10 ms·

My Life After a Heart Attack at 38

• oredbored 8y ago
  I'll just leave this here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25198208 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25198208
  • koboll 8y ago
    >Of the 198 patients with CVD, 177 (89%) were adherent. Major cardiac events judged to be recurrent disease totaled one stroke in the adherent cardiovascular participants—a recurrent event rate of .6%, significantly less than reported by other studies of plant-based nutrition therapy. Thirteen of 21 (62%) nonadherent participants experienced adverse events. So... heart disease can be attributed almost entirely to eating meat? That result seems too good to be true.
    • baroffoos 8y ago
      Well thats convinced me to switch my lunch plans for today.
    • BadassFractal 8y ago
      How do we explain the vegans and the vegetarians who still get plenty of heart disease? If veganism were a silver bullet, I'd be the first one to jump on that bandwagon, today.
      • wyclif 8y ago
        Because the health factors that cause heart attacks aren't exclusively attributable to diet.
      • gnulinux 8y ago
        Because studies like this are sheer bullshit. There is no one "plant-based diet". Eating fat heavy (avacado, nuts, seeds, coconut, acai berry, olives etc...) and carb heavy (rice, fruits) diets and whether you eat few protein rich plant sourced (basically only beans) will have very different macronutrient, micronutrient profile and will have very different effect on human body. Same goes for animal-based diets. Moreover, people who were able to adhere to this study might have just been more disciplined and healthier. This study does not control other important risk factors such as alcohol, regular exercise etc. I find it very hard to believe we can really derive any useful information from "we forced people to eat plants". As a meat-eater I think the most stupid strawmen vegans hit me with is the belief that I only eat meat. I think very few people advocate "only eating meat" (e.g. recent 0carb hype, which I think is clearly pseudoscience). You can still eat plants but supplement your diet with meat to get more protein and healthy fats. You can still get 75% of your calories from plants but still eat meat. Also, there will be a huge difference between highly processed meat (bacon, salami etc) and unprocessed, grass-fed meat. Studies like this simply ignore all these factors.
      • yaroslavvb 8y ago
        It means that there are other factors besides diet. Here's a relevant study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/707372 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/707372
      • oredbored 8y ago
        Very few vegans eat whole foods, which is what was used in the study.
    • mindfulplay 8y ago
      This is nearly pseudoscience.. Indians have one of the highest rates of heart attacks even though a significant population is purely vegetarian. I think science has to be focused on biology and science, not social surveys and asking questions to a small bunch of uncontrolled strangers.
      • gammateam 8y ago
        What are the likely dietary habits of people that have time for academic surveys Just college kids and mechanical turk penny vacuums So probably a little predictable
        • tomcam 8y ago
          > mechanical turk penny vacuums Wait, what's that?
          • saghm 8y ago
            Mechanical Turk is an (Amazon) crowd-sourcing site where one can post small jobs (such as surveys) to be completed for a small amount of money (often only $0.05-0.10). I assume "penny vaccums" here is a metaphor for people who complete a large number of tasks for the money. https://www.mturk.com/ https://www.mturk.com/
            • tomcam 8y ago
              OK, thank you.
        • Fomite 8y ago
          Or not... "Participants This report reviews the outcomes of 198 consecutive nonsmoking patients with multiple comorbidities of hyperlipidemia (n=161), hypertension (n=60), and diabetes (n=23) who voluntarily asked for counseling in plantbased nutrition for disease treatment. These self-selected participants requested consultation after learning about the program through the Internet, the media, prior scientific publications, the senior author’s book (CBE Jr), other authors’ supportive comments, or word of mouth.2,13 A preliminary 25- to 30-minute telephone conversation established disease presentation and severity by eliciting reports of symptoms, history of MI, stress test and angiogram results, interventions undertaken, family history, lipid profile, and the presence of comorbid chronic conditions. In these calls, we outlined the program, established rapport, and documented the need for additional patient information. The Cleveland Clinic Institutional Review Board determined that these were acceptable outcome measurements to evaluate the nutrition program." "Baseline characteristics of participants are shown in Table 1. (Two patients from the original group of 200 were lost to follow-up.) The remaining 198 participants for whom data were available had CVD, were mostly men (91%), averaged 62.9 years of age, and were followed for an average of 44.2 months (3.7 years). "
    • BoiledCabbage 8y ago
      Or people who weren't disciplined enough to stick/adhere to the veggie diet, likely also had other parts of their life with less than healthy discipline.
      • oredbored 8y ago
        The compliance rate was 89%, which is higher than that of statin drug therapy. If discipline was a factor, it was a very small one.
