Some 7 million Americans suffer from Coronary Heart Disease
(CHD), the most common form of heart disease. CHD is the number one
killer of both men and women in the U.S. Each year, more than 500,000
Americans die of heart attacks caused by CHD.
Many of these deaths could be prevented because CHD is related to
certain aspects of lifestyle. Risk factors for CHD include high blood
pressure, high blood cholesterol, smoking, obesity, and physical
inactivity--all of which can be controlled. Although medical treatments
for heart disease have come a long way, controlling risk factors
remains the key to preventing illness and death from CHD.
Atherosclerosis (Coronary Artery Disease) is the buildup of
cholesterol-containing fatty deposits (plaque) on the interior walls of
your arteries. As plaque develops, the interior of your artery narrows
and blood flow is reduced. When this happens in your coronary (heart)
arteries, it can lead to a type of chest pain (Angina.html">angina pectoris).
Growth of plaque also makes the inside of your artery bumpy and
rough. A tear (rupture) in plaque can cause a blood clot to form. A
blood clot that blocks blood flow to your heart muscle (myocardium) can
lead to a heart attack. When the blood supply is cut off completely,
the result is a heart attack. The part of the heart that does not
receive oxygen begins to die, and some of the heart muscle may be
permanently damaged.
In addition to high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure and
smoking also contribute to CHD. On the average, each of these doubles
your chance of developing heart disease. Therefore, a person who has
all three risk factors is eight times more likely to develop heart
disease than someone who has none. Obesity and physical inactivity are
other factors that can lead to CHD. Overweight increases the likelihood
of developing high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure, and
physical inactivity increases the risk of heart attack. Regular
exercise, good nutrition, and smoking cessation are key to controlling
the risk factors for CHD.
Medications are prescribed according to the nature of the patient's
CHD and other problems. The symptoms of angina can generally be
controlled by "beta-blocker" drugs that decrease the workload on the
heart, by nitroglycerine and other "nitrates" and by "calcium-channel
blockers" that relax the arteries, and by other classes of drugs. The
tendency to form clots is reduced by aspirin or by other platelet
inhibitory and anticoagulant drugs. Beta-blockers are given to decrease
the recurrence of heart attack. For those with elevated blood
cholesterol that is unresponsive to dietary and weight loss measures,
cholesterol-lowering drugs may be prescribed, such as lovastatin,
colestipol, cholestyramine, gemfibrozil, and niacin. Impaired pumping
function of the heart may be treated with digitalis drugs or ACE
inhibitors. If there is high blood pressure or fluid retention, these
conditions are also treated.
Several epidemiologic studies have demonstrated that vitamin E
protects against CAD, including two large-scale, carefully conducted
prospective studies described recently in The New England Journal of
Medicine. The populations studied were enormous -- almost 40,000 men
and close to 90,000 women -- and study participants were followed for 4
and 8 years, respectively. The benefits of vitamin E were primarily, if
not entirely, limited to subjects taking large amounts of vitamin E
supplements. Vitamin E from dietary sources, even when supplemented
with multivitamins at usual doses, showed little or no protective
effect. Vitamin C was not protective, and carotene appeared to help
only men (not women) who smoked.
The following nutrients may be helpfull in treating Atherosclerosis
- Carnitine, Pantothenic acid, Magnesium, Vitamin E and Vitamin C. A
food bar enriched with assorted nutrients makes life easier for
individuals who walk with a limp because of calf pain due to peripheral
arterial disease, according to a study by Dr. Andrew J. Maxwell, of
Cooke Pharma in Belmont, Calif. A cramp-like pain in one or both legs
usually occurs when atherosclerosis narrows the arteries. The
ingredients of the food bar, including four grams of the nutrient
L-arginine, as well as antioxidant vitamins, niacin, and isoflavenoids,
enhance the synthesis of nitric oxide, which in turn makes walking
easier and less painful.
- FACTS ABOUT CORONARY HEART DISEASE. NIH Publication No. 93-2265
