The National Cholesterol Education Program has developed an online tool to estimate your risk for developing coronary heart disease in the next 10 years.  The information is based on the Framingham Heart Study and is designed to use for those who are 20 years of age and older, without a current diagnosis of heart disease or diabetes.

To take the assessment, you must know your total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol levels and your systolic blood pressure number (that’s the top number).  You will also be asked your age, gender, smoking status, and current blood pressure treatment status.

Click HERE to take you to the tool.  For a better understanding of cholesterol levels and major risk factors for coronary heart disease, here is a quick reference guide.  ATP At A Glance

A breakthrough study reveals the ethnic- and gender-specific effects of physical exercise on cholesterol and trigylceride levels.  The August issue of The Journal of Lipid Research published the long-term study conducted by North Carolina and Baylor researchers of over 8,700 middle-aged men and women, with the interesting result that women, particularly African-American women, experience greater benefits as a result of exercise than men.

They found that over a 12 year period, all individuals who increased their exercise by about 180 metabolic units per week (equivalent to an additional hour of mild or 30 minutes of moderate activity per week) displayed decreased levels of triglycerides and increased levels of the “good” HDL cholesterol. However, statistically significant decreases in the “bad” LDL cholesterol were only observed in women, with particularly strong effects in menopausal women and African-American women. And total cholesterol levels were only significantly decreased in African-American women.

Monda et al. “Longitudinal impact of physical activity on lipid profiles in middle-aged adults: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study.”  The Journal of Lipid Research, 2009; 50 (8): 1685 DOI.

This past weekend is as close as I have come to finally growing up and quitting playing cricket.  The sense of disillusionment felt over the weekend’s events left me questioning why I bother.

The timeline – Friday, mid afternoon and the skipper emails the team list and directions to the ground in Dalgety Bay.  We have 9 players, but as we beat them comfortably earlier in the year while similarly short handed it’s not at this point a concern.

Friday 6:30pm and Mrs C informs me she’s going to have to work Saturday afternoon, leaving me with Master C, except it’s now too late to call off and leave the team with eight bodies.  He’ll just have to come with me, not ideal, but best I can do.

Saturday 11am – skipper calls.  It seems the 2^nd XI captain threw his toys out the pram at midnight over not being able to get a full team out.  He’s told the club president to “stick it” and flounced off.  As a result of league rules, we cannot default a 2^nd XI game and fulfil a 3^rd XI one.  This means that six of the 3^rd XI are co-opted into the 2’s to go play at Livingston.  The 3’s have to default, which means we get credited with a loss and 0 points.  We slip from second to third in the table and lose the promotion slot we’ve been working bloody hard for.

Saturday 1230 – turn up at Livingston’s ground, and it’s possibly the wettest cricket field I’ve ever had to play on.  We probably should have refused to play, as a bowler, I found it near impossible to bowl as my front foot would slide out from under me every time…the crease looked like a ploughed field by the end of my six over spell.  We bowled fairly well, despite it all and dismissed them for 165.  At 97 for 2 with around 20 overs left we looked to be well on course, we then somehow contrived to collapse to 114 all out.  Not the greatest day all round.  Despite more than half the team jumping five divisions in the space of an hour that morning, we should have given a better account of ourselves.

The good news is that we still carry promotion in our own hands, if we match the results of Edinburgh up until the last game of the season, we play them in a winner take all clash.  The sticky bit is going to be in fulfilling our games as it seems players are getting a bit pissed off with all the political manoeuvring.

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Who makes adverts?  Or more to the point, who is responsible for deciding that some of them are the best representation of their product/brand?

I can’t be the only person hoping Gloria Hunnifords’ cholesterol level shoots up to fatal very very soon, or that bint in the Sainsbury’s ad, chokes on one of her sossaigezzz…and as for that kid who want’s to do a poo at Pauls…..a swift slap across the chops is required there.

I don’t think I’ve ever bought something because of an advert.  I tend to buy the same brands I’ve always used, or if I see something on the shelf that looks nice, I may try it, but never do I see an ad, and think ‘of course, why haven’t I seen it before, that’s exactly what I need’ and rushed out to get it first chance I got.

You know my passion for teaching about the silent killer–inflammation

(it is the root cause of aging and every degenerative disease known!) I have found a new juice (only on the market for 3 months) that contains every rare anti-inflammatory betelain ever discovered!  No other plant ever discovered has even half that many betalains! This juice really does gets rid of inflammation!

Yes you can eat better! And you can add an amazing natural anti-inflammatory juice to your diet that CAN reduce your inflammation.

Chronic inflammation is the real epidemic. and I have found the natural answer to this silent killer.

Please educate yourself about it now and read the following article…

Sunday, 12 July, 2009, 1:57 AM
This article is informative and was prepared by a very experienced past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ.

Without inflammation, cholesterol would not accumulate in wall of blood vessel and cause heart disease

Heart Surgeon Admits Huge Mistake!
By Dwight Lundell, MD
Part 1 of a 2-part article

We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is.  I freely admit to being wrong..  As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact. I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labeled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake.  The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease.  Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result inmalpractice.

It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible.The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is thereal cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated. The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before. Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.

Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is noway that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel andcause heart disease and strokes.  Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended.  It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped. Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus.  The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders.  However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial. What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body?  Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels.  This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.  Let me repeat that. The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet that has been recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

In Part 2 of this two-part article, I’ll discuss which foods causeinflammation, how those foods trigger the inflammatory process, and the
foods to eat that will cure inflammation.
Part 2
by Dwight Lundell MD
02/06/2009

Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. Let’s say you kept this upseveral times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now. Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.
While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.

How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick? Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is
stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works..When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.
What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels. While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator

— inflammation in their arteries.

Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential –they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell — they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.

If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membraneproduces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation. Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.

To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated. There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils. There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation-causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them. One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter from grass-fed beef. Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to
cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today. The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation.
Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.

What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of
Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ. His private practice, Cardiac
Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on
the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy
Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large
corporations promote wellness. He is the author of The Cure for Heart
Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie )