Heart disease prevention knowledge brochure

Control and stabilize the three core metabolic indicators of blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood lipids. Do not overextend your work, rest and diet for a long time. After the age of 40, do a targeted heart screening once a year. The remaining small-probability risks can be minimized through early detection and early intervention.

I was particularly impressed by Uncle Zhang, who I met at a community free clinic last week. He is 52 years old and has been diagnosed with high blood pressure for 4 years. He always thought that "the medicine is only half of the poison" and he would not take medicine unless he was dizzy. But last week, he suddenly felt a tight chest and couldn't breathe while carrying two bags of rice upstairs. He was taken to the emergency department for angiography and it was found that both coronary arteries were blocked by more than 70%. Fortunately, he was sent to the hospital in time so no major accident happened. You said he doesn't know how to control his blood pressure? It’s really not the case, it’s just that you always have a luck mentality and feel that bad luck won’t happen to you. This misunderstanding is more harmful than the high target itself.

Speaking of control indicators, the interesting thing is that there is no one-size-fits-all standard in the academic community. Take the blood lipids that everyone is most concerned about. Some doctors believe that as long as the LDL exceeds 3.4mmol/L, medication intervention is needed. Some doctors believe that if there are no risk factors such as smoking and family history, a three-month adjustment period can be given first and diet and exercise can be used to reduce it. I usually tell people who come for consultation that if you are a heavy smoker and your parents had coronary heart disease when they were young, and your density is as low as 2.6, you need to see a doctor to evaluate whether you need to take medicine.

Don’t think that everything will be fine if the indicators are normal. A 28-year-old Internet programmer was admitted to the emergency department before. He was not obese, and his blood lipids and blood pressure during the annual physical examination were all normal. He stayed up until 3 o'clock every day for three months to change the plan, and stayed up all night playing games with friends on weekends. When he was rushing to catch up on the version, he suddenly had chest pain and started sweating. When he was sent for an imaging test, he found that there were no obvious plaques in the blood vessels, but they were so spasmodic that they were almost blocked. Staying up late for a long time kept the sympathetic nerves stretched, and the blood vessels were stimulated every day. Even if there were no plaques, something would happen. So don’t always say “I stayed up a few late nights when I was young.” There is a limit to your heart’s endurance. The late nights you stay up today are all prepaying the later limit.

By the way, many people asked me before, is it true that drinking a small glass of red wine every day can soften blood vessels? The academic circles have been arguing about this for almost ten years. A few years ago, there were studies that said that resveratrol in a small amount of red wine is good for blood vessels. New studies in the past two years have directly overturned it, saying that even if you only drink a sip of wine, the metabolic burden caused by alcohol far exceeds the effect of resveratrol. Especially for people with high blood pressure, drinking even half a glass of red wine may cause the blood pressure to suddenly rise, which may lead to myocardial infarction. My personal suggestion is that there is really no need to drink alcohol for that unknown benefit. If you want to protect your blood vessels, eating two more bites of fresh dark vegetables is better than anything else.

There is another pitfall that everyone easily falls into: if the electrocardiogram during the annual physical examination at work is normal, I feel that there must be nothing wrong with my heart. My colleague's father is like this. He is 61 years old. His annual physical examination and electrocardiogram are all normal. However, he has been feeling out of breath when climbing the third floor recently and his left shoulder hurts from time to time. My colleague forced him to do a coronary CT, only to find that 70% of the anterior descending artery was blocked. It would have been fine if he had installed a stent earlier. If he had to wait for a myocardial infarction before sending him, the consequences would be disastrous. There is also a controversial point here: some people say that coronary CT has high radiation, so don’t do it if you have nothing to do. In fact, if you are over 40 years old and have high blood pressure, diabetes, or a family history of coronary heart disease, the radiation dose of doing it once every two years is completely within the safe range, and the risk of missed diagnosis is much smaller. If there are no risk factors, a regular electrocardiogram and cardiac color Doppler ultrasound are enough every year, and there is no need to waste money on excessive examinations.

Don’t think that heart disease is only for fat people. My Aunt Li downstairs is 1.65 meters tall and only weighs 90 pounds. She hardly eats meat and eats stir-fried vegetables every meal. As a result, last month’s physical examination showed that her blood fat is higher than that of many fat people. It’s because she has poor metabolism and the fat she eats cannot be excreted, which will still block blood vessels. Therefore, regardless of whether you are fat or thin, you must check your blood lipids and blood sugar once a year after the age of 30. Don’t just sit back and relax just because you are thin.

In fact, there are really not so many flashy tricks to prevent heart disease. You don’t need to buy thousands of heart-protecting health products, and you don’t need to take expensive supplements every day. You just need to do the little things in daily life: don’t eat heavy oil and salt all the time, don’t stay up late, and listen to the doctor when you need to take medicine when your indicators are high. If you have chest tightness, shoulder pain, or shortness of breath, don’t take it hard. Go to the hospital for a checkup in time, which is more effective than anything else.