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Lower Cholesterol Without Drugs
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Chapter 12: Lifestyle______________________________________________
Aside from the food we eat every day, let’s take a quick look at lifestyle. How much exercise do you get every day? Do you drink alcohol? Do you drink coffee? Do you smoke cigarettes? Are you under too much stress?
Exercise is the most important lifestyle factor to look at. Do you do physical work at your job? Do you enjoy any sports every week that give you a workout like golf or tennis? Do you belong to a gym or have workout equipment in your house? Are you a member of an indoor swimming pool? Do you take a walk every day? Walking is the most practical, most effective, and most enjoyable exercise for many people. You can lower your blood lipids as well as lower your blood pressure with no change in diet simply by walking a half hour a day. Studies abound on the cholesterol lowering benefits of any exercise even for young people.
At the University Medical School in Turkey (Indian J. Physiol. Pharmacol. v. 43, 1999) it was shown that men of any age who exercised regularly had lower total cholesterol, lower LDL levels, higher HDL levels, less body fat, and all in all less risk for coronary heart disease. At the University of Maryland (Med. Sci. Sports Exer. v. 26, 1994) a ten month, long-term study was done on older obese men using a combination of a low-calorie diet and aerobic exercise. Of course the men lost weight and body fat, lowered total, LDL and triglyceride levels, and raised HDL levels. The same university did another long-term, nine month study (Metab. Clin. Exp. v. 48, 1999) on middle-aged overweight men. This time they put them on the American Heart Association (AHA) diet, which really isn’t very strict or hard to follow at all, and had them do aerobic exercise regularly. They got the same results as in the previous study, and the men improved their health very much. At the Center for Adult Diseases in Osaka (Domyaku Koka v. 21, 1994) doctors took 459 middle aged healthy men and just had them walk every day. No change in diet, lifestyle or supplements - just walking. They found their HDL levels went up and the risk for coronary heart disease went down almost immediately. At the University of Padua in Italy (J. Sports Med. v. 31, 1991) healthy young male and female athletes were given either aerobic or resistance exercise. Clear benefits resulted no matter what kind of exercise they did. The usual results of lower total cholesterol, LDL levels and triglycerides and higher HDL levels were obtained in healthy, young, well-trained athletes. A similar study was done at the University of Vermont (Metab. Clin. Exp. v. 41, 1992) where the researchers again found whether you do aerobic or resistance exercise it just doesn’t matter- you get the same basic cardiovascular benefits. They said,” Aerobically trained and resistance trained young males have comparable and favorable cardiovascular disease risk profiles compared with untrained males, and this appears to be related to their low level of adiposity (fat mass) and low intake of dietary fat.”
At the University of Pittsburgh (J. Sports Med. v. 35, 1995) groups of both premenopausal and postmenopausal women were asked to walk every day. The postmenopausal women had an average age of 55 and a whopping 38% body fat! The doctors said, “A single bout of walking has the potential to acutely affect the blood lipid profile of premenopausal as well as postmeno- pausal women”. At Texas A&M University (J. Appl. Physiol. v. 79, 1995) middle-aged men were given short-term exercise programs with the usual beneficial results. The researchers said, “These data show that a single session of exercise performed by untrained hypercholesteremic men alters blood lipid and apo-lipoprotein concentrations”. Please note they said just one single session.
You already knew that exercise is good for you and lowers your blood lipids without changing your diet. Think what even daily walking will do when you make some changes in your diet and take proven supplements?
