Healthy Heart Eating – Part 2
Billion Dollar Industry
Over Treating Patients:
o With doctors doing about 400,000 bypass surgeries and 1 million angioplasties a year — part of a heart-surgery industry worth an estimated $100 billion a year — the question of whether these operations are overused has enormous medical and economic implications.
o Harvard’s Dr. Laham suggests that as many as 400,000 of the angioplasties done in the U.S. each year may be medically unwarranted. “I’m sure we are way overtreating our patients.”
Good Guidelines:
A study done by the Medical University of South Carolina in 2007 on people ages 45 to 64 – 4 key habits to reduce the risk of heart disease by 35 Percent and the risk of death by 40 percent:
1. Eat five or more servings of fruits and veggies each day
2. Exercise for 2 ½ hours per week
3. Don’t smoke
4. maintain a healthy weight
(None of the 4 can be omitted to achieve the results)
Much Better Guidelines:
o Cholesterol is a major culprit
o All animal products have cholesterol and surprisingly reside in the leaner parts of the meat.
o No Cholesterol in Veggies
o One single egg has 213 milligrams of cholesterol the most concentrated cholesterol of any food.
o The recommended 200 mg/dl of cholesterol is too high our goal should be 150 mg/dl. There is considerable less risk the lower your cholesterol goes down to 150. No apparent benefit lower then 150.
o One study shows that your risk of dying doubles if your Cholesterol level is any where from 180 to 200 mg/dl and the risk continues to increases sharply as it goes past 240 mg/dl
o Triglycerides should be less then 200 mg/dl and ideally about 100 mg/dl
o Cholesterol is about 2.5% higher in the winter months and is also raised during pregnancy and during an infection
o Sugars like fructose (which are in most fruits) significantly raises Chol and Trigl, and when eating a high fat diet combined synergistically drives both up even more.
o Avoid fruit, fruit juice and other simple sugars if your Triglycerides are above 150 mg/dl
Other major risks easily avoidable:
– Blood pressure
– Excess weight
– Diabetes (both type 1 and type 2 heighten your risk)
– Smoking
– Sedentary lifestyle
– Family history
Other risks
– Chronic stress – avoid being impatient and bossy
– Your age – men 45 and older Women 55 and older
– Your Gender – Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the US
Fat is a major culprit:
o Saturated fats stimulate your liver to make more cholesterol.
o Avoid large amounts of all fats
o NOT MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE – Just as much fat and cholesterol in chicken as beef. Beef 29% of its calories come from fat and Skinless White Chicken is 23%. Salmon 50% fat.
