Participants: Shelley Quinn (Host), James Marcum
Series Code: WM
Program Code: WM000358
00:01 The following program presents principles designed to promote
00:03 good health and is not intended to take the place of 00:06 personalized professional care. 00:07 The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speaker. 00:12 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions 00:14 about the information presented. 00:27 WONDERFULLY MADE 00:35 Psalm 139/14.It's a promise you just wanna smile about. 00:41 It says: "I will praise him" 00:43 "for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 00:45 I wanna thank you this morning for watching Wonderfully Made 00:50 and taking your time this day to spend with us 00:53 as we talk about this important topic of myocardial infarction. 00:57 My name is dr. James Marcum and I'm a cardiologist 01:01 with the Chattanooga Heart Institute. 01:03 Now for those of you who might not be familiar 01:06 with medical jargon, a cardiologist is a doctor 01:09 who specializes in internal medicine and specifically 01:12 focuses on treatment and prevention 01:15 of diseases of the heart and blood vessels. 01:17 This morning I have chosen the topic of myocardial infarction 01:21 to talk about, because it's so prevalent in our society. 01:25 In fact,42% of all heart attacks and cardiovascular disease 01:28 are the source of death in America. 01:32 In talking about this important topic 01:34 we have Shelley Quinn joining us this morning. 01:37 And I'm so happy that she's with us to help us 01:39 talk about this topic that I think everyone is involved 01:43 with either loved ones or they know someone 01:46 that's had a heart attack. 01:47 So Shelley, I wanna thank you for joining us this morning. 01:50 Thank you. I'm just so excited to be here. 01:52 And you know, every one of us has a heart. 01:55 So we all know someone or we have experienced 01:58 problems of ourselves or we want to avoid 02:01 experiencing these problems. That's right. 02:03 So, I say that again... 02:07 A myocardial infarction or a heart attack. 02:10 That's what it means, it's a heart attack. 02:12 That's what we're talking about. So that's what 02:13 we're gonna be talking about. 02:14 In fact I've gathered questions from allover the world 02:18 pertaining to hearts. And we're gonna talk about 02:21 myocardial people's own questions. 02:23 These are people that write in with serious concerns, they want 02:26 their questions answered. And in the course 02:28 of the conversation today, I'm hoping we can learn 02:31 a lot of good things that are practical about heart attacks. 02:34 I'm looking forward to it. 02:35 And because this is such an important topic, 02:37 Jim, why don't we pray before we begin. 02:40 Ok,would you like to. Yes. 02:42 Father in heaven we'd like to invite Your Holy Spirit 02:45 to lead in this discussion. For those of you at home 02:48 that want to learn more about the heart, 02:50 we pray that the Spirit be with you 02:52 to make changes and to open your eyes to things 02:54 that need to be discovered. 02:56 This is our prayer. Amen. Amen. Amen. 02:59 Well, Jim has a lot of questions here, 03:02 that have come from around the world. 03:05 And he has a ministry called "Heart Wise" 03:08 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 03:10 So you're out there teaching people 03:12 how to be healthy and to avoid these problems. 03:15 And our first question comes from Carol in Michigan. 03:18 Carol says: I am a 44 year old healthy male. 03:22 A recent physical at work turned out well. 03:25 However, I have a strong family history of heart attack. 03:29 My dad died in his early 50s of a heart attack 03:33 and my older brother recently had a stent placed. 03:36 Could I also have a heart attack? 03:39 First, could you explain to us what a stent is? 03:42 Yeah. A stent is a device. 03:45 When a person has an acute myocardial infarction 03:48 or a heart attack, what that is, we don't have 03:50 enough blood reaching the muscles of the heart. 03:52 When that happens, the muscle dies. 03:55 And when the muscle dies, lots of bad things happen. 03:58 Funny heart beats can develop 04:00 You see the defibrillators that shock people. 04:02 That's cause of these funny heart beats that develop. 04:05 The heart can go into failure and you can't breathe 04:07 because of fluid in the lungs. 04:09 Lots of bad things can happen quickly. 