FAT AND HEART DISEASE
The heart, a simple mechanical wonder, beats some 100,000 times per day, perhaps 3 billion times over a lifetime. Every 60 seconds, the heart pumps out between 5 and 6 quarts of blood. In order to continue beating, the heart muscle needs a continuous supply of energy, which it gets from oxygen in the blood. The heart muscle is fed by an uninterrupted supply of fresh blood flowing through its own tiny arteries (called the coronary arteries because they seem to sit, like a crown, atop the heart muscle). But if that flow of oxygenated blood is cut off, the results can be disastrous.
Most of what we call heart disease is really coronary heart disease, or problems with the coronary arteries that tunnel through the heart muscle to deliver fresh blood. Imagine throwing a little rubber ball into the plumbing system in your house. Sooner or later the ball will lodge in a small pipe, stopping the flow of water. Any fixture downstream of the ball will dry up from lack of water. Now imagine a tiny ball (a blood clot or a piece of plaque) in your arteries, drifting through the larger arteries with no problem. The coronary arteries bringing blood to the heart muscle are very small. If the ball tries to drift through these arteries it may get stuck, blocking the flow of blood and killing all portions of the heart muscle that are downstream of the blockage. This is commonly known as a heart attack.
Blockages in the coronary arteries, which are quite common, are caused by many factors, including high blood pressure, high blood fats, stressful living, obesity, lack of exercise, cigarette smoking, and diabetes mellitus. Excess cholesterol, elevated blood fat, and obesity are among the most dangerous of the risk factors.
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