Cholesterol - the Number One Killer - 023

SPEAKER A The following program presents principles designed to promote good health and is not intended to take the place of personalized, professional care. The opinions and ideas expressed are those of the speakers. Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions about the information presented. SPEAKER B Welcome to healthy living. I'm your host, Margot Marshall. Globally, more people die annually from cardiovascular diseases than any other cause. But most cardiovascular diseases can be prevented and even reversed by addressing behavioral risk factors. Stay tuned. SPEAKER C Healthy Living is a 13 part production of 3ABN Australia television focusing on the health of the whole person, body, mind and spirit. You'll learn natural lifestyle principles with practical health solutions for overall good health. SPEAKER B We tend to associate heart disease with old people. Could it be that young people have a false sense of security? Let's ask today's guest, Dr. Eddie Ramirez. How young do people need to be to experience heart disease? SPEAKER D They can actually start all the way down from being infants. SPEAKER B Oh my goodness, that's young. SPEAKER D As we have changed things the way they usually are supposed to work, we're starting to see actually heart disease from baby size. SPEAKER B True. SPEAKER D And many times due to the introduction of formula and so forth, instead of the breast milk. And there is small little injuries that start to happen in the arteries of those babies. But more worrisome is as we move to the beginning of adulthood, once we finish adolescence. There are many studies that have documented that some of those young people at that young age already have advanced heart disease. SPEAKER B Advanced? That's right, advanced heart disease. At what age are we talking about? SPEAKER D For example, let's see on screen a published study that came out a few years ago. You can see in the top part, it's a 19 year old person. He has atherosclerosis. You can see where the arrows are on the top row, that is plaque in the arteries of his heart. Already at 19 years old. SPEAKER B That's very young to be. SPEAKER D That is very young. And you may say, well, I saw the graphic and it is just a little bit big deal. Big deal? Yes, it is big deal. See, if you study how fluids flow, you will understand that when you decrease the diameter just a little bit, you're actually decreasing flow quite a bit. The equation goes that the radius elevated to the fourth power. So in other words, a 10% decrease in the diameter of the artery does not decrease blood flow by 10%, but by much more. So it is big deal. And then if you can see in the graphic again, the lady on the bottom, 33 years old, if you can see that whitish material, this lady has about half of her artery of her heart clogged already with atherosclerosis, at just 33 years. Just 33 years old. Now, this is the fascinating thing. If you were to talk to this lady and you ask her for the common symptoms of heart disease. When you go up a flight of stairs, do you feel that you need more air than what you're having? Do you get pains that run through your neck, through your arm and so forth? She does not have any of those symptoms yet. She has an extremely advanced heart disease case. And this is the sad thing about this. Many times this is happening silently. And that's why people may not be aware that they need to make changes until disaster comes. The heart attack, the stroke and so forth presents. SPEAKER B How do arteries actually get clogged? SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B How does this happen? SPEAKER D That is actually a very good question. There is many processes that are involved in this and you have many key players. One of them is the factor of inflammation. We don't have time to talk about it in this program. But many times exposure to things from stress, too much stress happening to the wrong types of foods, this can lead into that. And the interesting thing is that these cases that I was presenting to you, that is not something that happens once in a while. This tends to be happening often in a second study that we can actually see on screen. We can see how in this study in which young people died of a violent death, they did an autopsy. 78% had heart disease in an advanced type of stage. So I mean, this is a lot of people. This is from 178 of those young people. SPEAKER B Wow, that's dreadful. I mean, you're talking advanced, advanced heart. SPEAKER D Disease at that age and this is dangerous. See, just the last patient I saw coming to the hospital with a heart attack, within 15 minutes he was dead. That's how dangerous this is. SPEAKER B Yes, because you were saying it's really symptomless. People are not getting often not getting any signs or indications that this is creeping and creeping and creeping up. And also being so young, they're not expecting to get what we always considered diseases of old age, are they? SPEAKER D That's right. Because that's exactly the term that is very correct. In the old days, this was called a disease of the old age. You would see it in 70, 80. Now you're starting to see in people as young as 50, even in their 40s, some people are actually having their first heart attack and coming a little bit back to your question on the origin of the problem. