Heart attacks and strokes are the most obvious consequence of damaged arteries and
increased clotting of blood. The main event of a heart attack is the occlusion by a sudden
blood clot of one or more blood vessels supplying the heart muscle. When blood flow is
critically short, muscle cells die. This is called a myocardial infarct and the
clotting event a thrombosis. Thrombosis occurs in arteries narrowed by fatty
lesions in the arterial walls, a process known as atherosclerosis.
Stephen Gislason MD
Aging men and women are having more
heart attacks and strokes.
Cardiovascular deaths are rising for the first time since 1980. In the USA alone 1.5
million people have heart attacks every year at a cost of $51.6 billion (1993 data). The American
Heart Association's Heart & Stroke Facts reports cardiovascular diseases killed
954,138 in the US in 1993. Stroke deaths rose to 150,000. And the number of
people treated in the hospital for cardiovascular diseases rose to 5.7 million. One
explanation is that the population at risk is becoming more sedentary with an increase in
obesity. Their food supply is clearly suspect and it is not just the fat in the diet.
These arterial problems with different and complex origins link to the diets and lifestyle
popular in Europe and North America and occur less often among physically active,
vegetable-eating populations who seldom eat dairy products, meat, and other
high-protein, high-fat foods. Bike games online, dirt bikes games for free.
Well-known risk factors are family history, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes,
excess body fat, and physical inactivity. The risk of heart attacks positively correlates
with higher blood levels of cholesterol; the risk of strokes does not. Smoking and
diabetes are the greatest risk factors - a smoking, overweight diabetic over the age of 50
is a walking time bomb.
Until recently studies of coronary artery disease focused on men and excluded women.
The impression that heart attacks remain a men's problem is misleading. Women are
protected against heart attacks by estrogen until the menopause and then rapidly catch up
with men. The lifetime probability of a women in the US and Canada dying of a heart attack
is 10 times greater than dying of breast cancer. When women do have heart attacks, their
risk of dying is higher than men - 11.3% Vs 5.5%. Prevention in women is highly desirable
and consists of of diet revision, vitamin supplements and exercise. Increased
vitamin E , folic
acid and pyridoxine intake is recommended. Estrogen replacement
therapy in postmenopausal women is may protect against this disease, but
early data has not supported this hypothesis. security officer nj
Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is often referred to as "hardening of the arteries".
This is actually a complex disease which involves tumor-like growths in the wall of
arteries. These tumors accumulate high-cholesterol fat and grow to obstruct blood flow
through the artery. As the fatty tumors age and grow, they become scarred and often
calcified. Restricted blood flow to any organ reduces its ability to function and
obstruction leads to death of tissue. Sudden obstruction of a narrowed blood vessel is
caused by a clot forming in a narrowed region of the vessel (thrombosis). The rupture of soft fatty plaques can cause thrombosis
even when the artery is not narrowed and looks normal on angiography. If the
tissue is vital, such as heart or brain, arterial obstruction may be lethal or, at best,
disabling.
Serum cholesterol is a predictor of coronary heart disease (but not strokes), and
current recommendations set target goals of less than 200 mg % for blood levels. So called
"normal levels" range from 180-300 mg%, depending on age and sex. Strict
vegetarians may have serum cholesterol levels of less than 100 mg %, considerably less
than their lactocarnivorous peer group. Half of the population with high cholesterol will
have heart attacks, the other half will not. The finding of elevated cholesterol by itself
is, therefore, ambiguous and is not a sufficient reason to start treatment with
medications. Other risk factors must be considered.
Current recommendations for fat intake are shrinking progressively from 35% of total
calories to 20%. Typical American diets contain as much as 37% fat, an extravagant
surplus. A total of 15-25 grams of fat per day supplies our needs. The minimum
requirements are 1-2% of total calories for adults and 3% for infants. If you have normal
cholesterol levels, your level of fat intake should be less than 20% of daily calories
with 70% fat as vegetable oil.
The fat intake goal of the Alpha Nutrition
Program is 14% fat intake.
If you have elevated cholesterol and/or triglyceride levels, your total fat intake should
be less than 10% of total daily calories.
The Alpha Nutrition Program
achieves high fiber intake by increasing the intake of
vegetables and fruit. We have no difficulty in recommending aggressive diet revision,
sufficient to remedy an existing problem and vigorous enough to prevent vascular
disasters. Imagine that you live in a little cottage by the sea, think quiet thoughts,
walk everywhere, tend your organic vegetable garden, cultivate fruit trees (never
sprayed), and go fishing once or twice per week. Now you have a perfect setting and a
perfect diet for enduring good health.
Population studies in Europe have shown benefits of the "Mediterranean Diet"
- most of the credit went to vegetable intake and olive oil. Several studies purport to
show benefit from drinking modest amounts of red wine. The benefit is also available in
purple grape juice. The alcohol part of the wine appears not to be beneficial; however
there is now a general misconception that "moderate alcohol intake is
cardioprotective". A French Study presented at the 1998 Congress of the
European Society of Cardiology has shown that wine can be harmful to patients with
established CAD. Alcohol intake increased blood pressure and blood fats; the negative
effective was greater on a "Western" diet as opposed to a Mediterranean
diet.
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