2010 week 49
Book review
In Olive and Olive Oil: Mediterranean Diet 100 Greek and Cypriot Recipes by Katerina Tsouchtidi we are told that the Mediterranean Diet is a combination of foods that are perfectly balanced, guaranteeing long life, health and a positive psychological outlook. A study showed that rates of deaths from heart disease was: Finland = 97.2%; Holland = 63.6%; Italy = 46.2%; Yugoslavia 34%; Greece = 20.2%; Crete = 3.8%; the United States = 77.3%. Cretans age well because they eat well. Among the peoples of the Mediterranean the Greeks have the most balanced diet. With basic ingredients of olive oil, fruit, vegetables, cereals, wine, fish – especially oily fish like sardines – honey, and herbs, produced with a high nutritious value, the Greek diet is a model for a healthy way of life, suited to the modern lifestyle.
These are some snippets from The Eskimo Diet: How to Avoid Heart Attack by Dr. Reg Saynor and Dr. Franklin Ryan reviewed below: “Fish oil and the importance of oily fish in our diet, is one of the most significant nutritional discoveries of the century.” “In 1985 in the UK, 186,000 deaths were registered for coronary heart disease, the commonest cause of death in men from age 45 upwards. In women it is the second commonest cause of death after all cancers for ages 45-74. In 1985 coronary heart disease accounted for 39% of all deaths in men aged 55-64 and 23% of all deaths in women in the same age group.” “In the UK, particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland, we have the highest incidence of death from heart attack in the world. Twenty years ago we shared this deadly position with Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand but thanks to changes in their lifestyles, the inhabitants of these countries have considerably reduced their death rate from heart attacks.” “The advice given in The Eskimo Diet will considerably reduce the risk of your having a heart attack no matter where you live in the world, whether you are male or female, whether you smoke or don’t, no matter what awful diet you eat now – no matter even if you have had a heart attack already and all the risk factors are operating against you.”
THE ESKIMO DIET
HOW TO AVOID HEART ATTACK
Dr. REG SAYNOR & Dr. FRANK RYAN
EBURY PRESS, LONDON 1990
PART I
Introduction: Why Should We Want to Write This Book?
• New information has just become available that would greatly help to reduce the risk of a heart attack.
• No field in medicine is advancing so rapidly as our knowledge and understanding of what causes heart attacks.
• Heart attacks affect all levels of society and there is a cogent need for a simple book to cover the entire subject.
• We shall show you how to reduce the risk of a heart attack considerably, while putting the joy of good eating back on your dining table.
• Fish oil and the importance of oily fish in our diet, is one of the most significant nutritional discoveries of the century.
• We shall tell you exactly how to change your diet, what kind of fish to eat, and how to supplement what you eat with perfectly safe fish oil or capsules – and you will be making your diet more varied and exciting.
The frightening statistics
• In 1985 in the UK, 186,000 deaths were registered for coronary heart disease, the commonest cause of death in men from age 45 upwards.
• In women it is the second commonest cause of death after all cancers for ages 45-74.
• In 1985 coronary heart disease accounted for 39% of all deaths in men aged 55-64 and 23% of all deaths in women in the same age group.
• The total incidence of heart attacks has been estimated at between 500,000 and 800,000 per year.
• These appalling statistics rage throughout the most cultured nations of the world.
• In the UK, particularly in Scotland and Northern Ireland, we have the highest incidence of death from heart attack in the world.
• Twenty years ago we shared this deadly position with Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand but thanks to changes in their lifestyles, the inhabitants of these countries have considerably reduced their death rate from heart attacks.
• A heart attack is a disease that can be prevented, and hopefully even eradicated one day. We owe it to ourselves and our families to do all in our power to reduce the risk we run.
• The advice given in The Eskimo Diet will considerably reduce the risk of your having a heart attack no matter where you live in the world, whether you are male or female, whether you smoke or don’t, no matter what awful diet you eat now – no matter even if you have had a heart attack already and all the risk factors are operating against you.
