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Why Your Diabetes May Be Affecting Your Heart

Why Your Diabetes May Be Affecting Your Heart

Do you know the two most frightening statistics about heart disease? Here’s a hint: one of them has to do with cause of death; the other involves your heart and diabetes. Give up? The answers are revealed below.

• Statistic number one: heart disease is the number one killer of men and women in the United States.

• Statistic number two: people with diabetes are four times more likely to develop heart disease than non-diabetics.

These sobering facts put the magnitude of diabetes and heart problems into perspective.

How does diabetes affect the heart?

The link between your heart and diabetes is an important one. Looking at this health problem broadly, it’s easy to see that diabetes affects you from head to toe; cardiovascular problems are just among some of the more serious complications you’ll face.

Diabetes wreaks havoc on your circulation. Since your heart is the central pump in your circulatory system, given enough time, it will start to show diabetic wear and tear. For instance, patients with diabetes have a higher concentration of lipids in their bloodstream.

These lipids catch, clog, and harden within the vessel walls. This causes plaque and calcium buildup; better known as atherosclerosis. It is& not uncommon for patients prone to plaque buildup to need cardiac catheterization to clear and open restricted arteries and prevent a heart attack.

What are the risk factors for diabetics?

Speaking of prevention; it is important for diabetics to comply with treatment and stay on top of their condition. Part of good condition management is knowing the risks that impact your heart and diabetes. That way these risks can be minimized or avoided.

Here are common risks to watch for:

• High blood sugar can texturize your arterial walls, making it easier for lipids in your bloodstream to stick together and restrict blood flow.

• High blood pressure also damages your artery walls.

• Smoking

• Inactivity

• Weight gain

All of these things affect how well your heart is able to function.

Perhaps the best news about this is most of these risk factors can be reduced or eliminated with simple lifestyle changes that& support optimum& & heart health. Talk to your doctor about how to successfully manage both your heart and diabetes. What you learn could save your life.

Dr. Seldon, a Heart Doctor and Cardiologist in New York City, offers same day appointments and all testing is done on site. & Call us at (212) 367-8000.