    • DoreenMichele 8y ago
      So... heart disease can be attributed almost entirely to eating meat? That result seems too good to be true. If it's the study I've seen, the improvement can be largely attributed to a tremendous drop in both calories and fat. Instead of their idea of a balanced diet being a bacon double cheeseburger in each hand with a gallon of ice cream for desert, it became rice and legumes and veggies. They shot for keeping fats to no more than 10 percent. They invited participants to dinners so they could experience good tasting, healthy gourmet meals and not feel like this was about deprivation. Participants dropped tons of weight without trying and without having to try to control themselves. They could eat all they wanted every day and not get enough calories to remain clinically obese.
      • gnulinux 8y ago
        There is no correlation between fats and CVD. That's a very old belief (70s) that is debunked. Read this please: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793267/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5793267/ Downvoters: Please just read the paper.
        • DoreenMichele 8y ago
          From your link: SFA is now believed to play a much smaller role in CHD than was previously believed while that of sugar, whole grains, and cereal fiber have moved in the opposite direction. Which is not the same thing as no correlation. I'm sure it's vastly more complicated than just fat content, but the stuff I've seen indicated that one study of a vegetarian diet as post cardiac therapy explicitly set a goal of keeping fat content down to 10%. Prior to being put on a vegetarian diet, the typical diet of participants was much, much fattier. Participants were just blown away at being able to eat all they wanted for the first time in their lives and lose weight without even trying. My personal experience: I dropped several dress sizes without intending to by completely ignoring both calories and fat percentage and focusing on consuming nutritionally dense foods to redress known nutrient deficiencies. So I have absolutely no doubt that it's vastly more complicated. But I tend to get a lot of flak for talking about what I think about diet, the gut biome, medical stuff, etc. So I really wasn't looking to get into that. I was only looking to add a little more information about such studies. The main takeaway as I understand it: they stopped being obese. There are people who eat meat who are not obese.
    • dmead 8y ago
      No. That kind of heart disease can be cleared by not eating meat. many heart diseases have nothing to do with blood chemistry. source: i have valves turning to shit and never had a problem with blockages or high cholesterol.
• starik36 8y ago
  I had similar experience. Had a quintuple bypass at 36. Lots of emotions and reevaluations of things. Will I see my kids grow up - things like that. I had to relearn walking. But it also served as a good kick in the behind in terms of taking charge of my life. It motivated me to stop eating like a pig. To get rid of toxic people that were causing me stress. To start exercising and leading a healthy life. In a weird way, the bypass was a blessing in disguise.
  • math 8y ago
    reminded me of this: https://sivers.org/horses https://sivers.org/horses
• Waterluvian 8y ago
  Before kids nothing scared me. Not because I felt invincible but because I felt like uncalled code. If I were culled, there'd be sad family but everyone would move on. Nobody depended on me. But now I have kids and they need me in a way I've never felt from anyone before. It's F@#$_ing terrifying because of just how vulnerable I realise I am.
  • tomcam 8y ago
    Same here. Took me totally by surprise. I was much more ready for death at 26 than I am at 56, because kids. It hits me pretty much every day.
    • Markoff 8y ago
      care to explain? at 56 your children should be already adults, so while it would be sad they could move on
      • dragonwriter 8y ago
        > at 56 your children should be already adults People are having children at older ages these days.
  • justAnotherNET 8y ago
    Its part of why I don't trust childless politicians. I want the people making tough decisions to have that existential pull
  • james_s_tayler 8y ago
    "because I felt like uncalled code". This is why HN is home.
  • peteretep 8y ago
    Guessing you’re all life-insured and critical illness insured? If not, make it happen. Money certainly isn’t everything but it’s a great deal.
  • 8y ago
• agumonkey 8y ago
  > The practitioner there did an electrocardiogram and said the left side of my heart was slightly enlarged, but my discomfort was probably just gas. Don’t worry, I was told: “Your heart’s not just going to stop. You’re not going to drop dead tomorrow.” But that’s what almost happened. This is worrying. The habits of doctors can kill. They're not cautious enough. My grand mother was misdiagnosed (not coronary but cardiovascular). My aunt was misdiagnosed and sent home. I had clear cardiovascular issues but got laughed at by half the people I talked to. Non invasive diagnosis is one the few places where I do want tech to get one or two more decimals of precision.
  • cm2012 8y ago
    Too much caution makes doctor advice useless. If they tell you to go waste time and money at the hospital every time there's a 1% chance of an issue, you won't actually go when it matters. That's one reason I try to ask doctors to estimate % risk. On this note: WebMD is not a doctor but has the same issue. There's no differentiating between a real emergency issue and a CYA liability one.
    • baddox 8y ago
      Do doctors have any training that would equip them to give a remotely accurate risk probability estimate?
      • arcticfox 8y ago
        In my experience doctors are terrible at this, although it's supposed to be basically their entire job. I really think they should get more training in it, or some type of Bayes-esque tool to make what they're thinking explicit.
        • XorNot 8y ago
          But the reality is the patients don't understand the numbers, and in the OPs case a % risk doesn't mean much if it happens to you.
