The Biggest Culprit in the Heart Disease Pandemic – 4 Ways to Avoid It

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The Biggest Culprit in the Heart Disease Pandemic – 4 Ways to Avoid

It

 

By Shane Ellison, M.Sc.

www.healthmyths.net © 2006

 

Dedicated to my friend Frank Dannenberg

 

One minute you are enjoying a stroll in the park and the next you

feel as if an elephant just stepped on you. Clutching your chest

and violently gasping for air, you suffer the eventual outcome of

heart disease: a heart attack. This year alone, this silent killer

will catch up to over a million Americans. Each and every one of

them will die prematurely from this unfortunate scenario.

Worldwide, it will kill more people than any other affliction. This

can be stopped.

 

The underlying cause of a heart attack is narrowing of the

arteries. The process is known medically as atherosclerosis.

Beating a dead horse, cardiologists confidently describe

atherosclerosis as a plumbing problem: Fat and cholesterol-laden

gunk gradually builds up within the arteries. If this build-up

(plaque) grows thick enough, it eventually plugs an

affected " pipe. " This prevents nutrients and oxygen-rich blood from

reaching its intended tissue (technically known as ischemia). Blood-

starved tissue dies. When a part of the cardiac muscle or the brain

is affected, a heart attack or stroke occurs.

 

In 2004, Time magazine told the world that there's just one problem

with the cholesterol hypothesis: " sometimes it's dead wrong. " More

than half of the people who suffer from heart attacks have " low

cholesterol. " And " high " cholesterol (300-350mg/dL) is a natural

and healthy part of aging. The higher total blood cholesterol the

longer people live. Targeting this natural phenomenon, drug

companies have convinced people otherwise – while profiting

immensely.

 

If fat and cholesterol were the culprit in heart disease due to

their ability to " plug the pipes, " then these ubiquitous substances

would clog the entire 100,000 miles of adult veins, arteries and

capillaries. Instead, 90% of the time, heart disease is caused by

the narrowing of the spaghetti-sized coronary arteries – those that

rest over the heart. The rest of the cardiovascular system that

nourishes the body remains perfectly healthy despite being rich in

cholesterol and fat. This common sense observation renders the

cholesterol and fat theory of heart disease obsolete. If you want

to avoid feeling like an elephant is crushing your chest, look

beyond cholesterol.

 

Coronary arteries bear little resemblance to pipes. Instead, they

are made up of muscle sandwiched between two " structural " layers.

When the muscle of arteries becomes inflamed " atherosclerosis " or

heart disease can set in. This is initiated by damage to the

innermost structural layer that faces the bloodstream. Science has

made great strides in identifying what causes damage to this layer.

 

Aside from smoking, the biggest culprit in today's heart attack

pandemic is high blood sugar. It leads to a condition known as

insulin resistance or early Type-II diabetes. Suicide in slow

motion, insulin resistance causes blood sugar to float in the blood

longer than it should. Muscle no longer vacuums it from the

bloodstream. Over time, blood sugar reacts with amino acids

floating nearby. The product of this reaction is a Swiss Army knife

termed advance glycated end (AGE) product.

 

AGE products cut and stab deep into structural layers of coronary

arteries. Medically, this is termed glycation. The slicing and

dicing explains why diabetics have four times the risk of heart

attack relative to non-diabetics. Overcome with high blood sugar,

they face the butchering process of AGE products.

 

Coronary arteries are most susceptible to AGE products due to the

mechanical stress in the region (heart beat). As the heart beats,

the structural layer, being made up of collagen and elastin, becomes

sensitive to them. Arteries not subject to mechanical stress do not

expose the structural layer as readily. Therefore, they are not as

sensitive to the butchering.

 

Damage caused by AGE products leads to " crosslinking. " Once

crosslinking occurs, supple, healthy, coronary arteries become

rigid – the same thing can happen to skin. This is where the name

atherosclerosis was derived. The term combines two Greek words,

athere (porridge) and sclerosis (hardening).

