Coronary heart disease
What is heart disease?
Incidence of heart disease
Why is heart disease so common?
Angina
Heart attack
Heart arrhythmia
Causes of heart disease and risk factors
Prevention / remedies / treatment for heart disease
References
What is heart disease?
Heart disease (coronary heart disease, CHD) is the broad name given to a number of different diseases affecting the heart. They include heart attack, angina, arrhythmia (abnormal heartbeat), heart palpitation, high blood pressure and other heart problems.
Cardiovascular diseases are those diseases that also involve the blood vessels (arteries, capillaries and veins), in addition to the heart.
Incidence of heart disease
Heart disease is the number one killer in the developed Western world, with more than a quarter of all people dying from it. Up until the late 90's the rate was increasing, but in the USA (and most other Western countries), heart disease rates remained stable between 1999-2009. (1) Australian deaths from heart disease have decreased over the past decade, accounting for 15% of all deaths in 2010, compared with 20% in 2001, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. 1.4m Australians are diagnosed with CHD, which severely affects their quality of life.
Why is heart disease so common?
In the early 20th century, around 1900, coronary heart disease was so rare that it was not even described in medical text books. The few cases that occurred were a medical rarity, and most doctors had never observed a single case in their whole career.
You would think that when an uncommon ailment turns into the leading cause of death, it would be easy to spot the cause. Well it is, but not for the average person. Many vested interests deliberately put out deceptive information to keep things just the way they are. The food industries want you to believe that a low-cholesterol, low-fat diet based on grains and polyunsaturated vegetable oils will protect you from CHD. The pharmaceutical drug companies want you to buy statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs for the rest of your life. Powerful decision makers in the medical associations, the giant food industries, the pharmaceutical companies, and especially in their regulatory bodies have strong financial incentives to hide the simple causes of heart and vascular disease.
Angina
Angina pectoris. Angina occurs when a heart artery is narrowed, but not completely closed. Physical activity causes chest and other pains that stop when the person rests.
Heart attack
Heart attack (myocardial infarction). A heart attack occurs when a heart artery is completely blocked and the supply of blood to a heart muscle stops. This causes the death of that part of the heart fed by that particular artery.
A heart attack is a medical emergency. In the first 2-3 hours it kills about half of those who have one.
A heart attack can occur in a person who has never had heart symptoms, or in a person who has suffered from angina for years. Symptoms usually include severe chest pain, nausea, cold sweat, fear and shock. Those who survive are left with a scar in the heart muscle that weakens the heart, and may lead to arrhythmia (abnormal heartbeat) and other complications.
Heart arrhythmia
Arrhythmia (cardiac dysrhythmia, irregular heartbeat, fibrillation) is when the heart beats too fast, too slow, or in an irregular or erratic manner.
Causes of heart disease and risk factors
- *** Diet. The standard American diet / modern Western diet of refined processed food is the second primary cause and risk factor for heart disease.
Saturated fat does NOT cause heart disease. (9) - *** Stress. The worst causes of chronic stress are circumstances such as heavy workloads, job insecurity and living in relative poverty. These types of stresses can lead to a variety of chronic psychological disorders including as depression, according to a study published in 2017 (8).
The amygdala is part of the automatic stress response "fight or flight" system in the brain, along with the "reptilian" brain and the limbic system. Developed over millions of years, these stress responses are primitive reactions associated with animal-like survival instincts. They are not under the conscious control of the neocortex, the more recently developed outer regions of the human brain. The neocortex provides a degree of control and allows us to make conscious choices, but the stress responses such as fear and anger caused by the "old brain" are out of our control.
The study (8) found that heightened activity in the amygdala signals to the bone marrow to produce extra white blood cells, which in turn act on the arteries causing them to become inflamed (atherosclerosis). This can then cause heart attacks, angina and strokes.
Subjects in the study who reported the highest levels of stress and an anxious and aggressive personality had the highest levels of amygdala activity and evidence of more inflammation in their blood and arteries. The level of stress in the amygdala appears to be a good predictor of cardiovascular events such as heart attack, angina and stroke.
