Exposing the Killer - Heart Disease Prevention

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Exposing the Killer - Heart Disease Prevention

JoAnn Guest

Sep 17, 2006 20:34 PDT

 

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A table covered in blue cloth and two pairs of rubber gloves can

only mean one thing on The Oprah Show…Dr. Oz is back with more body

parts!

 

Last time Dr. Oz busted out the gloves, he exposed America to the

dangers of liver and kidney disease, as well as a variety of other

ailments. But this time Dr. Oz is out to stop a deadly killer that

affects one out of every two women in the United States—

cardiovascular disease.

 

Dr. Oz brought along examples of hearts that have endured unhealthy

diets, bypass surgery and heart attacks. Get out your notepads—you

won't want to miss a beat of this exam.

Two seemingly similar hearts lie under cloth number one. But, as Dr.

Oz shows, you can't let outward appearances fool you.

 

Dr. Oz says that as big as a woman's heart can be in its emotional

capacity, it's actually smaller than a male heart. The average

female heart is only about the size of a fist.

 

In the first heart (left) Dr. Oz and Oprah examine, the blood

vessels

feel soft and supple, almost like angel hair pasta.

 

But, the second heart (right) isn't so healthy. Just by touching the

exterior of the heart, Oprah can feel a hardened section of the

organ, which Dr. Oz explains is plaque.

 

Plaque can cause hardening of the arteries, and Dr. Oz warns that

these internal issues may not be detectable in a normal heart scan.

 

Everyday symptoms like belly pain and shortness of breath can be

signs hat your heart is in trouble.

 

" [The heart] is our most poetic organ, " Dr. Oz says. " It's our

internal

metronome—from the moment you're 8 weeks of age in your mother's

stomach, it's pumping for you. "

 

When the plaque closes up an artery, a person can experience deadly

consequences.

 

Dr. Oz says that it's important to spot the plaque early because

closed

arteries lead to heart attacks. Unlike the delicate organs under the

first cloth, a traumatized heart looks like it's led a hard life.

The

heart enlarges to compensate for the heart attack Dr. Oz says.

Many Americans have undergone bypass surgeries—including former

President Bill Clinton—but do we really understand what's involved?

 

Dr. Oz shows Oprah how a heart transforms after undergoing a bypass.

First, a bypass graft is placed on the heart to get past the

blockage in

the artery. The grafts are typically taken from veins in the legs.

 

" But the question is, is this as good as what you were born with? "

Dr.

Oz asks.

 

" And the fact is, God gave you the arteries that you're supposed to

have.

Manmade imitations are never as good. "

 

 

Dr. Oz has said in the past that a perfect aorta is nearly

impossible to

find, but he brought along two more examples to help show the

progression from healthy to unhealthy.

 

Both aorta examples come from people around age 45. In the healthy

aorta

(left), the tissue is supple and the kidneys are nice and plump.

But, in

the second example (right), Dr. Oz points out plaque along the aorta.

 

This plaque shows early signs of serious disease.

 

Eventually, if the disease worsens, a patient's kidney can become

shriveled, and he or she may need a replacement.

 

The aorta may also develop aorta chips, which are caused by plaque

buildup.

 

" Plaque is just the first step, " Dr. Oz says. " It's your warning

sign—like someone saying, 'Help me!' And you've got to listen to

that

call because it will become like this [unhealthy aorta] and by the

time

it gets this far along, often there's been much damage done. "

 

Lost the momentum to lose weight? Blame it on your omentum.

Dr. Oz says the omentum is an organ that can make you fat.

 

Dr. Oz says instead of worrying about those extra inches around your

thighs and a little junk in your trunk, you need to worry about the

omentum—the fat organ inside your belly that's only purpose is

to " store

fat " .

 

When we talk about obesity being a risk factor for heart disease,

we're

actually wrong, " says Dr. Oz.

 

" It's not all obesity, because fat thighs don't give you a bad

heart.

[The omentum] does. "

 

When the fat is stored in your stomach, your body has easy access to

it,

Dr. Oz explains.

 

The fat then creates an inflammatory process that irritates your

arteries and puts you at risk for blocked arteries.

 

The omentum is also to blame for beer bellies. Some people tend to

store

their fat around their waists—giving them a beer belly or an

" apple-like " shape. While others store fat around their hips, making

them " pear " -shaped. Apple-shaped people are more at risk for heart

disease than pear-shaped people.

 

" If your waist size is more than 35 inches and you're a woman—or 40

inches for men—you have a major risk factor for heart attacks

because

this [omentum], instead of being an inch thick, is now five inches

thick, and you don't even see it. "

 

" This is the first time I've been happy about being a pear! " Oprah

exclaims.

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Even the loyal viewers of The Oprah Show have never seen Oprah quite

like this! It's her heart as seen in the new 64-slice CT scanner.

 

Though CT scanners have been around for years, the new 64-slice CT

scanner's technology actually allows doctors and patients to watch a

heart beating. " If you think about it, the CAT scan takes a picture.

If

it's your gallbladder, it just sits there and waits for the photo

shoot, " Dr. Oz says.

 

But to really capture what is happening with a heart, " You need a

scanner that can take pictures so fast it can catch the heart in a

beat.

These new scanners can take almost 200 pictures a second so they can

get

your heart at so many different angles that you capture it. "

 

Before the invention of this new CT scanner, Dr. Oz says, doctors

relied

on calcium scores to determine hardening of the arteries.

 

However, this was a highly inexact science.

 

" What makes this technology so cool, " Dr. Oz says, " is you can

actually

go beyond calcium which is just a symptom. "

 

Curious about the state of her heart, Oprah decided to get one of

these

heart scans. What does Dr. Andrew Rosenson, who performed her scan,

think of Oprah's heart?

 

" Your heart is perfect, " Dr. Andy says. " You have the heart of a

19-year-old. "

 

 

Here is an example of a heart with constricted arteries. " Just a

trickle

of blood is getting through this blockage, " Dr. Oz says.

 

" The heart that's dependent on that blood supply is dying.

 

It may be dying slowly or quickly, " Dr. Oz says. " The first time

they

know they're having a heart problem is when they're having the big

one. "

 

You shouldn't just be worried about your arteries just to avoid " the

big

one " …a massive heart attack.

 

" It's intertwined, " Dr. Oz explains.

 

" By the time you have blockages of the arteries of the heart, you

also

have blockages in your brain, your kidneys and all the other organs.

The

whole package comes together. "

http://www.oprah.com/health/yourbody/slide/numberone/slide_yourbody_n

umberone_103.jhtml

 

 

 

This probably isn't what singer Hank Williams had in mind, but this

is a

cheating heart.

 

" This huge vessel has a fistula. It pretends it's pumping blood, "

Dr. Oz

says. " The reason this vessel is so large and serpentine is that

it's

actually dumping blood into the heart without giving it the

nourishment

that it needs. Sometimes kids and young adults have this problem,

and it

can cause chest pain. "

 

http://www.oprah.com/health/yourbody/slide/numberone/slide_yourbody_n

umberone_104.jhtml

 

 

 

This heart is an example of a condition called collateral supply,

which,

Dr. Oz says, is very common in athletes. In this heart, an artery

was

blocked off and in order to successfully deliver blood over to

another

part of the heart, it created an entirely new blood vessel.

 

" The heart's wonderful, " Dr. Oz says. " I'm so happy I study it every

day because it allows us to figure out how adaptive the human body

is.

 

This heart found a way of keeping itself alive by creating a whole

new

collateral blood vessel to get there. "

 

http://www.oprah.com/health/yourbody/slide/numberone/slide_yourbody_n

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JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets