Cardiologist and South Beach Diet creator Dr. Arthur Agatston will be in Grand Cayman this week to discuss heart attack prevention.
Dr. Agatston, who has sold 23 million copies of the South Beach Diet book, will speak at a medical symposium at St. Matthew’s University on Thursday, 14 March, and at the third annual Cayman Heart Health’s Red Dress Learn and Live Luncheon the next day, Friday, 15 March.
The preventive cardiologist is spreading the message that heart attacks are not inevitable and are entirely preventable.
In 1988, Dr. Agatston and radiologist Dr. Warren Janowitz developed the Calcium Score, a test that determined through a heart scan how much calcified plaque a patient had in his or her arteries. That plaque can build up and lead to a heart attack or stroke, Dr. Agatston said. But it can be found years before a person succumbs to either and with that knowledge, a person can change lifestyle habits and prevent the onset of the stroke or heart attack, he added.
“It shows a risk factor before it gets into the vessel wall and causes a problem. If you’re in your 40s and you’re going to have a heart attack in five or 10 or 15 years, you will already have the plaque building up,” said Dr. Agatston, who is medical director of wellness and prevention at Baptist Health South Florida.
The test is useful because it can find plaque even in people with low cholesterol, which is also considered a risk factor for strokes and heart attacks.
“We see people with very high cholesterol levels with clean blood vessels and we also see people with relatively low cholesterol whose vessels are full of plaque and blockages,” Dr. Agatston said.
He likens this plaque to cholesterol-filled pimples. When they burst, a blood clot appears which then heals, leaving behind calcified scars which is what the Calcium Score test picks up, indicating that the patients has had those “plaque pimples”.
Dr. Agatston describes these pimples as “ticking time bombs” because at some point, one may burst, leading to a large blood clot that blocks blood flow through the vessel. “If it’s big enough, it can cause a heart attack,” he said.
Once this major risk factor is discovered, people can take steps to prevent themselves from having a heart attack. “The earlier you discover it, the more you can treat it with lifestyle changes,” Dr. Agatston said.
To help his patients make the necessary lifestyle change – losing weight, bringing down high blood pressure and cutting cholesterol – he and dietician Marie Almon went on to create the South Beach Diet, based around the Mediterranean diet.
The diet promotes healthy fats over unhealthy ones and encourages dieters to opt for low-sugar carbohydrates.
He has written 12 books and is getting ready to launch his next book in April, called the “South Beach Diet Gluten Solution”, which addresses the growing number of people who suffer from gluten-related health problems.
Ultimately, the cardiologist’s goal is to put himself out of a job by preventing heart attacks and heart disease.
“If you start with good diet and good lifestyle early enough, you won’t need a cardiologist,” he said.
Events during Heart Smart Week include the medical symposium on Thursday, the Red Dress luncheon and expo at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman on Friday, and a heart health fair with free screenings at the Arts and Recreation Centre in Camana Bay on Saturday.
For more information, contact the Cayman Heart Fund at [email protected] or call 916-6324.
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