did you know that more heart attacks happen at age 65 for men and 72 for women than any other age yep and yet most people don't know how to avoid these heart attacks we're going to tell you how today it all starts by asking one simple question do you have arterial plaque plaque in your arteries my name is Ford Brewer I'm a physician I taught preventive medicine at Johns Hopkins and continue to do prevention I've got over 40 years of clinical experience with patients today I'll show you how to find arterial plaque at home using only a blood pressure monitor okay so are you ready let's get started picture this you're starting to feel some slight chest pain anytime you exercise and you're also starting to feel a little bit weak with low energy you go to the doctor and she runs some tests she tells you hey you know you have high cholesterol and that's dangerous because it'll get stuck in the arteries of your heart so here take this pill take a pill you leave the room confused with a lot of questions like why do I have cholesterol in my heart and what did I do wrong I'm taking better care of myself than I did when I was younger so why am I sick when your dog's talking about cholesterol you should be thinking about plaque arterial plaque it's the real driver for heart attack and stroke risk maybe a little bit more and in fact a whole lot more than just cholesterol in your blood but what is arterial plaque most people think plaque is a waxy fatty substance inside the artery where the blood flows that's wrong in a couple of key ways arterial plaque is a disgusting goop it's like mucus or snot and like mucus or snot it's mostly inflammation not cholesterol this goop builds up in your arteries and just like a pimple if this inflammation ruptures letting all that inflammation and liquid into the bloodstream it causes a clot it's a big clot and it goes to the heart that causes a heart attack if it goes to the brain that causes a stroke before starting any medication I'd recommend testing for plaque there are multiple ways to detect plaque but only one can you do easily at home the technique you will learn today is called ankle brachial index just a word of caution if you already have been diagnosed with deep veinous thrombosis or DVT or if you have severe leg pain in that case skip this test now that you know why it's important let's dive into how to test your ABI at home now we're going to actually take the video clip of me doing an AB I've got my blood pressure cuff I've got a pen and paper and I've labeled it left arm and Ankle right arm and Ankle I've got a couch to lay down on and I've got an iPhone to diddle around with while I'm resting so Jesus wants to make sure that I rest first my blood pressure is usually the same whether I'm standing or lying down but I'm going to go ahead and rest because Jesus the video director wants me to do [Music] it we want to get this up next to the my artery which is going through here and so that needed to be undone we want to pull it around smooth I mean firm but not too tight not really tight then we press the button [Music] okay 107 over 69 right [Music] arm 107 over 69 okay take this off put it on my right [Music] leg I was clearing uh clearing thorns in a nearby Woods last a couple weeks ago that's why I've got all these scratches on my legs I don't know why that didn't do that the first time we did this the artery's going up through here so that's where we want to put the air bladder oh wait a minute I have to wait for a minute for DrVega [Music] hey Su is requiring a lot of footage here he's always requiring a [Music] lot I can't really tell how it's doing yet I know I Su this nervous [Music] and that is going to [Music] be that's [Music] it uh I can tell you from looking at this already that it doesn't show a lot of evidence of plaque which is not a surprise given the I certainly wouldn't expect to have enough plaque to cause problems uh in my legs with the the hill Sprints and things like that that I do I can do that's it all right that wasn't too difficult was it if you haven't done it don't worry pause the video I'll wait until you get your numbers all right let me show you how to calculate your results these are my numbers for my right arm I got 107 over 69 for my left arm 114 over 72 for my right ankle 120 over 59 and for my left ankle 126 over 74 by the way the units are called millimeters of mercury and that's just how high the pressure can push a column of mercury the first number is called the systolic blood pressure the systolic blood pressure reflects the pressure from the blood after the heartbeat and the second number is the diastolic it's when the heart is resting so this is how to calculate the index the ankle brachial index first choose the highest systolic number from your ankles in my case that would be 126 choose the highest systolic number from your arms in my case that would be 114 now you need to divide the numbers 126 ID 114 that would be 1. 1 you might have noticed that's for my left leg and you can do this for the other leg for my right leg that would be 120 over 114 resulting in 1. 05 there are other methods to calculate this but this is by far the simplest and easiest let's see what those results now mean the ideal index would be between 1.
0 and 1. 4 meaning healthy arteries at least based on blood pressure 0. 9 to to 1.
0 is also acceptable however if your numbers are 08 or less you probably have plaque and it's probably causing blood flow obstruction and maybe even higher blood pressure also an index higher than 1.
