Clogged Arteries

This is a bit off topic, but I felt a need to summarize some reading that I've been doing lately. My interest in clogged arteries started a little over a year ago when my oldest brother had a heart attack, quickly followed by a second heart attack. Luckily, he survived both. Then my other brother shares this information with his physician. After some tests it turns out that he, too, has had two heart attacks that went undiagnosed.

Our father died at age 57 of a variety of stress-related diseases. I'm 53. With that and my older brothers' recent experiences in mind I decided to see if there is much that I can do now to avoid a similar fate. Of course I'm not a health care professional and can't diagnose or recommend treatment for anyone, but I can share what I've learned thus far:

Why Arteries Clog

The way I understand it, the process starts with damage to the lining of the arteries, which is super slick so that things don't stick to it. I haven't come across any known reason for the lining breaking down, though there are various hints about possible causes, which I'll cover later. After this damage occurs your body deposits fat at the damage site. Once the fat is deposited chloresterol gets stuck to the site and a plaque begins forming. Now I may not have this 100% right, as I am a layperson. The important thing to remember here is that chloresterol is the THIRD symptom of heart disease. There are two other things that need to be addressed before worrying about chloresterol.

Cholesterol

If you watch TV nowadays, you'd think that lowering your chloresterol is absolutely imperative if you have clogged arteries. It seems that the argument is that chloresterol is part of the plaque building process that leads to the narrowing of arteries. The thing that the drug companies don't tell you is that chloresterol lowering drugs on their own do absolutely nothing to improve your chances of survival after a heart attack or stroke. They're simply instilling fear to generate profits - nothing new there...

Thyroid Gland

I recently read Solved: The Riddle of Illness by Langer and Scheer. If I remember correctly Langer is an MD that practiced for decades and had studied with a prominent endocrinologist. An interesting story is told about a medical fad decades ago where people's thyroids would be removed thinking it would solve various problems. There may have been some short term success, but by and large, within a few years these folks would die of clogged arteries, even though many showed no evidence of such a problem prior to the surgery. Eventually they learned to avoid this by giving folks dessicated thyroid extract (I think from pigs?). But the important message is that the thyroid seems to have an important role in maintaining the lining of arteries. Unfortunately, the endocrine glands are not well understood. We do know that the thyroid needs iodine and that a short latency deficiency will result in a neck goiter. There are some thoughts that bromide (or bromine?) in the environment may be playing havoc with our thyroids by clogging up the iodine receptors in the thyroid. Whether this contributes to clogged arteries is an interesting question.

Low Fat, Low Protein Diets

Their are a lot of physicians making a lot of money selling books about low fat heart healthy diets. I beleieve the phenomenon started with Dean Ornish, who documented that his diet resulted in a reversal of arterial clogging. A lot of these diets are vegetarian, and if you know that your arteries are already clogged, please don't ignore their advice.

However, they cite studies indicating health problems related to consuming milk protein, which they then extrapolate to infer that very probably all animal protein could be bad for you. I have difficulty with this on many, many levels. First, we are probably talking about pasteurized and homogenized dairy products. It has been shown that these processes alter the proteins. I suspect that the problem is more likely to be caused by the processing of the milk and not the milk itself, at least not for folks that are genetically endowed not to be lactose intolerant.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin posted an article on avoiding mammal protein that is probably a better recommendation than simply avoiding all animal protein. After all, we are omnivore's, so have evolved to eat some meat. And all those great essential fatty acids found in seafood are pretty difficult to adequately replace with a vegetarian diet.

Vitamin C

A number of years ago nobel laureate Linus Pauling proposed a theory that the damage to arterial linings was caused by a long latency Vitamin C deficiency - basically a chronic low level Scurvy. While this appears to have been extensively researched and dicredited, I have to tip my hat to him for his thinking. I suspect that very likely there are two things likely to work together to create heart disease - too much of something that is bad for you (i.e. too much mammal protein) and too little of things that are good for you (i.e. some sort of long latency nutritional deficency).

