Prevent the silent disease that kills most people

By Dr. Dan Chong

If we told you that you could prevent premature death with the right tools, would your ears perk up? The truth is that we rarely think statistically about what will kill us and while there are countless terrifying possibilities like cancer, accidents or dementia, the stats point to a more likely cause of our ultimate demise—heart disease. In fact, a heart attack occurs about every 40 seconds in the U.S., and heart disease literally kills 1 out of every 3-4 people in the world, all day, every day. It is the #1 killer year after year. But here are some other important facts:

It's silent

The unfortunate fact is that, because human bodies are incredibly resilient and good at adapting, most people have absolutely no clue that there is a disaster brewing in their arteries. As hard as it may be to believe, in about 50% of heart attacks, the first symptom a person notices is the heart attack.

It's preventable

Heart disease is entirely preventable for just about everyone. For some, it takes a lot more effort to do so than for others, but prevention is in just about every person's grasp.

 

Prevention is confusing

The other unfortunate fact about heart disease is that there are about 1,000 medical opinions about the best way to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease. But opinions and science are not synonymous. 

 

An evidence-based approach

My goal is to evaluate each person where they are and then, most importantly, closely evaluate their response to the changes they make. For instance, if evidence-based dietary changes are made, we must track labs that prove those changes are working for the individual. Evidence-based prevention is not about guessing or crossing your fingers! It's about screening, implementing change and tracking outcomes. But, the first and most important step is screening! If you don’t look, you won’t know, and the one way to guarantee your worst possible health outcome is to ignore your risk. At BioLounge, we recommend that every one of our patients has a cardiovascular screening by age 35 and has regular screenings at intervals based on family history and overall risk.