High Blood Pressure Treatment

Dear Geoff,

In response to your question on Thu, 23 Apr 2009:

"Hi Are you saying that So-called bad cholesterol, Low-Density-Lipoprotein (LDL) dose not form plaque on the arterial walls?"

The answer is "No, I am not saying that cholesterol doesn't form plaque on the arterial walls." But cholesterol not the entire cause of the plaque . . .

What cholesterol does is act as a liquid bandage, so to speak. Cholesterol is a nutrient that helps with many functions, one of which is to help hold tissues and cells together. Cholesterol seems like the culprit here, but it is not.

Let me explain. The real culprit is inflammation and as inflammation becomes chronic it can lead to hardening of tissues.

One of the causes of inflammation is an acidic pH in your body. As tissues and cells lose trace minerals they become acidic and in an attempt to alkalize, or buffer, this acidic inflammatory state, calcium is depleted from your bones.

This raises the serum level of calcium in your bloodstream. Due to prolonged inflammation of the arteries, they thin and begin to harden and even crack.

This is where the serum calcium tends to accumulate to form a hardened crust, or plaque. It is only natural for your cholesterol to show up at these inflamed and hardening sites to attempt to rescue the damaged tissue lining of the arteries. Yes, cholesterol becomes part of the plaque issue as it attaches to the calcium build-up and further reduces the diameter within the artery.

But it is trying to help prevent the artery from leaking or bursting. In a sense it is prolonging the integrity of the artery walls.

Cholesterol is not "the cause" of Coronary Heart Disease or Arterial Sclerosis no more than firemen are the cause of all the fires around town.

You see just as the firemen would look suspicious to someone unfamiliar with the fire departments duties, even presuming they are setting all the fires . . . so the same type of presumption can be drawn to demonize cholesterol.

Just because it is present at all these inflamed and hardening arterial sites does not mean cholesterol is causing the problem. Eliminating cholesterol with drugs (statins) may cause more problems for the majority of people than it would temporarily help. i.e. Global Transient Amnesia, Leaky Heart Syndrome, etc . . .

On the contrary, cholesterol is playing out it's cellular function attempting to put out the fires (inflammation).

You should be more concerned about C-reactive protein (fibrinogen), triglycerides and other inflammatory markers, as well as lipid molecule "size."

I apologize for the confusion I may have caused you Geoff. All we are trying to say is cholesterol is a single factor when considering the big picture. The premise behind all this is to help you better understand how to prevent and even reverse the scourge of heart disease that is killing so many people today.

Blocking your body's cholesterol metabolism with harmful chemicals is only attempting to treat a symptom and fails to address the root cause of heart disease.

Please feel free to ask any other questions. If i may, I suggest reading www.bloodpressurenormalized.com as well to shed some light on the importance of natural remedies for heart health.

Live well,

Martin Jacobse