7 Steps to a Healthier Heart – Step Six

Welcome to post number six in our “7 Steps to a Healthier Heart” series! Just one blog left! Over the last few weeks, we dived into simple, science-backed changes you can make to protect your most vital organ: your heart. Heart disease remains the number one cause of death globally, but the good news is, many of the risk factors are within your control. Tune in to our blog next week, for our final blog post in this series.

Sarah Bush Lincoln Cardiologist B. Lakshmi, MD, explains how to prevent a heart attack, highlights the best noninvasive screenings to assess heart risk and emphasizes the importance of family history in heart disease.

Consider Diabetes Medications

Some modern diabetes medications do more than just control blood sugar, they also offer significant protection for the heart. This is especially important for people with type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD), since diabetes greatly increases the risk of heart attack, stroke and heart failure. In recent years, several newer classes of diabetes medications have shown cardioprotective benefits in large clinical trials. These include:

SGLT2:

Empagliflozin (Jardiance), Dapagliflozin (Farxiga)

• These medications help lower blood sugar by causing the kidneys to remove excess glucose through urine. But their benefits go beyond blood sugar control, they also reduce the risk of heart failure, lower blood pressure and improve kidney function. In people with established heart disease, they’ve been shown to lower the risk of hospitalization for heart failure and cardiovascular death.

GLP-1: Liraglutide (Victoza), Semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy)

• GLP-1s work by increasing insulin secretion, slowing digestion and reducing appetite, all of which help manage blood sugar and support weight loss. But they also reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke, especially in people with type 2 diabetes and a history of heart disease. Some GLP-1 medications are now used primarily for cardiovascular protection, even beyond diabetes management.

Please note the information in this blog is not a subsite for medical care. You should always consult your doctor for more details.