www.elitecme.com | 2019 | HEART HEALTH 5 W hen TV celebrity and fitness expert Bob Harper suffered a heart attack, many Americans were shocked. How, they wondered, could this have hap- pened? Bob was incredibly fit, and as a lifestyle mentor on TV’s hit series The Biggest Loser, he was known for engaging overweight con- testants in rigorous aerobic activity and pro- moting healthy eating habits year after year. What people had forgotten (or didn’t real- ize) is that only a few of our cardiac risk factors are controllable. Many, such as age, genetic tendencies towards higher cholesterol, gender, family history of disease, or being post-meno- pausal are set in stone and cannot be manip- ulated. Bob’s family history contained many risk factors: for diabetes, heart disease, and a tendency towards obesity. What he could not have known while he was exercising and coaching others on a journey to physical fit- ness, was that he would soon begin a journey of his own, one that is identical to so many Americans.6 Heart disease is so prevalent in the United States that nurses were used to referring to cardiovascular illness as the number-one killer in this country, but in 2016, those sta- tistics flipped. Cancer is now considered to be the leading cause of death, although in many states, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is still at the top of the list. Unfortunately, as child- hood obesity statistics rise, physicians predict those numbers will flip again, particularly as a lack of physical activity becomes a concern for younger generations.2 We teach male patients, especially those with familial risk factors (like Bob Harper) to always be on the alert for warning signs: epi- |  COVER STORY Survivors can find a renewed sense of purpose. By Diane Goodman, RN, MSN-C, CCRN, CNRN Living Your Best Life After a Heart Attack