What is atherosclerosis
rteries. Atherosclerosis can occur naturally as you age, much like your bones can soften and your skin grow less flexible as you age. But atherosclerosis can also occur due to certain bad things that people do to their bodies.
Atherosclerosis is a combination of elements that build up together in order to harden, block, and swell an artery. These elements include fatty substances such as occur when triglyceride levels are high and when LDL (bad cholesterol) levels are high. Other things that combine with the fatty substances are a material that clots the blood called fibrin, cellular waste products, and calcium. All these things mingle together, creating a hard, paste-like substance commonly known as plaque.
Too much plaque in the arteries is a dangerous state to be in. Too much plaque in the arteries can cause heart attack and stroke. If you imagine one of your arteries as a garden hose, and then imagine that a dirty pipe has fed leaves, dirt, and other debris into the hose, gumming it up, you'll have a pretty good picture of an artery suffering from atherosclerosis. If you were to go and turn the faucet on and suddenly send a stream of water through the hose, the water would try to fights its way through, but slowly build and build in the hose itself as the dirt and leaves held it back. This is what is occurring inside an artery suffering from atherosclerosis. The blood is trying to flow through, but the plaque won't let it. The plaque's too hard, it won't move. The blood has to go somewhere else; it can't keep moving forward.
In this state, the blood can do one of two things. It can either spill out into the plaque, a process known as hemorrhaging, or it can congeal into a clot against the plaque, a process known as thrombus.
|
|
When either hemorrhaging or thrombus occurs, the sufferer is in for a bad time. It is at this point that heart attack and stroke can occur, paralysis, even death.
Atherosclerosis is a condition that can effect literally any age group. Atherosclerosis has been known to begin in children. It often picks up speed in people who have reached their thirties, or it may not be manifest until you reach your fifties and sixties. Two of the most common causes of atherosclerosis are high cholesterol levels and cigarette smoke. You may not be a smoker, though, and still suffer from high cholesterol levels, and still, therefore, be in grave danger of an atherosclerosis problem. High cholesterol levels can be deceiving. We normally think of people who are overweight as the only group having a problem. In fact, high cholesterol levels can be inherited, and even skinny people who eat a lot of bad food can be suffering from high cholesterol levels, and not know it.
High cholesterol levels, and therefore, in certain cases, atherosclerosis, occur when a person eats too many animal products, too much cream, cheese, whole milk, meat, too many eggs. High cholesterol levels also come with eating too much sugar, too many processed foods such as cookies, doughnuts, ice cream.
Low cholesterol levels, on the other hand, are the result of healthy diet and exercise. Natural foods such as fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts have all been proven to lower cholesterol levels.
Atherosclerosis, aside from leading to death, causes a person problems such as depression, poor sleep, and low energy. The best way to figure out if you have a problem is to go to your doctor, who will test your blood for atherosclerosis and cholesterol. Then you can begin a plan for changing your lifestyle such that you can live healthier and happier.
