FOOD FOR THE CARING HEART
from John Robbins' book "Diet For A New America"

THE HUMAN HEART doesn't actually look very much like a valentine, but it is nevertheless a wonderous and beautiful muscle. About the size of a clenched fist, it begins to beat only a few weeks after conception, and thereafter pumps forth the rhythm of our lives through every moment of our uterine and earthly existence. Only at the moment of our death does it cease.

This beating has a definite purpose: to pump blood to all parts of the body. The life of our very cells depends on the oxygen and nutrition brought to them by the flow of our blood. If for some reason any muscle did not receive a fresh flow of blood it would quickly die.

Since the heart is also a muscle, it, too, must continuously receive a fresh flow of blood, and you might think that receiving a blood supply would never be a problem for the heart, since its chambers are always full of blood. But the heart is not able to directly use any of the blood contained within its pumping chambers, any more than a stereo amplifier can plug into itself. Instead, the heart muscle feeds from the blood supplied to it through two specific vessels, called the coronary arteries.

In a healthy person, the blood flows freely and easily through the coronary arteries, and the well fed heart keeps pumping away as it should. But if one of the coronary arteries, or one of its branches, should become blocked off, and so be unable to supply the heart with blood, then even though the heart's chambers are full of blood, that part of the heart dependent on the blocked-off artery will die.

If a heart attack victim is fortunate, and the part of the heart that dies is small, he will survive, and the dead tissue will come gradually to be replaced by scar tissue. But if a larger part of the heart is deprived of blood, there really isn't very much that can be done to save his life. Many heart attack victims die within minutes of the unexpected seizure.

Heart attack victims often never have the slightest warning anything is wrong. There are no bodily symptoms to signal the oncoming disaster. They may have only that morning heard their physician pronounce them fit as a fiddle. But, then, suddenly, the victims feel a sudden, severe crushing pain in their chests. Often the pain shoots down the arm, and sometimes it flares up the neck, particularly on the left side. There may be cold sweating, nausea, vomiting and shortness of breath. The symptoms are accompanied by a feeling of being overwhelmed by enormous terror and dread.

Though heart attacks strike suddenly, and often without forewarning, they do not just happen. A heart attack is the inexorable final step of a slow and lengthy process. You can put cold water in a pot, put the pot on the stove, and turn on the heat. For a while nothing much will seem to change as you watch. But if the heat is high enough, at a certain point bubbles will appear on the surface of the water. You will see very little change all the while the water heats from 32 degrees towards 212 degrees. But then, suddenly, just as it approaches the threshold of 212 degrees, there are dramatic visible changes, and the water boils.

The slow and steady process which takes place in our arteries and inexorably increases our heart attack susceptibility has a name. This process, which is in fact the deeper cause of almost all heart attacks, is called "atherosclerosis."

Atherosclerosis is often referred to in common speech as "hardening of the arteries," and although this is not an entirely inaccurate way of describing what happens, "narrowing of the arteries" would be a better catchphrase, though this, too, would be less than exact.

Atherosclerosis is the process by which arteries gradually accumulate fatty and waxy deposits on their inner walls - thus reducing the size of the openings through which the blood can flow. The foreign deposits which adhere to the inner walls of the arteries are called "atheromas," or "plaques."

__________________________ A coronary artery sliced open to reveal the Atherosclerosis which killed the owner of this heart. __________________________

When these plaques become advanced enough, the fatty contents of the deposits will rupture into the artery and form a clot. These clots may clog up the already reduced arterial opening, and thus entirely prevent the flow of blood through the artery.

If a clot forms in one of the two coronary arteries that supply the heart with its only source of life-giving blood, and the coronary artery becomes blocked by the clot, the heart is deprived of its supply of life-giving blood, and the result is a heart attack.

There could be no heart attack unless the coronary arteries had already become partially closed and irritated by atherosclerotic deposits. Atherosclerosis, the real culprit, is what must be eliminated to prevent heart attacks.

There is another part of the body particularly vulnerable to having its blood supply cut off by an obstructed artery. It is the part of the body whose functioning, or lack of it, has often been the source of wit:

"The brain is a wonderful organ it starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office. "

In truth, however, the physical failure of the brain to function is far from a laughing matter. Strokes, like heart attacks, often occur with no prior warning, and, like heart attacks, they often kill. Strokes account for more deaths in the United States today than any other cause except heart attacks and cancer.

In fact, strokes are very similar events to heart attacks, except that they take place in different bodily locations. For just as atherosclerotic deposits in the arteries feeding the heart set the stage for heart attacks, atherosclerotic deposits in the arteries feeding the brain set the stage for strokes. And just as the affected part of the heart dies when its blood supply becomes blocked off, so the affected part of the brain dies when its blood supply is compromised by arterial blockage. As with the heart, this can only occur when the arteries have become hardened, narrowed and encrusted with atherosclerosis.

