It’s More Than Just My Diet!!

I use to be a pretty healthy guy.  OK I was a bit overweight at times, but I tried to watch what I ate… if I did not those extra pounds really showed on television. I ate healthy for the most part.

Skip ahead to 2005.  I was walking up a hill to get my car, and I became totally out of breath. This was not like me, so I went to my doctor, who walked me to a cardiologist. We did an angiogram and during the test the doctor awoke me and said I needed a heart by-pass operation. I was clueless so I said go ahead. He said it is not that easy.  I went back to my room; a surgeon came in and explained everything.

They proceeded to tell me, my cholesterol was high so were my triglycerides, and I had a bunch of blockages.  So, I underwent a double by-pass and thought everything would be just fine.

Maybe not, since then I have had multiple “procedures in implant seven stents to open my arteries.  One more stent,  and I will probably set off metal detectors all over town!!!

My condition is genetic.  Had to be, I could not blame just myself or my eating habits. OK cut back on the Pasta and Pizza, stop fast food. But it was not that easy.  In 2009 I spent at least one night in the hospital in ten of twelve months. What was wrong?  I was swimming, thought I was watching my diet as I gained 63 pounds.  Note: I have lost them by the way!

I normally believe I know it all.   This is one of my character defects, which I am really working on. Along comes a report on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, and all of a sudden I get a wakeup call.  Let me quote from an article the report was based on by John Gever,  MedPage Today Senior Editor.

“People with antagonistic or disagreeable personalities have thicker arterial walls that may make them more prone to heart attacks and strokes, researchers said.
The carotid artery lining was significantly thicker in people who rated low on a scale of agreeableness, reported Angelina Sutin of the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues.
In a study of 5,614 residents of the Italian island of Sardinia, those ranking in the lowest 10 percent of agreeableness were 1.4 times as likely to have thickening in their lining of their carotid artery, the researchers found. This held true even after the researchers adjusted for cholesterol levels, smoking status and other risk factors.
The researchers also found that an antagonistic personality predicted increased thickening over approximately three years of follow-up.
"Antagonistic individuals, especially those who are manipulative and aggressive, have greater increases in arterial thickening, independent of traditional cardiovascular risk factors," Sutin and colleagues wrote in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.”

So, No more excuses.  It is time to chill out.  Take a deep breath; stop letting people whom I do not even know upset me.  To hell with aggressive drivers, crazy neighbors, and people just looking for a fight, they can make themselves sick, not my problem..

Good advice for all with coronary artery problems or not.  Why let that nasty neighbor with the ugly attitude, foul mouth ruin your health?

Instead, chill out, enjoy a movie or concert, or a quiet dinner with a special someone.  Isn’t that what life is about?