What really causes Heart Disease?

What Really Causes Heart Disease?

The accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake.  It did not work.

These recommendations are no longer scientifically and morally defensible.  Inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease.

The dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans are going to die this year of heart disease than ever before.

The American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting more younger people every year.

Without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes.

Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defence to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process a condition called chronic inflammation occurs. Chronic inflammation is harmful and acute inflammation is beneficial.

What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation?

Highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower oils that are found in many processed foods.

A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall.  The foods that we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.

Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed withomega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly creating chronic inflammation in the bodies of these patients.

How do high GI/GL foods create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?

When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar your blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy use.  If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected.  When the full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.

Now, blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn can injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, you will injure inside of your delicate blood vessels and the process of inflammation starts and continues.

Also, if the patient consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly can cause more inflammation.

The excess weight you are carrying from eating these high GL/GI foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with high GI/GL foods  that  over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.

The more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we activate the inflammation switch. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.

Returning to foods closer to their natural state will have a positive effect on inflammation. To build muscle, eat grass- fed free range protein or pea and rice protein powder for the vegetarians.  Eat carbohydrates that are very complex such as colourful fruits and vegetables. Cut down  or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and also all  processed foods that are made from them.

Use olive oil or butter from grass-fed free range beef.

Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 than margarines.  The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is not true. Long chain saturated fats can raise blood cholesterol, but not medium chain saturated fats.

The no-fat and low-fat recommendations created chronic inflammation in the long term.

What you can do

Eliminate high GI/Glfoods  and add essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food and that will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body.

Reference: Dr. Dwight Lundell, http://myscienceacademy.org – ” World Renowned Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease”