Crash diets can truly wreck your heart

Q: My friend went on an ultra-low-calorie diet and lost about 100 pounds pretty quickly. Then he gained it all back. So he tried the diet again on his own and had a heart attack. What went wrong? — Anthony W., Aurora, Ohio

A: He could have had heart disease or diabetes. But crash diets are dangerous because of the extreme changes they can trigger.

A recent study from the Oxford Centre for Magnetic Resonance used MRI imaging to discover what happens in an obese person who goes on a crash diet of 600 to 800 daily calories. As the body starts to release its excess stores of fat into the blood, the amount of fat in the heart increases by 44 percent ; in as little as one week, cardiac function deteriorates.

By week eight of the diet, cardiac function starts to improve, but if someone has heart problems, that immediate fat buildup could be fatal. You need a doc’s guidance and maybe an 81-mg aspirin morning and night to decrease inflammation and clotting.

If you have 100 pounds to lose, give yourself two or more years to lose it. Then you can protect your heart and keep off the weight you lose for the long run.

Q: I’d like to cook more fish, but my husband hates that fishy smell. Any ideas? — Kaitlyn S., St. Louis

A: There are a couple of things you can do besides serving sushi. You can start by serving smoked fish like Gravlaks or Nova lox that you don’t cook. They still offer all the health benefits of fish, such as omega-3s.

There also are techniques that can nip the fish smell in the bud and remove the smell from the house.

Before cooking, soak the fish in lemon water for about an hour. Remove the fish and dry well before cooking. Lemon neutralizes a chemical called trimethylamine, which is responsible for that fishy smell.

If you don’t have time for soaking the fish, add aromatic seasonings like crushed garlic and fresh thyme to the pan as the fish cooks. And remember, when cooking any fish, saute in EVOO at a low to medium heat. High-temp cooking will burn off the fish’s oils, and that’ll fill the house with a fishy smell!

If you’ve stunk things up, bring a shallow pot of water to a boil, add a dash of vinegar, vanilla extract and crushed cinnamon sticks. Or spread some vanilla extract on a baking sheet, set the oven at 200, slide it in and leave the door open a crack. Your house will smell like cookie dough.

Email questions for Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen to youdocsdaily@sharecare. com.