reversal of coronary blocks – Cardiac Wellness Institute

One or more blocks in the blood vessels supplying the heart muscle is known as coronary artery disease. Severe coronary artery disease is the culprit in the majority of heart attacks. It is a combination of cholesterol deposits and blood clots in the inner lining of the blood vessels that usually prevents blood flow and causes heart muscle damage. As soon as someone is diagnosed with a heart attack, the emergency medical team rushes to give intravenous medications to stop the blood clot from growing and takes immediate steps to restore the blood flow through a stent procedure or surgery. While this often saves heart muscle as well as lives, a long-term approach to disease management is equally important. Let us see why.

The most common question that our patients ask us is “will the blocks inside my coronaries go away or are they permanent?” The answer to that is “yes it’s proven that blocks inside coronaries can disappear with time but here is what you need to know…”

Coronary blocks get formed over a period of months to years, so it takes time to regress and disappear
The younger the person the more likely that the blocks will regress
Hardened blocks due to calcium deposits are less likely to regress
Most importantly, intensive lifestyle modification in combination with cardio-protective drugs has been proven to cause regression and disappearance of blocks

Smoking cessation, regular exercise, a heart-healthy diet, stress management, health education and counseling are all part of the disease reversal strategy in a cardiac rehabilitation program. While strong evidence is available to support this phenomenon of coronary artery disease regression from developed countries, we are the first to have published our experience on Indian patients recently (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27133332).

How a coronary block develops. (1) normal blood flow (2) reduced blood flow due to fatty deposits (3) complete block due to rupture of fatty deposit combined with a blood clot

Take home message 1: Never too old

If you are a senior citizen reading this post, you are probably wondering if disease regression is possible in your age group. While younger men and women have a higher likelihood of disease reversal, it has been proven beyond doubt that intensive lifestyle modification has benefits in all age groups. It can halt the growth of the coronary blocks and aid in the development of newer blood vessels or ‘natural by-passes’ to compensate for the reduced blood flow.

Take home message 2: Never too young

The latest guidelines for the prevention of cardiovascular disease conclude that a healthy lifestyle should be adopted as early as from the age of 5 years. So if you have young children or are a young adult thinking of starting a family, it is important to keep in mind that healthy lifestyle behaviors have to be incorporated in your everyday living rather than on an occasional basis.

Psychosocial counseling can reverse heart disease

Psychosocial counseling simply means getting individual or group sessions with a healthcare professional experienced in ‘mind matters’. You might be taking your medicines regularly, getting your parameters checked and visiting your doctor periodically, but these measures will only help you monitor your health. It takes a little more effort to reverse heart disease!

You need to strike at the root cause of the problem if you would like to see the end of it. As psychosocial issues like chronic stress, depression and anxiety play a major role in causing coronary artery blocks and are often hidden or unnoticed, it takes an expert to address these issues of the mind. We have already seen in an earlier post that poorly managed stress can repeatedly attack the coronaries and ruin your heart as well as your overall health.

It is for this reason that a psychosocial counselor has become an integral part of the cardiac rehab team. A comprehensive cardiac rehab program like the one we provide at Cardiac Wellness Institute includes supervised exercise, dietary modification and psychosocial counseling in addition to health education and targeted behavior change. The counselor helps individuals understand the concepts of feelings, emotions and habits and paves the way for unraveling the stress triggers. Stress management techniques, non-pharmacologic treatment of depression, anger reduction methods, coping skills after a cardiac procedure, ways to overcome anxiety, sleep problems and addiction are just a few things that a counselor can help you with. The image you see here is from one of the group counseling sessions at our centre where our counselor made participants do role-play (something like a mini-drama) to help them understand everyday stress triggers and coping strategies.

As counseling is defined as listening to someone and providing advice to overcome his/her problems, the counselor should not be the sole person providing counseling. Members of our team, for instance, take time to listen to what our patients have to say and work together with them in finding an effective solution to their physical and mental health problems. We are all counselors in our own little ways! But we know our limitations and acknowledge and appreciate the role of the psychosocial counselor in solving the deeply ingrained emotional problems faced by our patients.

With strong scientific evidence becoming available on the complete regression of coronary blocks with intensive lifestyle modification, there is no reason to ignore or neglect the psychological distress you are going through. It is not something to be ashamed or embarrassed about, we all have feelings and there are experts to help us feel better.

If you or your loved ones are going through a rough patch or if you would like to know how an experienced counselor can help you, please get in touch with us and we will guide you in the right direction.