DEFEATING DISEASE: FEEDING ON FAT

Posted: April 23rd, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: General health | No Comments »

Exhibit number one: A high-fat meal at one of those ubiquitous burger stands. Before you can properly wash the grease off your hands-that is, within roughly two hours- much of the fat you’ve just gobbled down is already in your bloodstream, reducing the natural ability of your arteries to stay open, says Robert DiBianco, M.D., director of cardiology research, the Heart Failure Clinic, and the Risk Factor Reduction Center at Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Maryland.

If you infrequently indulge in such a high-fat feast, your liver will eventually clear your blood of that extra fat (also called triglycerides), and all is well. But if this is your standard fare, you have several potential problems. For one thing, women aren’t impressed if you’re on a first-name basis with the guy at the drive-up window. And for another, you may be on your way to heart disease.

Here’s why. Even when we’re young, fat, cholesterol, and others bits of bloodstream debris-called plaque-slowly begin to build along the lining of our blood vessels. In most cases, the accumulation is as subtle and gradual as beach erosion.

But as the years, Ring Dings, and Buffalo wings go by, plaque from those fattening foods continues to build, especially in areas where your arteries branch, such as those that supply blood to your legs, kidneys, neck, brain, and heart. “The actual physical force of blood on the lining probably damages the lining and allows plaque to form,” says Thomas Pickering, M.D., professor of medicine at the Hypertension Center at New York Hospital in Manhattan and author of Good News about High Blood Pressure.

And the higher your blood pressure-literally the pressure exerted as blood flows through your vascular system-the greater the damage to its lining (known by the guys with the cold stethoscopes as your endothelium). Further damaging this lining are smoking and diabetes. “When healthy, your endothelium tends to deflect things like platelets and little small packages of fibrin or clot or scar tissue and cholesterol so that, in fact, you don’t develop plaque as easily,” says Dr. DiBianco. “But damaged endothelium allows these molecules to find their way into the vessel wall. And once they’re in the wall, they build up (in the form of plaque) or irritate the blood vessel wall and cause inflammation.”

Some guys living the high-fat life won’t have seemed to have any symptoms until their arteries narrow by about 50 percent. Then things really get ugly. “Clearly, if you have an obstruction to one of the arteries of your heart, anything that increases your need for oxygen-whether it’s exercise or emotional upset, intercourse or a meal-will cause angina or chest discomfort,” Dr. DiBianco says.

From there, all it takes is one soft plaque to dislodge and clog one of the narrowed arteries to bring on a heart attack. “Although these plaques would make up a minority of plaques in our blood vessels, they’re the ones most likely to cause these sudden events that require hospitalization or surgery or can cause death,” says Dr. DiBianco.

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