Nurse Health Talk

I know, it sounds absolutely crazy doesn’t it? But, it’s true.  There are many risk factors for heart disease and cholesterol is only one – although cholesterol is in the media and receives a lot of attention and is linked very heavily to heart attacks, there are 13 risk factors people need to think about, and act upon, to decrease their risk of having a heart attack.

Risk Factors for Heart Disease

1. Abnormal Cholesterol Metabolism related to diet, lack of exercise, etc.

2. Over 50 years of age

3. Men have a higher risk than women

4. 6 – 10% of heart attacks are related to your genes

5. High Blood Pressure caused by high insulin level in the blood and arterial wall damage

6. High insulin levels which cause plaques to form in your arteries

7. Menopause or perimenopause – Low estrogen levels increase clotting of blood

8. A Fat stomach, thighs, hips and butt – fat gain around your mid-section is a sign of insulin resistance

9. Sedentary lifestyle – lack of exercise predisposes you to insulin resistance

10. Stimulants like caffeine cause hormonal imbalances that cause blood clots and inflammation of your arteries

11. Stress which causes insulin resistance

12. Smoking which also causes insulin resistance

13. Type 2 Diabetes which is end-stage insulin resistance – your pancreas just finally gives up (The Schwarzbein      Principle, 1999)

Are you seeing a pattern here?  Insulin resistance seems to be a theme in causing heart disease.

We are seeing more people surviving heart attacks than did years ago due to our emergency medical systems (911) and great medical care that has advanced so much in the last 20-30 years, but that doesn’t mean we are seeing less people with heart disease and heart attacks.

There are actually more people suffering heart disease and heart attacks now than there ever was and we are getting YOUNGER!  10-15 YEARS YOUNGER for FIRST HEART ATTACKS than 20-30 years ago – This is not good – but why is this?

When you look at our diets today vs. back then, we are eating more fast foods, more simple carbohydrates (which turn into sugar and then fat in our bodies), and more bad fats and trans fatty acids than ever before.  As a society we are much fatter and think we are eating so much better with these low fat, low cholesterol, high carbohydrate diets, but these diets are actually making us fatter and causing heart disease.

Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, MD endocrinologist promotes eating healthy fats and following a low glycemic load diet to heal your hormonal imbalances to get your body back on track.  A diet of low glycemic index foods will  help you lower your total cholesterol, triglycerides, reverse insulin resistance and lose weight (without even trying!).

I have been following the glycemic foods index (low GI Diet) and have not felt better in years!  My joint pain has almost completely gone away and I don’t feel tired all the time like I use to, I have more energy. The food is great, easy to make, and inexpensive – that’s cool! I eat good fats and cholesterols and do not feel like I”m on a diet (because I’m not!).

Has it been easy?  Do I stay on it 100% of the time?  No (I am human!), I fall off the bandwagon once in awhile, but I have been eating bad things forever!  It takes time to make a permanent change in lifestyle when you are not used to it.  As long as you come back and remember how bad you felt when you went off the bandwagon, that’s what counts (and did I feel bad! My joints started to hurt and I was bloated – yuck!).  The longer you stay with it, the less times you fall!

What has really helped me is to have a meal delivery program. I use  the e-diets fresh food program “Deliciously Yours”, that way I have access to the dieticians and the e-diets team as well as having freshly prepared food made especially for me and my low glycemic diet.

You can try it and Get one FREE week of meals with your first eDiets’ Deliciously Yours meal delivery order

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Tags: Heart Disease, Reducing Cholesterol, Type 2 Diabetes by Julie
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How the world does that make sense?

o.k. I am a nurse and have been educated in nutrition and cholesterol lowering diets, what foods to eat and not eat and how to help patients create a diet plan to lower their cholesterol. Everything I learned in nursing school is now being questioned by some physicians (Dr. Diana Schwarzbein, MD – endocrinologist and Dr. Arthur Agatston, MD – cardiologist) because the diets that were supposedly healthy (low fat, high carbohydrates made popular in the 70’s & 80’s) have been around long enough now and have now been shown to be ineffective and actually cause more problems such as increases in heart disease and cholesterol – the very problems it was invented to stop.

I am a fan of Dr. Schwarzbein more so because of her work in endocrinology, which studies hormonal imbalances like diabetes, thyroid problems, adrenal issues such as high blood pressure, menopause, etc. Most women, and men for that matter, would benefit to read her book “The Schwarzbein Principle” which explains how to heal your body and those organs that have been burned out from stress and chemicals in our lives. These organs (thyroid, pancreas, adrenal glands, ovaries, testicles, etc) regulate your hormones and can’t function correctly when we are eating high carbohydrates (which turn into fat and cholesterol in our system).

I know, you’re thinking, “that’s absolutely crazy!” But, as a nurse and understanding the physiology of the human body, it does make sense.

Say for example you eat a piece of white toast. This is what happens in the body at a cellular level:
1. After it’s broken down in the stomach, it goes to the small intestine
2. There, its broken down into sugar and the sugar enters the bloodstream and into a vein in the liver
3. This triggers your body to release insulin because your blood sugar is high from the sugar in your blood
4. When the insulin is released, a message to liver activates the liver to get rid of the excess sugar
5. The excess sugar is turned into
-energy
-triglycerides (fats)
-cholesterol
-glycogen (another energy form)
-a small amount of sugar is saved and is sent to the brain on a continuous basis for energy

This is a normal process for the body and when you eat fats and cholesterols in your diet, this process functions normally. When you start eating high carbohydrates and low fat, low cholesterol diets, your body goes into a “survival mode” secretes an enzyme that tells your body to turn the carbohydrates into cholesterol because you aren’t eating enough to sustain your body. It enzyme actually overproduces cholesterol from the carbohydrates. This cholesterol then causes damage to your arteries by depositing cholesterol plaques (sometimes referred to hardening of the arteries) and can eventually block some of your arteries causing a heart attack or stroke. This doesn’t happen overnight, as I stated earlier, this diet came onto the scene in the 70’s, so it has taken awhile for medical professionals to realize the bad long term affects.

So by decreasing cholesterol and fats and increasing simple carbohydrates in your diet, it causes your body to continually overproduce cholesterol in your system – so a low fat, low cholesterol diet creates the opposite affect on your cholesterol it is supposed to by increasing your cholesterol!

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Tags: Reducing Cholesterol by Julie
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