider
and making sure that you are using medications
to treat those conditions.
So for heart failure, that might be medicines
that strengthen the heart muscle
or help to keep the fluid off. For atrial fibrillation
that could be medicines to help slow down that heart rate
or to prevent stroke.
So taking medications is really an important part
of management of both of those conditions.
It's also important to get regular exercise and be active
and try to maintain a healthy weight
and to avoid things like drinking a lot of caffeine
or alcohol can also help for both of those conditions.
- Awesome, here's one from Abraham in Springfield.
COVID-19 restrictions are easing.
What does that mean for heart failure patients?
Is it safe for me to get the COVID-19 vaccine?
- COVID-19 has definitely been hard for all of us,
but especially, for people who do have heart failure,
because we know that people who have heart failure,
who contract COVID-19 are at higher risk
for having those bad outcomes.
They're at higher risk for being hospitalized
and higher risk for even dying
compared with people who don't have heart failure.
Now that restrictions are easing,
it's important to talk with your doctor, but in general,
COVID-19 vaccines are safe have been shown to be safe
and effective for people with heart failure.
So I would highly recommend talking with your doctor
about getting the vaccine if you haven't already.
- Our next question is about World Stroke Day.
This is an important question.
For those of us that do not know, World Stroke Day
is on October 29th, that's coming up soon.
It is a global event that aims to increase awareness
about action on stroke around the world.
So the question from Arthur in Bentonville, Arkansas,
he wonders how does heart failure and AFib affect
my risk for stroke?
- That's a great question Arthur.
Atrial fibrillation does increase your risk of stroke.
The risk of stroke and people with atrial fibrillation
varies depending on your age,
the other medical conditions you have,
but all patients with atrial fibrillation
are at some increased risk for stroke.
Heart failure is one of those conditions
where if you have atrial fibrillation,
all other things being equal.
If you have heart failure you are gonna be at higher risk
for developing a stroke compared with a person
who doesn't have heart failure, but has atrial fibrillation.
This is definitely something that's important
to talk with your doctor about
because there are medications that can be used
to help to decrease the risk of stroke
if you do have atrial fibrillation.
- Doctor, our very last question comes from me.
What are three things that you would advise everyone
listening to do today to reduce their chances
and risk of heart failure?
- There's a lot that you can do to decrease your chances
of developing heart failure.
I think some of the most important things
are to eat a healthy diet
and try to maintain a regular weight,
make sure that you're getting exercise,
that you're staying active and that you're working
with your doctor or medical provider
to diagnose and treat other conditions
that you might have that could predispose
to developing heart failure,
things like diabetes and high blood pressure.
- Dr. Dunlay, thank you so much for spending some time
with us today.
I hope that everyone was taking notes.
I know I certainly was.
There are some actions, people that we can take today.
We can take actions right now to improve our heart health.
That does it for our show friends.
You can find any of our previous episodes
at AHA's House Calls, YouTube playlists.
Be sure to share this playlist with your family and friends
and make sure that you subscribe.
That way you don't miss a thing.
Be well, and go get vaccinated, take care.
- [Narrator] Getting back to this, to her, to family,
to friends, to hugs for people at higher risk
of COVID-19 complications
because of diabetes, high blood pressure
and heart conditions.
The COVID-19 vaccine is an important choice.
Consider it's the first step towards getting back
to what you miss so much safely getting back to life,
set your heart on it.
It's up to you.
A message from the American Heart Association.
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