TOP SECRETS REVEALED How Doctors Sometimes Do Not Get It Right
TOP SECRETS REVEALED How Doctors Sometimes Don’t "Get It Right"
As the years pass and I find myself marking decades in the field of nutritional science, I am increasingly aware of two major facts—not opinions, FACTS:
1. There is a tremendous amount of Misinformation in circulation about what does, and does not contribute to health, or cause disease. Some people have believed errors for so long that it is almost impossible for them to face the truth. Old lies are hard to get rid of. 2. Much of this Misinformation is believed by people in the medical profession and in the media. Professionals in both of these areas tend to be highly reluctant to admit error or to adjust their beliefs, especially if they have held an opinion for a long time.
It’s time to reexamine!
It’s time to get current with the science!
It is time to confront the lies and half-truths.
Lies about Heart Disease and Strokes
Former President Dwight Eisenhower, who served as President of the United States of America in the early 1950s, was a man well acquainted with heart problems. He had a number of heart attacks and eventually died of coronary heart disease. It is somewhat ironic, in retrospect, that at the time of his first heart attack, his cholesterol level was 164 mg/dl, which is considered “perfect” by today’s standards. His weight was perfect, he exercised every day, and he had only occasional periods of mild hypertension.
The news about cholesterol theories was beginning to make headlines in the 1950s, and Eisenhower was quick to make sure that his cholesterol was measured—in fact, he had it measured ten times a year. He eliminated all saturated fats from his diet and ate what were considered heart-healthy dietary foods at that time, including margarine and corn oil. He reduced his intake of carbohydrates. And he did all these things at the recommendation of his cardiologists.
Eisenhower should have been in the lowest risk category for cardiovascular disease. He should have been very healthy. He died, nonetheless, from coronary disease.
The truth has been uncovered since Ike was in office. And the truth that we have known for decades now, is this:
There is no link between cholesterol levels, saturated fat, and heart disease.
Are you aware that the Japanese living in the United States have lower cholesterol levels than those living in Japan, yet they have higher heart attack rates than those living overseas? We find the same trend with Irish immigrants, African nomads, and the Navajo Indians—there is no linear relation between cholesterol levels and heart attack or stroke risk.
More than 50 years ago a well-known researcher at the time said that if Americans followed his recommended low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet—one high in polyunsaturated vegetable oils—heart disease and atherosclerosis would disappear by the year 2000. Diets improved—countless millions of people began to eat what was called a “heart healthy” diet, the year 2000 came and went, and heart disease and atherosclerosis are more widespread than ever.
During that time, statin cholesterol-lowering drugs were introduced, but at the end of the past two decades, the scientific evidence is clear: the overall rate of cardiovascular disease hasn’t budged.
Looking back, it is very likely that the American Heart Association’s recommendation that people switch from saturated fats to polyunsaturated vegetable oils may be responsible for more Americans being crippled or killed than in both World Wars combined. Sadly, these oils were also recommended by government health agencies and the media. The truth is that these oils increase the growth and spread of a number of cancers and are considered by many to be cancer’s “fertilizers.” In the nutritional research community, we have known this truth about polyunsaturated oils since the 1970s. Newer studies are linking these polyunsaturated vegetable oils—and others called partially hydrogenated oils—too many other diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and various neurodegenerative diseases. Not only do these oils cause tremendous cardiovascular damage, but also brain damage!
The famous Framingham Heart Study, reported internationally in the British medical journal called The Lancet, noted that men with cholesterol below 190 mg/dl tripled their risk of developing colon cancer when compared to those with levels greater than 200 mg/dl. Even lower rates of death following a first heart attack were found to be unrelated to cholesterol levels. There was no difference in the rates between men with levels a 180 mg/dl or lower, and those with levels greater than 250 mg/dl.
For the most part reductions in heart attack rates and deaths were very small when it came to cholesterol’s influence. One study, called the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT) found only a .4 percent reduction in risk for those who followed a strict, low-cholesterol diet. Less than half of one percent is barely significant!
