5) DIET TO AVOID HEART DISEASE
a) Introduction
We've very deliberately put the chapter on "Diet to Control Heart Disease" ahead of the chapter on "Diet to Control Blood Sugar". For someone with type 2 diabetes the first is more important than the second! Persons with type 2 diabetes die largely from what we're calling "heart disease" ("large blood vessel disease" or "macrovascular disease" which includes strokes, PAD, heart attacks, embolisms, etc.). The best way to avoid heart disease is through medications (statins and blood pressure medications), weight loss and exercise. But diet is also important. So how does any person diet to prevent heart disease? It is really quite simple, avoid both "feedlot" saturated fats (trans fat, red meat such as beef and pork, cheese, eggs, any milk products except skim milk) and avoid highly "refined" carbohydrates with low fiber content (potatoes, rice, flour, most breads, pancakes, waffles, sugars, corn flour products, most crackers, popcorn, cakes, baked goods, donuts, bagels, etc.). Exactly this approach was recently supported by a large scale "meta-analysis" of 189 prior research studies of the links between food and heart disease. This study was done by a team of researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine 4/15/09.
The author is a scientist who believes in evolution. As such he believes in the concept of the "paleo diets" put forward by several books on the subject. "Paleolithic" times are generally accepted to be between 2,500,000 and 10,000 years ago, but we'll use only the time that a stone utilizing modern man, or homo sapiens, was around, or about 100,000 to 10,000 years ago. The two heart disease risk factors of "feedlot" saturated fats and refined carbohydrates are both products of a dependency on grains (this includes corn) and cooked soybeans for the base of man's modern food chain. "Feedlot" saturated fats are found in genetically engineered "prime" tender fat marbled beef fed cooked soybean, corn and grain feed in muddy lots thoughout the Midwest. "Feedlot" meats and saturated fats weren't found in the game hunted or scavenged on the savannahs of Africa 50,000 years ago. "Feedlot" saturated fats are not found in goats in Crete feeding on grasses, forbs, and herbs nor are they found in seals eaten by eskimos or cattle blood drunk by African Masai. Up until 5,000 years ago mankind didn't even consume grain of any sort. The starches and fiber content of the modern refined genetically modified grain based carbohydrates are now much different than they were even in the past 5,000 years. They have been genetically engineered to be "sweet", to taste "good" and with sufficient gluten to make good breads. All the fiber and germ has been removed. There is a lot of debate over whether or not saturated fat causes heart disease. There is also a lot of debate over whether or not "refined" grain based carbohydrates causes heart disease. The bottom line is that the good research says that they are both bad!
The human body was designed by evolution in Paleolithic times to accept a certain diet (with a huge amount of flexibility). This diet did not include either selectively bred (or genetically engineered) "feedlot" saturated fats nor selectively bred (or genetically engineered) refined "grain based" carbohydrates. And to expect the human body to evolve to accept these two new food classes in only a few hundred years is not realistic. And this applies even if an individual doesn't believe in evolution and ascribes to the concept that the world was created 10,000 years ago. Neither feedlot meat or grain based carbohydrates existed 10,000 years ago.
There are a huge number of studies which have compared diets high in "feedlot" saturated fats with diets high in refined carbohydrates (these tend to be incorrectly termed studies which compare low carbohydrate diets with high carbohydrate diets or studies which compare high fat diets with low fat diets). These studies invariably find that there is no difference between the two as to heart disease. These studies are then quoted by both the beef industry and the refined carbohydrate industry as proof that their respective products do no harm. Wrong! The studies simply compare two equally bad approaches to diet. There are also a lot of largely anthropological studies where a wild omega 3 rich saturated fat diet is compared to a high refined carbohydrate diet and found to be much lower in heart disease. This is not a surprise. There are also many studies that show a diet high in unrefined "whole grain" carbohydrates is better for heart health than a diet high in refined carbohydrates. Again, this is not a surprise. Many studies show improved heart health when saturated animal fats are replaced with unsaturated vegetable fats. Again, this should not be a surprise. The hugely significant Harvard Nurses Study found significantly less heart disease only in the subgroup that avoided both feedlot saturated fats and refined carbohydrates.
Recent research reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine gave data on a ten year study of eating red meat (beef and pork). Men who ate large amounts of red meat had a 27 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease than the men who ate largely chicken and fish. Women who ate large amounts of red meat had a 50 percent higher risk of dying of heart disease than women who ate less. This data was confirmed by the Harvard Nurses study. The cause of this can be any combination of three factors: 1, the increased saturated fat in red meat, 2, the greater degree of cooking and thus the greater amount of "poisoned protein" (AGEs) in the red meat, 3, the increased fat in red meat causes weight increases which cause both diabetes and heart disease.
For someone with diabetes there are three subgroupings of these two new food classes that need to be avoided at all costs. One subgrouping is well cooked red meat (sausage, meat loaf, bacon, chicken skin, etc), it contains "poisoned proteins" or AGEs which are especially bad for people with diabetes. The second subgroup is a manmade saturated fat called "trans fat" or "hydrogenated fat". This is so bad for everyone it has been outlawed in some municipalities in the USA. The third group is a manmade sweetener called "high fructose corn syrup". This sweetener is pure poison for someone with diabetes.
Current Chapter: 5) DIET TO AVOID HEART DISEASE
a) Introduction
b) Avoiding Saturated Fats
c) Avoiding Trans Fatty Acids
d) Benefits of Unsaturated Fats
e) Fats and Weight Loss
f) Benefits of Fiber
g) Avoiding High Glycemic Index Foods
h) Reducing Salt Intake
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