These three diseases are closely related. They have same causes and often it is merely a dumb luck when person gets one instead of another. What can cause these murderous diseases? Thickening of arteries and plaque build up. Thickening and plaque build up are most likely to cause heart attack and stroke. Plaque can detach from a blood vessel and travel up the body. This traveling plaque is called emboli. Emboli can affect heart and brain, but is will most likely go into the lungs causing pulmonary embolism.
Brain has a maze of blood vessels, their shape is almost as complicated as the brain itself. Arteries are making sharp turns all the time. These sharp turns are perfect places for blood vessels to rapture. Blood is traveling through arteries under pressure. Every time artery makes a turn, blood hits the wall of the artery as it is trying to find a place to go since it can no longer go straight. What happens when pressure is constantly applied to one spot? It wears out and tears. Blood vessel breaks and stroke (CVA) is starting to ruin yet another life.
Heart is unable to take oxygen and nutrients from the blood is inside of it when it is pumping this blood to the rest of the body. Just like any other organ, heart needs nutrients and oxygen. To be able to get it, heart has its own series of blood vessels surrounding the heart. The first place our oxygenated blood gets to when it exits the heart are these blood vessels that feed the heart. When one of these vessels is clogged, blood can’t get through it to feed the part of the heart it is responsible for. When part of the heart can’t get blood, it dies. Depending on where in the series of blood vessels clog will occur, different amount of heart muscle will die. At times the amount of tissue damage is so small that person can go on with his or her life as if nothing happened. In other cases, the amount of tissue damage can kill as the heart can no longer pump blood.
Pulmonary embolism occurs when plaque detaches from a vain (usually in the leg) and travels into the heart. In the heart this emboli is pumped along with blood into the lungs where blood will have to be oxygenated. Emboli usually get stuck in a blood vessel in the lungs causing pulmonary embolism and most likely death.
The best treatment is always prevention. What can one do to prevent these things? Keeping blood vessels clean is not that easy in modern days, but it’s not impossible. Exercise can help strengthen blood vessels and help create new blood vessels (collateral circulation) these new blood vessels allow for blood to get to the area even if one of the vessels is blocked. Healthy diet is another important component. Trans fats are very hard for our body to break down, so they are sitting in our blood vessels creating a plaque. Minimizing trans fat intake can greatly reduce chances of becoming a next victim of heart attack. There are foods that can reduce amount of plaque that is already on the blood vessels. Garlic one of the best ways to get that dreadful plaque to leave your body. Don’t like garlic? Not a problem, try some honey, it can help too. One thing that most people don’t think about when they hear plaque is crossing legs. When someone is sitting with one leg resting on top of the other, blood vessels can get damaged from the pressure. The more blood vessels get damaged, the higher is the chance that plaque will start building up on the damaged blood vessel. In fact, the main reason plaque is building up is to patch up these damaged parts of blood vessels, regardless of what damaged them.
