You may have already heard the news that Tim Russert has died at the young age of 58; he died Friday morning while at work and was doing voiceovers at the time for Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press. Tim Russert’s death is a reminder of our vulnerability to cardiovascular disease and how we need to do a lot more for not only discovering cardiovascular disease early but also what we can do to help prevent it.

You can watch an NBC special news report below; the video below this post shows Tom Brokaw reporting the death of his friend Tim Russert. We have made many advances in understanding cardiovascular disease but WSJ reports that over 300,000 Americans die of sudden cardiac arrest every year outside the hospital, and Tim Russert was aware of his risk because he was under medication for asymptomatic coronary disease.

Russert was one-of-a-kind and has brought a great deal to this world, this week my neighbor also died and would you believe he was also 58. This is a wake up call to me as I am 30 years old and work in a chair everyday, I need to get out jogging and on our Nintendo Wii Fit a lot more. It’s very easy to put on the pounds and even more so for people like me that work sitting still.

Russert had an exercise stress test in April and he performed well on it, none of this prevented a cholesterol-laden plaque from rupturing and a resulting clot causing a cardiac arrest. This proves we need to be able to learn more ways to monitor health conditions and especially when they are under treatment.

What are your memories of Tim Russert?

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