When Should You Worry about Heart Disease?

I was talking to a friend recently about something related to diet, or junk food, or nutrition (something like that–I can’t remember exactly)*, and she said something along the lines of, “You know, if we had to worry about heart disease, like you guys do.”

It’s amazing to me how many people seem to think that coronary artery disease (aka heart disease) is something that just happens, suddenly, one day, and you don’t need to worry about it (or can’t do anything about it) until the doctor says you have it.

We lived like that for years.  Lee’s dad was 38 when he had his first heart attack, and his quintuple bypass; at that time, I think Lee was about 16.  When we met 12 years later, he insisted that his dad’s heart disease had nothing to do with him.  He ate whatever he wanted.  He didn’t exercise.  He was overweight.  He actually insisted, more than once, that he didn’t have heart disease.  The disconnect was a little absurd, when we look back on it now.

What’s funny to me, knowing what I know now about the standard American diet and unhealthy lifestyle, is how many people meet me or read our story and assume it has nothing to do with them.  Sort of an “If I don’t look too hard at the numbers, then they won’t apply to me” kind of mentality.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.  You can pretend that it has nothing to do with you, or your family, but that won’t keep your arteries from clogging up.

And you know what?  The time to worry about heart disease is before you have it.  Studies demonstrate (increasingly, nowadays) that teenagers, and even children, show evidence of atherosclerosis.  It takes many years to clog your arteries enough to cause a heart attack, and no, it’s not always genetic, by any means.  Just because your elderly father has never had a problem doesn’t mean you won’t.

Most heart attacks result in irreversible damage to the heart muscle.  Translation:  you can’t do as much.  Can’t walk as fast, work as hard, play as much.  Stairs get steeper; parking lots get bigger.  You get tired earlier in the day, and stairs wear you out.

Here’s the thing that frustrates me:  THIS IS A PREVENTABLE PROBLEM.

When should you worry about heart disease?  Before your doctor says you have it.

*Yes, I have these conversations with a lot of people.  No, I’m not some sort of zealot, running around trying to convince everyone I meet to worry about their arteries.  I swear–I don’t even bring it up–people just seem to talk to me about their health.  Zeitgeist?  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just me . . .