When John A. McDougall. M.D., medical director of the McDougall Program at St. Helena Hospital in Napa Valley, California, and author of The McDougall Program for a Healthy Heart, was a medical resident in the late I 970s, he worked with a Chinese physician who told him that in Hong Kong, heart attacks were so rare that whenever one occurred, doctors all over the city rushed to the autopsy lab to see this medical curiosity."
Can you imagine American physicians being surprised by a heart attack? Quite the contrary. Every year more than 1.5 million Americans will have heart attacks. A third of them will die, making heart attack America's single largest killer.
What explains the tremendous difference between the two countries? To a large extent it's due to cholesterol. More specifically, it's due to the types of diets that cause cholesterol to go up or down. Among Chinese who eat a traditional diet, for example, the average cholesterol level is a healthy 127. Among Americans, who generally eat a lot of red meats and fatty processed foods, the average is 100 points higher.
? According to Dr. McDougall, the traditional Asian diet, which is high in vegetables, fruits, and grains and low in red meats and dairy foods, is nearly perfect for lowering cholesterol. It can work in this country, too. The lifestyle Heart Trial found that when people followed a low-fat vegetarian diet (much like the traditional Asian diet), they had a drop in total cholesterol of 24 percent. Better yet, levels of dangerous LDL cholesterol fell an average of 37 percent-in one year.
? Even though it's important to reduce the amount of cholesterol in you diet, the real culprit lies elsewhere. The component in food that has the biggest effect on blood cholesterol levels is saturated fat which is found mostly in animal foods such as red meats, whole and 2 percent milk, egg yolks, butter, and cheese, can increase the amount of LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream as well as the total amount of cholesterol.
? Every day, the average American cats the fat equivalent of full stick of butter. That is three times as much as the Japanese. Clearly, this is one instance where it is better to be below average.
? If you haven't already begun reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet, consider the evidence. In a study conducted by researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, men with normal borderline-high cholesterol levels alternated between a high-fat diet (41 percent of calories from fat), a low-fat diet (19 percent of calories from fat), and their usual diets. When the men switched from the high-fat to the low-fat plan, almost 80 percent saw their cholesterol fall 20 points after six weeks.
? Along with cheese, milk, and convenience foods, red meats are the most common source of fat in the American diet. You don't have to make drastic changes, however, since even small reductions in saturated fat can result in a significant reduction in cholesterol levels. Replacing a hamburger with an equal amount of fish twice a week could save you from eating about 4 pounds of fat a year. Eating two fewer slices of American cheese a week would save you a pound of fat a year.
? Although the saturated fats in animal foods tend to cause the most problems, the fats found in cooking oils can also make your cholesterol levels creep upward. The American Heart Association recommends limiting the amount of oil you consume in a day to between 5 and 8 teaspoons.
? One of the easiest ways to cut back on cooking oils is simply to avoid eating fried foods. Instead, take advantage of steaming and microwaving. Since these techniques cook with moist heat, they require little or no added fat to keep food moist and tender.
? Another way to reduce the amount of fat in your diet is to approach dairy foods with caution. Milk has a reputation as a wholesome food, but when it's the full-fat kind, it can dump a lot of far into your system. It's fine to enjoy milk.
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