Archives: March 2023
What Does Heart-Healthy Mean in Day-To-Day Life?
These days, heart health has become a loosely used term. And while the theory behind heart, healthy foods, drinks, and activities are important to understand, how can one practice a healthy heart lifestyle in “real” life? In other words, with all the temptations around us, what can we do to prolong our heart health and, frankly, our lives?
The most important thing to understand about heart health is that it is not a zero-sum game. If you have been following lax dietary and exercise habits and experiencing high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, or other metabolic concerns, it’s important to remember that these did not develop overnight and will not be fixed immediately. Getting back to a heart-healthy lifestyle is a continuum that will start with minor improvements that eventually lead to more considerable successes—being heart-healthy means changing habits for the better but doing so sustainably.
Plenty of data supports the concept of incremental improvements leading to long-term overall success. These improvements may seem small, but as we stack one on the other, we slowly but surely reach our goals.
Are Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Similar Drugs Good for Your Heart Health?
If you’ve been following the news lately, you’ve probably seen much coverage on using OzempicTM, a diabetes drug approved in 2017 by the FDA, and WegovyTM (with the same active ingredient), approved in 2022 for certain obese patients. These drugs, and others like MounjaroTM and RybelsusTM, have been in such high demand that we are experiencing the effects of production shortfalls. Notably, while Ozempic and Mounjaro are diabetes drugs, they can still be prescribed “off-label” by qualified physicians and clinicians.
Let’s discuss whether these drugs make sense for a patient concerned about heart disease, and in doing so, we will focus on the two drugs (both Semaglutides) that have garnered the most headlines – Ozempic and Wegovy. Ozempic has apparent positive effects on type-2 diabetes by reducing blood sugar levels through improved insulin sensitivity in type two diabetics. While taking the drug, most patients ate less and lost weight, leading the developer to seek FDA approval for a new higher-dose indication as a weight loss therapy – Wegovy was brought to market last year.