What Really Causes Heart Attacks (It's Not What You Think)

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]For over 60 years, they've told you that cholesterol and fat cause heart attacks.

[00:00:05]That's simply not true. And today, I'm going to show you exactly how a heart attack happens. Hi, I'm Diego, certified nutritional therapy practitioner and registered cardiac synographer. I've spent over 40 years working alongside cardiologists treating heart disease.

[00:00:24]And this is Metabolic Health After 40, where we're going to make it simple and easy for you to understand nutrition and how it's the root cause of disease. And together with exercise, I'm going to show you how to live stronger and longer.

[00:00:43]What is heart disease? Well, let me draw the heart and we'll show you exactly what it is. Of course, the heart has four chambers.

[00:00:56]These are the two ventricles.

[00:01:00]These are the atria and these are the valves.

[00:01:08]But first, let me tell you that that there are three types of heart disease.

[00:01:12]There's valvular heart disease, which is when the valves don't open or close properly, and there's leakages. And there's congenital heart disease when you're born with a heart defect.

[00:01:24]But the number one killer is coronary artery disease. That's the killer. That's the one that's killing everybody. So what is the coronary arteries? Well, first let's highlight the muscle of the heart. This is the muscle of the heart. And this muscle needs blood and oxygen, lots of it. The coronary arteries are the vessels that take this blood and oxygen to the muscle.

[00:02:00]But what if there's a blockage?

[00:02:04]We call that a plaque or two or three.

[00:02:12]And if there's a plaque blocking the muscle from getting blood and oxygen, this part of the muscle dies and that's your heart attack and we call it a myioardial inffection.

[00:02:28]So how does this plaque happen? Well, let's magnify this part of that coronary artery so we can show you how that plaque develops and eventually how that plaque turns into a heart attack.

[00:02:48]So the artery is like a pipe, right?

[00:02:53]But this is not like a PVC pipe. It's got walls.

[00:03:03]And these walls are living tissue.

[00:03:09]They even have layers. This has this has an outside layer. It's got a middle layer. And this middle layer is very important because what I'm drawing here is smooth muscle. It has smooth muscle.

[00:03:24]This smooth muscle is what allows the artery to constrict or to dilate to control blood flow. It's very important.

[00:03:33]But the number one, the most important layer of that heart is the inside layer called the endothelial.

[00:03:47]Think of the endothelial like your skin.

[00:03:49]Well, it protects your entire body from infection.

[00:03:53]So remember this word endothelial because everything starts here. The endothelial even has hairike structures like your skin called the glycoalix. Think of the glycoalix as like an additional bodyguard to protect this critical endothelial.

[00:04:12]Because what your doctor never told you is that damage to this endothelial is where your heart attack is born.

[00:04:24]What do you think causes this endothelial damage? Smoking has a direct effect on damaging this endothelial.

[00:04:32]How about high blood pressure? This high pressure in the blood vessel pounds on the endothelial which can cause some damage. But the number one driver of endothelial damage is guess sugar.

[00:04:51]Yes. The sugar you eat, the potato, the rice, the bread, fruits, fruit juices, cake. Yum. All these carbs raise blood sugar.

[00:05:02]The reality is humans weren't designed to handle this much sugar. Humans evolved for over two million years eating mostly meat. Carbs were rare. But today, 70 to 80% of what we eat are carbs and sugar. So glucose at these high levels behave like a toxin causing damage everywhere. Your kidneys, your joints, your brain, not just your heart.

[00:05:30]Of course, a little amount of carbs and sugar is harmless.

[00:05:35]Well, what I'm about to tell you, I guarantee will shock you. Sugar is no different than alcohol.

[00:05:44]It's alcohol in disguise.

[00:05:48]But both can be enjoyed, savored without guilt, but in small doses.

[00:05:54]But overdo either one of them, and both will destroy your body.

[00:05:59]So, how does this glucose cause damage?

[00:06:03]One word.

[00:06:06]Glycation.

[00:06:12]Glycation is when a glucose molecule binds to a protein molecule and basically cooks it. Remember, your heart is very hot, almost 100°. It damages the cell.

[00:06:27]Think of the popular dessert cremele. Do you know that burnt little sugar sugary crust on top?

