Video 1 Transcript | Acute MI Prevention

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VIDEO 1: WELCOME INTRODUCTION VIDEO

Welcome to The Heart Attack Prevention Channel on YOU TUBE.

We are starting the channel today - July 1, 2022.

Before this day is over, about 1,600 Americans will have a first heart attack.

Hi. I am Dr. Ron deGoma.

I am a practicing preventive cardiologist, board certified in cardiology, internal medicine and clinical lipidology with vast cardiology experience from over 40 years of clinical practice.

We already lost 1 million Americans to COVID.

2022 appears to be the right time to launch our Save Your Heart campaign and save lives.

Saving your heart campaign is all about saving you or someone in your family from a first heart attack.

Over 600,000 are expected to suffer a first heart attack in the US every year.

That’s 3 million in 5 years. That's the bad news.

The good news is heart attack is largely preventable.

This is important information that those who already had a heart attack wished they had known.

Through the heart attack prevention channel we are reaching out to those over 3 million Americans, their families and their healthcare providers.

The videos we create are generally less than 15 minutes long, easily understood, practical, relevant and applicable now.

In addition to showing videos from Save Your Heart Campaign, we are also creating educational videos to correct specific medical disinformation in social media about heart attack prevention.

Let us begin.

[Beginning of power point presentation]

This is an acute heart attack in progress. And this what we are trying to help people avoid. We will be talking about this later.

But for now, let us go back to this slide shown in the introduction video.

600,000 largely preventable first heart attacks a year

1,600 a day. That’s 5 jumbo jet loads of Americans.

3 million in 5 years. That’s more than half the population of Norway.

The total economic burden of cardiovascular disease, of which heart attack is the major component, is about 1 billion dollars a day.

And if we maintain the status quo, it is projected to reach a $1 trillion dollars a year by 2035.

And the big surprise is - They are Largely Preventable…..

and we have the diagnostic tool to detect coronary plaques years before a heart attack strikes,

We have proven effective, mostly generic medications to prevent heart attack.

And we have large volume of scientific data from clinical trials to support that heart attack is largely preventable.

You may be asking - preventable for how long - since when?

For over two decades now.

How many did we lose over that time? A lot - that’s for another video.

If you and your family have not yet been impacted, you are just lucky now but it is just a matter of time.

John and Margaret’s stories and many others are one of the reasons we are launching the Save Your Heart Campaign.

These people, they do know you, though their extraordinary kindness, are willingly telling their stories to save you.

Stick around until the end and I will tell you what questions you need to ask your primary care physician and your cardiologist on your next visit.

These are video clips from The Widowmaker documentary. The producer David Bobbett through Ivor Cummings gave us permission to use any and all video clips. Our gratitude to them.

Watch and listen to John as he tells his story. You will also hear comments of my colleagues - other preventive cardiologists.

[Show video clip from The Widowmaker documentary]

Thank you John.

Yes, you are lucky. Some people are not as lucky. Here is Margaret’s story.

[Show video clip from The Widowmaker documentary]

Thank you Pastor Carlton Monroe for sharing us Margaret’s story.

What John and Margaret had in common was an acute heart attack involving a major coronary artery.

This is an acute heart attack in progress involving the proximal portion of the left anterior descending coronary artery or proximal LAD for short.

There are 3 components in a heart attack - a coronary plaque, a tear or rupture of the covering of the plaque and a blood clot on the plaque.

Most people don’t realize that while a heart attack is sudden, the plaque component started many years before. Even decades before.

There is plenty of time to detect its presence…

… plenty of time to initiate optimal medical therapy, not stent, not heart bypass… but optimal medical therapy to stop its progression.

Coronary artery disease, which is the medical term for plaque build up in the coronary arteries, remains silent all that time until a tear develops which then triggers a blood clot to form within minutes.

The clot grows until it completely obstructs the artery and blood flow stops. The heart muscles in that region start to die. That’s what a heart attack is. Dying of the heart muscles.

You may be asking - why didn’t they have a stress test?

No, that is not likely to be helpful in both these two cases.

Because they have no cardiac symptoms, a nuclear stress test would likely be normal.

A nuclear stress test becomes abnormal only when a severe obstruction is present - 70% obstruction or more.

What they need is a test that detects plaques much earlier - before they cause severe obstruction and before a heart attack occurs.

This test is called coronary calcium scoring test - quick CT scan of the heart, without contrast, no IV needs to be started, no exercise involved, takes only a few minutes to perform. Cost around $100.

Their test reports could have looked like any of these - a high calcium score with many calcified plaques. The blackened regions are where the calcified plaques are located in the coronary arteries.

Both John and Margaret would have been eligible to receive aggressive medical therapy to stabilize all plaques and prevent plaque rupture and over time even induce plaque regression. This medical therapy is covered by Medicare and all insurance but the $100 test needed to determine if you need this treatment is not covered.

An added bonus in preventing heart attack is the same medical treatment that prevents heart attack also prevents stroke.

Coronary calcium scoring was approved and recommended by the AHA and ACC about 10 years ago. Even earlier, in Texas, they passed a law - The Texas Heart Attack Prevention bill which mandates all insurance including Medicare to pay for coronary calcium scoring. Other than Texans, Presidents and astronauts also get calcium scoring for free.

Saving Your Heart Campaign is about stopping your heart attack before it happens and earlier coronary plaque detection by calcium scoring is the first step.

On your next visit to your healthcare provider, if you are over age 40, the older you are, the more important to have this conversation - tell your healthcare provider that as much as possible, you want to avoid heart attack, stroke, stent and heart bypass in the future. Do you think I have plaques in my coronary arteries? Should I have a coronary calcium score for be sure?

If you have coronary plaques, ask: Is my medical therapy sufficient to prevent plaque rupture and stop progression?

In the next video - we will address the question that you are already thinking - if we have all the tools we need - an inexpensive accurate widely available diagnostic test that detects coronary plaques earlier before a heart attack, the effective medications needed and scientific data proving heart attack is preventable, then why the 600,000 first heart attacks every year?

[End of power point presentation]

Thank you for watching.

We are making a case for less healthcare disparity and better equity and will present convincing arguments that it is time to start turning off the faucet instead of just mopping the floor.

We, cardiologists, have become very good at mopping the floor - it generates large revenues for the cardiovascular disease-care industry.

But for the sake of those 600,000+ fellow Americans, let us begin turning off that faucet.

Your health is your most important asset so guard and protect it well.

I hope you learned something of value.

And if you did, share it with others and consider subscribing to help the channel grow.

Visit us at HeartAttackPreventionChannel.com.

Use the comment section below to tell us your story and maybe help someone live.

Participate in our forum and take this journey with us.

See you again soon.