stress affect heart health and cholesterol levels?

[barita_lola]

Hi friends, my grandmom has never had high pressure and always had a good diet. she rarely ate high cholesterol foods, and i don't think anyone in her family had heart problems. she did however have chronic stress and anxiety so i was wondering to what degree stress impacts heart health? she had good cholesterol, but then why are her arteries clogged 90%?


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[Mitra]

You might find Dr Mike Eades's blog about Stress and the Heart (http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=666) a good place to start looking into this subject. I think the jury's still out on what's the primary cause of heart disease, but stress is well up there as a candidate.

[Songwriter]

From my reading, dietary cholesterol has little to do with your cholesterol level -- that is a myth perpetuated by the low-fat / low-cholesterol powers that be. Many experts lean toward stress (causing chronic inflammation) being the key factor in heart disease. Also, a high-carb diet, leading to obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

[Omlette]

It is not just the cholesterol numbers, but the type of cholesterol. If she has large fluffy LDL's running around, then all is good. If she has the small particles, they they will manage to lodge themselves into cracks, crevices, etc, and cause clogged arteries.

It seems that man doc's don't check this. I didn't learn about it until 2 years ago. I had one doc tell me my ratios were good even though my overall numbers were high, so he wasn't worried. Well, my regular physician said he wanted to run a more exstensive test. That is when I found out about the particle size. Unfortunately, I have the small one. A low carb diet should alter that.

[bluejay111]

IMO Songwriter is right on.

[Ottawa]

As well, "HDL is the STP Oil treatment for the body". Exercise is considered the primary way of driving it up. The majority of people vastly reduce their activity levels as they age and do not get teh same level of nutrients from teh food they eat.

Vitamin C improves HDL levels as well but exercise is the primary motivator. "The higher the Vitamin C level in the diet, the higher the HDL level in the blood. This is important because HDL transports fat molecules from the artery walls and carries them to the liver for removal."
Jacques, P. F., Hartz, S. C., McGandy, R. B., Jacob, R. A., Russell, R. M. (1987) Ascorbic Acid, HDL, And Total Plasma Cholesterol In The Elderly, J Am Coll Nutr. Apr;6(2):169-74.

It is Lp(a) (and not ordinary LDL cholesterol) that initially binds to the damaged blood vessel. Other binding inhibitors for Lp(a) included Vitamin E, Beta-Carotene, Lysine, and Benzoic Acid to inhibit the binding of these smaller particles.

I definitely agree with the correlation of stress and heart disease as well.