TAKE IT TO HEART

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Nearly 1,300 people were screened Wednesday at the annual Take it to Heart Day event at the Jacksonville Fairgrounds. Memorial Hospital, Baker-Gilmour Cardiovascular Institute, Walgreens and Channel 4 sponsored the event, which offered free heart health screenings and the opportunity to speak with physicians, nutritionists and pharmacists. This Positively Jax event opened at 7 a.m. and ran until 2 p.m. Everyone in line at 2 p.m. was able to go through the screenings. The founder of Take It To Heart, Dr. Scott Baker, added a new test this year that checks for diabetes. Two participants -- Beverly Brown and Vicki Miley -- won $50 Walgreens gift cards, and Geraldine Vollick won an Alhambra Dinner Theatre gift certificate.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla – A local woman in her 90s walked the Gate River Run up until five years ago when a heart condition slowed her down. But now this feisty senior is back on her feet thanks to a procedure she got at Memorial Hospital that was one of her only options. Then at 74 she set a goal to walk the Gate River Run. It's non-invasive and possibly the only option for older patients who might not be able to handle open heart surgery. "I want to go back and do another River Run," says Grokett.

But this mother of three had no idea she was a ticking time bomb until one moment, 14 years ago. “If I didn’t have the surgery, I had a less than one-percent chance of being here in four months,” she explained. And millions and millions of Americans have that,” Dr. Martin told Ivanhoe. For many patients, cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins are life-saving, but Dr. Martin says these drugs are not automatically the answer. There are four steps to the challenge:Learn the symptomsKnow your risk factorsStop smokingExerciseTo sign up for the challenge, go to www.takeittoheartnow.org.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is recommending that many people between the ages of 50 and 59 take aspirin to prevent heart disease and colon cancer. “It’s important to understand that there are risks for aspirin,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic. Patients should stop taking aspirin if they're taking it without a doctor’s guidance to prevent cardiovascular problems and have no history of heart disease or heart attack. “For most people who have not developed heart disease, taking an aspirin to prevent heart disease is not the right thing to do,” Nissen said. For individual patients, a doctor will be able to calculate risks and benefits from taking aspirin.

Several doctors and hospitals later, Johnson enrolled in a clinical trial at Cleveland Clinic for a new device called a leadless pacemaker. "It's a fully self-contained unit less than 10% of a traditional pacemaker. It gets around the long standing limitations of a traditional pacemaker," explained Dr. Daniel Cantillon with Cleveland Clinic. A flexible tube, or catheter, is snaked through a vein in the leg up to the heart and the leadless pacemaker is placed inside one chamber. The leadless pacemaker is not yet approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

We all know not to smoke and to watch what we eat, but when it comes to your heart it’s easy to slip-up. For example, many people believe that after a heart attack, they should not exercise at all. Another common myth is that you’ll know when you need to get your blood pressure checked. High blood pressure and high cholesterol are silent conditions, so they should be checked regularly. There are four steps to the challenge:Learn the symptomsKnow your risk factorsStop smokingExerciseTo sign up for the challenge, go to www.takeittoheartnow.org.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Nine of 1,040 people screened at our 15th annual Take It to Heart event Tuesday were in need of immediate medical care and were rushed to the hospital. Hundreds of others learned more about their health and about being heart healthy. Frances Samuel at Baker Gilmour Cardiovascular Institute, one of the sponsors, said these are all crucial numbers that tell doctors about the health of your heart. Memorial Hospital, one of the sponsors, also provided an exercise specialist to teach moves that will help people relax and de-stress -- another contributor to heart health. This year's Take It to Heart event brought back T-shirts, and also gave an opportunity to win one of four $50 Walgreen's gift cards.