"The leading cause of non-cancer death in cancer survivors is heart disease. The treatments for cancer may be increasing your probability of getting heart disease.."
Dr. Anju Nohria runs the Cardio-Oncology Program at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women's Hospital. She's one of the few doctors whose entire job is protecting cancer patients' hearts while they fight for their lives.
In this episode, she tells Joelle exactly what questions to ask your oncologist, what to watch for, and what you can actually do to protect your heart during and after treatment.
They dive deep into:
- Why heart damage from chemo is almost always silent, no symptoms, no warning, and why by the time you feel something, you've already missed the best window to act
- How to know whether your specific treatment is even risky for your heart, and what monitoring to ask for if it is, because one test does not fit all drugs
- A major study showed that colon cancer survivors who did structured exercise after finishing treatment, not gym workouts, just regular walking, had lower rates of cancer coming back and lived longer at eight years of follow-up
- What happens to your heart when cancer treatment forces you into early menopause overnight, and why your regular OB or endocrinologist may not be the right person to manage it
- Why stopping your blood pressure or cholesterol medication during chemo is one of the most common and most harmful things patients do without realizing it
- The one number Dr. Nohria says every cancer patient should track at home, and exactly what to do if it's too high
- How newer immunotherapy treatments may be creating a long-term heart risk that nobody fully understands yet, and what researchers are trying to figure out right now
You fought hard to get through treatment. This episode is about making sure your heart is there for everything that comes next.
Get more stories, strategies, and science at www.kcapodcast.com