04:11 So in an acute heart attack you need to get care right away. 04:15 Sometimes when a person is having a heart attack, 04:18 right away we bring him in, we go up into the heart, 04:20 we find out where that blockage is and we open it up. 04:23 We put a metal device that holds that artery open, 04:26 so blood can flow out to that muscle 04:29 so that muscle can work properly. 04:31 And if we can get a heart attack within the first hours, 04:34 there's almost never residual damage done to the heart. 04:37 It's when people sit at home and they don't get help 04:39 "It's heart burn, I'm not worried about it." 04:42 That's when we have a lot of problems with this. 04:45 I don't even wanna ask cause I've done the same. 04:48 So, since he had a good physical but he's got this family history 04:54 Is he at risk for a heart attack? 04:56 Yes, all of us in America are at risk of a heart attack. 04:59 In fact,90% of the heart attacks 05:02 that we have in America are acquired. 05:04 That means we give them to ourselves, 05:06 what lifestyles we have. 05:08 So he has a family history, so is definitely at risk. 05:11 So he could have a heart attack. 05:13 I wanna just throw up a slide here 05:15 and sort of give you the magnitude 05:17 for cardiovascular disease. 05:18 Myocardial infarction in the United States. 05:21 For instance, people don't realize this but it accounts 05:23 deaths annually. 05:26 That's almost 1,000,000 deaths every year. 05:30 That is a lot of people that die. 05:33 One heart attack happens every 34 seconds. 05:37 And every year 05:39 400,000 to 460,000 people never make it to the Emergency Room. 05:43 They collapse, they fall over dead 05:45 before they reach the Emergency Room. 05:48 I think those are staggering statistics. 05:50 And you have to really be aware that a heart attack 05:53 is gonna be the thing that you have to worry about 05:56 whenever you have chest pain or discomfort. 05:58 So Jim, is there a genetic predisposition to this 06:02 as well as our lifestyle? 06:04 Yes, we know that some people have bad genes. 06:08 And if you have bad genetics and you have bad lifestyle habits, 06:13 this accelerates the development of this problem. 06:16 And this problem is usually called arteriosclerosis. 06:19 A big name that says cholesterol gets jumped up inside 06:22 the arteries of our heart. 06:24 Not only in our heart, this is going on in the blood vessels 06:27 to our brain which can cause strokes. 06:29 In the aorta which can weaken it and cause aneurysms. 06:32 In the legs, in the kidneys. 06:34 All the blood vessels can be affected 06:36 by this disease process. 06:37 If you have a family history, this even puts you 06:40 at a higher risk of having a heart attack. 06:42 I have to throw something in here because I remember 06:45 for the longest time when I'd hear the word cholesterol 06:48 and they'd say to avoid cholesterol. 06:50 I think,ok,what's got cholesterol in it? 06:53 What's got cholesterol in it? 06:54 And then when I finally learned I was embarrassed. 06:57 But would you please explain to our audience 07:00 what has cholesterol in it, how do you avoid these things? 07:04 For instance, one egg has about 200 milligrams of cholesterol. 07:09 The recommended daily requirement for cholesterol 07:12 is 300. But most people do not even 07:15 realize the fact that you do not need to eat any cholesterol 07:18 in your diet. Did you know that? 07:20 Your liver makes all the cholesterol your body needs. 07:23 However, in westernized societies through the years 07:26 we've developed this diet that's high in cholesterol. 07:29 We have lots of meat in our diet, 07:31 animal based products which are high in cholesterol. 07:34 Of course, the organ that has the most is the liver. 07:37 And I know some people that love to eat liver. 07:40 But liver is packed, packed with cholesterol. 07:43 So, the animal based diets, the cheese, the eggs, 07:47 all of these are packed with cholesterol. 07:49 This is the enemy when we're dealing 07:52 with cardiovascular disease. 07:53 So, it's smarter to go more towards the plant based diets. 07:58 Yes, that is the ideal goal. A lot of people have problems. 08:02 This is sort of the ideal goal. 08:04 We wanna move people towards that. 08:05 But I found people that sometimes they just 08:07 can't give up everything at once. 08:09 So we try to encourage them, to make changes slowly. 08:11 First try this, maybe substitute this, eat more fresh 08:14 fruits and vegetables, then they're able to get it. 08:17 As they feel better and more alive and more healthy 08:21 They're gonna say: "I don't think I can eat this anymore," 08:23 "cause I feel so much better." 