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Low-Fat Approach to Health

By: Carl Juneau

When a Spanish-speaking friend wants to wish you the very best that life can offer, he will often lift his glass with the following toast: "To health and wealth - and time to enjoy both." Embodied in this simple salute are the three basic desires common to people everywhere in all ages. Why can't we live longer? Everyone wants to live longer. It is one of the most deeply rooted instincts of mankind. Everyone wants to live a life of usefulness and abundance, free of disease and unhappiness. As we grow older, we look forward even more anxiously to increasing our lifespan. We want time to enjoy our achievements, time still to make plans. By the time we reach 60 we realize with the great French painter Gauguin that "life is a split second." We begin to think about all the things we still want to do before we reach our seventieth year. If we are fortunate enough to pass our seventieth birthday, we wonder whether we can't live even longer-perhaps to be 80. Well, why can't we? We are living much longer than did our ancestors a century ago. We have added 20 years to the average life expectancy in America since 1900.
Advances in medical science have outlawed many diseases* These golden years are ours to enjoy due to the discoveries made by advances made by incessant research in the medical field. Without the contagious and infectious diseases which sometimes crippled and killed large portions of our population a generation ago, we can live longer, healthier, and happier. Thanks to the cures and vaccines devised from extensive research, we no longer need fear such diseases as diphtheria, scarlet and typhoid fever, syphilis and-to a great extent- tuberculosis. All these pestilences were caused by those invisible but ever-present germs, but today the picture has changed. With ways to deal with deadly microorganisms, a new danger has emerged in clearer and more frightening perspective.
The 20th Century epidemic. A single, fundamental disease of the human body can now be held accountable for much of the illness and more than half of all deaths occurring each year in the United States It is a disorder known by the general term of "arteriosclerosis," which means a hardening and thickening of the arteries. It is now so widespread that Dr. Paul Dudley White, the noted heart specialist, recently described it as "a modern epidemic." As the disease progresses-sometimes over a long period of time-the vessels that carry the blood from the heart to the body's tissues become stiff, and their inner surfaces roughened and thick. These conditions lay the groundwork for the three most common causes of death and disablement in America: heart attack, heart failure, and stroke. Is there anything that can be done to vanquish this number one killer, whose favorite victims are men in their middle span of life, and even the very young, sometimes those in their twenties? The answer is "yes"-provided you will take the time and the trouble now to learn a few simple rules.
Even worse, much of the exact nature of arteriosclerosis is still unknown, but during the past 10 years we have made great advances in the fields of pathology, chemistry, biology, and nutrition which have allowed us to make small steps towards understanding and creating a practical approach to treatment for the first time. Due to popular interest in the heart and in the aging process, we have moved forward immeasurably towards the conquest of disease. However, this disease is still the source of fear and confusion among common people, as their misconceptions are revealed in questions patients ask after reading articles that are now seen in many newspapers and magazines. For example, terms related to heart disease and blood vessels, such as atherosclerosis, coronary thrombosis, and cholesterol are quite familiar, but few non-medical people know exactly what these words mean.
What is the cause of this new epidemic? Before accepting our discussion of ways to prevent a heart attack, we should explain the thinking and science behind it. We will begin with the arteries, the vessels that carry fresh blood from the heart to the rest of our whole body, that are in constant need of nourishment. Upon careful examination, you will discover that the arteries are not simply pipes as we have often pictured them to be. Viewing them in cross section, we see that their structure is more like that of a garden hose, containing three layers of tissue in the walls. Intima, or the inside layer of the artery, consists of a slippery membrane somewhat similar to the one inside of your mouth. The middle layer, known as the media, is made up of muscle fiber. This allows the blood vessel to expand and contract with the heartbeat, to ease the flow of blood through it. The outer layer, called the adventitia, is built of coarse strong fiber, which provides some structure to the artery.
In both the outer and the intermediate layers, there are small blood vessels which naturally nourish the artery itself. How thick the layers are and how they are exactly structured is variable, depending on how large the artery is and where it is located. There are many occurrences where the artery can change due to the introduction of disease, but only two scenarios are of major concern to us. Both of them fall under the category of "arteriosclerosis," which means hardening or thickening of the arteries. However, there are actually two kinds of this hardening of the arteries. The first type occurs when calcium deposits in the middle layer of the artery accumulate and make the artery become brittle and hard. Thus, this condition is sometimes associated with the term "pipe stem" artery. This calcification does not necessarily block the blood flow, and is usually harmless from the medical perspective. Unfortunately, I cannot the same for the other condition, as it is more common and has much more serious consequences. This condition involves the thickening of the inner wall of the artery by deposits of fats, cholesterol (a fatty alcohol) and fatty acids together with calcium. As these deposits build up, the passages of the arteries become much narrower, similar to the way the drain in a kitchen sink becomes clogged with grease deposits. As a result, less blood (that your body depends on for life) flows to your vital organs due to the constricted and narrowing openings, as your "pipes" have become clogged.
