Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, with nearly 1,000,000 people suffering heart attacks and 795,000 suffering strokes annually, of which about 144,000 are fatal. Even the survivors are often left with debilitating conditions or expensive surgical intervention. With the number of research studies being published each year discussing advances in understanding this disease, you would think we would have more progress in preventing it.

Where are we at with prevention?

A visit to your doctor for a routine checkup likely involves measuring cholesterol levels, blood pressure check, weight measurement, and recommendations for reducing your risk through diet and exercise. If you are one of the "lucky" millions with “elevated” cholesterol, you’ll walk out with a statin prescription (if so, you’re probably familiar with many of the blogs that are in favor of statins and even more that are against them). It is also pretty well accepted now that half the people who get heart attacks have normal cholesterol, so even if cholesterol is a predisposing condition for some, that particular test isn’t going to help a lot of others. 

"Hidden" Risks

You may not know about many of the other “hidden” risks that are equally important and that can help you take a targeted approach to lifestyle modifications. I personally get these tests done annually: C-reactive protein, homocysteine, ADMA, lipoprotein (a), fibrinogen, insulin, erythrocyte magnesium, apolipoprotein B, and testosterone. Each one of these tells me about an important component of my cardiovascular health, and each can suggest a supplement and/or pharmaceutical intervention I can take to help reduce my risk. A really good basic laboratory panel should include all these factors together with the ones currently being offered routinely during a physical examination. This is particularly important for a person with a history of cardiovascular disease. Such a panel is simple, relatively inexpensive (about $500). What insurance company wouldn’t want a panel like this if it could save lives and millions of dollars down the road?

As a laboratory director for a medical laboratory myself, I realize many of these tests are not yet considered “mainstream,” but they are supported by good science. What we are doing now appears to be only helping a small number of patients. I recommend we be proactive and see if we can save more lives, improve quality of life, and lower the medical costs that come with high-tech and long-term expensive care by making these tests more widely available.

Note: The websites mentioned in this post were accessed on 11/2/09.