08:24 I will attest to that. I was one that made 08:26 the changes slowly and continue to make the changes. 08:29 Here is a question from Anne in Canada. 08:32 And Anne writes: "Is it more likely for a woman" 08:36 "to develop cardiovascular disease or breast cancer?" 08:39 Anne, that is a wonderful question because cancer 08:43 gets so much publicity in the United States. 08:46 Women are more scared of cancer 08:49 than they are of cardiovascular disease. 08:51 But the chances of having a cardiovascular disease 08:55 is much higher than you would expect. 08:57 The next slide will attest to. 09:00 The prevalence of myocardial infarction in women 09:03 is a lot higher than most people think. 09:06 For instance, one in every 2.5 women die 09:09 of cardiovascular disease. I think that's staggering. 09:12 That's unbelievable. 09:13 One in 30 only, die of breast cancer. 09:16 25% of women who actually die of cardiovascular disease 09:21 are unaware of it. 09:23 That's unbelievable. 09:24 There's two things that come to my mind right away. 09:27 Number 1: For breast cancer, once you're 09:31 over the age of 50.Like I get my mammogram annually. 09:34 Between that and self examination 09:39 that's the way that I can know I'm cancer free. 09:42 But you don't really hear a lot about women and heart attacks. 09:46 I mean you don't hear doctors talking to you much about it. 09:50 So, what should I do to be 09:53 tested or to make sure that I'm not developing? 09:56 The first thing to do is to be aware that it's such 10:00 a high prevalence. Look for symptoms. 10:02 When you go and get your routine exam 10:04 bring this up to your doctor. 10:05 "Listen, I think that I might have to be screened" 10:09 "for cardiovascular disease." 10:11 There's things like blood work that can do 10:12 to make sure that your cholesterol is good 10:14 to lower your risk. 10:15 Check your blood pressure. Sometimes if you have some 10:18 symptoms you're not sure about, they can screen you 10:20 with a stress test or they walk you to see if you have symptoms. 10:23 There are tests that can measure your blood flow 10:26 and also look at risks that you might develop. 10:28 Those figures, I thought were amazing. 10:31 One in 2.5 vs. one in 30. That's very high. 10:35 To answer to Anne's question, Anne it's much more likely, 10:40 almost 10 times more likely that 10:42 you're gonna have a cardiovascular disease 10:44 than you are gonna have breast cancer. 10:45 And we hear so much more about breast cancer 10:49 than of cardiovascular disease. 10:50 Our third question comes from Raymond in Australia. 10:56 Raymond writes: "My friend Charlie" 10:59 "has chest pain daily. We work as guides in Australia." 11:03 "He says these episodes are heart attacks." 11:06 "Is there a difference between chest pain" 11:09 "and a heart attack?" 11:10 Yes. 11:11 That's the core of sort of diagnosing. 11:14 Lots of things can cause chest pain. 11:16 For instance, chest pain when you touch, 11:19 that can be a muscle. 11:20 Chest pain when you breathe, that could be related to your 11:23 lungs. Some of the hall-marks of chest pain coming from the heart 11:25 is pain when you do something. 11:27 Like you run up a hill, you do some exercise. 11:30 That's when the heart works. 11:31 And if the arteries are blocked up, you're gonna have 11:34 a symptom when the heart has to work hard. 11:36 And when you stop, it usually goes away. 11:38 We call that symptom "angina". 11:40 We also have the other symptoms. 11:42 We have pain that doesn't go away, or discomfort 11:44 that doesn't go away. We call that a "heart attack". 11:48 Let me show you the next slide here. 11:50 We're talking a little bit about heart attack. 11:52 Now there's different types of heart attacks that can happen. 11:54 Remember, heart attack is when the heart muscle 11:57 does not get enough blood and it starts to malfunction. 12:00 One way that can happen is the gradual occlusion of a vessel. 12:04 The cholesterol gradually piles up. 12:06 60%,70%,80%.This could take years to develop. 12:10 That's one. And then it gradually gets clogged up. 12:13 Usually these patients have symptoms of chest pain 12:16 before they have the heart attack. 12:17 The second one is a spasm. 12:20 That's when the artery, for a certain reason 12:23 spasms down and closes. 12:25 When it spasms down, downstream doesn't get enough blood. 