Private MD Labs Offers Free Coronary Heart Disease Risk Assessment Calculator
Atlanta, Ga. (PRWEB) April 23, 2008
Private MD Lab Services, Atlanta, announced a new, free service to help Americans assess their risk of high cholesterol and heart disease. The Coronary Heart Disease 10-year Risk Assessment Calculator does exactly what its name suggests: By visiting the company’s website and entering a few bits of information about themselves and their health, individuals can instantly know their risk of contracting coronary heart disease within the next 10 years.
“At Private MD Labs, one of our goals is to allow people to take charge of their own health,” said Otis A. Plunk, M.D., medical director with Private MD Lab Services. “This new coronary heart disease calculator is just another way we do exactly that. An informed healthcare consumer can enter his or her personal information and have a percentage of risk reported back to them immediately.”
The goal, of course, would be for the individual to then take that information to his or her personal physician and discuss the best course of action – to maintain a “low” risk or improve a “high” risk for coronary heart disease. The calculator cannot – and is not intended to – replace personalized medical counsel with one’s physician.
“Given the obesity epidemic and rising number of Americans with diabetes, we wanted to create a tool that could help point individuals in the right direction,” Plunk explains. “We hope the Calculator will be the impetus that Americans need to begin a dialogue with their physicians on improving their health status.”
According to the National Institutes of Health’s National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) – which provided the underlying data used by the Calculator – major risk factors for high cholesterol and heart disease include:
Cigarette smoking
High blood pressure
Low HDL (or “good”) cholesterol
Family history of coronary heart disease
Age (men 45 or older, women 55 or older)
But having one or more of the risk factors doesn’t mean a person is doomed: there’s hope. The NCEP lists a number of therapeutic lifestyle changes that can decrease one’s chances of contracting coronary heart disease, including:
Reducing saturated fats and cholesterol consumed
Losing weight
Increasing physical activity
Considering drug therapy (over-the-counter or prescription cholesterol-lowering drugs)
Private MD Lab Services provides confidential clinical laboratory services promoting wellness, prevention and early detection of disease. We work with some of the country’s largest corporations, as well as state and local health departments, in organizing and administering health screenings. We supply valuable information to patients, consumers and healthcare professionals dedicated to improving health and reducing disability and death from medical conditions such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and STDs. Through strategic alliances with LabCorp, we are able to provide top-quality, confidential and certified results that will stand up in a court of law, if necessary. These results can be viewed through our secure e-mail system and printed as soon as 24-48 hours from the time of collection.
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