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Heart Disease
Mainstream Dietary Advice May Do Your Heart More Harm Than Good
Date: 23/08/11
Keywords: The Cholesterol Truth, Cardiovascular Disease, Cardiovascular Health, Cholesterol, CoQ10, Diet, fibrates, Statins
Mainstream medicine has worked tirelessly over the years to drive the message home that raised cholesterol levels cause heart disease. As part of their mission, the mainstream often advises people to avoid saturated fats altogether in their diets and to replace them with carbohydrates.
This of course stems from the belief that saturated fats are bad for the heart and circulation, and carbohydrates are better. As Dr. John Briffa has pointed out previously on The Cholesterol Truth, this misguided belief can do much more harm than good.
Mainstream medicine has worked tirelessly over the years to
drive the message home that raised cholesterol levels cause
heart disease. As part of their mission, the mainstream
often advises people to avoid saturated fats altogether in
their diets and to replace them with carbohydrates.
This of course stems from the belief that saturated fats are bad for the heart and circulation, and carbohydrates are better. As Dr. John Briffa has pointed out previously on The Cholesterol Truth, this misguided belief can do much more harm than good.
Wrong end of the stick
One of the reasons why a diet high in carbohydrates is counter productive in keeping your heart healthy is because triglycerides (blood fats) are manufactured from carbohydrates in the liver. Research has shown that if individuals adjust their diet to contain less saturated fat and more carbohydrates, triglyceride levels go up, which in turn increases the risk of stroke.
So, what are triglycerides and where do they come from?
Triglycerides are the form in which fat moves through the bloodstream to your body's tissues. Whenever your LDL "bad" cholesterol is measured, triglycerides should be checked too.
A triglyceride test is typically performed in a lipid panel, in which total, HDL “good” and LDL “bad” cholesterol are all measured. At present, triglyceride levels lower than 150 milligrams per decilitre (mg/dL) are considered normal and levels above 200 mg/dL are considered too high.
High triglyceride levels can often be genetic. However, as I mentioned earlier, diet can play a massive part in raising your blood fat levels and refined (high-glycaemic- load) carbohydrates are the main culprit here, like French fries, sugar-sweetened beverages and white-flour pasta. In many people, these foods elevate insulin levels, and insulin affects both triglyceride synthesis and the storage of fat.
As you might imagine, instead of giving the right dietary guidelines the mainstream would much rather prescribe a side-effect-ridden drug to lower triglyceride levels. The drugs of choice in this instance are fibrates. Fibrates are usually prescribed in combination with statins especially for diabetics with high cholesterol levels... and I probably don’t even need to mention it, but the side effects of this Pharma Cocktail are numerous and wide- ranging.
Tripilix is a popular ‘fibrate’ drug, which can be effective for reducing triglyceride levels according to some doctors and may even raise levels of HDL cholesterol. In a 2010 study, individuals with diabetes were treated with a fibrate in combination with the statin simvasatin, or just the simvastatin alone.
The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and showed that over a 5-year period, the individuals taking the two drugs did no better than those taking just one. The real kicker was the fact that those treated with the two drugs (the fibrate and the statin) were more likely to have a fatal or non-fatal heart attack, compared to patients taking the statin alone. There are also concerns that the drug combination might be more toxic to muscles than the statin alone.
In fact, in his latest blog post on The Cholesterol Truth, Dr. Briffa explains in more detail why fibrates have not been successful in preventing heart attacks in patients with raised cholesterol levels. To read his latest post, click here:
Doing it drug-free
The following lifestyle changes can help you keep your serum triglyceride levels down:
Sources:
Cholesterol, diastolic blood pressure, and stroke: 13,000 strokes in 450,000 people in 45 prospective cohorts. Prospective studies collaboration. Lancet 1995;346(8991- 8992):1647-53.
Imamura T, et al. LDL cholesterol and the development of stroke subtypes and coronary heart disease in a general Japanese population: the Hisayama study. Stroke 2009;40(2):382-8
ACCORD Study Group. Effects of combination lipid therapy in type 2 diabetes mellitus. N Eng J Med. 2010;362(17):1563-74.
