Simple Steps to Increase Longevity and Heart Health.

Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in the western world, and I’m sure you’ve heard that saturated fat and cholesterol are blamed as the culprits. However new research is starting to emerge to counter this thought.

Last December, the New York Times featured Dr. Fred Kummerow’s research on fats; his work, over many decades, details that it’s not saturated fat that causes heart disease, rather trans- fats are the key contributing fat.

His work is backed up by a review from Cambridge University, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine in March this year, confirming the absolute lack of evidence that consuming saturated fat leads to heart disease.

In June this year, Time Magazine’s leading front cover story was entitled “Ending The War on Fat” – and detailed new research stating that refined carbohydrates, sugar and trans-fats in processed foods are the real enemy—not the saturated fats found in foods such as butter, lard, or eggs.

Unfortunately, when the cholesterol hypothesis took hold, the food industry switched over to low-fat foods, replacing healthy saturated fats like butter with harmful trans fats (vegetables oils, margarine, etc.), and lots of refined sugar and processed sugars. Ever-rising obesity and heart disease rates clearly illustrate the ramifications of this approach.

Trans-fats are made through the chemical process of hydrogenation of oils. Hydrogenation solidifies liquid oils and increases the shelf life plus the flavour and heat stability of oils and foods that contain them. Trans-fat is found in margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, fried foods and other processed foods.

Trans-fats wreak havoc with the body’s ability to regulate cholesterol; they drive up the LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, which markedly increases the risk of coronary artery heart disease and stroke. According to a recent study of some 80,000 women, for every 5% increase in the amount of saturated fat a woman consumes her risk of heart disease increases by 17%; but only a 2% increase in trans fats will increase her risk of heart disease by 93%!

So What Do We Do?

According to Dr. Kummerow, your body can eliminate stored trans-fats in about a month, which is encouraging. The tragic reality, of course, is that a huge percent of the food westerners eat is processed—and processed food is where all this trans-fat lies.

In summary, to lower your heart disease risk and live a longer healthier life, you need to:

  1. Avoid sugar, processed fructose, and processed (white) grains. This effectively means you must avoid most processed foods, including confectionary, chips, white bread/pasta/rice, biscuits, cakes, desserts etc.
  2. Eat a healthful diet of whole foods, ideally organic, and replace the grain carbs with:
  • Large amounts of vegetables
  • Low-to-moderate amount of high-quality protein (think organically raised, grass-fed/free range animals-meat and eggs)
  • As much high-quality healthful fat as you want (saturated and monounsaturated from animal and tropical oil sources). Most people actually need upwards of 50-85 percent healthy fats in their diet for optimal health—a far cry from the 10 percent currently recommended. Sources of healthful fats to add to your diet include:
  1. Avocado
  2. Fish and Seafood
  3. Butter (from grass-fed, organic milk – most New Zealand dairy products are from grass-fed animals)
  4. Grass-fed meats
  5. Organic, pastured/free-range eggs
  6. Coconuts and coconut oil
  7. Raw nuts and seeds
  8. Unheated organic nut oils
  9. Olives and olive oil (cold pressed, extra virgin)

So really, it’s quite simple! A few small changes and going back to natural, unprocessed foods and you’re here for a long and healthy time.