Let’s Shine A Light on Cardiometabolic Diseases

We have seen a lot of attention paid to heart-related conditions as we’ve moved through American Heart Month in February. This is only right, given the growing continuing severity of heart disease in this country, and it being the leading cause of death. What is sometimes lost in broad discussions of “heart disease,” however, is the variety of conditions that fall under that term, and the importance in focusing the healthcare community’s efforts.

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Going forward, one key piece of this will be paying greater attention to the risks of what are known as cardiometabolic diseases. Simply put, cardiometabolic diseases are a group of often preventable chronic diseases that relate to our cardiovascular system – the heart and blood circulation – and our metabolic health – how well is our body’s metabolism in converting the food we eat into energy.

There are four principal connected cardiometabolic conditions:?

• Cardiovascular diseases involving the heart and blood vessels (including coronary artery disease, heart attack, heart failure and stroke)
• Diabetes (type 1 and type 2)
• Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
• Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)

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A critical problem with cardiometabolic conditions is that many people may not have any symptoms. This places a priority on identifying these conditions as early as possible – even before symptoms develop – as key to protecting patients’ health.

While there may not be evident symptoms, there are risk factors that can be early indicators of cardiometabolic conditions. These risk factors often occur together and can be a major cause of heart and vascular disease, including diabetes, high cholesterol, high triglyceride levels, high blood pressure, and excess body weight. While each one of these factors increase your risk for heart disease, when combined, the chance for early and severe cardiovascular disease – heart attack, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease – is greater.?

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Clearly, the prevalence, the severity and chronic nature of these conditions, as well as a potential lack of symptoms, should draw more and more urgency to diagnosing and treating these conditions. As someone who has personally seen the devastating downstream impact of cardiovascular disease I believe there is more that can be done to help further raise awareness and improve early diagnosis as a public health priority. While encouraging progress continues to be made in the treatment of cardiometabolic conditions, with new medical and pharmaceutical advances, it’s critically important that as a society we continue to focus on heart health, not for just for the month of February, but year-round.