Heart Disease Inflammation, The Fire Within

Dear Health Concerned Friend:

  We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large
  ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to
  being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years performing over 5,000 open-heart
  surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

   I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labeled “opinion makers.”

   Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

   The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and
   heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.

   It Is Not Working!

   These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.


  
   The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity
   and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality,
   human suffering and dire economic consequences.

   Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite
   the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of
   heart disease than ever before.

   Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently
   suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have prediabetes.
   These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.

   Inflammation Traps Cholesterol

   Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that
   cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart
   disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the
   body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
   Inflammation is not complicated - it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a
   foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in
   how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we
   chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never
   designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation
   is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.

   What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other
   substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at
   least they made that choice willfully.

   Low-Fat, No Fat Brings Repeated Injury

   The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat
   and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing
   repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation
   leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. Let me repeat that. The injury and
   inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet that has been
   recommended for years by mainstream medicine.

   What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload
   of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from
   them) and the excess consumption of Omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and
   sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

   Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes
   quite red and nearly bleeding. Let’s say you kept this up several times a day, every day for
   five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen   
   infected area that became worse with each repeated injury.

   Inflammatory Process

   Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the
   same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery
   looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several
   times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more
   injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.

   While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a
   foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates,
   or processed with Omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American
   diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.

   How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you
   sick?

   Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the
   cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In
   response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into
   each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is
   rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.

   When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and
   the glucose converts to stored fat.

   What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow
   range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood
   vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you
   spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking
   sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.

   While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical
   patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator -
   inflammation in their arteries.

   Packaged Foods, Omega-6

   Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is
   baked in one of many Omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in
   soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with Omega-6 oils for longer shelf life.

   While Omega-6’s are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what
   goes in and out of the cell - they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.

   If the balance shifts by consuming excessive Omega-6, the cell membrane produces
   chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation. Today’s mainstream American
   diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance
   ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of Omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount
   of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be
   optimal and healthy.

   To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods
   creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals
   that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a
   sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood
   pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues
   unabated.

   There is no escaping the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we
   trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor
   was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in Omega-6 oils.

  Quieting Inflammation

   There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to
   their natural state and adding essential nutrients. To build muscle, eat more protein.
   Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut
   down or eliminate inflammation-causing Omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the
   processed foods made from them. One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of
   Omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Use olive oil and real butter preferably from grass
   fed beef.

   Animal fats contain less than 20% Omega-6 and are much less likely to cause
   inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the
   “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that
   saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat
   raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the
   cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.

   The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn
   created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream
   medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of
   foods high in Omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to
   heart disease and other silent killers.

   What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom
   turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating
   inflammatory foods and adding very specific essential nutrients proven in my clinic to quiet
   inflammation, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body
   from consuming the typical American diet.

   Wishing you great health,

   Dwight Lundell, MD

For further information on heart disease inflammation, please visit:
    heart disease inflammation

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