| After cholesterol the most important cause of heart attacks is the killer that Paul Ridker identified. Time Magazine August 20, 2001… The Researchers and Doctors who are Changing Our World by Alice Park. Dr. Paul Ridker is a cardiologist at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and of the world’s leading experts on arterial inflammation, an immune-system reaction that is a powerful contributor to heart attacks. Inflammation in the arteries turns out to be as dangerous for the heart as high cholesterol levels in the blood. “Inflammation has really changed our whole outlook on heart disease,” says Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic. The idea that heart attacks are caused by arteries gummed up with cholesterol was clearly inadequate; half of all heart attacks occurred in people with normal cholesterol levels. “Dr. Ridker’s team found that those with low cholesterol but high levels of the inflammatory marker CRP were just as likely to have a heart attack as those with high cholesterol and low levels of CRP.” These findings have given doctors a new and very different model of heart disease. Inflammation and cholesterol combine, they now believe, to create a particularly unstable type of plaque that builds within blood-vessel walls. It’s the rupture of these plaques, spewing debris into heart arteries, that causes clots to form and leads to heart attacks. ……………………………………………………………………………………… “For those of you who are not aware…Proanthocyanidins found in grapeskins and grapeseeds one of many powerful natural anti-inflammatories that are also called phytonutrients that are found in certain fruits. If you are not getting enough from your diet supplementing is critical.” |
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