Definition

A thickened state of the intima or inner coat of the arteries. It is sequential to changes that take place in the other coats of the arteries. The condition is recognized in large arteries as atheroma and endarteritis.

Etiology

When developed in a normal, natural way, it is peculiar to old age. It means aging of tissue. But when the disease presents itself in middle life, it is due to old age of the tissue, if not old age of the patient. It means that those so afflicted have lived a very imprudent life. They have lived in such a way as to age themselves beyond their years. Apparently a certain percentage of the people fall into this state more easily than others, showing that they have inherited a diathesis peculiar to this derangement. It is a case of: parents eat grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge. Parents have prematurely aged themselves, and this condition has been developing in them sufficiently to build a tendency or a diathesis in the children; and as each generation grows weaker or less resistant under the same influences, they naturally develop symptoms on this order more easily than the parents.

Those predisposed to early aging will be hastened into it by all kinds of stimulants--tobacco, tea, coffee, alcoholics, excessive venery, excessive indulgences of all kinds that tax the nervous system. Then eating to excess, bringing up arterial pressure, and at the same time turning loose in the system toxins from decomposition in the intestine, represent the most intense etiological factors in the development of this disease.

Treatment

Knowing the cause is equivalent to knowing the cure. If a certain style of living brings on arteriosclerosis, it should not require a physician to proscribe that style of living to get rid of the disease; and this is the only treatment necessary. If the inflammation of the lining of the heart and arteries caused by toxins is developing a condition of arteriosclerosis, then whatever is keeping up this toxin poisoning must be stopped. The commonest cause is overeating, and excessive eating of carbohydrate and protein foods, too often eaten together.

If the irritation of the heart and arteries is due to alcoholism, then certainly consumption of alcohol must be stopped. In nearly all cases, correcting all the errors of life-stopping the use of all stimulants, abandoning excessive eating, and getting rid of nerve irritations, worries, etc.--will bring the disease to a condition of status quo. Then, if the patient is persistent in living correctly, the arteries will soften. If he is in middle life, or even younger, in the course of one to three years all symptoms of the disease will disappear. If he is old, his life will be prolonged and made comfortable by this treatment.