Famous figures, as Mark Twain and Marilyn Monroe have shown, sometimes have a way of giving us a false image, by misunderstanding cause and effect relationships where the health of whole populations is concerned.
The long arm of coincidence can sometimes reach around corners or do a juggling act. For example, you might claim, on the basis of statistics, that since the use of soap was also sharply reduced in some countries during the war, with a corresponding drop in death rate from cardiovascular disease, it was the soap (which is a fat) that caused the disease. In a more scientific view, however, the evidence weighs heavily on the side of fat as a prime factor in causing atherosclerosis.
Is the epidemic of heart disease confined to older people? What has affected to our culture to the point that men between 30 and 45 are common victims of this “silent killer”? Why are increasingly more young women, thought to be practically immune to this disease until after menopause, are now joining men as common victims? We do not know the entire answer to this mystery, or even if there is a single answer to theses questions. However, the research that has been carried out by my colleagues across the globe, and by myself during the past 10 years, has provided some informative hints. Recently, we discovered to our amazement that over 90% of our adult population has, to a greater or less degree, a degenerative disease of the arteries that doctors call atherosclerosis. That, as you know, is the term meaning the thickening and narrowing of certain vital blood vessels, which is the leading cause of heart attacks and strokes. Doctors and physicians once believed that it was a result of growing old, but the disease is now being discovered in infants and children as well. As children, however, we have the ability of absorbing the fats that deposit themselves to the artery walls. As we age, we seem to lose this power of absorption, and thus real trouble begins.
At what age does this happen? Much earlier than we might expect. For example, my associates and I studied the arteries of 600 patients who had died from various diseases. Approximately 100 of them had met sudden death from accidents or acute illness. To our amazement we found that atherosclerosis, a disease of the arteries, was present in many of the young people before they had reached their thirtieth birthday. By the time they were near the mid-century mark, the fatty deposits and embedded crystals of cholesterol were already in the artery walls. Such thickening and narrowing of the blood vessels obstructed the nourishment and blood flow to the tissues in the heart, brain, or kidney. Similar evidence from autopsies also came from Korea, where Army doctors autopsied 300 American soldiers who had died while serving there. It was the first time such a study had been made of a cross section of the country’s youth; their average age was only 22. A report of the autopsies revealed shocking information: 77% of the young U.S. servicemen already had atherosclerosis! Furthermore, this data was weighed against the mere 11 incidence of the same disease among Koreans and Orientals who had lived and fought in the same environment under the same conditions. Does heredity have anything to do with the problem? Some people have more cholesterol in their blood than others. There is not enough evidence regarding this topic to conclude an answer, but there is information known of some important factors, such as heredity. Some families are affected by what physicians call hereditary familial hyper-excessive cholesteremia. Developing high cholesterol in common in these families and it is evident throughout the generations.
In such a family the tendency to high levels of cholesterol in the blood is passed on for several generations. Among members of such families we usually find a large number of individuals who suffer heart attack and strokes. If no heart attacks or strokes have occurred in your own family line, you have at least one protective factor in your favor from the beginning. The second factor is one that is pretty much up to you. It concerns what you eat and how much you eat. Unfortunately, it is too late for us to choose our parents. But it is not too late to choose our diet. By learning how to avoid food excessive in fat and cholesterol content, we can help minimize the effect of heredity.
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