12:28 Frequent causes of that would be drug abuse, 12:30 we see people that have cocaine, they have spasms. 12:34 People that smoke sometimes get spasms. 12:35 People that go in high altitudes can have spasms. 12:38 That don't get enough oxygen can have spasms, 12:41 it could be very devastating. 12:43 A third type of heart attack is actually the most common. 12:47 That's when we have a little plaque inside that blows open, 12:50 it ruptures suddenly. 12:52 Nothing predicts it, that plaque ruptures and then 12:55 the body sees that it's damaged. Whenever you've had a cut 12:58 on your hand, you know what happens when you get cut. 13:00 When there's damage, the body clogs it all. 13:02 So suddenly you clog off that artery and downstream 13:06 from that it doesn't have any blood 13:08 and you have a myocardial infarction. 13:10 The last one on the slide is a very uncommon one. 13:13 That was an emboli or some clot in your body 13:16 floating against the arteries. 13:17 That's very uncommon, we usually see that in people with 13:19 heart valves or clots in the heart. 13:21 We don't see that as often. 13:23 But as far as getting back to Raymond here, 13:26 his episodes are probably not heart attacks 13:30 if they're happening daily. 13:32 But if they're happening when he does something, 13:34 that could be a warning that the heart 13:35 is not getting enough blood, that could be angina. 13:38 But also could be a lot of other things. 13:40 In fact, I see people every day that most of the time, 13:44 they have chest pain that it's not the heart, 13:46 but you can't afford to miss it if it is the heart. 13:48 Jim, that's the problem because... 13:51 Recently my husband's best friend had an episode 13:57 of chest pain and he had his wife take him 14:00 to the emergency room and it turned out he had a 90% blockage 14:04 and had he waited any longer, he would have been dead. 14:08 It's what they told him. He said it wasn't that severe 14:11 but if I'm one of these people, I just nearly have to be 14:15 lying on my death bed to go to a doctor. 14:18 Do you just say ok, I'm gonna bite the bullet 14:22 and go and check this out cause it's not worth the risk? 14:25 I would just look at prevalences here, 14:28 I mean cardiovascular disease is so common. 14:31 If I had chest pain in my chest and I didn't know what it was, 14:35 for sure I would get it checked out because look at 14:38 the consequences if you don't. Look at the consequences. 14:42 Jim, I had microvalve prolapse. 14:45 So you probably had pain quite a bit. 14:47 I had pain all the time, I mean very often. 14:50 And I had a cardiologist once tell me, I said: 14:52 "I feel like I'm having a heart attack." 14:54 He said: "Don't worry, you're not." 14:56 And I said: "When will I know if I am?" 14:58 He said: "If you fall on the floor, you don't get up." 15:01 "That was a heart attack." 15:03 I know. So you kind of weigh 15:04 these things but the older I get the more I'm trying to be 15:08 serious about, if it is something that seems to 15:12 continue. You know Shelley, it might feel different from time 15:16 to time, you know, it might feel different than that time. 15:18 Inherently, usually when the heart's involved, 15:20 you also get short of breath, too. 15:22 That might help you distinguish between the two. 15:26 But microvalve prolapse is very difficult because that's 15:28 sort of an ongoing episode of chest pain. 15:31 And when you have that situation you really have to 15:34 know your body and know what's microvalve prolapse 15:37 and what might be different. 15:38 It's a scary feeling when you have any type 15:41 of pain in your chest. 15:42 Absolutely, but for those of you who are at home, 15:44 don't sit around and wait. Had my husband's best friend 15:48 waited, he would not be with us today. 15:50 Ok,here's a question from John in California. 15:53 Ok. And John writes: 15:55 "My grandmother just fell over dead and the doctors said" 15:58 "she had a heart attack." 15:59 "Is it possible to have a heart attack without symptoms?" 16:02 That is an excellent question and the answer 16:05 to that question is yes. 16:07 The groups that tend to have heart attacks 16:10 that don't have symptoms are the elderly and the diabetics. 16:14 Remember diabetics, their nervous systems 16:17 don't feel quite like everyone else's. 16:19 You've seen diabetics, they don't feel the bottom of their 16:22 feet. Sometimes they don't have sensations in their chest. 16:25 Also the elderly, sometimes they just get fatigued 16:27 or short of breath. 