On my first day of medical school I could not have told you exactly what a heart attack was. I knew it was related to some kind of blockage, but I didn’t know exactly how, where, or why. And though I’m not sure whether anyone yet can explain exactly why, the research continues to bring us closer to answers. At a certain point though, I did begin to understand what heart attacks are, and that is what I’d like to discuss today. Continue reading
Category Archives: Heart
Cottonseed Oil, Crisco, and Trans Fats
About ten years ago, some fifty years after concerns were first raised about a possible link between trans fats and heart attacks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled that partially hydrogenated oils, the primary dietary source of trans fats in ultraprocessed food items, were no longer “generally recognized as safe” in human food. Processed food manufacturers were given three years to reformulate their products or to request an exemption. This action was predicted to prevent thousands of fatal heart attacks a year. Multiply that by 50 years to get an idea of the effect trans fats have on your heart. Continue reading
What Makes Your Heart a Home
Just like the home you live in, I like to think of the heart as having plumbing, electricity, and carpentry. Most diseases of the heart can be traced to a problem in one of these systems. In other words, some heart diseases are due to plumbing problems, others to faulty wiring, and still others to the construction material itself. Continue reading