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Lanky Livingston
Guest
Speaking of diets & nutrition, I read an interesting article yesterday that suggests fatty foods and proteins may not be the problem after all.
Ancient Atherosclerosis
A few days ago, National Public Radio did a story on Egyptian mummies with heart disease. When the mummies guts were scanned using a CT machine, lo and behold, these ancient folks arteries were chock full of cholesterol and plaque.
According to Dr. Greg Thomas, who is one of the scientists that discovered these mummies, early Egyptians ate mostly fruits and vegetables, were active, did not use tobacco and ate very little meat. The fact that they developed heart disease given their diet and lifestyle threw Dr. Thomas for a loop. Befuddled, he stated that he feels current science must be missing a risk factor.
Well, risk factors are risk factors. Causes are causes. What we should be looking for are causes. Being human is a risk factor for death but it sure isn’t the cause – ya know what I mean?
He also stated that a known cause of heart disease is dietary cholesterol.
Says Dr. Thomas:
Buzzer! Ding! Nope – we sure don’t know that dietary cholesterol causes atherosclerosis (spelled incorrectly above by NPR). Just because you eat cholesterol doesn’t mean it high tails it straight into the old pipes. (Dr. Oz does however.)
Think about it – every single cell in your body needs cholesterol to “live.” Cholesterol is good – really good for us in fact. And you really can’t eat too much of it. If you eat a lot of it, your body makes less. If you eat less, your body makes more.
So why might cholesterol get taxi cabbed into arterial walls and deposited there?
It seems that cholesterol gets deposited in our arteries when arteries become damaged in some way. Think of it as plaster on a cracked wall. If a wall gets a split or a crack in it, we put plaster on it to mend it. Your body does this too when it is damaged. But our bodies put the plaster in the inside of the wall and this forces the artery to become smaller in diameter as the damage and repair process continues.
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click link for the rest of the article.
Ancient Atherosclerosis
A few days ago, National Public Radio did a story on Egyptian mummies with heart disease. When the mummies guts were scanned using a CT machine, lo and behold, these ancient folks arteries were chock full of cholesterol and plaque.
According to Dr. Greg Thomas, who is one of the scientists that discovered these mummies, early Egyptians ate mostly fruits and vegetables, were active, did not use tobacco and ate very little meat. The fact that they developed heart disease given their diet and lifestyle threw Dr. Thomas for a loop. Befuddled, he stated that he feels current science must be missing a risk factor.
Well, risk factors are risk factors. Causes are causes. What we should be looking for are causes. Being human is a risk factor for death but it sure isn’t the cause – ya know what I mean?
He also stated that a known cause of heart disease is dietary cholesterol.
Says Dr. Thomas:
Buzzer! Ding! Nope – we sure don’t know that dietary cholesterol causes atherosclerosis (spelled incorrectly above by NPR). Just because you eat cholesterol doesn’t mean it high tails it straight into the old pipes. (Dr. Oz does however.)
Think about it – every single cell in your body needs cholesterol to “live.” Cholesterol is good – really good for us in fact. And you really can’t eat too much of it. If you eat a lot of it, your body makes less. If you eat less, your body makes more.
So why might cholesterol get taxi cabbed into arterial walls and deposited there?
It seems that cholesterol gets deposited in our arteries when arteries become damaged in some way. Think of it as plaster on a cracked wall. If a wall gets a split or a crack in it, we put plaster on it to mend it. Your body does this too when it is damaged. But our bodies put the plaster in the inside of the wall and this forces the artery to become smaller in diameter as the damage and repair process continues.
------
click link for the rest of the article.