Coroner: DJ Kidd Kraddick died of heart disease | blog.heart.org

Nationally syndicated DJ David ?Kidd? Kraddick likely died from complications caused by one of the most common forms of?heart disease, according to a?preliminary coroner?s report?released Monday.

Granville Morse, the deputy coroner of Jefferson Parish in Louisiana,?told The Dallas Morning News?that Kraddick?s heart was enlarged and several arteries were blocked, causing his heart to fail.

Kraddick, 53, hosted the Dallas-based radio show called ?Kidd Kraddick in the Morning.??It aired on more than 75 stations across the country, and was broadcast on the television show ?Dish Nation.? He died Saturday in New Orleans while at a golf tournament for the charity he started,?Kidd?s Kids, which sends chronically and terminally ill children to Disney World.

Dr. Vincent Bufalino ? a former recipient of the national Physician of the Year award from the American Heart Association ? said the circumstances sound quite familiar. Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of Americans, and what Kraddick appears to have had occurs in about 350,000 of those roughly 1.5 million deaths annually.

The root of the problem is a buildup of ?plaque? in the arteries. That leaves less room for blood to get through.

?It?s basically like putting your finger over the end of a garden hose and blocking the flow,? said Bufalino, who is Senior Director of Cardiology at Advocate Healthcare. ?Eventually there?s not enough room for the blood to pump. Then the heart goes into a very fast heart beat ? so fast that it stops.?

Bufalino, who was commenting generally about heart disease and not about Kraddick?s case, ?stressed that there are several factors that can help identify who might be at risk.

?First, if you have a positive family history ? people under 60 who?ve had a bypass, a heart attack or keeled over suddenly ? then you?re at risk,? he said. ?Second is cigarette smoking. By itself, that doubles your risk. And diabetes is just as powerful. It will increase your risk several times. So if you?re a diabetic smoker with a family history, then you could really be in trouble.?

Having high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and being overweight or obese are also risk factors. (See graphic below.)

?The more of those you have, the more likely it is that you?ll develop blockages,? Bufalino said. ?The good side is that if we detect the blockages, then 90 to 95 percent of the time, we can treat them. We can prevent you from having an event. So if you have two or more of those risk factors ? regardless of which ones ? then you need to get screened.?

In addition to knowing the risks, Bufalino encourages people to know the warning signs, including shortness of breath and tightening in the chest.

?If you go up a flight of stairs and you?re panting at the top, that?s not normal, you should be evaluated,? he said. ?And if you have any type of burning or squeezing in your chest ? it doesn?t have to be the old ?elephant on my chest? feeling ? take it seriously. Don?t just assume it?s acid indigestion.?

As scary as all this may seem, there is also some encouraging news: Treatment has come a long way in just the 35 years that Bufalino has been practicing. That?s even more reason he hopes people learn to recognize their risks and symptoms, and act on them.

?When I was training in the late ?70s, if you got to the hospital with a heart attack, you?d spend three weeks there, then be disabled for six months or maybe the rest of your life ? and you had an 18 to 20 percent chance of dying while in the hospital,? he said. ?Flash forward to today. You can go from the emergency room to the catheterization lab and have a blockage opened in 90 minutes, spend three days in a hospital and be back at work in two weeks ? and we lose less than 2 percent of patients.

?Think about that: We went from 20 percent dying to 2 percent dying; that?s a 10-fold improvement in my generation. That shows you that if you suspect you have a heart problem, it?s not something you should sit at home waiting for it to get better.?

The American Heart Association offers many resources about heart disease:

Kraddick photo courtesy of 106.1 KISS FM.

Source: http://blog.heart.org/coroner-dj-kidd-kraddick-died-of-heart-disease/

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