Healthy Bytes

Belly fat -> inflammation -> disease: cardiovascular, diabetes

read time: 417 words, about two minutes

In an apple versus pear comparison, the pear is by far the healthier option.
I’m not referring to fruit here, but rather to physical shape. Apple shape being wide through the belly. Pear shaped being wider through the hips.

What researchers have found is that not all fat is created equal. They’ve shown that ab fat has a high association with poor insulin response and inflammation.

In a study done back in 2004 at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, liposuction was used to remove about 20% of people’s total body fat mass. While that gave them different wardrobe options, there weren’t the expected metabolic benefits found with weight loss by diet and exercise.

Liposuction removes subcutaneous fat… fat right under the skin.
It does not remove visceral fat… fat that surrounds the organs. Those fat cells are more difficult (and dangerous) to get to.
Diet and exercise doesn’t remove fat cells – it shrinks them, with no apparent preference for subcutaneous versus visceral.

Back to the results… in a second phase, researchers studied the blood to determine if visceral fat was the problem, or a symptom. In this study, they took blood from obese patients going through gastric bypass surgery.

They showed visceral fat was secreting interleukin-6 (IL-6) - an inflammatory molecule – into portal vein blood. Portal vein blood had levels of IL-6 50% greater than blood at the periphery.

Increased levels of IL-6 correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP) which is an inflammatory substance.

Chronic inflammation is associated with insulin resistance, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis and other diseases.

So let’s look at a few things…
Sucking out the fat doesn’t remove the health consequences.
Manufacturers of statin drugs keep telling you to lower your cholesterol – by taking their drugs for the rest of your life. And yet, folks with low and “normal” cholesterol have heart attacks and congestive heart failure. Why – inflammation.

Assistant professor of medicine Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D.:

“Many years ago, atherosclerosis was thought to be related to lipids and to the excessive deposit of cholesterol in the arteries. Nowadays, it’s clear that atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease. There also is evidence that inflammation plays a role in cancer, and there is even evidence that it plays a role in aging. Someday we may learn that visceral fat is involved in those things, too.”

A lifetime of poor nutrition and lack of exercise isn’t going to be sucked away in a simple outpatient procedure or blasted away with a daily pharmaceutical regimen.

The AHA and Folic Acid

read time: 129 words, just a minute

Folic acid is a B vitamin… B-6.

What you’ve heard for a long time is cholesterol, cholesterol, cholesterol.
Funny (not really) thing is, statin drugs are the most prescribed drugs and heart disease is still the number 1 killer.

There is another view of heart disease cause. Not one a pharmaceutical company has been able to capitalized on. And that is the inflammation view.

Homocysteine is a toxic amino acid that irritates the blood vessel lining and causes inflammation. Too much homocysteine and your blood vessels can’t dilate adequately… not enough blood flow to heart… heart attack. (Also, not enough blood to the brain… stroke).

Folic acid (as well as B-12) help break down homocysteine.

Folic acid is in leafy greens, beans, grains.

This is your brain on statins

170 words, about a minute

More anecdotal evidence is coming out that links statins to cognitive misfunctioning namely brain fog, transient global amnesia and Alzheimer’s like symptoms.

As we said two posts ago in Cholesterol: problem or symptom –
your body manufactures cholesterol in the liver
statins lower cholesterol

Back in 2001 Dr. Frank Pfrieger, of Centre de Neurochimie in France showed that cholesterol in the brain was responsible for developing synapses. Synapses allow communication between neurons. So, no cholesterol… impaired synapses… impaired learning and memory. (Still want to lower your cholesterol?)

But wait, there’s more…
Both LDL and HDL molecules circulating in the blood stream are too large to pass through the blood/brain barrier. Thus, brain cholesterol needs to be manufactured in the brain rather than the liver.

However, those wonderful statins DO pass through the blood/brain barrier. Since researchers are able to show that statins lower cholesterol, it is reasonable to assume – tho it has not been scientifically proven to my knowledge – that statins lower cholesterol in the brain.

Coming attraction: the statin stuper

The inflammation theory of heart disease

347 words, about 2 minutes

We talked about cholesterol yesterday. Today we’re going to talk about inflammation.

Some 30 years ago, Dr. Kilmer McCully of Harvard Medical School discovered that a high blood level of homocysteine was a strong marker of heart attack risk.

Homocysteine is a toxic amino acid that irritates the blood vessel lining and causes inflammation. Too much homocysteine and your blood vessels can’t dilate adequately… not enough blood flow to heart… heart attack. (Also, not enough blood to the brain… stroke).

Dr. McCully wasn’t given much attention and credibility.

Fast forward to 2003, Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Boston published a massive longitudinal study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

This study showed the C-reactive protein (CRP) was the best predictor of heart attack and stroke risk.

C-reactive protein is a protein manufactured by the liver and released in response to inflammation.

So – homocysteine creates inflammation.
C-reactive protein responds to inflammation.

Why should we care about inflammation?
Inflammation weakens blood vessels causing them to rupture. CHOLESTEROL (remember that) patches the holes. The body needs cholesterol, that’s why it naturally manufactures it.

Ok, let’s take it a step further.
The common perception is that your artery is like a pipe and cholesterol builds up making the diameter of that “pipe” thinner and thinner until nothing can get through.
Not true.

There’s injury to the artery wall which develops a little pimple in response. That pimple fills with cholesterol. If that pimple ruptures, the body responds by releasing a blood clot. If the clot is big enough, it can block the artery. That can result in a heart attack.

What to do?

Work with your doctor and get your CRP measured.
To lower your homocysteine: B6, B12, Folic Acid.
To lower your CRP – exercise. Even a small bit of exercise 5 times a week can lower your CRP 30%.
Brush your teeth. People with gum disease have more heart attacks. Bacteria from your mouth makes its way into the blood stream, causes inflammation and you now know the rest. Brush your teeth, floss, get regular check ups and cleanings.

Heart Disease deaths decrease in American women

read time: 172 words, about a minute

February is national heart month.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health announced some good news:

The number of heart disease deaths in American women is decreasing. Newly analyzed data shows that the number of women who die from heart disease has shifted from 1 in 3 women to 1 in 4—a decrease of nearly 17,000 deaths from 2003 to 2004.

In fact, deaths have gone every year from 2000 to 2004 (latest data).

This is starting off to be a big year for women…
Breast cancer down
Heart disease down

The spoiler…
Obesity up

Awareness and education that leads to changes in diet and lifestyle are attributed to the positive results.

Awareness and education about the association of HRT – Hormone Replacement Therapy – with increased breast cancer (and heart disease) is attributed to reducing breast cancer.

Now, if we focus on awareness and education about obesity and nutrition, we WILL see the trend reverse. And, as a species, we MUST reverse the trend.