One of the greatest factors influential in the current epidemic of heart attacks has unquestionably been the startling increase in fat intake. In the United States alone, the fat content of our diet has just about doubled in recent times. Where fat formerly constituted some 15 to 20 percent of our meals 50 years ago, it now has jumped to 30 and 40 per cent or more.
Fat may be your “poison”. Many individuals have now developed an intolerance to fat. Some of my patients can’t seem to handle any fat at all. As an example, one plump 40-year old mother of three develops severe gas and bloating after eggs or any other fatty food. Mrs. R. is often embarrassed to dine out for fear of overflowing right out of her girdle if friends supply her with a fatty food at their homes. At other times she has been embarrassed by solicitous friends who have delightedly congratulated her upon her “unexpected” and “surprise” pregnancy after eating some fat food!
Other patients of mine develop actual attacks of gallstone colic following a meal containing fat. Some 20 years ago, I studied the causes and effects of gallstones in humans by passing rubber tubes through the mouth and down into the digestive tract and then draining off the bile or gall manufactured by the liver and stored in the gall bladder. At that time I examined and found the cholesterol and fat content of the bile abnormally high in most patients who suffered from gallstones, liver, and gall bladder diseases. A fat-free diet was able to eventually reduce and restore the bile to its normal cholesterol and fat content, not to mention the well established fact that most patients felt vastly improved and often free of pain or distress.
One particularly interesting case was a 46-year old automobile dealer, Mr. C, who previously had disabling and terrifying attacks of pain on his heart. (We call this angina pectoris.) The pains began only after he had eaten breakfast and was getting ready to leave for work. His breakfast was quite filling, as it contained bacon and two scrambled eggs, fruit juice, some delicious coffee cake with two pats of butter, plus two cups of coffee containing generous portions of cream. He was a large, built ex-athlete and required a great deal of energy in his line of work. When Mr. C. changed his breakfast and other meals to a low-fat diet, his anginal pain ceased nearly immediately. It is evident he was one of the many individuals whose circulation did not deal well with fats.
This was again just recently shown in most convincing and dramatic ways by Doctors Peter Kuo and H. Joyner of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and Medical School. These investigators studied the effects of fat meals in a series of heart cases and others afflicted with atherosclerosis over a several year period. One group of their patients suffered severe heart attacks every time a fat meal was administered to them. Studies of the heart and the blood were made during actual heart attacks by Electrocardiographs and other scientific equipment. It was found that when the blood stream contained its maximum load of fat content, the heart attacks were most severe and threatened the very life of the patients. Such striking studies and findings were also the experience of other research physicians.
How much fat are you stowing away? Look at some sample diets of the average American and then take a look at your own. Observe how much fat the average American diet has and how much is in yours. The total calorie content of a typical American daily diet is about 2800 calories, of which almost 50 percent is fat. A low-fat diet provides approximately 1800 calories (1000 calories less), which is the normal healthy amount for the average adult housewife or light worker. Here the fat content is about 15 percent of the total dietary calorie content and is the amount found in the diets of millions of non-Americans who are virtually free of atherosclerosis or heart attacks and strokes. What a clear-cut and simple choice is given us for better health and longer life!
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