Temptation obscures healthy heart choices

SAN FRANCISCO, March 6 (UPI) -- People, even heart doctors, have a tough time making the right health choices for the heart, U.S. cardiologists say.

Michigan cardiologist Dr. Barry Franklin, a respected nutrition and exercise expert and a prominent member of the American Heart Association, stopped to fill up his car at a gas station, and found himself buying Twinkies, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Pay at the pump, he advised.

During a break at a Heart Association conference in San Francisco this week, Franklin said the real lesson is that everyone is vulnerable to the environment, and making the right heart-healthy choices is tough, even for the experts, the Chronicle said.

Dr. Lawrence Appel, an epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and chairman of the Heart Association's Council of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism, said, "When you're dealing with a mass epidemic like obesity, you have to realize it's environmental. It's really easy to be inactive and it's really easy to eat the wrong food."

Doctors say drugs and technology will continue to be used in treating heart disease, but further progress will have to come from the patient.

"There isn't going to be one answer that's going to change the world," Appel said during the conference.