Every year half a million people die from coronary heart disease. In a recent CNN article discussing a new study based on the data from the Framingham study concludes: The study "reaffirms the notion that coronary heart disease is the 800-pound gorilla of disease in this country, now and for the foreseeable future," says cardiologist Dr. Stuart Seides. Heart attacks were virtually unknown before the turn of the century. Our diets, especially in "developed" countries have gone through dramatic changes in this period. There is a very real connection between this new disease and our new diets.
As we discuss in the Primer section, Vitamin C is required for tissue integrity. Tissues that are under constant stress are particularly vulnerable to degradation from C deficiency. This is certainly true of our arteries.
Shortly before his death at 93, Linus Pauling and Matthias Rath had completed work on the link between atherosclerosis and Vitamin C (please see the link in the side bar). They had concluded that chronic Vitamin C deficiency lead to a serious compromising of our arterial system. Our bodies respond to this situation with a healing process. Let me explain.
Imagine your arterial wall to be like a stone dam. This is a reasonable analogy since your cells are like the stones and the water being held by the dam is similar to the blood under pressure in our arteries. Now, if the cement between the rocks is inferior, leaks could occur. Likewise in our arteries, if the ground substance between our cells is inferior due to lack of the proper development of collagen and fibrils as a result of inadequate Vitamin C, the arterial wall may be susceptible to seepage.
When arteries are compromised, our systems produce a specialized, sticky form of low-density lipoprotein (yes, there is a link with cholesterol. Please read the side bar) called Lp(a) which attaches itself to the arterial wall to prevent blood seepage. This is consistent with where arterial plaque is found - where there are lesions and where there is particular stress (i.e. at branches, in arteries, not veins, due to the pressure and in coronary arteries due to the stress of the constant motion).
A study, Vitamin C Deficiency and Risk of Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) was published in the March 1997 issue of the British Medical Journal. The Aceology Medical Review states this conclusion:
This study looked at the association between blood vitamin C concentration and risk of heart attack in 1605 men from eastern Finland who did not have evidence of coronary artery disease on exercise testing between 1984 and 1989.
Seventy of the men had a fatal or a non-fatal heart attack between 1984 and 1992. Among men with the vitamin C deficiency 13.2% had a heart attack compared to 3.8% in those who were not deficient in Vitamin C.
This study concludes that vitamin C deficiency may be a risk factor for coronary artery disease and heart attack.
The Stage is Set - One More Element is Required to Produce a Heart Attack
The vast majority of cardiac events (heart attacks) are caused by a thrombus (blood clot) that gets stuck in an already narrowed (occluded) coronary artery. Blood flow to that section of heart muscle is cut off and the starvation of oxygen is the heart attack. If the lack of oxygen (ischemia) lasts very long, cells will die, leaving permanent heart injury or very commonly, death.
Vitamin E (see, I can discuss other things besides C) is our body's natural anti-thrombin. It prevents the blood cells from aggregating, without the side affects of blood-thinning drugs (possibly blindness from macular degeneration).
Understanding that most heart attacks are a combination of both restricted blood vessels AND a blood clot, not getting a blood clot would seem a very good thing! If a blood clot gets lodged in a vessel in the brain, that's a stroke - also something to avoid.
In Richard Passwater's book Supernutrition for Healthy Hearts, he discusses his studies of 17,884 cases for evidence of alpha-tocopherol's (vitamin E) impact on heart disease. Of most interest is one subgroup, those that had taken 400 IU or more of tocopherol for ten years or more. There were 2508 people in this group. Government statistics would indicate that of these 836 would be expected to have heart disease. The actual number reported was four! That is less than 1/2 of 1% of statistical expectations. A December 6, 1998 article at About.com discusses
Vitamin E also increases our cells ability to utilize oxygen. That is the primary reason it is used on burns. It allows more cells that were not killed, but are getting marginal nutrition due to circulatory damage in the area, to survive. This property of vitamin E also helps those with circulatory problems. This can include the minimization of angina (heart pain), cramps, and even have a positive effect on senility, which is very-much circulation related.
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