Systemic Medicine applied as a preventive tool is invaluable in cardiovascular diseases, it is also of great help for those patients who have already experienced a coronary event.
The ischemic heart disease constitutes more than 25% of the total death rate in the United Sates, that is more than 1 in 4 deaths is due to this pathology.
Although there have been great advances -in cardiology- in the last 50 years, between 200 000 and 300 000 people die each year, in the US, as a result of a stroke before they can reach any medical assistance. It is estimated that approximately one million people attend hospitals each year because of heart attacks.
Acute myocardial infarction (MI) is by far the first cause of death world wide. Approximately 50% of those individuals who have an MI will not get on time to the emergency center. In the other 50% half of them will have intra-hospital complications (mainly arrhythmias) which will provoke their death in the following 24 hours after their hospitalization.
MI is the result of chronic myocardial ischemia (lack of oxygen) which is triggered, in most cases, by a coronary thrombus which existed in the atherosclerotic plaque. Less frequently MI may be the result of a chronic coronary vasospasm, inadequate coronary blood flow (hypotension) or excessive metabolic demand.
The localization and extension of an infarction depends on the anatomic area which irrigates the coronary artery obstructed by the event, the presence of concomitant stenotic lesions and presence and quantity of collateral irrigation.
The clinical characteristics of an acute infarction are: crushing, viselike chest pain that may radiate to the left arm, neck or epigastrium and sometimes stimulates the sensation of acute indigestion or a gallbladder attack. The patient usually becomes ashen, clammy, short of breadth, faint, and anxious and often feels that death is imminent. Typical signs are tachycardia, a barely perceptible pulse, low blood pressure, and mildly elevated temperature, cardiac arrhythmia and electrographic evidence of elevation of the ST segments and Q wave.
Factors that increase cardiovascular risk are: Hereditary precedents, smoking, hyperlipidemia, sedentary behavior, obesity, hypertension, diabetes and age (men over 55 and women over 65).
The existing preventive treatment consists in eliminating or diminishing the risk factors previously mentioned and the daily intake of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
Among the group of superior plants called adaptogens, there are herbal combinations -which under the precepts of Systemic Medicine- are of great utility in the prevention of acute ischemic cardiopathy, such as: Rhodiola Rosea which modulates catecholamines which are more present in cardiac cases -and has an anxiolytic effect in patients; Astrágalus membranáceus (adaptogen with proven cardioprotective effects among others) Tribulus terrestris (which has a coronary vasodilatation effect improving myocardial perfusion and Crataegus oxyacantha (plant which has been extensively studied and has coronary vasodilatation effects, anti-arrhythmic, hypotension, and a positive inotropic (improves the cardiac muscle performance as a pump). These plants also posses a potent antioxidative effect of great benefit in preventing, reducing, or slowing the process of atherosclerosis and thrombus formation, which is at the root of the problem.
Resuming: There are efficacious options to reduce the probabilities of having a myocardial infarction. If the reader feels he has the above mentioned risks, I suggest you see doctor who is a Systemic Medicine specialist which will be able to indicate the right systemic herbal medical formulation for you.
Why take just an aspirin a day when you may have access to a more real and effective cardio-protection?
