Heart Benefit from Soy and Prebiotic Combo

HEALTH NEWS

Canadian researchers say that combining prebiotics and soy protein may lower cholesterol levels and boost heart health. 

Consumption of a soy-food-based diet, providing soy protein and isoflavones in combination with 10 g per day of oligofructose-enriched inulin, led to significant reductions in levels of LDL cholesterol, according to results of a small randomized controlled crossover study published in Metabolism Clinical and Experimental. 

The LDL reductions were only observed when soy and prebiotics were co-ingested, an observation that suggests "the provision of fermentable substrates may be one means to increase the effectiveness of soy foods as part of a dietary strategy for cardiovascular disease risk reduction," wrote the researchers led by David Jenkins from the University of Toronto. 

The association between soy protein and blood lipid levels led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a cardiovascular disease reduction claim for soybean protein in 1999. 

Twenty-three people with an average age of 58 and average blood LDL levels of 4.18 millimoles per liter were recruited and randomly assigned to one of three groups: One group received a soy-food-containing diet, providing 30 g per day of soy protein and 61 mg per day of isoflavones, plus maltodextrin (placebo); the second group received the soy food diet, plus prebiotic; the final group received a low-fat dairy diet, plus the prebiotic. Two weeks separated each dietary intervention and 23 people completed all three phases.

The results showed that the joint consumption of soy and prebiotic produced greater reductions in LDL cholesterol of around 0.18 mmol/L and improved the ratio of LDL cholesterol to HDL cholesterol, compared with only the prebiotic phase.

HDL cholesterol levels were also significantly increased following the soy plus prebiotic diet, compared with only the prebiotic. 

"These data support the lipid-lowering basis for the current FDA health claim for soy foods. They demonstrate how a non-significant (about three percent) LDL cholesterol reduction seen when soy was consumed alone can be converted to a significant (about five percent) LDL cholesterol reduction when soy was taken with a prebiotic," wrote the researchers.

"We believe the present study therefore supports the value of soy as one of the few cholesterol-lowering foods, in the five percent reduction range, especially when given with fermentable substrates such as would be naturally present in diets that also contained viscous fibers to lower serum cholesterol," they added.

Source: Metabolism Clinical and Experimental

What Causes Heart Disease? Part 2

What Causes Heart Disease? 

If cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, what are the causes? Many factors may contribute to cardiovascular disease. A properly performed hair mineral analysis can help identify a number of them. Here are some of the major factors suspected in cardiovascular disease. 

•  Klevay showed that copper deficiency is associated with atherosclerosis. Copper is required for connective tissue synthesis.
• Zinc deficiency reduces the flexibility of the arteries and causes hardening. It may also cause inflammation of the arterial walls.
• Magnesium and taurine deficiencies may contribute to high blood pressure and other heart problems. 
• Cadmium toxicity is associated with hardening of the arteries. 
•  Elevated homocysteine levels are a factor in heart disease. Homocysteine is an amino acid. Its level can be reduced by increasing the intake of vitamin B6 and folic acid. 
• According to Rath and Pauling’’s unified theory of heart disease, the causes are deficiencies of vitamin C and lysine. These are required for collagen synthesis. This theory asserts that high levels of lipoprotein-A, part of LDL cholesterol, is responsible for arterial damage.
• Other vitamins and minerals are involved. Chromium supplements, for instance, have been shown to lower cholesterol levels. Chromium, manganese and B-complex vitamins may reduce stress by enhancing carbohydrate metabolism. 
• Low thyroid activity is associated with heart disease. Hypothyroidism may have numerous causes, including nutritional deficiencies and toxic metal poisoning. 
• Inflammation and infections are now known to be important in cardiovascular disease. These can include seemingly unrelated infections such as dental infections. These can spread toxins that affect every organ. 
• High blood pressure from any cause is a factor. 
• Smoking, diabetes, obesity, coffee-drinking and a sedentary lifestyle are risk factors. 
• Oxidant damage from vegetable oils and other oxidant exposure contributes to vascular disease. This factor may explain why populations that consume more animal fats often have less heart disease. 
• Artificially-hydrogenated fats found in margarine, dressings, fried foods and elsewhere may contribute. 
• Chlorinated and fluoridated drinking water, and residues of ionic detergents may be an important factor. 
• Drinking homogenized milk may be harmful for the arteries.   
• Adelle Davis in Let’s Get Well noted that "animals and human volunteers that are fed sugar instead of unrefined carbohydrates develop high cholesterol levels". 
• Familial and genetic tendencies, and emotions such as hostility appear related to heart disease.  

