People often hear of someone dying at the dinner table from a sudden heart attack.
A friend told me that the Mid-Autumn Festival is a time for family reunions. Teacher Zhang's son brought his girlfriend to meet his parents, and the family booked a private room at a restaurant and ordered a lavish feast. As they were happily sharing the meal, Teacher Zhang suddenly experienced a sharp, oppressive pain in his chest. His face turned pale, he was covered in sweat, and his lips turned purple. His family urgently called the 120 emergency center. By the time the ambulance arrived, the patient had died of acute myocardial infarction. What puzzled his family was that he had always been in good health, so how could eating a meal cause such a problem... According to epidemiological research and surveys, overeating can easily trigger a myocardial infarction. The reasons are:
1. After a large meal, the body requires more blood for digestion and absorption, increasing cardiac output. This causes a significant amount of blood to be diverted to the gastrointestinal tract, leading to a relatively reduced blood supply to the heart muscle while its oxygen consumption increases.
2. Overeating causes the stomach wall to become overly distended, which enhances the vagus nerve reflex, leading to coronary artery spasm. The distended stomach also pushes the diaphragm upward, further impairing heart function.
3. During a large meal, the intake of a large amount of high-fat food causes a rapid rise in blood fat concentration and increases blood viscosity, making it easier for microthrombi to form. Additionally, the emotional excitement often associated with gatherings can easily trigger coronary artery spasms and increase myocardial oxygen consumption. For patients with coronary heart disease, whose coronary arteries are already compromised, these changes from overeating can lead to a sharp reduction in coronary blood flow and a dramatic increase in myocardial oxygen consumption,极易 causing myocardial ischemia and hypoxia, leading to a major coronary event. Therefore, for patients with coronary heart disease, it is advisable to eat easily digestible foods and adhere to the principle of eating small, frequent meals.
As the saying goes: "If you want to be healthy, eat until you are eighty percent full." This is absolutely true! This is especially important for people with cardiovascular diseases and should be given special attention.