A 24-year-old man suddenly died of a heart attack while working out in the gym
According to the Liaoning Radio and Television Station's "Life Herald", 2022 has just begun, and a 24-year-old young man in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, who insists on fitness, suddenly died of a sudden heart attack while working out in the gym. After seeing this regrettable and sad news, many people in the comment area said that fitness and a healthy lifestyle are useless, that it is necessary to eat, drink and drink, everything is predestined. So, how do you put the relationship between a healthy lifestyle and death in perspective? I hope that you will read this article by yourself, and after reading it, you will understand everything.
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First of all, it should be said that seeing the death of such a young man is really a sigh, and everyone's mood must be regret and sadness. But in addition to regret and sadness, is this a case that can negate the positive effects of a healthy lifestyle on health? Dr. Zhang personally believes that it is not so extreme that a healthy lifestyle is useless. Because for the vast majority of people, a healthy lifestyle is an important guarantee of healthy living. So why did this young man live such a healthy life but have such a serious disease as myocardial infarction at such a young age? Let Dr. Zhang say, I myself guess that he may have some diseases that ordinary people do not have, such as "familial hypercholesterolemia" is one of them.
Young people have a heart attack, pay attention to "familial hypercholesterolemia"
Why do people have cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases such as myocardial infarction and cerebral infarction at a young age? There are many reasons for this, but there is one that everyone must pay attention to, that is, "familial hypercholesterolemia". The diagnosis and treatment of this disease should be said to be specific to each person's individualized medical treatment, and it can even be said to be a model of precision medicine. The early screening of this disease helps to detect high-risk patients and avoid many people from developing cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases at a young age due to abnormally elevated blood lipids. Today, Dr. Zhang will give you a careful explanation of this disease, hoping to help more people.
1. What is familial hypercholesterolemia?
It should be said that familial hypercholesterolemia is a familial autosomal dominant hereditary disease, which can be clinically seen to be significantly elevated in patients' low-density lipoproteins, and many people have cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases at a young age.
Abnormally elevated LDL
Second, what is the harm of familial hypercholesterolemia?
Familial hypercholesterolemia is very harmful, and related studies have shown that people with familial hypercholesterolemia have a 16 times higher risk of coronary heart disease than the average person, and the probability of occurrence at a very young age is relatively high. Therefore, if someone in your family has cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease before the age of 55, it is called an early family history of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and you must pay special attention to whether there is a problem of familial hypercholesterolemia.
It is easy to lead to the occurrence of atherosclerosis
3. How to diagnose familial hypercholesterolemia?
In fact, in our country, familial hypercholesterolemia patients generally have the problem of not being able to clearly diagnose, there are many reasons for this, such as the lack of understanding of this disease by doctors, the inability of hospital diagnostic methods to be achieved, and the people themselves do not have health awareness in this regard. Genetic testing is the "gold standard" for diagnosing the disease, and a new generation of gene sequencing (NGS) technology can comprehensively detect the disease, but this technology has not yet been popularized. At the same time, relying entirely on genetic testing still has certain loopholes and is not perfect.
Regarding the diagnosis of "familial hypercholesterolemia", the existing implementation criteria in China are to recommend that adults meet 2 of the following criteria, and the diagnosis of familial hypercholesterolemia can be considered. The three diagnostic criteria are: in the case of no treatment, the level of LDL in the blood lipid profile is above 4.7 mmol/l; there is a clinical xanthroma, or there is a lipid corneal arch at a young age (pictured); or there is a family hypercholesterolemia in the first-degree immediate family or a family history of early-onset cardiovascular disease, especially early-onset coronary heart disease.
4. How to treat familial hypercholesterolemia?
1. Improve lifestyle
All people with hyperlipidemia need to improve their unhealthy lifestyles, and familial hypercholesterolemia is no exception. Therefore, it is recommended that patients with familial hypercholesterolemia reduce foods with high saturated fatty acids and high cholesterol, while paying attention to smoking and alcohol cessation, scientific exercise, and weight control. These lifestyle changes are good for the patient's blood lipid reduction, but note that many times people with similar diseases only have a healthy lifestyle is not enough, but also need to be professionally treated.
2. Oral lipid-lowering drugs
The oral lipid-lowering drugs mentioned here are mainly statin lipid-lowering drugs and ezezer-meper, because familial hypercholesterolemia is mainly based on the elevation of low-density lipoprotein, so lipid-lowering drugs that can reduce low-density lipoprotein can be treated. The most commonly used are statin lipid-lowering drugs and ezetimibe, two major types of lipid-lowering drugs, and often the two drugs are used in combination. However, for many patients with familial hypercholesterolemia, just taking these two drugs orally may not be ideal.
3. Lipid-lowering drug for injection - PCSK-9 inhibitor
With the advancement of science and technology, the lipid-lowering drugs used for injection in the past two years, that is, the "PCSK9 inhibitors" in medicine, and the "lipid-lowering vaccines" said by the people. This drug can be used to treat familial hypercholesterolemia. The therapeutic effect should be better than that of oral lipid-lowering drugs in many cases, and indeed it is a treatment plan that can be considered.
4. Lipoprotein plasma isolation and replacement therapy
For some patients who do not use the above methods well, "lipoprotein plasma isolation and replacement therapy" can also be considered in large hospitals with conditions. Of course, this therapy must be a professional treatment in a high-level hospital under the guidance of a professional doctor.
The above is Dr. Zhang's introduction to "familial hypercholesterolemia", and finally I would like to remind those who have LDL above 4.7mmol/l, if possible, be sure to pay attention to genetic testing to see if they are patients with this "familial hypercholesterolemia", which is very important. If the diagnosis is clear, it is more important to carry out professional treatment under the guidance of a professional doctor. The reason why many people have sudden myocardial infarction at a young age is that no such diseases have been found, let alone formal treatment. For these people, just sticking to a healthy lifestyle is not enough. Please also correctly understand this issue.
Finally, Dr. Zhang would also like to remind everyone that in the "familial hypercholesterolemia" mentioned above, the most difficult treatment is homozygotic hypercholesterolemia and complex heterozygous hypercholesterolemia, which is also clinically called "refractory hypercholesterolemia". Dr. Zhang will continue to give you science popularization of this rare hypercholesterolemia. One of the purposes of these relatively rare diseases is to let everyone have a deeper understanding of the disease, only in this way can we avoid and reduce the occurrence of sudden death of young people who have myocardial infarction at a young age. Are you right?