How to Prevent Heart Disease

The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet is not "actually" the diet of any country or area; instead, it is "inspired" by the traditional dietary patterns of the peoples of southern Italy, Greece, and Spain. Generally it is regarded to center around high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits, and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate wine consumption, and low consumption of meat and meat products. I would modify that as follows, however:

• High consumption of vegetables.
• Moderate to high consumption of wild caught fish (if desired…and it's still available).
• Moderate consumption of organic, free-range chicken or turkey (if desired).
• Moderate consumption of nuts (if not allergic).
• Moderate consumption of fruit.
• Moderate consumption of oils and fats such as:
  • Olive oil.
  • Walnut oil.
  • Avocado oil.
  • Coconut oil.
  • Organic butter from grass fed cows.
  • With supplemental krill oil, squid oil, fish oil, and flax lignans.
  • Avoid like the plague all manmade trans fats (natural ones are fine) and all ultra-refined, high omega-6 vegetable oils (the kind that can last on your shelf for years without ever going rancid).
• Low to moderate consumption of organic, free-range meat and meat products (if desired).
• Low consumption of organic, raw dairy products--mostly as yogurt and cheese (if desired).
• Low consumption of legumes-- and if you eat them, make sure you soak them before cooking, and then cook them well before eating.
• Low consumption of unrefined, organic grain products. (Avoid the newer strains of non-organic high gliadin wheat.)
• Extremely low (or no) consumption of high glycemic grains, starches, isolated sugars, and any modern, high-gliadin, genetically engineered strains of wheat.

New Mediterranean Diet Study

The following newly released study on the Mediterranean diet study is certainly of interest especially considering the topic of the day.7

The study, published online by The New England Journal of Medicine, was the first major clinical trial to measure the diet's effect on heart risks. The study concluded that approximately 30 percent of all heart attacks, strokes, and deaths from heart disease could be prevented in people at high risk if they switched to a Mediterranean diet VS eating a low fat diet.  The results were so profound that they actually startled the researches, compelling them to end the study early because the results were so clear it was considered unethical to continue.

As the lead researcher, Dr. Ramon Estruch said, "We think the strength of this study comes from the fact that we measured hard outcomes and not just blood pressure or changes in cholesterol levels. We really believe the Mediterranean diet lowers incidence of [heart attack], stroke and cardiovascular deaths."

Even more surprising is that the diet helped those following it even though they did not lose weight and most of them were already taking statins or blood pressure or diabetes drugs to lower their heart disease risk.  This is important because some medical experts had been skeptical that the effect of a Mediterranean diet could be detected, if it existed at all, because so many people are already taking powerful drugs to reduce heart disease risk. And other experts hesitated to recommend the diet to people who already had weight problems, since oils and nuts have a lot of calories.

Two Notes on the Study

First, the diet used in the study actually had people using much more olive oil than I recommend. I don't think it's necessary. And besides, focusing on olive oil exclusively denies you the different health benefits found in other fats and oils.

Second, proponents of "very" low-fat diets found the study flawed--claiming that participants in the Mediterranean diet study still had heart attacks and strokes. As they said, "the Mediterranean diet and the horrible control diet were able to create disease in people who otherwise did not have it." That's a bit extreme, but to be sure, the very low fat diet was the first to show that heart disease, beyond being stoppable, can also be reversed, without drugs or surgery, through changes in diet and lifestyle. In a randomized trial of 48 heart-disease patients published in 1990 in The Lancet, the Ornish program to reverse heart disease demonstrated an ability to reverse artery blockages after one year--and continued to do so after five years.8 The changes were highly meaningful when compared to a control group, whose condition worsened at both points. In addition, the diet has also been shown to lower blood pressure and decrease both total and LDL cholesterol.

But it's also been shown to be extremely difficult for most people to stick to. By comparison, following the Mediterranean diet is no more onerous than brushing your teeth at night before bed. In the end, it makes the most sense for the most people. One other thing to keep in mind is that nature doesn't like extremes. Going to extremes to prevent heart disease may present as many problems as it solves--something the medical community doesn't like to think about. Holistic medicine deals with the body as a whole; medicine deals with the body, one condition at a time. So what does this have to do with the Ornish diet? Quite simply, forcing fats and cholesterol down to extremely low levels can have unintended consequences. For example, a number have studies have linked very low cholesterol levels to depression and mortality rates that are some 700% higher than normal.9

And it's not just cholesterol, both omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids affect mood and behavior. For example, a study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders linked low and abnormal essential fatty acid intake to symptoms of depression.10 Meanwhile, other research has shown that because fatty acids help to insulate nerve cells in the brain, people who are deficient in certain fatty acids may suffer from bipolar disorder,11 schizophrenia,12 eating disorders,13 and ADHD.14  And for that matter, even saturated fat is not the villain most people think it is. Can you say coconut oil?

The bottom line is that you may avoid a heart attack on an ultra low-fat diet, but at what cost?

Supplements

In addition to the Mediterranean diet mentioned above, I recommend the following supplements for heart health.

• Magnesium supplementation can change the shape and condition of heart valves.
• The B vitamins can help rebuild the heart.
• CoQ10 can reenergize every single cell in the heart and can literally remold the size and shape of the heart after the onset of congestive heart failure.
• The use of Omega-3 fatty acids can reverse damage caused by NEFAs.
• Proteolytic enzymes can provide nutritional support for your body as it works to clean out the coronary arteries and circulating immune complexes and repair damage to epicardial tissue surrounding the heart.
• The use of heavy metal chelators such as cilantro and chlorella can reduce the risk of an acute coronary event.
• Regular supplementation of a tonic made with cayenne and Hawthorne berry can rebuild the strength of the heart.
• Proper dental care and the use of avocado soy unsaponifiables and proteolytic enzymes can reduce the incidence of periodontal disease, which reduces the chances of an acute coronary event.
• Regular use of immune enhancers and pathogen destroyers decreases the risk of most inflammatory heart disease and the incidence of viral and bacterial infections that can adversely affect the heart.

And regular exercise can strengthen the heart and improve its efficiency even in your eighth and ninth decade of life.

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