Heart Surgeon Admits Huge Systemic Mistake!
For many years I’ve been following the work of several pioneering Doctors in the US and here in the UK who are concerned that the approach we’ve taken to heart disease is not only ineffective but actually causes more problems. Well here is another medical doctor who has gone on record to say that the system is broken. More importantly he’s quit his medical practice to focus on nutritional efforts.
Our medical care system is ‘broken’ mainly because it focuses on the problem (i.e. the ‘war’ on cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.), and war is quite profitable but it acts as a parasite that is feeding on its ‘host’ (that would be the population at large in this example). For any ‘healthcare’ system to work we must focus on ‘health’ which by nature will ‘starve’ the parasite. Unfortunately that ‘parasite’ has money, power, lobbyists and the government that is all too susceptible to those influences in order to be re-elected.
Real change must happen from the grass roots and move up and it begins with people knowing the truth. Politicians rarely ‘see the light’ until they ‘feel the heat’ and an educated public is needed to ‘bring the heat’.
Heart Surgeon Admits Huge Mistake!
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.
Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.
What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.
The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. Let me repeat that. The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet that has been recommended for years by mainstream medicine.
What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.
In Part 2 of this two-part article, I’ll discuss which foods cause inflammation, how those foods trigger the inflammatory process, and the foods to eat that will cure inflammation.
[Ed. Note: 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 the author of The Cure For Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.
Tags: Blood Cholesterol, Cardiovascular Health, Cholesterol, Chronic Inflammation, Dietary Advice, Doctor Who, Economic Power, Education Seminars, Ego, Grass Roots, Healthcare System, Heart Disease, Heart Surgeon, Heart Surgeries, Legislative Branch Of The Government, Lobbyists, Lower Cholesterol, Lundell, Marcia Smith, Medical Care System, Medical Doctor, Medical Practice, Medications, Money Power, Open Heart, Parasite, Politicians, Simple Fact, Speaking The Truth, Statin Drugs
