plaque Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Keep Your Arteries Free of Plaque by Eating a Handful of THIS Food Daily

AHA Publisher — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 07:00:11 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, affects an estimated 1 in 58 Americans and is one of the main drivers of morbidity and mortality. Considered a chronic inflammatory disease, it leads to a build-up of plaque inside the arteries, impairs healthy blood flow, and drives the formation of blood clots. Not surprisingly, keeping our arteries pliable and free of plaque can have enormous implications for our longevity and quality of life since cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in America. And new research suggests that sprinkling a handful of this popular nut into your daily diet can have a promising impact. Want Better Cholesterol? New Clinical Trial Suggests a Simple Food Choice Can Help In 2017, the European Atherosclerosis Society Consensus Panel concluded that current evidence “unequivocally establishes” that LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol causes atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, making it a clear modifiable risk factor to focus on in disease prevention. Of course, LDL cholesterol is not the only risk … other factors for atherosclerosis include oxidative stress from toxic exposures, high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes. Having said that, could something as simple as snacking on walnuts every day really be an effective way to lower LDL cholesterol and, in time, help you avoid the hardening of the arteries? A recently published randomized controlled trial with two years worth of data says yes. The trial, published in the Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, found that eating 1 to 2 servings of walnuts per day (about 1/4 to 1/2 a cup, or 30 to 60 grams), which is roughly equivalent to about 15% of a person’s daily intake, can lead to a mean reduction in LDL cholesterol by 4.3 mg/dL among people with “normal” lipid profiles. An even greater improvement in LDL levels has been observed in people with high total cholesterol. 90% of the 708 trial participants completed the study. The authors add that frequent nut consumption has been associated overall with a 15% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and a 23% reduced risk of lower CVD-related deaths. This study does come with one red flag: it was funded by the California Walnut Commission (CWC) and therefore had a potential conflict of interest. That said, walnuts are generally considered a safe and healthy food for anyone without a nut allergy and are an excellent plant-based source of various fats, fiber, vitamins, and minerals. In Addition to Eating More Walnuts, Here Are Other Things You Can Do to Help Your Arteries Stay Healthier as You Age Walnuts and other nuts and seeds are healthy when consumed in moderation – but they do tend to be high in calories, so it’s essential to monitor your intake, especially if you’re trying to keep your arteries healthy. Why? Because being overweight or obese increases your risk of high LDL cholesterol, according to Mayo Clinic. Conversely, getting to a healthy weight can improve cardiovascular health and prevent atherosclerosis. You can also protect your heart and arteries by: Avoiding toxins in your food, water, personal care / household products and immediate air space. Getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week. Managing stress levels and improving sleep habits. Eating lots of chemical-free (organic vegetables and fruit) – rich in antioxidants. Exploring natural supplements that may help lower blood pressure and cholesterol, such as alpha-linolenic acid, fish oil, garlic, green tea, oat bran and barley. And, of course, staying well hydrated with clean water. Sources for this article include: AHAjournals.org Omicsonline.org MayoClinic.org CDC.gov NIH.gov NIH.gov To read the original article click here.

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Scientists Develop Peptides that Restore Balance in Gut Bacteria and Reverse Atherosclerosis

AHA Publisher — Wed, 24 Jun 2020 07:00:56 +0000

Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, BSN via News-Medical Net – Researchers continue to explore the role of gut bacteria on health, including its link to depression, autoimmune diseases, mental health, and obesity. Now, a team of scientists at Scripps Research has developed new molecules that can restore the balance in gut bacteria in the intestines and as a result, lowers cholesterol levels and reverses the narrowing of the arteries, also known as atherosclerosis. What Is Atherosclerosis? Atherosclerosis is the narrowing of the arteries, preventing blood flow. It is a condition in which plaque builds up inside the arteries, which are blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood to vital organs, such as the heart, brain, and kidneys. It also delivers oxygen and nutrients to cells throughout the body. Plaque contains cholesterol, fat, calcium, and other substances found in the blood. When the plaque takes over the arterial wall, it limits blood flow, which can lead to serious problems, including stroke, heart attack, and even death. Novel Molecules The findings of the study, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, show that the molecules, called peptides, can slow the growth of bad gut bacteria. The team wanted to explore how some conditions can be prevented through remodeling or reshaping the communities of bacteria in the gut. The gut microbiome is a dense population, containing trillions of bacteria that co-exist with other human cells to help with digestion, metabolism, brain health, and immune function. The researchers also wanted to investigate how a typical Western diet rich in fats, sugar, and carbohydrates can impact the gut bacteria in ways that lead to the development of high cholesterol levels and eventually, atherosclerosis. The Study Findings To arrive at the findings, the study involved mice that were bred to be vulnerable to high cholesterol, and the team fed them with a Western-style diet that bought on atherosclerosis and changes in their gut microbiome. The team then created a set of molecules that slowed the growth of less-desirable species of gut bacteria. The results of the study show that the peptides effectively shifted the balance of species in the gut microbiome in mice who had high cholesterol levels. In turn, the reshaped gut microbiome has led to lowered cholesterol levels. Further, it helped slow down the buildup of plaques or fatty deposits in the arteries. “It was surprising to us that simply remodeling the gut microbiome can have such an extensive effect,” Dr. Reza Ghadiri, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research, said. Gut Microbiome and Human Health The gut microbiome has been tied to various conditions and diseases. Many scientists believe that controlling and reshaping gut bacteria can have many health benefits. Symbiosis, the balance of the species in the gut, is essential in promoting overall health and well-being in humans. Over the past decades, the gut microbiome of symbiotic bacteria has become the focus of studies across the globe. Scientists believe that symbiosis can also alter human health, especially when people misuse antibiotics and consume high fat, sugar, and carbohydrate foods, just like Western-style diets. Hence, gut microbiome imbalance has been tied to conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and atherosclerosis, which all contribute to life-threatening and chronic diseases. The study authors believe that using the novel molecules can help prevent atherosclerosis, and eventually, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. “Our approach, using small molecules called cyclic peptides, is inspired by nature. Our cells naturally use a diverse collection of molecules, including antimicrobial peptides to regulate our gut microbe populations,” Dr. Luke Leman, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research, and co-author of the study said. The team suggests that the study findings can help in developing therapeutics in reversing atherosclerosis and preventing chronic diseases. “Directed chemical manipulation provides an additional tool for deciphering the chemical biology of the gut microbiome and might advance microbiome-targeted therapeutics,” the researchers wrote in the paper. To read the original article click here.

