Writers of the piece also suggest that the focus should not be on reducing cholesterol, but instead making incremental lifestyle changes like increasing exercise and activity, to 150 minutes a week, quitting smoking, reducing stress and switching to a Mediterranean diet of plenty of fruits and vegetables, fish, chicken, olive oil and nuts.
The piece also suggests that the long-held belief that plaque buildup clogs the arteries is not factual and suggests that plaque removal may not reduce a patient’s risk of heart attack or the chance the patient may die from a heart attack.
Inactivity, smoking, stress and eating processed foods lend to increased levels of inflammation. The link between inflammation and heart attacks as explained in the editorial is not a discovery. Researchers have made the connection between inflammation and heart attacks in previous studies and have found that inflammation is a factor in one-third of all heart attacks.
Inflammation has been shown to affect a form of arterial plaque known as vulnerable plaque. Vulnerable plaque is a soft plaque that can break away from the arterial walls and cause blockages that lead to heart attack or stroke.
