Why high inflammation causes heart disease and how to lower it....

Today's Post: Friday, 8-5-2011

It was discovered that high and chronic inflammation causes heart disease.

In fact, the HSCRP test for an inflammation maker called C-reactive protein was found to be quite predictive of future heart problems and heart attacks when it is high when the person is otherwise well.

Cytokines and other substances are high when inflammation is high. When there are too many of them or they are in your blood too long, they damage the endothelium, the inside surfaces of your blood vessels.

Your body then patches the damage. But if small particle LDL or oxidized LDL or large particle LDL with sticky excess sugar or high triglycerides are present, the patches get so badly overdone that your blood vessels begin to be stiff and narrow from the plaque build up this causes.

This causes high blood pressure and reduced circulation to the brain and other key parts of you. And, it dramatically increases the risks you will have a heart attack or stroke.

1. One way to prevent this is to avoid the things that make it so much worse such as not exercising most days of every week, eating too much sugar, eating refined grains, and ingesting any high fructose corn syrup.

If you do the opposite instead, all the things we spoke of that make it worse tend NOT to be in your blood to worsen this damage.

2. Clearly, NOT having the chronic inflammation in the first place would also be extremely protective!

a) Mild or moderate or horrible gum disease not only can cause bad breath and for you to lose your teeth, it also tends to stick around for months. And all that time, the cytokines released as a by product of fighting that chronic infection, are boosting the dickens out of your inflammation. That causes or worsens heart disease a lot!

This is NOT just theory either! People with gum disease have tested out as being more likely to get heart attacks and fatal heart attacks.

So, what few people yet know is that brushing your teeth in a way that cleans & stimulates your gums and flossing, which also does this, and doing both every day, is one of the most effective ways known to prevent heart disease!

So, see the hygienist at a local dentist or the dentist you go to. Learn how to brush and floss to do this most effectively. (The process is about 10 % brushing your teeth and 90% brushing your gumline and gums!)

Taking vitamin C and ubiquinol each day also helps your gums stay healthy and heal faster. (Ubiquinol is the active form of CoQ10 that your body actually uses.) These make your gums tougher and more resilient. They reduce excess inflammation. And they slow the aging process in the cells that make up your gums.

The other thing to do is to balance your omega 6 and omega 3 intake.

Doing so slashes inflammation.

Use extra virgin olive oil almost exclusively and avoid the cheap omega 6 oils completely such soy, corn, and even canola.

Sharply reduce or eliminate the fats and oils you get from grain fed animals since the corn they eat makes those fats and oils loaded with omega 6. It increases omega 6 by TWENTY times over what you get from animals fed only grass or their natural diet.

To do this you can eat beans and lentils and nuts and wild caught fish instead of meat. You can eat some meat but only from 100 % grass fed animals. Or you can eat only the most fat trimmed and lean versions of grain fed meat and skinless poultry.

That will remove the excess omega 6 from your food.

Part two is to eat wild caught fish high in omega 3 and low in mercury such as salmon, sardines, herring, and small mackerel.

And, as I write this, you can also take omega 3 supplements from purified fish oil and DHA supplements. Some DHA supplements come from purified fish oil and some from the same algae the fish get it from.

These omega 3 oils directly lower inflammation. And by also reducing the inflammation from excessive omega 6 intake, doing both these things gives you enormous leverage on reducing excess inflammation.

Lastly, there are spices and supplements that directly lower inflammation.

Ginger and turmeric work well. And, turmeric and curcumin supplements based on turmeric are currently available.

(Ginger protects you from heart disease in several other ways also. And turmeric and curcumin also help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and many cancers!)

Yes; lower high CRP readings. NO to taking statins....

Today's post: Tuesday, 11-11-2008

Recent stories all over the media in the last two days describe that newly released research found that giving statins tested as preventing some of the heart attacks that the people in the group would otherwise have gotten for people in the group studied who had high CRP, C Reactive Protein, readings as measured by the HSCRP test but relatively OK LDL or total cholesterol readings.

