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It seems to me everyone I know who has had a heart attack went to doctors for years and then once they had a heart attack they got treatment for the clogged up artery's. They always waited until they had a heart attack before any treatment started.
Example friend of mine smoked for 50 years, ate greasy food, 50 lb overweight. He was on cholesterol drugs like lipitor for years his cholesterol was controlled. One day he has chest pain walk walking around a park he goes to ER they said he was 99% plugged on all 4 artery's he was probably within hours from having a massive heart attack which would have killed him. Just 2 years prior he had a stress test done they said he was normal. Now they have him on all kinds of blood thinners stents put in and do stress testing imaging monitor his heart closely.
His wife who happens to be a NP she is thin never ate bad food normal cholesterol test, never smoked one day she is at work and she has chest pain. She goes to the ER finds out she also has 2 artery's which were plugged up requires stents.
Why does the medical community only have a stupid cholesterol test which seems to be very inaccurate to figure out if someones heart is plugged up. They seem very reluctant to do any kind of test to see inside the heart.
I'm 47 and scared to death of heart attack spent most of my life overweight, Cholesterol total is in the 180 range but most of it is LDL 80%. Sometimes I feel chest pain but most of the time it's just heart burn. Father had stents put in at 48 doctor says because he smoked I never did don't worry about it. This year a co-worker went home in his 50's wasn't feeling well woke up with chest pain had massive heart attack dead by the time paramedics got there he planned to retire in a year.
Reading this talks about how inaccurate a Cholesterol test is in predicting coronary heart disease intersting they bring up Bill Clinton's heart issues how for 5 years had passed stress testing and his Cholesterol test numbers were normal but later after having chest pain they find out his heart was only days away from massive heart attack. http://www.lifeextension.com/Magazin..._heart/Page-03
It seems to me everyone I know who has had a heart attack went to doctors for years and then once they had a heart attack they got treatment for the clogged up artery's. They always waited until they had a heart attack before any treatment started.
Example friend of mine smoked for 50 years, ate greasy food, 50 lb overweight. He was on cholesterol drugs like lipitor for years his cholesterol was controlled. One day he has chest pain walk walking around a park he goes to ER they said he was 99% plugged on all 4 artery's he was probably within hours from having a massive heart attack which would have killed him. Just 2 years prior he had a stress test done they said he was normal. Now they have him on all kinds of blood thinners stents put in and do stress testing imaging monitor his heart closely.
His wife who happens to be a NP she is thin never ate bad food normal cholesterol test, never smoked one day she is at work and she has chest pain. She goes to the ER finds out she also has 2 artery's which were plugged up requires stents.
Why does the medical community only have a stupid cholesterol test which seems to be very inaccurate to figure out if someones heart is plugged up. They seem very reluctant to do any kind of test to see inside the heart.
I'm 47 and scared to death of heart attack spent most of my life overweight, Cholesterol total is in the 180 range but most of it is LDL 80%. Sometimes I feel chest pain but most of the time it's just heart burn. Father had stents put in at 48 doctor says because he smoked I never did don't worry about it. This year a co-worker went home in his 50's wasn't feeling well woke up with chest pain had massive heart attack dead by the time paramedics got there he planned to retire in a year.
Reading this talks about how inaccurate a Cholesterol test is in predicting coronary heart disease intersting they bring up Bill Clinton's heart issues how for 5 years had passed stress testing and his Cholesterol test numbers were normal but later after having chest pain they find out his heart was only days away from massive heart attack. New Blood Test Better Predicts Heart Attack Risk - 3 - Life Extension
other than family history and regular check ups there just is no way to predict when our hearts will give us trouble, anymore than we can predict exactly who is going to develop cancer or other life and death illnesses. All one can do is develop healthy habits but that isn't going to guarantee a long and healthy life with no heart issues. It isn't primative; we actually have a much higher survival rate from most illnesses now than we did even 20 or so years ago.
My mom had a great physical, no issues, then 4 days later collapsed and needed a quintuple bypass and then 3 stents a couple of days later. When we asked the heart surgeon about the good checkup, he said they mean nothing.
If you click on that link I have talks about a better test called a Lipoprotein (a) and a heart score calcium test which uses a CT scanner to look at the hearts buildup of Calcium. Some have claimed the test is not necessary because of high cost. Ill gladly pay out of pocket to use latest testing.
Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) Scan may not be useful either unless you've already had a heart attack in the same way that test for high LDL per the lipid panel isn't predictive of who has a heart attack.
Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) Scan may not be useful either unless you've already had a heart attack in the same way that test for high LDL per the lipid panel isn't predictive of who has a heart attack.
Did you read the actual link you sent it contridicts the bold title? I think CAC score testing is being blocked by insurance providors because they don't want to spend the money read what I cut from the study from that link
Heart scans can be revealing. For instance, Dr. Budoff proved the prognostic value of CAC scores in a study of 5,593 people whose average age was 57, each of whom had either no risk factors for heart disease or just one risk factor (high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, current smoking or a family history of heart disease). More than half of the study population, whether they had risk factors for heart disease or not, had positive CAC scores, indicating that at least some calcium-laden plaque had accumulated in their arteries, and 9.8% of the study participants had scores at the highest end of the spectrum, indicating severe disease.
Over an average of 10.4 years of follow-up, 168 participants died from any cause. After adjusting for age, gender, traditional heart disease risk factors and race, it was found that higher CAC scores were clearly associated with higher mortality. Compared with people with a score of zero who died, a CAC score of 1 to 99 (mild heart disease) was associated with an 88% higher risk of death…a score of 100 to 399 (moderate heart disease) was associated with a more than doubled risk of death…and a score of 400 or more (severe heart disease), with a nearly tripled risk of death.
CAC scores aren't perfect but of you CAC score is 400 probably good idea to do further testing
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