Chapter 1: What Is a Heart Attack?
How the heart works
• The heart is a pump which sends blood on its way through the body.
• Blood goes to the lungs to pick up oxygen from the air we breathe and is then conveyed round the body and returns to the heart, with the oxygen used up.
• The reason your heart beats roughly seventy-two times per minute is that there is a tiny pacemaker. If the electrical control of the heart beat becomes upset the consequences can be very serious.
How arteries get blocked
• A heart attack occurs when a blood clot blocks a coronary artery or one of its main branches.
• Atheroma or hardening of the arteries is the laying down of a fatty, porridge-like substance – mainly cholesterol due to high levels of fat in our blood – under the lining of the artery, so less blood can pass through the artery, making the heart work harder.
• The deposit is usually very uneven, with a tendency to affect arteries in very localized places. In the heart they give rise to the medical condition called angina.
• If the coronary arteries have been narrowed as a result of atheroma the increased blood flow cannot get through, causing pain – the symptom of angina. Most people over 30 have some atheromatous narrowing of their coronary arteries.
Angina and other pains
• Angina usually comes on during heavy exertion, especially walking. It is a dull, heavy sensation usually described as a tightness across the center of the chest.
• The commonest condition to be confused with heart pain, both that of angina and that of a heart attack, is indigestion. It is often related to stress or tension, and gets worse after a heavy meal, on bending down or when lying flat in bed at night.
• If your doctor diagnoses angina, don’t get alarmed; it is eminently treatable. This book will give you a great deal of information on the subject but it must be used in conjunction with advice and therapy from your family doctor/hospital specialist.
• What is of greatest concern is what happens when an artery, already somewhat narrowed by the atheromatous plaque, is suddenly filled with a blood clot, which in turn produces a heart attack.
The risk factors
• Major risk factors are smoking and excess fat in the bloodstream. Smoking not only worsens atheroma, it promotes the blood clot.
• Certain families have a hereditary tendency to very high fat levels in their blood; as a result they suffer much more atheroma and at a very early age.
• The blood fats of the majority of patients under the age of 55 had raised fat levels in their blood. This is eminently treatable.
• Stress makes the blood thicker, and is associated with increased incidence of heart attacks.
• Post-menopausal women have seen a massive increase in their risk of getting a heart attack. 40% of total deaths of post-menopausal women are from heart attacks.
• This staggering figure is probably related both to increased smoking and to the stresses resulting from the more liberated roles that women now enjoy and two jobs – going out to work and doing the housework.
The effect of the clot in the artery
• What is the effect on the heart of the coronary artery being blocked by a blood clot? The muscle wall of the left ventricle is suddenly deprived of its blood supply. It immediately registers pain, very similar to that of angina, but much more severe.
• Part of the muscle may actually die – but this takes hours to happen, vital hours during which modern medicine may be able to stop and even reverse the process.
• The damaged heart cannot function properly; the sufferer feels suddenly very sick and breathless. The left ventricle hasn’t got the strength to pump blood round the body properly and so the patient feels exhausted, unable to do anything, and usually lies down.
• Adrenaline pours into the blood, causing the skin to go very pale and to sweat heavily.
Thinking ahead
• The main purpose of this book is not to frighten, but to help people avoid the situation happening in the first place.
• Chapter 3 contains detailed practical advice on how to cope with heart attack.
• But there is a simple treatment – the Eskimo diet, that reduces or removes the risk factors.
Chapter 2: A Tale of Eskimos
• In 1944 Dr Hugh Sinclair traveled to Canada; during his visit he examined Canadian Indians and Eskimos. As a nutritional biochemist he had been fascinated by Eskimos and their diet.
• His curiosity was excited by the fact that they consumed the sort of carnivorous diet that would give a cardiologist nightmares, yet they did not seem to suffer from heart attacks.
• That diet had the highest animal fat content of any diet in the world, because of the very high proportion of seal meat and blubber that it contained; nevertheless Eskimos were said to have low blood cholesterol levels.
