Cardiologist Not Surprised By Kidd Kraddick’s Death

Kidd Kraddick July 27, 2013

Among those saddened by the death of Kidd Kraddick is Dr. Jeffrey Schussler, an interventional cardiologist at Baylor Heart and Vascular Hospitalat Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas and professor of medicine at Texas A & M, who grew up listening to him.

However, Schussler was not surprised upon learning that Kraddick had been a chain smoker.

“Smoking is the No. 1 risk factor for heart disease,” Schussler yold the Dallas Morning News, noting on Saturday, the same day Kraddick died, he saved a 45-year-old heart attack patient who smoked.

“Smoking puts you at a greater risk for heart disease than it does for cancer. Usually when someone that young, in his 40s or 50s, has a heart attack, it’s because of smoking.”

According to the Jefferson Parrish Coroner,  Kraddick’s heart was enlarged with three diseased vessels, one of which was 80 percent blocked.

The toxins in cigarettes lead to an aggressive build-up of the kind of plaque that Kraddick suffered from and make that plaque more likely to rupture, Schussler says.

One of the reasons many people did not realize Kraddick was a smoker is that he asked photographers not to take a picture of him with a cigarette out of concern that it would set a bad example for kids who were among his biggest fans.

Kraddick showed his love for kids through his foundation, Kidd’s Kids, which relied on devoted listeners of his Kidd Kraddick In The Morning radio show, corporate sponsors and fundraising events to provide chronically ill and physically challenged kids ages 5 to 12 an all-expense paid, fun-filled vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida.

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