February is American Heart Month, and St. Tammany Health System
is once more raising awareness with its Red Sofa Campaign, a monthlong
initiative in which heart health specialists will travel to locations throughout
the parish to discuss heart disease and the keys to preventing it.
The 2022 campaign kicked off Friday (Feb. 4) at St. Tammany
Health System’s Covington
Cardiovascular Care clinic, where Dr. Paul Stahls took time to set the
record straight with regard to common heart care myths.
Read what he had to say below – or watch it on Facebook -- and keep an
eye out for the red sofa to turn up at places and events throughout the community
over the next few weeks.
Myth No. 1: Heart disease is a man’s disease,
so women don’t really need to worry about it, right?
Wrong. Simple as that.
“The No. 1 killer of Americans doesn’t discriminate
sexually, and so the answer, of course, is
no,” Dr. Stahls said. “Prevention is key. Screening is elemental, and the understanding
of your genetics and predispositions are also part of that equation.”
Myth No. 2: Heart disease runs in my
family, so there’s nothing I can do about it.
Wrong again. Family history does play a role, but Dr. Stahls
says prevention can still keep you healthy.
“The real crux of cardiology is simple,” he said, “and
it is to be active and to exercise.”
He was quick to
point out that hard work and exercise aren’t the same thing. You can work hard
all day and be exhausted by the end of it, but the trick is, at minimum, to
elevate your heart rate for at least 30 minutes a day at least three days a
week.
“If you can achieve
three cardiovascular exercise (sessions) per week, you live longer,
statistically. Those studies have been done,” he said. “So, I’ve got to get
folks fired up and kind of be a cheerleader and get them inspired to get moving
themselves.”
Myth No. 3: I feel fine, so I don’t have heart disease.
Sure, you might feel
fine physically, but heart disease is an incremental thing. Hence the need for
keeping an eye on things with regular screenings – and for understanding what
those cholesterol numbers mean when you visit your primary care doctor.
Luckily, as Dr.
Stahls explained, that isn’t as complicated as it sounds.
For starters, he
said, your total cholesterol number is not that important. Rather, he focuses
more on the three subparticles that cardiologists look at. They are:
- Triglycerides. “That’s uncomplicated sugars,” Dr. Stahls
said.
- HDL, or high-density
lipoprotein. “Those act as cleaning
molecules,” Dr. Stahls said. “They’re helpful. Those are the good guys. You want
that HDL above 40. Forty is protective and will actually stabilize plaques and
reduce risk of future events.”
- LDL, or low-density
lipoprotein. “This is the bad stuff,”
Dr. Stahls said. “The LDL is actually a much smaller particle and, if you want
to think of it, it acts as spears. The endothelium of the artery, the inside, is
really an organ in and of itself. The arteries are organs. And the incredible
biochemical activity of the endothelial cells, the fine lining of the arteries,
they react poorly to inflammation and subsequent accumulation of the LDL within
those walls that essentially create small injury and make the inflammation
carry on. So that LDL number is the one of the most important ones we can
modulate and try to reduce and try to keep you from future events.”
But how does
inflammation happen? In a number of ways, including smoking, obesity, hypertension,
valve disease and sleep apnea – all of which can be eased to an extent through
proper diet.
“So it really is a holistic
approach if you’re going to try to talk about prevention in cardiovascular
disease, where you have to talk about diet, exercise and trying to keep your
weight down,” Dr. Stahls said.