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Diet and Heart Disease
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Diet and Heart Disease
Some years ago I stumbled across an article by Dr. Dwight Lundell, a heart surgeon who corroborated a refutation of the lipid hypothesis, which proposes that a high fat/cholesterol diet causes heart disease, our conventional wisdom. This has led to widespread use of cholesterol-lowering drugs (statins).
But a little known fact, according to the Weston A. Price Foundation, is that heart disease in the United States was insignificant until after the 1920s, when traditional fats (lard, butter) began to be replaced by hydrogenated plant oils such as margarine and vegetable shortening.
Fast forward a century. Most of us have heard by now of the dangers of trans-fats. This is what margarine and shortening are, and they are being promoted as a healthier alternative to animal fats. But it’s not insignificant that the incidence of heart disease began to rise along with the introduction of hydrogenated (trans) fats into the American food supply.
Add to this scenario the increase of sugar in the average diet (including high fructose corn syrup beginning in the 1970s), and now diabetes is added, along with heart disease and obesity—the so-called diseases of western culture. But back to Dr. Lundell.
He gives an interesting explanation of how diet affects the health of our blood vessels. Zeroing in on one aspect of this three-page article (see link to full text below): Omega 6 and Omega 3 fats. The former comes from the seeds, the latter from a plant’s leaves and roots. Ideally, our diet should include a ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 of about 3:1. But with highly processed carbohydrates (cookies, crackers, cereal, bread, etc.) that ratio in the typical diet is about 15-30:1. And this situation causes a chronic inflammatory response in blood vessels. Cholesterol is deposited in blood vessels as a response to this inflammation and is not the cause of it. It’s like blaming the ambulance driver for the accident.
Caroline McColloch
Chez Nous Farm
cheznousfarm@gmail.com
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