What Causes Heart Disease

Today we’re going to answer the question – what causes heart disease? If you talk to most doctors the answer will be cholesterol. To combat this the pharmaceutical industry created a drug to dramatically lower a person’s cholesterol levels. This drug, and all its variations, are called statins.

In my last post we looked at cholesterol and statin drugs. We examined both the positives and negatives of this pharmaceutical drug.

And because cholesterol is the enemy, the medical community has also recommended a diet that severely restricts the intake of fat. This combination of a low fat diet with statin drugs was suppose to address the cause of heart disease.

Yet cardiovascular disease is still the number one killer of men and women worldwide.

And while total number of deaths due to cardiovascular concerns have decrease over the last 20 years there has been a dramatic increase in diabetes and obesity. Which is causing an increase in the number of deaths due to heart disease.

Well, we now know why.

What Causes Heart Disease – Inflammation

Recent scientific discoveries have clearly shown that inflammation in the arterial wall is the real cause for most heart diseases. And it’s this inflammation that causes cholesterol to be deposit in the lining of the vascular system.

In its simplest terms inflammation is like a wound. If not properly dealt with, then this inflammation becomes chronic and needs to be address. Just like you put a band-aid on an exterior wound, through a combination of events cholesterol is use to form an internal band-aid. Over time this internal band-aid grows. Commonly called atherosclerosis, this process accounts for over 70% of all heart disease.

Without this inflammation your cholesterol would move freely throughout your body instead of becoming trapped.

Now the key questions is this:

What is causing this chronic inflammation of the vascular system?

What Causes Heart Disease – Two Key Sources That Create Vascular Inflammation

The two key sources that create most vascular inflammation are highly processed carbohydrates and omega 6 oils.

Let’s start with highly processed carbohydrates, which would be sugar and wheat flour. Because of genetic engineering wheat today has a higher glycemic index than sugar. This means both of them effect your blood sugar.

Your body tries to keep your blood sugar in a very narrow range. When you consume processed foods that contain sugar and wheat you raise your blood sugar. Your body’s response is to stimulate your pancreas to secrete insulin. Insulin’s primary purpose is to move sugar out of the blood stream into your cells.

But if you cells are already full, then this excess sugar stays in the blood stream and attaches to a variety of proteins. These new molecules cause injury to the wall of the blood vessel. This injury results in inflammation.

And because we’ve been told to eliminate fats from our diet, the food industry and federal government have promoted a high carbohydrate diet. This constant intake of excess sugar and wheat causes our blood sugars to remain high.

What was temporary inflammation becomes chronic inflammation, which then leads to cholesterol being deposited and the start of atherosclerosis.

The other key source of inflammation comes from omega 6 vegetable oils like soybean and corn. These types of oils are used in processed foods to provide both taste and shelf stability. And while omega 6 oils are essential to help your cell membrane regulate what goes in and out, the problem is they must be in correct balance with omega-3s.

The optimal ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 would be 3 to 1.

Unfortunately, today’s typical diet has pushed this ratio to 15 to 1 and in some cases as high as 30 to 1 in favor of omega-6s.

This excess of omega-6 causes your cell membrane to produce chemicals called cytokines. These cytokines directly cause inflammation.

If you want to prevent heart disease, then you must address inflammation of the vascular system. That is the real cause of most heart disease.

Cholesterol has gotten a bad rap because the root cause is inflammation caused by excess sugar, wheat, and omega 6s in the typical American diet.

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer