High Cholesterol is Not the Leading Cause of Heart Disease

Too much focus is often put on high cholesterol levels as the major risk factor for heart disease when in fact more than 50% of people with heart disease do not have high cholesterol levels. Something else must also be at work. More and more evidence is pointing towards chronic inflammation as the culprit. So what is chronic inflammation, and what can you do about it?

Normal inflammation occurs when you have an infection or cut your finger. It is your body's natural healing response. Overt symptoms of inflammation are redness, swelling, and soreness. The problem happens when your body remains in an inflammatory state when it is no longer needed. This is called chronic inflammation, and it is a problem because the immune system starts attacking healthy tissue as is the case with such autoimmune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and Type I diabetes. In addition, there is increasing evidence that chronic inflammation may be the main underlying cause of heart disease, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

So what causes your body's natural healing system to get out of balance? Inflammation is greatly influenced by the kinds of foods you eat and the lifestyle you live. Below are 4 tips on what you can do to control inflammation:

Reduce Waist Size: Visceral fat contributes to inflammation and heart disease. Visceral fat accumulates around the belly and internal organs to create the apple shaped figure. One excellent way to help reduce visceral fat is to exercise regularly.

Increase Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Most people are eating too few Omega-3 fatty acids and too many Omega-6 fatty acids due to high meat and polyunsaturated vegetable oil consumption (corn, safflower, cottonseed, soybean, and peanut oil). To help improve your ratio, eat more foods that contain Omega-3 fatty acids like fatty fish, walnuts, and flax seeds and reduce your consumption of meat and store-bought packaged foods which often use polyunsaturated vegetable oils. If you choose to eat meat, choose meat from grass-fed instead of grain-fed animals to increase the Omega-3 content of the meat.

Greatly Reduce Sugar Consumption: Most of your diet should consist of foods that are low on the glycemic scale because these foods will trigger an inflammatory response in the body. Examples of high glycemic foods include white potatoes, tropical fruits like pineapple, sugar, juice, high fructose corn syrup, refined or pulverized flours found in bread, many cold cereals and baked goods.

Eat More Turmeric and Ginger: These two spices are anti-inflammatory spices that should be incorporated more frequently into the diet.

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