How Healthy is Your Heart?

As we continue to celebrate and acknowledge national heart health month, I want you to seriously consider the health of your old ticker. Thousands of people are dying prematurely everyday from heart related conditions and disease. I want to encourage you today to be proactive and to not become a sad statistic before your time. One of the absolute best things you can do for your heart health is to feed it the essential nutrients that it needs to remain healthy. One of those essential nutrients for the heart is Coenzyme Q10. 

CoQ10 is extremely beneficial to heart health. This is my absolute favorite heart health supplement and the one that I recommend the most to patients with heart problems. Whether it be high blood pressure, angina, or even congestive heart failure, taking CoQ10 can have tremendous benefits, and there have been numerous medical studies done to validate these benefits. I have personally seen several of my patients benefit from taking CoQ10. Keep in mind though that the CoQ10 I’m speaking of is a supplement and is no substitute for doing all the things that I mentioned in last weeks blog that can help protect your heart health. 

Here are some alarming statistics on the impact of heart disease in America taken from The Heart Foundation website:

– Heart disease (which includes Heart Disease, Stroke and other Cardiovascular Diseases) is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, killing nearly 787,000 people alone in 2011, up from 616, 000 deaths in 2008. That is a 28% increase in only 3 years! 

– Heart disease is the leading cause of death for people of most racial/ethnic groups in the United States, including African Americans, Hispanics and Whites. For Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders and American Indians or Alaska Natives, heart disease is second only to cancer.

– Cardiovascular diseases claim more lives than all forms of cancer combined.

– Coronary heart disease is the most common type of heart disease, killing nearly 380,000 people annually.

– In the United States, someone has a heart attack every 34 seconds. Every 60 seconds, someone in the United States dies from a heart disease-related event.

– About 720,000 people in the U.S. suffer heart attacks each year. Of these, 515,000 are a first heart attack and 205,000 happen in people who have already had a heart attack.

– Direct and indirect costs of heart disease total more than $320.1 billion. That includes health expenditures and lost productivity.

 

If we want to see the number of deaths from heart disease decline then we’ve got to be proactive. We have to take the preventative measures necessary to prevent heart disease and not become one of the statistics. As I tell people all the time, you are the number one person responsible for your health and especially the health of your heart!

Healthy Blessings and Happy Valentines Day, 

Dr. Phil

 

I am excited to announce the launch of my podcast next week! On the Feeling Good Podcast with Dr. Phil, I will be speaking on different topics and answering your health questions each episode! If you have a question that you would like answered on the show you can click on “Ask Dr. Phil” microphone you see on the screen and record your question!