How Antioxidants Protects -

How Atherosclerosis Cause Harm?

The arteries most commonly and severely affected by atherosclerosis are the main arterial trunk of the body the aorta and its immediate branches. In particular, atherosclerosis affects the coronary arteries the two branches of the aorta that supply the heart muscle itself with blood; the branches that run down to supply the legs; and the carotid branches than run up the neck to supply the brain and their branches that form a network under the brain. Although the branches to the kidneys and intestines are usually spared, it is common for the openings in the aorta for these branches to be severely narrowed by atherosclerosis.

Arteries are not usually closed off completely by plaques. What happens is that the surface of plaques becomes rough and sometimes broken down ( ulcerated). This allows the blood to contact the underlying tissue. Blood is designed to clot whenever it comes in contact with body tissue other than blood vessel linings. So clotting on top of atheromatous plaques is very common. This is called 'thrombosis' and, of course, such a clot can readily close off the artery altogether. Coronary artery thrombosis is the principal cause of heart attacks; cerebral artery thrombosis causes strokes with all their frightening consequences of paralysis, speech and vision disturbance and general disablement. Even more serious strokes occur if small brain arteries are so damaged and weakened by atherosclerosis that they burst. The resulting bleeding around or into the brain is called 'cerebral haemorrhage' and the effects are usually devastating.

Apart from the risk to the brain, heart and other organs, the damage to the aorta itself commonly leads to weakening of the wall and the pressure of the blood in this vessel is so high that the result is often a dangerous ballooning out of the aorta - condition known as aneurysm. It is hardly necessary to state that an aortic aneurysm is a highly dangerous condition and that the consequences of bursting hardly bear thinking about.

You will see from all this that severe atherosclerosis is a condition to be avoided at all costs. Any knowledge about the ways in which it comes about is valuable knowledge, and any measures that could retard the progress of the disease are priceless. That knowledge now exists and there is goo reason to believe that we do have ways of limiting the worsening of this dreadful condition. forget any ideas you may have that this is simply a matter of cutting down your intake of cholesterol. That simplistic idea has been around for far too long, and there is more to it than that, as we shall see. Cholesterol is an essential body ingredient. Every cell contains cholesterol, and each day a large amount of cholesterol comes down your bile duct from your liver, where it is synthesized, and is reabsorbed into your blood.

Certainly, a reduced intake of saturated fats is a good thing, but there is always plenty of cholesterol in your body to be laid down in the atherosclerotic plaques, if the process that leads to this dangerous deposition is operating. Happily, we are now beginning to understand this process and we know that free radicals are deeply involved.