When we speak of the cardiovascular system we will be including all disease that is associated with it: high blood pressure, elevated blood fats, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, and obesity.
According to the CDC, approximately 600,000 Americans die yearly from heart disease, the nation’s number 1 killer, and approximately 130,000 Americans die yearly from strokes. The CDC also reports that approximately 348,000 American deaths in 2009 included high blood pressure as a contributing cause.
In the past I have written about how the public is led to believe that high cholesterol and saturated fat are evil and to be avoided at all cost. If you are new to my columns or need a refresher course, you may want to go back and read some of them. They are “Has Saturated Fat Always Been Our Enemy” and “Has Dietary Saturated Fat Always Been Our Enemy.” The low fat high carbohydrate diet is still in vogue today and encouraged by doctors, dietitians, the government pyramid ,as well as the processed food industry. This is in spite of the fact that we have learned how detrimental sugar is to the body, raising insulin, and promoting disease. The food companies even advertise on the labels, “heart healthy.” All of this advertising confuses the public.
We need to look at the facts. Has the low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet helped stamp out cardiovascular disease? Heart disease is still the number 1 killer and next week we will look at getting good results from a real change of diet.
