Inflammation May Be the Culprit Behind Our Deadliest Diseases

In the early days of my medical residency, I met a man whom we’ll call Jason. He arrived to our emergency room on a holiday, nonchalant yet amiable, and complained of mild chest pain. Jason was tall and trim, with a strong South Boston accent and fingertips still faintly stained from his last home-improvement project. He was only 45 years old, but he looked much younger. He didn’t smoke, barely drank alcohol, and his cholesterol levels had always been normal. No one in his family had a history of heart disease. He asked us if we could work quickly—he wanted to be home for dinner with his daughters. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] We welcomed a likely false alarm. Maybe Jason was having a bout of acid reflux, or even a panic attack. His heart, surely, was as robust as the rest of him. He was young and without any risk factors for heart disease. And he had been in excellent health all of his life. Our minds wandered to other patients and tasks. But as the day wore on, Jason’s symptoms persisted. When the results of his blood tests finally blinked on our pagers, we were shocked to find that he was suffering from a massive heart attack. Jason was rushed to the cardiac catheterization lab, where a cardiologist began threading a thin tube through an artery in the leg in an attempt to open up blockages in the arteries feeding the heart. More from TIME [video id=p97Ass3E autostart="viewable"] As I learned in the ensuing years of training, Jason&...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance health Source Type: news