written by Pamela McDonald, NP |  

Cardiovascular disease accounts for the number one (heart attack) and number three (stroke) causes of death in the United States. Combined, these account for 40 percent of all deaths. Cardiovascular disease is a progressive, deteriorating, inflammatory disease leading first to damage of cells, major organs, and eventually whole body-systems. It is a gradual process that can begin in childhood—as young as 5 years old. Upon reaching a certain age, usually around 40 to 50 but sometimes younger, the risk of heart attack jumps dramatically. Following a heart attack, many people fail to make a full recovery, with approximately 40 percent dying within a year. Within six years, nearly half of those surviving have become disabled.

The work performed by the heart is demanding and never-ending. Your heart is only the size of two fists, but the energy produced by this tireless little machine over a 50-year period could move a battleship. It beats thousands of times a day, pumping hundreds of gallons of blood. Never stopping day or night, your heart works twice as hard as the largest muscles in your body. A damaged heart means almost inevitably a damaged life.

The heart requires a constant supply of blood to provide it with oxygen and the necessary nutrients, via three main coronary arteries . If a blockage occurs in one of these arteries, the heart becomes deprived of oxygen, resulting in the death of some of its cells—a heart attack.

Cardiovascular disease is a disease of inflammation, but the impact of inflammation is not limited to the arteries. Inflammatory disease can occur anywhere in the body, down to the deepest crevices between cells, sparing nothing and generating a complex chain reaction. When the body gets the wrong fuel for its genetic makeup, it creates the wrong internal environment. This causes a reaction that harms the major fluid delivery systems of the body—the arteries—and leads to the deterioration of entire body systems because these “rivers” of the body have become a toxic waste dump and are spewing toxins and inflammatory chemistry everywhere.

As the body tries to heal itself from the inflammation resulting from overexposure to the wrong nutrients (LDL), it loses the ability to clean itself (from low HDL) quickly enough to reverse the damage. Specialized immune cells, clotting substances, and proteins, along with seven kinds of “bad” lipoproteins (LDLs) then form a scab in an attempt to protect the inner cells and heal the lining of the arteries.

Looking Deeper Into the Cholesterol Pot

Arterial plaque is similar to the plaque that forms in your mouth if you don’t floss, but plaque on your teeth won’t kill you. Inside your plumbing, it’s a different matter. Everyone “knows” that too much cholesterol is bad for us—but it’s not quite that simple. First, we need to learn more about two components of cholesterol that few people understand—low-density lipoproteins (LDL), the “bad...

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