Top 5 Foods to Avoid for your Cardiovascular Health, and Just How Much Our Choices Influence Our Health

(Part One):

We’ve looked at the best foods for our cardiovascular health, based on what the science shows us. Just as important as including these foods that help our heart, however, is avoiding those that do it major damage. So, just what foods should we stay away from? Let’s take a look.

1. Sugar, salt and fat:

High levels of salt, sugar, saturated fats and refined carbohydrates can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease. While it’s not necessary to avoid these foods 100% in order to see an improvement in cardiovascular health, many people find that when they cut them out of their diet for a time, their taste buds change. They no longer crave these ‘SOS’ (salt, oil, sugar) foods, and find that their meals or their beverages taste fine without them. When they are given foods high in these ingredients, they commonly find their taste completely overbearing and unpalatable—foods that they once thought they could not live without.

While some oils are presented as health foods, this is far from the truth. Oil of any kind is a highly refined product, lacking in nutritional value. Oil is fat; nothing but fat, with all the nutrients thrown away. It is lacking in protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fibre and water. Without any fibre and water, it throws out your body’s satiation sensors, almost guaranteeing that you will consume more calories than your body needs. It is essentially wasting your body’s daily calory requirements on a substance that is nutritionally empty, aside from fat.

It is at this point that many people will argue that olive oil is healthy. This came from research in the 1960s that showed that the people on the island of Crete, had far lower mortality rates than those in other Mediterranean countries. One of the main reasons given for this was their diet. It included some animal products and a little olive oil, but consisted mainly of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Somehow, since that time, the Mediterranean diet has almost become synonymous with olive oil. Yet, it is far from the panacea that marketers have since claimed it to be. The Mediterranean diet is quite healthy in spite of the olive oil included in it—not because of it.

The science shows that all oils actually have a negative impact on the blood vessels, and promote heart disease.[i] They can supress some immune system functions and increase your cancer risk[ii]. They increase body fat, which boosts the risk of cardiovascular disease.

2. Meat:

Consuming too much meat—in particular, red meat—can increase the chance of both heart disease and diabetes. Red meat is high in saturated fat which can increase cholesterol. Animal meat is high in fat and high in cholesterol, whilst being low in fibre and antioxidants.

Despite us being constantly fed the message that meat is an essential part of a healthy diet, actually indicates quite the opposite. For example, researchers at Harvard University publishes an analysis of 36 randomised clinical trials that studied the effects of replacing red meat with various other foods. There were 1,803 participants altogether. Researchers found that diets higher in good quality plant-based protein sources (for example, nuts, legumes or soy) were connected with lower levels of total and LDL (bad) cholesterol readings, when compared to diets higher in red meat.

One of the biggest dietary fads at the moment is the keto and paleo diets, both of which advocate a high level of meat. An Australian randomised study compared people eating a typical local diet with those on a Paleo diet. The researchers measured TMAO, a compound created by the body after eating red meat. TMAO has been linked with atherosclerosis of the blood vessels, blood clots and scarring of the tissue of both the kidney and the heart. The study revealed that levels of TMAO were higher in those on the Paleo diet than those on the typical local diet.

While many believe that genetics play a big role in heart disease, it is a smaller one than might be imagined. According to Alona Pulde, MD and co-author of The Forks Over Knives Plan and The Whole Foods Diet, “If you have heart disease and your parents had it, the primary common link is not your genetics, but that you all likely ate and still eat the same food…The problem with these kinds of chronic ailments rests primarily in the fact that animal products and oils have been eaten across the generations. If you change what you eat, you have a good chance of changing your destiny.”

REFERENCES:

[i] Robert A. Vogel, Mary C. Corretti, and Gary D. Plotnick, “The Postprandial Effect of Components of the Mediterranean Diet on Endothelial Function,” Journal of the American College of Cardiology 36 (November 1, 2000): 1455–60. AND Blankenhorn DH1, Johnson RL, Mack WJ, el Zein HA, Vailas LI. The influence of diet on the appearance of new lesions in human coronary arteries. JAMA. 1990 Mar 23-30;263(12):1646-52

[ii] N. F. Chu, D. Spiegelman, J. Yu, N. Rifai, G. S. Hotamisligil, and E. B. Rimm, “Plasma Leptin Concentrations and Four-Year Weight Gain Among US Men,” International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders 25 (March 2001): 346–53; N. F. Chu, M. J. Stampfer, D. Spiegelman, N. Rifai, G. S. Hotamisligil, and E. B. Rimm, “Dietary and Lifestyle Factors in Relation to Plasma Leptin Concentrations Among Normal Weight and Overweight Men,” International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders 25 (January 2001): 106–14; Motonaka Kuroda, Masanori Ohta, Tatsuya Okufuji, et al., “Frequency of Soup Intake and Amount of Dietary Fiber Intake Are Inversely Associated with Plasma Leptin Concentrations in Japanese Adults,” Appetite 54, no. 3 (June 2010): 538–43.

Top 5 Foods to Avoid for your Cardiovascular Health, and Just How Much Our Choices Influence Our Health (Part One):

Top 5 Foods to Avoid for your Cardiovascular Health, and Just How Much Our Choices Influence Our Health

(Part One):

1. Sugar, salt and fat:

2. Meat:

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