Preventative Cardiology

Taking care of your heart keeps you from developing cardiovascular diseases that could threaten your life. Board-certified Shahnaz Begum, MD, FACC, promotes preventive cardiology at Heart Care in Frisco, Texas, to help patients keep their hearts fit and strong. Call Heart Care to learn more about preventive cardiology and its many benefits, or book an appointment online today.

What is preventive cardiology?

Preventive cardiology reduces your risk of serious heart problems and prevents early death from heart attacks and strokes. Many cardiovascular disease risk factors are preventable and manageable, for example:

• High-fat diet
• Lack of exercise
• Chronic stress
• Smoking
• Type 2 diabetes
• Substance misuse
• Excess body weight

Heart Care’s preventive cardiology services provide information and support a healthy lifestyle and help reduce your risk of developing cardiovascular disease, especially in patients who have diabetes or pre-diabetes. For factors you can’t control, like your age and genetic makeup, Dr. Begum provides monitoring and advice on promoting heart health.

What does preventive cardiology involve? 

A routine checkup at regular intervals is the cornerstone of preventive cardiology. Your assessment begins with a medical history review and a comprehensive physical exam.

Dr. Begum listens to your heart and lungs and performs an in-office electrocardiogram (EKG) to view your heart’s electrical activity. She also measures your blood pressure and takes a blood sample for lab testing.

You might benefit from additional screening tests, which may include:

• Doppler ultrasound
• Ankle-brachial index (ABI) test
• Echocardiogram (heart ultrasound)
• Exercise stress testing     
• Nuclear stress testing
• Holter or event monitoring
• Stress echocardiogram
• Vascular studies
• Cardiac CT or MRI
• Cardiac angiogram

Diagnostic testing procedures like these assess your heart function and blood flow around your body. They also identify abnormalities, such as heart defects and tumors.

The Heart Care team also provides pre-operative (pre-surgical) or dental procedure clearances. 

Why should I participate in preventive cardiology?

Heart Care’s preventive cardiology services alert you to developing heart and circulation disorders before they become more difficult to treat or cause irreversible damage. Common issues that screenings detect include:

• Heart failure
• Coronary artery disease (CAD)
• Carotid artery disease
• Peripheral arterial disease (PAD)
• Blood clots
• Valve disorders
• Hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol)
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Aneurysms

These conditions often cause no or very few symptoms. For example, you could have dangerously high blood pressure without realizing anything’s wrong until you experience a heart attack or stroke. Preventive cardiology identifies problems early, offering a valuable way of preventing strokes, heart attacks, and other severe or life-threatening disorders.

If screening procedures identify any cardiovascular problems, Dr. Begum can treat them before they worsen. For example, you might need medications to lower your cholesterol.

Prevention is a much easier and more cost-effective way to approach heart health than leaving it until you experience a heart attack or another emergency.

To arrange your preventive cardiology consultation, call Heart Care or book an appointment online today.