

Ep.27 - Dr. Paddy Barrett - How to Avoid a Heart Attack
11 snips Sep 19, 2023
Dr. Paddy Barrett, a Dublin-based cardiologist and thought leader on heart health, joins the podcast. They discuss topics such as understanding heart attacks, cholesterol metrics, and risk factors. They also touch on managing long-term health risks and the worth of the stress echo test in detecting coronary artery disease. The importance of assessing risk factors and health measurements is emphasized, along with the downside of certain tests.
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Heart Attack Explained
- Heart attack is an event caused by plaque rupture blocking blood flow in arteries.
- Risk factors cause disease buildup; disease causes plaques; plaques cause heart attacks.
Heart Attack vs Cardiac Arrest
- Heart attack differs from cardiac arrest, which is failure of heart pump due to arrhythmia.
- Heart attack often causes cardiac arrest but not always; some cardiac arrests are unrelated to coronary artery disease.
Atherosclerosis as Tennis Balls
- Coronary atherosclerosis starts from lipid particles retained in artery walls triggering inflammation.
- Risk factors increase "tennis balls" (particles) hitting arteries; stronger arteries tolerate risk better.