Drawing A Line Against Cardiovascular Disease

Main Category: Heart Disease
Article Date: 05 Jun 2008 - 2:00 PST

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Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States according to the American Heart Association (AHA). This might not come as a shock to most people, but the actual statistics for heart disease are mind blowing: the AHA reports that 60.8 million Americans suffer from some form of heart disease; that's one in every five Americans. Nearly one of every 2.5 deaths in this country stems from cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the cause of more deaths than the next six causes of death combined.

"It is important for Americans to know just how deadly heart disease is," says Debbie Williams, VP of Medical Affairs for Meridian Co. Ltd. Meridian has developed a medical device called the Digital Pulse Analyzer (DPA), which provides early detection of arterial wall stiffness and determines the biological age of arteries. "Early screening is imperative to help detect the disease before it leads to greater health problems."

Conventional cardiovascular diagnostic methods like angiograms, MRIs, sonograms, and blood analysis can be expensive, time consuming, invasive, and cause discomfort. The DPA is user-friendly and non-invasive; it uses a fingertip probe to obtain pulse wave information in less than five minutes. The device is a powerful tool for early recognition of risk and provides a valuable measure of a patient's progress through lifestyle changes and use of pharmaceuticals or natural supplements.

"Loss of arterial elasticity is a precursor to hypertension and more serious cardiovascular conditions," explains Williams. "The information provided by the DPA permits practitioners to detect problematic trends in a patient's elasticity at an early stage, thus allowing them to prescribe preventative treatments or recommendations for lifestyle changes before serious cardiovascular problems develop."

The device also measures Heart Rate Variability (HRV). HRV tests the balance of the automatic nervous system and can be an indicator/predictor of illness or mortality, especially sudden cardiac death. The software has the capability to store all of a patient's data. Currently the DPA is in use by over eight hundred healthcare practitioners in the U.S. and Canada.

"The DPA provides a simple way for people to monitor their cardiovascular health," explains Williams. "Along with a healthy diet and exercise, early screenings for heart disease contribute to protecting and preventing cardiovascular disease."

For more information on the Digital Pulse Analyzer and Meridian, log on to http://www.MeridianMedical.ca.

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