The Most Important Health Test You Can Get?

Former President Bill Clinton, talk show host Larry King, late-night comedian David Letterman, St. Louis Cardinals' pitcher Darryl Kile. What do they all have in common?

They all suffered from coronary heart disease, all diagnosed on the eve of catastrophe. Should we regard their stories as high-tech heart care success stories? Or are they examples of the failure of early detection?

"With early detection of hidden coronary plaque, there's less and less reason to suffer a heart attack or undergo bypass surgery. Major heart procedures should become relics of the past," claims cardiologist William Davis, MD.

Davis believes that Clinton, King, Letterman, and Kile could have easily, painlessly, and effectively averted the dangers of heart disease, likely even avoided the need for major heart procedures if given the right strategies.

"The tools for circumventing, even abolishing, these previous facts-of-life, have advanced considerably and are available to every adult in the U.S." Key among the right tools, Davis says, is a CT heart scan.

He details his views in his new book, Track Your Plaque: The only heart disease prevention program that shows you how to use the new heart scans to detect, track, and control coronary plaque. Dr. Davis has successfully applied this approach in hundreds of his own patients.

"By measuring coronary plaque, heart scans are an actual gauge of heart disease itself, unlike cholesterol and other risk factors which only suggest statistical risk for heart attack," Davis explains.

Bill Clinton underwent stress tests every year for five years during and following the end of his second term in office. Exiting his last test, "I aced it!" he proudly declared. Months later, he appeared in the emergency room at New York Hospital/Columbia with unstable chest pain symptoms.

Extensive blockages of all three coronary arteries (>90%) were diagnosed through a heart catheterization, and Mr. Clinton underwent a quadruple coronary bypass operation.

USA Today reported that "Dr. Allan Schwartz, chief of cardiology at the hospital, said that given the extent of Clinton's blockage there was a 'substantial likelihood that he would have suffered a substantial heart attack in the near future.' [Surgeon Craig] Smith said that it was 'obvious relatively quickly that what he needed was an operation.'"

After the surgery, the doctors boasted of their success, calling the procedure lifesaving. Media reports glowed with descriptions of high-tech hospital care.

Davis asks, "What if Mr. Clinton's heart disease had been detected five or ten years earlier? Could his near-fatal event been prevented? Could he have avoided bypass surgery?"

Pitcher Kile's sad experience illustrates even more clearly the potential benefit of detecting hidden coronary plaque early.

"Hidden coronary plaque is now as easy to detect as high blood pressure," Davis says. "Tragedies like Kile's simply shouldn't happen anymore. Early detection of silent heart disease empowers you to take preventive action well before life-threatening danger surfaces."

There are now some 200 CT scanners nationwide with the capability of providing detailed and precise images of the coronary arteries. Click for a full listing of all scanners in the U.S. including one in Dublin, OH.