Posts Tagged ‘atherosclerosis’

BMI top concern: coping with an uncertain future. It is now realized that a BMI is connected to future health events. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. This isn’t the only measure of a healthy weight, but it is potentially a fast and easy way to tell.

Higher BMI in the teenage years is linked to earlier occurrence of diabetes and heart disease as a young adult. This is according to a study that followed 37, 000 Israeli army personnel for 17 years. The long reach of weight in the teen years seems to influence and result in the gradually increasing atherosclerosis. This narrows the arteries with plaque build-up.

The surprising thing about this study was that the results were derived from BMI scores that were still well in the normal range. What is uncertain is the way we focus on losing weight as a way to manage future health problems. This isn’t an open and shut case to turn around any future health consequences. This study suggests that becoming a lean adult will not eliminate all risks for developing diseases. While it practically eliminates the risk of developing diabetes it still leaves one with a higher risk of developing heart disease. This means that an overweight teen will have some risk even upon becoming a lean adult.

Not a Surprising Risk

This shouldn’t be surprising since a baby has an increased risk of obesity and diseases just by what the mother eats while pregnant. This now extents to the time before conception, and includes what the father’s diet is like. 

Prevention begins way before the teen years. The bigger we get the more we will act in haste to avert disaster. We need to manage risks before we have to make tough decisions. We have to change the way we think. Reflecting on the broader implications of weight management means to nourish and nurture by means of diet.

There is a direct connection to scaling back on packaged food and reverting to whole foods. We are facing key challenges while food manufacturers flex their marketing muscle. Their products boast self space, functionality and ingenuity. What they aren’t a fresh-cut above nature. For the food industry the interest is primarily in packaging and your wallet. It seems the packaging is disposable and so is the public.

There isn’t a real second chance given by loosing the extra weight. The seeds of change start with clarifying the challenge, which may not be loosing the weight as much as not putting it on in the first place.

Prevention

An international study, led by the university of Southampton researchers has shown that a mother’s diet during pregnancy can alter the function of the child’s DNA. The study shows that this process called epigenetic change, can lead to the child tending to lay down more fat.

It is recognized fact prevention is easier than recovery. In almost all chronic conditions is recognized that prevention is the key. Well in obesity the same is true. The driving force behind optimal weight should be to in place before it’s needed.

Peripheral vascular disease in younger people is a relatively new development.

Peripheral Vascular Disease Becoming Common

Peripheral vascular disease becoming more common, is alarming enough, but the idea that this occurs in middle aged people is cause for concern. When it is severe it is life threatening. The disease causes a narrowing in blood vessels that carry blood to the arms, legs, kidneys, and stomach.

According to a new study vascular disease may be much more common in younger American adults and women than previously suspected, according to a new study.

Data     

Researchers analyzed data on 994 men and women, age 55 and younger, treated in the Wake Forest University School of Medicine Vascular Center, between 1998 and 2009. They found that most of them had premature atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). Severe premature arterial disease of the legs (64 percent) was the most common finding.

Among the other findings:

• 130 patients had undergone surgery to unblock the carotid artery and improve blood flow from the heart to the brain.
• 87 patients had mesenteric vascular disease — a narrowing or blockage of one or more of the three major arteries that supply blood to the small and large intestines.
• 49 patients had repair of abdominal aortic aneurysms, which occur when a large blood vessel supplying blood to the abdomen, pelvis and legs swells and is in danger of bursting.
• 46 patients had restricted blood flow in the arms because of an embolism or blocked blood vessels in wrist and/or palm.
• 19 patients had Buerger’s disease, a rare disease of the arteries and veins of the arms and legs that can lead to infection, gangrene and amputation. The condition is strongly linked to smoking and the use of snuff and chewing tobacco.
• 192 patients (19 percent) had arterial disease in multiple organs.
• Advanced damage from hardening of the arteries was present in 88 percent of the patients.

The American Way

The findings suggest a need for better detection of early clinical signs of systemic atherosclerosis, researchers said.

The study is to be presented at an American Heart Association conference in San Francisco.

This is pure medical thinking, detecting and treating the symptoms of a systematic problem solves it. This is a disease of the mouth, fed by the food industry, and treated by the medical industry.

Unblocking an artery is not only a short term solution; it holds risks for the patient. Medicine is a stop gap measure, that doesn’t change the affliction.

All the major advancements in the detection and treatments still do not change the potential outcome. It may buy time, but it doesn’t offer real health benefits.

Homogenization causes artery damage has been known for quite awhile. This is from the journal Atherosclerosis (1989; 77:251-6).

“Homogenized Cow’s milk transforms healthy butter fat into microscopic spheres of fat containing xanthine oxidase (XO) which is one of the most powerful digestive enzymes there is. The spheres are small enough to pass intact right through the stomach and intestines walls without first being digested. Thus this extremely powerful protein “knife” XO floats throughout the body in the blood and lymph systems. When the XO breaks free from its fat envelope, it attacks the inner wall of whatever vessel it is in. This creates a wound. The wound triggers the arrival of “patching plaster” to seal off the wound. The “patching plaster” is cholesterol. Hardening of the arteries, heart disease, chest pain, heart attack is the results.” (As reported by Paul Pitchford, Healing With Whole Foods, p19)

The reason given for homogenization is to make the big fat droplets smaller for easier digestion. The reason not stated is the fat floats to top and does not look as pleasing to the eye. By homogenizing and releasing xanthine oxidase, it does make digestion simple, but by damaging the fat soluble vitamins it makes them harder to digest and absorb.

One reason milk is homogenized is for a longer shelf life. To homogenize milk it has to be put through a mechanical process. It is passed through pipes and fine filers at high pressure and a speed of 600 feet per second. The fat portion of the milk is broken up into very small globules. As a fine mist they become suspended in the liquid and do not rise to the top.

When milk is not homogenized, the fat and the xanthine oxidase (XO), which is a naturally occurring substance in the milk, are digested in the stomach and small intestine.  They are naturally converted into smaller molecules, which get used by the body or are excreted. Xanthine oxidase is an enzyme found in the liver. If any foreign XO enters the bloodstream it attacks specific targets within the arteries. Lesions in the artery walls are a result from this attack. Scar tissue and calcified plaques are a result of the healing phase. Atherosclerosis develops, and arteries lose their elasticity as this process continues.

The damage caused by this process takes a long time to show up. All milk in the dairy section is homogenized. Products that have homogenized milk as the base would be cheese, butter, yogurt, buttermilk, and ice cream. Cholesterol is not the problem; processed food is.

Cholesterol is a problem when it gets caught on the artery wall, and this only happens when there is something to get caught on. On a biochemical level processing food signals a self-destructive mechanism in the body. Tampering with Mother Nature is not a good ideal.

Heart disease has skyrocketed in the last fifty years, yet cholesterol was in foods for a long period before this dramatic rise. The cholesterol is not the problem, it is when it tries to fix the damaged arteries, and eventually causes the obstruction called blocked arteries. Homogenization causes artery damage that we blame on cholesterol.