Have you ever tried drinking from a fire hose? That’s what attended this amazing two-day preceptorship on cardiovascular disease detection and prevention conference was like!
There were about 40 practitioners from all around the country gathered together at a downtown New Orleans hotel for almost 20 hours of intense teaching and training on the real underlying causes of cardiovascular disease and how to detect it and how to minimize all the factors underlying the disease.
We learned the most state-of-the art, cutting edge methods of detection by ultrasound imaging and blood-testing including targeted genetic testing, which provides excellent information regarding several aspects of cardiovascular risk and prevention. The methods demonstrated are evidence-based and fully approved for the highest level of CME credit by the American Academy of Family Practice.
The Role of Inflammation in Cardiovascular Disease
For years, it’s been thought that cholesterol is the big risk factor for heart disease and statin drugs are powerful reducers of cholesterol. Well, guess what. Statins don’t reduce heart disease by lowering cholesterol. They lower heart disease by lowering INFLAMMATION.
We can think of inflammation as FIRE. And our new goal in fighting cardiovascular disease is to put out the fire in the arteries. The founders of this method of cardiovascular disease detection and prevention are starting a new science called Arteriology, or the study of arteries and how to keep them healthy.
The goal of Arteriology founders is to make stroke and heart attack no longer the #1 killers in America by the year 2020.
Nowadays, many doctors are ordering another cardiovascular screening test on their patients besides the fasting lipids and blood sugar. The new test they have been doing is the hs-CRP, which stands for high sensitivity C-reactive protein. This test is a marker for inflammation because it’s produced by the liver whenever there is some inflammation anywhere in the body.
It is as important of a test as is a lipid panel in terms of its predictive ability for cardiac and stroke risk. So it is becoming more and more commonly used. However, hs-CRP is not enough. The hs-CRP test is not specific to vascular inflammation, results can be high if there is ANY inflammation in your body like an infected tooth or a gout attack.
Several more inflammation markers have been identified in addition to the hs-CRP and one of them in particular is quite specific for cardiovascular disease. It’s called the Lp-PLA2 or PLAC test for short. It is an FDA-approved test. This is a test that can be monitored every three months to see how well a patient’s therapy is working to get them out of risk.
This information just scratches the surface of the new information that was presented to us in those two days. I’ll be writing more about cardiovascular disease detection and prevention in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!
Dr. William Epperly, Fellow American Academy of Family Practice
Fellow American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy
Member of Christian Medical and Dental Society
Contact us for more information on managing your cardiovascular health.
