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Ischaemic heart failure: a new explanation of its cause and preventability
13 Truro Drive, Sale, Cheshire M33 5DF, UK.
Insights
The aorta, the heart's auxiliary blood supply, can fail due to calcium buildup, leading to heart ischemia. Consuming milk from other species exacerbates this by disrupting natural calcium regulation.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Physiology
- Nutritional Science
- Biochemistry
Background:
- The heart relies on diastolic blood flow, supplied by the aorta acting as an auxiliary pump.
- Aortic elasticity is crucial for maintaining diastolic pressure, ensuring continuous coronary circulation.
- Calcium accumulation in the aorta can impair its elasticity, compromising heart function.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of aortic elasticity in cardiac health.
- To explore the impact of calcium metabolism on circulatory system integrity.
- To identify potential risks associated with dietary calcium intake and its regulation.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of the mechanical properties of the aorta during the cardiac cycle.
- Examination of calcium transport mechanisms in the human gut.
- Correlation of dietary habits, specifically milk consumption, with aortic calcification and elasticity.
Main Results:
- Aortic calcification significantly reduces elasticity, compromising diastolic pressure and intermittent blood supply to the heart.
- The body's calcium requirements vary with age, regulated by 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol.
- Consuming milk from other species bypasses natural calcium regulation, potentially leading to excess intake and aortic calcification.
Conclusions:
- The aorta's elasticity is a critical, yet vulnerable, component of the circulatory system.
- Disrupted calcium homeostasis, particularly from cross-species milk consumption, poses a risk to aortic health and cardiac function.
- Maintaining appropriate calcium levels is essential for preventing aortic calcification and subsequent heart ischemia.
Abstract:
When the heart contracts, it compresses its own arteries, so that blood flow in the coronary circulation comes to a standstill during systole. The heart must be supplied with blood from an auxiliary supply during diastole. The auxiliary pump is the aorta and its branches. When the stroke volume is injected into the aorta, it is overfilled and distended, storing energy in stretched elastic tissues. During diastole the contraction of these tissues maintains diastolic pressure. The hardest working organ in the body, the heart, therefore is supplied with blood only intermittently and only at diastolic pressure. In addition a layer of calcium tends to accumulate in the aorta, deteriorating its elasticity. It is suggested that this auxiliary pump is the weakest link in the circulatory system. If it fails, the heart dies of ischaemia. The calcium requirements of the body vary greatly in various age groups; 99% of the calcium content of the adult body is in the skeleton, which is complete by the age of 32 years. After that calcium requirements decrease. Catering for such varying calcium needs the gut to be impermeable to calcium. A special substance, 1,25,-dihydroxycholecalciferol, secreted by the liver and kidneys is needed to transfer calcium through the intestinal wall. When calcium needs are satisfied, the synthesis of cholecalciferol is discontinued, and the calcium in food in the intestines is excreted. To cater for the other extreme, when the calcification of the infant skeleton needs much calcium, nature produces a special nutrient, milk, not only rich in calcium, but containing a substance promoting its transference through the intestinal wall. The human habit of consuming the milk of another species is harmful because it invalidates the natural expedient of limiting calcium intake when it is not needed. The calcium excess resulting from milk consumption tends to calcify the aorta, deteriorating its elasticity, resulting in lower diastolic pressure. When that becomes inadequate, the heart dies of ischaemia.