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER D We need to understand a very important part of our blood vessels. The innermost layer of your blood vessels is called the endothelium. And this plays an essential part in the health of not only your heart, your brain, but your whole body. Think about it this way. Every cell in your body has some basic requirements. You need to have good nutrition, you need to have good supply of oxygen. And as these cells are working, they generate waste products. And those waste products need to be removed. How does this process happen? A key player in this is the endothelium. As the oxygen, as the nutrients are circulating in the blood vessels, they need to pass through the endothelium, then they're able to reach the cells and the organs and so forth, where they are needed. Then the waste products needs to come out, come back all the way, cross the endothelium, reach the blood, then they go out and the blood gets rid of them. SPEAKER B So that endothelium, that must be word you're talking, that's just the actual lining of the blood vessel. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Very thin. SPEAKER D It's a very delicate area. So think about it this way. Imagine that you are blocking that lining just a little bit. It is a big deal. That means that those nutrients, that oxygen and those waste products are not able to have that interchange correctly. And, you know, there's some very fascinating studies, for example, that show that many back pains have their origin. SPEAKER B There really? SPEAKER D See in your back you have very thin blood vessels, and sometimes those blood vessels get damaged with the atherosclerosis. So as those blood vessels get damaged. SPEAKER B And atherosclerosis is that buildup? SPEAKER D That's right. That buildup of that plaque that forms. SPEAKER B In the arteries that's building up. And we've got those blood vessels in the back, in the bony part. SPEAKER D So as the back bones and cartilage and so forth cannot get a good supply of oxygen, as they cannot get rid of the waste products, then what happens in the cartilage? You start getting a cartilage that starts to grow in strange forms and there's peaks and things that form. There a similar process, you find it in the knees, similar process, you find it in the hip. And osteoarthritis is something very common, unfortunately, in Australia. Many times you can trace this to issues in the lifestyle that could have prevented this. SPEAKER B That makes a lot of sense, really, doesn't it, when you think about it. I love the way you've explained that, Eddie. It's very simple. I've got a picture in my mind now of this very thin, very it's about one cell thick, isn't it? SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B But when that's blocking and there's no passage of, as you say, the nutrients and all of that, and then these things are trying to get across, it causes irregularities. Makes a whole lot of sense, doesn't it? Absolutely. Said, well, that could cause back pain, I'm thinking, how does that work? But you've explained that really well, so this is not good, is it? SPEAKER D Yes. So this is a process that didn't happen overnight. No, these are one after another, after another, issues in the lifestyle that create the environment for this to happen. See the blood vessel, when you see it in a microscopic way, you will see that it has lots of immune cells just watching says when you're driving here in Australia, I see that very often. There's this police there with the little camera there trying to make sure everybody is behaving and everything is under control. In the same way, you have immune cells line up there throughout the blood vessels. They're just watching, making sure everything is fine. But see, the problem comes when the person eats oxidized cholesterol. SPEAKER B Oxidized cholesterol, that's right. SPEAKER D So let's define oxidized cholesterol. See what happens. You leave your bicycle outside in the rain and the sun and everything, it's going to get oxidized. Rusty things that are exposed to the environment, they tend to oxidize. So in the same way, cholesterol, when you expose it to the environment, it oxidizes and it changes its form and becomes extremely toxic to the body. That's why when you eat this oxidized cholesterol, you eat it through your mouth, goes through your stomach, goes to your intestine, gets absorbed in the blood and is circulating around while it's being processed. So when those cells of the immune system see that there is some cholesterol running around, they go and eat it to stop it from causing harm, sort. SPEAKER B Of, well, protecting you. SPEAKER D Exactly. They're self sacrificing, because once they eat it, it is so toxic, they cannot do anything but stay there. The cell dies and the cholesterol stays there. Now, if you were to do this once a year, I mean, nothing is going to happen to you. But, you know, day after day, week after week, oxidized cholesterol, oxidized cholesterol, you are creating a huge problem. And let me tell you an interesting fact. Mothers, when you compare the milk of a human to the milk of a cow, which one you think has more cholesterol? SPEAKER B Well, they would both have cholesterol. SPEAKER D Yes, both has cholesterol. SPEAKER B But you were saying which one would. SPEAKER D Have more more cholesterol? SPEAKER B I don't know. SPEAKER D Actually, the mother's milk actually has more cholesterol. SPEAKER B More cholesterol than that's. Right. SPEAKER D But, you know, mother's milk is not harmful to the arteries of the baby. Why is that? Because that milk does not get exposed to the environment. The mother's milk comes out of her breast and straight to the mouth of the baby. No chance for oxidation. So very good and very healthy, that milk. So that's the hint. You want to drink milk that is not oxidized, go and find a cow and hang yourself. Of course, for issues of hygiene, recommend that, but