Air Pollution Harms Patients After Heart Attack

(HealthDay News) -- Tiny particles in air pollution can harm people with coronary artery disease by crippling the ability of the heart to conduct electrical signals, Harvard University researchers report.

Pollution from cars and trucks and industrial plants has been shown to trigger heart attacks, but exactly how it does that hasn't been well-known, researchers say.

"We found that elevation in fine particles from non-traffic as well as traffic sources and black carbon, a marker for traffic, predicted depression ST-segment levels," said lead researcher Dr. Diane R. Gold, an associate professor of medicine and environmental health. "Effects were greatest within the first month after hospitalization and for patients with heart attack during hospitalization or with diabetes."

The report is published in the Sept. 9 online edition of Circulation.

For the study, Gold's team collected data on 48 patients from the Boston area with coronary artery disease. The researchers monitored the patients for 24 hours using portable electrocardiograph machines looking for changes in the electrical conductivity of the heart called ST-segment depression. This dysrhythmia can indicate inadequate blood flow to the heart or inflammation of the heart muscle.

All patients had been hospitalized for heart attack, unstable angina or worsening symptoms of coronary artery disease. Forty percent had suffered heart attacks, and 25 percent had diabetes.

Gold's group also looked at the average 24-hour levels for all pollutants in Boston. They found that these levels were below accepted or proposed National Air Quality Standard thresholds.

The researchers found that increased levels of a pollutant called PM 2.5 and black carbon, which is found in traffic exhaust, was associated with an increase in ST-segment depression.

In addition, sulfur dioxide, which is the product of combustion, but not from cars, was also associated with an increase in ST-segment depression.

Increases in ST-segment depression were particularly higher in patients recovering from a heart attack compared with other patients, the researchers reported.

"If the air pollution-associated ST-segment changes represent either myocardial inflammation or risk of ischemia, then it is possible that reduction in regional traffic and non-traffic associated air pollution may reduce heart attack or risk for either ischemia, arrhythmia or heart failure in patients with coronary artery disease in the period after hospitalization," Gold said.

For patients who have just been discharged from hospital after a heart attack, guidelines from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology suggest that patients should avoid heavy traffic because of the stress of driving, Gold said.

"Our study provides additional rationale to avoid or reduce heavy traffic exposure after discharge, even for those without a completed myocardial infarction, since traffic exposure involves pollution exposure as well as stress," Gold said.

Dr. Byron Lee, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, agrees that patients who have had a recent heart attack should avoid air pollution.

"This study provides very strong evidence that environmental pollution puts added stress on the heart," Lee said. "Patients who have just had a heart attack should probably do what they can to avoid pollution exposure. This may mean staying indoors during smoggy days or getting out of the city altogether."

Dr. Samin Sharma, director of interventional cardiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, thinks that patients who have suffered a recent heart attack and live in areas where air pollution levels are high and unavoidable need to be monitored more carefully.

"Maybe these patients need close follow-up," Sharma said. "These patients may need an increase in their heart medications or medications need to be changed. Optimal aggressive medical therapy and optimization of medical care could be the answer for these patients."

More information

For more on air pollution and heart disease, visit the American Heart Association.

Chelation Therapy

Here is occlusive coronary atherosclerosis. The coronary at the left is narrowed by 60 to 70%. The coronary at the right is even worse with evidence for previous thrombosis with organization of the thrombus and recanalization such that there are three small lumens remaining.

Atherosclerosis, or "hardening of the arteries", is the cause of two most deadly health problems Unfortunately, it begins quite early in life and continues relentlessly until circulation is so compromised that a heart attack or a stroke is almost certain. The process begins innocently enough, by formation of a small plaque on the wall of an artery. It attracts platelets that form a small blood clot. Later on, additional clotting elements increase the size of the clot. Eventually cholesterol and calcium get deposited into the growing plaque. Calcium completes this process, making the arteries "hard".

This is a normal coronary artery with no atherosclerosis and a wide lumen that can carry as much blood as the myocardium requires. Normally arteries have the ability to expand or contract, depending on the need of the body. But once the calcium is settled on the arterial walls, they become rigid, unable to either expand or contract. That’s where the expression "hardening of the arteries" comes from. The cells of the body require continuous blood supply in order to live. When it stops, most cells die within a few minutes. If this happens in the heart, the result is known as a heart attack. In the brain, it is called a stroke.

MAJOR SYMPTOMS Chest pain (angina) because of decreased circulation within the heart, memory loss, dizziness, poor balance from reduced blood flow to the brain, pain in the legs after walking which is relieved by rest.

TRADITIONAL – TREATMENT Hardening of the arteries is a systemic disease. In other words, it happens throughout the body, not just in one or 2 areas. If you understand this, you will realize that the current approach to treatment is crude, primitive and misguided. Some experts have compared it to putting a band-aid on a major injury.

When a surgeon performs a bypass surgery or an angioplasty, it does nothing to correct the widespread atherosclerosis already present in other parts of the body, such as brain, kidneys, lungs, legs and everywhere else. To complicate matters further, most of the arteries are very small. They are called capillaries, and they comprise the majority of the 40 to 60 thousand miles or arteries feeding the tissues of the body.

The diameter of a capillary is smaller than the size of a red blood cell. This is necessary for the exchange of oxygen and nutrients to take place. Obviously, these arteries can not be bypassed or surgically manipulated. Various medications used for "treatment" of heart disease are designed to deal only with the symptoms, not the real causes of the problem. Clearly, the real treatment for atherosclerosis would be a procedure that removes the plaques from the arteries and restores blood flow all over the body, in large arteries as well as small ones. And this brings us to

CHELATION – THERAPY
Chelation Therapy is probably one of the most effective treatments for hardening of the arteries, yet it is being ignored and even maligned by mainstream medicine. Chelation therapy was used successfully in over 1 million clients over the last 40 plus years. The main ingredient of chelation therapy is a synthetic amino acid known as EDTA (ethylene-diamine-tetra-acetic acid). It has a peculiar ability to strongly attract minerals, especially toxic metals - lead, mercury, cadmium, aluminum and others. Since then, a number of studies published in reputable medical journals have confirmed the effectiveness of IV chelation therapy for treating atherosclerosis and improving blood flow to the heart, the legs and the brain.

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