Ah February, the Hallmark Month of Love. The medical month of the heart, since we all know that the love comes from the heart. I guess I can think of worse organs to be associated with love, so I will take the win. Coronary calcium scoring is one of the newer ways to evaluate the health of your heart.
Heart disease remains the top cause of death in the world. There are many factors that contribute to the development of heart disease. Some factors we have control over, like smoking. Some factors we have no control over, like family history.
One factor that I don’t think there is a lot of room to debate is the importance of blood pressure control. Sometimes the medications make people feel poorly, but getting the blood pressure under control is critical. One of the other risk factors that we have some control over is our cholesterol. I won’t spend much time on diet. I certainly believe that reducing unhealthy foods, especially processed foods, is in our best interest. The means to achieve that though, can be the subject of endless debate. In the end, the only diet you will stick to is one that appeals to you.
Knowing the perfect diet will undoubtedly end quickly if there are few foods that you enjoy on it. One of the dirty little secrets in medicine is that 90 percent of your cholesterol is not diet related. In other wo ...
