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00:00 - The following portion of the Arizona Daily Mix
00:02 is sponsored by Dignity Health.
00:05 - Heart disease is the number one killer
00:07 of Americans yearly.
00:09 And even though February is Heart Month,
00:11 we should be focusing on heart health every month.
00:14 And here to talk about how to prevent
00:16 cardiovascular disease is cardiologist, Dr. Suzanne Sorof.
00:20 Welcome, doctor, thank you for being here.
00:21 - Thank you, Lexi, for having me today.
00:23 - So I wanna start by talking about heart disease
00:26 and just kind of a general idea of what it is.
00:29 And just kind of a general overview,
00:30 who it affects, how we know it's affecting us.
00:33 Just kind of give us some of those tips.
00:35 - So heart disease affects all of us.
00:37 In fact, starting at age eight,
00:39 we start developing atherosclerotic plaques.
00:43 But genetically, we're genetically coded
00:46 to have disease if it's in our family.
00:49 So people who have things in their family
00:51 like blood pressure and diabetes, valve disease, arrhythmias,
00:56 it's really important to know your own history
00:59 that you're given by your parents and grandparents,
01:02 and also what you bring to the table
01:05 based on blood work or testing that you've had.
01:08 - Gotcha, okay, yeah, this was something
01:09 that we were just kind of talking about
01:11 before we started here, saying that there are some things
01:14 that you can't help, your genetic history,
01:17 just the way that your body is made.
01:18 But there are some things that you can help,
01:20 the things that you eat, how active you are.
01:23 So before we get into kind of some more of the tips
01:27 and things that you would say to prevent,
01:29 tell me a little bit about who is the most at risk.
01:32 I know you said everybody,
01:34 but I know that women are slightly higher risk than men.
01:37 - Right, so when we go through menopause
01:39 and perimenopause forward, we're really at high risk.
01:43 We're about 10 years after men
01:44 start developing heart disease.
01:46 But really, it's what genetically
01:49 and what we have as part of our medical background.
01:53 So if you have hypertension and diabetes
01:55 and you've been tested for cholesterol and it's elevated,
01:59 or you've smoked cigarettes,
02:00 if you're not physically active, that's another risk factor.
02:04 All those things together cause vascular,
02:08 heart disease, stroke, you can have arrhythmias,
02:12 and all of these things affect us.
02:14 And as we go through our lives,
02:16 and after menopause especially,
02:18 women are really predisposed.
02:20 And in fact, by tenfold, it's the number one killer
02:23 that most women will die of heart disease
02:26 way before the second most common,
02:29 which would be breast cancer.
02:30 - Wow, oh my goodness, those numbers are really staggering
02:33 and kind of a little scary.
02:35 And I know we're not here to scare anybody.
02:37 We're just here to give the information.
02:39 So talk a little bit about screenings
02:40 and things that we can do to be really aware
02:43 and know what's going on in our bodies.
02:45 - So the most important thing
02:46 is having a really good relationship with your physician.
02:48 You wanna have someone that you trust
02:50 that will actually ask you questions
02:54 that could be really important
02:55 for what could be a diagnosis of hypertension,
03:00 some symptomatology, you may be having headaches,
03:04 problems sleeping,
03:06 things that you may need to see a cardiologist for.
03:08 - And before we continue,
03:09 I wanna stop you really quickly
03:10 because I did read in our notes
03:12 that the symptoms are different for women than for men.
03:15 - That's right.
03:16 - So for women, when we have heart attacks,
03:18 most of the time we're gonna have chest pain or heaviness,
03:22 but sometimes in some people
03:24 it might just be feeling short of breath,
03:26 feeling very weak, fatigued, an impending sense of doom.
03:31 These are things that women will say that might point us
03:35 that, hey, there might be something wrong with your heart,
03:38 your blood vessels,
03:38 blood flow's not getting to where it needs to be.
03:41 - Okay, so for women out there,
03:42 these are the things to be looking out for.
03:44 And having that relationship with your doctor
03:47 is so, so imperative.
03:50 - Imperative.
03:50 - I love that word.
03:51 - Imperative that you have a good relationship,
03:53 get screened, and if there's any question
03:56 or you don't know, if you don't know your history,
03:59 when we all go for pap smears and mammograms,
04:02 we start doing it routinely.
04:04 Heart disease also screening should be routine
04:06 and it should be at least when we're in our 40s,
04:10 especially when we're having family history
04:12 of heart disease.
04:14 - 100% and it's kind of like what you were saying earlier
04:17 that this is something that affects women
04:19 way more than something like breast cancer.
04:21 So yeah, we do go in for our mammograms and that's great,
04:24 but this should be something that we take just as seriously.
04:27 - Just as serious and it's actually more deadly.
04:29 Most of the hospitalizations are from heart,
04:32 heart-related blood pressure, stroke,
04:34 heart attack, vascular disease.
04:36 This is what we see most often in the hospital.
04:38 - My goodness.
04:39 All right, doctor, well, thank you for the information.
04:40 Very quickly, tell everybody where they can find
04:42 more information and work with you.
04:44 - I'm down at St. Joseph's Hospital
04:46 at the Heart and Vascular Clinic.
04:48 We have availability to be seen anytime.
04:50 If anyone has questions or concern, we're happy to help them.
04:53 - All right, doctor, thank you so much for this.
04:55 This was some great information.
04:56 I hope you're watching.
04:57 I hope you take this very seriously.
04:59 Stick around because we have more of The Mix
05:01 coming up after this.
05:02 - The preceding portion of the Arizona Daily Mix
05:08 was sponsored by Dignity Health.
05:10 (silence)
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