Free Screening To Find

Families At Risk

By Joseph G. Buchman, MD, FAAC

On June 24, when the second Newtown Heart Health Day is held at Edmond Town Hall, the focus will not only be individuals at high risk for heart attack and stroke, but also families at risk.

Vascular disease (plaque in arteries) starts in early life on a familial hereditary basis. It is aggravated and accelerated by obesity, inactivity, diet, oxidants, and smoking. Underlying family history of diabetes or hypertension are often incubators of disease in those whose risks evolve later in life.

This free program on June 24 in the town hall gymnasium has been designed to help you and your family assess your true heart risk, and to make changes to reduce that risk.

In 1994, when the first Heart Health Day was held at Edmond Town Hall, hypertension was defined as 145/85. Now with new proven data from clinical trials, 125/85 is considered ideal; hypertension now is defined as 130/85 for those who have other significant risk factors accompanying the blood pressure levels.

Blood sugar, a measure of diabetes, also reflects new low levels of impaired blood glucose of 110. Lipids are no longer just a simple cholesterol level unless HDL (good cholesterol) and triglycerides of more than 150 are focused upon because they are the ingredients in the making of plaque. Sudden change in plaque structure and narrowing going from 40 percent to 80 percent or more cause stroke, heart attack, and kidney failure.

These risk factors are made incredibly worse by smoking, a clear-cut “No! No!” when it comes to vascular disease.

A recent health study of 225 nurse practitioners showed that those who smoked had dropped from 25 percent to 2.5 percent (an impressive statistic that shows what medical education and knowledge of family history can and do to effect change in lifestyle). Their blood pressure control was good and their cholesterol management was excellent but their state of overweight had become worse over the years. This situation reflects a major concern for our whole population. As cholesterol went down, weight went up.

Dietary recommendations as to fat reduction of the National Cholesterol Education Program II put us astray healthwise. Diabetes and triglycerides levels are on the rise and a reevaluation of diet for prevention of hypertension and vascular disease is now evolving.

The Dash diet for hypertension measurements of glycemic load and the qualities and presentation of fat both as tightly packed and loosely structured calories will be among the handouts at the time of the health day screenings. These represent the new dietary approach to the prevention of vascular disease and correction of risk factors.

The home environment of families at risk, their activity level, and snack habits cry out for early life education and behavior development. The focus on high-risk families directs us to special attention before silent disease progresses in children and parents.

At the June 24 Newtown Heart Health Day, visitors from around the state’s 37 home health agencies will observe in the morning and attend an instructional program in the afternoon that will eventually bring Heart Health Days to each of their communities. Newtown was chosen to serve as a central site in the state, a model for evolving primary prevention health care.

Heart Health Day will include free cholesterol/HDL/triglycerides and blood sugar level tests; blood pressure evaluation with follow-up 24-hour blood pressure recordings (if indicated); and a heart attack/stroke risk multiplier evaluation. Immediate test results will be provided and, after discussion of the results, participants will be referred back to their own doctors for follow-up.

Please call 426-5524 to participate with your family members, ages 15 and over, in this free screening.