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The Cause Of Heart Disease: High Cholesterol or Excess Calcium?

a cholesterol test

The cholesterol controversy has been waged now for over five decades. Volumes of books, articles, and journals have been written on the subject of the role cholesterol and diet plays in the arterial disease process.

Since the 1950's the "Lipid Hypothesis," also known as the "Diet-Heart Idea", states that saturated fat and high cholesterol play a major role in the causation of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, and gained increasing support from the majority of the medical and scientific communities.

But over the last two decades, with marked advances in science and technology, the most recent research into lipid chemistry and coronary pathology are revealing that the "lipid theory" or "diet-heart" hypothesis might not be as definitive as once thought as being the major cause of coronary heart disease.

In fact, much of the latest research that has been done on cholesterol shows just how vital a role this group of fats, called sterols, really are to every cell, nerve, and major organ of the body.

In the past decade, and into the 21st Century, many well known doctors from across the globe have broken ranks with the conventional "Lipid Theorists" in espousing what they believe to be a more likely cause of arterial disease, and that is the accumulation of excess calcium plaque in coronary arteries.

One of these renowned doctors, Arthur Agatston, a Florida cardiologist who is better known as the author of a diet book "The South Beach Diet", became well known for his studies into the excess calcification that was consistently found in his patients with arteriosclerosis and coronary artery disease. He developed the severity scoring sheet for calcification of the arteries, now known as the Agatston Score.

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