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Diet and Congestive heart failure information
Introduction
There are many conditions in Western industrialised societies today that were unheard of, or at least very rare, just a century ago. The same conditions are still unheard of in primitive peoples who do not have the 'benefits' of our knowledge. There is a very good reason for this: They eat what Nature intended; we don't. The diseases caused by our incorrect and unnatural diets are those featured on these pages.
Dietary causes:
Carbohydrate-rich 'healthy' diet; polyunsaturated vegetable oils and margarines, processed convenience foods, 'healthy' low cholesterol.High blood glucose and insulin
We know that high levels of glucose in the blood increases the risk of a heart attack from coronary heart disease. But there are other diseases of the heart that are as least as deadly, or even more so.
One such is congestive heart failure; in fact congestive heart failure is responsible for more sudden deaths than coronary heart disease. It now seems that high blood glucose levels may also be an important cause of Congestive heart failure as well. United States researchers had found evidence to suggest that raised fasting blood glucose levels were a risk factor for congestive heart failure among elderly individuals, particularly those who had diabetes. Congestive heart failure and diabetes are disorders that frequently coexist. Despite this, there was uncertainty as to whether raised glucose levels act as a risk factor for congestive heart failure, as studies produced conflicting results.
To investigate this further, Dr Joshua Barzilay and colleagues at Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia, studied patients, aged 65 years and above, for up to 8 years.[1]
They discovered that each one 'standard deviation' increase in fasting blood glucose increased the risk of congestive heart failure by 41% in participants.
Dr Barzilay and team suggest that raised glucose levels may affect congestive heart failure risk in several ways: it might reflect poor compliance to medications or poor medical care; the glucose might compromise artery linings and affect blood flow to the heart, or cause fibrosis and stiffness of the heart muscle itself.
Or is it low cholesterol?
'In patients with congestive heart failure, lower serum total cholesterol is independently associated with a worse prognosis.' Those were the conclusions of a study looking at the relationship between blood cholesterol levels and congestive heart failure.[2] The study found that for each increase of 1.0 mmol/L in blood cholesterol, 'The chance of survival increased 25%'.
The best predictor of increased mortality in the study was a cholesterol level lower than 5.2 mmol/L (200 mg/dL).
Although published in 2003, this study was completely ignored as a major adverse side effect of cholesterol-lowering drugs which aim to get everyone's cholesterol down much lower than 5.2 (200)!
References
1. Barzilay JI, et al. The association of fasting glucose levels with congestive heart failure in diabetic adults over 65 years: the Cardiovascular Health Study. J Am Coll Cardiol 2004; 43: 2236-41.
2. Rauchhaus M, Clark AL, Doehner W, et al. The relationship between cholesterol and survival in patients with chronic heart failure. J Am Coll Cardiol 2003; 42:1933-1940.
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