Since statins do lower CRP levels by lowering the inflammation that causes the CRP levels to be high, this makes it look as if taking statins, Crestor, as used in this study, or perhaps other statin drugs that are far less expensive, may be protective against heart attacks even in people who test below the 160 LDL level above which doctors often prescribe statins otherwise.

After reading about this study, some doctors may do just that and now prescribe statins for their patients who test high for CRP. But, it is a very bad idea.

1. The effect was tiny. For every heart attack prevented 120 people had to take the statin. Unfortunately, even using less expensive statins makes this quite expensive for the results achieved. An article on NPR’s online news has this: “Treating all Americans who meet the study's criteria could add $8.9 billion a year to the nation's health care bill,”

2. But the worse and more powerful reason for NOT prescribing statins is that when 120 people take statins far more than one of them has serious side effects.

3. And the most important reason is that the nondrug methods to lower high inflammation and CRP have other health benefits including helping to prevent heart attacks in several other ways and helping to prevent type 2 diabetes and obesity as well.

So, not only is prescribing statins only marginally helpful at great financial and human cost, it’s NOT necessary. The nondrug alternative has no side effects, also works, and provides much better protection from heart attacks and other related diseases.

If you have a high CRP reading, would you prefer to have a bit of heart attack prevention and a much higher risk of serious side effects and a new drug to take daily and pay for?

Or, would you prefer a method that has no such side effects that is much more likely to prevent heart attacks and has exceptional added health benefits?

Similarly, what will prevent the most disease with the lowest costs in serious and unnecessary side effects and dollars spent?

The answer is NOT more statin drugs.

The average person in the United States has, in the past 80 years, become vastly more sedentary; they have begun eating meat mostly from animals fed grain which is fattier and which has much higher omega 6 and saturated fat content and very little omega 3 oils than the meat from grass and pasture fed animals it replaced; begun eating many oils also high in omega 6 oils such as corn, soy, safflower, and canola oils, and begun to eat more refined grain foods and large amounts of high fructose corn syrup.

To lower high inflammation and CRP readings AND to prevent heart attacks, strokes, type 2 diabetes, and obesity, simply reverse EVERY single one of these changes!!

1. Get regular exercise, ideally some strength training and some interval cardio every week.

2. Eat nonfat and very lowfat dairy foods; eat nuts if you aren’t allergic to them; eat beans and lentils; eat wild caught fish; eat beef fed only grass; & if and when you do eat poultry or other meat from animals fed grains, trim as much fat from it as you can and avoid eating it often.

3. Use only extra virgin olive oil. Only rarely eat small amounts of unheated butter as an occasional food flavoring. And completely stop, to the best of your ability, eating corn, soy, safflower, and canola oil or foods containing them.

4. Take DHA supplements & purified fish oil supplements daily. And, if you can, eat wild caught fish NOT known to be high in mercury at least once or twice every week (NEVER eat farmed fish for other reasons.)* The supplements and fish intake ensures you get enough omega 3 oils as the grain fed meat and poultry now sold has virtually none. *(Farmed fish are higher in omega 6 oils and have several kinds of health damaging pollutants.)

5. Stop eating all refined grain foods; stop eating or drinking any food or drink that has high fructose corn syrup; and eat sugar less often and in smaller amounts. Instead eat some high nutrition fruits such as kiwi fruit or blueberries; eat plentiful amounts of a variety of vegetables; and eat some whole grain foods also if you have little or no excess fat on your body and get plenty of exercise.

These steps will lower high CRP readings. There are some other things you can do that prevent heart attacks in other ways such as taking niacin and NEVER eating foods that have any hydrogenated oils (transfats.) But if you simply take these five steps listed here, your CRP readings will not only go down, your HDL cholesterol will go UP; your LDL levels will go down (no statins needed for that either); your triglyceride levels will go down, and if your blood sugar was too high, it will tend to fall to normal and desirable levels. You’ll also tend to lose all or most of any excess bodyfat you had.

AND, in addition to lowering your CRP levels without needing statin drugs, EVERY ONE of those other effects tends to prevent heart attacks and strokes as well.

What about doctors who have patients who would rather risk serious side effects and pay for drugs than make these lifestyle upgrades?

