Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life by Blaylock Russell

Author:Blaylock, Russell [Blaylock, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Health Press NA Inc.
Published: 2013-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

In an effort to contain the fire, the body attempts to wall off the inflamed area with scar tissue. The smooth muscle cells under the endothelium react by overgrowing, further aggravating the problem. The inflammation soon grows from a small fatty streak to a thick, crusty overgrowth that protrudes into the lumen. We call this thickened crud a plaque. In time, calcium can enter the plaque, further weakening the wall of the blood vessel.

Not infrequently, an ulcer crater forms in the center of the plaque. This can trigger clotting of the blood that is flowing by, resulting in either a sudden occlusion of the vessel, as occurs in a stroke or heart attack, or the clot can break free and travel to a smaller artery further down the line, causing an embolism. Sometimes a shower of emboli produce numerous smaller blood vessel occlusions. If this occurs in the carotid artery in the neck, this torrent of clots can enter the tiny arteries of the eye, resulting in a loss of vision on the side of the arterial plaque.

The ultimate cause of a heart attack or stroke is the development of unstable plaques, which either have roofs that rupture, spilling toxic fats into the blood vessel, or that are stripped of their endothelial lining. Both events cause blood clots to develop at the site. The crud itself rarely totally blocks off the artery.

Cholesterol

Most of us know that eating the wrong kinds of fats can increase our risk of developing atherosclerosis, but few are aware of just how important types of fats really are in this process. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, scientists believed that a high consumption of cholesterol was a major cause of atherosclerosis. The earliest theories were based on information collected by pathologists, who discovered large amounts of cholesterol within atherosclerotic plaques obtained from autopsied persons.

Next, clinical doctors began to examine their vascular disease patients for high blood levels of cholesterol. They discovered that people with cholesterol levels at 240 mg/dl were four times more likely to die of a heart attack than those with levels at 220 mg/dl. At 260 mg/dl of total cholesterol, patients were six times more likely to die of a heart attack. They then looked at populations of people around the world who had much lower cholesterol levels and found that those with levels of 120-160 mg/dl had an extremely low incidence of heart disease.

From these early observations, scientists created the cholesterol theory of atherosclerosis, which is based on the idea that cholesterol itself is the cause of the disease. This theory has been repeated so often to the medical community and public that it has been extremely difficult to dislodge from their thinking, despite the fact that we now know only 50 percent of all atherosclerosis cases can be accounted for using the standard cholesterol-based risk-factor index built up over the last several decades. It’s interesting to note that, even in the earliest years of research, leading cardiologists strongly resisted the idea that cholesterol was solely responsible for atherosclerosis.

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