Vitamin D

Hopefully you've heard a lot about Vitamin D lately, though not nearly as much as you should be hearing. There are a number of folks that are suggesting that the President needs to declare a Vitamin D health emergency to get the word out about the implications of long latency Vitamin D deficiency for people's health (rickets and osteomalacia are well known short latency deficiencies of this vitamin).

First off, Vitamin D is not a true vitamin, but a hormone precursor. And there are about 2,000 Vitamin D receptors throughout our bodies, thus it is very important to our health. It actually turns 2,000 genes on or off based upon its presence or absence.

Second, Vitamin D is made by your skin, or at least is was before we all started working indoors and the suntan lotion business convinced us to fear the sun. These are both reasons why current Vitamin D levels are lower than those that we have evolved to need for optimal health.

There was a recent article posted at the New York Times about low Vitamin D levels and increased likelihood of death, stroke or heart attack for those that had recently had a cardiac event. Ironically, they show a picture of a milk carton as being representative of where to get your Vitamin D.

Inflammation

There has been a lot of buzz in the past decade about inflammation. Research is indicating that it is a root of most, if not all, chronic diseases. So what in our diet leads to inflammation? The Big Two are sugar and refined flour. And it seems that perhaps you can add mammal meat and make it the Big Three. Greatly reducing these in your diet will greatly lower most people's inflammation levels.

What in our diet decreases inflammation? Think fruits and vegetables and Omega 3 fatty acids. Which just happen to be Dr. Mirkin's basic nutritional recommendations.

Summary

It is likely to be years before anyone truly knows the solution to many chronic diseases, but there seems to be some commonality among many divergent views out there:

• Avoid sugar and refined flour.
• Limit meat consumption; avoid mammal meat and limit other meat portions to a serving roughly the size of your palm.
• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, but go easy on those that are high in starch (bananas, peas, corn, etc) - chose a wide variety, not just a few of the usual suspects.
• Take at least 4,000 IUs of Vitamin D per day, especially if you have a desk job or live very far from the southern U.S. Avoid sunscreen except when you'll have prolonged exposure to sun and an increased risk of sunburn.
• Limit your intake of dairy products (don't worry, there's plenty of high quality calcium in most fruits and vegetables).
• Don't overdo caffeine or alcohol.

The Movie Star Breakfast

Several years ago I was suffering from some skin conditions. Never being one that was eager to visit a doctor (and having no health insurance at the time), I went looking for a self-help solution. I came across the website of Dr. Perricone and ended up buying his book, The Perricone Prescription. Either in the book or on his website he shared the secret breakfast that television personalities use to assure that their complexion was always at its best (this, plus a good jolt of caffeine, is also great just before going on a job interview!):

• Cooked Steel Cut Oats, about 4-5 ounces.
• Canteloupe, about 1/8th of a melon.
• Blueberries, a dozen or so.
• Salmon, fresh, preferably wild. The portion should be about the size and thickness of your palm – 4 ounces or so. Poached or baked in foil are best.

I eat something close to this for breakfast every day, using mostly lean meat in place of salmon (which I eat once every week or two for breakfast) and varying the fruits according to what is available or in-season. It’s a simple, nutritious meal – some lean protein with good fat, both soluble and non-soluble sources of fiber, plenty of extra vitamins and minerals, and not a lot of calories. If you pre-slice the cantaloupe and make the oats ahead (store it in individual portions in the refrigerator and then reheat in the microwave) it only takes a few minutes to prepare.

Dr. Perricone is another advocate of a diet to reduce the amount of inflammation in your body. Recent research has shown that low levels of inflammation are the precursor to many diseases and are the cause of many of the outward signs of aging. Check out his three day nutritional face lift for a healthy way to eat better and look younger.

Dr. Mirkin

I subscribe to a free weekly e-newsletter from Roadbikerider.com. It's got lots of great tips for cyclists, and of course I need to scrutinize each issue to see if there is some new tip for climbing better.

