Tag: heart disease

Dec17201817th Dec 201817th Dec 20184 Commentsby Marika

High blood pressure: your doctor’s ignorance the real disease?

By Marika Sboros

Can you turn something into a disease just by giving it a fancy Latin title? Scottish GP Dr Malcolm Kendrick says you can.

High blood pressure is just one example. Most medical doctors don’t know what causes high blood pressure in their patients, says Kendrick. At medical school, they learned that in most cases – around 90% – they’ll never know the cause, he says.

That percentage is probably higher, says Kendrick. But whatever the number, he says it’s rare to find a clear, specific cause. Here’s the real problem of the medical profession’s ignorance about causes of high blood pressure, as he sees it: Most doctors are not very good at admitting when they haven’t a clue about something. And haven’t ever been.

Jan29201829th Jan 201831st Jan 201810 Commentsby Marika

Vitamins: Kendrick on which ones you really need and why!

Posted in Food for Thought

Confused about which vitamins to take or if you need to take any at all? You are not alone. Just ask Scottish GP Dr Malcolm Kendrick. Kendrick is a heart specialist as well as a GP, author, speaker and sceptic. That doesn’t mean he calls himself a cardiologist.

However, he knows a lot more than most cardiologists know when it comes to the real causes of heart disease. He also knows more than many doctors about the effects of diet on heart and overall health.

In this feature, Kendrick meant to write about stress, mental health and heart health. Instead, he says that people keep asking about vitamin supplements. So he looks at which ones really are likely to make a difference to your health. And he looks at why the pharmaceutical industry is so keen to persuade you not to take vitamins. You may be in for a big surprise. – Marika Sboros

Dec0120171st Dec 20178th Jan 201816 Commentsby Marika

IRISH ‘FAT EMPEROR’ FORGES NEW PATH TO BEATING HEART DISEASE

Posted in Vital Signs

VITAL SIGNS

By Marika Sboros

Irish engineer Ivor Cummins, aka the Fat Emperor, is a man on a mission. In our Vital Signs Q&A series of personality profiles, Cummins reveals the roots of his popular alter ego. Through the lens of the muscular Fat Emperor, he looks at best predictors of and treatment for heart disease.

Spoiler alert: cholesterol means nothing compared to more important measures of risk. Cummins is currently working on a scanner that can rapidly detect heart disease risk. It can also weed out those who don’t need any treatment at all. He covers much else besides, including diabetes, fatty liver disease, dementia and more.

As well, Cummins shows that Fat Emperor is a metaphor for the corporate power that funds science and has grown fat on keeping dangerous dogma going. Therefore, he gets down and dirty on deceit as ‘central in the nutrition science world’.

Oct23201723rd Oct 20175th Jul 20187 Commentsby Marika

KENDRICK ON INUIT, NOSEBLEEDS, HEART DISEASE

Posted in Heart Disease

Scottish GP Dr Malcolm Kendrick says there is good reason that the Inuit of Canada had frequent nosebleeds but zero heart disease. Kendrick is an author and a sceptic. He has also studied cardiovascular disease for decades.

Thus, he knows as much, if not more, about heart disease than many cardiologists. He knows all the theories of causes and best treatment options.

Consequently, he is no fan of cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins. Kendrick wroteThe Great Cholesterol Con. If you haven’t read it, I advise you to do so now for your heart’s sake. Here’s why Kendrick says that the diet-heart and lipid hypotheses are ‘the perfect shapeshifters’. – Marika Sboros

May30201730th May 201731st May 20174 Commentsby Marika

SALT FIX: RIGHT WHITE STUFF FOR HEARTS, MINDS, SEX LIVES

Posted in BOOKS

By Marika Sboros

The next time your doctor or dietitian tells you to eat less salt, find another one – fast. Better still, buy a brave new book, The Salt Fix. In it, US cardiovascular research scientist Dr James DiNicolantonio shows how health experts have demonised the wrong white stuff for decades.

They have dished up dangerous lies about salt for your heart’s sake, or any other organ you care to mention. They allowed salt to “take the fall” for another, far more dangerous, addictive white crystal, he says.

That crystal is so sweet, you probably bought into the belief that it is benign. When consumed in excess, it can lead to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease. It is sugar, DiNicolantonio says.

His book’s subtitle speaks volumes about the right white stuff: Why The Experts Got It All Wrong, And Why Eating More Could Save Your Life. He shows why salt reduces your risk of premature death from heart attack or stroke. And why it protects your kidneys and fertility levels. It is as good for your brain as for your body. Salt improves your thinking and sexual performance. It boosts your energy levels and mental focus and ensures restful sleep. It also stops you getting fat.