If we add up the deaths caused by heart attacks, strokes, and other consequences of atherosclerosis, we get a figure larger than all other causes of death in the United States combined. Statistically, you and I each have better than a 50-50 chance of dying from a disease directly caused by the clogging up of our arteries.

HOPE
For years it was thought that heart disease and strokes were simply misfortunes we had to somehow learn to accept. But over the last thirty years, this has changed. The most comprehensive research in medical history has discovered something of marvelous and far-reaching consequence: we are not helpless victims of atherosclerosis. It is a disease which, knowingly or unknowingly, we bring upon ourselves, and by the same token, can prevent. I am reminded of one of Aesop's Fables:

The Eagle and the Arrow
An eagle sat on a lofty rock, watching the movements of a hare whom he sought to make his prey. An archer, who saw the eagle from a place of concealment, took an accurate aim and wounded him mortally. The eagle gave one look at the arrow that had entered his heart, and saw in that single glance that its feathers had been furnished by himseff.

"It is a double grief to me," he exclaimed woefully, "that I should perish by an arrow feathered from my own wings."

The most advanced medical knowledge in history is telling us that heart attack and stroke victims - 50% of us - perish from a disease nurtured by our own hands.

__________________________ "It's my humble assertion that the best way to lower your cholesterol is... stop eating it." - Michael Klaper, MD __________________________

The growth in the medical understanding of heart disease that has taken place in the last thirty years is one of the great stories in medical history. With each passing year, more and more of the most respected medical organizations in the world have come to the same conclusion: Diets high in saturated fat and cholesterol raise the level of cholesterol in the blood, produce atherosclerosis, and lead directly to heart disease and strokes.

Diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol lower the level of cholesterol in the blood, decrease atherosclerosis, and lower the likelihood of heart disease and strokes.

The medical statistics are clear. We can virtually stab ourselves in the heart with our forks by eating a diet that promotes atherosclerosis. Or we can overwhelmingly reduce our potential for heart disease by eating a diet that supports the health of our cardiovascular system.

Many a deeply inspiring story has emerged from the dedicated medical researchers working day in and day out for year after year to discover what has been learned. At the same time, however, there are other stories which are anything but inspiring. There are powerul interests who profit from the sale of foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol who recognize that the advances in medical understanding are not to their financial advantage. And though they have not been able to impede the growth of medical knowledge, they have been remarkably successful in preventing the public from having the full benefit of what has been learned, employing ruse after ruse in their efforts to keep our nation hooked on foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol. What the tobacco industry is for lung cancer, these industries have become for the heart attack.

At the time, it was thought that the pronounced differences in the conditions of the soldiers' arteries might be more a consequence of genetic predisposition than of their differing diet-styles. But this idea became quickly untenable when a large group of Korean soldiers were put on the U.S. Army diet. They rapidly developed significant increases in their blood cholesterol levels, an unmistakable sign of developing atherosclerosis.

Traditional nutritionists had thought highly of meat, dairy products and eggs ever since the early animal experiments which showed rats grew faster on animal protein. As well, the first vitarnin ever discovered, Vitamin A, had originally been isolated from butterfat, which also added to the aura of supremacy these foods enjoyed.

But as a result of the autopsies, the possibility that dairy products, meat and eggs might be seriously involved in heart disease now had to be taken seriously for the first time. Meat, dairy products and eggs are the chief source of dietary saturated fat. Along with fish, they are the only sources of dietary cholesterol.

Stirred by the results of the Korean War autopsies, medical researchers undertook a major effort to learn more. From 1963 to 1965, a worldwide study of heart disease and stroke patterns was done, called the International Atherosclerotic Project. This truly mammoth under-taking involved examining the arteries of over 20,000 autopsied bodies throughout the world. The findings revealed an unmistakable pattern: people who lived in areas where consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol were high had markedly more atherosclerosis, more heart attacks, and more strokes.

It took a while for medical researchers to grasp the full implications of what was being learned, because the emerging truth required them to do a complete about-face from their well-entrenched assumptions.

Further, they pointed out that cholesterol cannot be found in any plant food. Our entire intake of cholesterol is necessarily derived from meat, fish, dairy products and eggs.

THE MOUNTING CONSENSUS
With each new study the evidence was becoming harder and harder to brush aside. The industries who foresaw their profits seriously threatened by the advancing knowledge, however, managed to overlook much that was being learned, and to insist that hereditary influences were more important than one's intake of saturated fat and cholesterol. To find out if there could be any truth to this, Dr. M. G. Marmot and his co-workers at the University of California, Berkeley, undertook a major study of the heart disease rates of men of Japanese descent who lived in different parts of the world and ate according to the various local diet-styles. The results stunned a medical world still finding it hard to believe meat, dairy products and eggs were suspect. The study found an almost exact statistical correlation for all groups between consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol, and deaths due to coronary heart disease .

