5 Signs of Clogged Arteries You Can See in The Mirror

Five things about your own body can tell you your arteries are already narrowing, and you can see every single one of them. A crease in your earlobe. A yellow patch near your eye. The hair on your shins. Even where you're going bald. 🩺 The fifth sign hides somewhere almost nobody checks, and on its own it's a stronger reveal than the other four combined. I'm Daniel Wang, I'm a physician, and I'm giving you all five visible signs, the studies behind each one, and the three tests to ask your own doctor for once you've spotted one. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Five signs you can actually see 0:39 Why your body shows this on the outside 1:54 Sign 1: the earlobe crease 3:52 Sign 2: the yellow patch near your eye 5:36 The sign hiding below your knee 6:08 Sign 3: skin changes on your lower leg 7:57 Sign 4: baldness, but only in one specific spot 9:22 The one everyone overlooks 9:40 Sign 5: the strongest single reveal 11:47 None of these are a diagnosis 12:34 The three tests to ask your doctor for 13:58 Before you check any of this 🔬 THE MECHANISM Atherosclerosis narrows arteries everywhere in the body, not just the heart, and it doesn't narrow them all at the same rate. Smaller vessels choke down sooner than larger ones, because the same amount of plaque blocks a narrow pipe faster than a wide one. Your coronary arteries are wide. The vessels feeding your earlobe, your eyelid skin, your lower legs, and the tendon above your heel are much narrower. That's why the visible signs in this video can show up years before chest pain does. 📚 THE STUDIES Więckowski K, Gallina T, Surdacki A, Chyrchel B. "Diagonal Earlobe Crease (Frank's Sign) for Diagnosis of Coronary Artery Disease: A Systematic Review of Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies." Journal of Clinical Medicine, 2021;10(13):2799. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Christoffersen M, Frikke-Schmidt R, Schnohr P, Jensen GB, Nordestgaard BG, Tybjærg-Hansen A. "Xanthelasmata, arcus corneae, and ischaemic vascular disease and death in general population: prospective cohort study." BMJ, 2011;343:d5497. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21920... University of Benin Teaching Hospital research team. "Skin manifestations of peripheral artery disease: Prevalence and diagnostic utility." Journal of Clinical and Preventive Cardiology, 2019;8(3):121-125. Hara K, et al. "Male pattern baldness and its association with coronary heart disease: a meta-analysis." BMJ Open, 2013. Chiba University Hospital research team. "Prevalence of Achilles tendon xanthoma and familial hypercholesterolemia in patients with coronary artery disease undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention." 2019, PMID 30968218. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30968... CDC, National Center for Health Statistics. "Heart Disease Facts," 2023 mortality data. https://www.cdc.gov/heart-disease/dat... ⚠️ This video is for education, not medical advice, and none of these signs diagnoses artery disease on its own. If you notice one or more of them, talk with your own doctor about the ankle-brachial index, a coronary artery calcium score, or a lipid panel that includes ApoB. If you already take medication for blood pressure or cholesterol, nothing here replaces it. #CloggedArteries #HeartHealth #DrDanielWang