Insulin & Cortisol
Let us see how each works its magic to take you straight to YamRaj.
Heart attack is no longer rare in India. What is more worrying that it is found a way to strike even healthy and fit people. Let us understand in this article why it is happening and how Indians are at a greater risk.
Why do we get a heart attack?
Heart as we all are aware is required to pump blood all over our body. Especially important is the brain which needs freshly oxygenated blood every second. Heart itself is a muscle and to keep it pumping it too needs a constant source of blood. So there are a network of blood vessels around the heart which do the supplying.
If for any reason these arteries get clogged, you might get a heart attack. One of the most common reasons for the artery to get clogged is the deposition of cholesterol or fat on the inside.
Health researchers and doctors have found a direct connection with heart attack and metabolic syndrome.
When one or all of the three things given below is more than normal, you are then having what we call as metabolic syndrome.
- High Blood Pressure
- High Blood Glucose
- High Cholesterol
Insulin problem leading to heart attack
If you have belly fat, if your waist is above 80 cms, there is some compromise in insulin or you are staring at early stages of insulin resistance.
You need to take immediate steps to improve insulin sensitivity. If you reduce the number of times you are eating, this is enough to take care of the problem because every time you eat, insulin is released and a time comes when your body is flooded with insulin.
Other way to increase insulin sensitivity is to do intermittent fasting or prolonged fasting.
If you are not interesting in fasting, the least what you can do is eat your dinner before 7 pm and then sleep by 10 pm. This will help you to wake up at sunrise and reset your body clock for the next cycle. It will also perforce make you go through at least 12 hours of fasting daily which is more than enough for a healthy heart.
If you are into serious reversal of insulin resistance, you can consider the combination of intermittent fasting and keto diet with at least one 36 hour fast per month.
Cortisol is also the cause
Cortisol is called the big daddy of all the hormones because once it starts working on the body, all the other hormones are subdued. Cortisol is released in anticipation of a stress or danger. It is a body response to a threat. Emergency reserves of glucose is released in the form of adrenaline and your heart starts pumping faster to get you more alert. Cholesterol is also released to provide more energy in anticipation.
Once a day release of cortisol is harmless but today we are in the world of chronic stress. Repeated release of cortisol throughout the day creates the exact same condition as insulin resistance leading to increase in metabolic syndrome leading to risk of heart attack.
Even when you are fit, you don’t have belly fat and you are not obese if worrying is your passion, then you are at a risk of cortisol or stress induced heart attack.
Indians have smaller bodies compared to our western and European counterparts
Smaller bodies mean we have smaller arteries. So any effect of cholesterol plaguing is going to amplify in our bodies. We have to make sure that all the factors causing this problem have to be under our control.
Diet is 80% contributor to metabolic syndrome while exercise is just 20% which is why it is important to control our diet.
Is covid vaccine the cause of heart attacks?
This is the most common argument used by people who want to ignore the main problem. Whether or not covid vaccine is the problem still needs a lot of study and research, but one thing is clear. The vaccine has helped saved lives which otherwise would have lost to the virus. It has also help prevent serious infections to the body due to the virus. Yes, the effects of Covid cannot be ignored. This virus does affect the heart along with other organs. But if you believe that is the reason, it is all the more important that you take the necessary precautions for safety. Finally it does come down to keeping the metabolic syndrome under check.