How does inflammation in the body contribute to heart disease?

Inflammation contributes to heart disease in that it impacts the amount and type of plaque that gets deposited in the arteries. Watch cardiologist Barbara Roberts, MD, explain the danger of inflammation and how it contributes to heart complications.

Transcript

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I tell my patients that it's not so much the amount of plaque you have in your arteries, it's how stable or unstable they are.

00:07

And an unstable plaque is basically an inflamed plaque. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:20

Inflammation contributes to heart disease by mechanisms that aren't really well worked out just yet,

00:28

but we know that in people who have evidence of increased inflammation, they are much more likely to lay down

00:37

plaque in their arteries. And plaque is the substance that builds up in arteries and eventually limits blood flow to various organs in the body.

00:47

We know some of the things that cause increased inflammation. For example, being overweight or obese,

00:54

being sedentary, eating a lot of processed carbohydrates, and certainly having diabetes, all of these things

01:02

increase inflammation in the body. I tell my patients that it's not so much the amount of plaque

01:08

you have in your arteries, it's how stable or unstable they are. And an unstable plaque is basically an inflamed plaque.

01:16

And I can fix inflammation. And I can do it without a drug-- with certain simple lifestyle changes.