According to one doctor who worked for NASA AND who himself got very serious but mercifully temporary memory loss from a moderate dose of statins, the CRP lowering needed can be gotten with dramatically lower doses of statins than the amounts now prescribed for lowering LDL cholesterol. Those smaller doses cost less and are far more likely to be free of serious side effects.

Taking statins in very low doses would also help someone who DID do these 5 things and still had a CRP level above the desirable level. I think this would be quite rare; but it’s possible.

The conclusion is that such widespread statin use would be a ruinously expensive addition to our health care costs at a time they are already too high; it will harm more people than it will help; and it’s dramatically inferior to the effective alternative nondrug treatment that IS available.

Lower heart damaging inflammation....

Today's post: Friday, 9-26-2008

The measure of systemic or body-wide inflammation called CRP and often measured by something the labs and doctors call HS CRP is important. If the blood tests for it show up as high instead of low in you when you have that test done, it means you are at serious risk of heart disease and the events it causes.

In fact, it’s one of the three or four most predictive tests.

Many doctors know this and will order this test for you when they have you get your blood tested for the so called “cholesterol panel” that shows your HDL, LDL, & triglycerides.

But some doctors don’t know this yet & many more don’t yet know what to tell you to do to lower it if your CRP tests as high. Statin drugs do lower it some. And, they may well get more of the small amount of protection they provide from lowering inflammation than they do by lowering your LDL cholesterol. But as you’ll see shortly, it’s not necessary to take the risks of statin side effects or costs when there are better methods to use that also help prevent heart disease in several other ways.

Here are those better methods.

As I often do, I’ll quote an article from today’s email from Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs. Then I’ll add my comments and additions.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"

“Friday, September 26, 2008

Do the Foods You Eat Keep You in Pain?

By Steve Hefferon, CMT, PTA

What's Causing Your Pain?

When I say the word "inflammation," it's likely to evoke thoughts of painful joints and muscles, swelling, and a loss of mobility. But did you know that recent research shows that chronic inflammation in your body can lead to serious diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, and Alzheimer's disease, to name just a few?

The amount of inflammation in your body varies and is dependent on a number of factors including your activity level, the amount of sleep you get, the degree of stress in your life, and even the foods you eat. What you have to realize is that these factors are cumulative -- meaning they build up over time. And the more that any or all of these factors get out of whack, the higher the risk for disease.

Early in life, these levels can be so low that you might not even be aware that you have any inflammation in your body. That's because our bodies do a fairly decent job of controlling the inflammation -- at least for a while. Then one day you wake up and you're in your 40s and something is just not right. That's when the fear begins to set in, and you think to yourself, What did I do wrong? or, What can I do now to help myself?

The first step is to get your C-reactive protein (CRP) levels tested. CRP is produced by the liver, and it rises when there is systemic inflammation in the body. Ask your doctor about this test (you may have to demand having it done). All it requires is a blood sample that will be evaluated by your doctor. And because diet can play a large role in how much or how little inflammation you have, you may want these levels looked at by a registered dietician who can help you formulate an appropriate eating plan.

If you have pain due to inflammation, you may choose to take the traditional medical path, which includes non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), steroids, and even joint-replacement surgery in extreme cases. The good news is that there are natural ways to fight inflammation without the undesirable side effects that often result from the treatments listed above.

What You Eat Makes All the Difference

The food you eat is a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to controlling inflammation. The typical American diet consists of too much fat, tons of sugar, loads of red meat, and a frightening amount of processed foods -- all of which are likely to increase inflammation and contribute to obesity -- and obesity itself can cause inflammation.

By switching to an anti-inflammatory diet plan consisting of healthy whole foods, you can actually decrease inflammation and ease the pain and discomfort associated with it.

The first step is to avoid processed foods, foods high in sugar, and junk food whenever possible. Instead, choose fresh whole foods, especially anti-inflammatory varieties such as lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. But choose carefully. Many vegetables and pre-packaged "health" foods can actually work against you.