• The most obvious way in which their daily lives differed from those of people in the UK was that they ate a lot of fish. Could this be the explanation?
• It is not just heart attacks which Eskimos, on their traditional diet, avoid. They are also virtually free of psoriasis, bronchial asthma, diabetes, immune disorders such as an over-active thyroid, and they have a reduced risk of rheumatoid arthritis, dental decay, gall-stones, appendicitis, and bowel ailments such as diverticulitis and ulcerative colitis.
• On the other hand they are just as prone to cancer, peptic ulcers, epilepsy, cerebral haemorrhage and mental illness.
• In 1976 Dr Sinclair was invited to join an expedition to the one surviving Eskimo colony where the population still consumed a diet consisting predominantly of seal meat and fish.
• In spite of living in a harsh and hostile environment and eating their very high-fat diet, they lived into a good old age, barring accidents.
• The research team very quickly established the first important scientific evidence against a genetic explanation for this.
• They collected samples of Eskimos’ food, took samples of blood for later analysis, and performed simple tests on the spot.
• Immediately they discovered very important differences between the Eskimos and ourselves.
• The time taken for bleeding to stop is called the ‘bleeding time’. The average bleeding time for the British is four to five minutes; for the Eskimos is was about eight minutes. Eskimos blood does not clot as easily as ours.
• The level of cholesterol in Eskimo blood was not lower than that of Western blood. But at this time the importance of different types of cholesterol in the blood was not understood. The Eskimos have the same total blood cholesterol as ourselves but it is distributed in quite a different way – a much safer and more protective way than our own.
• There is another very important fat in the blood – whole fat or triglyceride. The blood triglyceride was much lower in Eskimos than in ourselves.
• Our blood contains tiny particles called platelets that gather at a site of bleeding and plug the hole. In the Eskimos’ blood it was found that these platelets had less of a tendency than ours to form a clot.
• In March 1979 Dr Sinclair obtained a deep-frozen seal. For a hundred days he lived on a diet of boiled seal meat, fish, crustaceans, mollusks and water. He carefully weighed and recorded all the foods he used, weighed himself daily and waited for things to happen.
• His weight fell from 15 stone to 13 stone 2 lb. His bleeding time increased from a normal four minutes to fifty minutes, but then restabilized at fifteen minutes, resulting in nose-bleeds and bruising.
• Readers should be reassured that on the Eskimo Diet recommended in the later chapters of this book there is no danger whatsoever of this happening.
• Dr Sinclair experienced a decrease in his blood triglycerides; his blood cholesterol increased slightly, but this was accompanied by a significant rise in the ‘protective cholesterol’ (known as HDL-cholesterol, which will be explained in Chapter 4).
• His platelets also showed the same reduced tendency to clot as he had earlier found in the Eskimos.
• In other words he had proved that all the differences in heart attack risk factors, the benefits the Eskimos enjoyed compared to ourselves, were a result of their diet. It was a momentous discovery.
• It is true that we eat too much of many foods in our diet and this makes us liable to such conditions as diabetes. Overeating is also an important factor in heart disease, particularly with regard to our high intake of saturated fats.
• This book does not under-estimate this well-proven association and sound advice on this aspect of diet will be given in later chapters.
• While we might well be eating too much meat and animal fat (although considerably less than the Eskimos!), it was probably of even greater significance that we were not eating enough fish.
• In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when fish formed a much larger proportion of the British diet, heart attacks were much rarer. During the Second World War, when fish consumption again rose in Britain, the incidence of heart attacks fell significantly.
• In the late 1970s Dr Reg Saynor, in his capacity as Director of the Cardiothoracic Laboratory at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, became involved with the developing story of the Eskimo diet. His work would become of global importance.
• Throughout much of the book we shall be telling you how best to use the Eskimo Diet to avoid heart attacks, but since more than one in fifty adults a year has a heart attack, we must first accept that some people will continue to have heart attacks. We shall therefore give you some practical advice to reduce the risk even during a heart attack.