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News for Baby Boomers
Baby Boomer Alert - the ’60s Are Coming but This
Time, It’s Age, Warns Heart Expert
No way to turn back clock
but boomers can reduce their risk
 November 15, 2006 - For baby boomers the ’60s are
coming but this time, it’s chronological age, not the “swinging” ’60s.
For the next 20 years, the U.S. healthcare system could experience a
tsunami of heart care demand as millions of boomers turn 60, and their
risk of heart attack increases, warns a Loyola University Health System
heart expert. He offers some suggestions on what boomers should do.
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Men enter this higher-risk period in their late
40s; for women, it starts in their mid-50s. “Now that the first batch of
baby boomers is turning 60 this year, those born in 1946, the risk is
even higher,” said Dr. Fred Leya, professor of medicine/cardiology,
Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, Maywood, Ill.
Although there is no way to turn back the clock,
boomers can take steps to reduce their risk, explained Leya.
“First of all, be aware that a normal stress test
does not guarantee safety from heart attack,” said Leya, director of
Loyola’s cardiac catheterization lab and director of interventional
cardiology.
“A person can have a 50 percent blockage in a
vessel leading to their heart, and a stress test will not pick it up.
“That’s why baby boomers need to focus carefully on
the state of their health, including lifetime cardiovascular risk
control,” said Leya.
“It’s also important to understand that a routine
physical examination by a physician cannot detect a calcification and
thickening of a vessel in the heart or a thickening of the vessel to the
brain.
“The alphabet soup of heart tests and procedures
can be confusing, especially when people think heart disease will never
happen to them,” said Leya.
“Age and genetics catches up with people even if
they have followed a reasonably healthy lifestyle, so it is important to
monitor heart and vessel health.”
“Genetics, on top of smoking, diabetes, high blood
pressure, lack of exercise and other cardiovascular risk factors, plays
a critical role in developing atherosclerosis, hardening of the
arteries,” said Leya.
To reduce the risk of heart attack, baby boomers
should learn their risk factors and control them.
“Know your numbers, the good and bad cholesterol,
HDL and LDL; blood pressure, heart rate, glucose and check them
annually,” said Leya. “Be sure to aggressively lower your bad
cholesterol using a combination of diet, exercise and statins.”
Everyone should have a stress test at this age, but
when in doubt, have a high resolution CT scan or a Doppler ultrasound to
detect vascular abnormalities. The test results should be read and
interpreted by an experienced cardiologist, he noted. Be wary of
stand-alone imaging centers that are not staffed by specialists to read
the results properly.
“Most important, don’t think that a pain in the
chest, shoulder or arm is just overuse or strain,” said Leya. “Be sure
to have it checked out or call 911.”
Technology cuts treatment time
Though heart disease has stayed the same, the
treatments are better and faster.
Baby boomers who are used to quick fixes aren’t
going to want open-heart surgery that will lay them up for weeks.
Instead, they want a minimally invasive procedure that will get them
home the same day or within a few days. Technological advances can help
meet this demand.
“There is less pain and easier rehab associated
with the majority of interventions, too,” noted Leya.
From rotablation, which pulverizes plaque into
microscopic particles; to atherectomy, which cuts or shaves the plaque;
numerous cath lab tests and procedures are keeping patients out of the
operating room. However, angioplasty with stents is one of the most
common.
For the past 20 years, cardiologists have been
using stents, small stainless steel coils or scaffolds that are used
with angioplasty to keep blood vessels open and maintain blood flow to
the heart. The new generation of stents reduces the risk of restenosis (renarrowing)
of blood vessels after angioplasty.
For example, for certain coronary artery disease
patients, a drug-coated stent delivers medication that inhibits
excessive cell growth into the just-opened blood vessel, reducing the
risk of renarrowing of the vessel lumen and a clot formation when the
cells die.
Leya said that stents produce immediate results.
The patients will have better blood flow and feel better as a result.
“That is good news for the hundreds of thousands of people who may need
angioplasty and a stent this year,” he said.
“It is especially appropriate for diabetics,
because they have smaller arteries and thus a greater risk of restenosis
of coronary vessels following angioplasty,” said Leya.
Editor’s Notes:
U.S. News & World Report ranks Loyola the number
one hospital in Illinois for heart care and heart surgery. This is the
fourth year in a row that the magazine’s “America’s Best Hospitals”
issue has so honored Loyola. Solucient, a health data company, selected
Loyola as one of the 100 top heart hospitals in the United States.
Visit the Loyola University Health System Web
site
www.loyolamedicine.org for more information.
Loyola University Health System, a wholly owned
subsidiary of Loyola University Chicago (LUC), includes the private
teaching hospital at Loyola University Medical Center (LUMC), 16
specialty and primary care centers in the western and southwestern
suburbs, the Loyola Ambulatory Surgery Center at Oakbrook and the Loyola
Oakbrook Terrace Imaging Center; and serves as co-owner-operator of RML
Specialty Hospital, a long-term-care facility for ventilator-dependent
patients in suburban Hinsdale, Ill. Loyola is nationally recognized for
its specialty care and groundbreaking research in cancer, neurological
disorders, neonatology and the treatment of heart disease.
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