How are heart attacks caused is a topic that has to be answered differently today than it would be answered 15 years ago. is now recognized to be a process that is evolving. Prior to the year 2000, if you asked a cardiologist who is an expert in the heart, “How are heart attacks caused,” his answer would be radically different than if you asked him the same question today. In the last five years, heart researchers at the world renowned Cleveland Clinic have shed much needed new light on the true causation of heart attacks (technically known as Myocardial infarctions).

The understanding of the 1990’s which is still held by a majority of working doctors in the United States is absolutely wrong. This means thousands of doctors in practice today are working with an incorrect model of what causes a heart attack.

The old view is that the heart is like a plumbing system. Let's make this easy for you to understand. Think about your house and its plumbing system. Let's say you have a 50 year old house with lead pipes. As the years go by, mineral deposits accumulate on the inner walls of the lead pipes in different sections. Over a period of time, these deposits will grow in size until eventually it's possible that a deposit may grow so large in size that it blocks the water pipe completely. The pipe may at that time burst.

Now let's apply the outdated "plumbing system" model to your own heart. For more than 100 years doctors and researchers believed that the plumbing system applied to human beings as well. It was believed that a substance called plaque accumulates in the arteries of the heart. Slowly over a period of years, even decades, these deposits build up layer upon layer. Now keep in mind that in the veins and arteries of the heart there is a constant flow of blood that moves only in one direction and does so for as long as you are alive.

Although there may be many individual plaque deposits in the arteries, lets just focus on one of them. This deposit will build and slowly expand until over time it grows from occupying 5% of the channel in the artery until it grows to 20%, than 30%, 40% and ultimately it grows to occupying 100% of the channel essentially cutting off the ability of the blood to move through that specific artery.

The old theory of heart disease dictates that when the plaque grows to occupying 100% of the artery channel, and the blood can no longer pass freely through the artery, you have a HEART ATTACK, known to doctors as a Myocardial Infarction.

Since the blood can no longer pass through the channel, the living tissue on the side of the blockage that is not getting life sustaining blood immediately begins to die. This is why every minute, every second counts in your rush to get medical attention. The heart attack must be stopped by a medical intervention, and professional medical personnel are needed to accomplish that.

Now we said that this is the old model of what "How are Heart Attacks Caused". The plumbing model has been completely replaced by a new more vibrant model that although proven true beyond a doubt still finds resistance among those doctors who have not gone through medical school in the last 15 years. This means you will find the vast majority of doctors still believing the plumbing pipes model of heart disease.

We have already discussed what a heart attack is, which is a blockage in the heart that stops the blood from flowing through an artery. The living tissue on the wrong side of that blockage cannot get life sustaining blood, and therefore begins to die. This is still true, and it is still the definition of a heart attack. Heart disease is simply the accumulation of plaque in the arteries of the heart. There are much more elaborate definitions but no cardiologist (heart doctor) would argue with the following statement.

Heart disease is plaque, it's that simple. What's know about the cause of heart attacks is that the plumbing model described above does occur but only in a small percentage of heart attacks. What researchers at the world's major heart research hospitals (Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins University Hospital etc) have found out is that there are many more 10% 15%, and 20% blockages in the heart than previously thought to exist.

These are blockages that build up to occupy no more than 15% or 20% of the channel opening in one or more of the heart arteries. These smaller plaques tend to be softer in nature than the big 85% or 90% plaques that tend to be very hard. What does this mean soft vs. hard? We have to try to keep this simple, so in the interest of simplicity let's just say, soft plaques feel like the density of toothpaste, and hard plaques feel like the surface of Crème Brule, or rock hard candy. Another example is this. Next time you go to the dentist and he cleans your teeth, ask him or her if you can feel a piece of plaque that he removes from your mouth. That hard plaque is pretty close to the consistency of the very large 85% blockages that occur in the heart's arteries.

These smaller plaques and you really want to get this concept, tend to be more volatile, or more prone to bursting than the very large plaques and therein lies the problem. You see when a small plaque bursts and doctors are still studying this process for a better understanding, a whole cascade of processes takes place.

Another analogy will help in understanding the soft plaque bursting process. Remember when you were a kid, and you cut a cut on your finger, arm or leg? What happened is this. Your body's immune system rushes specialized cells to the area of the cut, and it SCABS over the cut, so the blood stops, and no longer pours through the open cut. Of course if the cut is too big, the area can not scab over and requires additional medical attention.

Most of the time however, your mother would simply clean the area, and the cut would SCAB over. Now follow closely. In the heart artery, when the 15 or 20% plaque bursts, the body uses the same process as the child with the cut. Your body's immune system will rush specialized cells to the area that bursts, and scab over the wound. In the process of scabbing over the wound, the artery channel may become blocked by the clotted blood. This is an IMMEDIATE HEART ATTACK.

In a way the body's immune system in this one instance is being used against us. It is causing us to have a heart attack. All modern medical research now points to this process of smaller plaques bursting and scabbing over as being the cause of heart attacks in the vast majority of cases.

There are many more things we can say about the process, but in a nutshell, what we have said covers the concept of what causes a heart attack. You can look at other sections of this website for other very pertinent information regarding heart disease. We would also urge you to consider acquiring our research report on heart disease which goes through everything from soup to nuts in terms of what to do to prevent heart disease, and if you have it, what to do to stop heart disease DEAD IN ITS TRACKS, and even potentially reversing it. Please click below to read about this report.