• tarr11 8y ago
  Similar thread from 2014 (lots of comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8550315
• rblion 8y ago
  My uncle who named me passed at 39 of a heart attack. This resonates.
• mindfulplay 8y ago
  Are there any evidence-based efforts to monitor, diagnose these at an age where it was previously thought to be too early to have an heart attack? (Calcium score? CT scan?) Most other diseases that killed vast populations at this age have been resolved or worked around, so looks like we are looking at one of the last remaining killer dieases.. would love to strap on Apple Android whatever devices if it will help diagnose or monitor such patterns.
  • carbocation 8y ago
    You can get a sense of the age range from this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3487339/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3487339/ MI (heart attack) can happen at almost any age, but it is rare for it to occur before ~60. "Early-onset" MI is < 50 for men or <60 for women. 38 is extremely young. I know only a couple of folks that young who have had an MI, and I work at a quaternary referral hospital as a cardiology fellow.
    • roboforce 8y ago
      > 38 is extremely young. My Dad, his brother, and his father all had heart attacks in their late 30's and early 40's. I'm in my early 40's and very concerned. Should someone with a family history like mine be more aggressive with testing? My family doctor does not think so. Are there even tests today (like the "CT angiogram") that could detect (and prevent) a person with extreme family history from a 1st heart attack?
      • carbocation 8y ago
        If you have access to a preventive cardiology clinic, it'd be worth getting a second opinion.
• fipar 8y ago
  I had one at 40, just six months ago, and waited over 12 hours to go to the doctor for the same reason as the author (didn’t want to mess with the things my wife and kids had to do that day). I even drove my daughter to school while having the attack, which is both scary and stupid when you really think about it. Of course, denial had a lot to do too. Even though I woke up at 4 from the pain, I spent all day thinking it must have been something else. The only point of my comment is that if this ever happens to you, don’t delay going to the doctor. I guess my behavior that day is an example of normalcy bias? I don’t know...
  • shanehoban 8y ago
    A good rule of thumb, and something I learned while at medical school is that if something wakes you or interferes with your sleep; especially a headache, but would be applicable for anything else such as a cough, or pain somewhere in general; it would be in your best interest to go see a doctor about it.
• aprdm 8y ago
  I feel like in technology we talk so much about metrics, observability, having lots of logs and application metrics for _all_ of your infrastructure. Yet, we don't seem to have anything similar for the human body. How many lives can be saved every year by having a system that grabs some data from your body and has some thresholds for warnings? Something doctors could simply hook into (pull based) or something you could give to a doctor (push based). Some "critical warnings" could call an ambulance straight away. Do we need more IoT embedded systems to hook to the cloud? Is it a problem with regulation? Physics / biology deterministic measurement?
  • throwaway5752 8y ago
    There are multiple companies working on this.
• tjpnz 8y ago
  Any advice from doctors here on what to do if you believe you're experiencing a heart attack?
  • DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Call 911. https://www.doylestownhealth.org/dialogue-online/2017/february/having-a-heart-attack-call-911 https://www.doylestownhealth.org/dialogue-online/2017/februa... (No, I am not a doctor.)
  • carbocation 8y ago
    Call 911. When they send an ambulance, take the ambulance. Heart attack is tough, especially the first time someone has one: - The pain is usually dull and can even be subtle - The pain usually is better with rest and worse with exertion, so you can convince yourself that it was some minor thing that is passing - The pain is usually not so bad that you'd think you'd have a problem driving, taking the subway, etc. But, heart attack doesn't kill you via pain. It kills you via arrhythmia, which happens because that ischemic heart tissue is electrically active. If you have a cardiac arrest from your heart attack and you're in an ambulance, they're going to defibrillate you. If you have a cardiac arrest from your heart attack and you're driving yourself to the hospital, you're going to crash your car and it's unlikely that anyone will figure out what happened in time to defibrillate you. Now, people who have established angina with known coronary anatomy will get more specific advice from their doctors. But in general, if someone without known disease develops symptoms that sound like a heart attack, they need to be evaluated.
  • bihnkim 8y ago
    I've heard a 911 dispatcher say take aspirin if you can
    • a_f 8y ago
      And when you do it is important to chew it, which helps increase the speed in which it works.
  • Para2016 8y ago
• sidcool 8y ago
  The important question is how can one regular cardio vascular health?
• bobowzki 8y ago
  I've noticed a lot of health anxiety in this thread. I'd like to recommend "Overcoming Health Anxiety" by Davis Veale and Rob Willson, for anyone who feels they worry excessively about their health.
• known 8y ago
  We need to develop a type of x-ray machine that can instantly identify blocks in arteries https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/angina/treatment/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/angina/treatment/
• known 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt about children leads to Stress. And stress leads to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takotsubo_cardiomyopathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takotsubo_cardiomyopathy which in turn leads to https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronary-heart-disease/ https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronary-heart-disease/