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 (unnecessary (10, 11)) 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 high-sugar high-carbohydrate diet of refined processed food is a primary cause and risk factor for heart disease.
  
  Saturated fat does NOT cause heart disease. (9, 11, 12, 13, 14)
• Stress. Chronic stress from 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. (9, 17, 21, 22) 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.
• Vitamin D deficiency. (30)
• Atherosclerosis. This is a disease of the artery wall that leads to narrowing and obstruction of the artery, and loss of its elasticity.
• Poor or damaged gut biome, imbalance of microorganisms in the digestive tract.
• Gum diseases, dental plaque / tartar / calculus. Poor dental hygiene, often initiated by vitamin C deficiency. (16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
• High blood pressure (hypertension).
• Calcium deposits, hypercalcemia.
• Milk consumption is strongly correlated with CHD. High levels of calcium and lactose in bovine milk are probably responsible for this correlation. Cheese and fermented milk products are not strongly correlated, or negatively correlated with CHD. (28)
• 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, 29)
• Diabetes. Diabetics are 2-4 times more likely to die of heart disease. (3, 4)
• Chronic kidney disease.
• Copper deficiency. (27)
• Sliding hiatus hernia syndrome.
• Smoking and drinking a high level of alcohol.
• Family history of heart disease.
• Under-methylation, also known as histadelia.
• Arrhythmia.
• Iron excess. Iron tends to accumulate in the body as it is not excreted and very difficult to remove except through blood loss. Women lose iron in their blood during their monthly period, but men have no such outlet. Most adult men and post-menopausal women suffer from a toxic excess of iron. High levels of iron can cause mental problems including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, decreased insulin sensitivity, diabetes, heart disease and a wide range of degenerative diseases.

Prevention / remedies / treatment for heart disease

• Low carbohydrate diet. The old and incorrect way to manage cholesterol and heart disease was a low fat diet. Research now shows that eliminating sugar and having a low carbohydrate diet is significantly more effective. A low carb diet even applies to people with familial hypercholesterolaemia. (26)
• Exercise, the key to heart and cardiovascular health. (29)
• Vitamin D sufficiency. (30)
• Cayenne pepper.
• Probiotics for good gut biome and gut health.
• Taurine.
• Apple cider vinegar. (15)
• Vitamin B3 (niacin). Fish, beef, chicken, turkey and spirulina are the best food sources of niacin. In a more urgent situation, niacin can be purchased as a supplement, and may be useful at 500 mg per day in an extended-release form. Niacin is a powerful antioxidant which acts upon cholesterol, and in particular niacin decreases small, dense, oxidised forms of cholesterol. It provides cardiovascular protection by preventing white blood cells forming atherosclerotic accumulation. Niacin decreases triglyceride levels. It decreases vascular oxidation through its anti-inflammatory effects. Niacin decreases C-reactive protein, which is a strong predictor of heart attack, stroke and peripheral vascular disease. (21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
• Berberine.
• Gum turpentine.
• Diet that prevents atherosclerosis.
• Meditation.
• Methylene blue.
• 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.

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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.

10. Rafel Ramos, Marc Comas-Cufi, Ruth Marti-Lluch, Elisabeth Ballo, Anna Ponjoan, Lia Alves-Cabratosa, Jordi Blanch, Jaume Marrugat, Roberto Elosua, Maria Grau, Marc Elosua-Bayes, Luis Garcia-Ortiz, Maria Garcia-Gil. Statins for primary prevention of cardiovascular events and mortality in old and very old adults with and without type 2 diabetes: retrospective cohort study. BMJ 2018;362:k3359. Published 5 September 2018.

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14. Marinka Steur, Laura Johnson, Stephen J. Sharp, Fumiaki Imamura, Ivonne Sluijs, Timothy J. Key, Angela Wood, Rajiv Chowdhury, Marcela Guevara, Marianne U. Jakobsen et al. Dietary Fatty Acids, Macronutrient Substitutions, Food Sources and Incidence of Coronary Heart Disease: Findings From the EPIC-CVD Case-Cohort Study Across Nine European Countries. 19 November 2021. Journal of the American Heart Association. 2021;0:e019814.

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