Zimpapers Logo

Trust Marandure
Heart disease is the number one killer in developed nations. Evidence clearly shows that the incidence of heart disease is directly related to our abnormal dietary habits. Wherever people live on a diet high in refined carbohydrates and animal fats, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, angina, and other degenerative heart changes occur most frequently.

A great deal of confusion presently exists about the role of animal fats in the causation of heart disease. Until a few years ago it was a commonly accepted assumption that excess consumption of saturated fats found in meat, eggs, and dairy products was the main cause of the disorders.

This view, however, never could adequately explain why traditional Eskimos or other tribal people who eat a very large amount of animal fats do not show an increased incidence of heart disease. Still, most doctors stuck to their beliefs and reiterated the meat-heart maxim regularly.

It may not be totally correct, but at least it is simple and easy to quote without having to go into too much time-consuming detail.

The problem with most past research has been the traditional tendency to try, whenever possible, to find a single, simple “something” that will explain a particular disease. However, this is rarely possible. Heart disease, and most other degenerative diseases for that matter, is the result of a total lifestyle, not a simple dietary excess or deficiency.

In analysing the true causes of degenerative heart disease, it is essential always to bear in mind that people are individuals and as such respond to various causative factors differently.

Diet is definitely a major factor in degenerative heart disease. Saturated fats [those commonly found in animal products] are a problem, as has long been suspected, and the situation is getting worse, not better.

Animal products contain a very high percentage of complicated fats said to cause a rise in blood cholesterol, which has been associated with formation of atherosclerotic plaques on arterial walls. Certainly the western diet contains significantly larger amount of animal proteins and thus cholesterol than many other populations with less heart disease, and as such is definitely implicated.

The problem, however, is not only how much meat or dairy products we eat, but what kind. Domesticated animals have a much higher percentage of saturated fat than wild animals, due to a different diet, activity level, and the hormones used by various cattle and poultry industries to fatten their stock artificially.

The meat or poultry we eat now is very different from that our grandparents ate, much to our detriment. Cow’s milk, ignoring for the present the fact that this product was not designed by nature for humans, has also changed considerably over the past hundred years.

We now break the fat molecules in milk up into easily absorbed particles by homogenisation, and feel this food designed by nature for baby cows to our infants, resulting in cases of atherosclerosis by the age of five. It is no wonder that heart disease, once a disease of middle age, is now being found in people who are in their late twenties as well.

The cholesterol story, however, is far from simple. Although multiple studies prove that an elevated blood cholesterol level is definitely associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, it cannot be said from these data that dietary cholesterol is the single most important factor causing this increased blood cholesterol.

In fact, a modest increase in dietary cholesterol has been shown to give no significant rise in blood cholesterol levels. While it is true that excessive cholesterol in the diet will affect blood cholesterol levels, of far more importance to the total blood fat picture is the body’s ability to form cholesterol within the body from the other non fat energy sources, such as protein.

In support of the old observation that vegetarians in general have lower cholesterol levels than those who eat meat, it has been found that certain amino acids [histidine, arginine, and lysine] found in highest concentrations in animal products are capable of being converted to cholesterol within the body.

While it is clear that the average vegetarian does have less incidence of coronary heart disease than the average meat eater, and while evidence does show clearly that elevated blood cholesterol levels, as found more frequently among meat eaters, are associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, this evidence alone still does not clearly state that increased blood cholesterol levels per se cause heart disease.

The actual causes of the pathological changes found in the blood vessels of those with heart disease are not known. Several as yet unproven theories do exist but the final answer is not as yet agreed upon.

Cholesterol is also a component of all platelet cell membrane and as the blood cholesterol level rises, so does platelet cholesterol. Along with this, the tendency for the platelet to stick to the cell wall also increases. Once the platelet adheres to the artery wall, it releases chemicals that cause a narrowing of the blood vessel and that also are capable of causing mutagenic cell reactions.

Over the past few years other extremely interesting research has helped clarify many of our previously unanswerable questions about the diet/heart disease link. One study examined some of the original research data which showed that cholesterol in high amounts fed to experimental animals led to a high percentage of developing coronary heart disease.

This study has often been quoted to prove the causative link between cholesterol and coronary heart disease. In recent tests, however, using proven pure cholesterol, no such results were found. However, when cholesterol that was allowed to go rancid was used, coronary heart disease did result.

The conclusion was that the harmful effects of rancid oil products were the primary factor, not simply cholesterol. This has particular significance when we compare it with studies showing the usefulness of anti-oxidants [anti-rancidity factors] in the diet for both prevention and treatment of heart disease.

Saturated fats, although central to the increase of heart disease, do not work in isolation in the diet. Refined carbohydrates and specifically sugar are also known to increase fat levels in the blood. The combination of sugar or refined carbohydrates taken with saturated fats seems to cause the highest of all increases of cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood. This combination of foods is extremely common in the modern diet from early childhood on. Take, for example, the typical milkshake [sugar and milk] or a hamburger and coke [meat, refined white flour bun, and sugar].

White saturated fat consumption has increased only 10 percent in the past 100 years, the increase in refined carbohydrates and sugar has gone up to an incredible 700 percent. This increase in consumption of refined carbohydrates, especially sugar, is the single most important factor effecting a rise in blood triglycerides. There is a definite link between societies with an extremely high sucrose consumption and coronary heart disease.

Trust Marandure is a Naturopathy Practitioner based in Bulawayo. He can be contacted on Cell: 0772482382 or Email: [email protected].