Studer M, et al. Effect of different antilipidemic agents and diets on mortality: a systematic review. Arch Intern Med. 2005;165(7):725-30
Back to topThis of course stems from the belief that saturated fats are bad for the heart and circulation, and carbohydrates are better. As Dr. John Briffa has pointed out previously on The Cholesterol Truth, this misguided belief can do much more harm than good.
Wrong end of the stick
One of the reasons why a diet high in carbohydrates is counter productive in keeping your heart healthy is because triglycerides (blood fats) are manufactured from carbohydrates in the liver. Research has shown that if individuals adjust their diet to contain less saturated fat and more carbohydrates, triglyceride levels go up, which in turn increases the risk of stroke.
So, what are triglycerides and where do they come from?
Triglycerides are the form in which fat moves through the bloodstream to your body's tissues. Whenever your LDL "bad" cholesterol is measured, triglycerides should be checked too.
A triglyceride test is typically performed in a lipid panel, in which total, HDL “good” and LDL “bad” cholesterol are all measured. At present, triglyceride levels lower than 150 milligrams per decilitre (mg/dL) are considered normal and levels above 200 mg/dL are considered too high.
High triglyceride levels can often be genetic. However, as I mentioned earlier, diet can play a massive part in raising your blood fat levels and refined (high-glycaemic- load) carbohydrates are the main culprit here, like French fries, sugar-sweetened beverages and white-flour pasta. In many people, these foods elevate insulin levels, and insulin affects both triglyceride synthesis and the storage of fat.
As you might imagine, instead of giving the right dietary guidelines the mainstream would much rather prescribe a side-effect-ridden drug to lower triglyceride levels. The drugs of choice in this instance are fibrates. Fibrates are usually prescribed in combination with statins especially for diabetics with high cholesterol levels... and I probably don’t even need to mention it, but the side effects of this Pharma Cocktail are numerous and wide- ranging.
Tripilix is a popular ‘fibrate’ drug, which can be effective for reducing triglyceride levels according to some doctors and may even raise levels of HDL cholesterol. In a 2010 study, individuals with diabetes were treated with a fibrate in combination with the statin simvasatin, or just the simvastatin alone.
The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and showed that over a 5-year period, the individuals taking the two drugs did no better than those taking just one. The real kicker was the fact that those treated with the two drugs (the fibrate and the statin) were more likely to have a fatal or non-fatal heart attack, compared to patients taking the statin alone. There are also concerns that the drug combination might be more toxic to muscles than the statin alone.
In fact, in his latest blog post on The Cholesterol Truth, Dr. Briffa explains in more detail why fibrates have not been successful in preventing heart attacks in patients with raised cholesterol levels. To read his latest post, click here:
Doing it drug-free
The following lifestyle changes can help you keep your serum triglyceride levels down:
- Get regular exercise.
- Lose weight if you're overweight.
- Cut back on alcohol, avoiding beer especially (even small amounts of alcohol can elevate triglyceride levels).
- Increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids by eating salmon, sardines, black cod and herring on a regular basis, and consider taking a fish oil supplement that contains both EPA and DHA at a dose of 2-4 g per day.
- Maintain a diet that's low in processed carbohydrates and choose carbohydrate foods that rank low on the glycaemic index.
Sources:
Cholesterol, diastolic blood pressure, and stroke: 13,000 strokes in 450,000 people in 45 prospective cohorts. Prospective studies collaboration. Lancet 1995;346(8991- 8992):1647-53.
Imamura T, et al. LDL cholesterol and the development of stroke subtypes and coronary heart disease in a general Japanese population: the Hisayama study. Stroke 2009;40(2):382-8
ACCORD Study Group. Effects of combination lipid therapy in type 2 diabetes mellitus. N Eng J Med. 2010;362(17):1563-74.
Studer M, et al. Effect of different antilipidemic agents and diets on mortality: a systematic review. Arch Intern Med. 2005;165(7):725-30
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