Use this handy list of the best and worst foods for controlling inflammation:

Anti-inflammatory foods

Atlantic salmon (wild)
Fresh whole fruits, vegetables
Bright multi-colored vegetables
Green tea
Water
Olive oil
Lean poultry
Nuts, legumes, and seeds
Dark green leafy vegetables
Old fashioned oatmeal
Spices, especially turmeric and ginger

Inflammatory foods

Sugar, from any source
Processed foods
French Fries
Fast Foods
White bread
Pasta
Ice Cream
Cheddar cheeses
Snack foods
Oils, such as vegetable and corn
Soda, caffeine, and alcohol

In addition to these dietary changes, it is also recommended that you:

Maintain a healthy weight. There is no question that eating healthy is not easy nowadays, whether you're at home or at a restaurant. But at the very least, you must try to decrease your intake of sugars and hydrogenated oils and increase your daily intake of fiber. Ideally, you should consume 35 grams of fiber per day (that is a ton of fiber, but it's worth shooting for).

Get better sleep. 7 to 9 hours of sleep is a must for optimal health; getting a good night's sleep is key to controlling systemic inflammation.

Relax more often to lower stress levels. Find time for yourself throughout the day to focus on your breathing and clear the clutter from your mind; learn to stay focused on the most important tasks in your life.

Exercise on a regular basis. People always ask me, "What's the best exercise to do?" and I always tell them, "Do something you like to do and, if your body can tolerate it, aim for 15-20 minutes three times a week."

Demand to have you CRP levels tested. This simple blood test is the best indicator of the amount of systemic inflammation in your body. Have your levels evaluated by a licensed health care provider who can suggest the most appropriate action.

So, if you are in pain and you've made a conscious decision to help yourself get better, these dietary and lifestyle changes will go far to help you live a healthier, pain-free life.

[Ed. Note: Steve Hefferon is co-founder of LoseTheBackPain.com and The Healthy Back Institute. He has a B.S. degree in Health/Fitness and is both a Fitness Trainer and a Certified Massage Therapist. He has combined these skills to become one of the countries top Post-Rehabilitation specialists…..]”

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A. To make his recommendations work even better, there are several things you can also do.

1. Take the supplements DHA, and purified fish oil daily. And eat safe kinds of fish and or seafood high in omega 3 oils at least once or twice a week. (Canned Alaskan salmon is wild caught. Oysters also are high in omega 3’s. And, restaurants often have wild caught halibut and petrale sole available. Unfortunately, restaurants rarely have wild caught salmon; and the farmed salmon most of them have tends to INCREASE inflammation and contains pollutants that will harm you in other ways.)

In addition, eat no refined grain foods. Eat only grass fed beef when you have beef. And, make a strong effort to avoid corn oil, soy oil, safflower oil, and minimize eating canola oil. Grain fed beef, refined grain foods, and these oils are all high in omega 6 oil.

The bottom line reason for all this is that abundant omega 3 and a minimum of omega 6 oils reduces inflammation. Unfortunately, the reverse is true also. Lots of omega 6 oils and no or very little omega 3 increases inflammation.

2. Drink tea or green tea and consume it between meals &/or with no milk.

Small amounts of dark chocolate or cocoa made only from pure unsweetened cocoa have recently been found to reduce inflammation very well. Do not use milk chocolate for this or have milk at the same time.

Both of these methods tend to increase blood flow and lower your blood pressure if it’s high also.

3. If you are NOT taking prescription blood thinners, take the supplement curcumin. It’s the active ingredient in turmeric and curry. It not only reduces inflammation, there is strong evidence it helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease. And, because it lowers inflammation and activates your immune system it apparently also helps prevent cancer.

4. Be absolutely sure to get at least as much exercise as he recommends. And, if you can get more without overtraining and fit it into your life, do so. Regular exercise is one of the best ways to reduce inflammation.

B. But there’s even more good news. Doing this set of things will also sharply lower your triglycerides and the dangerous kind of small particle LDL in your blood that causes heart disease.

It will also tend to help you lose excess fat and lower your blood pressure if it’s high.

And, THAT set of things will slash your risk of heart disease.

I wish you well in doing it.

Low carb diets Protect your heart also....

Today's post: Monday, 8-4-2008

Many of you have seen the studies that show that low carb diets DO help people lose weight. In many of them the people lost MORE weight and fat on low carb diets than on other approaches.

