How Does Coronary Artery Disease Develop?

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Your Guide to Coronary Artery Disease

Coronary artery disease, also called coronary heart disease, or simply, heart disease, is the No. 1 killer in America, affecting more than 12 million Americans.

What Is Coronary Artery Disease?

Coronary artery disease is atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries. Atherosclerosis is when the arteries become clogged and narrowed, restricting blood flow to the heart. Without adequate blood, the heart becomes starved of oxygen and vital nutrients it needs to work properly.

How Does Coronary Artery Disease Develop?

Your coronary arteries are hollow tubes. Inside, they are smooth and elastic, allowing blood to flow freely.

Before your teen years, fat starts to deposit in the blood vessel walls. As you get older, the fat builds up. This causes injury to your blood vessel walls. In an attempt to heal itself, the cells release chemicals that make the walls sticky.

Then, other substances such as inflammatory cells, proteins and calcium that travel in your bloodstream start sticking to the vessel walls. The fat and other substances combine to form a material called plaque. The plaque builds up and narrows the artery (atherosclerosis).

Many of the plaque deposits are hard on the outside and soft and mushy on the inside. The hard surface can crack or tear, exposing the soft, fatty inside. When this happens, platelets (disc-shaped particles in the blood that aid clotting) come to the area, and blood clots form around the plaque. This causes the artery to narrow even more.

Over time a narrowed coronary artery may develop new blood vessels that go around the blockage to get blood to the heart. However, during times of increased exertion or stress, the new arteries may not be able to supply enough oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle.

In other cases, the blood clot may totally block the blood supply to the heart muscle, causing what is called an acute coronary syndrome. This is actually a name given to three serious conditions: unstable angina (an impending heart attack) and two types of heart attacks called non-Q-wave myocardial infarction and Q-wave myocardial infarction.

The length of time that blood flow is blocked and the amount of damage that occurs determines the type of acute coronary syndrome. Some people have symptoms that tell them that they may soon develop an acute coronary syndrome, others may have no symptoms until something happens, and still others have no symptoms of the acute coronary syndrome at all.

What Is Ischemia?

When plaque and fatty matter narrow the inside of an artery to a point where it cannot supply enough oxygen-rich blood to meet your organ's needs, cramping of the muscle occurs. This is called ischemia.

Ischemia of the heart can be compared to a cramp in the leg. When someone exercises for a very long time, the muscles in the legs cramp up because they're starved for oxygen and nutrients. Your heart, also a muscle, needs oxygen and nutrients to keep working. If its blood supply is inadequate to meet the heart muscle's needs, ischemia occurs, and you may feel chest pain or other symptoms.

Ischemia is most likely to occur when the heart demands extra oxygen. This is most common during:

Exertion (activity)
Eating
Excitement
Exposure to cold

When ischemia lasts less than 10 minutes, there is no permanent damage to your heart. You may be told you have "stable coronary artery disease."

What Are the Symptoms of Coronary Artery Disease?

The most common symptom is angina or "angina pectoris." Angina can be described as a discomfort, heaviness, pressure, aching, burning, fullness, squeezing or painful feeling. It can be mistaken for indigestion or heartburn. Angina is usually felt in the chest, but may also be felt in the left shoulder, arms, neck, throat, jaw or back.

Other symptoms that can occur with coronary artery disease include:

Shortness of breath
Palpitations (irregular heart beats, skipped beats or a "flip-flop" feeling in your chest)
A faster heartbeat
Weakness or dizziness
Nausea
Sweating

Learn to recognize your symptoms and the situations that cause them. Call your doctor if you begin to have new symptoms or if they become more frequent or severe.

Ischemia, and even a heart attack, can occur without any warning symptoms. This is called silent ischemia. It can occur among all people with heart disease, though it is more common among diabetics

How Is Coronary Artery Disease Diagnosed?

Your doctor can tell if you have coronary artery disease by:

Talking to you about your symptoms, medical history, and risk factors.
Performing a physical exam.
Performing diagnostic tests, including an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG), exercise stress tests, cardiac catheterization and others. These tests help your doctor evaluate the extent of your coronary heart disease, its effect on the function of your heart, and the best form of treatment for you.

How Is Coronary Artery Disease Treated?

Treatment for coronary artery disease involves reducing your risk factors, taking medications, and possibly undergoing invasive and/or surgical procedures.

Reduce your risk factors: This involves making lifestyle changes. If you smoke, you should quit. Your diet will likely need modifying to reduce your cholesterol, keep your blood pressure in check, and keep blood sugar in control if you have diabetes. Low fat, low sodium, low cholesterol foods are recommended. You should also get more exercise to help maintain a healthy weight and reduce stress. But, check with your doctor before starting an exercise program.

Medications: If making lifestyle changes isn't enough to control your heart disease, medications may be needed to help your heart work more efficiently and receive more oxygen-rich blood. The medications you are on depend on you and your specific heart problem.

