Heart Disease Prevention

Diabetes Information Network

Heart Disease Prevention

Despite all the marvels of our modern medical system, heart disease is still the number one killer in the US just as it has been going all way back to 1900! And if you’re a diabetic you’re three to five times as likely to die of heart disease so this section on it’s prevention should be of special interest. Recent research has uncovered some interesting facts so I can promise you more than a few surprises.

The number one reversible risk factor for heart disease is a high cholesterol level. This should come as no great surprise to anyone but what should surprise you is that the single most reliable way to boost your cholesterol reading to lethal levels is to consume fatty animal foods. Eating saturated fat from animal sources (chiefly from milk products, and meat) will boost your cholesterol even more than eating high cholesterol foods! Long-term studies have shown that there is a strong link between saturated fat consumption and cardiac death rates.

Also, you should know that a food label that says “100% Cholesterol Free” is meaningless and should be completely ignored. True, the product may contain little or no actual cholesterol but if it contains saturated animal fat or worse, hydrogenated fats (fats like margarine that are solid at room temperature) instead - it will most certainly raise your cholesterol level and raise your heart disease risk at the same time.

In long-term large-scale studies people with a cholesterol level of from 150-200 had few heart attacks while those with levels below 150 had no heart attacks at all! So our target should clearly be that magic zone below 150. There is also some interesting evidence that lowering your cholesterol level to below 150 may partially reverse existing heart disease.

Can you really get your level down that low without taking medication? Yes, chances are you can but you’ll have to abandon all animals foods for awhile including dairy products and eggs. If you stick with the program, in a month or two your cholesterol level should have settled to somewhere around 150. At that time you can experiment with adding non-fat dairy products to your diet and you might also want to try adding some helpings of broiled or baked fish (salmon is the most tasty and is rich in healthful Omega-3 fatty acids) several times a week (most former meat eaters find fish an excellent substitute).

For reasons that are poorly understood, some people have livers that generate more cholesterol than needed. These individuals will probably not be able to control their cholesterol levels through diet alone.

Can you really treat diabetes and heart disease through changing your diet? Way back in ancient Greece the renowned physician Hippocrates believed in treating disease through modifying the diet. Thomas Edison also believed that in the future doctors would not use medicines but would instead treat various diseases by altering the patient’s diet.

As a test, try eating as strict a vegetarian diet as possible for a month or so, have a test and then add some animal foods to your diet for a month and get a second blood cholesterol test. Compare the two results.

You should also know that some lucky people are genetically programmed in such a way that their cholesterol level isn’t affected by the foods they eat. After a few tests spread out over a year or so you might want to ask your doctor if you fall into this fortunate group. These individuals are lucky as they don’t have to worry about their diet like the rest of us.

In China where they consume a lot of vegetables and fish and very little dairy or meat, cholesterol levels between 100 and 150 are commonplace. All around the world native populations that can’t afford high-fat dairy and meat products have low cholesterol levels and also low levels of heart disease. (Phillipines, Brazil and New Guinea) From this it would seem obvious that heart disease is a disease of civilization that plagues mainly the richer countries that can afford to eat high fat animal foods.

Here is a list of the major “Modifiable” heart disease risk factors:

High blood sugar

High cholesterol level

High LDL

Low HDL

High Triglycerides (a risk factor only if your cholesterol level is high)

Smoking

Sedentary lifestyle

High blood pressure

Excess weight (makes all the other risk factors worse)

There are several different kinds of cholesterol you should know about. LDL is often called the “bad cholesterol” or “Lousy cholesterol” because when heart disease plaque is diagnosed, it primarily contains LDL. But here’s where it gets interesting.

While medical researchers have known that it’s the LDL cholesterol that’s the culprit in heart disease why is it that some people who have particularly high levels of LDL never develop heart disease at all?

There are two factors at play here. First, if your HDL level is high enough, say around 50-65, it acts to return the LDL back to the liver where it’s converted into harmless bile. You might want to think of HDL as a “scrubber” that removes the bad LDL cholesterol from your arteries. Women tend to have somewhat higher HDL levels than men which may account for their comparatively lower rate of heart disease. (but unfortunately that advantage is vanishing as the female heart attack rate is now on the rise)

Secondly, the LDL that ends up deposited on your artery walls is in an oxidized form. Later on we’ll discuss how antioxidants can effectively disrupt the oxidation process and keep our blood vessels clean by preventing plaque from forming in the first place.

But for now all you need to know is that people who consume a lot of antioxidant rich foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables suffer far less heart disease because the LDL in their blood stream is prevented from being converted into the dangerous oxidized form.

Here are the ideal target ranges for the various kinds of blood fats that may prevent or even reverse heart disease:

LDL less than 90
HDL more than 55
Cholesterol less than 150

How can you go about raising your HDL level? Here is a short list of the most effective ways:

Increase your level of activity - exercise

Lose weight if you are overweight

If you smoke – STOP!

Increase your consumption of Olive Oil

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