Butler County Heart Walk
When: 10 a.m. Sept. 12; registration starts at 9 a.m.
Where: Fitton Center for the Creative Arts, 101 S. Monument Ave., Hamilton
Info: (513) 281-4048 or www.heartwalk.kintera.org
Heredity as a risk factor
Heart and blood vessel disease can be inherited. A tendency toward heart disease or fatty buildups in arteries seems to be hereditary. That means children of parents with heart and blood vessel diseases may be more likely to develop them.
A number of genes have been reported to be associated with heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure in large population-based studies.
A person with a congenital heart defect is slightly more likely than the general public to have a baby with a congenital heart defect. Researchers are now identifying genes responsible for causing some of these defects.
Even though you can't change your genetic makeup, you can reduce your risk by adopting a healthier lifestyle that includes physical activity, a healthy diet, and avoiding tobacco.
You can learn more about your family history by asking questions, talking at family gatherings, and looking at family medical records, if possible. Try to learn about the medical history of your grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, siblings, and children. You should try to find out the following:
• Major medical conditions and causes of death.
• Age of disease onset and age at death, and
• Ethnic background
Please share your family history information with your doctor. Your doctor will:
• Assess your disease risk
• Recommend lifestyle changes to help prevent disease, and
• Prescribe laboratory or clinical tests to detect disease early.
SOURCE:
American Heart Association
OXFORD — Charlie Coles can see all too clearly his fate in a world without the technological advancements in heart care that have been achieved over the last several decades.
His heart has been through the wringer. A heart attack and triple-bypass surgery at age 43. Cardiac arrest while coaching a basketball game at age 56. A quadruple bypass at age 66.
“If I’d had these problems in the 1950s, I would have been long gone. Several times, not once,” said Coles, whose heart, instead, has helped propel Miami University men’s basketball to three NCAA tournament berths, including a spot in the Sweet 16 in 1999.
That’s why Coles, who at age 67 will soon begin his 14th season as Miami’s head coach, said he is happy to be the celebrity starter at this year’s Butler County Heart Walk.
Coles’ heart troubles surfaced while he was coaching at Central Michigan.
“They discovered my arteries were clogged up,” he said. “I had angioplasty (a procedure to unclog the arteries) and that didn’t work, and then I had a heart attack in the hospital. I waited six weeks to get stronger and then I had a triple bypass.”
After coming to Miami, Coles nearly died in 1998 during a tournament game at Western Michigan.
“I had a heart beat over 200 beats per minute,” he said. “My heart stopped on me and they had to beat me with a paddle to bring me back. That’s when they put in a defibrillator (with a pacemaker).”
All seemed well until the end of the 2007-08 season. The clogging had returned.
“That was the most serious of my problems,” he said. “They gave me a quadruple bypass, a new defibrillator. My open-heart surgery lasted 14 hours, and I had surgery again later that week. That was the real rough one right there.
“It took them a little while to decide whether I needed a heart transplant or a heart bypass,” Coles recalled. “They reshaped my heart. It was so complicated, I asked them how can you do that? It’s amazing what our medical people have come up with. It blows my mind.”
Now the spring has returned to his step.
“So far, so good,” he said. “Every day I wake up, I say a prayer and move on. I thank God for the people who have helped me — nurses, doctors, family, friends.
“When I was growing up,” Coles said, “I was convinced that if anything went wrong with the heart or brain, cash it in, it’s all over. Well, that ain’t the truth now.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.
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