Happy Holidays-A Heart Attack Waiting to Happen

 

A 50 year old healthy male is a CEO of a big company. He leads a stressful life every day. He has no risk factors, no family history, and exercises regularly and has been taking cholesterol medications. He goes on a trip to India for 2 weeks. There he eats foods high in sugar, starch and bad fats everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He gets on the plane and flies to Houston. He gets back to his stressful work after a long trip. He attends a conference. Half way through the conference, he develops chest tightness. He has a heart attack and dies. He had a stress test done 3 weeks prior to going to India. What happened? How did a person with no risk factors who exercises regularly drop dead from a heart attack even after having a normal stress test 3 weeks ago?

In a normal artery, no plaque is formed. Therefore, stress test is normal.

2 weeks of constant eating of sugar, starch, and bad fat – causes inflammation in the arterial wall. It stimulates the growth of fats inside the plaque making it softer. In addition, plaque has a thin cap which is more likely to rupture.

 

He takes a transcontinental flight. Plaque is subjected to stress and gets destabilized due to change in time zone and disturbances in circadian rhythm.

He gets back to work. Subjected to more stress. THE PLAQUE CRACKS. Plaque contents pour out into the arterial lumen and make contact with the blood. Blood clot is formed which cuts off the blood supply to the heart muscle. This is when a heart attack happens!

This is a perfect picture of how diet, stress and inflammation cause plaque to become unstable, rupture and cause heart attack.

This could be one of the reasons why 40 % of all the heart attacks happen in the last 2 weeks of December and first 2 weeks of January. Celebrations and parties during these holidays make foods high in sugar and starch in the form of cookies, chocolates, ice creams and desserts readily available. The relative change in diet starting from Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year could explain the inflammation that triggers the plaque to rupture and lead to heart attack.

 

REMEMBER : GLUTTONY IS A SIN.