3 common heart health myths a cardiologist wishes you’d stop believing

When it comes to matters of the heart, there’s more to consider than hitting your weekly cardio goals at the gym.

With new technologies like smart beds that register abnormal rhythms and T-shirts designed to alert wearers to underlying heart conditions, patients have more tools to measure and track their heart health than ever before.

Still, widespread misinformation has made it harder to understand and assess cardiovascular risk.

When it comes to heart health, cardiologists recommend being proactive rather than waiting for symptoms to arise. T Mdlungu/peopleimages.com – stock.adobe.com

Medical experts like quadruple board-certified cardiologist Dr. Tiffany Di Pietro have seen the consequences of that misinformation in the form of patients who assume they’re safe from cardiac complications, but very likely may be at risk.

Given that cardiovascular disease is responsible for more than a quarter of US deaths, understanding heart health beyond the hearsay is critically important.

To help people better advocate for the care they need, Di Pietro finally puts to bed some of the most common myths cardiologists hear from their patients.

Myth: ‘If my cholesterol is ‘normal,’ I’m safe‘

Unfortunately, cholesterol isn’t the only marker of cardiac troubles. Many of the risks associated with heart disease are driven by other factors, Di Pietro told The Post. 

Some of those factors include genetics, inflammation, blood pressure, insulin resistance, a history of smoking and lifetime exposure to atherogenic particles, which promote fatty plaques in the arteries. The worst atherogenic particles in this case are ApoB/LDL, Di Pietro said.

The Environmental Protection Agency warns that airborne atherogenic particles from pollution significantly increase the risk of new or inflamed cardiovascular disease.

Though popular depictions rarely show it, heart disease is the leading cause of death in US women. Gregory Miller – stock.adobe.com

Ultimately, your cholesterol can only tell you so much about your overall heart health.

“You can have a ‘normal’ standard panel and still have high ApoB, high Lp(a) or significant plaque on imaging,” Di Pietro said.

Myth: ‘Heart disease is mostly a men’s problem‘

Despite what Hollywood might have you think, heart disease is the leading cause of death for US women, Di Pietro said, especially black women. 

A 2024 study in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that movies made between 1932 and 1922 rarely depicted victims of heart attacks as anyone other than white men. 

This portrayal has had an outsized influence on our perceptions of heart disease, leading many to overlook symptoms in women, which are sometimes different from our typical — occasionally dramatized — associations.

“Symptoms can be more subtle” in women, Di Pietro said, including fatigue, nausea, shortness of breath and back or jaw pain. 

Compared to what she calls “the classic ‘crushing chest pain,’” heart disease in women is often invisible — and therefore potentially fatal. 

“Delayed recognition leads to worse outcomes,” Di Pietro said.

Myth: ‘High blood pressure is only a problem if I feel it‘

While you should definitely see a doctor if you’re experiencing symptoms of high blood pressure, such as chest or unusual back pain, shortness of breath, numbness, weakness, changes in vision or difficulty speaking, it’s also important to get ahead of those episodes.

Hypertension is often symptom-free until it causes damage, Di Pietro explained. That could look like a stroke, heart failure or kidney disease. 

The American Heart Association calls it a “silent killer” for just this reason.

As with most things related to the heart, Di Pietro says that “treating it earlier is one of the highest-yield ways to prevent events.”