Know your cardiovascular disease risk

I came across some interesting articles in my overwhelming literature search on what is known and not known about CVD in Latin America.

For busy physicians, there are four challenges in regard to a patient's CVD risk (Cooney et al. JACC 2009): 1) How do I identify people who are at increased risk of a cardiovascular event? 2) How do I weight the individual effects of all the causative risk factors when assessing a person’s risk? 3) How do I stratify that risk to determine who needs lifestyle advice and who needs additional medical therapy? 4) How do I ensure that I am not overmedicalizing those persons who are at low risk of an event?
There are various risk scoring systems that doctors use to answer these questions. The most well known is the Framingham risk score but it is unknown if it is a valid scoring system for different ethnic populations, say in Peru. That's one of my projects here.

So, do you know your CVD risk? Framingham and other risk calculators have been developed based on people who are at risk for events and emphasize secondary prevention after disease has developed. For young people (<45 year) your Framingham risk will be low unless you have a genetic profile that predisposes you to CVD (high cholesterol or triglycerides) but primary prevention and modification of risk factors at this early stage is where we have the greatest opportunity for prevention of CVD and subclinical disease. The earlier the better.

Did you know that it is recommended to exercise at least 2 hours per week? That's it. That's only 30 minutes 4 times a day or 10 minutes 2-3 times per day. How many of us actually get 2 pathetic hours per week? How much time do you spend watching the Twins or Viking (or Packers) games? How much time do you spend in your car? The elephant in the room in the healthcare reform debates is our culture of inactivity and eating poorly. Walking 2 hours per week can lower your blood pressure more than popping a pill and it can decrease your risk of CVD and stroke by 25% not to mention it can help you lose weight.

Below are current recommendations based in risk and age. See where you fit and take the first step in lowering your risk now! It may be cutting down on smoking, it may be going for a walk or a longer walk but we can all do something to lower our risk and put me out of a job! :)