Explaining Atherosclerosis

Heart disease is one of America's greatest killers. It also is one of the American medical establishments greatest source of income. Many country club dues, private schools for the children and around the world vacations are funded by patients with heart disease.

Most of the establishments method of treating heart disease is palliative not curative. The method of treating heart disease is an assurance to the doctors and hospitals that you'll be back for further treatment and bearing gifts of more money to the doctors and hospitals.

Atherosclerosis is a fancy name for what most lay persons would call "hardening of the arteries". This condition usually makes its appearance in middle age, although autopsies of young people reveal it is usually already occuring in the 20's...only asymptomatic-no signs of it yet.

Let me explain how atherosclerosis forms...

Blood flow in the veins and arteries is tightly controlled by the body. Veins return unoxygenated blood from the periphery of the body to the heart and arteries take blood that has been oxygenated by the lungs away from the heart to the tissues in the body. Veins are thin vessels that are not under pressure and arteries are thick muscled vessels that are under the pressure of the heart.

As blood flows through the arteries it should flow smoothly, like deep water in a river. No ripples or eddies. The body system is an elaborate system who's purpose is to keep things working smoothly. Due to health care choices made by a person this smooth system can be damaged. Smoking cigarettes, breathing foul air, drinking alcohol to excess, eating saturated fats on a regular basis and many other things, can cause the formation of free radicals. A free radical is an unbalanced molecule (missing an electron) that then goes and steals an electron from another atom which makes it a free radical. This goes on millions of times a second and the end result is damage.

These free radicals, will go and nick the interior (intima) of a blood vessel. The result of this nick is a disruption of blood flow. Instead of flowing smoothly, the nick causes the blood to become turbulant as a rock in the river. The body wants everything to flow smoothly some it will lay down a thin layer of plaque. Plaque will be composed of calcium, cholesterol and othe molecules for the purpose of eliminating the rough blood flow. This will smooth out the flow for a while, but if nothing is done to prevent free radicals, then the smooth plaque will be nicked again by the free radical molecules. The blood becomes turbulent from the unsmooth surface. The body again lays down a smooth layer of plaque and the blood flow becomes smooth a. If the free radicals continue this smooth plaque will become damaged over and over again and the body continues to build up the plaque layer trying to keep everything flowing smoothly until one day...the blood flow is so restricted that the heart muscle begins screaming out for oxygen and symptoms occur...angina (lack of oxygen to the heart), heart attack (not enough oxygen to the heart and some of the heart muscle dies), a stroke (a piece of plaque breaks off and damages the heart), or other damage.

What does modern medicine do?

Bypass operation, where a vein (usually from the leg) is place to by-pass the blockage.
A stent might be put in to keep the artery open.

But do you see the fallacy of this?

The bypass, the stent is a temporary fix. The doctors have not dealth with the cause of the blockage to start with. If nothing changes in the patients diet, exercise, stress level and if he/she does not stop smoking, drinking, etc. the cause of the atherosclerosis will cause the vessel graft or the stent to close up as before. Then the patient can go through the same procedure in 3 to 5 years and the doctor can continue to pay the annual fee to the country club or the private school for his kids.

Usually nothing is taught to the patient about proper diet, exercise, which supplements may be helpful in reducing free radical damage, or helping blood flow. These are the changes which can prevent the free radical damage from occuring. Nothing is mentioned to the patient about chelation therapy, which can limit free radical damage, reduce the plaque buildup and maybe prevent the need for open heart surgery ot stent placement. Nothing. Thus the patient does not know of alternatives to what the doctors tell him and the cycle goes on.

Simple message...stop the free radical damage, stop atherosclerosis.