[S. O'brien:] Some medical news this morning. You might feel fine, but if you've got clogged arteries you probably will not know it until it's too late. There's a new study now that's pinpointing your risk and we're paging Dr. Gupta to talk about it. Sanjay is in Atlanta this morning. Hey, Sanjay.
[Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cnn Chief Medical Correspondent:] Good morning, Soledad. I found this study pretty alarming, actually, interesting, as well. Looking at people who have some degree of vascular disease, some problem with some of their blood vessels, but they feel fine. The question for a long time is what about these people, what are the risks really in the long term? There are three places where you typically get some sort of vascular disease, you can get it in your peripheral arteries for example, in your legs, and also get it in your heart and in the arteries that lead to your brain, the carotid arteries. What they decided to do, these researchers, was study lots of people, about 70,000 people. Not just here in the United States, but all over the world, 44 different countries. And what they found is, again, these are people who feel fine but just either had some degree of vascular disease or risk factors such as hypertension, excess weight or smoking and they found that one in seven of them had a major event within a year. Heart attack, stroke or death within a year. And the real point of the study I think, showing first of all, this is not just a United States problem but a developing nation problem if you will, but also that as good as we've become at being able to treat heart disease, treat these sorts of problems, we're still not very good at targeting people who need prevention and getting them prevention before they develop one of these catastrophic problems. One in seven within a year, these are people who felt fine but had some degree of disease in their body Soledad.
[S. O'brien:] But you've got to imagine, Sanjay, there's a lot of people out there who feel fine and have no idea they have clogged arteries or not, right?
[Gupta:] Absolutely. And I think that's part of the problem. We're not practicing a culture of prevention. People show up at their doctor's office when they have chest pain, when they have TIA or something like that, but not beforehand. But there are ways to test for that, though, Soledad, that's the thing.
[S. O'brien:] I was going to say, how do you know? I mean, do you so should everybody at a certain age start getting tested to make sure their arteries are clear?
[Gupta:] Probably. I think that you know, seeing your doctor, at least, to get some initial tests and checking for some of the risk factors, which can give you a good idea of whether you have some of this disease. But also I was concerned about it for myself, I have a family history of this so there are tests that you can get actually. I had the CT angiogram you're looking at there that's my heart. And again, actually, you get that type of imaging. No needles, no heart catheterization or anything, just a CT scan of my heart that basically shows are my blood vessels open or not. And it gives me a degree of confidence as to what I need to do to make sure I don't develop any of these problems later on down the road.
[S. O'brien:] It always freaks me out a little bit to know that I'm looking at your heart there Sanjay, I've got to be honest with you. Listen, let me ask you a question. It is a very handsome heart, you are a very handsome man. Anyway, so, if you have, in fact, some kind of clogged arteries and you've got this dire news from this study that says within a year you're going to be in the hospital, you're going to have a heart attack, you're going to have a stroke, you might be dead. I mean, that's very dire news and there's a good chance of it decent chance of it. What do you do to turn back the clock?
[Gupta:] Well, there are things you can do. There is a sort of emerging field, sort of called preventative treatment. Those words are a little bit, you know, they conflict with each other. But you can actually do things to actually not only stop the progression of plaque, but also to reverse it. So for example, you might be someone who needs a staton medication to actually stop plaque growth, to reduce your bad cholesterol levels. You might need to be on a baby dose of aspirin. We need to figure out who these people are early on so they don't develop these problems. There are things that we can do but again, you know, doing the angioplasty, doing the bypass surgery, doing the surgery to open up the blood vessels going to your brain, that's when it's already progressed too far Soledad.
[S. O'brien:] It's too late by that point, as everybody needs to know their own. You really need to be responsible for your own health. All right, Sanjay, thanks, as always.
[Gupta:] Thank you.
[S. O'brien:] Paging Dr. Gupta this morning. Miles?
[M. O'brien:] Here's a quick look at what CNN "NEWSROOM" is working on for the top of the hour.
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