4 Heart Tests You May Not Need

4 Heart Tests You May Not Need
Before your next check up, learn which heart tests healthy people might not need.
Adapted from Reuters.com | By Frederik Joelving and Genevra Pittman from Reader'sDigest Magazine | June 2012
Screening tests play an important role in diagnosing heart problems in people who have certain symptoms or heart disease risk factors. But some commonly prescribed testsprobably don’t help people who are at low risk and who lack symptoms such as chest pain or shortness of breath. What’s more, they may lead to false positive results, which can trigger more invasivetests. The government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force advises against routine screening for heart disease for people at low risk (risk factors include family history, older age, high bloodpressure, obesity or diabetes, and smoking). Here, tests healthy people might second-guess.
1) ECG (EKG)
A readout of your heart’s electrical activity recorded by electrodes on the chest; costs about$50. An ECG (also called electrocardiogram) may help identify irregular heart rhythms, heart attacks, and other problems. No trials have looked at whether ECGs help detect the risk of disease in thosewithout symptoms.
Whom does it help? For those with an irregular heart rate, unexplained fainting, or risk factors like a family history of heart disease, an ECG can be helpful, says cardiologist SarahSamaan, MD, author of Best Practices for a Healthy Heart. The test is also used to screen athletes for risk of sudden death and for people with high blood pressure (to find signs of abnormalheart-muscle thickening).
2) ECHOCARDIOGRAM
A moving ultrasound of the heart, which can show how well it pumps blood and whether it has structural problems; costs between $200 and $500.
Whom does ithelp? An echo can help spot heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and murmurs, which are often caused by leaky or stiff valves. It can help people with high blood pressure because the test can find...