It's ironic that we start with death in a blog that's supposed to help you live well. But it's the most logical place in my opinion. We need to understand death to figure out how to live better. I am not going to tell you about how to cheat death. We all have do die sometime. It's a matter of when not if. Actually most people who are reading this are dying. Until we hit puberty, we keep growing. Once we reach puberty, our life's purpose from a biological standpoint is done. So, our body starts to wither. The only option available is to age well. To age well and avoid an untimely death, we need to understand what death is.
We have been to many funerals. How do we know someone is dead? Warm-blooded animals such as ourselves turn cold upon death. We become cold because there is no blood flow, which keeps our body warm. Blood is the medium through which our cells are nourished and waste is removed. Once the blood flow stops, the cells of our body begin to die. We dispose of the body before all the cells die as it would be unpleasant.
Absence of blood flow is caused by stoppage of the blood pump, the heart. We hear people say he/she died of a heart attack. But why does the heart stop? There could be many reasons. One common one, lack of blood. Yup, the pump which supplies blood to all cells need blood as well. Another irony here. The blood vessels that brings blood to the heart cells are called coronary arteries. When coronary arteries get clogged, the heart cells start dying, called ischemia. When a large number of heart cells are dead, the heart stops working.
Now the challenge before us is to prevent the clogging of the coronary arteries. Like always, we need to understand coronary arteries first. You might heard of the principle, "First take care of yourself, then you can take care of others." The same principle is followed by the heart. The first organ that receives oxygen-rich blood is the heart through the coronary arteries. Coronary arteries are among the flexible arteries. When the heart pumps, flexible arteries expand to take in all the blood and then they contract to push blood all around the body. So, they are like secondary blood pumps with heart being the primary one.
The first sign of deterioration is the loss of flexibility called arteriosclerosis. Think of a time when you hurt your knee. After some time, a scab forms and you are not able to bend the knee anymore. A similar thing happens to our arteries and makes them stiff. Now, the heart has to pump harder to compensate for the loss of secondary pumps leading to even higher blood pressure.
Unlike the scab on our knees, the scabs on our arteries, plaques tend to grow as adjacent plaques join together. This leads to narrowing of the blood vessels, called atherosclerosis. We might experience chest pain as a result. When the plaque grows big enough, it gets detached and become a clot, thrombosis. The clot can travel along the artery and block the entire blood supply to any organ. Clots in coronary arteries could cause the heart to stop.
What causes injury to our arteries in the first place? There are many reasons for the cells lining the blood vessels to get injured.
Hypertension ( High blood pressure)
Diabetes ( High blood sugar )
Hypernatremia (High blood salt)
Hyperinsulinemia ( High blood insulin)
Nicotine
Pollution
Obesity ( Fat deposits)
In future posts, we will get into the details on every one of the above reasons.
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