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Fitful Nightly Sleep Linked to Chronic Inflammation, Hardened Arteries

AHA Publisher — Wed, 10 Jun 2020 07:00:25 +0000

University of California – Berkeley via EurekAlert – Disrupted nightly sleep and clogged arteries tend to sneak up on us as we age. And while both disorders may seem unrelated, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, helps explain why they are, in fact, pathologically intertwined. UC Berkeley sleep scientists have begun to reveal what it is about fragmented nightly sleep that leads to the fatty arterial plaque buildup known as atherosclerosis that can result in fatal heart disease. “We’ve discovered that fragmented sleep is associated with a unique pathway — chronic circulating inflammation throughout the blood stream — which, in turn, is linked to higher amounts of plaques in coronary arteries,” said study senior author Matthew Walker, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience. The findings, published June 4 in the journal PLOS Biology, adds poor sleep as a key risk factor for cardiovascular disease, which ranks as the top killer of Americans, with some 12,000 deaths each week — although COVID-19, which has killed, on average, 1,000 a day during the pandemic in the U.S., comes close. “To the best of our knowledge, these data are the first to associate sleep fragmentation, inflammation and atherosclerosis in humans,” said study lead author Raphael Vallat, a postdoctoral researcher in Walker’s Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley. Established risk factors for cardiovascular disease in humans include poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, high blood pressure and smoking. Using statistical modeling, the researchers analyzed the diagnostic data of more than 1,600 middle-aged and older adults using a national dataset known as the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. To isolate the effect of sleep quality on heart health, the study controlled for age, ethnicity, gender, body mass index, sleep disorders, blood pressure and high-risk behaviors such as smoking. The researchers then tracked the results of the study participants, analyzing their blood tests, their calcium scores that can gauge plaque buildup, as well as several different measures of sleep, including wristwatch-assessed sleep across a week and a night in a sleep laboratory that measured electrical brainwave signals. The final outcome clearly linked disrupted sleep patterns to higher concentrations of circulating inflammatory factors and, specifically, of white blood cells known as monocytes and neutrophils, which are key players in atherosclerosis. “In revealing this link with chronic inflammation, the findings suggest a missing middleman that is brokering the bad deal between fragmented sleep and the hardening of blood vessels,” Walker said. “Indeed, these associational results in humans mirror recent data in which experimentally manipulated sleep disruption in mice led to higher levels of circulating inflammation that caused atherosclerotic lesions in the rodents,” added Vallat. The findings linking poor sleep to atherosclerosis via chronic inflammation have major public health implications, researchers said. For example, atherosclerosis often begins in early adulthood. “Unfortunately, this process goes largely unnoticed until the plaque buildup, in middle or old age, suddenly blocks arterial blood flow to the heart, lungs, brain and/or other organs, hence its moniker, ‘silent killer,'” said Vallat. “The insidious nature of the disease requires that we pay attention to our sleep hygiene, even starting in early to midlife,” said study co-lead author Vyoma Shah, a doctoral student in Walker’s lab. To more accurately gauge one’s sleep quality, the researchers recommend the use of clinical grade sleep trackers, because the study found that people’s subjective assessments of their sleep were not reliable. “If you track your sleep patterns using objective measures, the same way you track your weight, blood pressure or cholesterol, you can make modifications to your sleep habits, which could make a tangible difference to later life health outcomes,” said Shah. With chronic inflammation shaping up to be a bridge connecting poor sleep to cardiovascular disease, it’s worth exploring its role in a plethora of other diseases where inflammation is known to be a possible factor, the researchers said. “This link between fragmented sleep and chronic inflammation may not be limited to heart disease, but could include mental health and neurological disorders, such as major depression and Alzheimer’s disease,” Walker said. “These are new avenues we must now explore.” To read the original article click here.

