Archive for cholesterol
FAST FOOD AND HEART DISEASE
Posted by: | CommentsIt would seem incredible that one meal could cause a heart attack, but that actually could be the case! You may already grasp the concept that fatty foods can harm your health in addition to causing weight gain.
But did you know that a meal high in fat can potentiate coronary artery disease?
Researchers have long understood this and have done study after study to associate the two. A recent research project done at University of California at Davis has possibly shown the correlation between these two events. They took a group of volunteers with varying waist circumferences and triglyceride levels and measured their blood levels of a substance-triglyceride rich lipoprotein (TRGL) after these volunteers had consumed a high fat breakfast from a major fast food chain. They exposed lab created endothelial tissue to this TRGL and measured the inflammatory response. It is this inflammatory response that can cause and lead to heart disease and stroke. Not all of us have much systemic inflammation or high TRGL levels. The endothelial cells which had the highest inflammatory response also had an immune trigger which helped to cause this response. These factors were more plentiful in people with larger waist circumferences, and did not occur to the same degree in people with normal waist circumferences.
So what exactly does this mean to you?
If you are overweight or even normal weight, and your waist is disproportionately larger; then you are at risk for developing heart disease. You have systemic inflammation and difficulty with fat and glucose metabolism. This could lead to higher levels of triglycerides and TRGL. When the TRGL is flowing through your blood stream after consumption of a high fat fast food meal, it will attach to your blood vessel walls and trigger inflammation. The body then sends out white blood cells to deal with this inflammation and that is how atherosclerosis occurs.
When the atherosclerosis is in coronary arteries, that can lead to a heart attack.
When the atherosclerosis is in blood vessels leading to or contained in the brain, a stroke can occur.
When the atherosclerosis occurs in arteries leading to your kidneys, intestines or liver; these organs do not work well.
And when it occurs in the blood vessels supplying your legs, you can have pain with walking, ulcers or even loss of extremities.
So is the fast food meal really worth all that damage and illness?
How to Prevent Heart Disease
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is Heart Disease?
The heart is a pump for blood. Blood carries the nutrients we need to our cells and hauls waste products away for elimination mainly through the liver and kidneys. The heart starts beating in our chest while we are in the uterus and if we live to age 75 our heart will beat about 2.7 BILLION times. It is tough and
Woman's Circulation
resilient but it can be injured. Sometimes because of an accident, poisoning whether accidental or self-inflicted like too much alcohol, genetics and other reasons outside our control, it doesn’t beat that long or that well. The heart disease that killed over 430 thousand U.S. women in 2006 and continues to do so each year is not well understood.
Heart disease causes inflammation of the lining of the circulatory system. After a certain point that is poorly understood right now, the body begins to loose that battle and resorts to plan B. It uses small dense particles of cholesterol to shore up the inflamed weakened lining of the arteries. This is usually a slow process but it eventually closes some of those arteries. The inflammation itself causes other problems in other organs but none so insidious as in the arterial lining.
When the inflammation reaches a certain point, the body begins to calcify these cholesterol deposits. This creates hard plaques and circulation troubles. When plaques rupture inside arteries, clots cut off blood flow to brain, heart muscle, skeletal muscle as in peripheral vascular disease or intestines. This causes pain, sometimes death of some of the muscle and maybe death of the person.
What is a risk factor?
It is a measurable fact that taken together with your total risk factors, indicates the level of risk for a certain health problem. RISK FACTORS are not DISEASES. They do not predict you will have heart disease, they indicate a level of risk, a percentage chance that a disease, in this case heart disease, will occur.
What risk factors can I control?
Risk factors over which you have no control are:
- your sex
- your age
- your family history
- your own history of heart attack, stroke or TIA previously.
Risk factors you do control are:
- Use of tobacco products
- Your level of activity
- Your cholesterol particle size
- Your blood pressure
- Your weight
- Your control of your blood sugar
- Your Triglyceride level
- Your response to Stress
- Good Dental Health
What do we really know about preventing heart disease?