Why Does Cholesterol Rise? 

Modern nutritional science reveals several important facts about cholesterol:

• High cholesterol can be a symptom of an imbalanced body chemistry. One can observe high cholesterol levels in vegetarians who consume no cholesterol at all.
•  Stress can increase cholesterol. Cholesterol is needed to make stress-fighting hormones such as cortisone and cortisol. A body under excessive stress (from internal or external sources) may produce extra cholesterol to increase the anti-stress hormones.
•  Cholesterol plaques may protect weak arteries to prevent breakage. 
• Cholesterol may in fact protect the body against free radical or oxidant damage. This theory was first advanced by Dr. Elmer Cranton in the book, Bypassing Bypass. This may be why high HDL which is non-oxidized cholesterol is positive, while LDL, which is oxidized cholesterol, is more of a risk for heart disease. In coping with oxidant stress, the HDL is oxidized, or converted to LDL. 
• Some people seem to have a familial tendency for elevated cholesterol.
• Excessive consumption of sugar can contribute to high serum lipid levels. 
• Fingerstick cholesterol tests are among the least accurate medical tests. Always have such tests repeated. 
•  HDL and LDL levels are as important or more important than total cholesterol. A simple cholesterol reading is not too revealing.
  

What About Dietary Fat? 

There are many points to be considered. For example, the egg was indicted as a major cause of elevated cholesterol based on studies in the 1940s and 1950s. However, it turned out that in those studies powdered eggs were used.(10) These processed eggs contain oxidized cholesterol, the type known to cause problems. However, when the studies were repeated with fresh eggs, they did not raise cholesterol significantly.(11) However, many physicians and health authorities still quote the old studies. 

Also on the subject of eggs, it has been found that eggs from chickens that are allowed to run free, so-called cage-free eggs, have less cholesterol. This means the way our food is produced influences its nutritional content. 

There are many different types of fats. Studies have shown that a diet high in fish, which contain anti-inflammatory fats, can reduce heart disease.(12) 

In nutritional research, there are different body types. Some handle fats much better than others. Those whom Dr. Paul C. Eck called fast oxidizers require some fats and oils to help normalize body chemistry. Slow oxidizers, by contrast, do poorly on fats. This fact alone means that studies that look at the effects of fats on large groups are flawed unless they take into account different body chemistries. 

This can help account for divergent results of studies, some of which show no ill effect of fats, while others show that saturated fats, for example, are not healthy. Thus, the idea of metabolic types can be most helpful to assess the effects of fats on any particular person. Let us explore this is more detail.

References:

10. Cook, R.P., Cholesterol: Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Pathology, Academic Press, NY, 1958.
11. Passwater, R., Super Nutrition for Healthy Hearts, Deal Press, NY 1977. See also Flynn, M.A. et al, Effects of Dietary Egg on Human Cholesterol and Triglycerides, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 32 (May 1979) pp. 1051-1057.

12. Wright, J., M.D., Dr. Wright’s Book of Nutritional Therapy, Rodale Press, Emmaus, Pa. 1979.

What Causes Heart Disease? Part 1

Over the years, the debate on the role of cholesterol in the development of atherosclerosis and heart disease continues. When it was first proposed that high cholesterol increases heart attack risk, the medical establishment ridiculed the idea. However, decades of disputes changed the stance of the medical establishment, now the concept that high cholesterol causes heart attack has become a scientific consensus.
But many of today’s complementary medicine practitioners, who would have been early proponents of low-saturated fat diets, now question the association between cholesterol and vascular disease. This has become what is known as the "cholesterol controversy." The fact that confusion still exists over this straightforward medical principle helps explain why atherosclerotic disease remains today’s leading preventable killer.

While browsing through available scientific literatures and reviews on the topic, I came across an article by Dr. Larry Wilson, MD detailing important aspects in our understanding of the role of cholesterol in heart disease. The following is an exerpt of the article entitled "The Cholesterol Controversy" which I will present here in a three-part series.
_________________________________________________

Medical authorities continue to recommend drugs and low-fat diets to reduce cholesterol. However, there is much more to the cholesterol story.

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is an essential body chemical, mostly synthesized in the liver. It is the precursor or raw material used to make the vital pituitary, adrenal and sex hormones. Cholesterol is also required to form vitamin D and bile acids. The liver makes about 2 grams of cholesterol daily, regardless of diet. Under stress, the body makes more cholesterol in order to make more adrenal or stress hormones.

