Cardiologists in France
The hearth is a big deal. Whenever you have to choose between lifting weights (yes, because both men and women can lift weights), and doing cardio, most physicians, medical doctors, and cardiologists would recommend you to do a cardio session. And what is cardio? Well, cardio is what is called aerobic exercise, in which you depend on your stamina and expose your body to a continuous session which can extend for even more than 30 minutes, although it is not that demanding as the anaerobic exercise in most of the cases. Types of cardio exercises include jogging, running, cycling, swimming, jumping rope, among others.
The reason why cardio is so important is that it benefits your cardiovascular (or circulatory) system, the one concerned with the flow of blood and certain nutrients to every organ and tissue inside your body. The main engine of this system? Your precious heart.
Your heart is the main responsible for pumping blood and ensuring a regular blood supply for all your organs. It works alongside two other important organs you use every day—probably without noticing it—: your lungs. In this way, your heart is able to not only send blood to your entire body but also blood carrying oxygen to regulate and maintain the correct functioning of all your systems.
And, of course, every muscle, organ, system, and sometimes cell, have its own branch of medicine which takes care of it. In this case, a cardiologist is a gatekeeper to the proper functioning of the heart, as well as the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
This medical specialty is also related to blood vessels, and cardiologists can specialize even more in specific areas of their field. For example, some of them include cardiac electrophysiology, that deals with the correct functioning of the electric movements within the heart; cardiogeriatrics, concerned with disorders in old people; pediatric cardiology, which trains cardiologists to deal with children; among others.
Cardiology is said to have been “created” in 1628 when William Harvey published his works on the functioning of the heart and its surrounding circulation. After that, years passed and new inventions appeared in the field. One of them, of great importance, was the stethoscope, invented by the French physician René Laënnec in 1819, which is a necessary medical instrument to hear the general sounds produced by the body, but especially the heart. It helps to listen to sounds of high frequency produced inside the body.
Other famous French cardiologists that may stand out include: Laurence Auzière-Jourdan, who campaigned for Macron in 2017 as is actually her step-daughter (despite having the same age as the current French president); Olivier Ameisen, who wrote the best-selling book “Le Dernier Verre” (“The End Of My Addiction” in its English title), where he mentions how he overcame his addiction to alcohol in general by ingesting certain doses of a powerful drug; Francis Fontan, who was a cardiac surgeon and a pioneer in his area, who created the Fontan-Kreutzer procedure, helpful in surgery to treat congenital heart defect; and Charles Laubry, who founded la Société Française de Cardiologie (the French Society of Cardiology), and who proved the relationship between blood pressure in cardiovascular disease in his studies.
It is worth mentioning, though, that a cardiologist is different from a hematologist since cardiologists do not specialize in studying blood in itself, while this is the main concern of a hematologist. They treat hematological diseases and usually spend their time analyzing peripheral blood smear, as well as bone marrow. These hematologists can continue specializing within their field to treat with more effectiveness diseases like hemophilia, lymphoma, and leukemia, or to perform blood transfusions, hematopoietic stem cell transplantations, etc.
According to Christian Nordqvist at Medical News Today, one should visit the cardiologist if some symptoms are present. Some of them are high blood pressure, dizziness, shortness of breath, chest pains, etc. Based on this, a cardiologist will decide on how to proceed afterward: maybe a heart surgery is necessary, an angioplasty, or even stenting.
In fact, cardiologists tend to treat and diagnose common cardiovascular diseases or problems such as arrhythmias, coronary heart disease, congenital heart disease, hypertension, high blood cholesterol, atrial fibrillation, among others. However, and even without the presence of common symptoms, going to a cardiologist can be very beneficial. For example, taking into account your own family history regarding heart issues may help to predict the possibility of the appearance of cardiovascular disease. In this way, a proper prevention plan can be implemented to help you fight these potential problems.
After looking at an interesting dataset provided in the Statista platform, one can see the clear patterns regarding physicians or internists turning into cardiologists after a long period of study and learning.
L’Île-de-France, a French region located at the north center, with its capital being the famous and lovely Paris (hence its name “region parisienne”), is the region that highlights the most, with 1401 physicians specializing in cardiology in a year. Then, the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in southeastern France stands out, with 668 physicians specializing in cardiology. After that, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur in southeastern France as well (famous for containing the city of Arles, where the post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh painted and lived), has 625 internists turning into cardiologists. Those are the three most important regions according to this index, although the list is longer.
Now, going back to the physical exercise topic, in France, there are some obstacles preventing the French to access the full benefits of cardiovascular exercise. As the opinion columnist Lionel Laurent puts it in this Reuters article about “Gym culture not working out for the French”, “The French may love to look good but few are willing to work up a sweat over it.” The main reason behind these cold feelings towards gym culture, in general, may be caused by the benevolent health care system present in France. This means that people are aware they could go to the doctor at any time and thus are not incentivized to put the extra effort to maintain the healthy lifestyle they should have.