And, some of you have read the post we did that quoted research that helps explain why. When you eat protein foods, your appetite is turned off and you stop being hungry until it’s time to eat next. But when you eat carbs, particularly high fructose corn syrup or sugars, you do initially feel less hungry; but a bit later this reverses and you get hungry again before it would normally be time to eat.

But, because some high protein, low carb diets have been high in saturated animal fat, many health experts have believed that low carb diets were not likely to be good for your heart.

And, in fact, there ARE some health and heart problems associated with eating a lot of fatty meats from grain fed animals that are penned up and stuffed. This practice ensures you get too much saturated fat and omega 6 oils -- which tends to result in high LDL cholesterol and CRP inflammation. THAT kind of high protein intake from such fatty meats is very probably bad for your heart. So those experts had a point.

But, what if you had people eat a high protein, low carb diet where the protein was from lean, naturally fed animals &/or from plant proteins such as eating nuts and beans?

It seems that this research HAS been done. The people who ate that way DID lose more weight than people who ate calorie limited Mediterranean or low-fat diets. Even better, the people on the high protein, low carb diet ate what they were hungry for instead of limiting their portions. They did eat fewer calories than the other two groups; but they didn’t have to work at it nearly as much. (Since they did want to lose weight they likely did avoid stuffing themselves, however.)

But, here’s the real surprise that should have been front page news.:

The people who ate the high protein, low carb diet where the protein was from lean, naturally fed animals &/or from plant proteins such as eating nuts and beans had even better changes towards heart health than both the people eating the calorie limited low-fat diet AND the calorie limited Mediterranean diet.

Somehow that rather important news was missed and not publicized.

I found this out from an article in the Total Health Breakthroughs email I get in their email last Friday, 8-1.

Here’s that article, after which I’ll post some comments.:

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,

visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com"


“Friday, August 1, 2008

The Real Story on that "Diet War" Study

By Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

You certainly would have had to look far and wide to find a "no-spin" reporting zone a couple of weeks ago when the New England Journal of Medicine1 published a headline-grabbing study comparing weight loss on one of three diets: (1) Mediterranean, (2) Low-Carb, or (3) Low-Fat.

I doubt if many headline writers or reporters bothered to read the entire 13-page study -- they were too busy writing dramatic headlines. But God is in the details, and in this case, the details were pretty important. So let's take a look at this fairly important study and talk about what it actually showed (and, also important, what it didn't show).

Israeli researchers recruited 322 moderately obese subjects and randomly assigned them to one of three dietary groups.

Group one followed a low-carb diet without any restriction on calories. For the first two months they limited their carbohydrate intake to 20 grams a day (the exact amount on the Induction Phase of Atkins). They were then encouraged to increase their intake of carbs up to a maximum of 120 grams a day of carbs. (Sharp-eyed readers might note that 120 grams of carbs hardly constitutes an Atkins diet, even during the most generous "maintenance" phase.

For someone eating 1500-1800 calories a day diet, that would be between 25-40% of calories from carbs, closer to "The Zone" than to Atkins. But I digress.)

In contrast, both the Mediterranean and the low-fat groups were calorie limited: 1500 calories a day for women and 1800 for men. The low-fat group followed the standard American Heart Association guidelines (30% of calories from fat). The Mediterranean group were allowed up to 35% fat, mostly from olive oil and nuts, and were counseled to substitute beef and lamb with poultry and fish.

Interestingly, all three groups lowered their calories significantly from where they started, even though the low-carb group wasn't told to do so, meaning the low-carb group "naturally" ate fewer calories without even trying. (This is an important point, since I've long maintained that a low-carb diet is easier to follow for many people -- especially those with sugar addictions -- because it doesn't stimulate the appetite like high-carb diets frequently do.)

Fast forward two years: the low-carb group lost the most amount of weight, the low-fat diet brought up the rear and the Mediterranean group was in the middle. It's important to remember that the actual amount of weight loss we're talking about was pretty pathetic -- an average of about 12 pounds for the low-carb group, 10 for the Mediterranean group, and 7 for the low-fat group -- but I'll get to that in a minute.

