Cardiovascular Health
Undetected Cardiovascular Disease May Be Your Greatest Health Risk!
More than half of all deaths due to heart disease occur as Sudden Cardiac Death (SCD). And the majority of Sudden Cardiac Deaths are the first sign that someone has heart disease. Waiting until you have symptoms could be a fatal mistake. Heart disease kills more people every year than all cancers combined. Carotid IMT (CIMT) scans and endothelial function testing are key for early cardiovascular disease detection.
Women are most at risk, since standard screening tests fail to uncover heart disease in 30-40% of women. Women may fear breast cancer more, but they’re 10 times more likely to die from heart disease than breast cancer.
Standard cholesterol tests are nearly useless in gauging your risk of cardiovascular disease. More than half of the people who suffer heart attacks have normal cholesterol levels! The standard lipid panel measurement is simply is not enough.
At Alternity Healthcare, we perform advanced lipid panels that evaluate cholesterol subclasses and particle sizes, along with emerging risk factors, inflammatory biomarkers and relevant genetic tests.
Our advance diagnostic technology assess the functional dynamic health of your arteries, identifies vulnerable plaque and uncovers signs of heart disease at its earliest, reversible state.
Research also shows that chronic silent inflammation is an underlying basis of most of the diseases of aging, including cardiovascular disease. Our programs take aggressive steps to reduce inflammation through diet, exercise, nutraceutical supplementation with proper lifestyle and medical management.
Put simply, Alternity Healthcare can give you the most comprehensive assessment of your risk for a future cardiovascular event – and put you on the best path to avoid heart damage.
Carotid Intima Media Thickness (CIMT) scan
Identifying structural abnormalities associated with atherosclerosis and future cardiovascular events before symptoms appear (subclinical disease), would allow risk to be individualized and this largely preventable cause of death and disability could conceivably be mitigated or avoided all together. Two such procedures are carotid intima media thickness (CIMT) scans and coronary artery calcium score (CACS).
CACS detects disease at a later stage, when plaque becomes calcified, compared to CIMT. A study from the Mayo Clinic compared the two and concluded:
“Subclinical vascular disease can be detected by CIMT evaluation in young to middle-aged patients with a low Framingham Risk Score and a CACS of zero”
MaxPulse arterial elasticity score
Vascular endothelium is the inner lining of your arteries, the health of which directly impacts the risk for cardiovascular disease. Endothelial dysfunction is an early stage of atherosclerosis and has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of adverse cardiovascular events and stroke. Functional assessment this microcirculatory vasomotor function allows identification of patients in the early stages of atherosclerosis and at high risk for cardiovascular events. A key player in endothelial health is nitric oxide. In the presence of known vascular risk factors, the endothelium undergoes changes resulting in diminished nitric oxide production and activity, thereby promoting inflammation, narrowing of asteries (vasoconstriction) and clot formation. Non-invasive assessment of peripheral vascular function, with MaxPulse arterial elasticity score, helps identify individual patients at risk for cardiac adverse events.
