For years cardiovascular disease has been blamed on cholesterol and Cardiologists have been prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and suggesting patients eat a low-fat diet. In the 1990’s the marketplace was flooded with low-fat / fat-free products. In order to make these fat-free products taste good, manufacturers began replacing fat with extra sugar to make them tasty. With the lack of fat in these products, the consumer never gets a ‘satisfied’ or ‘full’ feeling and the body craves more and more of the high sugar product! Essentially this eating style was fueling the cardiovascular disease ‘Fire’. The extra empty calories being consumed on the fat-free and highly processed diet has shown an increase in obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease! However, eating the right kind of fat and protein will signal your brain that it is full and satisfied, and would stop the sugar cravings.
Today we know that cholesterol alone is not the culprit to cardiovascular disease; the American diet, high in excess sugar and processed foods, is by far the main culprit!
One of the main drivers of heart disease is inflammation. Sugar and processed foods cause inflammation, disrupt hormone balance and damage your metabolism. A high intake of sugar promotes a spike in blood sugar, along with triggering an increased amount of the stress hormone cortisol. This impedes the body’s ability to heal and repair.
Cholesterol is in fact an important chemical that our body needs to produce the hormone cortisone which actually helps control inflammation. Eating lean meat, poultry, fish, beans and nuts which contain high amounts of protein and healthy fats will keep you feeling full and satisfied longer but eating sugar and processed foods will cause inflammation. One of the most prescribed medications in America is statins to help manage cholesterol levels that have been implicated in causing heart disease. Statins are used to block the enzyme that is stimulated by elevated insulin levels. Insulin levels are elevated by eating too much sugar! If you are interested in lower your risk of heart disease or wish to stop taking medications for high blood cholesterol, changing your eating habits with an effective plan that eliminates sugars and processed starches as well as food-like toxins will absolutely help for the vast majority of people.
At Natural Medicine & Rehabilitation (NMR) one of our goals is to educate our patients to help them reduce the risks of heart disease. We offer comprehensive laboratory testing for various genetic markers that can determine your risk of heart disease, blood clotting and stroke. Knowing such can prompt motivation and diligence toward a lifestyle that greatly reduces/eliminates one’s genetic predisposition. Traditional lipid profiling is an OK start but many times falls way short on its own in accurately assessing your cardiovascular and related diseases risk. Advanced testing will further assess the type and particle characteristics of your good and bad cholesterol, which has been shown to be significantly more valuable than traditional lipid lab values at assessing risk.
Inflammation drives heart disease and most related diseases. Specific blood markers of inflammation and oxidation, not routinely tested, will assess these hidden ‘drivers’ of disease.
Today we know that eating foods containing cholesterol is not the culprit to heart disease, but a diet high in sugar and processed foods is. The results of your laboratory testing will enable us to customize nutritional treatment programs to help detox, clean out and eliminate foods causing adverse health effects, and prescribe supplements when needed to help reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease.
