Heart doctors across the city were swamped with calls yesterday from men and women who – in the wake of Bill Clinton’s quadruple bypass surgery – worry they may have heart disease.
“The news about Bill Clinton has produced an amazing awareness out there,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a spokesman for the American Heart Association, who runs the Total Heart Care Center in Manhattan.
“We’re hearing from a lot of people who want to get checked out. They feel pressure on the chest or have shortness of breath and want to be tested.
“One woman, a new patient, even called and said, ‘I have ‘Bill Clinton Syndrome.'”
Dr. Bill Lawson, the chief of cardiology at Stonybrook University Hospital, said:
“The fact that it happened to somebody who’s relatively young at 58, who had appeared to quite healthy, really makes people aware. In this country, heart disease remains the leading cause of death.”
On Monday, the ex-president underwent a four-hour operation in which the clogged arteries that bring blood to his heart – which were more than 90percent blocked – were bypassed by other arteries.
He’s now expected to have a “100percent recovery” following the procedure at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
Herbert Mandell, an 82-year-old Upper East Side resident, who was getting an electrocardiogram at New York University Medical Center yesterday, knows the benefits of keeping tabs on his heart health.
Twenty years ago, while a strategic planner at IBM, he suffered a heart attack that could have killed him. But that was then.
He now eats a low-fat diet, exercises regularly and sees his cardiologist three times a year.
“I joined the YMCA and eat much more fish than I used to. And you try to keep your cholesterol down,” Mandell told The Post.
“The heart attack sort of shocks you into saying, ‘I’ve got to do things differently and I’ve got to do them seriously.’ I don’t even eat those big desserts anymore.”
His physician, Dr. Stephen Siegel, said one of the best ways to test the heart is an electrocardiogram – and predicted he’ll be giving many of them in the coming days.
“When David Letterman had his [bypass] and when John Ritter died – the issue got into the public mind. It’s going to be the same with Bill Clinton,” Siegel said.
Goldberg emphasized that heart disease is not an old person’s ailment.
“It can happen in young people. Too many young people smoke and that is the worst thing they can do,” she said.
“Heart disease is an equal-opportunity killer. It doesn’t respect sex, race, age,” noted Dr. Donald LaVan, a University of Pennsylvania cardiologist.
Nor is heart disease always noticeable – until it’s too late.
Dr. Jonathan Halperin, director of cardiac clinical services at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said:
“Until an artery is substantially blocked, there are no symptoms at all, because the heart’s still able to get enough blood and oxygen during exercise to meet its needs.”
Once there’s a blockage, “it’s not very far from there to closing the artery down completely,” he said.
Clinton’s bypass surgery came when – after he had complained of chest pains and a shortness or breath – doctors performed an angiogram on him last week and discovered the potentially deadly damage.
The ABCs of EKG
Herbert Mandell, 82, an Upper East Sider who suffered a heart attack 20 years ago, is given an electrocardiogram (EKG) by his cardiologist, Dr. Stephen Siegel, at New York University Medical Center yesterday:
* The doctor places 10 electrodes to the chest and limbs – don’t worry, they’re merely suction cups held in place by a sticky gel – to record the electrical activity of the heart.
* The EKG takes three to five minutes.
* It detected an erratic heartbeat, the possibility of congenital heart disease or a heart attack, before they appear.
* EKG monitoring is actually available from a patient home with the use of special equipment that sends information to a physician’s computer.
* Sudden cardiac arrest takes 300,000 American lives a year, with 50 percent of all heart attacks being “silent” – striking without warning signs.
* Doctors say there would be tens of thousands more “silent” heart attacks if EKGs weren’t available.