High sugar intake triples fatal heart attacks, II....

Today’s post:  Tuesday, 6-2-2015

We posted this about a year ago on:  Thursday, 6-5-2014, as “High sugar intake triples fatal heart attacks.”

I think it was one my best posts.  But there are some things not in it that I thought worth adding this year.

[Those additions will be added this year in brackets like these.]

Consider the following possible scenario:

You or a friend of yours get 25% of your calories from sugar and high fructose corn syrup and fructose in fruit juices and those things in energy drinks or fructose from agave syrup.

(The average American has been doing just that.  Most likely still are.

Fortunately many are learning not to keep doing this.)

You visit your doctor who tests your blood and finds your LDL over 160 and your triglycerides over 300.

Your doctor says your high LDL along with your high triglycerides puts you at high risk of a fatal heart attack.

He also says you should take a statin and prescribes one for you.

1.  Is he correct that you are at a high risk of a fatal heart attack? 

YES.  Very much so!  Recent research says even without measuring your blood lipids your intake of that much sugars TRIPLES your risk of a fatal heart attack! 

And, the high LDL and super high triglycerides -- confirms that you DO have that risk because of ingesting so many excess sugars!

2.  Is he correct that the statins will protect you from a FATAL heart attack?

Surprising to most people and to far too many doctors, the answer is NO.

Statins cut the risk of a non-fatal heart attack according to the research in only about 3 out of 100 of the people who take them. 

Worse, most people have the heredity where only one out of 100 of the people who take them get even that protection. 

[One study found this was about 57% of the people.  Surprisingly, given that the side effect rate of statins for cataracts alone tested as 3% and a more recent study found the side effect rate of triggering type 2 diabetes was closer to 46% -- certainly likely in someone taking in a lot of sugar and fructose .

Unbelievably, very few doctors test for this genetic indicator before recommending statins! 

There are better alternatives than statins, many in this post, and statins also can deplete your energy and cause the exercises that would also be most heart protective, the more vigorous ones, to damage your muscles instead.  So, I think it tragic doctors rarely know to do this test first.

The studies also found that taking statins had zero effect, repeat zero effect, on the rate of FATAL heart attacks!

3.  Of course you don’t want to have a fatal heart attack and you are at that high a risk, aren’t there things you can do to protect yourself and wipe out that risk?

Fortunately yes.  There are several very effective things you can do that work very well.

Why not do those?

What are they?

A.  Turn off the cause!  

Just in case you might be short on time before you would otherwise have a fatal heart attack, do it completely and right away!

(Knowing what I know, that’s what I’d do in your place.  I can’t prescribe that you do it as I’m NOT a doctor nor am I licensed in your state as one!  But I can tell you the research shows you are at severe risk if you don’t and very well might become safe if you do!)

Slam shut your intake of excess sugars and drop your intake of sugar to 5% of your calories you eat or less.  You can still have a few treats a month with real sugar and get that low. I did that.

If you really get into it you can eat a bit fewer such treats and get to 2%.  I’ve almost gotten there myself now.

I did that by simply cutting how much real sugar I ate in half about three times.  I now only have real sugar with my oatmeal once every two weeks.  (And, I now only eat oatmeal every other day and use only the whole grain rolled oats.)

 Or you can have the same number of treats that would have got you to 5% of your calories from sugar, but make them homemade and use erythritol instead of sugar a bit over half the time or recipe.  It turns out that unlike artificial sweeteners that make things that don’t taste super sweet not taste good and cause rebound hunger as if you ate real sugar, I just saw research showing that erythritol does neither thing! It’s totally safe as it is naturally in many kinds of fruit.  And, in such low moderate use it has virtually no side effects.  (Other sugar alcohols eaten in larger amounts do cause stomach upset and gas; but in that amount erythritol does NOT.)

[Since I wrote this, I’ve found that while erythritol itself is likely safe, the makers often are the same folks that make high fructose corn syrup and use GMO corn to produce it. 

So using real cane sugar or real maple syrup and organic whole fruit are likely safer ways to make foods taste sweet than erythritol.]

Stop drinking all soft drinks. Use no artificial sweeteners.

[Artificial sweeteners have been tested to cause MORE harm and fatten you MORE than sugar -- besides being listed as somewhat carcinogenic by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  Artificial sweeteners both do this directly causing people to become fatter on the same calorie intake and by causing people to eat MORE sugar and starch than the calories they are supposed to save.  So drink NO diet soft drinks.]

