In last week’s column, we introduced the risk factor concept for heart disease and other circulation related major common killer diseases. Of the nine modifiable risk factors, six were largely under the influence of our diet (elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, excess weight, elevated triglycerides, and then also our genes). The remaining three risk factors were largely lifestyle related (smoking, sedentary living, chronic stress).
Medication
While a plant based, whole food diet reduces elevated cholesterol levels by 15 to 20 percent within weeks and that without any side effects or costs, the medical approach favors the prescription of statin drugs to drive down the cholesterol levels. While very popular this pharmaceutical approach, however, has not been shown to delay premature death when prescribed for primary prevention purposes. These statin drugs lower blood cholesterol levels but, in the case of primary prevention, they do not protect the heart from being “attacked.”
The findings were disturbing: 20 percent of the patients developed muscle pains forcing the discontinuation of the meds. There was suggestive evidence that they may possibly contribute to diabetes and interfere with optimal cognitive function. Furthermore, it showed that these statin drugs did not delay death or prevent a heart attack. One hundred men without previous heart disease took these medications for five years and avoided at best one or two heart attacks. In addition, these medications are expensive and because of their ubiquitous side effects, they require frequent laboratory testing and physician checkups.
Surgery
More glamorous are the surgical procedures: bypass operations, roto-rooter cleanouts, balloon stretching, and stenting. Some results have been spectacular and life-saving under emergency circumstances. But as time goes on and statistics accumulate it is becoming apparent that most of these operations do not prolong life (only in about 10 percent) or even necessarily improve it.
Medical treatment is temporary at best. Unless the underlying root causes in the culture or of the chosen lifestyle are modified, which most-likely necessitated the surgical intervention in the first place, these costly procedures will not keep the harvested transplanted veins or arteries from narrowing and occluding again. The only long-term solution is a serious lifestyle change, either for the avoidance of the surgical intervention or to keep the circulatory channels from closing up again.
Lifestyle Medicine
It is always better to prevent than to repair. But if heart disease has developed, as suggested by the presence of coronary risk factors and documented by diagnostic tests, it still isn’t too late to make lifestyle changes. You can actually clean out your arteries, lower your risk of dying of common atherosclerosis-related diseases and extend your active, productive years. You can markedly change your risk factors no matter how old you are, often in just a few weeks.
Challenge
If Americans would change their diet sufficiently to lower their cholesterol to below 180 mg% and their systolic blood pressure below 125 mmHg and quit smoking, it has been estimated that 82 percent of all heart attacks before age 65 could be prevented. Simple changes in lifestyle would do more to improve the health of the nation than all the hospitals, surgeries and drugs put together.