Why Do So Call Health Conscious People who go to Gym Daily and Do Proper Exercises Get Heart Attack and that too at younger Age ?
Should we go to Gym or Not ?
Let us see
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Consciousness and Awareness have different meanings when used as Adjective
For example
-
- Health Conscious – Means Knowing the importance of maintaining Good Health and doing something for that
- Health Awareness – Means Means Knowing the importance of maintaining Good Health and doing the right thing for it
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- Those who don’t mind about the health are not health conscious. Examples are those who don’t know what is their Blood Sugar and Blood Pressure
- Those who mind about their health, but do the wrong things are health-conscious, but not health-aware. These are people who know about diabetes, have checked their blood sugar and found that they have diabetes, but read “Organic Eugenics” books and watch such videos and eat millets and jaggery and pay lots of money for “Chekku” Oil
- Those who mind about their health, but do the correct things are health-conscious as well as health-aware. These are people who know about diabetes, have checked their blood sugar and follow scientific methods to improve their health
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The common factor behind diseases like Heart Attack, Stroke, Vision Problems, Kidney Failure etc is clogging of blood vessels.
This clogging of blood vessels is due to
(I)
Damage to the inner wall of the blood vessels. (Scientifically it is called Endothelial Damage)
(II)
Increased Clot Forming Ability
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(I)
This damage to the inner wall happens because of various reasons
(I.A) Structurally Weak Inner Wall
1. Those whose inner wall is weak due to various Genes. In these people, even a normal blood sugar and normal blood pressure cause more damage
(I.B) Damage Due to Mechanical Reasons
2. High Blood Pressure. Your Blood Vessels are like Pipes or Garden Hoses. What happens when the pressure of water flowing in a pipe is high. It gets damaged easily. Isn’t it. Similarly when the blood pressure is high, your blood vessel’s inner wall get damaged soon.
3. High Pulse Rate : What happens when you take a straw and fold it. You will see a damage in the straw. What if you fold again and again. At one point the damage will be severe. Same way, When your blood vessels are bent and unbent again and again, the rate of injury to the inner walls. There are many blood vessels which get bent again and again. The vessels which gets bent maximum times in the one in your heart. It gets bent every time your heart beats. The vessels of your neck gets bent every time you move your neck. The vessels of your knee gets bend every time you move your knee. (This is why atherosclerosis is so common in Coronary, Carotid, Vertebral and Popliteal arteries)
(I.C) Damage Due to Chemical Reasons
Assume few different garden hoses. One in which only water flows. Another in which acid flows. Which will get damaged quicker ?
Same way,
Your blood vessels are also damaged as per what is in the blood
4. High Blood Sugar : Damages the blood vessels and leads to reduced blood flow. This is exactly why we need to keep the blood sugar under control. The damages may not be visible immediately, but they will accumulate
5. High LDL : Just like High Cholesterol, this too damage the blood vessels
6. Free Radicals : also damage the inner wall
7. Hyperhomocysteinemia : Homocysteine is a sulfur amino acid whose metabolism stands at the intersection of two pathways: remethylation to methionine, which requires folate and vitamin B12 (or betaine in an alternative reaction); and transsulfuration to cystathionine, which requires pyridoxal-5′-phosphate. When there is problem in either of these pathways, the level of Homocysteine in the body increases. When it increases beyond a certain level, it causes damages to the inner wall of the blood vessels causing reduction in blood flow.
(II)
Increased Clot Forming Ability : Hope you know the disease Hemophilia. This is a condition where blood does not clot easily. There are lots of diseases where the other end happens. That is Blood clots easily. In such cases, the person is at risk of developing clot even when Blood Sugar, Pressure, Cholesterol levels are normal. And the most important part is these conditions cannot be solved by exercise, walking etc
Increased Clot Forming Ability can be due to
(II.A) Congenital / Inborn : These are due to reasons where the individual has few genes which increase the clot forming ability of blood
