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Feb 15, 2008 9:44 am US/Eastern
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Early Intervention Can Prevent Cardiac Arrest
Heart attacks can be prevented - or at least made less likely - if people take care of themselves, heed their risk factors - and seek treatment when called for.
To highlight it, "The Early Show" began a series Monday called "Early Intervention: Cardiac Arrest."
CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor and Dr. Christie Ballantyne, a cardiologist at Houston's Methodist Hospital, and Dr. Steven Gubin, a cardiologist at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, visited mall food courts seeking people eating unhealthy foods, or who were overweight, or who had other potentially problematic signs, and offered to check out their heart disease risk.
They agreed to undergo CT scans to help assess their heart health. The doctors checked the images the scans produced for signs of calcium, which indicates the presence of artery-clogging plaque.
Glor reported on the results.
On Thursday, Glor and Gubin sought to help five Memphis residents they met at a mall.
Glor also reported on a Memphis resident who came very close to suffering a heart attack less than two months ago, before getting two stents to open heart blood vessels in an emergency procedure.
On Tuesday, Glor was present as one patient had a CT scan and Ballantyne interpreted the results on live TV. Despite significant risk factors, the test showed some worrisome signs, but not overwhelmingly so. Ballantyne explained all. To see the segment, click here. Ballantyne then went over the results of another high-risk woman's scan, and these were of much more concern. To watch that segment, click here.
On Monday, Glor told the story of Kent DePriest, of the Memphis suburb of Cordova, Tenn. DePriest has a significant family history of heart disease, and a wife, Donna, who's a cardiac nurse - and had a feeling her husband was heading for trouble, despite an exceptionally healthy lifestyle. It turns out she was right - and Kent wound up going under the knife in the nick of time.