Researchers have determined that digital mammography, besides examining breast tissue for cancer, may also reveal heart disease risk and inform the patient of potentially life-saving information in just one exam.
This is because the amount of calcium in the arteries of the breast, which are seen in the scan, appear to reflect the amount of calcium in the coronary arteries. This muscular-walled tubes supply blood to the heart and the chemical found on it may be a sign of heart disease as reported by Reuters.
The link found between calcium in the breast arteries and calcium in the coronary arteries is a reason to “pay attention”, according to study coauthor Dr. Jagat Narula from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.
For the study, 292 women who underwent both digital mammography and a chest computed tomography (CT) scan were analyzed by the team of researchers. They studied their heart disease risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and smoking.
It was determined that 42.5 percent of the women had calcium in their breast arteries, as shown by the digital mammography. They were significantly older and had more high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease compared with those women who did not show breast arterial calcium.
Women who had coronary artery calcium represented 47.5 percent of patients in the study, which were also significantly older and had more high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease and diabetes than women who did not show calcium in their coronary arteries.
Further analysis showed that the presence of breast arterial calcium was about 70 percent accurate overall predicting the presence of calcium in the coronary arteries. The team from Mount Sinai said that the predictions were at least as well and in some cases better than standard risk predictors for heart disease.
A stronger motivator for women
Seeing images of calcification in the arteries of the breast could be the stronger motivator for a woman to take action to reduce the chances of developing clinically significant cardiovascular disease, commented Senior author Dr. Laura Margolies to Reuters by an email.
“Women should ask their radiologists if there was any calcification in their breast arteries. This information can then be given to their primary care doctors to be used in conjunction with standard risk factors to determine if further evaluation, or treatment, would be of benefit,” added Margolies.
She also commented that not all breast arterial calcification is indicative of significant cardiovascular disease. People who are already being treated for a cardiovascular disease, Margolies added, might not derive any further benefit from knowing that the arteries in the breast are calcified too.
Source: Reuters
This is more of the customary marketing hype, presented as science, by corporate medicine.
It had long been demonstrated that exposure to medical x-rays, which would include digital mammography, is a top proven cause of heart disease (read Dr. John Gofman’s work).
So, first, the medical industry causes heart disease with their technology (=the inconvenient fact they won’t tell you), then they claim the same technology is great at finding the disease it has created in the first place (=a whitewashed version of that they’re happy to tell you about).
But Gofman’s solid research data had been either quickly dismissed without real evidence to the contrary or it has been mostly ignored to this day by the conventional medical business as it threatens their huge business profits. When solid research data invalidates their lucrative interventions they ignore or swiftly dismiss it with bogus arguments, when sketchy unverified or misleading research data supports their lucrative interventions they’re quick to announce to the world and claim it has validity.
Over the last couple of years the huge medical business has been promoting the alleged value of their new highly lucrative screening technology, 3D mammography, but it’s almost all advertising claims made by this corrupt business based on industry-crafted “studies.”
Contrary to the official narrative (which is based on medical business-fabricated pro-mammogram “scientific” data), there is marginal, if any, reliable evidence that mammography, including 3D mammography, reduces mortality from breast cancer in a significant way in any age bracket but a lot of solid evidence shows the procedure does provide more serious harm than serious benefit (read: Peter Gotzsche’s ‘Mammography Screening: Truth, Lies and Controversy’ and Rolf Hefti’s ‘The Mammogram Myth’).
IF…….. women (and men) at large were to examine the mammogram data above and beyond the information of the mammogram business cartel (eg American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, Komen, orthodox medicine), they’d also find that it is almost exclusively the big profiteers of the test, ie. the “experts,” (eg radiologists, oncologists, medical trade associations, breast cancer “charities” etc) who promote the mass use of the test and that most pro-mammogram “research” is conducted by people with massive vested interests tied to the mammogram industry.
Since more and more people have recognized what a racket mammography is, the medical business is eager to find new ways to “prove” just how valuable mammograms really are. They do the same trick routinely with their pharma drugs once the patents run out to keep the cash cow running….