HEART diseases are among the biggest claimants of lives anywhere in the world. The hardest hit are the rich who can splurge on the most expensive steaks and other fatty delicacies.
Well, I used to be a steak lover – even if I am not rich.
Now I don’t care if I am not mistaken for a rich gourmet. Having become a heart patient, I have shifted to near-vegetarianism to prevent further cardiac and arterial damages. I have repeatedly written about vegetarianism but can’t resist a little meat when eating buffets in birthday parties. Incidentally, there’s one today with Dr. Mine Quilino (the celebrator) and the entire Antique Circle of Iloilo.
I have been in and out of the hospital several times, the latest being three weeks ago when I underwent my third two-dimension echocardiogram. Tolerable damage lang naman; thanks to lady doctors Richie Gaye Limbungan and Mechelle Salazar for taking good care of me at the Iloilo Mission Hospital.
They warned me against high-cholesterol diet which may clog arteries, causing atherosclerosis which is characterized by fatty streaks along the artery walls. In time, plaques choke off blood flow, depriving the heart of sufficient blood to pump. Spasms of the coronary arteries could lead to hypertension, if not heart attack.
I have also learned from researches that to keep my arteries open for proper blood circulation, I must eat low cholesterol meals.
If you’ve been eating too much pork or beef, chances are you’re improving your chances of catching heart disease. It would help switching to fish. Unlike pork, the fat in fish – notably salmon and blue marlin, among others – is of the omega-3 type or one with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) that prevents cholesterol build-up in the arteries.
Like the Japanese, people who live around the Mediterranean Sea – specifically in Greece, Italy and France – are half as likely to die of heart disease as the Americans, although they are not as fish-crazy as the Japanese. The Mediterranean diet is rich in monounsaturated fats from olive oil. Other plant-based fats of the olive-oil type come from hazelnuts, avocados, almond and rapeseed oil. Monounsaturated fats fend off artery damage from low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterol.
Animal fat, on the other hand, is low-density lipoprotein, which destroys arteries by raising blood cholesterol, enhancing blood stickiness and suppressing clot-dissolving mechanisms.
But the good news is that, by immediately shunning animal fat, you can slowly but surely unclog your arteries. To quote American cardiologist Dr. Ernst Schaefer, “If I had to tell people just one thing to lower their risk of heart disease, it would be to reduce their intake of food of animal origin, specifically animal fats, and to replace those fats with complex carbohydrates – grains, fruits and vegetables.
“If right now you have chest pain or angina, it is a warning sign that oxygen and blood do not flow freely through your blocked arteries. To alleviate it, you may try vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene on top of your doctor-prescribed medications.”
Ironically, the poor seem to know better than the rich not only in the choice of food but in the choice of heart-care activities. Most people with healthy hearts are the manual laborers who flex their muscles daily; this enables their body to produce high-density lipoprotein which, to reiterate, combats bad cholesterol build-up.
As I have repeatedly cited in past columns, let us be guided by no less than the acknowledged Greek father of medicine, Hippocrates (460-337 BC), who taught, “Let your food be your medicine and medicine, your food.” (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
