Coronary Heart Disease and Diet: Everyday Foods That Quietly Damage Your Heart

“I have just been diagnosed with coronary heart disease. Isn’t it normal for me to eat? Can’t eat anything?” Here’s what a middle-aged man said after he got his checkup report. He didn’t expect that the meal, which had always seemed fine, would become a driving force affecting the heart.

Many people’s understanding of coronary heart disease is still stuck in blockage, chest tightness, and stenting But what really determines the rate of development of this disease is what you eat into your mouth. Diet is not an incidental factor, but a core content that directly affects vascular status.

Those foods that seem everyday, in the context of coronary heart disease, the Could be a ticking time bomb. It’s not about taking a large amount to get into trouble, but it accumulates little by little and makes the heart slowly run out of control.

High-salt foods have always been seen as the culprit of high blood pressure But in people with coronary heart disease, it doesn’t affect just boosting blood pressure. After large amounts of sodium ions are ingested, blood volume increases and the pressure on the inner walls of blood vessels becomes larger.

This state is a process of accelerating the lesion in patients whose arteriosclerosis already exists. After damage to the vascular endothelium, plaques are more likely to form And areas with pre-existing plaques become more vulnerable and are blood clots once ruptured.

And the deeper question is, High-salt foods can also affect blood vessel elasticity, and disturbances in sodium-calcium exchange can make blood vessels more likely to spasm. Some people feel that eating salty food is a taste, and it’s okay to bear with it, but it’s not the feeling of the tongue that really affects the body, but the structural changes in the electrolytes in the blood.

Takeaway, processed meat, fast food, pickled products, all of which make it easy to exceed the salt limit Unknowingly, the burden on the heart increases.

The problem with high-trans fatty acid foods is more hidden. This type of fat, which is often written in the ingredient list as “vegetable cream”“ hydrogenated grease ”“shortening”, sounds less dangerous But in the blood circulation system, they are far harder to remove than saturated fat.

Trans fats directly boost LDL, the so-called “bad cholesterol”, while cutting HDL, the so-called “good cholesterol” This change is the last metabolic imbalance that should occur in patients with coronary heart disease.

Blood vessels that are already prone to blockage, once the lipid structure continues to deteriorate It will rapidly evolve towards unstable plaques. And these fats are also more likely to trigger an inflammatory response, and once chronic inflammation is activated, it is not just a vascular problem, but also affects the myocardium, inducing unstable angina or acute events.

I usually eat some cookies, egg tarts, and fried snacks, but it doesn’t seem like much But the adipose structure of these things is of little benefit to the cardiovascular system, and the destruction of long-term accumulation is the most deadly.

The harm of high-sugar foods is often underestimated. A lot of people associate only sugar and diabetes, ignoring its chronic damage to the blood vessel wall. After the sugar is metabolized in the body, It causes a rapid rise in blood sugar and a sharp increase in insulin secretion.

And this process is not just an endocrine problem, it also triggers the deposition of a molecule called “glycation end product”. These deposits will attach to the walls of blood vessels, and It loses its elasticity and increases the chance of oxidation reaction.

Once oxidative LDL is formed, the plaque tends to become active and the risk in coronary patients is also elevated. To complicate things even more, excessive sugar intake activates the sympathetic nerve, Boosts heart rate and blood pressure, this stimulation is quite dangerous for the heart.

Desserts, drinks, milk tea, cakes, they don’t just affect weight, But is quietly adjusting your cardiometabolic pattern, pushing cardiovascular to the brink.

There are many enthusiasts of animal offal Many people think that eating the liver nourishes the liver and eating the brain nourishes the brain But such foods generally contain several times more cholesterol than regular meats. High cholesterol is not a conceptual word, but an accelerator of the rate of progression of coronary heart disease.

When cholesterol intake in the body exceeds metabolic capacity, cholesterol particles in blood vessels are deposited on the inner membrane, forming plaques. Many patients think that it is enough to control oil But in fact, animal offal is the biggest hidden risk.

Not only that, but Animal offal often also contains purine, phosphorus, iron and other components that are not easily metabolized by some patients It “indirectly increases the burden on the kidneys and blood system”.

These stresses further reversely affect the metabolic burden on the heart. People who like to eat water always say “eat it once”, but this type of high-density nutritious food is not suitable for fragile vascular environments.

Alcohol is often packaged as a “social lubricant” or “sleep aid and decompression”, But for people with coronary heart disease, its risk is not a rumor, but a fact that has been verified many times.

Alcohol dilates blood vessels and briefly lowers blood pressure, but under the action of its metabolite acetaldehyde, The heart rate tends to increase and the myocardial oxygen consumption increases. In a state where the supply of blood to the heart muscle is already limited, this “acceleration” is a direct injury.

Many patients with myocardial infarction have records of drinking alcohol before the attack And those words that say “red wine nourishes the heart”, Dose and individual differences were ignored. For those diagnosed, there is no so-called safe dose, only the level of risk.

Alcohol can also interfere with drug metabolism. Many patients with coronary heart disease take anticoagulants and statins. The metabolism of these drugs will be slowed down in an environment where they coexist with alcohol, and they are prone to side effects. It’s not that you can’t touch more, it’s that you can’t touch it again.

Caffeine is used by many people as a “refreshing tool” However, for patients with basic cardiovascular diseases, its irritation should be treated with caution. Caffeine activates the sympathetic nerves, raising blood pressure and speeding up the heartbeat, and this series of physiological changes is a strong stimulus to the already damaged heart.

A strong cup of coffee goes down, Irregular heart rhythm, palpitation, and even induced angina are not uncommon. Many energy drinks, carbonated drinks, and chocolate products also contain not low caffeine concentrations, which are even more ignored.

Over-reliance on caffeine to regulate mental states, Actually, pushing the heart to the edge of excitement. And under the premise that the heart is already heavily loaded, any superfluous stimulation will consume valuable solvency. At a certain point, it stops supporting and the problem really breaks out.

In the final analysis, the diagnosis of coronary heart disease is not a word It is “the result of a series of out-of-control physiological signals” And most of these signals originate from the imbalance of the diet structure over the years.

Bringing it back is not about eating light for two days a day But to avoid at the source “everyday food” which is quietly destroying blood vessels. Not all food forgives the cost of a heart injury, and it’s not worth every time you eat it in your mouth.

Disclaimer: All photos used in this blog are generated by artificial intelligence (AI). These images are original creations produced by AI technology and do not depict real people, places, or events. They are provided for illustrative purposes only and cannot be claimed or used as real photographs.