This is when more clichés and prejudices emerge or may appear in your mind while reading this. French people are depicted as these relaxed guys sitting at a cafeteria and smoking lots of cigarettes (which is definitely not healthy for your body in the long run), with an accordion being played in the background.
Well, truth is that sometimes certain clichés carry some sort of truth in them.
Alongside its helpful health care, the French do not have the possibility of participating in high-quality clubs due to its high costs. However, a positive thing that should be noted is that the French tend to prefer doing outdoor exercise and sports, which may act as a tradeoff with the lack of club and gym attendance. As Lionel Laurent mentions, “Football, tennis and cycling, those are the top three activities of the French”.
Another important thing to take into account apart from doing regular exercise or workout is having a healthy diet.
French people are the thinnest among all developed countries. Elisabeth Rosenthal mentions in the New York Times something very interesting related to this: “Some anthropologists theorized that the French were thin because France had never experienced prolonged famine, and so there was little genetic pressure for having a bit of extra fat.”
Despite this, rates of obesity are on the rise in France, and it has been worrying authorities—and cardiologists as well—, because of the well-known relationship between an unhealthy diet and the appearance of coronary heart disease. Not only obesity, but also high blood pressure, and eating food high in saturated fats can influence the emergence of heart disease.
It is hard, though, to promote a healthy diet among citizens, because we humans always turn our eyes towards high-calorie foods. This includes foods full of sugar or unhealthy fats (think about burgers, cakes, pizzas, hot dogs, etc.), or just junk food. The reason behind this is addiction (to some ingredients included in this foods), that makes us crave this unhealthy food next time we’re hungry and we come across any of them; and also the survival instinct pushing us to eat high-calorie foods just for the sake of survival.
Now, there’s an amusing and intriguing idea among the French people. There’s this concept called “French Paradox” that references the fact that French people have a very low incidence of coronary or ischemic heart disease, despite having a diet high in saturated fats.
According to this interesting idea, there would be no causality between saturated fats and coronary heart disease. In any case, it is said that some variables like the French diet or their general lifestyles are not taken into account and could actually influence the emergence of coronary heart disease or not. This has attracted a lot of attention from both the scientific community and the media.
Part of this diet containing lots of saturated fat foods includes the popular Brie de Meaux, which is a French cow’s cheese from the Brie Region, specifically from the Meaux town.
Since most people couldn’t understand this, in 1991, the cardiologist Michel de Lorgeril partnered with other scientists to extend Serge Renaud’s studies on the matter. The conclusion? That a diet based on the Mediterranean cuisine that has lots of omega-3 oils, and antioxidants, alongside with small amounts of red wine, caused lower cases of cancer and other cardiovascular diseases.
And that’s another strange thing with the French cuisine that cardiologists may not comprehend at all: French wine and its consumption by the French people. The wine produced in France is popular all around the world for its quality. So much so, that the renowned Champagne, the true one, is produced in the Champagne region of France, and some countries have already applied sanctions to deter producers from labeling their generic sparkling wine under the name “Champagne”.
Drinking small amounts of alcohol can actually be beneficial according to the scientific community, but, bigger amounts? Not so much. While drinking small amounts of alcohol is related to a lower risk of developing heart disease, the regular consumption of bigger amounts can indeed increase your blood pressure and influence the development of more heart diseases.
In this sense, it is important that cardiologists in France make use of the universality and affordability of the health care system to raise awareness among the French about the dangers of chronic alcohol consumption. We all know the French are wine lovers, and this can definitely paint a bad landscape instead of a lovely one in the long-run.
Finally, as William L. Winters mentions in this Encyclopædia Britannica article, “it is expected that discoveries in genetics and molecular biology will further aid cardiologists in their understanding of cardiovascular disease.” And not only this; lately, medical doctors and especially cardiologists, have been putting forward this idea of robot hearts. Already, it is possible to grow organs, tissues, among others, in a bioreactor; but, manufacturing these robot hearts with the help of improvements in 3D printing is presenting a new frontier of possibilities for future victims of any heart issue.
We’re seeing an enormous rate of change regarding ideas and technological progress in the last decades. As the 2018 Nobel Prize Winner in Economic Sciences, this is just the result of more and more people actively engaging in this process of discovery. By getting more physicians interested in the cardiology field, and later on, incentivizing them to further continue their studies in specific sub-fields, this progress can be even faster and start alleviating the suffering and problems a lot of people still have in the world.
In accordance with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3: Global Health and Well-being, France has already achieved a universal health coverage, but there’s still a need there, and in the entire world, of “Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol”, as the UN puts it in its website. In this sense, the European Society of Cardiology, with headquarters in the South of France (specifically Sophia Antipolis), can continue raising awareness through its popular annual congresses.