With so much focus on cholesterol, it’s easy to forget that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease, a silent killer, that strikes young and old, male, and female, fit and unfit, in the prime of life and peak of health.
To better understand your heart health, you need more than a simple stress test, EKG, or lipid profile…. it’s important to look at the inflammatory markers as well, specifically C-Rreactive Proteins (CRPs are a measure of inflammation in the body).
Bad cholesterol can build up “inside” your arterial walls
When many people think of atherosclerosis, they think of bad cholesterol accumulating to form plaque on the walls of the arteries themselves. But your arteries are a porous membrane, and if there is inflammation (which can be caused by saturated fats, particularly palmitic acid, which is a favorite of the food industry because it’s inexpensive, tasty, and stable), the low-density lipoproteins (LDL or “bad” cholesterol) are able to enter inside the arterial membranes themselves, and build up inside the arterial walls.
Many people think of plaque building on walls of the arteries themselves. Yet your arteries are a porous membrane, and this video shows how Low-density lipoproteins (LDL or “bad” cholesterol) build up inside the arterial walls.
The most common heart disease in the United States is coronary heart disease, which often appears as a heart attack or a stroke. In 2010, an estimated 785,000 Americans had a new coronary attack, and about 470,000 had a recurrent attack. Every 25 seconds, an American will have a coronary event, and about one every minute will die from one.
