Word: diet
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...decades ago, taking care of your heart didn't seem all that complicated. You ate a balanced diet, didn't drink too much and got some fresh air and exercise--a round of golf, maybe. That was about it. Not that everyone, or even most people, actually lived up to these standards. But if you fell short, at least you knew what to feel guilty about...
...been a staple of the human diet since our remote ancestors started eating meat more than 2 million years ago. In the 1960s, however, researchers began to notice that patients who had elevated blood levels of cholesterol--a fatty substance found in meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products--also tended to suffer from heart disease. Cholesterol by-products would form thick, tough deposits, called plaques, on the inner walls of arteries, stiffening them and then starving the heart of blood and creating choke points where a clot could stop the flow entirely...
...next phase of research, the object became keeping cholesterol levels in the blood under control and not necessarily keeping the cholesterol out of the diet. But how to do it? Again the key seemed to be eating less red meat, cream and butter, but it was based not so much on cholesterol as on saturated fat. Reason: saturated fat increases blood cholesterol. So eggs, high in cholesterol but not in saturated fat, were taken off the forbidden list, except for those people with the most serious cholesterol problems...
...What's driving the upswells? A rising standard of living and greater exposure to a Western diet rich in sugars and empty calories are certainly to blame, along with a more sedentary lifestyle. But many patients turning up at Jhingan's office and similar clinics are not fat-at least not by Western standards. It appears that a change in diet and a few extra pounds are enough to trigger the disease in many Asian and African populations...
...statistics, doctors believe that this is one epidemic that could be controlled and at a low cost. Recent studies in the U.S., Finland and China showed that many of those at risk of developing diabetes can bring their blood sugar down to normal levels without medication, by changing their diet and becoming more physically active. In the U.S. trial, patients who made these changes reduced their risk of developing diabetes nearly 60%. Hopefully the rest of the world won't just pick up our bad habits but learn from our good examples as well...