that will be the way. But see, in the old days, when you would milk, you would get the milk and you would leave that milk laying around. What would happen to the milk? SPEAKER B Well, it would probably go off. SPEAKER D It would separate. SPEAKER B Oh, separate. SPEAKER D Yes. You don't see that today, and I'll tell you why. SPEAKER B So the cream. SPEAKER D That's right, the cream and the serum gets separated. Now, the reason why, when you go to the market to buy cow's milk, the reason why it's not separated is because today we run a special process on milk in which we put high pressure on a very small hole and milk gets mixed like that and in that way it doesn't separate. But think about what we're doing. We are putting that milk and we're making small droplets of milk and every single one of those droplets is being exposed to the air, basically oxidizing that milk. So that milk has high levels of oxygen cholesterol. And then you add sugar to that mix and you even oxidize even further that cholesterol. SPEAKER B Oh my goodness. So the bottom line is we're talking about mother's milk having more cholesterol than cow's milk. But you're saying that mother's milk doesn't create any difficulties because it's not oxidized. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B But the animal, the cow's milk does. SPEAKER D Exactly. So it's beneficial, it's good for you and so forth. So an indirect indicator, there's many indicators that things are well or not well would be the cholesterol levels. We have found out that there is C reactive protein and many other very important key players. But still, cholesterol does play a very important role in the development of atherosclerosis. We can predict if you have high levels of cholesterol and high levels of LDL cholesterol, you are in big risk of developing this atherosclerosis in your arteries. SPEAKER B Now, milk is not the only place where we're going to get cholesterol or even oxidized cholesterol. So where else might that as a. SPEAKER D General rule, let's try to learn this. Any animal product has cholesterol. Cholesterol is only found in animal products. So we're talking about the eggs, the cheese, the meat, the chicken and so forth. Now, the good news about the levels of cholesterol. I actually have had the privilege of publishing in the scientific literature about this topic. We can see in screen a study I presented in a very important meeting, the American Heart Association. These were actually my personal patients. And I was demonstrating here that in a community, even I'm not living with them or anything. I just took a blood sample, and then I started doing some education, started opening their eyes where the cholesterol comes from, how to substitute foods, how to start doing some exercise, and how to drink more water, how to rest more properly. And in two weeks I took blood samples again and the study here demonstrated that even the bad cholesterol, the LDL cholesterol, quickly starts coming down in a matter of two weeks. SPEAKER B That's incredible. Just a couple of weeks? SPEAKER D Just a couple of weeks. SPEAKER B And to what extent roughly was that reduction? SPEAKER D That's right. The reduction was very interesting. It was related to what level of cholesterol they had. The higher the level of cholesterol, the more that it decreased. Isn't that fabulous? SPEAKER B It is actually, because it would be a problem if you had normal cholesterol and it decreased. You wouldn't want that. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Isn't it interesting how the body just seems to have its own little gauge and regulations? SPEAKER D In fact, here in Australia, I actually have friends that are involved in research and they run a program called Chip. If you want to lower your cholesterol in a physiological, natural, without suffering type of way, find a Chip program in your area and participate on it. SPEAKER B That's Chip. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B Not talking about the deep fried ones. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B That stands for Complete Health Improvement Program. SPEAKER D Correct. That's right. SPEAKER B And I've run many of those and I've seen what you're talking about. SPEAKER D Congratulations. You are doing a blessing to the communities here in Australia. SPEAKER B They're just incredible. But look what we find. People being told usually if they've got trying to avoid heart disease or they've got high cholesterol and so on, is told we'll eat white meat and low fat dairy products. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B What do you have to say about that? SPEAKER D That is an excellent way of ending up with a heart attack. There was a fabulous published study that came that's not what I expected a few years ago, in which we compare the classic console as you're telling me, the white meats, the low fat dairy, and they were very carefully monitoring people that they were just to eat that. They compared that against a full plant based vegetarian diet. And you know what happened? Those people that were following the White Meat Council, those people started developing atherosclerosis. How many of them, 80% of them, started having progression of their atherosclerosis. SPEAKER B It got worse. SPEAKER D It got worse. And I see this in medical consultation. Some patients somehow getting the Internet or somebody else tells them about it, and they're eating all this chicken and so forth, and they tell me, Doctor, I'm so tired of eating chicken that I'm even getting some feathers out and why my cholesterol is not coming down. I tell them, Well, I have bad news for you. Your