Dr. Steele: Ever wonder what some heart health lab tests are? My name is Dr. Erica Steele. I’m a holistic doctor in family practice. I hold six degrees in my field and they’re all in the natural healthcare space. I am a drug list doctor. I have tons of credentials. If you have any questions about that, feel free to tune in.
So now let’s. Talk about heart health lab testing. So there’s several laboratory tests that can be used to assess your heart health. So let’s get into ’em. So the first thing is a lipid panel. So a lipid panel is a blood test usually run in your annual visit that’s gonna measure the levels of cholesterols as well as triglycerides in your blood.
High levels of cholesterol and triglycerides are risk factors for heart disease, especially that triglyceride number, especially that L D L. We look at all of those numbers because it helps us, and it shouldn’t be high or low although higher risk naturally is more risk factor towards heart disease.
But low risk also gives us indication that you’re not digesting well, which can also impact heart disease. So we really wanna be mindful that we’re not high, we’re not low, we’re balanced. Second blood glucose testing. So high blood sugar levels can be a sign of pre-diabetes, which is a risk of heart disease as well as metabolic syndrome.
A blood glucose test measures the amount of glucose in the blood, so we want anywhere between 80 and 85 and a glucose test to be optimal. Lot of times doctors will miss it cuz they’ll tell if the number is higher than that, they’ll say, oh, it’s fine. But we really want a nice conservative. Number three, a blood pressure test.
So high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease. A blood pressure test measures the force of blood against the walls of the arteries. We standard do the one 20 over 80. However, if you age, if you’re like in the sixties, one 40 over 90. is considered acceptable. As long as you don’t have any other risk factors.
It’s also important to know that you don’t want a chronic low blood pressure. A lot of times people will come up with a low blood pressure, and that’s actually a sign of a chronic stress response. And as we talked about before, stress is a factor in heart disease number four H S C R P, so it’s a high sensit.
C reactive protein test that actually is going to test the protein that’s produced by the liver in response to inflammation in the body. High levels of this in the blood have been associated with an increased risk of heart disease. Number five, homocysteine. So homocystine is an amino acid that is produced by the body.
High levels of homocystine in the blood have been associated with the increased risk of heart disease. It can also be an indication. B6 and magnesium deficiencies. So we definitely wanna look at that. Number six, the E C G or electrocardiogram, that is a test that measures the electrical activity of the heart.
It can detect abnormal heart rhythms and other conditions that may increase the risk of heart disease. We have a little stethoscope in our practice that will PI pick it. Pretty quickly. We wanna make sure that there’s no irregular heartbeats. A lot of times people don’t realize they have murmurs or AFib, and so when we detect those, we’re able to send them to the cardiologist for a full workup and just make sure that their heart is healthy.
Number seven, an echocardiogram. That’s an ultrasound task that your cardiologist is gonna do that uses sound waves to create images of the heart. It. Issues with valve problems, abnormal heart structure, and of course your heart muscle problems. It’s important to detect these things early and especially if there’s a family history, you wanna make sure that you are staying on top of that.
It’s important to note that not all these tests may be necessary for everyone, and that some of these tests may be performed as a part of a regular checkup, or based on your specific medical history and symptoms. It’s always best to consult with a healthcare professional to determine which tests are appropriate for you.
I always say don’t. Test. But I also am very conservative with testing because you don’t always need to test every single thing. That’s where the clinical practice and the clinical experience of the clinician can really help. So tune in for more about heart health as well as other tests that you can run.
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