https://www.yahoo.com/news/many-americans-unaware-important-heart-health-numbers-survey-222202912.html
By Lisa Rapaport
(Reuters
Health) - Even though most Americans are worried about dying from a
heart attack or stroke, few people know their numbers when it comes to
basic risk factors for cardiovascular disease like blood pressure or
cholesterol levels, a recent survey suggests.
“We
have known for a long time that the overwhelming majority of heart
disease is preventable if you treat blood pressure and you treat high
cholesterol and you treat diabetes,” said Dr. Steve Nissen, chairman of
cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
“But it’s still the leading cause of death,” Nissen said in a phone interview. “Complacency is the enemy here.”
For
the study, published on the Cleveland Clinic's website, researchers
surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,002 adults by phone in
September 2016. They found that a majority of participants did know some
key risk factors for heart disease.
For example, 77 percent understand that blood pressure matters and 67 percent know weight is important.
Slightly
more than half of participants also correctly identified “bad” LDL
cholesterol and body mass index (BMI), a measurement of weight relative
to height, as risk factors.
But the devil is in the details people don’t know.
Just four in ten people knew a healthy blood pressure reading was less than 120/80.
Even
though heart rate isn’t an important risk factor for calculating the
risk of heart disease, 59 percent of participants incorrectly identified
this as a factor that influences risk.
When
it comes to weight, 70 percent of people knew their own weight off the
top of their head. However, only 30 percent of them knew their waist
circumference and just 18 percent knew their BMI.
Even
when people knew a healthy BMI is one way to lower the risk of heart
disease, just 23 percent of participants understood that a person is
considered overweight with a BMI of 25 or more.
And
with waist circumference, only 34 percent of participants knew that
carrying fat around the stomach area, sometimes known as an “apple
shape” body, is the most dangerous for heart health.
People
were also confused about how cholesterol levels influence the risk of
heart disease. Only 12 percent of them knew screening for cholesterol
should start in early adulthood, and most people incorrectly identified
triglycerides as cholesterol when they are a type of fat in the blood.
Most
participants also didn’t grasp the connection between diabetes and
heart disease; 73 percent of respondents didn’t know heart disease is
the leading cause of death for people with diabetes.
While
some people might not know these numbers because they’re young and
healthy, others who do have some risk factors for heart disease may have
been told and forgotten the details, said Dr. Deepak Bhatt, executive
director of interventional cardiovascular programs at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital Heart and Vascular Center in Boston.
“It
is probably more important for someone with abnormal measurements to be
aware of the cutoffs for normal versus abnormal than for someone whose
numbers are all good,” Bhatt, who wasn’t involved in the survey, said by
email.
Still,
every person should know how these numbers change over time, and look
for early warning signs of measurements creeping closer to unhealthy
levels, Bhatt said. There are many smartphone apps that can help track
this, or a simple notebook works just fine.
That’s
because when certain numbers start moving in a direction that could
become a problem in the future, there are often still things patients
can do to prevent health issues from developing.
“Doctors
may not prescribe a pill when certain numbers like weight or blood
pressure creep up but remain in a healthy range, but they might
recommend lifestyle changes,” Nissen said. “For example, we may ask you
to change your diet or get more exercise.”
SOURCE: http://cle.clinic/2k8ozsy Cleveland Clinic Heart Health Survey, online February 1, 2017.
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