The power of prevention: Cardiologist says proactive patient care can make a big difference later in life
Former American College of Cardiology (ACC) president Kim Allan Williams Sr., MD, chair of the department of medicine at the University of Louisville School of Medicine and an ACC delegate to the American Medical Association House of Delegates, believes cardiologists should be focusing more on early prevention efforts. He is a longtime advocate for preventive care and believes a vegan diet can help patients protect their cardiovascular health.
Care for heart patients is often reactionary instead of taking a more proactive approach, Williams explained to Cardiovascular Business. But technologies such as coronary CT angiography with the additional artificial intelligence-based soft plaque assessments now make it possible to detect early disease and begin preventive therapies years before the onset of symptoms.
"At every convention, I end up saying the same little rhyme: 'We need more attention to prevention at this convention,'" Williams said. "But if you go to our big cardiology meetings, they are full of really dynamic and cutting-edge science, but it's all about new procedures to treat the disease after it's hit the patient. Why don't we do something to stop it?"
He said clinical literature all says getting to the soft coronary plaques early on sets the patient up to avoid cardiac events later in life.
"We have the tools, a whole food, plant-based diet, statins, PCSK9 inhibitors, you name it. We have small interfering RNA, we have ways of getting the risk factors down, and if we were to find them and treat them earlier, then we're going to dramatically reduce the healthcare budget. People say that it's 80% of our healthcare budget is due to diet," Williams explained.
He said the costs to the healthcare system is a massive $1.4 trillion due to the poor choices that people make in terms of their diet. He said many are not aware that animal protein and refined grains are popular choices and they both increase mortality.
"We should do better and we should be developing programs to make sure that people know that, because not everybody knows," he said.
Some people eat what they want to eat, he admits, but the issue is that these poor choices drive hefty healthcare bills later in life, which often falls on Medicare spending and its limited budget.
"The fact of the matter is, there's not enough people who understand that, particularly physicians," Williams explained.
This will be a focus of a new article on lifestyle medicine and physicians that is pending publication in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology later this year. In it, Williams said lifestyle medicine pillars are outlined, including diet, avoiding substance abuse, making sure you get enough sleep, making sure that you have good social connections and loving environments, and exercising.
"Those principles of lifestyle medicine are really touted by physicians most of the time. But followed by physicians? Not nearly as much," Williams said.
The article includes survey information, in which only 8% of the physicians who answered the survey are following a whole food, plant-based diet, which is really high compared to the rest of the population," he said. He also noted only 41% of doctors were recommending that diet to their patients.
Dave Fornell has covered healthcare for more than 17 years, with a focus in cardiology and radiology. Fornell is a 5-time winner of a Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism. The wins included best technical content, best use of social media and best COVID-19 coverage. Fornell was also a three-time Neal finalist for best range of work by a single author. He produces more than 100 editorial videos each year, most of them interviews with key opinion leaders in medicine. He also writes technical articles, covers key trends, conducts video hospital site visits, and is very involved with social media. E-mail: [email protected]