Tag Archives: Heart disease

Heart Disease – No. 1 cause of death

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Artery scanning

Dr Chan Hwang scans the carotid artery of a Vegfest attendee.

Heart disease is still the number one cause of death for both men and women. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. A plant-based diet can reduce your risk of a heart attack by 40%. If you wish your doctor knew about this, we want you to know that we do too! That’s why we wrote a letter to the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. They published an Expert Consensus Decision Pathway on the role of non-statin therapies for lowering LDL Cholesterol, but they “forgot” to include the plant-based diet!  We told them about their omission, and we published it as an open letter, complete with references to all the latest research on the topic. Read more

Plant-based diet lowers risk of severe COVID-19

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Coronavirus ward - low res

Based on preliminary U.S. data, persons with underlying health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and chronic kidney disease, have a higher risk for severe COVID-19 disease than persons without these conditions. For instance, in New York 86% of all deaths so far have been among people who had underlying illnesses, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, new state data shows.

This is where following a plant-based diet can offer a big advantage. It reduces the risk of type II diabetes by 78% and is over twice as effective in treating type 2 diabetes as the leading drug, metformin. Meanwhile a plant based diet can lower the risk of heart disease by 40% and relieves the pain of angina 91%. Those following a plant based diet have a 75% reduced risk of chronic kidney disease and can avoid needing dialysis.

By having lower risks of these diseases, people can expect a lower risk of severe COVID 19.

Nuts are powerful

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nuts-mixedNuts are powerful for our health. The evidence is in and there’s a lot of it. Nuts, such as cashews, walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds, can reduce the risk of death from diabetes by 40 percent, cut heart disease by 30 percent, and reduce the risk of cancer by 15 percent. They also lower the risk of high blood pressure and gall stones, and can even lower cholesterol and triglycerides.  Even more good news – it only takes a handful or two of nuts two or three times a week to gain these benefits. Read more

Fish Oil and Wishful Thinking

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Fish Oil pillsThe waste of money on the false notion that fish oil helps prevent heart disease is staggering. Americans spend $1.2 billion dollars on the stuff despite all the evidence that it does no good. An amazing 10% of Americans use fish oil supplements in the hopes of warding off heart disease, among other things.

We’ll give it to you straight though in doctor speak: “accrual of high-level evidence” indicates “that the supplements lack efficacy across a range of health outcomes for which their use is advocated.”  In plain English the stuff just doesn’t work as hyped. Commenting on the latest study published in Internal Medicine, former American Heart Association president, Robert Eckel, said “Almost all studies of fish oil supplements show no benefit.” Read more

Cardiologist: Put us out of business, by going vegan!

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Cardiologist Ken WilliamsDr Kim Williams, the president of the American College of Cardiology, recently proclaimed that cardiologists can put themselves out of business if they just tell their patients to go vegan. He asks “Wouldn’t it be a laudable goal of the American College of Cardiology to put ourselves out of business?”

Following the old dictum “physician heal thyself” Dr Williams first went vegan to treat his own cholesterol problem. His cholesterol has been going up and up, and he found that going on a low-fat meat-centered diet was not enough. He had to go vegan and discover first hand the power of plant foods to treat the most common health problem in America, high cholesterol that leads to heart attacks. After only six weeks his cholesterol dropped down, way down, to where he wanted it.

He found that only when the dietary cholesterol was eliminated from his diet, did he reach a healthy cholesterol level in his blood. He was able to eliminate the cholesterol from his diet by avoiding dairy and animal products. Instead of eating chicken and fish, he started eating vegetable-based meat substitutes, like veggie burgers and sausages made from soy and other plant proteins, plus nuts. He also switched to almond milk from cow’s milk.

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Spring Clean your Heart

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Three heartsSunday is Valentine’s Day, and so, naturally, many people will be concerned with affairs of the heart. But did you know that February is also Heart Health month? And while it’s not quite spring yet, many people will be starting their spring cleaning early by cleaning out the clogged arteries that lead to heart attacks, high blood pressure, strokes and dementia, just to name a few.

Heart disease is a major problem. Every year, about 715,000 Americans have a heart attack from clogged arteries, and for a significant portion of those victims their first heart attack will be fatal. Heart disease is still the leading cause of death for both men and women. Even the threat of being at risk for a heart attack, or having to undergo surgery to bypass clogged coronary arteries, has given many a man and woman more than just a few sleepless nights. Read more

FDA Bans Trans Fats – Good News, or is it?

