World Renown Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease
by Doctor Dwight Lundell, M.D.
We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries,today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.
I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.
The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.
It Is Not Working!
These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.
The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.
Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.
Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.
Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.
For the rest of the article:
http://preventdisease.com/news/12/030112_World-Renown-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Ou...
Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.
My Comments:
How spot on that article is! What causes arterial plaque is inflammation in the artery walls. Cholesterol attaches itself to injured and inflamed areas of the arteries as part of the body's natural repair system. Without inflammation, there would be no arterial plaque.
Statin drugs are designed to lower cholesterol by suppressing a liver enzyme which helps the body produce cholesterol with the theory being that lower cholesterol will result in less plaque. However, cholesterol is needed by the body (as is the vital Co-enzyme Q1o which statins also suppress).
As I have found, and am in the process of writing a new article expose about, statin drug benefits - such as they are - likely come not from reducing cholesterol but rather from reducing inflammation - and mainstream medical science has known about this for years. Of course, the catch is that there are several natural and much safer ways to effectively lower inflammation - such as curcumin, members of the ginger family, omega 3s, etc. But you can't patent nature and thus the whole cholesterol myth has been created and perpetuated largely to sell statins and other drugs.
Likewise, there are safe and natural ways to eliminate and prevent arterial plaque as well as natural ways to lower cholesterol should one so desire.
Stay tuned for my article expose'. In the meanwhile, you might wish to take a look at:
"A brief discussion of the high cholesterol myth and the dangers of statin drug"
"The Truth about Lowering Cholesterol"
"Naturally Prevent and Remove Dangerous Arterial Plaque"
"The truth about blood pressure and the dangers of blood pressure medicines"
"Healing and Preventing Heart Disease with Nutrition"
"High Cholesterol"