One fatty meal and our arteries
Another way in which the “single” high-fat splurge meal can do harm is in its effect on our arteries. The phenomenon of postprandial angina was recognized more than 200 years ago when doctors described patients having chest pain some time after a meal, even when the patient was just sitting resting.
In 1955, researchers found that they could induce angina in people with heart disease just by having them drink fat.
The attacks of angina were found to occur four and a half to five hours after the fatty meal, which coincided with when the patient’s blood was most milky-looking with fat. After non-fat meals with the same bulk and calories, no angina was elicited in any of the patients.
In order to understand how fat in the blood can affect blood flow to the heart, we need to understand the endothelium or inner lining of our blood vessels.
The arteries are not just rigid hose pipes carrying blood around. They are responsive organs that dilate or constrict, thinning and thickening blood and releasing hormones, depending on what the body needs at the time. The endothelium controls all of this.
Researchers have showed that low-fat meals improve endothelial function and highfat meals worsen this. This is not just true for animal fats, but also for isolated plant fats such as sunflower oil.
Hours after a high-fat meal, the arteries stiffen, thus severely affecting their ability to relax and dilate normally, which probably explains the occurrence of after-meal angina in patients with known heart disease.
Dr. Dean Ornish showed in some groundbreaking studies that patients with proven narrowing of their coronary arteries actually had reversal of their coronary artery disease after following a strict low-fat, plant-based diet. In his earliest studies, as little as 10 days of a fully supervised, low-fat, plant-based diet resulted in some measurable opening up of the narrowing of the coronary arteries. These results were documented by doing angiograms before and after the lifestyle intervention.
His world-famous Ornish Reversal Program is a nine-week intensive course with physicians, nutritionists, psychologists, stress management experts and exercise physiologists. One year after the program more than 90 per cent of attendees are still following the plan. In comparison, only 30 to 50 per cent of people who are started on cholesterol drugs remain on them at the six-month mark.
One of the reasons for the success of lifestyle interventions is that the participants feel so well with their new way of life, and start to truly experience the joy of living. Many people on cholesterol drugs take them just because they fear dying. They are usually not making any lifestyle changes and rely on the drugs to do all of the work.
They often never feel truly well on the drugs, and frequently have unwanted side effects, the most common one being aching muscles which further deters them from taking any healthy exercise.
Next week: Clearing away the clutter before the New Year
Dr. Wendy Ross is the lead physician at the Penticton cancer clinic and The Herald’s health columnist.Email: drwendyross@gmail.com, and on the Web: drwendyross.com. This column appears Tuesdays .