[00:06:34]That's a form of glycation and that's what's happening inside your arteries.

[00:06:40]Another way to look at it is sugar being like glass shards pricking at the endothelium.

[00:06:51]Every meal, every snack, every sugary drink, glass shards pricking at the endothelium. Eventually, this constant elevated glucose, this constant injury to the endothelial causes damage. And that damage happens silently. No pain, no warning.

[00:07:14]Think of this endothelial like a road.

[00:07:18]At first, you have a little pothole, but eventually that pothole, that pothole becomes a sinkhole.

[00:07:31]It's like an open wound.

[00:07:34]And if anything falls inside this sink hole, it causes an infection.

[00:07:41]Just like cutting your skin will cause an infection and inflammation.

[00:07:45]And that infection and inflammation on the endothelial is the beginning of your heart attack.

[00:07:52]But here's the thing. Glucose by itself is not the entire story.

[00:08:00]There is something else that makes this whole thing a whole lot worse and it's called insulin resistance.

[00:08:20]So what is insulin resistance? But first I'm going to show you how it normally works.

[00:08:27]This is a pancreas.

[00:08:31]And the pancreas is a small organ right below the stomach. And it makes a hormone called insulin.

[00:08:41]And the number one job of insulin is to remove sugar from the blood. Remember, it's toxin. It's got to get it out.

[00:08:51]So, when we eat sugar and carbs, we get an insulin spike.

[00:09:00]And it's insulin's job to bring this spike right back down.

[00:09:07]So, what does the insulin do with the glucose? It stores it two places, in the muscle and the liver, where it's harmless.

[00:09:17]It's stored there until it gets burnt for energy. Go for a walk. No harm done.

[00:09:23]But what happens when we eat way too much carbs and sugar? Well, let's draw a cell to show you exactly what happens.

[00:09:34]This is a muscle cell.

[00:09:39]Think of it as a nightclub. This is a club.

[00:09:43]And every club has bouncers.

[00:09:50]And these bouncers regulate how many dancers go into the club or in this case how much glucose goes into the cell.

[00:09:59]Insulin pushes glucose into this nightclub and the glucose goes into the cell.

[00:10:15]But when the nightclub gets full, the bouncer says, "Oops, nobody comes in. No more glucose gets in."

[00:10:24]But the insulin keeps rising and keeps pushing more glucose into the cell.

[00:10:39]But now the club gets overwhelmed and the bouncers, many of them come in and they completely shut down anybody. No more sugar going into the cell. No matter how much more insulin your pancreas is making, no more sugar enters that cell. And that's insulin resistance.

[00:11:03]The cells are literally resisting insulin from pushing glucose into that cell.

[00:11:10]What's the consequence?

[00:11:13]Sugar keeps rising.

[00:11:17]And when sugar keeps rising to those levels, it becomes a crisis.

[00:11:28]First you get pre-diabetes and eventually you become a diabetic.

[00:11:34]And as a diabetic you got a whole lot to lose. You got your sight to lose. You got your legs to lose. You got your kidneys to lose. And of course it damages your heart.

[00:11:46]So you've learned how glucose damages the endothelial wall. And you learn how insulin resistance critically elevates blood sugar to a crisis level.

[00:12:03]So now I'm going to show you and explain to you how cholesterol is involved. What is cholesterol? Cholesterol is the molecule of life. Without it, we die.

[00:12:17]It's the structure of every cell membrane. It's critical for the immune system and tissue repair. Cholesterol is the one who makes all of our hormones.

[00:12:29]In fact, 25% of your brain is made out of cholesterol. Cholesterol is a nutrient, not some disease. They've demonized it. But we really need this stuff.

[00:12:43]Now, what is LDL? low density lipoproteins.

[00:12:48]But LDL is not cholesterol. Your doctor lumps them together, LDL, cholesterol, as if they were the same. They're not.

[00:12:58]To explain cholesterol, let's go back to our artery.

[00:13:05]Remember the artery?

[00:13:08]It's got walls and it's got the smooth muscle in the middle, the living tissue in the middle and the inside layer is the endothelium.

