Prevent Heart Failure in Corbin, KY

Proven Treatments to Prevent Heart Failure

At Baptist Health Corbin, we are dedicated to treating and preventing heart failure using modern technology and proven pharmacological therapies. Learn how.

Prevent Heart Failure in Corbin, KY, HealthTalks Transcript

Prem Subramaniyam, MD:

Being an interventional cardiologist, I see patients with heart attacks on a daily basis, and most of my patients have multiple risk factors, including high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, and other poor lifestyle habits. One of the challenges I have in treating my patients is to make them understand that taking health supplements is not a shortcut in preventing a heart attack. If you are someone who already has had a heart attack or a stroke or [has been] diagnosed with plaque buildup in a blood vessel, it is important to discuss pharmacological options to prevent future cardiovascular events [and] discuss therapies to control bad cholesterol in the blood and prevent minor, noncritical blockages [from] causing heart attacks in the future. We call [these options] in medical terms, a “plaque-stabilizing effect.”

Some of my patients have difficulty taking some of these medications because of side effects, but there are alternatives to decrease those side effects or try newer therapies that have been proven to have similar benefits to statins — some of them are better than statins at lowering your cholesterol levels with [fewer] side effects. It may be OK to take health supplements to decrease your cholesterol or high blood pressure, but I want to emphasize — health supplements have not been shown or proven to have the same benefit. That's why it's important to understand that taking a health supplement is not a replacement for taking proven prescription pharmacological therapies.

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