A Harvard study found that people with multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease might gain three days to three months additional life if they avoided saturated fats. A University of California/San Francisco study found an increased life expectancy of three to four months. A McGill university study found that a low saturated-fat diet would increase life expectancy from four days to two months. These lengths of time are certainly not what the cholesterol-reducing authorities predicted forty or fifty years ago!
A great deal of misleading and misinterpreted data surrounded the hyped up claims about cholesterol. For example, one drug company stated in bold type that its statin drug lowered heart attack risk by 36 percent. But check the fine print! There, the risk falls just one percent!
Taking vitamins C and E (Health Master’s Excellent C and Super Potent E) reduce risk by a much greater percentage! When these and other supplements are combined with a proper diet and exercise, the risk dramatically drops, no drugs needed. Of course, this information is devastating to those who sell drugs, and you can be assured, they will do their utmost to protect their profit margins, even if it means the nation’s overall health is reduced. In fact, when the prestigious medical journal JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) planned to report this news about nutritional approaches to lowering heart attack risk, the government tried to stop the publication of the studies (no doubt because pharmaceutical company lobbyists had protested). To its credit, JAMA refused and the scientific study was published.
Many people, including many physicians, believe that the discovery of various subtypes of fats—such as LDL-cholesterol—is a fairly recent finding. In fact, LDL-cholesterol was discovered in 1950 by Dr. John Gofman, a professor of medical physics at the University of California. Gofman found that it was the triglyceride level, not cholesterol level that was most closely linked to heart disease and atherosclerosis. By 1960, other confirming studies had been published to support his findings. These studies, however, were largely squelched. Why, because triglycerides are related to SUGAR and refined carbohydrate intake, not cholesterol or fat.
To report these findings widely would have been an admission that the high-carbohydrate diet widely advocated was an error!
Of course, the triglyceride findings explain why diabetics, who often have normal or low levels of cholesterol, still have a high incidence of heart disease and stroke. Unfortunately, the American Diabetes Association continues to recommend a high carbohydrate diet for diabetics—just as it has recommended for decades.
Let me repeat what we know to be TRUE: A diet that is low in saturated fats, and high in sugars and refined carbohydrates lowers HDL cholesterol and raises triglycerides and VLDL cholesterol—and this is the very pattern most associated with cardiovascular and stroke risk, especially among older people. We need to be encouraging people to lower their sugar and refined carbohydrate intake!
Although it doesn’t seem to make sense to those untrained in blood chemistry and physiology of fats, a high HDL is much more important for your protection than the high total cholesterol is a risk.
The Dangers of a High-Sugar And High Processed Carb Diet
Studies have shown us that there are two subtypes of LDL-cholesterol. One is a “small dense” LDL, and the other is a large “buoyant” LDL. Actually, these sub-types of LDL were discovered more than forty years ago, although there seem to be many physicians who think this is a fairly new finding.
The small dense LDL particles, which are actually made of a protein called Apo B, are the most potentially harmful. And what produces this type of LDL? Sugars and refined carbohydrates! Saturated fats are known to increase LDL levels slightly, but saturated fats impact the protective larger buoyant LDL particles! Sugars and refined carbohydrates increase triglycerides, and increase the concentration of Apo B.
There is a simple test to determine the amount of Apo B in a person’s bloodstream, and this test presents much better risk information than a total LDL-cholesterol test.
Sugar and Metabolic Syndrome
Years ago, the medical community believed that there were two types of diabetes—insulin dependent and insulin independent. In both types, insulin was thought to be deficient. Then in 1965 noted scientists Rosalyn Yalow and Solomon Aaron Berson discovered that some diabetics actually had too much insulin. They concluded that insulin resistance was the problem, and that it was due to faulty receptors within the tissues. The idea was slow to catch on. Two decades later, we know much more about this, and we also know that the greatest increase in the incidence of diabetes is among those with insulin resistance. This is now called Type 2 diabetes.
Not everybody who has insulin resistance has been diagnosed as diabetic—a large number of people have this resistance, but it remains undetected. The danger is that insulin resistance—also called Hyperinsulinism—is closely connected to atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries). The process is this: Insulin promotes inflammation within many tissues, including blood vessels. The central process in atherosclerosis is chronic inflammation of the blood vessels.