[00:13:31]Since cholesterol is a fat, it doesn't mix with water. Well, blood is water. So cholesterol needs a ride.

[00:13:42]Literally cholesterol needs a boat to travel in the blood vessel. And this is your boat.

[00:13:53]And cholesterol, they're just the passengers inside the boat. [clears throat] The blood cholesterol test that you get at the doctor's office, it's not measuring cholesterol. It's measuring how many boats?

[00:14:15]LDL boats.

[00:14:18]And again, cholesterol is just the passengers.

[00:14:21]And this LDL boat is big. Big and healthy. Think of a cruise ship too massive to ever sink.

[00:14:30]Now, remember the sink holes?

[00:14:34]caused by the endothelial damage.

[00:14:41]These cruise ships are too big to ever sink into those sink holes.

[00:14:48]But when you're eating too many carbs and sugar all day long, your body is forced to build something very dangerous. And those are the small little LDL boats.

[00:15:08]Here's how that excess glucose builds these dangerous little boats. Remember insulin resistance? Insulin failed. It could no longer remove the glucose from the blood.

[00:15:22]So it says to the liver, "Hey liver, I'm done. You take care of this." So the liver has no other choice than converting that excess glucose into fat.

[00:15:34]Fat called triglycerides.

[00:15:36]And those triglycerides also needs boats to travel in.

[00:15:42]But here's the problem.

[00:15:45]These boats are the dangerous little boats.

[00:15:50]dangerous because unlike the huge cruise ships, these unhealthy tiny boats slip right into the sink holes. And when many of them fall into these sink holes, it causes an infection and inflammation of the endothelial.

[00:16:12]Just like when you cut your skin, it gets swollen and inflamed. the endothelial gets inflamed and that inflammation in the endothelial is what becomes a plaque that blockage.

[00:16:27]So doctors have been blaming the blockage on cholesterol. But they were wrong.

[00:16:34]It was always about the inflammation, the endothelial.

[00:16:40]So how do these little boats develop into a plaque and a heart attack? Well, these boats begin to accumulate inside these sink holes like a car pile up in a snowstorm. They pile up.

[00:16:56]They become damaged. They become oxidized like rusted little shipwrecks.

[00:17:02]And these rusted shipwrecks ignite the fuse of a bomb.

[00:17:10]This fuse triggers an immune response which means the repair crew arrives and the inflammation begins. Think of that big cut on your skin. It gets swollen.

[00:17:23]So what's the weapon of your immune system?

[00:17:27]It's a cell called a macrofage which literally eats up these shipwrecks, these little LDL boats. Think of a macrofasage as a Pac-Man.

[00:17:48]And this Pac-Man gobbles up these boats.

[00:17:55]Next, they become foam cells.

[00:18:04]But this constant eating of sugar keeps building more little LDL boats.

[00:18:12]So that begins to accumulate.

[00:18:17]More boats are falling into that sinkhole. And eventually the repair crew gets overwhelmed and these foam cells begin to grow and grow and grow. Now this this plaque becomes unstable and what happens?

[00:18:40]Boom.

[00:18:42]It ruptures and it bleeds.

[00:18:49]And then a blood clot develops and there's your total occlusion. And your next step from there is the ER.

[00:19:02]So let's put this whole truth together for you. First, heart attacks are not caused by cholesterol, LDL, or eating too much fat. They're only innocent bystanders getting sucked into these sink holes. And it all starts with one thing. Eating a whole lot of carbs and sugar, which creates insulin resistance, which launches your blood glucose level to critical levels, causing first damage to the endothelial, creating those sink holes. The excess sugar forces the liver to convert glucose to fat. Fat that rides on these little dangerous small LDL boats. small LDL boats that crash into these sink holes getting oxidized, rusted and damaged. That damage explodes into inflammation and a plaque comes to life. That plaque ruptures, it bleeds, clots into a full blockage, and bang, your heart attack.

[00:20:06]Why? From eating too much sugar and carbs your body could not handle. So the next time you sit down to eat, I want you to think, do you feed your health or do you feed this plaque?

[00:20:22]If I made it simple and easy for you to understand this, what really causes a heart disease, please like, subscribe, and share this video. Thank you.