BY “MEDICINE,” I don’t mean refer to doctor-prescribed drugs for heart diseases that are among the biggest killers worldwide. In fact, the hardest hit are the rich who spend a fortune on heart-disease drugs.
As a heart patient who used to love steaks, I have shifted to near-vegetarianism to prevent further cardiac and arterial damages. As everybody already knows, a high-cholesterol diet can 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 and, if ignored, heart attack.
Are there ways to keep our arteries open for proper blood circulation? The best way is to eat foods that guarantee low cholesterol.
If you’ve been eating too much pork or beef, please minimize and eat more fish, notably salmon and blue marlin which are rich in high-density lipoprotein (HDL) that prevents cholesterol build-up in the arteries.
Although not as fish-crazy as 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. The Mediterranean diet is rich in monounsaturated fats from olive oil, hazelnuts, avocados, almond, and rapeseed oil.
Animal fat, on the other hand, is low-density lipoprotein (LDL), which destroys arteries by raising blood cholesterol, enhancing blood stickiness and suppressing clot-dissolving mechanisms.
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.”
In an emergency situation where no medicine is available, I munch garlic. Years of research on cardiac patients in the United States have proven the potency of garlic, whether cooked or raw but preferably raw, to regulate blood pressure and blood cholesterol. Two or three cloves of garlic a day could wash away arterial plaque.
If there is no garlic, its “cousin” onion could be just as effective. Onion on a hamburger could minimize the clot-causing effect of animal fat.
Now here’s good news for drinkers of both liquor and coffee. A 1991 study made by Eric Rimm at Harvard University showed that moderate drinking is beneficial to the heart. Alcohol boosts good cholesterol. In heavy doses, however, hard drinks may induce heart damage.
As regards coffee, as many as four cups a day do not place you at high risk of heart problems. The beverage company Nestle, in fact, boasts that, based on company research, coffee contains antioxidants.
Tea, on the other hand, is generally good for unclogging blood vessels. Chemicals in green tea are notably strong in antioxidant concentration.
Of course, by and large medical doctors still warn us to beware of so-called herbal pills marked “no approved therapeutic claim” because if they have passed Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, it’s only as “food supplement.”
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.
Incidentally, it bothered me that a good friend had undergone heart bypass, knowing him to be near-vegetarian. The culprit, his doctor had told him, was chronic stress. Stress thickens neutrophils and monocytes with enzymes that release inflammatory mediators into the bloodstream. (hvego31@gmail.com /PN)