16:29 That could be a manifestation of a heart attack. 16:31 This is a good time, I think, to talk about some of the more 16:35 common symptoms of a heart attack. 16:36 So let's go ahead and look at the next slide here. 16:39 Symptoms of myocardial infarction. 16:42 One is chest discomfort. It might be pain, 16:45 it might be a heavy feeling on the chest. 16:47 It might be radiation of burning up into the jaw, the back 16:51 or the left arm, the shoulders. 16:52 Another symptom of a heart attack could be just 16:55 extreme shortness of breath. 16:56 I can't breathe, I can't get my breath. 16:59 These symptoms are not fleeting symptoms, these symptoms 17:02 are ones that stay with you, they're not going away. 17:04 In elderly sometimes we see the only symptom 17:07 being extreme fatigues. 17:09 So those are some symptoms that... 17:11 Can we see the next slide? 17:12 Another one: palpitations. 17:14 Feeling your heart beat too fast. 17:16 Feeling like you can't move on. 17:18 You can have abnormal sensations. 17:20 I've seen through the years almost anywhere in the body, 17:22 it can be in the jaw, it can be in the shoulders. 17:25 Some people, for instance, think they have heart burn. 17:27 And the heart burn is really a heart attack and vice versa. 17:31 They say: "Oh,I'm just having some heart burn." 17:33 And that is a heart attack. 17:35 So there's many different sensations that you can get 17:38 from a heart attack but you just really have to pay attention 17:41 to those and say 17:42 "Hey,I'm gonna get some help right away!" 17:43 My own grandmother died suddenly of a heart attack. 17:48 Just served the meal and just sat down 17:51 and her face fell into her plate. 17:53 But they said that hers was caused from an upset 17:57 in the electrolytes balance, that she was on a very 18:00 severe or strict diet. That her doctor had restricted 18:05 her to like 7 or 800 calories a day. 18:08 So something that drastic can cause a heart attack, right? 18:16 Yes, it could contribute to a heart attack 18:18 but the cause, I'm not so sure because we know lots of things. 18:22 In the vessels, usually it's blockages that really cause it. 18:26 Things like the plaque rupturing due to stress, 18:28 electrolyte abnormalities like she might have had 18:31 which cause a funny rhythm problem. 18:33 Those are all things that could have contributed 18:35 to the heart attack all of the sudden developing. 18:38 What she had happened is called "sudden death syndrome"? 18:41 Yes, sudden death. And most sudden deaths 18:43 are from not so much a heart attack 18:45 but from a rhythm problem. 18:47 The heart rhythm becomes suddenly abnormal. 18:49 When a heart rhythm becomes abnormal, all of the sudden 18:53 it doesn't pump effectively so you get no blood to the brain. 18:56 When no blood goes to the brain, BOOM! You pass out. 18:59 That's why with people that pass out we're always concerned 19:02 whether they have a funny heart beat, which we call arrhythmia. 19:04 Some rhythm problems are related to blockages while some 19:08 rhythm problems come from other reasons, 19:10 like electrolyte abnormalities, people that get dehydrated 19:13 can have these electrical problems. 19:15 People that have a host of other things outside the arteries 19:18 can also have this and that can cause sudden death 19:21 outside of a myocardial infarction. 19:23 My microvalve prolapse causes arrhythmia too, doesn't it? 19:27 Yes, but usually that one's not a dangerous one. 19:30 That's good news. 19:32 Here is a great question from Lacey in New York. 19:36 And Lacey writes: 19:37 "Is there a test that predicts a heart attack?" 19:41 Unfortunately there's no test that predicts a heart attack. 19:45 Lacey, I wish we did have a test that predicted a heart attack, 19:49 cause if we did, I could say 19:51 you're gonna have one, you're not gonna have one. 19:53 I could tell people so they can play in their lives accordingly. 19:57 However, we have some people that walk on a treadmill, 20:01 they walk 9 or 10 minutes on a treadmill, 20:02 they all feel great, have no symptoms at all and then 20:05 down the road they might have one of these plaque ruptures 20:08 and then they have a heart attack. 20:09 We also have people that we do angiograms. 20:11 We take pictures of the arteries of the heart 20:14 and we can actually see these plaques. 20:16 We can still not predict which of these plaques 20:19 are gonna rupture and cause a heart attack. 