Four common misconceptions about coronary heart disease

  Myth 1: Coronary heart disease is a disease of the elderly and only the middle-aged and elderly need to prevent and treat the disease.  In fact, coronary heart disease is caused by various risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, high blood pressure, diabetes and overweight, etc. Nowadays, most people’s living habits have changed, and the trend of coronary heart disease is very obvious, and it is no longer rare to get coronary heart disease in the age of 30 or 40. Therefore, the prevention of coronary heart disease must begin with lifestyle changes and start at a young age.  Myth 2: Ignore the emergency signal of heart attack, chest pain.  Many people who are usually in good health often do not care about the sudden appearance of mild chest pain and tightness, but this is likely to send them to the “ghost gate”. Famous stars such as Gao Xiumin, Hou Yaowen and Gu Yue died from sudden death caused by acute myocardial infarction, if they were highly alert to the appearance of chest pain may not have died. The most common manifestation of coronary heart disease is chest pain, and more than half of the patients with acute heart attack have no aura but sudden chest tightness and chest pain as a manifestation. The mortality rate of sudden myocardial infarction is as high as 20%, but if treated in time, the recent mortality rate can be significantly reduced. In normal times, as long as middle-aged men have had a chest tightness of more than 20 minutes, they should be alerted to the possibility of severe angina or coronary heart disease. “Have chest pain to the hospital”, not to the infirmary, small clinics, but to call the emergency system as soon as possible, to go to secondary and tertiary hospitals with resuscitation conditions.  Myth 3: Everything will be fine after the stent is put in for coronary heart disease.  There is no doubt that stents are a blessing for patients with coronary heart disease. For patients with acute heart attack, if stents are placed in time, the mortality rate can be reduced to 5%D6%; for patients with non-acute and severe angina pectoris, if stents are placed, the symptoms can be relieved and the physical activity can be improved. However, stenting is only an emergency treatment, not a “life-saver”. For patients who have been rescued from heart attack, the most important thing is secondary prevention – prevention of recurrence. Primary prevention is to prevent the disease when it does not develop, then secondary prevention is to prevent the “second time” after it has developed, that is, to prevent the second recurrence. Consistently taking drugs on time under the guidance of cardiovascular specialists and adhering to a reasonable and healthy lifestyle can slow down and even reverse the development of coronary heart disease and prevent the recurrence of heart attack. Now a large proportion of patients are taking a variety of “no” side effects but also inaccurate role of ineffective drugs or ineffective health care products, and a large proportion of people although taking the right variety of drugs, but the dose is too small or with the wrong time; and then a significant proportion of patients after the first onset after rescue okay, it is good to forget the scars Pain, also do not go to see a doctor, also do not take drugs, which is very dangerous; Others think that the trouble with drugs, eat stop, stop eating, not only the effect is not good, and dangerous. Patients who have suffered from coronary heart disease for cardiac intervention or bypass should regularly go to the hospital or community to review follow-up visits, something to report the condition, nothing to report peace, get guidance on disease prevention.  Myth 4: Patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia do not need to take medication as long as the index is reduced to normal values.  Many patients think that since all drugs have side effects, when the blood pressure and lipid indices are reduced to normal, the disease will be well and the drugs should be stopped. However, patients with hypertension and hyperlipidemia whose indices have reached normal values after taking medication are the result of the action of medication, and the so-called reduction to “normal values” does not mean that the disease is cured. High blood pressure and hypertension are important risk factors for coronary heart disease, and controlling blood pressure and blood lipids is a prerequisite for preventing and treating coronary heart disease. Most patients with hypertension need to take medication for a long time or for life, and every drug has certain side effects, but not everyone will experience them. Older drugs used to have more side effects and were gradually eliminated over the years of application. The drugs used now have relatively few side effects and better efficacy. For people with high blood lipids, it is important to first figure out what criteria are considered normal. For example, for those who do not yet have atherosclerosis, their ideal LDL concentration should be below 130 mg/dL; but for patients with coronary heart disease, it should be below 100 mg/dL; and for those who have severe coronary heart disease, it should be reduced to below 80 mg/dL. The principle of intensive lipid lowering should be followed to keep the lipids in the normal range.