His father's sudden, fatal heart attack was the inspiration for physician and former NBC medical news correspondent Bob Arnot's latest book, "Seven Steps to Stop a Heart Attack" (Simon & Schuster, $25). Exploring new research into the causes and treatment of heart disease, Arnot argues that many of the more than 400,000 U.S. deaths from heart disease each year could be prevented. "The number of people who die unnecessarily [of heart disease] -- it's the biggest scandal in medicine today," he said. "This is the news equivalent of three jumbo jets crashing every day."
The book was released Jan. 3. We spoke with Arnot by phone later that week.
_____The Heart_____
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What are readers going to learn from your book that they don't already know?
I think the standout is small plaque buildups. They are extremely dangerous, and about 98 percent of the public is completely unaware of them. The old deal was that if tests showed an 80 to 90 percent artery blockage, you'd get rushed into heart surgery. Now we're talking about 40 percent buildups, which don't show up on stress tests or EKGs. About 75 percent of heart attacks are from these small, unstable plaques. Inflammation [of the arteries], which can cause these plaques to break off and kill people, now appears to be the coup de grâce, the leading, driving force that causes heart attacks. A simple, basic test of your CRP [a protein] level measures inflammation and is a marker of risk.
So what? I exercise, eat well and feel fine.
The thing we're learning about diet and exercise is they are just not enough. Fifty percent of people who have heart attacks have low cholesterol but high levels of CRP. My cholesterol level is great, but when Steve Nissen at the Cleveland Clinic told me that it is inflammation that could kill you, I ran out and got tested. I got on Lipitor [a statin drug that appears to reduce inflammation] right away.
But do we really need a whole book to learn that?
People get this stuff scattershot. One day in the press you read about inflammation. The next day it's cholesterol. I wrote this book to pull it all together. The vast majority of people don't know what to do [to prevent a heart attack]. And many doctors don't know what to do, so you are probably getting the wrong information. [Heart disease] is a rapidly expanding field, and I describe all this cool stuff, but it's these basic, even stupid, tests that really matter.
-- Matt McMillen