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Proof that Lifelong Cholesterol Reduction Prevents Heart Disease

AHA Publisher — Sat, 07 Mar 2020 08:00:08 +0000

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM via Nutrition Facts – “It is well accepted that coronary atherosclerosis is a chronic progressive disease that begins early in life and slowly progresses over several decades” before symptoms arise. However, the average age in cholesterol-lowering drug trials is 63; therefore, people have already been exposed to a lifetime of circulating LDL cholesterol. It’s no wonder pharmaceutical therapies typically reduce cardiovascular disease risk by only 20 to 30 percent. We know LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, plays “a central role” in the “initiation, development, and progression” of our number-one killer. In fact, more than 100 prospective studies involving more than a million people have demonstrated that those with higher LDL levels are at higher risk. “It seems reasonable to assume, therefore, that if lowering LCL-C [cholesterol] levels beginning later in life can slow the progression of advanced atherosclerotic plaques…then keeping LDL-C levels low, beginning much earlier in life” might prevent our arteries from getting clogged in the first place. A reasonable assumption, certainly—but let’s not just assume. “It would be…unethical to set up a controlled clinical trial in which young adults with elevated serum cholesterol levels were treated or not treated over their lifetime”—just as we couldn’t ethically set up a study in which half the young adults are made to start smoking to see if smoking really does cause lung cancer. That’s where observational studies come in. We can follow people who already smoke and compare their disease rates to those who don’t. It was around 40 years ago when the president of the American Heart Association tried to argue we should all stop smoking even though there were no randomized controlled trials. You can see a copy of the “Presidential Address” entitled “The Case for Prevention of Coronary Heart Disease” to the AHA’s 47th Scientific Sessions at 1:34 in my video. Those who smoke have a higher risk of heart attack, and the more we smoke the higher the risk. After we stop smoking, our risk drops. The same can be said for high cholesterol. Young men 18 through 39 years of age were followed for up to 34 years, and their cholesterol levels, even when they were young, predicted long-term risk of heart disease and death. Men in their 20s and 30s who have a total cholesterol just under 200 have a “substantially longer estimated life expectancy”—around 4 to 9 years longer—than those with levels over 240. “Evidence from observational studies, however, [is] vulnerable to confounding” factors. Eating a diet that is plant-based enough to lower cholesterol below average, for example, may add years to our lives regardless of what our cholesterol actually is. Ideally, we’d have a long-term, randomized, controlled trial. Nature may have actually set one up for us. Each of us, at conception, gets a random assortment of genes from our mother and our father, and some of those genes may affect our cholesterol levels. Just like there are rare genetic mutations that result in unusually high cholesterol levels, there are rare genetic mutations that lead to unusually low cholesterol levels, “provid[ing] an ideal system in which to assess the consequences of low LDL cholesterol levels independently of other factors that may modify disease progression,” such as confounding diet and lifestyle factors. Starting at 3:14 in my video, you can see what I mean. About 1 in 40 African Americans have a mutation that drops their LDL cholesterol from around 130 down toward more optimal levels. Now, this group didn’t eat healthy to get achieve that drop. It’s just in their genes. More than half had high blood pressure and there were a lot of smokers and diabetics in the group, yet those with genetically low LDL levels still had a significant reduction in the incidence of coronary heart disease even in the presence of all those other risk factors. How significant? How much less heart disease? A remarkable 88 percent of heart disease was simply gone. The astounding finding was that the risk of heart disease in these individuals was reduced by more than 80 percent, whereas the same 20- to 40-point decrease in LDL from drugs only reduces risk around 30 percent. Makes sense, though, because the folks with the mutation had low levels their entire life. They didn’t simply start taking a pill when they were 60. “The magnitude of the effect of long-term exposure to lower LDL-C [cholesterol] concentrations observed in each of these studies represents a threefold greater reduction in the risk of CHD,” or coronary heart disease, compared to drug treatment started later in life. (As an aside, for all of my fellow research nerds, check out that p value shown in my video at the 4:30 mark. You’d have to do arourd a quintillion studies to get that kind of result by chance!) “Therefore, a primary prevention strategy that promotes keeping LDL [cholesterol] levels as low as possible, beginning as early in life as possible, and sustaining those low levels of LDL [cholesterol] throughout the whole of one’s lifetime has the potential to dramatically reduce the risk of CHD,” coronary heart disease. This article has been modified. To read the original article click here. For more articles from Dr. Greger click here.

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