Even best efforts can't prevent all heart attacks

[flashl]

NEW YORK - Tim Russert was a good patient, taking medications for his heart disease and exercising, his doctor said. He had no chest pains and he passed an exercise stress test weeks ago. Yet at 58, he suffered a heart attack and died.

That's not uncommon, say cardiologists. Heart disease patients can significantly reduce their chances of a heart attack, but they can't totally prevent it, said Dr. Howard Hodis of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

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Experts say that shouldn't discourage heart patients from doing everything they can to lower their risks of a heart attack: control blood pressure and cholesterol, quit smoking, lose weight, change their diet, exercise and reduce stress.

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Despite impressive advances in preventing and treating heart disease, experts say there's no easy way to know which patients are going to have a heart attack and which aren't. Most heart attacks occur when fatty deposits in the arteries rupture and a clot forms.

The goal of preventive measures is to stabilize the plaque and prevent a rupture, or to prevent a dangerous clot from developing if the plaque does burst open.

Yahoo

[DavidDvorkin]

1. He looked awful

Extremely overweight, out of shape, and unhealthy. Every time I saw him on TV, I expected him to drop dead on the air.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

2. Inflammatory crisis leading to AMI resulting in sudden cardiac arrest.

He was overweight, if he exercised he didn't do it much and he probably started to late. We know we can't stop all heart attacks we can drastically reduce them and limit the amount of irreversible heart damage the people that have heart attacks suffer by reducing door to balloon times.

David

[Lex]

3. A skinny guy I know dropped dead of a heart attack at 55

so the extra weight is certainly not helpful, but skinny doesn't mean 'fit' either.