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Wednesday, July 18, 2012

HOW SHOULD ONE KEEP TRACK OF THEIR HEART HEALTH?

A good knowledge of your risk factors (of which family history is clearly one). Knowing your status with regards to traditional factors,like cholesterol profile, diabetes, and blood pressure. Lifestyle indicators like exercise tolerance, smoking, etc. further risk delineation might be possible with advanced screening modalities such as stress testing and coronary CT angiography might help too.

A cardiologist or internist can help define your risk profile by getting a history (family history, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia), and arranging for a fasting lipid level.  In high risk settings additional risk can be found with a lipid NMR study assessing non traditional risk factors such as lipoprotein particle size. Other risk factors, PLAC, CRP, homocysteine could help.

POSTED BY:  STEVEN AJLUNI, MD

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