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Monday Health Report: New guidelines issued for doctors to help heart patients
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For the first time since 2018, the American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology and nine other medical organizations have updated the guidelines on how doctors can help heart patients.
The new recommendations are for those who have dyslipidemia, an unhealthy balance of lipids or fats in the bloodstream. It's a huge risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
"There's been a lot of new updates in terms of how we treat high cholesterol, new medications, new tests that we can run, also, so this is kind of a much-needed update," Dr. Jim Liu with the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center said.
He says that the overall frame of the guidelines remains the same, but, using a new tool called a prevent calculator, the updates can help determine if a patient is more likely to develop heart disease.
"It's a much more modern risk calculator that incorporates, you know, more modern things. And it's also a more, um, it looks like a much bigger population," Liu said.
For those who fall into the new patient category of "very high risk," the guidelines suggest early intervention through healthy lifestyle changes, including maintaining a healthy weight, exercising regularly, not smoking, prioritizing quality sleep and taking cholesterol-lowering medications when recommended by a doctor.
"The earlier you treat to lower targets and for longer is overall better for heart health," Liu said.
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