Inflammation is strongly associated with heart disease. However, it is not a cause of coronary heart disease, rather it is a symptom. Inflammation does not just occur for no reason. Inflammation is a healing process, and can have a number of different root causes. - Atherosclerosis. This is a disease of the artery wall that leads to narrowing and obstruction of the artery, and loss of its elasticity.
- High blood pressure (hypertension).
- Obesity.
- Air pollution. Short term fluctuations in particulate air pollution can act as a trigger for heart attack and stroke. (6,7) Over a longer period, particulate air pollution raises the risk of heart disease, stroke, depression, Alzheimer's and many other diseases, and is associated with increased mortality (including suicide).
- Gender. Men are at greater risk of heart disease than pre-menopausal women. Post-menopausal women face the same risk as men.
- Age. About 87 percent of people who die of coronary heart disease are aged 60 or above. (2)
- Inactivity or lack of exercise. (5)
- Diabetes. Diabetics are 2-4 times more likely to die of heart disease. (3,4)
- Chronic kidney disease.
- Sliding hiatus hernia syndrome.
- Smoking and drinking a high level of alcohol.
- Family history of heart disease.
- Arrhythmia.
Prevention / remedies / treatment for heart disease
- Cayenne pepper.
- Gum turpentine.
- Diet that prevents atherosclerosis.
- Exercise.
- Meditation.
- Earthing or grounding.
- People who live by the diet and lifestyle in Grow Youthful are unlikely to develop heart disease.
- See details of remedies recommended by Grow Youthful visitors, and their experience with them.
References
1. Health, United States, 2010.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
2. Understand Your Risk of Heart Attack.
American Heart Association, online. Retrieved 18 January 2013.
3. Kvan E., Pettersen K.I., Sandvik L., Reikvam A.
High mortality in diabetic patient with acute myocardial infarction: cardiovascular co-morbidities contribute most to the high risk.
2007, Int J Cardiol 121: 184-188.
4. Norhammar A., Malmberg K., Diderhol E., Lagerqvist B., Lindahl B., Ryde et al.
Diabetes mellitus: the major risk factor in unstable coronary artery disease even after consideration of the extent of coronary artery disease and benefits of revascularization.
2004, J. Am Coll Cardiol 43: 585-591.
5. Mischel NA, Llewellyn-Smith IJ, Mueller PJ.
Physical (in)activity-dependent structural plasticity in bulbospinal catecholaminergic neurons of rat rostral ventrolateral medulla.
J Comp Neurol. 2014 Feb 15;522(3):499-513. doi: 10.1002/cne.23464.
6. Anoop S V Shah, Kuan Ken Lee, David A McAllister, Amanda Hunter, Harish Nair, William Whiteley, Jeremy P Langrish, David E Newby, Nicholas L Mills.
Short term exposure to air pollution and stroke: systematic review and meta-analysis.
BMJ 2015;350:h1295, Published 24 March 2015.
7. Melinda C Power, Marianthi-Anna Kioumourtzoglou, Jaime E Hart, Olivia I Okereke, Francine Laden, Marc G Weisskopf.
The relation between past exposure to fine particulate air pollution and prevalent anxiety: observational cohort study.
BMJ 2015;350:h1111, Published 24 March 2015.
8. Ahmed Tawako, Amorina Ishai, Richard AP Takx, Amparo L Figueroa, Abdelrahman Ali, Yannick Kaiser, Quynh A Truong, Chloe JE Solomon, Claudia Calcagno, Venkatesh Mani, Cheuk Y Tang, Willem JM Mulder, James W Murrough, Udo Hoffmann, Matthias Nahrendorf, Lisa M Shin, Zahi A Fayad, Roger K Pitman.
Relation between resting amygdalar activity and cardiovascular events: a longitudinal and cohort study.
The Lancet. Published online 11 January 2017.
9. Aseem Malhotra, Rita F Redberg, Pascal Meier.
Saturated fat does not clog the arteries: coronary heart disease is a chronic inflammatory condition, the risk of which can be effectively reduced from healthy lifestyle interventions.
Br J Sports Med Published Online First: 25 April 2017. doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2016-097285.