The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease--and the Statin-Free Plan that Will

by Jonny Bowden

Carbs—most especially processed carbs—drive up insulin. And anything filled with refined carbs doesn’t provide that feeling of fullness that comes with the release of satiety hormones. That’s precisely why it’s so easy to eat six bowls of sugared cereal while you’re watching reruns of Seinfeld, and why it’s almost impossible to eat six servings of buttered broccoli and steak. Broccoli and steak get the message to your brain that you’re full. Processed carbs do the opposite, and often create cravings for more.

Inflammation is a key—if not the key—factor in the development of heart disease.

Stop worrying so much about LDL cholesterol and start looking at where you are on the insulin resistance scale.

It’s hard to improve your ratio by raising your HDL since changing your HDL levels isn’t easy., Lowering your triglycerides, however, is the easiest thing in the world to do, and will have the same effect on your ratio as bringing your HDL up. How do you lower triglycerides? Simple. With a low-carb diet. Triglycerides drop like a rock 99 percent of the time on a low-carb diet, such as the higher-fat version of the Mediterranean diet

As we’ve said throughout this book (see chapter 6), sugar is a far worse threat to your heart than fat ever was.

There’s no two ways about it—high-glycemic carbohydrates are inflammatory. As researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health noted, quickly digested and absorbed carbs (i.e., those with a high glycemic load) are associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

drinking black tea can help reverse an abnormal functioning of blood vessels that can contribute to stroke or heart attack. Best of all, improvement in the functioning of the blood vessels was visible within two hours of drinking just one cup of black tea!

One of the active ingredients in garlic—allicin—also has significant antiplatelet activity. That means it helps prevent platelets in the blood from sticking together. To understand just how important that is, consider that many heart attacks and strokes are caused by spontaneous clots in the blood vessels. The anticoagulant effect of garlic is an important health benefit.

The preparation of garlic is critical for it to release its health-providing benefits. If for any reason you had the impulse to swallow a garlic clove whole, not much would happen. The garlic clove has to be crushed or chopped—the more finely the better—for the compounds in it to mix together to create allicin, the active ingredient responsible for the health benefits.

Coronary artery calcification has long been recognized as a big risk factor for heart disease, but for some reason we continue to obsessively focus on cholesterol, while few people have heard much about the calcium connection.

There is reliable and consistent research evidence demonstrating that omega-3 fats, mainly from fish, lower the death rate from heart disease and lower the risk of sudden cardiac death. This is hard-core evidence that fish oil saves lives.

International guidelines recommend 1 g of omega-3 fats daily for all people who’ve already had a heart attack or for patients with elevated triglycerides.

It’s worth mentioning that the overwhelming majority of research on omega-3s and heart disease was done using the two omega-3s that are found in fish, EPA and DHA. But other studies have also found that ALA—the omega-3 found in plant foods such as flax and flaxseed oil—has benefits for the heart as well. One review of the literature pointed out that both in vitro (test-tube) studies and animal studies have shown that ALA can prevent ventricular fibrillation, the chief mechanism of cardiac death, and that it might be even more efficient at preventing this than EPA and DHA are. The review also noted that ALA was effective at lowering platelet aggregation, which is an important step in thrombosis (a stroke or nonfatal heart attack).

According to a review of the literature on pantethine published in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, Mark Houston, M.D., noted that in most studies, at the end of four months pantethine reduced total cholesterol by 15.1 percent, LDL by 20.1 percent, and triglycerides by 32.9 percent, with an increase in HDL of 8.4 percent.

one thing we know about glucosamine is that it’s anti-inflammatory. Another thing we know is that glucosamine works even better when it’s combined with fish oil, the combo providing a double whammy of anti-inflammatory power.

Glucosamine was also associated with a significant drop in the experience of coronary heart disease, stroke, or death from heart-disease related issues.

Glucosamine use was associated with a 15 percent lower risk of total CVD (cardiovascular disease) events, 22 percent lower risk of CVD death, 18 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease (slightly different from cardiovascular disease), and a 9 percent lower risk for stroke.

Researchers in Germany followed more than 19,000 people for a minimum of ten years and found that those who ate the most flavanol-rich dark chocolate had lower blood pressure and a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who ate almost no chocolate.65

Chronic stress is either a promoter, contributor, accompaniment, multiplier, or proximate cause of just about every disease on the planet. It’s also, by the way, a major instigator of inflammation. And weight gain (particularly around the middle). And elevated blood pressure.

And here’s what chronic stress does: It damages and weakens your heart (and your immune system). It weakens your resistance to bad stuff. It lowers your resilience. And it can even bring on a heart attack.

We can’t overstate the importance of this. You can test to your heart’s content, eat all the right foods, and even exercise regularly, but if you’re not managing your stress hormones, you’re draining your health bank account, and eventually, it will catch up with you.

Everyone reading this book needs to know this: Diet, exercise, and/or nutritional supplements are important tools that help prevent and even heal heart disease. But they are only a part of the picture. The many hidden emotional and psychological risk factors that are hardly ever addressed by conventional medicine are equally important—and sometimes even more so. They include suppressed anger, rage, the loss of love (what Dr. Sinatra calls “heartbreak”), and the emotional isolation that results from lack of intimacy with other people.

the relaxation response decreases the heart rate, lowers blood pressure, slows the rate of breathing, and relaxes the muscles. It also increases levels of nitric oxide—a molecule that’s important for circulation and improved blood flow. Tai chi, meditation, yoga, and mindfulness are all able to elicit the relaxation response.

Building and maintaining strong emotional connections with other people is one of the best stress-management strategies on the planet. It’s also one of the best ways to keep your heart healthy and your soul nourished. Next to exercise, it’s the closest thing we have to a panacea. It also makes life a lot more rich, a lot more fun, and a lot more gratifying. Enjoy the journey.