One third of American adults smoke. Smoking is correlated with many major diseases such as various cancers. The biggest and most important heart studies like the Seven Countries Study, and the Helsinki Study have shown over and over there is no doubt that smoking worsens your blood lipid profile, is a major factor for coronary heart disease, is an important factor in many other diseases, and shortens lifespan. The National Cholesterol Education Program published a lengthy report (Arch. Int. Med. v. 148, 1988) on all aspects of treating hypercholesteremia. Examining smoking as a factor they found men with the lowest cholesterol levels had only 1.6 deaths per 1,000 if they didn’t smoke, but 6.3 deaths if they did. Men with the highest cholesterol levels had 6.4 deaths per 1,000 if they didn’t smoke but a frightening 21.4 deaths if they did. The problem is that nicotine is so addictive it is very hard to stop. There is no reason to quote a list of studies here to show what is already obvious. Smoking is a major factor in heart disease, alters our steroid levels, has countless negative effects on our health, and causes early death. If you want to live a long, healthy life of good quality, and avoid heart and artery disease you have to stop smoking. It is very important to note that when you quit smoking that your health recovers very quickly, and you soon approach the same level of CHD risk as those who have never smoked. It is never too late to quit,and you can quickly reverse most of the damage you’ve done.
The most impressive study was done on biological twins - one smoked and one didn’t (Thromb. Haemo. v. 75, 1996) at the Instituto Scientifico in Italy. The twins who smoked had 13% higher triglycerides, 8% lower HDL levels, as well as an 8% higher white blood cell count (which is a negative) along with other negative changes in their blood parameters. They concluded, “Cigarette smoking is associated with an atherogenic lipid profile (i.e. clogs your arteries) and with changes in platelets and white cells potentially reflecting endothelial cell damage.” What better proof can you have than identical twins? At the Institute of Biochemistry in Scotland (Eur. J. Clin. Invest. v. 23, 1993) the doctors studied healthy men and concluded, “LDL cholesterol, plasma triglycerides, and VLDL (very low density) triglycerides were found to be substantially increased and plasma HDL cholesterol decreased in smokers.” At the Center for Clinical Studies in Florida (Contraception v. 44, 1991) doctors studied both pre- and postmenopausal women. It was clear that the women who smoked had lower levels of HDL cholesterol and were at higher risk of CHD - the biggest single killer of women in the U.S. At Osaka Prefectural College in Japan (Seikatsu Eisei v. 40, 1996) 1,243 Japanese men were studied. They said, “In conclusion, this study of the joint association of cigarette smoking, serum lipid levels and blood pressure with white blood cell counts as a risk factor for CHD confirming previously reported results…” Please note that the combination of alcohol and nicotine works synergistically together to be much more harmful in effect.
The research showed something fascinating about coffee. One would logically think that it wouldn’t matter what kind of coffee you drank, but it very much does. If you drink the regular filtered coffee or instant coffee in moderation (i.e. one or two cups a day) you will less negative effects on your heart. However, if you drink unfiltered, French press, espresso, Turkish and other such types, even two cups a day will affect you very much. This is because the coffee oils are not filtered out. There are other such studies that show the boiled, unfiltered coffee has more harmful effects than the filtered or instant. Some of these studies were done at the Nordic School of Public Health in Sweden, National Institute of Public Health in the Netherlands and King’s College in London. If you are addicted and insist on drinking coffee always drink the filtered or instant kinds and never more than one cup a day.
We come to a much more complex problem with alcohol. Most all countries on earth have a serious problem with alcohol consumption. No other drug on earth causes anywhere near the damage that excessive alcohol consumption does. Every major study has shown that excessive (i.e. more than two drinks a day or heavy drinking even once a week) alcohol consumption is a major risk for coronary heart disease. Ironically some studies have shown that people who have only one or two drinks a day and never have more than this actually have less heart disease and better cholesterol levels and live longer than people who don’t drink alcohol at all. Alcohol, even in moderation, is not part of a healthy lifestyle. If you only drink one or two drinks a day you are probably not going to hurt your blood lipid profile or get more heart disease. Drinking more than two drinks a day, or drinking heavily even one day a week will raise your cholesterol, and you’ll have a bigger risk of heart and artery disease. You should be aware that even one or two drinks a day have been shown to put your at higher risk for other diseases and conditions such as diabetes and various forms of cancer. Please don’t listen to the argument that moderate drinking is somehow good for your heart and arteries.
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