Chris Davies knows firsthand exactly how scary heart troubles can easily be and exactly how vital it is to make changes to lead a healthier life.
Davies, 49, experienced a heart attack in 2013, two weeks after going on a Boy Scout trip. He went by ambulance to Brazosport Regional healthiness System, then by medical helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, where doctors put in stents.
Davies said even though he had no previous history of heart disease, there were others factors contributing to his condition.
“I didn’t have actually any history, yet I was sad and from shape,” he said.
That episode was a life-changing event, leading to a drastic turnaround, Davies said.
Lifestyle selections such as smoking and consuming fast meals are major contributing factors to heart disease and others healthiness problems, physicians say.
For Davies, an evaluation revealed fat loss and diet regimen changes were necessary.
Dr. Hari Prasad, cardiologist at UTMB Angleton Danbury Campus, said his Brazoria County patients tend to be obese as a result of a full job schedule.
“They job in a plant, they job full time, they grab tired and they don’t have actually time for much else,” he said. “That’s why I believe they grab overweight.”
Davies is an insurance agent, not a plant worker, yet the result was the same.
While most patients that come to UTMB Angleton Danbury Campus’ cardiology clinic are overweight, Prasad only has actually seen a few cases of obesity, he said.
Most patients range from the upper cusp of obese to the bottom part of obesity. Tension added to fatigue from a full workload are contributing factors, as well.
Making lifestyle changes is crucial to preventing heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
According to the American Heart Association, much more compared to 2,100 Americans die of cardiovascular diseases each day. It claims much more lives annually compared to cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases and auto accidents combined.
On average, one person in the United States dies every 40 seconds from heart disease, the organization’s web site states.
The probability of contracting a cardiac disease depends heavily on lifestyle choices, said Dr. Qiangjun Cai, UTMB Angleton Danbury Campus cardiologist.
“Most patients along with cardiac disease have actually one or much more of these traditional lifestyle risk factors,” he said.
The very first step people should address in living a healthier lifestyle is to educate themselves on the risk factors involved in heart disease, Cai said, such as smoking and cholesterol levels intake, which can easily lead to diabetes and higher blood pressure.
“They should know the consequences of those risk factors if they’re not controlled or removed,” he said.
Blockages in the arteries, irregular rhythm and diastolic heart failure — a condition where the heart continues to pump blood yet does not relax, can easily lead to higher blood stress and heart attack, Prasad said.
After assistance from physicians and personal research in to similar medical conditions, Davies opted for healthier dietary selections and almost immediately noticed a difference.
“I lost 40 pounds the very first month, 30 pounds the next month and 20 pounds the next month,” Davies said.
Doctors recommended a considerable reduction in the intake of red meat and oil and an increase in vegetable consumption, he said.
“I lost all the weight while following that diet,” Davies said.
Prior to his heart attack, Davies, a Scoutmaster, could not take his troop on a needed 5-mile hike. He now is able to walk 10 to 13 miles a day and has actually run a 5K race.
“I never in my life envisioned that I would certainly have the ability to do any of those things,” Davies said.
Although brand-new to the area, Prasad said he is not seeing anything else in particular that shows people in Brazoria County are much more or much less susceptible to heart disease. Prasad has actually been practicing in the area for regarding 6 months, and commonly will certainly see 40 to 50 patients a month.
Ideally, people should start paying attention to their healthiness at age 20, Cai said.
“If you have actually a family history of cardiac condition, you probably ought to start earlier,” he said.
There are basically two methods to tips stay away from heart disease — pharmaceutically and non-pharmaceutically.
Changing diet regimen and exercising much more ought to be the very first option, Cai said. The pharmaceutical route ought to be taken as a last resort, depending on the severity of risk factors or existing cardiac disease.
People looking to adjustment their lifestyle ought to try a brand-new diet regimen and physical exercise book for regarding three months to see if there is any change, he said.
People have actually busy schedules and cannot constantly sit down to a healthy and balanced meal, he said, and grabbing something at the nearest fast meals restaurant could be the only option. If that is the case, doctors recommend ordering smaller sized parts along with a lower calorie count.
“You simply have actually to pick and opt for just what you eat,” Prasad said.
People that are a greater risk compared to others ought to pay attention to the signs in order to detect heart disease early on, he said.
“My thinking is that if you can easily pick these patients early on and educate them, bring their risk factors under control, we can easily try to prevent some of these conditions,” Prasad said.
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