Heart-healthy lifestyles
By AMY NEFF ROTH
Healthy Living
New York has the highest rate of deaths from coronary heart disease in the country and one of the highest rates for overall cardiovascular disease deaths.
Across the state, many programs are in place to try to lower those death rates or to prevent heart disease in the first place.
Local experts agreed that efforts must involve a broad coalition of groups: government, health-care providers, schools, employers, health plans and community groups – but all those groups can do is educate and persuade.
Success will ultimately depend on the willingness of individuals to live healthier lives, the most effective, and cheapest, way to prevent heart disease.
Too many people make poor lifestyle choices and then turn to the health-care system for expensive treatments to fix their ailing hearts, said cardiologist Dr. Jerel Zoltick, of Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown.
“We will help you, but you also have to help in making the right choices. You need to eat right. You need to exercise. You need to stop smoking,” he said.
In 2004, the state health department released a strategic plan for 2004 through 2010 for dealing with existing heart disease in the state and to help individuals to make those changes. The plan’s authors acknowledge that focusing on individuals’ behavior is no longer enough.
“The vision of this plan’s developers for New York state is one of communities in which homes, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and health care environments promote and sustain cardiovascular health,” the plan reads.
The plan’s vision includes a society in which people walk or bike as much as possible; where farmers’ markets are held weekly in season; people eat fruits and vegetables with every meal and as snacks; restaurants offer reasonable portions of healthy foods; schools organize daily physical activity for students; schools cafeterias and worksites offer healthy foods; worksites encourage exercise for stress reduction and overall health; doctors discuss healthy behaviors with patients; and people with heart disease receive appropriate, proven care.
Another piece of wellness stressed by local cardiologists is regular screening so that people are aware of their blood pressure, cholesterol levels and blood glucose levels, allowing them, if necessary, to make lifestyle changes or take medication before they develop heart disease.
And to lower death rates, Zoltick called for networks to assure that patients who may be having a stroke or heart attack have access to the best care and expertise as quickly as possible.
To accomplish that, the state has set up a series of designated stroke centers and Bassett has a heart alert triage system, which among other things, means that a cardiac catheterization team is waiting before a patient arrives at Bassett from another hospital in Bassett’s system.
These efforts can pay off. Syracuse resident Ted Zuber said he may still be alive because of his former employer, Carrier Corp. in Syracuse, a company whose wellness initiatives have been recognized by the American Heart Association.
Zuber, who retired in 1982, began working out at Carrier’s wellness center about a dozen years ago. The 87-year old was undergoing surgery for an aneurysm earlier this year when the aneurysm ruptured.
“The doctors did say that if I were not in the condition I was in, I would not have made it,” he said. |
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