It starts with that central obesity. Your expanding midsection is not due to an increase in the number of fat cells in there. No, when you’re overweight, the number of cells remains more or less constant, but each cell increases in size. In other words, the fat cells themselves grow fat. When these cells expand, the insulin has trouble attaching to them properly and unlocking them. That’s why, if you weigh too much, the sugar and fat levels in your bloodstream rise higher than they should. The insulin key takes longer to open the lock.
That in turn brings about several other blood conditions, all of which are further signs of type 2 diabetes (and even prediabetes), signs that can be seen only by a doctor. They’re a familiar list if you’ve been paying attention to health news over the past decade: High blood pressure, high triglycerides, low good cholesterol, high ratio of total cholestrol to good, and the relatively unknown but critical matter of too-small bad cholesterol particles.
When insulin isn’t working properly, it takes longer than it should to store the fat you just ate. Because of that delay, your liver is being flooded with fatty acids. In response to that, the organ emits harmful particles that deposit fat and cholesterol in the blood vessels of your heart future blockages, in other words.
So this, then, is the link between obesity and heart disease. The danger isn’t the carbs or the sugars themselves. It’s how they affect your body’s ability to process fats. Eating too many jelly doughnuts may not cause a heart attack. But it can and does create the conditions that will lead to one. Obesity itself doesn’t damage your cardiovascular system. It’s just the number one sign of an unhealthy blood profile, which will someday almost certainly curtail your good health, and maybe your life.
Today, alarmingly, we’re seeing type 2 diabetes in young adults and even in adolescents. It’s not that we’re genetically less healthy than previous generations. But our habits are much worse. Gym memberships and home treadmills are staples of middle class life, but the truth is that we perform less physical activity than our parents and grandparents did. Maybe their obs required more exertion, or they enjoyed fewer labor-saving devices. Perhaps they just walked a lot more than we do.
This lack of exercise extends even to the youngest among us. I am disressed by the levels of physical playtime children now get.
Probably more harmful than decreasing exercise, however, is how food las changed. In a sense, food manufacturers have begun the digestion process for us. Until quite recently we did not appreciate that processed foods were bad and have contributed to our epidemic of obesity. We endured hunger once; now the plenty we enjoy as a nation translates directly into the load on our dinner plates. The fact that more than half of all restaurant meals come in the form of fast-food has only worsened things.
Once, the carbs we ate were less processed than they are today. More of our bread was baked at home or in local bakeries, not factories, and was made with whole grains, not flour that had been overly processed and stripped of all fiber. Back then, convenience and speedy preparation weren’t the highest ideals food aspired to. We were in less of a rush, and home cooking meant starting with raw ingredients. Rice had more of its fiber intact, and had to be cooked slowly.
Potatoes weren’t sliced and frozen or powdered and bought in a box. Children’s after school snacks weren’t limited to what could be microwaved. More of what we ate had shelf lives measured in days, not months and sometimes years!
We didn’t require large infusions of sugar in every meal, starting with our breakfast cereal and continuing at every feeding through the late-night snack of pretzels made from pure, processed white flour. We didn’t spend quite so much of our time amid food courts and chocolate chip cookie stands and convenience store coolers and Slurpees and Big Gulps and all the rest.
Even the impulse toward healthy eating brought us closer to this unhealthy state. Next time you visit a supermarket, examine the nutritional information on all the “low-fat” products: Invariably, you’ll find that processed carbs have been added to replace the fats. Or notice how many breads there are labeled “vitamin-enriched” or “fortified,” which means so much of the natural fiber (which contains the vitamins) has been stripped away that some nutrients had to be added back in!
I realize that I’m describing more than any one patient’s eating patterns. It’s the nutritional state of the union that’s to blame for what’s happening internally to many millions of us. Usually, the serious damage doesn’t show up until you’re in your fifties or sixties. But the invisible harm is being done decades earlier, setting the stage for the future catastrophe.
The cure for this, В luckily, is the same as the colution to the the overweight. problem that vexes millions of people who aren’t terribly concerned about their future cardiac well being. It’s what I’ve tried to codify in a sensible, practical, easy-to-remember-and-follow eating plan that the rest of this book is devoted to explaining. But as far as I’m concerned, this is the true goal of any great diet. Looking good on the outside is important, I know.
But having beautiful, physically fit blood vessels and healthy blood chemistry as a result makes it that much more important.
See Also
Return from Effects on the Heart to homepage
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