To kick off National Heart Health Awareness Month, Dr. Marc S. Eisenberg, cardiologist and co-author of the book 'Am I Dying?!' helps break down some of the common misconceptions around heart disease - and why almost everyone is at risk. 

To kick off National Heart Health Awareness Month, Dr. Marc S. Eisenberg, cardiologist and co-author of the book 'Am I Dying?!' helps break down some of the common misconceptions around heart disease - and why almost everyone is at risk.&nbsp;

Wake Up With Cheddar

A Cardiologist Breaks Down Heart Health Myths

You know, all day, we've really been discussing heart health. And so I'm gonna be joined now by cardiologist Dr Mark Eisenberg to help us a little bit more understand all the things that we need to know how we can take care of ourselves. Thank you so much for being here, Dr Mark. Let's start off with this today is National way over a day and we want to highlight women's heart health. So what's the one thing that all women should know? Well, it's a myth to think that only old white men die of heart disease. In fact, one in five women in this country actually die of heart disease, making it the leading cause of death in both men and women in this country. Wow, that is huge. Those numbers are just daunting. So what are some of the biggest misconceptions about heart health? Well, I think the biggest misconception is that you can't change your risk profile. You know, especially if you have a bad family history. Yes, people with family history of heart disease are more likely to have heart disease, but there's a lot of things we can do to prevent ever having a heart attack or a stroke. Uh, so if you want me to start off, the best thing to do now is to get your blood pressure checked, to get your cholesterol checked. And, And if either of them are abnormal and you can't modify it with diet and exercise, then possibly start treatment. Things you can also do on your own is exercise. I'm telling you as a heart doctor, it's all about exercise. 40 minutes of fast walking or the equivalent five days a week basically can reduce your risk of heart attacks and strokes significantly. Well, those are some great tips and I'm glad you mentioned that it could just be walking because a lot of people think going to the gym and do all this extra stuff, but just walking so we all can do that. All right. Well, I want to add one other thing. People don't realize we're all very busy, obviously. So try to figure out a way to do the walking and integrated into your schedule. For instance, I try to get off like three or four subway stops early and I walked. Wow, you really getting those steps are parking at the furthest spot, the grocery parking lot and then walk into the door there. I got you up onto you. All right. So now we also know that chest, chest pain is also not just a sign of heart attack, but also assigned for anxiety attack. So one of the four things to pay attention to when we have chest pain of any kind. Well, first of all, chest pain can be a lot of things and if you have chest pain that lasts for more than five or 10 minutes and you're not sure what it's caused by, please seek medical attention as soon as you can. Chest pain is commonly caused by acid reflux. It can be caused by, um, you know, having a muscle spasm, it could be caused by a heart attack, stroke and a lung clots. So it's hard for us to differentiate what actually causes it. But one other reason for you to have chest pain is anxiety, but anxiety usually has some telltale signs. So you have this chest pain, you're very short of breath. But a lot of times you have actually numbness in your fingers. So you feel this numbness in your fingers bilaterally and it's usually caused because you're hyperventilating that you're breathing so quickly, you're actually breathing out a lot of your carbon and you're changing the acid base status in your blood. So you're making your blood less acidic and that's causing the symptoms of numbness in both fingers. That's why we put a bag over our head to actually hyper when you're hyperventilating to breathe back in some of the carbon dioxide. Wow. So over your nose and mouth your whole head, that's okay. So I need one point to be broken down right there. You mentioned it matters how the pain comes on. Why is that so important? Well, it really comes on first off, you have pain, it just comes on suddenly suddenly, like all of a sudden a brick is on your chest and you're also feeling short of breath, you really have to be more concerned that it's a heart attack or a long cloth. You know. Um, you know, if the pain is sort of gradual and then there's sort of things you can do to see if the pain is more likely a muscle spasm. You know, if you take a deep breath in and out and you feel the pain more pronounced or you touch your chest at the spot and it hurts more, it's likely a muscle pain. Alright, some great advice there from Dr Marc Eisenberg. Thank you so much for helping us understand what we can do to have better heart health. And by the way, we want everybody to know to check out his book. Am I Dying is the title? So definitely check it out wherever books are. So, thanks again, Dr Mark.