Kile's death sounds heart disease alarm

ST. LOUIS -- Just 30, Scott Givens doesn't drink, smoke or have diabetes -- the traditional kinds of things that raise the risk of developing heart disease.

But with many other Missourians, the Cape Girardeau fitness trainer has been assessing his own mortality since St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile, just 33 and seemingly healthy as an ox, last weekend went to bed, apparently had a heart attack and never woke up.

"I've got a wife and two kids, and that hits home really quick," said Givens, a wellness specialist for Cape Girardeau's Southeast Missouri Hospital. "Hopefully, this will be more of an eye-opener for people to take care of themselves a little."

Just days after Kile's stunning death Saturday in a Chicago hotel room, there's evidence that many -- at least for now -- are heeding it as a wake-up call about cardiovascular health.

Since Kile died, traffic to St. Louis University's medical hot line has spiked tenfold, with callers often asking about heart disease or requesting screenings, said Dr. D. Douglas Miller, an internal-medicine professor at the university's medical school.

Those calling most: men in their 40s.

"It's the same theme: How do I know I have heart blockage, and what should I do?" Miller said.

To him, the hotline's popularity is an acute reaction to "when an otherwise healthy person in peak condition and the prime of their life dies from a theoretically treatable and preventable condition."

"If this is a positive outcome of this tragedy, I guess it could be considered a plus."

Ditto, says Debbie Leoni from the Main Street Fitness Center she manages in Jackson, Mo.

On Wednesday alone, she said, about 20 people -- five times the typical number -- swamped the Southeast Missouri Hospital site during the two hours it offered cholesterol screenings.

The rush awed her, though Leoni couldn't explain it until a visitor alluded to Kile's death as the reason she came, along with the others who largely were in their 50s or 60s.

Addressing concerns

In Joplin in southwest Missouri, interventional cardiologist Dr. James Hoff estimates that calls to his office have increased 20 percent since Kile's death. Patients who once passed off chest discomfort as heartburn now want their heart checked, the St. John's Regional Medical Center doctor said.

"Any time you get that big news like Kile's death, those are appropriate reactions people have," he said.

"I think it's a good thing, and I take their concerns a lot more seriously and cautiously now."

New findings Wednesday showed that heart disease remained Missouri's largest killer last year, claiming more than 16,000 lives -- a 5.4 percent drop. State officials attributed the decrease to improved medical care after heart attacks, reduction in repeat heart attacks, better prevention of heart disease development and increased use of a new class of cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Missouri's heart disease death rate has fallen 15 percent since 1991, by 23 percent since 1980.

An autopsy showed that Kile had 80 percent to 90 percent narrowing of two of three main arteries to his heart, as well as an abnormally enlarged heart. Kile's father died from cardiovascular disease in his 40s.

While such extensive blockage in someone so young is unusual, the disease process leading to it -- atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries -- is common and can begin as early as childhood, said Dr. Robert Bonow, the American Heart Association's president and a Northwestern University cardiologist.

With or without symptoms, patients with a strong family history should get rigorous routine checkups including tests such as cholesterol screenings, blood work-ups, exercise stress tests or heart imaging tests, which some say probably would have detected Kile's narrowed arteries.

Regardless, Kile's death so young has made even folks in the medical field introspective.

"I think it makes all of us think," said Miller, the 47-year-old St. Louis doctor. "I think everybody's sobered by the whole thing. Fundamentally, this causes everyone as a group to reevaluate risks."