20:22 That's why we wanna focus on everything we can 20:25 to lower the risk of having a heart attack. 20:27 On our next show we're really gonna focus on ways that we can 20:31 tell people how to lower the risk to the lowest possible 20:34 risk of having a myocardial infarction. 20:36 So,Lacey,I think that was an excellent question. 20:38 Yes. And too bad that the answer isn't yes. 20:41 Ok,here's a question that I think will 20:43 really help follow up for Lacey because this is talking about 20:48 what can we do to change our chances of having one. 20:53 This comes from Steve in Saudi Arabia. 20:56 He says: "I live overseas" 20:57 "in Saudi Arabia. I have had an increase of stress" 21:01 "in my life since the war in Iraq started." 21:04 "My wife is concerned that this might cause a heart attack." 21:08 "How can I lower my chance of having a heart attack?" 21:11 That is an excellent question, Steve. 21:14 That is a type of question, Shelley, that makes 21:17 a heart attack doctor just smile because we know that 21:20 this is a person that wants to prevent heart attacks. 21:23 We've talked about over the course of this program 21:26 that 90% of this disease can be preventable. 21:29 And here we have Steve in Saudi Arabia 21:32 wanting to lower his risk. 21:34 Unfortunately, Steve can't come over here 21:37 and talk to me right now but if Steve was sitting 21:39 right here with me today like you, I'd say: 21:41 Steve, let's talk about ways you can lower your risk. 21:44 Cause this is the most important thing, probably 21:46 some of the most important health decisions 21:48 he'll make ever in his life to lower his risk, 21:50 since the prevalence of this disease is so high. 21:52 The first thing is exercise. 21:54 Exercise helps in a host of ways. 21:57 We'll talk more about them in the next program. 21:59 Some of the things that it does is that it lowers 22:02 the blood pressure, makes the good cholesterol go up, 22:04 the bad cholesterol goes down, 22:07 it makes hormones called endorphins which block 22:11 stress hormones which can sometimes cause 22:13 these plaques to rupture. 22:15 Also exercise lowers the chance of diabetes 22:18 and a host of other things. 22:19 So exercise! I really tell people that 22:22 if you don't do anything else, you have to exercise. 22:24 The second thing that we want to do is lower blood pressure. 22:28 We know that the higher the blood pressure, 22:30 the more likely to have vascular damage. 22:32 And it only makes sense, Shelley The blood just rushing around 22:35 through you. If you have a plaque, 22:37 it's gonna rupture or break open, 22:38 and all this blood pressure will damage things. 22:41 Sort of like pipes, sometimes they talk about 22:43 heart attacks it's glorified plumbing. 22:45 If it's just rushing through, you can have some damage. 22:49 So pay attention to your blood pressure. 22:51 A lot of people don't even know they have blood pressure 22:53 problems because they never get it checked. 22:56 The third thing that I wanna focus them to 22:58 is know what your cholesterol is. 23:00 We talked about cholesterol being a risk factor. 23:03 We know that the higher the level of cholesterol 23:06 the greater the cardiovascular risk. 23:08 And we divide the cholesterol into bad and good cholesterol. 23:13 The good cholesterol is called HDL. 23:15 We want that to be out the roof. 23:17 The bad cholesterol is called the LDL. 23:20 And in just a normal person, with no health problems at all, 23:23 we want the LDL to be at least below 160. 23:26 If we have risk factors, high blood pressure, 23:30 family history, we want it below 130. 23:33 And if you have a known disease we want it to be well below 100. 23:38 In fact, there's been some recent studies done that say 23:41 if we can push the LDL down low enough, 23:43 we can have disease regression. 23:46 That's disease that once was in the body, leaves the body. 23:50 So it's actually reversing the disease. 23:51 Yes, reversing the disease. 23:53 So cholesterol is very important. 23:54 Also,Steve,if you're in a high risk group, 23:57 mum and dad had heart attacks or heart problems 24:01 at a younger age, we recommend those people 24:04 to take aspirin every day. 24:06 Aspirin every day if you're in a high risk group. 24:10 That's the 81 milligram, the little baby aspirin. 24:14 Yes, that's the minimum that you would need. 24:15 Steve, another thing is smoking. 24:18 You might say "I don't smoke at all". 