We all thought that the plaque deposits cling to our arteries blocking blood flow just like plumbing pipes have clogs that need to be flushed out. That thinking we had seven years ago is now proven to be wrong. The fatty deposits do not cling to the arteries but in fact are floating inside them. Most heart attacks further do not occur because of a sudden rupture of a plaque build up on a particular point in the vessel.
Inflammation of these plaques is the problem. That inflammation is caused by our defenses reaching the plaque in order to defend us against this invader. Think of it this way. When you have a cut the cut becomes swollen and painful only because our own defenses attack it to protect us.
Our white blood cells, which should not be confused with white porcelain veneers, are our warriors ready to thwart this attack by this foreign plaque invader. To prevent infection they secrete a host of chemicals which are intended to limit any infection and additional defense reactions causes an inflammatory response from our defense mechanisms.
This inflammation can cause some of these plaques to rupture. Then a blood clot will form over this ruptured plaque and this closes the artery enough to cause heart attacks, strokes, and other atherosclerotic complications.
It is still true that LDL is bad cholesterol. When in the blood this low-density lipoprotein can trigger arterial inflammation. Therefore cholesterol lowering drugs are still an effective treatment for the problem. An additional blood test to detect ongoing inflammation as well as cholesterol tests will give a more accurate risk assessment of the possibility of a heart attack or stroke. One of the markers of inflammation is that there will be large blood concentrations of C-reactive protein. Even if one has a good cholesterol reading an elevated amount of C-reactive protein can be a precursor to a heart attack.
Another role for the popular statin drugs will be to lessen this inflammation. The statins decrease the levels of LDL which allow them to be disposed from the body. They also limit the availability of chemicals that enable cells to respond to inflammation.
This inflammation may be why sometimes heart attacks happen without warning and why therapies (such as chiropractors birmingham) that do not assess inflammation sometimes fail.
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