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VIDEO: Changing demographics impacting prevention strategies
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BOSTON — In this Cardiology Today video exclusive, Christie M. Ballantyne, MD, discusses the changing tide in patient demographic for CVD risk factors as well as treatments.
“When I was a resident, the common scenario was someone would be a smoker, someone with high cholesterol coming in with a very large anterior MI,” he said. “What we tend to see much more commonly is someone that's overweight, either has diabetes or prediabetes and lots of small infarcts, but the other situation is they don't even have a history of infarction, but they come in with HF.”
Diabetes and obesity are highly significant risk factors for HF with preserved ejection fraction, Ballantyne said. While smoking cessation, exercise and diet are still important, clinicians must deal with diabetes, insulin resistance and obesity in efforts to prevent CVD.
“It's all about helping our patients who are facing these complicated problems, [determining] the best way to treat them and also [preventing] CVD and diabetes and the complications of obesity,” he said.