From My Heart to Yours... (part 1)

Went to a great heart health presentation by local hospital recently. I am surprised how competitive the hospitals and doctors are, which I think  works to our advantage?  This hospital is even competitive with its Big Brother downtown Atlanta.  They have great new equipment, such as the Da Vinci machine, and great docs, and all the latest everything;

good to know so you won't bypass your local hospital, which could save your life, while you head to a bigger city.

Interesting to me was that you are born with a cholesterol of about 35; you add more starting at age 4! The youngest heart attack victim these docs had ever seen was age 9!  They saved a 17 year old recently by putting 3 new heart attack solutions into  his ravaged heart all at the same time; very rare, they said. 

As you know (right?) heart disease is the biggest killer of women.  Women often do not present with the same "keel over in pain" symptoms as men.  You should learn your risk!  A cardiologist is your best friend.  All kinds of simple blood-work to other painless ways to assess your family history, cholesterol and other "numbers" and advise if you need to take an enteric (low dose) aspirin each day (I take 2!), go on statins, and of course, eat right, exercise, get plenty of sleep (just ask globetrotter Bill Clinton), and avoid stress. 

They have really great tests that show all kinds of things about what is going on in your arteries.  Once you know your  numbers, it's fun to work hard to bring them down or up, as the case may be.  If you have a family history, are overweight, short of breath, over 40, though they recommend a workup at age 20 if you have any bad history in the family (now I don't mean Uncle Joe was a pirate), and so you get a baseline to see where you stand and what to do next.  If you get a clean bill of heart health, well good for you!

Check back tomorrow for more!