We know a lot about heart disease but our knowledge isn’t perfect. We like gadgets, operations, pills and the latest thing when the oldest thing really matters.
We know when we are fit, trim and eating a healthy diet we are less likely to have any disease. We are less likely to respond negatively to stress when we exercise regularly. What is it that we can do that will reduce our response to disease onset within our body?
Don’t eat too much, eat as much local food as possible and avoid processed food. Pay attention to your body and keep some records. Be aware of how much you eat and its affect on your energy, weight and thinking. Be proactive but not obsessive.
Have a large group of friends, read instead of watch TV and screen out the negative junk in movies, TV shows and the news. Get enough sleep. Your body is made to do work long and slow. Investigate various kinds of activity that mimic work if you don’t have land to work or activities that are fun. I favor for myself Nordic Walking, Swing dancing, the “Shovel Glove” workouts you can find on YouTube.com and some light weight lifting along with lifting my Grandfather’s Blacksmith Anvil I inherited. What are your favorites?
As far as eating and supplements go – grass fed beef has an omega 6 to 3 ratio of 4-1. This is similar to ideal in our own muscles. Grain fed beef have a ratio of 16 or 20 to 1. This is a cause of inflammation. I supplement with a krill oil capsule (500mg) daily to boost my omega 3 fatty acids which help brain, joints, reduce triglycerides, raise HDL cholesterol and help decrease inflammation. Put a live bacteria back into your gut with a probiotic supplement ( I use Jarrow products). I don’t take it daily but will share a bottle of 100 and we each take 3 at bedtime for a couple of weeks a couple of times a year. I take vitamin D3 made from sheep wool lanolin about 1000IU most days of the year since I am inside most days.
Don’t forget to laugh a lot and be a source of laughter.
I can’t say you should do these things. I do them because my research has indicated that they are beneficial. Talk to your doctor, chiropractor, naturopath etc… Consider their motivation for giving you great advice.
I hope you will come back, become a subscriber , leave comments and tell your friends about us. So, I have a motive. Some people want to tell you something and others just like to be right. What do you think mine is?
Tell me your thoughts. Ask me a question. What have I missed? Where do you think I am wrong? If you think it is the meat thing and want me to be a vegetarian like you I am for it. I just want the animal to eat them first and I will eat the animal.
Bruce Bair
OK, you have read it. Now tell me what you think. Leave a comment below. You have to enter an email address that is valid to not be considered spam. I am not going to use it unless you ask me to respond. I never give them away. Just use your first name and a website isn’t necessary unless you have one. Then your name becomes a link to it. If you have never commented here before, I have to approve it the first time. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, especially if you love us and want to tell us how great we are. You might also like this post on
Cholesterol or this one on Heart Attacks in Women
Cholesterol Levels – What is right for me?
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is cholesterol?
High Fiber Lowers Cholesterol
The definition provided by a National Institutes of Health site is:
Cholesterol: A lipid unique to animal cells that is used in the construction of cell membranes and as a building block for some hormones.
What does cholesterol do in my body?
Cholesterol for the body is produced in the liver. The brain produces its own cholesterol. Cholesterol is very important to our health since all cell membranes (think of them as the hardware for the cell) incorporate cholesterol membrane. Cholesterol is essential to the functioning of our nervous system thus the brain produces its own. It is also used as the base (main ingredient) for many essential hormones.
When you think of hormones think of Estrogen, Progesterone, Thyroid etc..
How is cholesterol measured?
When most people have their cholesterol measured, three blood fats are being measured and the rest calculated. Why is this important? I will answer that after I explain the lab test. The three fats that are measured are:
- Total Cholesterol
- Triglycerides
- HDL or high density lipoprotein
The measured cholesterol is produced by the liver. We can measure the result of brain production but that is not considered essential to the development of heart disease. Cholesterol is probably not essential either but we will get to that in a minute. The TC or total cholesterol measured in the blood is the total amount produced by the liver.