cholesterol is not going to go down with that diet. While the people that were doing the full plant based diet, also known as a vegan diet, actually their cholesterol started coming down. And when they run imaging studies to see what was the status of the atherosclerosis, atherosclerosis was decreasing in their body. How much? 85% of them atherosclerosis started reversing. And, you know, I have 23 years that I have worked in lifestyle centers in Norway, in Africa, in America, and many other places in this world. And I have seen this personally. It's not that I read about it or somebody told me my own eyes have seen this. So what we need to do, we need to analyze populations that are doing good and try to learn from them. SPEAKER B Yes. SPEAKER D For example, I have a picture that I personally took from Africa, and these people in Tanzania invited us to eat. And you can see there, there's a pot of beans, there is some sort of chapati tortilla type of thing. There's a sauce, there is fruits, and there's some avocado. That was their meal. See, people down there follow a plant based diet because there are no stores to buy products. You have to plant your meals if you want to eat. Now, people down there, that's what they eat usually every single day. Many of them are not healthy oriented or whatever, but that's what they have to eat. SPEAKER B That's just what they eat. That's just what they use. SPEAKER D I mean, some people, for example, they can go and catch a monkey and eat it. But I can tell you, catching a monkey is not something very easy. That's not something you would do every day. SPEAKER B Just doesn't appeal to me very much either. I quite love monkeys, actually. Yeah. So that's great. You've actually seen this happen, and it just happens quickly. Isn't that beautiful? And one of my favorite words that I hear you use is this reversing. I mean, it's marvelous. Not only that you can halt a disease and stop it getting worse, but that you can actually turn it around and quickly, absolutely quickly. SPEAKER D That's the beauty of this. Let me share. Go ahead. SPEAKER B Immeasurably like measurably quickly, because you do the blood test. You do all the measurements, and so it's not just people. Oh, yeah, I think that worked. SPEAKER D That's right. SPEAKER B You know, clinically that it really did work. SPEAKER D There is Dr. Caldwell. He is actually a co author with me in a book I wrote. The book I wrote is called Rethink Food, and we're co authors in that book. SPEAKER B I have that book. SPEAKER D Yes. And Dr. Caldwell did a fabulous study in which he was showing how this reversal is happening with imaging studies. So what they did, they did some angiograms in which you put special solution through your veins. Then you take an X ray, and in that way you can see the real condition of the arteries. Let's see that on screen. You can see on the left side, that is before the experiment. You can see that the diameter as you follow that. And when you see the white lines, suddenly the diameter decreases dramatically. All that I want you to imagine that plaque of atherosclerosis, and then 36 months without cholesterol lowering medication. Just a full vegan vegetarian diet. You can see the same artery of the same patient on the right. And this is published in the scientific literature. SPEAKER B Yes, I've seen it. That's in his book. Dr. Cordwell Esselstyn. He came to Perth one time when we were there. SPEAKER D Okay. SPEAKER B Gave some talks. It was really remarkable. SPEAKER D And I like the way that he calls it. He said, Heart disease is a tiger that doesn't have teeth, so you don't have to get bitten by that tiger. And even if your choices have not been the best, you still can change it. See, the reason why the famous Viagra, the medication for male issues, is so common today is because it's an indirect reflection of how much atherosclerosis is in our midst. A lot of that impotence can be directly linked to atherosclerosis, and a wise physician knows that when you're starting to have that type of physiological problems. The same thing is happening in your heart and your brain, and you are at very high risk for a heart attack or a stroke. There is no need to have these problems. SPEAKER B So erectile dysfunction is erectile dysfunction is actually the warning sign that something else really bad is going on. SPEAKER D In many of the cases, that is the case. So beware of that wake up call. SPEAKER B A really big wake up call. And I think it's probably one that probably works very well for men, too. SPEAKER D That's right. I've seen the reversal in clinical practice. I can tell you story after story, I would highly advise you to give a chance for this whole foods, plant based diet to work in your body. And you will see the huge he's. SPEAKER B Actually Dr. Esselston is actually an Olympic athlete, and as much as he believed in exercise, he didn't even include that in his study because he just wanted to show what food could do. But, of course, if you exercised as well, then you'd certainly do even better. Well, we hope this has been a really helpful program to you. I'm sure in many, many ways it has been. And just to think that you can make such incredible changes so quickly, and it's just great to be able to just turn your health around. The health is very precious. And I'd really encourage all of you to think of at least one thing that you could do today to live your life to the full. And if you'd like to watch our programs on demand, just go to our website, 3abnaustralia.org.au , and click on the Watch button and God bless you. SPEAKER C You’ve been listening to a production of 3ABN Australia television.