Protect your Heart with Produce
As published in Owen Sound & Grey Bruce Life – May 2007.
On Tuesday, April 18th, I had the pleasure of speaking at the first of many Wellness Dinners at the Rocky Raccoon. This Heart-Healthy whole-foods buffet was sponsored by The Wellness Directory.ca. I followed dinner with a presentation on the basics of heart health: the mechanics, the risk factors, and how making the right dietary and lifestyle choices can reduce those risks and give you back a role in your own health. For those of you who weren’t in attendance, here’s a small glance at what you missed.
One of the most talked about risk factors in cardiovascular disease (CVD) is high cholesterol. Cholesterol is used by the body for producing critical items like sex hormones, bile, vitamin D, and cell membranes, but when high levels are found in the blood stream, it is being used to repair arterial damage. Damage is created throughout our body by free radicals – electrically charged particles which bounce around our body, creating havoc until they are neutralized by antioxidants. Our body uses cholesterol as part of its band-aid solution to patch free radical damage in the arteries. Cholesterol is therefore not the culprit, but more the messenger, alerting us that damage is occurring. Is the answer reducing cholesterol (found only in animal products) in your diet? This does help, but your body makes cholesterol as well, so if it needs more to patch damage than you eat the body will simply produce more.
Even though cholesterol isn’t the cause, it alerts us to a problem. How do we reduce our risk? Treat the root cause, don’t apply a band-aid. Free radicals are caused by sunlight, x-rays, radiation, chemicals, smoke, pesticides, additives and preservatives, fried or charbroiled foods, alcohol, coffee, refined foods, etc. They are neutralized by antioxidants – some of which are produced by our bodies, but most are obtained from fruits and vegetables. Brightly coloured produce is full of these neutralizing compounds, and increasing them in our diet will decrease our need for this high cholesterol band-aid. Produce and other plant foods also provide crucial fibre, which reduces excess LDL cholesterol by binding to it and eliminating it with fecal waste.
This is not the whole picture, but one piece of the puzzle of CVD. Learn more about disease and dietary changes at next month’s Wellness Dinner on May 15th, featuring my talk on Hypoglycemia and Diabetes. For more information and to register, go to www.thewellnessdirectory.ca, contact Lynn at 519-377-4375, or call me at 519-270-2794.