Studies in animals have confirmed that animals fed a high-cholesterol diet, but with low insulin levels, had little atherosclerosis. When insulin was added to the high-cholesterol diet, atherosclerosis developed...substantially. The difference was the insulin, not the cholesterol!
All of this is related to a disorder that came to be called Syndrome X. It was first identified in 1987, but its relationship to cardiovascular disease risk wasn’t substantiated until later. Now, Syndrome X is called Metabolic Syndrome. Researchers estimate that more than 45 million Americans have this disorder. It is growing in children at a rapid rate. The three main things associated with Metabolic Syndrome are:
| 1. A diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates. As far back as 1931, researchers named John Peters and Evelyn Man measured cholesterol levels in 79 diabetic patients and found that only 9 of them had elevated cholesterol levels. They followed these subjects, and in 1962, found that their subjects had a 40 percent increase in triglyceride levels and a dramatic increase in the number of diabetics with atherosclerosis. Overall medical statistics confirm that in the 1930s only 10 percent of diabetics had atherosclerosis, but in the late 1950s, 56 percent had atherosclerosis-related diseases. |
| 2. A magnesium deficiency. (Health Master’s Magnesium Glycinate) |
| 3. Being exposed to MSG and other food excitotoxin additives early in life. Lab animals that have been given too much MSG shortly after birth display the same changes in blood lipids that are seen in humans with Metabolic Syndrome: insulin resistance, high triglyceride levels, high VLDL levels, and hypertension. One study using rats found that exposure to just a few doses of MSG early in life increased free-radical generation within the walls of arteries for months (equivalent to decades in humans). MSG also lowered the level of protective antioxidant enzymes in arteries, something seen in people with coronary heart disease. |
Recent studies have shown that insulin resistance is closely linked to a number of diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and other degenerative disorders. Other studies have shown a strong correlation between high sugar intake and these same diseases. A high intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates alters the metabolism of a number of lipids (fats), which leads to heart disease, atherosclerosis, and diabetes. Too much insulin turns out to be very harmful!
Apart from changes in diet, one of the things most beneficial to reducing insulin is exercise. Actively working muscles use blood sugar (glucose) without insulin, and this helps lower both blood sugar and insulin levels in the blood. (Health Master’s Insulin Support)
The Identifying Characteristics of Metabolic Syndrome Metabolic Syndrome is diagnosed if a person has a group of risk factors that include:
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• Abdominal obesity, excessive fat tissue in and around the abdomen (sometimes called “beer gut”) • Elevated blood pressure • Insulin resistance or glucose intolerance—which means the body cannot properly use insulin or blood sugar • Atherogenic dyslipidemia or blood-fat disorders—high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol and high LDL cholesterol—that foster plaque buildup in artery walls • A pro-inflammatory state, such as elevated C-reactive protein in the blood |
Not All Sugars Are Alike
There are two types of sugar that have seen massive consumption in the last hundred years: sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup (called HFCS-55).
Sucrose is a refined product that has glucose and fructose. HFCS-55 has 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Fructose is highly reactive in the body—and unfortunately, it is often recommended to diabetics as a “safe sugar!”
In the body, excess sugar interacts with proteins and amino acids in a chemical process called glycation. Over time, these chemicals form even more complex chemicals called “advanced glycation end products”—also known as AGEs. Diabetics, especially, seem to form large amounts of these destructive products, which can be measured by a test called hemoglobin Alc.
People with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease have high levels of AGEs in the affected parts of their brains. AGEs generate huge amounts of free radicals and lipid peroxidation products that damage cells and tissues. Extensive free-radical damage is linked, in the end, to heart disease, strokes, diabetes, hypertension, and neurodegenerative diseases (such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s). Some researchers are theorizing that it is the AGEs that cause diabetics to age so rapidly.
AGEs and free radicals both trigger intense inflammatory reactions, and this involves the immune system. Scientists who measure inflammation have found that high levels of inflammatory markers (called by such names as TNF-alpha, IL-6, CRP, and IL-1) predict more accurately who is at a greater risk of a stroke or heart attack than cholesterol levels. Inflammation studies are also better predictors of who is at the greatest risk of a heart attack after a coronary bypass or stent operation.