May22201722nd May 20175th Jul 20186 Commentsby Marika

Really! Statins side effects all in the mind?

Posted in Heart Disease

By Marika Sboros

Are cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins really just victims of vested interests’ propaganda?

In the Lancet, UK researchers say that most people imagine the negative side-effects of statins. Co-authors are Prof Peter Sever, of Imperial College, London and Prof Sir Rory Collins of Oxford University.

Scottish GP Dr Malcom Kendrick sees things differently. Kendrick has a special interest in cardiovascular disease. In his latest blog post, he takes what he calls a ‘pretty forensic look’ at the Lancet study. From a scientific perspective, it is anything but pretty.

Dec30201630th Dec 20161st Jan 20179 Commentsby Marika

CANINE OBESITY: SCHULOF ON SCIENCE TO PROTECT BEST FRIENDS

Posted in BOOKS

Daniel Schulof and Kody

By Marika Sboros

You don’t have to love dogs to appreciate the brilliance of this book on canine obesity, but it helps. It makes it easier to see why Dogs, Dog Food, and Dogma really is a riveting read. One reason is the subtitle: The Silent Epidemic Killing America’s Dogs and the New Science That Could Save Your Best Friend’s Life.

It reveals the bare bones of the raison d’etre: evidence-based solutions to the epidemic of canine obesity.

Another reason is that this book isn’t just about canine obesity. It’s also about another global epidemic: of human adipose tissue. That’s the medical profession’s euphemism for excess fat. This book looks at why obesity shortens lives, whether canine or human. And why even moderate obesity in dogs is more dangerous for them than smoking is in humans.

But this book’s biggest strength is probably US author Daniel Schulof. He is not a veterinarian, medical doctor or scientist. He makes no bones about that in his author’s note. In fact, he claims to be no expert of any kind. That’s not true, of course. He’s just humble and that’s a nice trait. Here’s his real expertise and the power of this book:

Oct0120161st Oct 20161st Oct 20162 Commentsby Marika

Science in crisis: not just sugar souring faith in experts

Posted in Uncategorised

It should be no surprise that there’s a global crisis in science. Scholars of history and philosophy of science predicted it 40 years ago. Yet it is surprising how many scientists are more interested in profit than universal truths.

Revelations that the sugar industry paid top Harvard scientists to downplay sugar’s harms for decades are but one example. US science writer Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise, makes a more important point in the LA Times: sugar only ‘got a pass’ while dietary fat and cholesterol were blamed for heart disease because other industries and, surprisingly, many of the country’s leading scientists colluded.

Here, Andrea Saltelli, a researcher at the European Centre for Governance in Complexity, sheds light on a growing lack of faith in experts, and how best to stem it. – Marika Sboros

Jul17201617th Jul 20162nd Sep 20182 Commentsby Marika

Why coconut oil is so good for hearts and minds

Posted in LCHF

coconut Coconut oil has had undeservedly bad press for decades. For years, scientists, doctors and dietitians demonised it and other foods such as butter, eggs and bacon. They believed these foods raised levels of ‘bad cholesterol’ and increased your risk of heart attack and stroke.

They believed the ‘diet-heart hypothesis’ that fat in the diet equals fat in your arteries. I’m still waiting for them to explain just how dietary fat can wreak such havoc in the body. Their deafening silence tells me they can’t explain it. So why do they still cling to the belief that coconut oil is harmful?

Dr Verner Wheelock lives in Yorkshire, grew up in Ireland and has degrees in chemistry and agriculture from Queen’s University in Belfast. He has pioneered research on UK food policy with particular emphasis on official dietary advice and food and agriculture industries. Here, he looks at why we should eat coconut oil daily for the sake of our bodies, hearts and minds. Read on! – Marika Sboros

Jun27201627th Jun 201631st Jul 20161 Commentby Marika

Perfect storm of heart disease: how to protect yourself

Posted in LCHF

Cardiologists are quick to reach for the prescription pad for patients with heart disease. Ditto for endocrinologists faced with diabetics. It’s as if they believe a deficience of certain drugs causes heart disease and diabetes. They are fiddling while a ‘perfect storm’ rages across the planet decimating people’s health.

Australian orthopaedic surgeon Dr Gary Fettke calls for a very different approach to heart disease, diabetes and all other non-communicable diseases (NCDS) that are epidemic worldwide.

Fettke is a senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania with a longstanding interest in nutrition to treat or prevent serious disease. He and wife Belinda have founded Nutrition for Life. It is based on the science behind lower-carbohydrate and healthy-natural-fat (LCHF) living. Here Fettke looks at new Japanese research that supports his view of what’s really behind the epidemics worldwide. It’s an important read with more to come. – Marika Sboros

By Gary Fettke*

Processed food is behind cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Statins just make it worse:

Jun21201621st Jun 201621st Jun 20162 Commentsby Marika

Statins: more evidence on mad waste of time, money

Posted in Heart Disease

statins By Marika Sboros

Cardiologists have said it for years. New Israeli research backs it up: millions of people globally take powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs they don’t need.

