Heart Health / Diet Question(s) - Update Pg 7

[tortoise]

I'm on one med that can raise cholesterol and triglycerides, and can cause diabetes. Another can cause heart problems. I already have an increased resting heart rate. And I'm already having palpitations and tachycardia.

I was sitting on the couch last night, painting. Very relaxed. My heart rate was 144 bpm and I could feel it "pounding" and a wierd sensation of blood moving throught my veins/arteries. Very uncomfortable.

You guys know I have mental lhealth issues and without the meds, the disease alone has high mortality from heart disease. When I'm not trying to kill myself, I'd like to have a long healthy life.

Sooo... What would you do if you can not have a high fat diet? I'm on lithium now. It's fat soluble a high-fat diet can cause toxicity.

 

[abifae]

All I can think is find a way to scale down the meds. Easier said than done, I realize! But with a proper diet, would you be able to find a med solution that was less lethal?

Say you went off meds, went high fat and lots of sunshine and whole veggies, etc... What would you need to go back on for meds at that point? Completely hypothetically LOL.

 

[Wannabefree]

I'd just include a smaller ammount of good fats in my diet. Actually, I'd likely cut back on meds too, but safely. See how much you can stand to cut back and retain the benefits of the meds and adjust your fat consumption accordingly. You can have both, right? Be healthy!

 

[Wifezilla]

High fat diet is not a problem. High BAD FAT is (vegetable fats). and Low fat will RAISE your triglycerides.

"The $415 million federal study involved nearly 49,000 women ages 50 to 79 who were followed for eight years. In the end, those assigned to a low-fat diet had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks and strokes as those who ate whatever they pleased,"
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/07/health/07cnd-fat.html

"Two years of a low-fat diet had caused Rob's LDL particle number to skyrocket by 81%, nearly all due to an explosion of small LDL. Recall that small LDL is more susceptible to oxidation, more inflammation-provoking, more adhesive--the form of LDL particles most likely to cause heart disease.

Also, note that, despite the enormous increase in small LDL, HDL and triglycerides remained favorable. This counters the popular rule-of-thumb offered by some that small LDL is not present when HDL is "normal."

Low-fat diets as commonly practiced are enormously destructive. In Rob's case, a low-fat diet caused both calculated Friedewald LDL as well as LDL particle number to increase dramatically. In many other people, low-fat diets increase calculated Friedewald LDL modestly or not at all, but cause the more accurate LDL particle number to increase significantly, all due to small LDL."
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/disastrous-results-of-low-fat-diet.html

"The five most powerful heart disease prevention strategies

You've seen such lists before: 5 steps to prevent heart disease or some such thing. These lists usually say things like "cut your saturated fat," eat a "balanced diet" (whatever the heck that means), exercise, and don't smoke.

I would offer a different list. You already know that smoking is a supremely idiotic habit, so I won't repeat that. Here are the 5 most important strategies I know of that help you prevent heart disease and heart attack:

1) Eliminate wheat from the diet--Provided you don't do something stupid, like allow M&M's, Coca Cola, and corn chips to dominate your diet, elimination of wheat is an enormously effective means to reduce small LDL particles, reduce triglycerides, increase HDL, reduce inflammatory measures like c-reactive protein, lose weight (inflammation-driving visceral fat), reduce blood sugar, and reduce blood pressure. I know of no other single dietary strategy that packs as much punch. This has become even more true over the past 20 years, ever since the dwarf variant of modern wheat has come to dominate.

2) Achieve a desirable 25-hydroxy vitamin D level--Contrary to the inane comments of the Institute of Medicine, vitamin D supplementation increases HDL, reduces small LDL, normalizes insulin and reduces blood sugar, reduces blood pressure, and exerts potent anti-inflammatory effects on c-reactive protein, matrix metalloproteinase, and other inflammmatory mediators. While we also have drugs that mimic some of these effects, vitamin D does so without side-effects.

3) Supplement omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil--Omega-3 fatty acids reduce triglycerides, accelerate postprandial (after-meal) clearance of lipoprotein byproducts like chylomicron remnants, and have a physical stabilizing effect on atherosclerotic plaque.

4) Normalize thyroid function--Start with obtaining sufficient iodine. Iodine is not optional; it is an essential trace mineral to maintain normal thyroid function, protect the thyroid from the hundreds of thyroid disrupters in our environment (e.g., perchlorates from fertilizer residues in produce), as well as other functions such as anti-bacterial effects. Thyroid dysfunction is epidemic; correction of subtle degrees of hypothyroidism reduces LDL, reduces triglycerides, reduces small LDL, facilitates weight loss, reduces blood pressure, normalizes endothelial responses, and reduces oxidized LDL particles.

5) Make exercise fun--Not just exercise for the sake of exercise, but physical activity or exercise for the sake of having a good time. It's the difference between resigning yourself to 30 minutes of torture and boredom on the treadmill versus engaging in an activity you enjoy and look forward to: go dancing, walk with a friend, organize a paintball tournament outdoors, Zumba class, plant a new garden, etc. It's a distinction that spells the difference between finding every excuse not to do it, compared to making time for it because you enjoy it.

