Infectious diseases may play a role in heart disease
The potential role of infection on heart disease keeps popping up in the medical literature. Usually when something like that happens there is strong validity to it. Western medicine is having a hard time grasping this concept, and I think the main reason is that it has always look for one cause for each disease. Many of today’s chronic diseases are actually caused by many individual factors, and heart disease is no exception. Either way, if infection is a causative factor, this is yet another reason to maintain optimal health and a strong immune system.
(article) Several studies presented at the American Society of Microbiology meeting in Toronto link heart problems to infections with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), and Chlamydia pneumoniae bacteria, report the media on September 19, 2000. In a new theory, Dr Martin Lerner (William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, MI) suggests “it’s an infectious disease” that primarily attacks the heart, the Journal reports. “Dr. Lerner said daylong cardiac monitoring found that 95% of chronic-fatigue patients he and his research team tested in two separate small studies had abnormal electrocardiograms indicative of heart damage. Dr. Lerner said he suspects the heart damage is caused by Epstein-Barr virus and cytomegalovirus, both long implicated in the condition. The damage to the heart occurred, he believes, when the viruses were held in partial check by the patients’ immune systems. Though the immune systems appear to have kept the viruses from reproducing, Dr. Lerner said partial bits of the viruses that were being produced appear to be causing heart damage,” the paper reports.