The Cause of Heart Attacks- Part One

Stop what you are doing for a sec and count to 40.

That’s about how long it will take for the next heart attack to happen in this country. This approximate rate will continue non-stop, every hour around the clock, 24 — 7/365, and about every 5th one will result in death. That’s a lot of people and that is way, way too many deaths, even if there was very little we could do about it.

What is particularly unfortunate, however, is the fact that nearly every single one could be prevented. Almost 800,000 heart attacks occur in a year, and, aside from fairly rare instances, most should never even happen.

Okay, now pause again, and think about this number:

$20,000,000,000.

That is the approximate worth of the cholesterol-lowering drug industry this year, and that many zeros equals a LOT OF PILLS.

‘But wait a second,’ you say. ‘If high cholesterol causes plaque in arteries, and that causes heart attacks, how can there be that many heart attacks every year if so many people are taking those drugs?’

Good question.

The short answer is this: Cholesterol-lowering drugs do not sufficiently treat the primary cause of heart attacks.

In other words, until and unless we use an approach that fully addresses the cause or causes of a disease, we should expect that disease process to continue showing up time and again, regardless of how fancy and technologically advanced our band-aids get. Heart attacks are a primary example of this painfully accurate medical dictum.

Unanswered Questions

Let’s look past the ideas above and think about this issue from a different perspective. If cholesterol, in and of itself, were the primary cause of cardiovascular disease, there should be no circumstances which, if true, would make this idea impossible. Seems logical right?

Well then, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Why do people get plaque build up in their arteries, but not in their veins?

2. Why don’t other animals in the wild, with similar or higher cholesterol levels than we have, get cardiovascular disease?

If you look at the answers to these questions in more detail, you will see they call into question the very foundation of the conventional, medication-based treatment approach currently in use, and begin to point towards the need for an additional explanation as to what is going on. More importantly, exploring these questions helps point towards a more effective solution to this most pressing of medical problems.

Question #1: Why do people get plaque build up in their arteries, but not in their veins?

Have you ever had your cholesterol levels tested? Where was the blood drawn out of? That’s right, your vein, NOT your artery. Think about that. Blood samples for cholesterol levels are always taken out of veins and yet these very blood vessels don’t get plaque in them like the arteries do whose blockages lead to heart attacks.

Simple logic would suggest then that high cholesterol, in and of itself, cannot be the direct cause of plaque forming in a blood vessel, or it would form in veins just like it forms in arteries.

Hold that thought.

Question #2: Why don’t other animals in the wild, with similar or higher cholesterol levels than we have, get cardiovascular disease?

The cholesterol levels of brown bears in the wild vary during the year between about 250mg/dL and 425mg/dL. In other words, most card-carrying cardiologists would prescribe them a fairly hefty dose of a statin at the low end, and at the high end, at least a few would walk them hand in paw, straight to the treadmill for a stress test. That said then, have you ever heard of a bear dropping dead from a heart attack?