24:20 A lot of people don't realize if you're around smokers 24:23 and if you're in the military, as you might be 24:25 over in Saudi Arabia, you can get half the risk 24:28 from being around second hand smokers. 24:29 So, if someone smokes two packs a day around you 24:32 you get one pack a day and the harmful effects. 24:35 A lot of people don't realize that. 24:37 So stay away from cigarettes! 24:39 And that's why it's been so important in the last few years 24:41 in America that we quit smoking 24:44 in restaurants, in public facilities. 24:45 Think about little children whose parents are smoking 24:49 at home and these children are trying to develop. 24:52 You said that. I had no idea second hand 24:55 smoke was that dangerous. 24:57 It's a major problem, second hand smoke. 24:59 But Steve, there might be something else 25:01 you might wanna look at. 25:02 The last couple ones I think are would getting more and more 25:05 information that these help lower the risk of heart attack. 25:10 One is cutting back on the stress and anxiety in the life. 25:13 We know that people that are into high amounts of stress 25:16 have high levels of epinephrine and these high hormones 25:20 which can cause high blood pressure and plaques to rupture. 25:22 So look at your life and see if there's things that you can 25:25 cut back on the stress. I know if you're in the military 25:27 or if you're in the Saudi Arabia around a lot of things that 25:30 going on in that part of the world, 25:31 it's hard to get away from. 25:33 But look at the stress in your life and see 25:36 what is you can lower that. 25:37 The last thing I think is very important 25:40 in lowering your risk is the proper nutrition. 25:42 You have to eat the right foods. 25:44 We know that people that eat high animal based diets, 25:48 they don't eat a lot of plants, we know that they have 25:52 a higher risk of having a heart attack 25:54 than those who don't. 25:55 And part of it is the cholesterol, the blood pressure 25:58 but also just changes the insides in a bad type of way. 26:01 So those are some things, Steve that you can...that's a start. 26:05 There's a couple of others we didn't mention 26:07 but that would be a good starting point 26:09 if you can get working on those. 26:10 Yes. And I just wanna say 26:12 to you Steve that if you are in the military 26:14 and you can't change your stressful circumstances, 26:17 you can change the way you react to those circumstances. 26:20 I wanna give you the verse Isaiah 26 verse 3 that says 26:24 "If you keep your mind steadfastly fixed on the Lord" 26:27 "He promises to keep you in perfect piece." 26:30 When I find myself in stressful circumstances that cannot 26:34 be changed I just try to put all my focus on the Lord 26:38 and that helps. Amen! 26:41 So you kind of recap for us what we've learned here today? 26:46 Well, myocardial infarction is such a huge topic. 26:50 The couple things we just have to take home with us today, 26:53 that we just must remember if we don't remember anything else. 26:57 So if you're sitting there at home, sort of zoning in, 26:59 you went to the cupboard and got some food 27:02 and you're just now coming back. 27:03 Let me throw up the three things that I think you just have 27:06 to know no matter what. 27:07 Number 1. The most common cause of death 27:11 in society now is myocardial infarction. 27:14 This is a lot bigger than most people even realize. 27:18 and we talked earlier about 43% of deaths. 27:21 People that don't make it in because of the heart attacks. 27:23 So that's the one you have to realize. 27:25 It's more common than breast cancer, 27:26 it's more common than lung disease, 27:28 it's more common than infections, 27:30 it's more common than these Ebola viruses, 27:33 it's more common than having a car accident, 27:35 and yet you just don't hear enough about it. 27:38 And a lot of this is some of the societal norms 27:41 that we're going through. 27:42 The second point is that we cannot ignore the symptoms. 27:45 If you have anything that you think that might be 27:47 related to your heart, you have to get in to the doctor 27:50 and get help right away. 27:51 And the last point is 90% of cardiovascular disease 27:55 if dealt with early could be prevented. 27:58 And getting back to our opening text. 28:01 Psalm 139é14 says: "I will praise Him" 28:04 "for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." 28:06 And what a great chance we have to have our bodies taken care of 28:11 by Lord and Savior that loves us. 28:13 Amen! |
Revised 2014-12-17