Cardiovascular Disease

What is Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease, also known as coronary artery disease, refers to the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels (arteries and veins). While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system (as used in MeSH), it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis (arterial disease).

How severe is the problem?

Well, it’s huge! Here are some staggering facts about Cardiovascular diseases:

In 2002 it was estimated that 29 percent of deaths worldwide (16.7 million deaths) were due to CVD and that 43 percent of global morbidity and mortality, measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), was caused by CVD

Estimates for the year 2006 are that 80 million people in the United States have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD)

CVD claimed 864,480 lives in 2005 (final mortality) (35.3 percent of all deaths or 1 of every 2.8 deaths)

CVD is the most expensive health care cost in the US, topping $313.8 billion in direct costs to the U.S. in 2009!

What causes cardiovascular disease?

 There are several risk factors that can cause heart diseases. Of them are:

• Age
• Absence of key nutritional elements, such as polyphenol antioxidants
• Diabetes mellitus
• Hypercholesterolemia (elevated cholesterol levels) and abnormal lipoprotein particle profile (cholesterol subtypes)
• Tobacco smoking
• Higher fibrinogen and PAI-1 blood concentrations
• Elevated homocysteine, or even upper half of normal
• Elevated blood levels of asymmetric dimethylarginine
• High blood pressure
• Exposure to high levels of environmental noise
• Obesity, especially central or male-type obesity; apart from being linked to diabetes, this form of obesity independently increases cardiovascular risk, presumedly by inducing an inflammatory and procoagulant state
• Genetic factors/Family history of cardiovascular disease
• Physical inactivity/ Sedentary lifestyle
• Depression
• Stress

Dietary Factors

In his book "The Heart Healthy Program", the cardiologist Dr. Richard M. Fleming has identified several key dietary factors that can lower the risk of heart disease, including:

Lowering of LDL cholesterol by reducing saturated fat intake.

Lowering of Triglyceride levels by reducing consumption of sugary and processed foods.

Reduction of Homocysteine levels by supplementation with Vitamins B6 and B12, and folic acid.

Increased antioxidant activity by higher consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Lowering of fibrinogen and growth factors by cutting back on foods such as red meat, dairy products, poultry and eggs.

Dr. Asa Andrew outlines the "anti-inflammatory diet" in his book Empowering Your Health which discusses in depth the harmful effects that food have on our bodies and the consequences that result from eating the wrong kinds of foods. We strongly suggest you read either Dr. Asa’s book, or go check out Dr. Oz’s website and read his book, You, on a Diet to understand how truly devastating foods can be to our bodies.

How is this related to Childhood Obesity?

Good question, and one that deserves a good answer. For starters, there are very few diseases that start before we are born. Though there are some such diseases like sickle cell anemia, down syndrome, and even atherosclerosis, obesity is generally not considered genetic.

We do know that parents who contract any type of illness generally have children who are already predisposed to contracting that same illness, though not necessarily because of their genes. Looking at obesity, we can give examples of how this is true. For instance, if Little Johnny’s parents are obese, then they live a lifestyle that got them into that position. Since Little Johnny doesn’t know any better, he tends to eat the same foods, and do the same activities as his obese parents. Therefore, Little Johnny actually has a lifestyle that is predisposed to becoming obese. It had very little to do with his genetics.

Later in life, people tend to have medical problems that didn’t exist in the earlier years. Let’s assume that Johnny is now grown up, and his parents passed away from heart disease in their early 60′s. Johnny has been overweight his entire life, and now the doctor is telling him that he has atherosclerosis caused by his overeating of saturated and trans fats, as well as his excessively high cholesterol.

Johnny is now at risk of heart disease because his lifestyle promoted the disease within his body. Had Johnny not lived an obese person’s lifestyle, he would possibly have been able to put off this diagnosis for a long time, if not indefinitely.

Children who are obese are already starting to live a lifestyle that is conducive to having complications later on like cardiovascular disease, Type II Diabetes, and other such problems listed here.