Stop drinking any energy drinks and drink coffee or tea with no sugar instead. Stop eating all fast foods or packaged dessert treats.  Read labels on every single thing you buy to eat or drink that has a label and if high fructose corn syrup or ANY hydrogenated oils are listed as being in it, buy and ingest something else! Do NOT use agave. [Agave is almost pure fructose and is harmful despite its low glycemic index.]

[Note that foods sweetened with real juice concentrates are almost pure fructose with no fiber.  Despite finding agave and fruit juice concentrates once being thought better than sugar in foods meant to be better for you, the reality is juice concentrates and agave are likely worse for you and your heart than sugar!]

Drink no fruit juices.  Eat the whole fruit or part of one or take the supplement instead.  (I eat organic wild blueberries and avoid drinking the juice.  And, I stopped drinking cranberry juice and take cranberry extract instead.) Eat no foods made of wheat -- even 100 % whole wheat -- and all foods made of refined grain wheat flour because both act just like high fructose corn syrup in the body in their effects. And cut all other grains back to zero or close to it. 

[In addition to sugar and its effects, the omega 6 oils in wheat and other grains and in their oils such as corn oil and soy oil and unfortunately canola oil AND in the fat of animals, poultry, and fish fed grains are very inflammation causing which ALSO causes heart disease. 

Plus many packaged desserts, baked goods, and snacks have each of these, sugar or high fructose corn syrup AND high omega 6 oils AND some of those oils are hydrogenated oils that directly cause what a high sugar intake causes.

To avoid a fatal heart attack also eat or take ginger and turmeric with black pepper.  Those do a VERY protective double by strongly lowering your inflammation AND lowering your LDL cholesterol!]

(Check EVERYTHING that has a label.  The catsup I used to buy contains high fructose corn syrup as did other products I used to buy and eat.  Now I never buy or eat these foods!)

Is eating 25% of your calories from sugar really that harmful?

YES!  That’s been proved true five different ways!

a)  A study found that high intake of added sugars tripled the risk of fatal heart attacks and came to me in a health email from the Chiropractor I once went to.  The research was done at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  And, I’ve copied it below in this post at the end of it. 

b)  A study I found within the last few months on Medical News Today had a study that found eating a lot of sugar in a short period of time caused direct harm to the hearts of the people who did it!

c) Eating a diet that high in added sugars has been proven to drive up your level of triglycerides enormously.  Work done at Harvard found that means it also increases your level of the small particle LDL that is so tiny it gets into the molecular chinks in your artery walls and causes damage and inflammation which your body then patches with the plaque that causes less blood to flow and causes heart disease.  Triglyceride readings of over 200 or worse, over 300 are common when that happens.  To be reasonably safe they need to be below 100 and below 50 is better!

d)  Eating a diet that high in added sugars, causes type 2 diabetes and high blood sugar lower than that but high enough to harm you.  (Taking statin drugs causes type 2 diabetes in 9% of the people who take them which makes it an even worse idea.) [More recent research put that at 46%!  And, the people getting a lot of sugar and fructose might even be higher than that!]

The added sugars create crystal spikes on all your LDL -- including the kind that normally is safe. Then they tear into your blood vessel walls causing heart disease and even destroy capillaries if it goes on long enough.  That doubles the heart attack risk for men and quadruples it for women!

e)  Eating that much sugar means that you take in 20 % more calories than people who eat the same as you did of real foods.  After a couple of decades of doing that you wear that 20% as added pounds of fat.

And, other studies show that just being that fat sharply increases your risk of heart disease by itself.

The better news is that if you have done that and completely stop eating that much excess added sugars, WITHOUT being any hungrier and maybe even being LESS hungry, after two or three years you will lose all that fat! 

Bonus:  So, if you weigh 250 and should weigh 180 and are 70 pounds overfat, if all you do is stop all that excess sugar, after a few years, you will weigh 200 and have lost 50 pounds of your excess fat!

B.  Do things that are heart protective and lower your triglycerides too.

Eat onions often.  Take deodorized garlic and eat minced or crushed raw garlic occasionally.  Eat wild caught fish that is low in mercury but high in omega 3 oils.  Take omega 3 oil supplements and DHA supplements.