Cholesterol is a mixture of compounds. These include high density lipoproteins or HDL, and low density lipoproteins or LDL. The latter contain lipoprotein-A, thought by some authorities to be important in the genesis of heart disease.

HDL, which is unoxidized cholesterol, is sometimes called ‘‘good cholesterol’’, while LDL, the oxidized form, is often termed ‘‘bad cholesterol’’. Blood laboratories often measure the ratio between the HDL and total cholesterol. 

Does Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease? 

The cholesterol theory of heart disease asserts that: 1) The risk of cardiovascular disease correlates with the serum level of cholesterol; and 2) Eating cholesterol-containing foods raises your cholesterol level. Let us explore this theory and alternative hypotheses in more detail.

About 100 years ago scientists noted that fatty deposits in the arteries often contain cholesterol. Of course, it was not known whether cholesterol deposits were the cause or the result of heart disease. Studies were done, including the large Framingham study, that found a definite correlation between high serum cholesterol levels and the risk of heart disease.

However, the picture is not as clear as it seems. The Framingham study found that LDL or oxidized cholesterol was more predictive of heart disease than total cholesterol. Also, the study could not correlate eating foods containing cholesterol and an increase in the blood cholesterol.

Furthermore, many studies from around the world do not support the simplistic idea that eating more cholesterol or saturated fat increases the risk of heart disease. In an interesting book, The Milk Of Human Kindness Is Not Pasteurized,(1) William C. Douglass, MD cites the following:

• The famous heart surgeon Michael Debakey analyzed 1700 patients with hardening of the arteries and found no correlation between blood cholesterol levels and the degree of atherosclerosis.(2)
• The New England Journal of Medicine reported that a group of Guinea natives whose diet is normally low in cholesterol were fed eggs to see how much the eggs would influence their cholesterol. There was no significant effect on cholesterol levels.(3)
• A study done by the American Cancer Society revealed that non-egg users has a higher death rate from heart attacks and strokes than egg users. This was a large and therefore convincing study involving over 800,000 people.(4)
• Eskimos living on a diet of mostly meat and fat, have low cholesterol levels (about 130mg) provided they stay on their native diet.
• The Masai tribe of Africa drink about 7 quarts of milk per day containing 60% saturated fat. Yet the average adult cholesterol level is 122.(5)
• The American Academy of Pediatrics is warning against the latest call for low cholesterol foods for children, since it is known that cholesterol is vital for children's growth

Many other studies show no significant effect on blood cholesterol from eating eggs or other cholesterol-containing foods. Several are reported in The New Vegetarian, by Gary and Steve Null. A study in France found that although butter consumption is much higher in Western than in Eastern France, the mortality from heart disease in Western France is almost half that of Eastern France.(6)

Before Western eating habits were introduced into the Eskimo population, they lived almost exclusively on animal meat and fat. Yet the incidence of heart disease was very low and cholesterol levels were below 200 mg.(7) Similar results were found in studies in the Soviet Union, India, and elsewhere.(8)(9)

The cholesterol theory of heart disease is very simplistic. It is like saying that duct tape wrapped around a damaged water hose is the cause of the hose damage. More likely, the tape - and the cholesterol - are the result of the damage, not the cause. In fact, two scientists, Brown and Goldstein, won a Nobel Prize in 1985 for their research into this theory. Cholesterol plaques are often there to protect a damaged artery. After all, a clogged artery is far preferable to a ruptured one. Elevated cholesterol is associated with heart disease, but may not be its cause.

References: 

1. Douglass, W.C., The Milk of Human Kindness is not Pasteurized, Copple House Books, Lakemont, Ga., 1985.

2. JAMA 189:655-59 (1964).

3. New England Journal of Medicine, 98:317 (1978).

4. Abrams, Journal Applied Nutrition, Vol. 32, #2, pp. 53-87.

5. Cardiovascular Disease of the Masai, Mann et. al.

6. Maclennan, R. and Meyer, F., Food and Mortality in France, The Lancet, 2 (1977): p. 133.

7. Ho, K.J. et al, Alaska Arctic Eskimo: Responses to a Customary High Fat Diet, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 25:1972, pp. 737-745.

8. Malhotra, S., Graphic Aspects of Acute Myocardial Infarction in India with Special Reference to Patterns of Diet and Eating:, British Heart Journal, 29:1967, pp. 337-344.

9. Prior, I.A. et al., Cholesterol, Coconuts, and Diet on Polynesian Atolls: A Natural Experiment, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 25:1972, pp. 737-745.