Triglycerides are stored energy. They are made by the liver when energy consumed exceeds energy expenditure. When you eat too much, you store fat! The type of fat is triglycerides.
Triglycerides would be produced by the liver if we did not eat them. When we consume large amounts of fats and sugars then the excess energy is used to produce triglycerides which are then stored as fat with the abdomen, near the liver so they can be quickly converted to energy in times of starvation which for most of us in western society never happens. So, we get fatter and fatter! Some fat is a good thing but too much is harmful.
When we measure triglycerides, we do it after at least an 8 hour fast so that we are at the lowest level in our blood. This number is very important in the usual way cholesterol is “measured”.
HDL or high-density lipoprotein is the last measurement. We all know oil and water do not mix. Cholesterol is made in the liver and has to be transported through the blood to places where it is needed. Cholesterol is a fat, meaning a solid at room temperature. Oil is a fat that is liquid at room temperature. Fats do not dissolve in water. To transport HDL cholesterol through the blood, the body wraps it in a special coating of protein called APO-A. APO-A is soluble in water allowing cholesterol to go through the blood to the cells. HDL has been called “good cholesterol”. There is no good or bad cholesterol. Cholesterol has a job to do and it always does it. If you have lots of inflammation on the lining of your arteries, then the body uses cholesterol to line the arteries. This is reversible until the cholesterol is calcified. This is a final step in the inflammatory process and when the calcified plaque breaks, clotting inside a vessel occurs. This leads to death of the cells depending on blood from that artery. In the brain we call it a stroke or a heart attack if it happens in the heart circulation.
LDL cholesterol is not usually measured, it is calculated. The formula is (Total cholesterol – HDL) – Triglycerides divided by 5. The answer is the calculated LDL. If the LDL is high and it is recommended you take a drug to lower it ask for a direct measurement of LDL called a VAP or an NMR.
If the LDL is large particles then they are not associated with heart disease. If they are small particles, they are associated with heart and brain circulation problems and talking a medication while you make changes to your life-style is advisable. Cholesterol can not usually be lowered much through diet but LDL particle size can be changed by diet, exercise and body fat loss.
What are the right numbers for ME?
You need cholesterol! You do not want it too low. Higher levels in women are associated with longevity. Larger particle sizes are associated with health. What you want is a total cholesterol in the low 200′s and an HDL and LDL particle size that is large.
These three things (total cholesterol <250 and large HDL/LDL particle size) are associated with low heart disease if you are not drinking more that 3 ounces of an alcoholic beverage a day, are at an ideal weight and body fat composition and do not have other underlying diseases.
It isn’t just about cholesterol but about your level of stress, how much exercise you get, what you eat and drink and your genetics. There is no right answer for everyone. Much of the current research centers around how much medication or which medication you should take to prevent heart disease. You need a thinking physician and good information to help YOU make decisions about your health.
What is your opinion? Do you take medication for your cholesterol? Why? Do you agree or disagree with what is written here? Leave us a comment. Lets have a dialogue.
Bruce Bair
Women in Menopause and Heart Disease Part 2
Posted by: | Comments
Anne Vaillancourt
Women and Heart Disease Risk, part 2
Anne and I continue our discussion answering questions like:
What is a risk factor?
What blood tests really help predict my risk?
What should I do about my risk?
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Heart Disease in Post Menopausal Women
Posted by: | CommentsThese sessions are called Ask An Expert Anything and my guest was Anne Vaillancourt PAC “the Menopause Mentor”. Anne is a
Anne VAillancourt
Anne VAillancourt
practitioner in Chapel Hill, NC and specializes in women’s health. In session one she talks about the statistics for cardiovascular disease in menopausal women. We discuss what a risk factor is and what you should know about them. The second part of this discussion will be in the next blog post here on Female Menopause Mentors.
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