The weight loss results, however, were only part of the picture. The low-carb group had the highest increase in HDL ("good, protective cholesterol"), the most improvement in cholesterol ratio, and the greatest reduction in triglycerides -- an important risk factor for heart disease that many say is more important than cholesterol. (Triglycerides didn't budge in the low fat group.)

It gets better. As readers of THB know, inflammation is a silent killer and a component of every known degenerative disease -- from heart disease to obesity. One of the best markers for inflammation is a blood component called C-Reactive Protein (CRP). Low-carb dieters saw their CRP go down the most -- it barely budged in the low-fat group.

So what's the take home?

Well, first of all, diets are tough. The amount of weight lost by all three groups was pretty dismal, but those numbers were averages -- some people lost a lot more (the highest number of pounds lost was lost on the low-carb approach, by the way).

Second, although this study was pretty rigorous about checking "compliance," we all know that it's just about impossible to truly monitor "compliance" in a free-living situation -- so exactly how well the subjects followed the test diets is open to question.

Third, though the "low-carb" group did the best, I can't help wonder how much better they would have done if they had actually kept carbohydrate levels down to a more reasonable level of under 100 grams a day (or even less) -- a level that seems to work the best for people who have problems with sugar, insulin, and carbohydrates in general. (I'm guessing they would have lost a lot more weight.)

Fourth -- and maybe most important -- the study shows that there are health benefits to a low-carb approach that go beyond weight loss. Lowered CRP, lowered triglycerides, and increased HDL are nothing to sneeze at -- and a nice slap in the face to the establishment that keeps telling us how "unhealthy" low-carb diets are!

I think many of the "distinctions" between the three diets -- especially between the low-carb and Mediterranean approach -- were somewhat artificial. You could easily follow low-carb and eat more olive oil and nuts, and you could easily follow Mediterranean and eat low carb.

Both programs emphasize a ton of vegetables (yes, even low-carb diets do!), healthy protein, and good fat. In this study, even the low-fat approach sounded dangerously close to the Mediterranean diet (30% of fat vs. 35%).

The best we can say about this important study is that it got a lot of attention (after all this was the New England Journal of Medicine) and gave credibility to the researchers stated conclusion that there are other ways to go besides low-fat. It also gave credibility to the unstated conclusion that no one program works for everyone -- and that some people may be more metabolically suited to low-carb (just as some may thrive on vegetarian or raw food diets).

And as far as the dismal weight loss results, let's just remember that weight loss remains a tough nut to crack. But with the right match between program and person, the right social support system, a level of determination and commitment, it can be done.

And it frequently is -- often with much more dramatic results than were seen in this study.

Reference

Shai, I et al. New England Journal of Medicine, 359(3), 229-241, 2008.
[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology and the author of five books including The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. His latest book is The Most Effective Cures on Earth. ….]

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1. These results are extremely significant because they show quite clearly that a higher protein, high vegetable, low carb diet results in lower CRP readings. And, high CRP readings are more predictive of heart problems than many other measures such as total and LDL cholesterol.

(It seems that lowering high CRP readings is the main engine that allows statin drugs to help prevent heart disease—much more so than their LDL lowering. And, dramatically lower doses of statins or getting more omega 3 oils AND, according to this study, adopting a low carb diet do also.)

2. And, these results are extremely significant because they show quite clearly that a higher protein, high vegetable, low carb diet results in a combination of higher HDL cholesterol and LOWER triglycerides.

Researchers have found that this ratio is reliably indicative of the amount of the truly dangerous and undesirable small particle LDL you have in your blood which is one of the major drivers of heart and cardiovascular disease. So, when you boost HDL and lower triglycerides at the same time, you don’t just lower LDL cholesterol, you lower the kind that will actually harm you. Even better, the effect is strong because you BOTH increase the good part of the ratio and lower the bad part of it at the same time.

3. I also like that the author points out that a low carb, high protein, Mediterranean diet would also work to lose weight and fat. Extra virgin olive oil lowers LDL cholesterol but leaves your HDLs high; has very little omega 6 oils and has other health benefits. The cooked tomatoes and garlic in it also tend to prevent heart disease. And, garlic and extra virgin olive oil tend to lower high blood pressure.