Gulati: ASPC summit to explore ‘Protecting the Heart of One and All’
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The American Society for Preventive Cardiology Virtual Summit on CVD Prevention will be held Friday to Sunday and will highlight advancements and shortcomings in hypertension care, special population disparities, diets and more.
Healio spoke with Martha Gulati, MD, MS, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, president of the American Society for Preventive Cardiology (ASPC), about some of the topics in the spotlight this year and what attendees can hope to garner from the sessions.
“We are sad to have another virtual ASPC, but in reality, it is a good thing because, as everyone knows, the delta variant is on the rise and we need to improve vaccination rates before we can all be together in person,” Gulati told Healio. “But we have a great meeting planned this year. Our theme is ‘Protecting the Heart of One and All.’”
With a special focus on inclusiveness, the ASPC summit will feature sessions that address racial and ethnic disparities in care.
For his Honorary Fellowship Lecture, Clyde Yancy, MD, MSc, FASPC, will present “A New Kind of Prevention – Reducing Cardiovascular Health Disparities at the Community and Individual Level.”
“There’s no one person that wouldn’t benefit from prevention. We tried to highlight that through topics including disparities in care among other special populations such as transgender patients, for whom we don’t have much research,” Gulati said. “One of the discussions at ASPC will highlight precisely what we don’t know about this population, so we don’t get to a point like where we are for women. For years we knew that we did not know enough about them and have been playing catch up ever since. As more people are undergoing transgender surgeries, we need to know how to deal with them and how to protect them.”
These discussions on special populations will be presented Sunday and will be moderated by Cardiology Today Editorial Board Member Keith C. Ferdinand, MD, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, Gerald S. Berenson Endowed Chair in Preventive Cardiology and professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine:
- Impact of Hormone Replacement on CVD in the Transgender Patient, presented by Chrisandra Shufelt, MD, MS;
- Physical Disabilities – Focus on Risk Assessment, Diet, Accessibility – How to Overcome Unique Challenges, presented by Pam Taub, MD, FASPC;
- Myocardial Infarction and Heart Failure Among People With HIV: Risks, Mechanisms and Preventive Approaches, presented by Markella Zanni, MD; and
- Cardiovascular Risk Heterogeneity Among Men and Women of South Asian Ancestry, presented by Miguel Cainzos-Achirica, MD, MPH, PhD.
“We all think that we know how to treat hypertension, but in general, hypertension is the risk factor that causes the most CVDs, based on its prevalence in our population. We do such a poor job at treating it and controlling it in the U.S., and those data have been persistent for some time,” Gulati told Healio. “One of the lectures I’m excited about is Dr. Oparil’s lecture on hypertension.”
On Friday, Suzanne Oparil, MD, distinguished professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will present the Leaders in Medicine Lecture, “A Glimpse Into the Future – Hypertension as Cardiovascular Disease Prevention.”
According to Gulati, the virtual ASPC summit will also focus on ways clinicians can improve prevention and access for more people, via telehealth, for example.
“During COVID-19, we learned a lot about telehealth. It is not going to go away, and we need to know how to use it in our preventive strategies,” Gulati said. “Not just because of COVID-19, but because it is 2021. We need to be more familiar with technologies and wearables because of their emergence on the scene and try to figure out how to use them in the preventive space.”
To address this topic, Ami Bhatt, MD, director of the adult congenital heart disease program at Massachusetts General Hospital, will present “Telehealth – New Billing and Practical Usage” on Sunday. In addition, Cardiology Today Editorial Board Member Seth S. Martin, MD, MHS, FACC, FAHA, FASPC, director of the advanced lipid disorders program at Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will cover “Technologies and Wearables.”
“Another exciting session that I expect will stir everyone up is ‘The Great Diet Debate,’” Gulati told Healio. “We are going to discuss Mediterranean vs. plant vs. South Beach vs. keto diets, and it should be interesting. Every few months an article will appear saying this one diet is good or this food is magic, and so we are conducting an evidence-based discussion on the topic. It is going to be an interesting, lively group of experts.”
Healio is a media partner of the ASPC Virtual Summit on CVD Prevention. The Healio team will provide coverage from the meeting, including reports on the sessions above and more. Follow along at this link and on Twitter at @CardiologyToday. For more information on ASPC, visit www.aspconline.org.
References:
- ASPC 2021 Virtual Summit on CVD Prevention. https://www.aspconline.org/2021virtualsummit/. Accessed July 7, 2021.
- Clyde Yancy, MD, MSc, FASPC to present the Honorary Fellowship Lecture at the ASPC 2021 Virtual Summit on CVD Prevention. News release. PR Newswire; July 7, 2021. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/clyde-yancy-md-msc-faspc-to-present-the-honorary-fellowship-lecture-at-the-aspc-2021-virtual-summit-on-cvd-prevention-301327096.html?tc=eml_cleartime. Accessed July 7, 2021.
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