The cause of the problem
Lack of nourishments is the main problem. “But how is that possible”, one might ask, “when the heart is literally bathed in blood, much of which flows daily into the chambers of the heart? This is because the heart does not feed on this blood in its chambers.
It can be compared to a gasoline car and its fuel source. The truck can carry thousands of gallons of gasoline for customers and it always runs out of gas and stops. This is because the truck does not drive on the extracted gas, but has to stop at gas stations to get its own fuel. Likewise, the heart is not nourished from the blood in its own chambers, but from the blood that leaves the heart and then returns to the heart muscle via the two coronary arteries.
Blood is pumped from the heart to the body's huge artery called the aorta, but a supply is almost instantly directed from there to the coronary arteries, so named because they surround the heart like a crown at the top. These two arteries split into a network of smaller branches and eventually capillaries, which carry oxygen and chemical nutrients from the blood to all parts of the heart muscle. About 5-10% of all blood pumped by the heart flows through these coronary vessels to nourish the heart. I have found that problems with these arteries are the cause of heart attacks.
The cause of the problem is the buildup of fatty deposits in the coronary arteries, which causes a condition known as atherosclerosis. To make the problem more visible, doctors can compare the process of rust formation in a hot water pipe, which over time stops the flow of water.
However, atherosclerosis does not cause a uniform narrowing in a blood vessel. Deposits appear temporarily throughout the blood vessel, while the diameter of the remainder of the vessel may be normal. Therefore, the actual blood flow does not necessarily decrease, as the blood flow can only be accelerated if it passes all the obstacles. Even so, I began to see how this state of atherosclerosis could create the conditions for a heart attack.
The block that causes an attack
When blood is pushed through an unusually small opening, substances are released into the blood to form a blood clot or clot. Usually, this reaction protects us from bleeding to death from wounds and helps wound healing. However, when the blood coagulants are activated in a very narrow blood vessel, the thrombus that forms can block blood flow. Sometimes part of the fat structure breaks down and blocks a vessel. If the blocked vessel is in the heart, it is called coronary thrombosis or coronary obstruction.
I have learned that the result of the blockage is what is known as a heart attack. "Myo" refers to the muscles, "heart" refers to the heart, and "heart attack" refers to the area of tissue that died due to the interruption of blood flow. When the blocked vessel is one of the main vessels supplying nutritious blood to much of the heart, the resulting death of muscle tissue usually causes the heart to stop. It's a fatal heart attack.
It was interesting to me that atherosclerosis can cause this vascular blockage in other parts of the body, although for some reason the coronary arteries are most affected. But if there is a blockage in a brain vessel, you will have a stroke. But in the heart it causes a heart attack, that is, a heart attack.
Non-blocking heart attacks
However, I have found that many heart attacks, perhaps most, are not a blood clot. It's just a narrowing of the blood vessels due to atherosclerosis. This is because fatal seizures can occur when damage to the heart muscle is minimal. Why do healthy hearts really stop?
It seems that in these cases the heart needs more blood to handle a physical or emotional emergency and that not enough blood is getting through the narrow vessels. So when even a small part of the heart muscle is temporarily bloodless, the electrical patterns are somehow altered, changing the heartbeat. The heart then gets into what is known as ventricular fibrillation, an unusual and serious complication in which it contracts chaotically and stops due to a lack of motive power.Death occurs within minutes unless adequate ventricular pumping is restored. So every year, thousands of essentially healthy hearts end.
Unknown attacks and healing
I was surprised to learn that many heart attacks occur with minimal symptoms. In fact, cardiologists estimate that perhaps 20% of the first attacks occur without the victim noticing. This may be because a blood vessel in the heart closes gradually rather than suddenly over a period of weeks or months. Thereafter, the resulting damage to the heart muscle is often identified on the electrocardiogram during a routine physical examination.
On the other hand, the symptoms simply cannot be recognized as a heart attack, as my mother's case illustrates. He thought it was difficult to digest, like many others. Vomiting can manifest itself with fatigue and a gray appearance. This is a case from case I read about:
A man in his 60s went to the doctor when he finally suffered from advanced heart disease. ECGs showed two old coronary arteries: a blood clot killed the heart muscle. The man described an acute indigestion about twenty-five years ago and two years later. He had not seen a doctor, but he was getting old! Doctors say there are thousands of similar cases.
In fact, there is little that doctors can do to heal the affected area of the heart muscle. If the heart survives a heart attack or does not glow to death, it only takes time for the dead muscle to be replaced with scar tissue. Limited activity is important to enable rigid and effective scarring. This leads the living muscles as close as possible so that they can function properly without the unnecessary part.
What can we do
From what I have learned, however, there are some solid and reasonable preventive measures we can take. "What is needed," says renowned cardiologist Paul Dudley White, "is a generalized change in established patterns of overeating, physical lethargy, and heavy smoking."
Since neither my mother nor I smoke, no change was necessary. But we adapt our eating habits based on what I read about the subject. This is mainly about eating small meals. We do not use more salt or sugar and we do not drink coffee anymore. And we rarely or never eat foods that are high in cholesterol, such as whole milk, butter, ice cream, eggs and fatty meats.
Another important measure to prevent a heart attack is exercise. The regular, quick walk is one of the best. This apparently leads to safety circulation in the heart. When a person is sedentary, the arteries that supply blood to the muscles can narrow and many small vessels can even disappear. This means that there is less blood for the muscles and therefore oxygen.
But regular exercise seems to cause a person's arteries to dilate so that they can carry more blood. In addition, more blood vessels open in the muscle tissue and offer new ways to supply more oxygen. This is particularly beneficial for the heart muscle, because even if an artery is "blocked", the blood supplied by the auxiliary ducts may be sufficient to prevent the heart muscle from running out of oxygen and closing.
