Osteoporosis is a dreadful disease that would be enough on its own.
But it isn’t on its own.
A new study in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research reveals a horrifying connection between osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.
One that cannot be ignored if you suffer either one.
The British Biobank is a huge repository of medical data on a vast number of people.
The researchers used one specific cohort for whom information regarding bone and heart health was available.
The information to which they had access included bone density via ultrasound, which the researchers wanted to associate with:
1. Arterial compliance and arterial stiffness obtained via cardiovascular magnetic resonance scans, and
2. Heart attack and ischemic heart disease death.
In fact, the measurement they used for bone health was bone’s speed of sound, which measures not only the bone mineral density but also information about a bone’s elasticity, cortical thickness, and structure. In other words, it measures bone health beyond just bone mineral density.
They also had access to blood biomarkers that indicated specific chemicals related to both bone health and heart health, which they used to try to examine the mechanisms through which the two conditions are related.
They found that the subjects with the best bone health had the highest arterial compliance, lowest arterial stiffness, and the lowest mortality rate from ischemic heart disease.
Ischemic heart disease is also called coronary artery disease. This happens when cholesterol, calcium, and other substances that form plaques narrow or block your arteries so that less blood reaches your heart muscle.
Osteoporosis and heart disease share many risk factors, such as age, smoking, and a lack of exercise. The researchers performed calculations to account for these shared risk factors, and the relationship between poor bone health and heart disease remained independent of them.
This means that the two conditions are definitely related. Based on the blood biomarkers and times at which the measurements were taken, the researchers suspected that poor bone health caused heart disease.
And to clear out clogged heart arteries, cut out this ONE ingredient you didn’t even know you were consuming…