Readers who are avid health (or sickness) watchers will know I really mean “Coronary Occlusion”, but it was too much temptation to use Mrs. Malaprop and end up with “Coronary Conclusion”. Because quite simply, that is what it can turn out to be – your conclusion, if you don’t follow some simple rules.
The sad part of all this doom and gloom is that nine times out of ten you can actually avoid the Coronary Occlusion, the fancy name for the condition also known as a “heart attack”.
Before launching into the real factors in the situation, a little understanding of what constitutes a heart attack is in order. I think everyone understands that you have both red blood cells and white blood cells. The function of the red ones is simply to carry oxygen to the tissues, so that the tissues can survive. The heart muscle is no exception to this rule. This hollow muscular pump needs oxygen just like all the other organs you keep inside you – spleen, kidneys, lungs, bowel and so forth. Take my tip – keep them inside you if you possibly can!
However, the inside lining of the heart (muscle) is smooth and impermeable to the oxygen tied to the red cells. In other words, the heart does not get its nutrition from the blood it pumps through it. In fact, the blood supply to the heart is through some specialized arteries called the “Coronary” arteries. These run along the outer surface of the heart muscle and then split up into smaller tributaries which dip into the heart muscle to supply it with oxygen.
Now if we are to consider that the heart muscle is probably the most important muscle in the human body (well, physiologically it outranks the other much more highly publicized muscle in males!) then it becomes important that this heart muscle gets a good supply of blood. And the quickest way that the supply can get altered is by blocking off the coronary arteries. This is most usually done via a slow process by which a small obstruction in the artery slowly gets bigger and bigger until eventually it blocks off totally and the heart muscle “starves” of oxygen and that section of the heart muscle, supplied by that artery, just dies. We have a name for that death of heart muscle too, and it is called a “myocardial infarction”.
This event of blocking is called a Coronary Occlusion, which may end up as a coronary conclusion if the section of dead muscle is large enough! The actual death of the muscle resulting in this myocardial infarction, is often shortened to the simple M.I. (The heart muscle is called the myocardium.) But of course, the simpler name is ‘Heart Attack’.
In short, cardiac health is mainly involved in keeping the coronary arteries clean and clear. This is where our old friend Cholesterol comes in. You see, the deposits inside the artery are generally made up of this chemical and other blood fats. This makes a “sticky” patch in the artery and some blood cells get stuck there. This causes a clot to form and you have all the precursors needed to block the artery, with the occlusion leading to the infarction, and to your family claiming early on your life insurance policy.
To be able to keep your arteries clear you need to have a nice low cholesterol, which can be done by diet plus medication if required. But first you need to know what your cholesterol level is. This requires a blood test, which can be done at my favorite hospital.
The most likely candidates for a heart attack are overweight, hypertensive smokers, with high cholesterol. If this is you, do something about it today. Well, perhaps that’s being a little bit too melodramatic, but you are certainly one of the cardiac high risk people in the population.
As I wrote at the start of this article, whether or not you have a coronary conclusion can be under your control. Stop smoking, lose weight, keep your blood pressure in the normal range and keep the cholesterol low.
You can drive your own destiny. Start today. Get a check-up tomorrow!
