Global Foundation For Preventive Cardiology Highlights Importance of American Heart Month

Rachel, a 26-year-old young woman, approached our team with a lot of anxiety and fears of having another heart attack recently. She had one episode of cardiac arrest followed by emergency interventions which saved her life. However, she had sleepless nights coping up with the trauma of being a heart patient and taking lifelong medicines instead of enjoying her youth and focusing on her career. Heart disease can happen to anyone, even at a younger age. It’s a myth that heart disease is meant for older adults only.

Every year American Heart Month is celebrated in the month of February to promote awareness for cardiovascular health. We often don’t take care of our heart until we lose it. This is the perfect time to reflect on our habits which may lead to heart ailments and learn about your risk for heart disease.

Why is it that even with America being at the forefront of advances in cardiovascular care, we are facing the grave problem of dealing with heart diseases in younger people?

It has been observed by research that more and more younger people are having unhealthy eating patterns, irregular sleep, lack of exercise and substance abuse. This has led to high rates of obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and diabetes, which are predominant risk factors for heart diseases.

If anyone is more interested in data and fact sheets on heart disease, check out facts from the CDC.

The Global Foundation of Preventive Cardiology is a non-profit founded by Dr Pratiksha Gandhi MD based in Los Angeles, California, to educate people on heart health. Our goal is to awaken the people to protect their heart before it attacks them and provide necessary heart health tools and support to achieve the same.

Since nearly half of all Americans have the top three risk factors for heart disease, it has become imperative that each one takes individual responsibility to protect their heart health. We as a nation always have had the American Spirit of achieving our goals and objectives. We have applied this resilience in handling the pandemic; businesses have been doing everything to keep work going. We can implement the same fervor to take care of our hearts. If there is no heart, there is no life! Let us not forget that truth. Heart disease is not a genetic destiny any more as taught to us in medical schools and propagated for decades. We can control our genes by changing our lifestyle. This is being increasingly proven by research by leading universities in America and Europe.

We have observed that the current medical system is focused on detecting heart problems when a person already has it. For instance, when people have chest pain or heart attacks, advanced care is available. When more than 70% of heart attacks are preventable, why are efforts not put in detecting them earlier? This is the main mission of our foundation: to help people discover hidden truths about heart disease which they cannot find with routine healthcare providers. Most of the insurance carriers do not cover tests for early detection. Most patients face agony with surprise bills and huge co-pay as heart attack treatment expenses don’t come by invitation or budget planning unlike a vacation.

Well, till healthcare improves with a focus on prevention, why should one wait for heart disease to happen?

The time is now! Know your risk. Take the steps now to control your heart health. We have free resources on our website www.gffpc.org.