382: Stress and Health: Your Heart

1. Hypertension
1. Terms
1. Sympathetic tone
2. Vasodilation
3. Vasoconstriction
4. Vagal tone
2. The Cause
1. Chronic stress leads to chronic elevations in blood pressure which leads to increased stress on blood vessels which respond by increasing cell wall muscles which decreases vessel diameter and makes vessel walls more rigid which leads to permanent hypertension.
2. 90% of cases of hypertension are 'primary hypertension' which means that we don't know what is causing these cases
3. 10% are 'secondary hypertension' which means secondary to physical disease process such as kidney disease
3. Dr. Lancet Donnison 1929
1. Discovered that blood pressure does not have to rise with age
2. Hypertension is a function of a 'high pressure existence'
1. This was the beginning of the understanding of stress and blood pressure
2. Circulatory System
1. Movement of blood to feed tissue and remove waste
3. Left Ventricular Hypertrophy
4. Inflammation
1. Tends to happen at points of Bifurcation
2. Hypertension contribues to cell wall damage
3. Inflammation response is body's way to heal damage (cholesterol used in healing process)
5. Atherosclerosis
1. Disease characterized by the build up of fatty deposits in the arteries
2. Can block blood flow
3. Lack of blood flow can result in ischemia
6. Macaque Video Clip
1. It's not just diet that leads to this plaque buildup but also stress as seen in the social hierarchy of the macaques
7. Ischemia
1. Heart muscle is not fed by blood moving through it
2. Cardiac ischemia
1. lack of oxygen to heart muscle
2. results from blocked coronary vessels
3. Ambulatory studies: ischemia is very common
4. Angina
1. This is where someone has heart pain
8. SNS/PNS Balance
1. Optimal health requires the sns and pns to work together in a balanced way
2. Chronic stress leads to increased sns activation and decreased pns activation
3. PNS in heart health is currently a hot topic
4. Voodoo Death