I just want to throw this in the series and see on what everyone think in conjunction with the "healthy diet or exercise" in preventing heart diseases. To me, this next topic plays a great role in understanding what can happen still or what predisposes anyone to Heart Attack, no matter how religious we are in achieving or maintaining a healthy life style.
In 2004, our 9-5 hours Heart Attack Care Services (HAC) was changed to 24 hours, this included out-of-hours where all arriving patients with chest pain were directed to our Coronary Care Unit (CCU). Among these admissions were of young and healthy men having real heart attacks. This number basically opened our eyes and found them alarming, they were found to not have a single risk of Heart Disease and having a healthy lifestyle.
One example was a 29 yearl old gym instructor, with all the packs that you can count in the world, not just 6! It can't be helped that we needed to ask about his diet.
The only abnormal blood result we had of him was his sky-high level of cholesterol.
Disclaimer: image from menspictures.blogspot.com
Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH)
Simply put, anybody who have this basically have had high levels of cholesterol since birth. Or worse, from conception perhaps?
As it's in our genes, one DNA is not doing its's job, that is to control our low-density proteins or LDL, the bad cholesterol.
In the UK, one person a day with FH has a Heart Attack. About a third of people don’t survive their first heart attack, and many who do survive will have damaged hearts.
Statins
These are cholesterol-lowering drugs that vary in their effectivity. What they do is to block the production of cholesterol, making them a standard medication after a heart attack, as a secondary prevention for another occurence.
But, has anyone heard of the "cholesterol myth" before?
Increasing number for the young male population
As our Hospital Trust is a pioneer when it comes to cardiac research, our CCU for instance have a lot of ongoing research, day after day with our 24 hours HAC service. Some take years in data collection, some for only a few months.
This increasing number was quite alarming which prompted another research in 2008 to find a cure, or at least find "something" that is effective in lowering the cholesterol other than statins.
The next part will be of the most common side effects of statin, the cholesterol myth and some recent results that were found to be effective in lowering cholesterol in our diet.
Please leave a comment or anything to add, suggest, correct, advise and any experiences that may be found helpful by some of us. The more, the merrier.
I am a cardiac nurse, not a doctor. Please do own research as you may see fit. Thank you.
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@immarojas/which-weighs-more-in-preventing-heart-illnesses-healthy-diet-or-exercise-part-1
https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@immarojas/which-weighs-more-in-preventing-heart-illnesses-healthy-diet-or-exercise-part-2
References:
https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-matters-magazine/medical/familial-hypercholesterolaemia
https://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/side-effects-of-statin-drugs#2-3