Note what is not on the list: cut your fat, eat more "healthy whole grains," take a cholesterol drug, take aspirin. That's the list you'd follow if you feel your hospital needs your $100,000 contribution, otherwise known as coronary bypass surgery."
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/five-most-powerful-heart-disease.html

"Over 40 years ago, way back in 1965, there were two studies published showing that heart patients the kind of people who today assiduously avoid saturated fat who ate saturated fat were more likely to survive than those who didnt.

One paper titled Low-Fat Diet in Myocardial Infarction, published in The Lancet, looked at the survival of subjects who had suffered heart attacks who went on either low-fat diets or their regular high-saturated-fat diets.

Heres what they did:

264 men under the age of sixty-five, who had recently recovered from a first myocardial infarction and who had been in the Central Middlesex, Edgeware General, or West Middlesex hospitals took part in the trial. On leaving hospital they were allocated at random to one of two groups at each hospital. One group was placed on a low-fat diet, which the other group continued with their normal diet.

The trial, which ran from 1957 to 1963, was managed by four research medical registrars working at the three different hospitals.
What was the low-fat diet?

Patients in the diet group were allowed to take 40 g fat daily [under 20 % fat]. The daily allowance included 14 g (1/2 oz) butter, 84 g (3 oz) of meat, 1 egg, 56 g (2 oz) cottage cheese, and skimmed milk. The nature of the fat consumed was not altered, nor were any additional unsaturated fats given. The diet was often unpleasant, [my italics] and where possible, it was modified to suit individual tastes.

The body of the article states that the control subjects on their regular diet consumed about 2.5 times the fat eaten by those on the low-fat diet. (106-125 g for the former; 44-45 g for the latter.) I ran the saturated fat calculations on the low-fat study diet and found that it contained about 30 g saturated fat, which is about 13.5 percent of total calories. Most experts today recommend keeping saturated fat under 10 percent of total calories. Given how the data was presented in this paper, there was no way to tell how much saturated fat the control group got, but we can estimate their total fat intake to be about 46 percent, which was the average fat content of the typical American diet when I first got into this biz way back in the early 1980s just as the low-fat jihad was kicking off. I would guess that the control diet contained 60-70 g of sat fat or about 25 percent of calories. You can see the difference in fat intake in the graph above on the left.

The patients on the low-fat diet had pretty close counseling during the course of the multi-year study, and, consequently, they hewed fairly closely to their diet. The researchers knew this because the study group consumed about 400 fewer calories per day as compared to those subjects on their regular diet and lost weight. The researchers also used serum cholesterol levels as a measure of compliance to the diet. In 1965 it was well known that reducing fat in the diet, especially saturated fat, made cholesterol levels go down. As you can see from the chart on the right, cholesterol levels went down on the low-fat diet and stayed there.

What did the researchers find after observing these subjects for years? They found that putting people on unpleasant low-fat diets didnt help them live any longer nor avoid another heart attack. Over the course of the study, the same number of subjects died in both groups."
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...ed-fat-and-heart-disease-studies-old-and-new/

 

[Bailey'sMom]

I think advising someone to go off their medication is mildly irresponsible. Unless you are a physician who has examined her, you really have no place giving such advice. You could kill someone.

 

[abifae]

No one at all advised that. We are discussing heart health for things around the meds.

 

[Wifezilla]

I think advising someone to go off their medication is mildly irresponsible. Unless you are a physician who has examined her, you really have no place giving such advice. You could kill someone.

My post had absolutely nothing to do with medication. Plenty of mentally interesting people in my family and I am very much a "take your damn meds!" kind of person.

 

[FarmerChick]

I would take that exact post to my medical Dr. and let him advise me because throwing out "what might work" answers is not the way to go on this one. It is too personal to your physical body.

you will find a right balance for yourself and get some bloodwork tests etc. and tell the medical Dr. about your heart rate etc.

I would go for professional opinions on this one lol not no SS people hahaha

 

[tortoise]

I think advising someone to go off their medication is mildly irresponsible. Unless you are a physician who has examined her, you really have no place giving such advice. You could kill someone.

My post had absolutely nothing to do with medication. Plenty of mentally interesting people in my family and I am very much a "take your damn meds!" kind of person.

I can't do high fat - no matter whether it is good or bad fat. Either way it is fat which will increase lithium levels and can cause toxicity.

 

[tortoise]

I would take that exact post to my medical Dr. and let him advise me because throwing out "what might work" answers is not the way to go on this one. It is too personal to your physical body.

you will find a right balance for yourself and get some bloodwork tests etc. and tell the medical Dr. about your heart rate etc.

I would go for professional opinions on this one lol not no SS people hahaha

I had an EKG on Wednesday, and bloodwork in 2 weeks. Waiting and not knowing sucks.