As American Heart Health Month, which spans all of February, ends, the Town Crier reached out to El Camino Health cardiology expert Dr. Jane Lombard to learn more about the causes and prevention of cardiovascular diseases.
According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular diseases are those that affect the heart and blood vessels. Most of what Dr. Lombard sees in her day-to-day practice includes atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis is the buildup of plaque in arteries, which can lead to serious health emergencies because parts of the body are deprived of blood flow, she noted.
“(Plaque is) not necessarily just in the heart,” Dr. Lombard said. “It could go into your arteries in the brain, and then you would end up with a stroke. Or it could go into your aorta, and then you get aortic disease, or if it goes into the legs, then you get claudication, which means that your lower extremities don’t get enough blood when you try to exercise. But the most common of its manifestations is either stroke or heart attack.”
While it’s hard to determine how much plaque someone has lining their arteries, some people are more at risk: while genetics play a major role in cardiovascular disease, so do activity level and diet.
A sedentary lifestyle and unkept (especially a processed food-heavy) diet can increase someone’s risk of cardiovascular disease.
“It’s our industrial culture,” Lombard noted.
Increasing activity like walking two to three miles (around 7,000 to 8,000 steps) a day and eating cleaner, especially avoiding processed foods, are crucial for a healthier lifestyle and addressing atherosclerosis.
While there is no blood test to tell people how much plaque is in their arteries, some blood tests can help people better understand their health. Early intervention, Lombard added, can help prevent more serious issues in the future.
“I think everybody should have, once they’re a young adult, a cholesterol profile,” Dr. Lombard said. “They should have a cholesterol profile very early on if they have a familial history of early heart disease or high cholesterol. … If it’s not normal, then there’s a lot of data showing that the earlier the intervention, the less likely you’re gonna have complications in the future.”
Insulin resistance should also be checked.
For more information from El Camino Health on cardiovascular health, visit www.elcaminohealth.org/services/heart-vascular.