A diet high in sugar and refined carbohydrates dramatically increase the growth of belly fat—also called visceral fat. This fat in the abdomen secretes large amounts of inflammatory chemicals.
The Inflammation Factor
Inflammation has been linked to gum disease, heavy metals (such as mercury, lead, and cadmium), chronic infections, Alzheimer’s disease, and cardiovascular disease. It is the inflammation that oxidizes cholesterol and other fats leading to the arterial “crud” that is associated with atherosclerosis.
Oxidized LDL-cholesterol and other oxidized fats also damage brain cells.
Although oxidized LDL-cholesterol gets most of the blame, it is actually the oxidized lipids that are at the root of most of this arterial “crud.” Omega-6 or N-6 oils (corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, canola, and soybean oils) are the oils the government health agencies and American Heart Association have recommended for years. In fact, these are the very oils that are oxidized most quickly in the arteries, creating a chronic inflammation problem that can lead to the eruption of plaques and creation of blood clots that kill.
Visceral or abdominal fat has been shown to release increased amounts of inflammatory cytokines, which worsen inflammation.
At present, nearly 100 Americans are insulin resistant and nearly 20 million are full diabetic. These people are the ones at greatest risk of cardiovascular disease. And there is little question that excessive sugar and refined carbohydrate consumption is the major underlying problem—not a diet high in saturated fats or cholesterol.
What Can Be Done About AGEs
As stated earlier, AGEs—also called the browning or Maillard reaction—occurs when foods high in sugar content are consumed in excess. Such foods include potatoes—with French fries and potato chips two of the major culprits.
The supplements that help reduce AGE formation are curcumin and quercetin, as well as these plant extracts: ellagic acid, berberine, silymarin, hesperidin, and green and white tea extract. (Health Master’s GHI Cleanse) These all help reduce AGEs and improve blood sugar metabolism. Alpha-lipoic acid (Health Master’s Alpha Lipoic Acid) a powerful antioxidant and hypoglycemic substance—also improves insulin resistance and helps with diabetes.
A recent study found that a lipid soluble form of vitamin B-1 (thiamine), (Health Master’s B Complex) called benfotiamine is very efficient in clearing AGEs from the body. In this study, researchers fed a meal of chicken, potatoes, and carrots cooked in vegetable oil to 13 adults with Type 2 diabetes. They measured blood vessel function and they found that AGEs profoundly interfered with the function of both large arteries and microscopic blood vessels. The subjects in the study who were given benfotiamine were completely protected from the AGEs.
Benfotiamine (Health Master’s B Complex) has been shown to reduce insulin resistance and act as an antioxidant. AGEs activate the release of C-reactive protein and thus, promote inflammation. The common form of vitamin B-2 does not have this effect.
Yet another way to cut down on AGEs, as well as oxidized fats, is to avoid using all polyunsaturated vegetable oils. Instead, use extra virgin olive oil or extra virgin coconut oil. To add another lay of protection, sprinkle one or more of these antioxidant spies in the oil and on foods: turmeric, cumin, and ginger.
Key Tests That Reveal Potential Problems
Many people have been given so-called “cholesterol” blood tests. The better gauge is a test that takes a look at triglycerides, LDLSD and Apo B. This is called the Atherogenic triad in medical circles. In addition, you need to have a C-reactive protein test done to measure your level of inflammation. Other helpful tests are ones that check homocysteine levels, fibrinogen levels, and lipoprotein (a) levels. These tests identify independent risk factors that have more to do with heart attack and stroke risk than cholesterol levels.
Of course this is just a start. Call my office for more detailed supplement guidelines.
| Here’s my foundational supplements: |
| Health Master’s Insulin Support |
| Health Master’s Magnesium Glycinate |
| Health Master’s Super Potent E |
| Health Master’s Excellent C |
All of these high quality supplements can also be purchased by calling my office at 1-800-726-1834.
I remain sincerely,
Dr. Ted Broer
*This information has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Neither the information, nor any formula(s) mentioned are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