Do short sessions of exercise most days of every week.  Then, once you have stopped all excess sugars and added those things that lower triglycerides, very gradually increase the intensity of each session. 

This has been shown by research to lower your triglycerides and the amount of small particle LDL you have and increase those effects every year you keep doing it!

Bonus:  It also slows aging AND cuts your risk of dying from any cause by at least 20%!

C.  Add the most effective technique known to cut your risk of dying from any cause and most of that effect is from cutting your risk of dying due to heart disease.

Few people yet know it’s that effective yet!  And, it can be done IN ADDITION to the other two things!

Recent research in the UK found that people who eat 6 servings of real vegetables a day or more had a 42% lower death rate from ANY cause than people who did not!  And, of that 42%, 24% was from the reduced chances of dying from heart disease!

(Potatoes, particularly French Fries don’t count.  They have to be green or nonstarchy vegetables or  less starchy ones like sweet potatoes or summer squash or carrots that are high in carotenes.) 

Why are they so effective?!

Clearly one reason is that they fill you up enough it makes stopping all those sugars dramatically easier to do!

But the other reason may cause 90% of the effect.  Every single vegetable has hundreds, repeat hundreds, of micronutrients.

That’s in addition to all the known vitamins and minerals you can take that they also have!

See the new book, The Wahls Protocol for more information.

Stopping the bad stuff and adding vegetables has so much power the lady who wrote it and did the research to find her way, turned off her MS that had put her into a wheel chair and prevented her from working.  She now walks around the hospital where she works. [Terry Wahls who wrote The Wahls Protocol.  Other people with MS using her method also get similar results!]

Her clinical trials also found her methods make losing all your fat pretty much automatic without making you hungrier.

By all means take these actions to protect yourself.

I’ve been impressed by the huge amount of the high quality research showing it’s wise to do so.

Here’s the quote from the email I got about the study that found a high intake of added sugars tripled the risk of getting a fatal heart attack.

The lead researcher found the results, “Sobering.”

“Having a sweet roll with your morning coffee, a large soda with lunch and a scoop of ice cream after dinner puts you in the highest risk category for a fatal heart attack. The aforementioned sugars are called “added sugars” because they are not included in the foods themselves.

These added sugars are over and above the large amount of sugar contained in processed foods. Your chance of dying prematurely from heart problems is three times greater than for those persons who eat only natural foods or foods with little added sugar.

For most American adults, sodas and fruit juice drinks are the largest source of added sugars. For someone who normally eats 2,000 calories a day, even consuming two 12-oz. cans of soda a day substantially increases the chance of premature death.

Lead author of the study Quanhe Yang of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called the results sobering. Yang and colleagues analyzed national health surveys from 1988-2010 that included questions about diets.

The team used national death data to calculate the risks of dying during a 15-year follow-up. Overall, nearly 30,000 American adults, aged 44 on average, were involved in the study.

“Too much sugar does not just make us fat. It can also make us sick,” said Laura Schmidt, Health Policy Specialist at the University of California at San Francisco. Schmidt wrote an editorial accompanying the study in last month’s Journal of American Medical Association Internal Medicine.

The study focused on sugar added to processed foods and drinks, or sugar sprinkled in coffee and cereals. Even foods that do not taste sweet have sugar added like breads, tomato sauce and salad dressings. Natural sugars in fruit and some other foods were not counted in the study.”  

[D. HDL and triglycerides indicate the level of small particle LDL that is perhaps the most effective cause of heart disease except super high inflammation perhaps.

So in addition to stopping the things that make MORE of this stuff, if you are at a high risk of a fatal heart attack, wouldn’t it make sense to do something shown to drive down inflammation and boost HDL and lower triglycerides in just a few days?!

If you take the omega 3 oil DHA and omega 3 oil supplement and eat wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils and low in mercury twice a week Al Sears MD found this can slash your triglycerides and increase your HDL in as little as two or three weeks. 

It takes a while to ramp up to eating a lot more vegetables and is challenging to do.  But this omega 3 strategy is quite doable and can make a huge difference in your risk really fast! Dr Al Sears has gotten such results in less than 3 weeks!

If your readings are that bad, it could be lifesaving for you to take this step in addition to slamming your intake of the causes to zero!]