 92.7 WOBM, Sean and Sue with you on this Tuesday morning. It is the 6th of February and Sean and Sue are joined today by Dr. Renato Appolito, a cardiologist with Hackensack Meridian Health's cardiovascular network to talk about heart health and of course, February is heart month. Good morning, doctor. Hi, doctor. Good morning, everybody. How are you? Very good, thank you. February is heart month, but why should listeners take, you know, serious when it comes to their heart health all year round, not just this month? Well, unfortunately, despite advances, cardiac illness is still the leading cause of death among men and women and obviously doesn't take time off. So although we call attention to it this month of the year, it clearly is always an issue 12 months of the year so we should be very attentive to it. Now, we talk about men and women and heart disease. How are things different for the sexes when it comes to dealing with heart disease or the prevalence of heart disease? I think classically early on in our experience many years ago, we paid more attention to men but we've learned that it affects both sexes equally. Men typically get heart disease somewhat earlier in life but women catch up pretty quickly after menopause and things get pretty equal once we hit middle age and beyond. So we should clearly pay attention to symptoms on both sides. Okay, and what are some of those symptoms? Can we talk about them? Absolutely, so some of them are classic. You probably know already, chest tightness, chest pressure, that radiates to the arm, the neck, the left arm specifically. Those are classic textbook symptoms especially if they occur with exertion and then they go away when you rest. That's something to take note of for sure and see a doctor but sometimes it could be pretty subtle especially in diabetics or women they may just get heartburn like an epigastric sort of above the stomach just below the chest bone, burning, nausea, sweating, either at rest or with exertion. It may just be shortness of breath that has become worsened over the last several months with the same amount of exertion. So all these things you have to pay attention to. Okay, okay. Now is there particular ages? Now you mentioned middle age, is that sort of like the buffer age group when you start to look and deal with be more conscious of your heart? You would be middle age. Well clearly it can affect all ages. I've seen patients as young as 19 with heart disease although that's rare thank God but typically I'd say once you get into your 30s men are very fair game 40s, 50s obviously but obviously in the 50s and 60s the prevalence of heart disease really starts to climb especially in both sexes starts to really equalize pretty quickly and I don't wanna make it sound as if you can take your eyes off the road at a very young age you should always be attentive to the symptoms recognizing it can affect all ages and both sexes but clearly the prevalence does increase with age. And how can we keep our hearts healthy? What's the best way? Hereditary, does that play into it as well? Genes? Yes, I mean there's definitely a factor where familial history if you're surrounded by a family with a significant premature early heart disease that will increase your risk clearly but I think paying attention to the stuff we all know you know I think that's important if you have bad habits like smoking you should stop there really is no safe dose that you can get away with you should eat a heart healthy diet I think the simplest thing you should forget these fat diets really and just try to live by a non-processed diet if it grows on a tree or if it comes from a farm you probably will be much better off than eating some health snack bar that they touts as being healthy because if you look at the label of that process stuff there's a lot of bad stuff on the back. Okay. 10 to 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise five times a week is beneficial that means treadmill, stationary bike or a regular bike. Five times, oh. Five times a week. I thought you meant five minutes a week I'm like wow. 10 to 20 minutes. That's excellent for me. Yeah, yeah. But any amount helps it's been shown that even the little dose of exercise will be better than none. Just getting into the little extra walk or maybe using the stairs at work and things like that. Easy to do park the car far away walk to where you gotta go use the stairs all day long no reason not to and maintaining a healthy weight that absolutely falls in line with what we just said a healthy diet and exercise will maintain that weight and weight is a factor because it does lead to sleep apnea diabetes and high cholesterol and all their high blood pressure. So those things are cardiac risk factors. So if you can eliminate your weight as a risk factor you'll the other things fall in line. I just checked my heart rate 79 while I'm sitting here is that pretty decent? I guess I'm a fairly exciting guy. Yeah. Not so bad. That's a little up, a little up. How do you check your heart rate? My watch. So if I need that you can check it for me? No. That's neat. No. What do you mean your watch checks your heart rate? Well yeah it's keeping my pulse on my wrist. You know that doctor that some watches do that? I think yeah they have these really new fangled devices that do a lot of different things. And it can't check yours too. It would just make my heart race this technology. It can't check yours, you're not wearing it. That's right, you'd have to borrow it. Oh! Yeah you'd have to put my watch on. That's right, okay, that's true. Duh, I wasn't even thinking, sorry doctor. We're talking with Dr. Renato Apolito who has heard of some of these new fangled devices in Sioux. How do we get more information about heart health doctor? Well I think you can visit the website. We have a fairly comprehensive website that can help you learn about how to stay healthy. There's recipes. It will also put you in touch with cardiovascular specialists should you want to visit one. And that website is hackandsackmaridinehealth.org forward slash HMH. You can Google it I'm sure and get it pretty quickly. You know doctor this is just something I have to say. Do patients ever tell you because you're sitting next to me now? I have a pain in my arm. Does, I mean do people ever tell you that like just talking to you? Do you like, do they get pains? Am I, do I have an issue? Yeah we hear it. Psycho somatic? Yeah like, well we hear it all and we take nothing for granted. We take it all very serious. It's like, you know calling a fire department about smoke coming out of a window. We really can't dismiss these things so if someone does have some symptoms that are concerning we do test them. Take a look and then it says. Do you need to borrow my watch? Yeah. I think I better give her my watch. Don't tell the heart doctor I got pains going down my arm. He's just got to tell you that's the biggest symptoms too. All right well maybe we'll have a check you out here and see what's going on there after we get done. Doctor thanks for being with us today. Don't forget the website to go to is hackandsackmaridinehealth.org forward slash HMH for more details about heart health and of course February being heart month and we'll get more details there. Let's head out to the highways right now and we've got Susie Serone in. Hey Susie. We're gonna get Susie medical attention here Susie while you give the traffic. It is interesting. But you know what I have low blood pressure. Yeah. So that's why I'm always cold. Doctor our traffic lady has low blood pressure. That's a great thing actually. That's like having too much money in the bank. You know it's actually a very. Can I have the money in the bank instead? Well. Can't help it. My blood pressure is always low in fact the last time I got checked the nurse said are you dizzy? Yeah. I guess you get dizzy a little bit if you have low blood pressure but. But it doesn't put strain on the heart right? No it's actually a good prognosticator. Stay hydrated. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna go get a glass of water. Susie keep drinking.