Statins are blockbuster drugs to lower cholesterol. They are the world’s most prescribed medicine ever. They make billions for drug companies.

Some doctors say statins are life-saving. They already prescribe the drugs to millions around the world. They want more, otherwise healthy people to take them daily. Other doctors say that’s “statin insanity”. They say guidelines on statin use need radical revision.The Israeli-led multi-centre study published in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Internal Medicine supports that view. Here’s why:

Jun13201613th Jun 201613th Jun 20160 Commentby Marika

Hearty new evidence: even ‘bad’ cholesterol good for you!

Posted in Heart Disease

By Marika Sboros

Far from harming hearts, cholesterol protects tickers!

For decades, you’ve been fed big fat lies about saturated fat: that it will kill you, and you should lower your cholesterol to prevent premature death from heart attack or stroke. That’s if you believe Scottish GP Dr Malcolm Kendrick in the video interview below, on his new research in the BMJ (British Medical Journal); and the growing numbers of doctors and heart specialists worldwide who are on the same page as Kendrick.

If you believe Prof Jeremy Pearson, associate medical director of the British Heart Foundation, and the many others who think just like him, you’ll swallow the research they regularly trot out about low-fat diets to support their position:

May26201626th May 20162nd Jun 20160 Commentby Marika

Hearts and age: It’s not just the cholesterol, stupid!

Posted in Heart Disease

Heart disease is not caused by a deficiency of statins, as some heart specialists seem to believe. Top Icelandic cardiologist Dr Axel Sigurdsson isn’t one of them. He is my favourite kind of heart specialist – one with a gloriously open mind and heart, who will look at all the evidence before choosing pills to boost ailing tickers. Sigurdsson is one of the speakers on the stellar panel at the Icelandic Health Symposium’s innovative Foodloose conference in the country’s capital city, Reykjavik, on May 26. He is also a fan of food as medicine for first resort, a refreshing change from orthodox colleagues who think we should all be popping statins like smarties. Here’s what Sigurdsson has to say about hearts, age, cholesterol. – Marika Sboros

By Axel Sigurdsson*

For decades, scientists have been trying to find out what causes heart disease. Although we have gained some knowledge along the way, many questions remain unanswered:

May23201623rd May 201613th Jun 20163 Commentsby Marika

Bring home the fat! Call by top UK doctors, dietitians

Posted in LCHF

Saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease, say the experts

By Marika Sboros

It’s official and from Britain’s highest medical and dietetic levels: government-sanctioned dietary guidelines really are making you fat and sick.

The high-carb, low-fat, low-cholesterol message doctors and dietitians have given you for the past 40 years is proving to be the “biggest mistake in modern medical history”. It is one that has had “devastating consequences for public health” globally.

In a powerful public statement just released by UK National Obesity Forum (NOF) in association with the Public Health Collaboration (PHC), the country’s leading doctors, dietitians and scientists say: eating fat doesn’t make you fat; saturated fat doesn’t cause heart disease; to avoid type 2 diabetes, you need to …

May20201620th May 201613th Dec 20160 Commentby Marika

Will LCHF trigger a new heart disease epidemic?

Posted in LCHF

Photo credit: digital-dreams via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diets will give you a heart attack. Or rather, that’s what doctors who believe the so-called diet-heart hypothesis will tell you. That hypothesis is on the menu at Foodloose, a seminar on health and nutrition to be held in Reykjavik, Iceland on May 26. The hypothesis, for the lay person, is that fat in the diet equals fat in the arteries. It underpins the influential US dietary guidelines launched in the late 1970s and followed by most English-speaking countries thereafter.

The results of those guidelines on population health worldwide have been nothing short of catastrophic – global epidemics of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. One of the speakers on the stellar panel of international experts at Foodloose is Icelandic cardiologist Dr Axel Sigurdsson. In a blog here, he poses the question whether the popularity of LCHF will trigger another heart attack epidemic. He explains why, based on the evidence available at the time, he thinks that outcome will be highly unlikely. Sigurdsson tells me he hasn’t seen any science so far to make him change his mind. – Marika Sboros

May18201618th May 20163rd Jun 20160 Commentby Marika

Why heart foundations are off beat on health!

