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I curious to know the details of his health. He just did an IRONMAN 5 months before. Why was he unaware of the status of his clogged “widow-maker” artery? Why w

I curious to know the details of his health. He just did an IRONMAN 5 months before. Why was he unaware of the status of his clogged “widow-maker” artery? Why was his artery clogged? high cholesterol? What does his diet consist of? Use of ultrasound imaging to measure the thickness of the inner walls of the carotid arteries that supply blood to the brain. Increasing carotid artery intima-media thickness, or CIMT, indicates a build-up of fatty deposits, known as plaque, in crucial arteries to the heart and brain. Plaque build-up in the arteries, which is usually affects adults, can restrict the flow of blood, causing heart attacks or stroke.

stan_rogers 8y ago
There's not always a lot in the way of warning signs, and people tend not to get casual arteriograms just for kicks. The apparently-healthy suddenly dropping dead isn't exactly a rare phenomenon, and "being in shape" can be misleading. Jim Fixx[1] was kind of the poster child for this sort of thing; his death pretty much kicked off the over-40 checkup routine. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Unfortunately you can't really get a heart arteriogram done as a checkup and anything else is actually guesswork. Both MRA and CTA are really expensive. Bloodwork can point to problems but there is still a plenty of differential diagnosis involved... You need a bunch of history (main factors are currently age and family history) to reasonably evaluate risk using e.g. European joint guidelines. You can perhaps guess better based on local doppler USG of some big extremity artery or of carotid. Doppler of heart is not precise enough to show anything useful.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"I curious to know the details of his health. He just did an IRONMAN 5 months before. Why was he unaware of the status of his clogged “widow-maker” artery? Why was his artery clogged? high cholesterol? What does his diet consist of?" That just happens. There are people who are in great health and drop dead one day. Whatever you do lifestyle-wise just improves your chances of being healthy but there are no guarantees. You can smoke a pack of cigarettes daily and live up to 100 and others will get lung cancer without ever touching a cigarette.
jhayward 8y ago
Please quit literally blaming the victim. When did you last have an ultrasound of scan of your LVA? Have you had imaging done of your bile duct to rule out pancreatic cancer? Why don't you know your health status? The answer is, of course, because there was no good reason to do the invasive testing needed to determine that status. There is an entire medical field dedicated to measuring the benefit vs cost (including testing-induced problems) of such things. No one recommends that ironman competitors do heart scans or arteriograms.
HamSession 8y ago
There are a lot of factors that can go into heart disease. Some of these factors are: 1. Under/over working out, especially for white men over working out can lead to increased shear stress on the arteries 2. Genetic familia hypercholesterolemia aka high cholesterol. This is caught by a blood test and fixed with statins. 3. High Blood Pressure again exams and medication 4. Size of ldl particles, this one is new 5. Genetic markers especially 9p21.3, sadly about a third of people have this marker. How it works we don't entirely know, but the best guess I've come up with is it has to do with interlukin 6 signaling which signals inflammation. Solution to this might be taking curcumin, lower weight, Mediterranean diet. 7. Low HDL again mostly genetic, niacin may help some as may exercise From my research into the matter it seems that the initial damage is done via HBP, shear stress, or cell repair failure. Then inflammatory markers attach to site causing white blood cells and ldl to infiltrate between the inner and outer walls. Eventually the plaque grows and the inner wall continues to thin until one of two scenarios occur 1) hard cap forms (calcification) and the plaque grows until it restricts enough blood that it causes heart attack or 2) The much more dangerous scenario of the inner wall thinning and breaking causing a clot and instant heart attack. The bad part about 2) is that its undetectable except for angiograph or nuclear stress (treadmill can if the heart rate goes high enough and the doctor skilled at interpretation). Some hope for 2) is that statins seem to encourage calcification of those thin walls thus preventing the heart attacks. This is just what causes the heart attack and the actual fix (stenting and balloon angioplasty) has its own issues. Where the only surefire fix after a heart attack is a bypass, but if more than 2 plaques are found you need to harvest veins which don't last as long. What the entrepreneur world needs to focus on in my opinion is easier at home detection of coronary plaques (sound, radar, electrical, magnetic, etc.). If the government got involved nanorobotics and bio compatible hearts could be explored along with angiogensis via external stimulation, but each of those would be a moonshot program.
- dalore 8y ago
  There is a faulty assumption that higher cholesterol leads to higher risk of heart disease, but the fact the opposite is true. http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2016/11/familial-hypercholesterolemia-fh/ http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2016/11/familial-hypercholesterol... A few of the other facts/assumptions you make are outdated. Statins do very little to improve mortality. Inflammation can be reduced by cutting out carbs and sugar. Eating more saturated fats and omega 3 also reduces your risk of heart disease. In fact the whole dietary advice given over the last 60 years is responsible for the epidemic we now have with obesity, diabetes and heart attacks. But they can't come out and say they are wrong, but they are slowly changing it a bit at a time.
dalore 8y ago
Cholesterol is a very low if not irrelevant marker for heart disease now. It's been a myth for 40+ years that food high in cholesterol will clog your arteries. Dietary cholesterol has very little impact on total blood LDL cholesterol levels. https://www.biznews.com/health/2015/02/16/science-says-tim-noakes-is-right-on-cholesterol-lchf-and-a-whole-lot-else https://www.biznews.com/health/2015/02/16/science-says-tim-n... There is NO evidence that: - too much saturated fat raises cholesterol - saturated fat causes heart disease - high cholesterol causes heart disease - lowering cholesterol reduces heart disease - there is a correlation between obesity rates and the amount of fat consumption - there is a correlation between obesity rates and the amount of protein consumption And there IS evidence that: - there is a correlation between obesity rates and the amount of carbohydrate consumption - the obesity and diabetes epidemics are a direct result of the misleading cholesterol campaign. Studies also show that the advice of replacing fats with carbs increases your risk of heart disease.

