Why We Give: American Heart Association

Why We Give: American Heart Association By KSTP Why We Give: American Heart Association KSTP is excited to present our annual #whywegive initiative. KSTP supports a variety of charities throughout the year by running Public Service Announcements and airing the amazing stories demonstrating the impact that these organizations have in our community. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS supports the American Heart Association because it highlights research aimed at preventing heart attacks and reducing long-term heart risks. The American Heart Association has invested more than $5.7 billion in cardiovascular research. For anchor Kevin Doran, it’s personal. He suffered a heart attack in 2009 and manages his heart medication daily. He also sees a preventive cardiologist who evaluates risk and works with his primary care provider on medications, testing, diet and lifestyle. “Most of the medications for lowering blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, took decades of research,” Justin Bell, American Heart Association, Sr. VP of Health, said. AHA is shifting its strategy toward personalized, lifelong risk reduction. “We don’t want to wait until someone has a heart attack, has a stroke or gets sick,” Bell said. “We want to look at those risk factors that we can intervene earlier and avoid all those acute events entirely.” “It is a growing body of research shows every time we do a batch of research we show those risk factors affecting people at younger and younger ages,” Bell added. “We’re trying to intervene earlier.” New research shows women’s long-term risks can be reduced by tracking hormonal health from puberty to pregnancy, childbirth and menopause. “And by finding out how hormonal health affects women’s heart health, their mental health and their overall health, we can figure out at different stages of life how we can treat women better so there’s not long-term impacts on heart health,” Bell said. That’s why we give. What’s your cause?