Surgery and other procedures: Procedures to treat coronary artery disease include balloon angioplasty (PTCA), stent placement, rotoblation, atherectomy, and coronary artery bypass surgery. All of these procedures increase blood supply to your heart, but they do not cure coronary heart disease. You will still need to decrease your risk factors to prevent future disease.

Doctors are also studying several innovative ways to treat heart disease. Here are a couple of the more promising ones:

Transmyocardial laser revascularization, or TMR: This procedure improves blood flow to the heart muscle for people with advanced coronary artery disease. Laser beams are used to make channels through the heart muscle to increase blood flow to dying, but not dead, heart tissue. This technique is used for people with intractable angina who are not candidates for traditional open-heart surgery or transplantation.
Angiogenesis: This involves giving substances through the vein or directly into the heart that trigger the heart to grow new blood vessels to bypass the clogged ones.

Copyright © 2002 content, The Cleveland Clinic. The information provided by The Cleveland Clinic is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or health-care provider. Please consult your health-care provider for advice about a specific medical condition.

How to Avoid Coronary Bypass Surgery

Bypassing The ByPass

There is a nutritional approach that can bypass the need for the bypass and all related surgeries. It is both safe and effective. It can be used as both therapy and prevention.

Since 1983, many thousands of people have been successfully using this unique cleansing method both to prevent and remove the arterial deposits that are responsible for heart attacks and strokes. "Before" and "after" angiograms and doppler tests have, in some cases, revealed complete removal of significant arterial blockages within a few short months of starting the program.

Symptoms -- such as angina, leg cramps, lack of measurable pulse in the ankles, tingling in the hands, trembling and even gangrene -- often disappear within weeks. Blood pressure and cholesterol/triglyceride levels tend to normalize themselves. Many who were scheduled for bypass surgery no longer require it. Many have been able to throw away their diuretics, blood thinners, aspirin, anti-cholesterol drugs and nitroglycerin.

These people are using a simple self-help method to reduce their risk of succumbing to cardiovascular disease -- our nation's number one killer disease. This method, the taking of GHS CardioPlus™ nutritional arterial cleansing tablets works by providing the body with the conditions it needs to cleanse itself of arterial plaque, in an entirely natural way. The human body has an amazing ability to heal itself---if we give it everything it needs to do so. In addition to its arterial cleansing powers, the GHS CardioPlus™ nutritional arterial cleansing program gives the body the vitamin/mineral nutrition it needs.

Amazingly, our body has some 60,000 miles of blood vessels that feed all of our organs, tissues and cells with oxygen and vital nutrients. Blockages can occur along any portion of the way. It is physically impossible for the surgeon to reach every part of this vast blood vessel system, that is why many blockages are inoperable. Not so with GHS CardioPlus™. GHS CardioPlus™ can clean every millimeter of these 60,000 miles of blood vessels. Clearing out this intricate network of flexible tubing can help to rejuvenate and restore the entire body.

Additional conditions reported to have improved from arterial cleansing include Alzheimer's disease, diabetic retinopathy, impotence, prostate problems, arthritis, varicose veins, irregular heartbeat and heavy metal toxicity. Even those who do not have any of the above often report benefits such as improved memory, more energy, warmer hands and feet, better vision, more youthful appearance and the need for less sleep.

How can one simple technique help the body to improve in so many possible ways? It makes perfect sense. Every cell in the body receives its nourishment (directly or indirectly) from the bloodstream. As blood flow improves, so does each cell's potential to receive more of the vital nutrients needed for its survival. Also, an increased blood supply improves the body's ability to carry away cellular waste products, which if allowed to accumulate, may contribute to a number of degenerative conditions. Arterial cleansing helps the body both to nourish and to detoxify itself -- two important conditions necessary for optimal health, conditions you achieve with the GHS CardioPlus™ Nutritional Program.

In 1920 heart attacks were very rare. Today they claim more lives than any other disease. Prior to 1920 the human body was resistant to heart disease, since that time it has somehow lost this immunity. In order to reduce our risk of succumbing to this killer, we need to make our bodies as healthy as those of our ancestors of some 80 or more years ago. The program outlined on our web site demonstrates how easy it is to restore vital immunity by supporting the body's innate healing ability.

Perhaps the most exciting feature of arterial cleansing is its simplicity. Each of us can do it for him/herself, without having to depend on experts or complex technology. It is safe, it gets results, and it is extremely cost-effective when compared to alternatives (especially the alternative of doing nothing).

Arterial cleansing is an excellent example of how each person can take charge of his/her own health and life. Many use it to help reverse arterial disease once it has taken hold. Others use it as prevention. Yet others use it to help build superior health that far surpasses the mere absence of disease. The choice and the challenge are yours.

Good Health Supplements™ are dedicated to offering you affordable leading edge technology in anti-aging, cardiovascular, multi-vitamin, digestive nutritional supplementation. Good Health Supplements support your good health, longevity, and naturally renew the energy and vitality of your youth!

Note: GHS-CardioPlus™ is a dietary supplement and is not intended to
diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. GHS-Pro™, GHS-CardioPlus™, Good Health Supplements™ are trademarks of AntiAging Life Extension Dot Com, Inc.