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Trans Fat labelThe FDA has just taken a small step for our health by proposing to ban added trans fats in the American food supply, citing its role in increasing cholesterol levels, which leads to the clogged arteries that cause heart disease and most strokes. Trans fats, also termed partially hydrogenated fats and oils, have been used to extend the shelf life of various food products, among other uses.

In fact consumption was already way down. While average consumption of added trans fats was almost 5 grams a day in 2003, it had already dropped down to less than 1 gram in 2012. Estimates are that as many as 20,000 lives may be saved by this move – a good thing.

So what’s the problem? The problem is that many manufacturers are replacing trans fats with artery-clogging, saturated animal fats which are not much better. Saturated animal fats are powerful when it comes to raising cholesterol levels. They also lead to decreasing insulin sensitivity which fuels Type II diabetes. When we consider that heart disease is still the leading cause of death, that stroke is 3rd leading cause, and that diabetes rates are soaring, this latest move by the FDA is really only a baby step in the right direction.

Also, the FDA ban does nothing to address the trans fats naturally occurring in both meat and dairy. Recent studies show these trans fats to be even worse than the artificial trans fats currently added to so many different products. What’s really needed to make a big difference in the health of our nation is a ban or limit on animal fats, which are all high in saturated fat. 

Percentage of Saturated Fat in Various Foods

Animal Fats

Saturated Fat as % of Total Fat

   Plant Oils Saturated Fat as % of Total Fat
Butter

68%

   Olive oil

13%
Beef fat (tallow)

50%

   Corn oil

13%
Pork fat (lard)

33%

   Sunflower oil

10%
Chicken fat

30%

   Safflower oil

9%
 

 

   Canola oil

7%

Animal fats, both saturated and unsaturated, are not only the prime culprits behind heart disease, stroke and diabetes, but they contain highly concentrated levels of pesticides and industrial toxins such as PCB’s and dioxin, which promote several different kinds of cancer. All these diseases kill way more people than just the 20,000 people saved by the latest ban.

It’s time for the FDA to finally step up to the plate and actually ban or limit animal fats, or at least put a warning label on the package. One of the reasons they hesitate to do so, presumably, is because so many people eat them. Yet when cigarette smoking levels were very high, the Surgeon General had the courage to state that smoking causes cancer and to put warning labels on the package. Indeed, the front cover of the current issue of Good Medicine magazine, published by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington DC, states that “Meat is the New Tobacco”.

Making Health Insurance Reform Work

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First Congress voted, and now the Supreme Court has spoken, so, as of this writing, a massive overhaul of the health system seems likely. The questions on many people’s minds at this point are: How are we going to pay for it all? and will there be enough medical staff and facilities to go around? The entire debate about health care is driven by the fact that Americans need so much care. Collectively we are sicker than we have ever been. When you think about it, what we really need the most to make things work is a healthier country. This is where helping the country to move towards a vegetarian diet can make a big difference, perhaps the crucial difference between success and failure.

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The Heart Attack Grill

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Have you heard about the new Las Vegas restaurant, the Heart Attack Grill? The Heart Attack Grill’s menu features high cholesterol and saturated fat meat items such as “Single,” “Double,” “Triple,” and “Quadruple Bypass” burgers as well as “Flatliner Fries” cooked in lard.

Recently, yet another patron of the Heart Attack Grill has reportedly fallen ill, during a meal at the hospital-themed Las Vegas restaurant. CBS reported that a woman is recovering, after collapsing unconscious and suffering a possible heart attack, at the restaurant that serves up high saturated fat and cholesterol fare. If the incident sounds familiar, it is! In February a man suffered a heart attack there, and had to be taken out on a stretcher while eating the restaurant’s “Triple Bypass Burger.”

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Beyond Pink Slime

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Oh yuk! There’s something called pink slime in hamburgers and we’re feeding it to our kids at school! In response to a large number of grossed out parents and the general public at large, a growing number school districts, restaurants and grocery stores are rapidly removing hamburgers and ground beef which contain pink slime from their offerings. Pink slime is the common term used to describe cuttings and scrapings of meat often taken from the less appetizing parts of the cow and then treated with the harsh chemical ammonium hydroxide to kill the bacteria it usually contains.

While we have no problem with removing pink slime from the burgers, there are much more serious problems with the common hamburger that can’t be so easily fixed, and which harm us much more than just making us hold our noses and saying yuk. Ultimately there is no such thing as safe meat. Meat is loaded with cholesterol and saturated fat, not to mention E. Coli and other pathogens that can cause serious illnesses. Let’s take a look at some of them and ask ourselves why, given the problems they cause, we still have hamburgers on the menus at all.

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