This week they passed along a tip from Dr. Mirkin about aging and dieting that is important to pass along. Even you aren't old yet, you will be soon enough and you no doubt know someone that is old enough to benefit from this information:

The Doc is asked: Why do so many people fail to keep weight off after they diet? And the doc's answer is:

"A new study shows that older people who diet without exercising lose huge amounts of muscle. When weight loss was combined with exercise, they did not lose muscle (Journal of Applied Physiology, October 2008).

"Loss of muscle slows metabolism even further because larger muscles burn more calories at rest.

"In the study, elderly sedentary people were placed in three groups: (1) diet only; (2) exercise only; (3) diet and exercise.

"Those who dieted and exercised for four months lost more fat and less muscle than those who only dieted. Most of the exercisers chose to walk on a treadmill, which is not a very vigorous endeavor.

"This also explains why losing weight repeatedly through dieting shortens a person's lifespan.

"Many people go on diets and lose weight, quickly regain their lost weight, and then go on a diet again. These people then become fatter at the same weight because they have lost so much muscle. Therefore, at the same weight, they have fuller fat cells.

"Full fat cells produce an immune stimulant called cytokines that turn on a person's immunity continuously to cause inflammation, which increases risk for cancers, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and other harmful diseases."

I visited Dr. Mirkin's site for the first time tonight. What a find! His wife has posted a ton of recipes that look to be very tasty and healthful, so I'm looking forward to trying out a lot of new recipes next week. And he also provides a subscription to a free weekly e-zine with tips on eating and living well. I can't wait to get the first issue. While you're at the site, also get your free copy of The Good Food Book!

And check out his page about salt and blood pressure. You'll be surprised by what he tells you, but my recent experience has validated his advice.

Nutritional Strategies

About five years ago I started running into some health problems. I decided to look to the web to find ways to live healthier, rather than heading to a doctor and getting a handful of pills. My search led me to a number of resources worth sharing.

The first is The Zone Diet. There are lots of other similar diets, and by mentioning The Zone I'm not necessarily endorsing it, though the general strategy is very sound. Basically it allows you to control blood sugar by removing breads and starchy foods from your diet, and uses frequent meals and snacks with some protein and a little good fat to control your appetite. It works. It's a huge dietary change for most of us, so it'll require a willingness to change a life time of eating habits. But by following this diet I managed to painlessly loose 10 pounds less than when I was on WeightWatchers (and hungry all the time). Team Slipstream is using the same diet to give their team an edge. Check out their blog here to learn more about the value of this approach to nutrition.

The second is mercola.com. This site reinforces many of the principles of The Zone diet, but with a ton of great information on taking control of your own health. If you're currently on meds for common diseases - high blood pressure, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol, auto-immune diseases, I highly recommend subscribing to his 3 times a week newsletter. Even if some of the stuff seems a bit out there, don't discard the rest. There is a ton of great info. You'll be glad you took the time.

The third is the Cyclo-Fuel nutrition plan and the Cyclo-Club. The value of Cyclo-Fuel is that is very similar to The Zone, but specifically targeted to cyclists. There's a seven day fat loss plan designed to break your sugar addiction that's an important first step for most folks. And in the Cyclo-Club there's a seven day fat loss boot camp along the same lines (no need to buy Cyclo-Fuel). The one thing that sold me on Cyclo-Fuel was that before buying it I had been monitoring my blood pressure daily for about a year. It was borderline high - often around 128/80, once in a while even higher. I watched the Soffritto demonstration on Cyclo-Fuel and was intrigued by the flexibility of this cooking technique in creating a number of interesting one dish meals. I tried it and the next day my BP was 112/70. And while following the principles of the plan it has consistently stayed 10 points below what it had been previously. I can't say that everyone will have the same results, since there is so much variability how people eat and their genetics. But for me that made it well worth the price of admission for the plan.