Health Alert 198
Heart disease kills 950,000 Americans every year. That number is so large it’s hard to grasp. Yet you may have no trouble relating to the aunt, grandfather, or coworker you’ve lost to a heart attack.
For decades we’ve worked to eradicate heart disease – but to no avail. Heart disease remains our number one killer. This is because experts convinced us the cure meant saying good-bye to meat and eggs and hello to processed low-fat foods and dangerous cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Today you’ll learn about a new book that blasts through long-standing myths about heart disease and shows you how to reach the best physical condition of your life.
* Why the Conventional Approach to Heart Disease Has Failed *
Today heart disease continues to reign as the number one cause of death in America for one simple reason. The health advice we’ve tried to follow for 40 years is just plain wrong.
Myth #1: Fat makes you fat. In 1957 the American Heart Association linked dietary fat to heart disease and began recommending low-fat diets. But dietary fat wasn’t to blame. Starches were the real culprits. And since high-carb diets are high in starches, these diets just made the problem worse.
Myth #2: You need to exercise an hour every day. The American Medical Association tells us we need 60 minutes of exercise every day. But prolonged cardiovascular exercise mimics prolonged stress and breaks down cardiopulmonary reserves. Long cardio workouts not only waste time, they actually cause additional health problems.
Myth #3: You need to keep your cholesterol below 200 points. The current strategy of monitoring cholesterol to manage heart health is ineffective. The emphasis should not be on lowering LDL (bad cholesterol) but on raising HDL (good cholesterol) levels. In addition, compelling evidence indicates that the best blood predictor of heart disease risk is not cholesterol at all, but homocystiene.
For four decades we’ve sacrificed taste, given up simple pleasures, pounded our way around running tracks and experimented with dangerous heart drugs. And in the end, the regimen failed in its primary goal: heart disease still claims more lives than any other cause of death in our nation.
* A New Model for Heart Health *
To get the word out about real heart healthy eating and exercise, I have recently finished a new book called “The Heart Cure”. It will be published soon.
In the meantime, I’ll be sharing what I learned while researching and writing the book here in your regular letter. You’ll learn a new model for eating and exercising. You’ll discover what special nutrients your heart needs. You’ll see how to control inflammation and oxidation in your blood vessels. And, you’ll have an action plan to help you put it all into place, and use it for life.
So stay tuned…
Al Sears MD
American Heart Association Journal report, 01/01/04