It was becoming increasingly difficult to deny the evidence implicating saturated fat and cholesterol, though the industries whose products were being incriminated were trying diligently. Unable to counter the accumulating evidence, they ignored it, continuing to insist hereditary factors were primary. Dr. Keys' massive study, and others like it, however, indicated otherwise. It was common knowledge that different groups of the men under study such as clerks, miners, mechanics, farmers and doctors tend to have their own diet-styles, with their corresponding levels of saturated fat intake. And it was also common knowledge that Japanese who lived in the West had diet-styles different from those in Japan. But when the levels of saturated fat in the diets of each of these various groups were compared to their blood cholesterol counts, the results were spectacular. The correlation between saturated fat consumption and blood cholesterol levels could hardly have been more exact.

Even those researchers most attached to traditional ideas were coming to conclude that the more saturated fat and cholesterol in person's diet, the more cholesterol would be in his blood, the worst shape his arteries would be in, and the more likely a candidate h would be for a heart attack or a stroke. The meat, dairy and egg industries were far from pleased with the way things were going.

INCREASING CLARITY
The evidence implicating the traditional mainstays of the Western diet was not accepted overnight. Because firmly established beliefs were being so seriously threatened, it was subjected to the most rigorous testing in medical history. Though I do not ethically condone most laboratory experiments on animals, the results of such tests were another nail in the coffin for conventional dietary wisdom. At the University of Chicago, Dr. Robert Wissler and his co-workers fed a standard American diet to rhesus monkeys. To a second group of monkeys they fed a diet different only in that it was lower in saturated fat, cholesterol and calories. After a time, they killed the monkeys and examined their arteries. The monkeys fed the standard American diet had six times as much atherosclerosis as the other monkeys. Scientists were not only finding they could produce atherosclerosis in animals by feeding them diets with saturated fat and cholesterol, they were also finding that they could then unclog the arteries of the animals by reducing their intake of these particular substances. At the University of Iowa, Dr. Mark Armstrong and his colleagues fed a group of monkeys a diet rich in egg yolk, one of the leading suppliers of saturated fat and cholesterol in the American diet. The coronary arteries of these monkeys rapidly became encrusted with atherosclerosis. After the arteries of the monkeys had become over half closed, the researchers markedly reduced the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol that the monkeys consumed. A year and a half later, the atherosclerosis in the monkeys' arteries was less than one-third what it had become on the diet high in saturated fat and cholesterol. Spokesmen for the meat, dairy and egg industries tried to discount the experiments; but researchers were increasingly impressed because these and similar experiments were repeated with a variety of different animals and the findings were consistent. The only animals able to handle saturated fat and cholesterol without developing substantial atherosclerosis were the natural carnivores. Dr. William S. Collins wrote of these studies in Medical Counterpoint:

"Recent studies, many of them in my laboratory at the Maiominides Medical Center, appear to indicate that the carnivorous animal has almost unlimited capacity to handle saturatedfats and cholesterol, whereas the vegetarian and herbivorous animals have a very restricted capacity to handle these food components. It is virtually impossible to produce atherosclerosis in the dog, for example, even when 120 grams (1/2 pound) of butter fat are added to his meat ration... On the other hand, adding only two grams of cholesterol daily to a rabbit's chow for two months produces striking fatty changes in its arterial wall."

With each passing year and new set of studies, it was becoming increasingly clear that, like the primates who are closest to us biologically, human beings are among the animals unable to handle saturated fat and cholesterol. The more of these we eat, the more we develop atherosclerosis, and the more likely we are to die of heart disease.

NOW
We know today how to prevent heart attacks and strokes. We know how to prevent the killers that account for more than half of the deaths in the United States every year. But most of us, thanks to the dedicated endeavors of the meat, dairy and egg industries, have not gotten the good news. We still think we must eat animal products in order to be healthy. We still think heart attacks and strokes are a regrettable but more or less inevitable byproduct that comes with living well and growing old. The heart attack has become so much a part of American life as to virtually be an institution. We take it for granted.

Few of us know that our passive attitude is perpetuated by the deliberate efforts of those who profit from our staying hooked on the foods that cause heart disease.

As long as we remain passive we cannot make the real choices that empower us. Although there are people who do not want us to make such choices and are willing to do almost anything to confuse us, we now have for the first time in history, sufficient knowledge to take control over our bodies and our lives. Now we can make food choices which we know will dramatically improve the health of our cardiovascular system, prevent heart disease and strokes, and at the same time reduce the suffering in the world.

A well-known publication editorialized:

"A vegetarian diet can prevent 97% of our coronary occlusions."

This publication was not the Vegetarian Times, nor was it the New Age Journal. It was The Journal of the American Medical Association.