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Monday, June 10, 2013

How to Skip Getting Heart Disease

In light of what the last year has taught me about weight loss after menopause, I have been making a few additions and editorial adjustments to my e-book, “Minding the Middle Aged Middle.”  Much of that booklet describes the hormonal realities of fat and sugar metabolism and storage/retrieval systems.  That is totally valid info still, though I am adding to other parts.  

So the upshot of that is a big part of getting fat (the middle, especially) has to do with the things we eat that digest to sugar—carbohydrates.  Eating fat doesn’t make you fat.  Eating bread, does.  So my recommendation to any who want to lose weight is, of course, to limit the high density carbohydrates (grains, legumes, potatoes, alcohol, sweets of all kinds and most certainly sodas.)  Want the e-book?  See http://mindingthemiddleagedmiddle.com/ 

The crucial tool for assessing the carbohydrate's ability to raise blood sugar (and trigger fat storage) is the glycemic load.  It is a number telling how fast a carbohydrate food turns to glucose and how much glucose there is.  It is additive--the glycemic loads of things you eat are added together.  Low is less than 10.  Medium is up to 20, and over 20 is high.  Keeping it low will certainly help with losing the middle aged middle.
BUT:
A paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

 (Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6):1455-61. A prospective study of dietary glycemic load, carbohydrate intake, and risk of coronary heart disease in US women.  Liu S, Willett WC, Stampfer MJ, Hu FB, Franz M, Sampson L, Hennekens CH, Manson JE.) 

Tells us this surprising VERY important finding! 

Your risk of heart attack and stroke doubles (DOUBLES, like twice as risky) if your average daily glycemic load is 206 compared to those with an average of 117.

Diabetics, with their blood sugar problems, are prone to heart disease, in fact this is from the American Diabetes website:

People with diabetes have a higher-than-average risk of having a heart attack or Stroke. These strike people with diabetes more than twice as often as people without diabetes. There’s a big link between diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. In fact, two out of three people with diabetes die from heart disease or stroke… 

Blood sugar (as measured by the glycemic load) is deadly.  I can’t for the life of me figure how there could possibly be any controversy about these findings.  If you want a smaller middle, avoid high glycemic foods (listed above).  Look them up at http://nutritiondata.self.com/ or http://www.glycemicindex.com/foodSearch.php.  Not only will it help in minding the middle aged middle but it will save you from heart disease.  Make your carbs be vegetables and fruit with their relatively low glycemic index and high levels of nutrients, rather than those with low nutrients and high glycemic load. 

For another blog post I will report on what they find regarding cancer risk and blood sugar levels.  No surprise.  Higher blood sugar equals higher rates of cancer.