There’s also the misconception that saturated fats and cholesterol do not cause heart disease.
This is incredibly false, and comes from misleading studies funded by the meat industry.
Naturally, it’s important that we explain this information first. Otherwise, here’s what’s likely to happen:
If you think that high cholesterol is not the primary cause of heart disease, you’ll probably dismiss blood tests that show high levels of cholesterol, and continue with your existing diet and lifestyle
On the other hand, if you accept the premise that high LDL cholesterol is the primary cause of heart disease, you’ll likely take those blood results more seriously and act accordingly. At least, you’ll have been informed.
If you believe that a diet high in saturated fats and cholesterol cannot be a cause of heart disease, you’ll likely give yourself a free license to eat lots of saturated fats and cholesterol
On the other hand, if you accept the premise that diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol can be a major risk factor for heart disease, you’re more likely to act differently, eat different foods, and do the best you can to avoid beef, eggs, chicken and high-fat dairy.
What Is Heart Disease?
First, let’s define heart disease, so we don’t get lost in our search for the truth. From now on, I’ll often refer to heart disease as cardiovascular disease or CVD.
CVD is not one disease but a set of conditions involving the heart or blood vessels. Many diseases are included under this umbrella: angina, heart attack (myocardial infarction), strokes, and many others.
The primary pathology leading to heart disease is atherosclerosis. Preventing atherosclerosis is what you want!
Atherosclerosis is primarily a thickening of our arteries from an accumulation of white blood cells. We call this “fatty streaks.”
This stuff contains cholesterol, dead cells, white blood cells, and a bunch of other nasties.
We can understand atherosclerosis as an inflammatory and a scarring process.
A few crucial considerations:
Atherosclerosis is completely asymptomatic. It can go on for decades without you noticing it or affecting your blood flow.
The most common path to a heart attack is not necessarily the progressive narrowing of the arteries, but rather the sudden rupture of plaque, which leads to a sort of “clot” — rapidly slowing or stopping blood flow
If you were born in a Western country and exposed to a “Western” diet, you most likely have a good degree of atherosclerosis — even if you’ve lived a good portion of your adult life on the healthiest diet possible.
This led Dr. Greger to say (and I’m paraphrasing): The question is not “how are you going to prevent heart disease” but rather “what are you going to do about the heart disease you already have”?
The last point is important.
I have heart disease; you have heart disease. We all have heart disease.
Why? Because everyone exposed to the Western lifestyle develops atherosclerosis from the earliest age.
It’s not something that only happens to people who eat burgers every day or smoke two packs of cigarettes. It happens to everybody. It’s just a question of time before it kills us, and the only reason why it doesn’t kill everybody is that some people end up dying of other diseases before their heart disease kills them.
Therefore, our goal is not to prevent heart disease.
Our goal is to avoid the worsening of our existing heart disease so we may die of another cause of death (ideally a natural one at a proper age!). We may even reverse some of the atherosclerosis we already have.
The good news is that if we don’t worsen our existing heart disease, we’ll most likely be okay without ever feeling any symptoms of it. http://twerksrealtime.com