 

Crosslinking causes the body's natural repair mechanism to take

over. The inflammation cascade begins. This is an age-old

immunological defense mechanism. Among the smooth muscle of

coronary arteries, inflammation acts as nature's band aid. Plaque

can be the end result.

 

Inflammation and plaque causes the cavity that allows blood flow

through the arteries to become narrow – occlusion occurs. The whole

process of glycation, crosslinking and inflammation can begin as

early as three years of age!

 

Fortunately, narrowing of coronary arteries is not a death

sentence. Arteries do not become swollen so much that it shrinks

the bloodstream to a pinpoint. And healthy arteries have the

ability to accommodate for the inflammation by " relaxing " or

dilating. This ensures that blood flow continues without

interruption – and that heart disease goes unnoticed.

 

This protection of dilation is primarily dependent on the short-

lived molecule known as nitric oxide. Without it, excessive

narrowing of arteries can manifest into hypertension, poor

circulation, erectile dysfunction and decreased tolerance to

exercise.

 

Nutritional approaches such as l-arginine and grape seed extract

that maximize nitric oxide have proven to be a bonanza for heart

disease patients who want to curb their annoying symptoms of heart

disease naturally.

 

Most heart attacks and strokes creep up on victims when inflammation

goes haywire. This is typical among Americans because inflammation-

causing sugar has become a dominant ingredient in their food.

Consequently, what should be temporary for healing becomes long-term

and deadly. The overly aggressive inflammation cascade causes

plaque (nature's band aid) to rupture. This rupturing triggers the

emergence of a blood clot (thrombus).

 

The combination of narrow arteries and a blood clot causes a

person's fate to become sealed, along with their coronary arteries.

This prevents blood from reaching downstream to the heart and/or

brain. The condition is known as " ischemia. " Deprived of blood and

oxygen, a heart attack or stroke is the outcome. The elephant is

standing on its victim.

 

In summary, heart disease is not a disease of clogged pipes due to

cholesterol and fat. It is a disease of glycation, crosslinking,

inflammation and more inflammation. The inflammation occurs within –

not on – arterial walls. Today, it is typically the result of high

blood sugar.

 

Understanding this working model of heart disease has highlighted a

wildly effective way to prevent the pandemic killer: Control blood

sugar. Aside from cinnamon, proper sunshine and green tea, other

methods of controlling blood sugar have been discovered:

 

1. Interval training can lower blood sugar by up to 40%. To put

it into perspective, the commonly prescribed Metformin does so by a

paltry 19% while putting users at risk of obesity, if they can

tolerate the constant vomiting and diarrhea!

 

2. Nutritional supplementation with magnesium (400 mg/day) was found

to improve high blood sugar among elderly individuals. Research

shows that a magnesium deficiency inhibits insulin from escorting

glucose out of the bloodstream into muscles. The end result is

insulin resistance and an increased risk of heart attack. Magnesium

aspartate has shown to be the best absorbed form of magnesium.

 

3. Tannic acid from banaba mimics the actions of insulin by

eliciting glucose transport from the blood stream into muscle. The

safe and effective blood-sugar lowering effect of tannic acid has

caught the attention of Big Pharma. Many drug companies are working

rigorously to create a synthetic knock-off.

 

4. Increasing fiber intake with a tablespoon of psyllium husk

prevents dangerous spikes in blood sugar after a meal.

 

Controlling blood sugar has become the absolute hottest area of

research. Not only does it suggest a single way of ameliorating

heart disease, but also a host of other diseases caused by high

blood sugar. These include but are not limited to diabetes, cancer

and even Alzheimer's! Instead of dosing patients up with a handful

of drugs to treat a handful of diseases, controlling blood sugar

naturally is one remedy for all three!

 

About the Author

 

Shane holds a Master's degree in organic chemistry and has first-

hand industry experience with drug research, design and synthesis.

With his keen ability to sift through scientific literature and weed

out fact from fiction, Shane has empowered thousands to assert their

health freedom by saying " no " to prescription drugs. Learn more

about his books Health Myths Exposed and The Hidden Truth about

Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs. Get his FREE Life-Saving Health Briefs

at www.healthmyths.net.