Optimal Medical Therapy Including Podiatric Care Improves Health
Over half the Medicare patients who have a procedure to open a blocked leg artery are dead within three years. At first glance, that seems odd, but it makes sense. Blocked leg arteries are especially common in patients who smoke or have diabetes. These people have a high risk for vascular events like heart attack, stroke, chronic kidney disease, and cancer. If they have a blocked leg artery, they have cholesterol deposits throughout their arteries that could rupture, cause a clot, and cause a heart attack or stroke. Researchers looked at almost 170,000 people who had a procedure to open a leg artery— 49% smoked, 51% had diabetes, 80% had high blood pressure, and 70% had high cholesterol. Those are the factors that blocked the arteries and created the dangerous cholesterol deposits.
Optimal medical therapy (OMT) achieves performance equal to the best groups using medications have a beneficial impact beyond their effect on the target risk factor. Eating real food, intermittent fasting, podiatric care, appropriate-protective shoes, and exercise are equally important. Reducing excess pressure on certain parts of the foot makes ulcers less likely. The worst direct complication of leg artery individuals on usual care have is leg amputation. Patients in usual care suffer three times as many amputations as patients on optimal medical treatment and they die eight years sooner. That is the direct result of focusing on blockages and failing to develop the systems to deliver optimal medical treatment consistently. OMT improves health at reduced cost.
Source: William H Bestermann Jr, MD [5/25/21] via Lawrence Rubin, DPM