Posted in Heart Disease

Heart foundations globally keep beating to the tune of billions of dollars funding from product endorsement. I wouldn’t have such a problem with that were it not for heart foundations endorsing products that are anything but heart-healthy. The Heart Foundation of Australia even endorsed McDonalds products as healthy, for heaven’s sake. It very sensibly cut ties with the fast food chain in 2011. That was always likely to be a vain attempt to reclaim any vestige of credibility, given other unhealthy products it endorses. Another example is the Heart and Stroke Foundation of South Africa that still endorses margarine, although CEO Dr Vash Munghal-Singh tells me that’s under revision.

The Heart Foundation of Australia recently retired it’s endorsement ‘tick’, following the Canadian lead. It can look like one step forwards – but also two steps backwards. The foundation favours a new star rating system that is highly flawed, says Australian physician Dr Joe Kosterich. And like its opposite numbers worldwide, the foundation is fat-phobic. It still promotes low-fat, fat-free foods and a high-carbohydrate intake. It recently recommended people eat up to 14 servings of carbohydrate foods a day. That’s not just nuts; evidence suggests it can be a killer for both heart and diabetes patients. Here Kosterich looks at why heart foundations get it so wrong so often. – Marika Sboros

Dr Joe Kosterich

Here is something you are likely to have missed. The Heart Foundation of Australia, following Canada’s lead, is retiring its tick:

Apr27201627th Apr 20164th May 20162 Commentsby Marika

Ikaria – island diet secrets of people who ‘live forever’

Posted in Living well

Idyllic Ikaria vista. Picture: FACEBOOK

WANT to live longer, healthier days on this earth? Drink Greek coffee every day on the island of Ikaria. Better still, drink a ‘bulletproof coffee’ daily, one with a dollop of butter and some MCT oil in it on Ikaria, the island whose people ‘forget to die’. Ikarians are not fat-phobic. They’d consider low-fat yoghurt an oxymoron. And these days their diets fit into the spectrum of low-carb, high-fat lifestyles that are shown to promote longevity. Here’s how and why:

By Marika Sboros

Ikaria is a tiny little island nestling off the Greek mainland in the Aegean Sea close to Turkey. Just 48km long and less than 10km wide, Ikaria is known as “the ancient healing island”, “the island of old age”, a “hotspot of exceptional human …

Apr25201625th Apr 201616th Jun 20163 Commentsby Marika

What’s really feeding fat phobia if it’s not science?

Posted in LCHF

FAT phobia is still rampant. Cardiologists and dietitians still routinely tell patients that saturated fat increases the risk of heart attack. That’s despite growing and compelling science to the contrary that is documented in The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz. If you haven’t read it, go out and get it. Fat phobia is based on the belief (it’s just that – a belief, unsupported by science) that fat in the diet equals fat in the arteries. That conventional nutrition ‘wisdom’ is the result of the so-called ‘diet-heart hypothesis’ in the 1970s, the brainchild of American scientist Dr Ancel Keys. Keys has a flock of loyal followers among doctors and dietitians who regularly dish up this belief without bothering to check if his own research backs it up. (It doesn’t. Teicholz explains why.) Here, a British sports scientist gets to the heart of why the diet-heart hypothesis doesn’t stand up to scientific scrutiny, and what’s REALLY behind fat phobia. – Marika Sboros

By Craig Scott, University of Hull

THE CONVERSATION – Government nutrition guidelines recommend a high carbohydrate diet regardless of

Apr25201625th Apr 201625th Apr 20160 Commentby Marika

HYMAN ON A REAL ‘DRUG’ TO CURE HEART DISEASE

Posted in Heart Disease

Psst! Want to know a secret cure for heart disease? Better still, a way to prevent it In the first place? Cardiologists around the world still prescribe statin drugs as if these were smarties. Some, like Prof Rory Collins in Britain, have said everyone over 50 should be on statins, even if they don’t have any signs of heart disease whatsoever. It’s as if these doctors really do believe that heart disease is caused by a deficiency of statins. In my humble opinion, that’s not just nuts, it’s dangerous. In this video, US physician, scholar and best-selling author Dr Mark Hyman gets to the heart of the matter to reveal what he believes is the real ‘drug’ to treat your ticker. Spoiler alert: it’s not really a ‘drug’. Hyman practices what is called ‘functional’ medicine. That is, medicine that works and aims first to ‘do no harm’. Hyman says even if you have a family history of heart disease “genes are not destiny” and …

Apr20201620th Apr 201627th Nov 201812 Commentsby Marika

Cracking the obesity code: Jason Fung’s weight loss secret

Posted in LCHF

By Marika Sboros

Dr Jason Fung can make you fat – or thin.

Fung, a Canadian physician and nephrologist (kidney specialist), is the closest modern medicine comes to a magician. Along with fellow Canadian physician Dr Jay Wortman, Fung is transforming weight loss and

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