Coronary Heart Disease

 Coronary Heart Disease (CHD, Coronary Artery Disease), happens when atherosclerosis affects the coronary artery leading to the heart.

Atherosclerosis is a condition in which there is an excess of a substance called plaque, which is mainly made from calcium, cholesterol, and fat, in the arteries causing a narrowing or blockage of the oxygen-rich blood's pathway. A variety of factors may lead to atherosclerosis including smoking, excess consumption of alcohol, diabetes, and obesity.
In 2013, CHD caused 8.14 million deaths around the world, being rated as the most common cause of death.

There has been a lot of debate regarding the factors leading to CHD, most of them being the dietary factors. While the risk of high consumption of alcohol (>100g/d) has been shown to lead to a higher risk of CHD than that of heavy smoking(The Bruneck Study), there appears to be an outlier in "the French Paradox". "Epidemiological studies indicate that the consumption of alcohol at the level of intake in France (20-30g per day) can reduce risk of CHD by up to 40%.", says a study conducted all around the world by S. Renaud.

For a long time we believed that saturated fat foods (meat, cheese, butter...) were the primary cause of CHD and related diseases, but recently that has been taken into a debate also, as now the light has been put on trans fats, and researchers are saying that saturated fat can be good in normal doses. Trans fats increase the low density lipoprotein level (LDL) and decrease the high density lipoprotein (HDL), which leads to the build up of plaque, as LDL is the main cause of plaque and HDL removes LDL.

As there are so many factors that affect the risk of getting Coronary Heart Disease, scientist have a very hard time determining exactly how much each factor contributes. For an instance, a person might have the genetic predisposition towards CHD but might also be smoker regularly consume excess alcohol, if so, researchers would have a hard time determining exactly which factor led to the development of CHD in that patient. Also, because there has been so much debate within the scientific community about many factors, and they seem to be coming up with something new or negating something previous regularly, it hard to know what to eat and what not to, as 10 different people will give you 10 different answers. For now, it seems that the safest thing to do is take everything in moderation, as even too much of a good thing can lead to consequences.



Other recources:
-http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/atherosclerosis/
-http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/08/31/saturated-fats-heart-disease.aspx
-http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet/saturated-fat-trans-fat/
-http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/Cholesterol/AboutCholesterol/Good-vs-Bad-Cholesterol_UCM_305561_Article.jsp#.VqNiYBUrLIU

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