stan_rogers 8y ago

There's not always a lot in the way of warning signs, and people tend not to get casual arteriograms just for kicks. The apparently-healthy suddenly dropping dead isn't exactly a rare phenomenon, and "being in shape" can be misleading. Jim Fixx[1] was kind of the poster child for this sort of thing; his death pretty much kicked off the over-40 checkup routine. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Fixx

AstralStorm 8y ago
Unfortunately you can't really get a heart arteriogram done as a checkup and anything else is actually guesswork. Both MRA and CTA are really expensive. Bloodwork can point to problems but there is still a plenty of differential diagnosis involved... You need a bunch of history (main factors are currently age and family history) to reasonably evaluate risk using e.g. European joint guidelines. You can perhaps guess better based on local doppler USG of some big extremity artery or of carotid. Doppler of heart is not precise enough to show anything useful.

maxxxxx 8y ago

"I curious to know the details of his health. He just did an IRONMAN 5 months before. Why was he unaware of the status of his clogged “widow-maker” artery? Why was his artery clogged? high cholesterol? What does his diet consist of?" That just happens. There are people who are in great health and drop dead one day. Whatever you do lifestyle-wise just improves your chances of being healthy but there are no guarantees. You can smoke a pack of cigarettes daily and live up to 100 and others will get lung cancer without ever touching a cigarette.

jhayward 8y ago

Please quit literally blaming the victim. When did you last have an ultrasound of scan of your LVA? Have you had imaging done of your bile duct to rule out pancreatic cancer? Why don't you know your health status? The answer is, of course, because there was no good reason to do the invasive testing needed to determine that status. There is an entire medical field dedicated to measuring the benefit vs cost (including testing-induced problems) of such things. No one recommends that ironman competitors do heart scans or arteriograms.

HamSession 8y ago

There are a lot of factors that can go into heart disease. Some of these factors are: 1. Under/over working out, especially for white men over working out can lead to increased shear stress on the arteries 2. Genetic familia hypercholesterolemia aka high cholesterol. This is caught by a blood test and fixed with statins. 3. High Blood Pressure again exams and medication 4. Size of ldl particles, this one is new 5. Genetic markers especially 9p21.3, sadly about a third of people have this marker. How it works we don't entirely know, but the best guess I've come up with is it has to do with interlukin 6 signaling which signals inflammation. Solution to this might be taking curcumin, lower weight, Mediterranean diet. 7. Low HDL again mostly genetic, niacin may help some as may exercise From my research into the matter it seems that the initial damage is done via HBP, shear stress, or cell repair failure. Then inflammatory markers attach to site causing white blood cells and ldl to infiltrate between the inner and outer walls. Eventually the plaque grows and the inner wall continues to thin until one of two scenarios occur 1) hard cap forms (calcification) and the plaque grows until it restricts enough blood that it causes heart attack or 2) The much more dangerous scenario of the inner wall thinning and breaking causing a clot and instant heart attack. The bad part about 2) is that its undetectable except for angiograph or nuclear stress (treadmill can if the heart rate goes high enough and the doctor skilled at interpretation). Some hope for 2) is that statins seem to encourage calcification of those thin walls thus preventing the heart attacks. This is just what causes the heart attack and the actual fix (stenting and balloon angioplasty) has its own issues. Where the only surefire fix after a heart attack is a bypass, but if more than 2 plaques are found you need to harvest veins which don't last as long. What the entrepreneur world needs to focus on in my opinion is easier at home detection of coronary plaques (sound, radar, electrical, magnetic, etc.). If the government got involved nanorobotics and bio compatible hearts could be explored along with angiogensis via external stimulation, but each of those would be a moonshot program.

dalore 8y ago
There is a faulty assumption that higher cholesterol leads to higher risk of heart disease, but the fact the opposite is true. http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2016/11/familial-hypercholesterolemia-fh/ http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2016/11/familial-hypercholesterol... A few of the other facts/assumptions you make are outdated. Statins do very little to improve mortality. Inflammation can be reduced by cutting out carbs and sugar. Eating more saturated fats and omega 3 also reduces your risk of heart disease. In fact the whole dietary advice given over the last 60 years is responsible for the epidemic we now have with obesity, diabetes and heart attacks. But they can't come out and say they are wrong, but they are slowly changing it a bit at a time.

dalore 8y ago

Cholesterol is a very low if not irrelevant marker for heart disease now. It's been a myth for 40+ years that food high in cholesterol will clog your arteries. Dietary cholesterol has very little impact on total blood LDL cholesterol levels. https://www.biznews.com/health/2015/02/16/science-says-tim-noakes-is-right-on-cholesterol-lchf-and-a-whole-lot-else https://www.biznews.com/health/2015/02/16/science-says-tim-n... There is NO evidence that: - too much saturated fat raises cholesterol - saturated fat causes heart disease - high cholesterol causes heart disease - lowering cholesterol reduces heart disease - there is a correlation between obesity rates and the amount of fat consumption - there is a correlation between obesity rates and the amount of protein consumption And there IS evidence that: - there is a correlation between obesity rates and the amount of carbohydrate consumption - the obesity and diabetes epidemics are a direct result of the misleading cholesterol campaign. Studies also show that the advice of replacing fats with carbs increases your risk of heart disease.