This TED Talk features cardiovascular biology researcher Chuck Murray, recorded live at TEDx, Seattle, 2018.

I'd like to tell you about a patient named Donna.

In this photograph, Donna was in her mid-70s, a vigorous healthy woman, the matriarch of a large clan.

She had a family history of heart disease, however,

and one day she had the sudden onset of crushing chest pain.

Now, unfortunately, rather than seeking medical attention,

Donna took to her bed for about 12 hours until the pain passed.

The next time she went to see her physician,

he performed an electrocardiogram,

and this showed that she'd had a large heart attack, or a mycardial infarction in medical parlance.

After this heart attack, Donna was never quite the same. Her energy levels progressively waned. She couldn't do a lot of the physical activities she'd previously enjoyed.

Got to the point where she couldn't keep up with her grandkids, and it was even too much work to go out to the end of the driveway

to pick up the mail.

One day her granddaughter came by to walk the dog,

and she found her grandmother dead in the chair.

Doctor said it was a cardiac arrhythmia that was secondary to heart failure.

But the last thing that I should tell you is that Donna was not just an ordinary patient.

Donna was my mother.

Stories like ours are unfortunately far too common.

Heart disease is the number one killer in the entire world.

In the United States, it's the most common reason that patients are admitted to the hospital,

and that's our number one health care expense.

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