7 Reasons Why You Should Do a Level One Workup in Addition to a Heart Scan
Steve Parcell
Posted On:
January 20, 2014
7 Reasons Why You Should Do a Level One Workup in Addition to a Heart Scan
By
Steve Parcell, ND
Level One Diagnostics is a cardiovascular lab that is making prevention of stroke and heart attack more of a reality. A heart scan is very helpful in determining calcified plaque volume in the coronary arteries and by tracking the calcium laden lesions we can assess how well a treatment program is working. There are quite a bit of functional attributes a heart scan does not evaluate, however. Lets talk about a few:
1. Circulation including peripheral blood vessel tone and elasticity.
2. Endothelial function (dysfunction). When the cells that line the artery do not function well we call the endothelial dysfunction. This is the true first cause of atherosclerosis and the reason plaque starts to accumulate.
3. Arterial stiffness and arterial age. You are only as old as your arteries.
4. Stress effect on cardiovascular system. The balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic aspects of the nervous system affect the heart and vessels in many ways.
5. Heart rate variability as determined by RR intervals. A little variability is good. You don’t want a metronome for a heart.
6. Plaque in the carotid artery. This is the main cause of stroke. Heart scans can only show us calcified (old, hard) plaque in the arteries of the heart. Early, soft plaque can be visualized in the carotid artery using special ultrasound imaging and software.
7. Aortic and abdominal aneurisms can be congenital (you inherit them). Arteries can develop weaknesses in the wall similar to an old hose left out in the sun. If one blow death can be instantaneous. We have all heart things like “she died of an aneurism.”
I am a big fan of heart scans but a scan is not the whole story and by adding a Level One workup my ability to assess risk has quadrupled. The majority of insurance plans cover this completely. CALL TODAY TO SCHEDULE a Level One workup -303.884.7557 at NatureMed Integrative Medicine in Boulder.