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Heart disease is an umbrella term for a number of different diseases affecting the heart. As of 2007, it is the leading cause of death in the United States, England, Canada and Wales, killing one person every 34 seconds in the United States alone.
The blood vessels consist of arteries, arterioles, capillaries, venules, and veins. All blood is carried in these vessels. The arteries, which are strong, flexible, and resilient, carry blood away from the heart and bear the highest blood pressures. Because arteries are elastic, they narrow (recoil) passively when the heart is relaxing between beats and thus help maintain blood pressure. The arteries branch into smaller and smaller vessels, eventually becoming very small vessels called arterioles. Arteries and arterioles have muscular walls that can adjust their diameter to increase or decrease blood flow to a particular part of the body.
2008-11-15

The Dangers of Low Cholesterol  

In today's society, cholesterol is seen as a baddie. Everybody "knows" that a high cholesterol "causes" heart and vascular diseases. TV ads warn us that "diet and exercise May not enough", and drugs are increasingly prescribed to reduce cholesterol.

You may think you know what the problem of cholesterol is all about, but before you jump on the anti-cholesterol train these studies:

* A 3-year study involving 11,500 patients has shown that low cholesterol levels resulted An increased lung cancer, increases in other types of cancer, increased risk of cardiovascular death, erectile dysfunction and infertility, and a loss of memory and mental focus. (European Heart Journal 1997, 18, 52-59)

* A Swedish researchers discovered that people with low cholesterol levels suffer from frequent and severe infections, while people with high cholesterol had a lower mortality rate than the average population. (Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD, independent researchers Magle Stora Kyrkogata 9, S-223250 Lund, Sweden)

* A 30 years follow-up on one of the original studies linking cholesterol and heart disease showed no correlation between high cholesterol and mortality, but have a low correlation between cholesterol and mortality. Death rates from cardiovascular disease increased 14% for each 1 mg /dl decrease of total cholesterol per year (Anderson KM. Cholesterol and mortality, 30 years follow-up from the Framingham study. JAMA 1987 Apr 24; 257 (16) : 2176-80)

* A paper in the Journal of Heart Failure on a study from 1134 patients with heart disease have shown that low cholesterol was associated with worse outcomes in heart failure patients and affects survival rates. It also showed that elevated cholesterol was not associated with hypertension, diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

(Horwich TB. Et.al. Low serum total cholesterol is associated with significant increase in mortality in Advanced Heart Failure. J Card. Fail. 2002 Aug; 8 (4) :216-214)

High cholesterol is a " Disease ", which was developed by the pharmaceutical industry to sell more cholesterol-lowering medication, namely, statins. These drugs have a high profit margin, so that the laboratory is sufficient for cholesterol were changed in the last 7-10 years, so that more people will appear as "high" cholesterol and to be convinced to take medication.

Normal (ie, non-pathological) cholesterol ranges should be 175 to 275, with people with blood type O is running at the upper end of the spectrum because of the way their body uses protein. Since these are the pathological areas, levels above or below these values mean the body is seriously unbalanced and probably sick.

However, for optimal health, one should be in the middle third of this range. How healthy cholesterol should be between 208 and 242nd Strangely these people with completely normal and healthy cholesterol ranges are encouraged to take drugs to their unhealthy cholesterol too low.

So, before you statin drugs to lower your cholesterol, can be a little research on the dangers of low cholesterol levels. There are other ways of protecting themselves from heart disease, are much more effective.

 

Steven Horne, RH(AHG) is a professional member and immediate past president of the American Herbalists Guild. He is passionate about spreading the word about how effective herbal medicine can be. You can learn more about his straight-forward healing philosophy at http://www.healityourself.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steven_Horne

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