the American Heart Association the
American College of Cardiology has not
had a comprehensive document such as
this before that targets both the
patient as well as the healthcare
provider what we tried to do was to
summarize the latest data about how to
better assess one's risk of having a
heart attack and stroke and we also
talked about the risk of developing
heart failure in atrial fibrillation we
then went into the latest data about
aspirin and other blood thinners
we've had several recent studies that
have questioned the use of aspirin to
try to lower one's risk of a heart
attack
we then summarize the data about blood
pressure lowering and REM ffice eyes the
fact that lower blood pressures are
associated not only with a lower risk of
heart attack and stroke but also heart
failure we have some recent data that
also suggests that lower blood pressures
are associated with a lower risk of
memory problems or cognitive impairment
the data about cholesterol that was
recently presented and published back in
November has also been updated and we
now feel much more comfortable with
advocating much lower target cholesterol
values the last set of cholesterol
guidelines did not really deal with diet
weight and exercise and in these
guidelines have a very strong lifestyle
emphasis we also talked about those
individuals who have diabetes and some
of the newer classes of medicines that
not only lower one's blood sugar and
hemoglobin a1c but significantly lower a
person with diabetes risk of developing
heart failure or kidney problems so I
think this ABCDE approach is going to be
very helpful for primary care providers
for cardiologists and their chronologist
and even other specialties such as
surgeons and OBGYNs to really understand
how to convey this information to
patients and to provide many manageable
tools that will help them in their quest
to live
long and healthy life that's not
burdened by cardiovascular disease the
cornerstone of prevention is better
dietary and exercise habits and these
guidelines really take the tack that the
more meals that we could eat that are of
Mediterranean type of diet vegetarian
vegan the better we talk about trying to
minimize both red meat and processed
meats such as bacon sausage etc we talk
about the dangers of having too much
sodium in the diet and also the problems
where people have too much in the way of
sugary foods in the diet we also do a
nice discussion about diet and weight
the strategies to help people try to
lose weight and emphasize a better
approach of trying to lose weight is
trying to aim for a pound or two a month
as opposed to trying to drop 5 or more
pounds in a month so there's so many
more lifestyle factors that really
weren't covered in previous guidelines
such as the cholesterol guidelines that
were presented back in November of 2018
so I think both the provider and the
patient will have so much more useful
information about a comprehensive but
manageable approach to lower our risk of
a heart attack and stroke it's very
important for people to remember that
high blood pressure is a very strong
risk factor for congestive heart failure
for stroke as well as coronary artery
disease and a person's arteries can get
clogged up with this yellow fat and
cholesterol and we want to do whatever
we can to slow that progression and
maybe even stabilize the amount of
blockages or narrowings that are already
in a person's arteries for blood
pressure we want to try to focus in on
the number of 130 over 80 we want our
blood pressure values as much as
possible to be below that level and we
talked a great deal about ways to
improve ones dietary and exercise habits
we also talked about the best ways to
approach what medicine that one might
try and what is the optimal second or
perhaps even third medication to add on
to
ideally we'd like our blood pressure to
be less than 120 over 80 and studies
show that when you're in that range of
120 over 80
you're so much less likely to develop
heart failure or a stroke or a heart
attack later in life these new American
Heart Association American College of
Cardiology guidelines talk about the
latest strategies to help people get off
of cigarettes tobacco addiction is
probably the number one preventable
cause of heart attacks and strokes in
this country when we talk both about
behavioral techniques to help people get
off of cigarettes
as well as review the latest data about
the medications that seem to be the most
effective we also talked about
electronic cigarettes and we know that
many young people seem to get hooked on
e-cigarettes ideally they were developed
to help people get off of cigarettes but
unfortunately more and more individuals
are now starting on electronic
cigarettes and that may lead to further
problems with addiction in the future
you