To make matters worse, the swelling of the lining cells and roughening of the inner surface allows for blood clots to form inside the narrowed artery. If the flow is completely blocked off in vital arteries that feed blood to the heart muscle, the result is a heart attack, or as we physicians call it, a coronary thrombosis. If this condition occurs in the cerebral arteries of the brain, a "stroke," which is sometimes referred to as a heart attack in the head, results. When this happens in kidney area, Bright's disease, formerly called "dropsy," among other diseases, will strike. Regardless, whether this process of narrowing and blockage of the arteries takes place in the heart, head, or kidneys, it is fundamentally the same disease. Doctors call it atherosclerosis. About a century ago, during an autopsy, a German pathologist named Rudolph Virchow opened up an artery to examine its interior wall. Along the lining he observed deposits of mushy fat that he called atheromata, a Greek word meaning "porridge." Thus, this was the root word from which we derived the term atherosclerosis. Fixed among the cells of the artery wall along with the fat, Virchow observed some shiny crystals, which turned out to be cholesterol. The question that remains is how these fats got into the walls of the arteries, which has puzzled doctors for the past century.
This question has puzzled scientists for the past 100 years, and it is still being pursued in various fields of research. The first theory advanced by researchers was that of "imbibition," which held that fat droplets were absorbed directly from the blood stream through the lining of the artery walls. When a weakening of the "ground" substance or actual structure of the artery wall occurred, cholesterol-the main offender-and its related fats were deposited in the artery wall. This theory has been supported by the recent discovery that these fatty deposits, especially cholesterol, exist in the same proportion in the artery wall as in the bloodstream itself. Another theory that seeks to explain the way in which the fatty deposits get into the artery walls held that they did not come from the blood stream primarily, but were manufactured within the cells of the vessel wall. It has also been claimed that fat molecules are normally absorbed by the artery wall without leaving a harmful residue of acid crystals. But some abnormal condition, such as high blood pressure, may force an excessive amount of the fat molecules into the wall. Then the artery cannot absorb the full amount, and deposits gradually build up. Other researchers have believed that the fat droplets find their way into the artery wall through the tiny vessels that supply blood to the artery itself. According to this theory, a hemorrhage or series of small hemorrhages may occur in these tiny vessels. A clot is formed, which deposits fat particles in the artery wall when the small vessels break down.
My own conclusion, based upon years of animal, laboratory, and human research, plus experience with innumerable patients, is this: Atherosclerosis results from an impairment of the body's ability to utilize (or metabolize) normally not only the fats eaten in the diet, but also those that are in the body itself. This impairment is further aggravated by the body's inability to withstand stress or tension; and by deficiencies in the supply of hormones from vital glands such as the thyroid, the adrenals, and the sex glands. In addition, there are other factors that influence the individual's susceptibility to atherosclerosis, or death from a heart attack or stroke. These include such things as inherited or constitutional factors, and the coagulability of the blood. It is easy to see how complex the problem really is. The danger of oversimplification is great. However, one causative factor that stands out continuously above and beyond all others, important as they are, is fat in the diet. And it is this factor that we can control.
When we consume fatty foods, the fat enters our blood stream, searching for the weak spots in the arteries. These fats deposit themselves into the weak spots, and then absorb calcium, which initiates the hardening process, and soon it begins to reduce our blood flow. Our body tries to deal with these dangerous deposits: special fat-eating cells are sent where the fats and cholesterol have breached the lining and broken into the artery. The fat-eating cells try to swallow up the cholesterol and fat particles, trying to digest them and reduce the damage temporarily. Dr. Timothy Leary, the distinguished Boston pathologist, in 1933 first invented creative ways of illuminating, refracting, and photographing this process. It was observed that these special fat-fighting cells would be overwhelmed by the substantial amounts of cholesterol and fats continually entering blood and artery walls through the consumption of high-fat foods such as butter, eggs, cream, milk, and fatty meats.

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Carl Juneau shows men how to get a six pack using a special mix of carefully sequenced abs exercises. Visit his website to discover powerful abs workouts that will tone and define your abs.

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