8. Factor V Leiden and Prothrombin G2021A mutation.
9. Antithrombin III, protein C and protein S deficiency
(II.B) Acquired : Acquired factors also influence the coagulation cascade
10. Surgery,
11. Pregnancy (Pregnancy can also protect against heart attack due to various other factors)
12. Hormonal replacement therapy,
13. Contraception,
14. Malignancy,
15. Inflammation,
16. Infection eg Post COVID 19 Thrombosis : You can read my Scientific Article Published in a Medical Journal here at https://www.doi.org/10.36106/paripex/4100649
So
Whether you will get a heart attack (or stroke or kidney failure or vision problem or neuropathy) depends on so many factors
And
You need evaluate and manage accordingly
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So
1. You get heart attack if your vessels are weak from birth due to your genes
2. You get heart attack if your BP is high
3. You get heart attack if your Pulse is high
4. You get heart attack if your blood sugar is high
5. You get heart attack if your LDL is high (please don’t get fooled by half baked idiots who say that LDL is not an issue)
6. You get heart attack if Free Radicals are high in your body
7. You get heart attack if there is homocysteinaemia
8. You get heart attack if you have Factor V Leiden and Prothrombin G2021A mutation. (Please don’t order a test yourself and spend 1000s of rupees and then go an ask the doctor to explain it. It does not work that way)
9. You get heart attack if you have Antithrombin III, protein C and protein S deficiency
10. You get heart attack if you undergo Surgery,
11. You get heart attack if you are Pregnant and have other heart issues
12. You get heart attack if you undergo Hormonal replacement therapy,
13. You get heart attack if you use Hormonal Contraception (Condoms are the safest)
14. You get heart attack if you have cancer (malignancy)
15. You get heart attack if you have Inflammation,
16. You get heart attack during or after Infection eg Post COVID 19 Thrombosis
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So there are multiple factors
I have listed just a few
There are many others too
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So Treatment to prevent Heart Attack (or other such complications) has to be a multi pronged approach.
Exercise and Diet are the first line of approach
But at the same time, you need to understand that mere Exercise won’t help and Mere Diet won’t help
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Now
What will happen when a person exercises
Heart Rate will increase
BP will increase
What happens when heart rate increases
There is bending and unbending the the blood vessels of heart
What happens when BP increases
There is increased pressure to the inner wall of the blood vessels of heart
What happens when there is bending and unbending and increased pressure
There is damage to the inner wall
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Now Coming to the Questions
Why Do So Call Health Conscious People who go to Gym Daily and Do Proper Exercises Get Heart Attack and that too at younger Age ?
When you exercise, you damage your inner wall. Now, if there are no other causes for damage to wall and if there are no other causes of increased coagulability at work, there is time for the damages to be repaired
But
When other risk factors (increased sugar, increased LDL, post covid thrombosis) are also present
There is no time for the body to repair the damaged inner walls and there is an heart attack
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Should we go to Gym or Not ?
Please go to Gym
But
Please correct your Blood Sugar, Pulse Rate, Blood Pressure, Hypercoagulability first and then go to Gym
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- If you have no risk factors –> Gym increases your lifespan
- If you have risk factors and have corrected them with diet + drugs –> Gym increases your lifespan
- If you have risk factors and you have avoided tablets and think that you can solve all the problems with exercise alone –> Gym REDUCES your lifespan
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Moral
1.
Human Body Structures are complex
Human Body Functions are complex
There are multiple factors at play
2.
Don’t follow some advice based on Whatsapp forwards / Facebook Posts / Videos / Instagram Reels. Many of such Videos (including the one by few “doctors” are based on some random articles with scant regard to Physiology, Pathology, Community Health).
3.
When you have risk factors, Tablets plus Gym is Best
When you have risk factors, Tablets alone are better
When you have risk factors, Keeping Quite and Doing nothing is bad
When you have risk factors, Gym without Tablets is giving Friend Request to EmaDharmaRaja and then calling him over phone and asking to accept the request !
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Feel free to ask doubts
If you want to know about complications of diabetes and how to prevent them, read this book : Myths and Facts about LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) Diet and “Reversal” of Type 2 Diabetes: How Paleo, Keto, Atkin’s Diets Work https://amzn.to/3VbRcac
நீரழிவு நோய்க்கு ஏற்ற உணவு குறித்து அறிய : பேலியோ உணவின் அறிவியலும் உளவியலும்: Science and Psychology of Paleo Diet (Tamil Edition) https://amzn.to/3XcZSPw நூலை வாசிக்கவும்
