July 24, 2009

In today's HealthTeam 12 report, we start with this week's Heart Matters segment with our partner University Hospital.

Today, we're looking at how carbohydrates affect your arteries, after a new study shows food with lots of carbs can cause a heart attack. The study found carbohydrates caused arteries in the upper body to become swollen. This research goes back to the idea that elasticity of arteries determines how healthy a person's heart is. But why do carbs cause such a problem?

Dr. Janet Yutz, a cardiologist at University Hospital tells us, "A carbohydrate is nothing more than a compound that's turned into sugar in the blood stream. And what you don't want to do is have free floating sugar in the blood stream. I always draw the analogy, if I went into a room with a bottle of Karo syrup everything is fine with the lid on, but once it comes off things get sticky."

Doctors have always known a big increase in blood sugar can cause a heart attack, and even death.

This new study is trying to determine why that happens.