In this video, the speaker discusses the top 10 foods that can damage the heart. Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of mortality worldwide, and it is primarily caused by our diet and lifestyle. The speaker argues that there is a misconception about which foods are actually harmful to heart health. They challenge common beliefs such as saturated fats being bad and suggest that it is the excessive consumption of carbohydrates, especially refined sugars and processed foods, that leads to inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. Other problematic foods mentioned include rice, bread, alcohol, ultra-processed foods, fried foods, margarine, donuts, and sugar.
Key Insights:
- Cardiovascular disease, including heart attacks and strokes, is the leading cause of death worldwide.
- There is little consensus on which foods specifically cause heart disease, despite its clear link to our lifestyle and diet.
- The traditional belief that saturated fats, such as those found in animal products, are bad for heart health is challenged by evidence showing that people who consume high-quality saturated fats actually have lower rates of heart disease.
- Pastries and biscuits, which often contain vegetable fats that have been processed and partially hydrogenated, are major contributors to heart disease.
- The underlying causes of heart disease are inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance.
- Rice, bread, alcohol, ultra-processed foods, fried food, margarine, donuts, and sugar all play a role in damaging blood vessels and promoting heart disease.
- Seed oils, such as soybean oil, canola oil, and corn oil, are highly processed and are high in omega-6 fatty acids, promoting inflammation in the body.
- The damaging effects of fried food come from using seed oils that become oxidized and rancid when reheated repeatedly.
- Margarine, especially partially hydrogenated types, contain damaging trans fats that interfere with mitochondrial function in cells.
- Donuts combine many of the unhealthy elements, such as sugar, starch, seed oils, gluten, and deep frying, making them one of the worst foods for heart health.
- Sugar, including high fructose corn syrup, is highly addictive, widely prevalent, and exacerbates inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance.
Transcript
Hello Health Champions, today I’m going to talk
about the top 10 foods that destroy your heart
and that’s super important to understand because
cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of
people in the world. 18 million people a year die
globally from this, which is twice as many as the number two problem which is cancer. That number
includes both heart attacks and strokes. So we
could have a problem where the heart doesn’t get
enough oxygen and we get a myocardial infarction
but it could also be a clot in the brain or a
bleed in the brain called a stroke. So both of
those will be included in the cardiovascular
disease and there’s very little disagreement
on the fact that cardiovascular disease is caused
by food. It’s our lifestyle, it’s the way that we
eat that causes most of those problems and yet we
can’t agree on which foods cause the problems. So
that’s what we’re going to talk about and we’re
going to understand that really clearly, so it’s
important you follow through on all of this so
you understand the mechanisms because otherwise
you will just fall into the trap of believing the
next list or the next person who claims something
because if you do a Google Search and you look up,
which I did, foods that cause heart disease, then
what you’re going to find is out of 759 Million
results, the number one result at the top of
the page which was not a paid ad, was Better
Health Channel, I think it was in Australia
or something, but it doesn’t really matter because
they all say the same thing. And they say saturated
fat is bad. It causes heart disease and it does
that because it raises LDL cholesterol which is
a bad cholesterol that causes heart disease. And we
want to start understanding that that is not how
it works. That was a truth, a myth established 50, 60,
70 years ago that still stays with us even though
the evidence is very, very clear that this is not
how it works, that people who eat good quality
saturated fat actually live longer, they don’t get
heart disease. It’s actually the way to reverse
heart disease. The mantra that we hear over and
over is to avoid animal products such as butter,
coconut oil, and lard. We should not eat beef, lamb,
eggs or bacon and all the dairy products should be
non-fat or low-fat is what they tell us and that
is the problem. So we need to understand what the
mechanisms are instead and then they throw in
pastries and biscuits down at the end kind of
like an afterthought and they don’t realize that
these two things don’t belong in the same category,
that the animal products are stable saturated
fats there are good for you whereas the pastries
are actually really bad because the fat there is
primarily a vegetable fat that they have hardened
and turned partially saturated through a process
called partially hydrogenated and that turns a
fat the vegetable fat that was processed and bad
to start with turned it very, very toxic
that creates all sorts of problems but that’s not
even the only problem with pastries and biscuits
because they also contain sugar and preservatives
and modern wheat and other grains and starches
so throwing that into a list, we often see these
different categories of foods that they just mix
them together haphazardly without understanding
anything about why they would have anything to
do with heart disease. So let’s understand the
real cause of heart disease once and for all
and we’ll start, we’ll go backwards we start with
cardiovascular disease and we’ll work our way up
and cardiovascular disease is caused by
damaged blood vessels. So vascular disease
means just that, vascular vessels and when they
get damaged that’s when we experience the heart
disease if we get little cracks and damage on the
inside then we body repairs it and we get sometimes
these atherosclerotic plaques and calcifications
if we get a bunch of blood clots then they can
dislodge and flow into the brain and cause a stroke
so what then causes the damage and the answer is
there’s two things, there’s two things that
initiate that actually cause the damage and that is
inflammation and oxidative stress, those that’s
the end tool that inflicts the damage if you will
so then the question is of course working our
way up here what causes inflammation and oxidative
stress which foods do that and the number one
mechanism the number one adaptation in the body
that causes these problems is called insulin resistance
and it causes both inflammation and oxidative
stress and it’s the number one problem for the vast
majority of people but it’s not the only problem
because you can get heart disease without having
insulin resistance even though it is the cause in
most cases and if you don’t have insulin resistance
then it could be something like toxins, it could be
stress or it could be bad fats and we’re going to
talk about what those are. Fat is not bad, there are
good fats and there are bad fats and the number
one problem with insulin resistance is sugar and
also to a large extent these processed oils which
we will explain why they are so bad. But if we know
that this is the sequence this is the causation
and we know that the inflammation and the oxidative
stress those are the things that execute, that
inflict the damage we can talk about the foods
without paying attention to this sequence of
causation and insulin resistance is an adaptation
it is not a disease, it’s not a state, it’s an
adaptation, it’s a temporary state that the body
develops based on our lifestyle, when we change the
lifestyle, the adaptation changes. So insulin
resistance, which is basically the same thing as
advanced insulin resistance is type 2 diabetes, is
almost completely reversible in almost all cases
and if we can reverse the insulin resistance then
we can also reverse the diabetes but then we have
to avoid the foods that actually cause it. So up
at the top row here we have the actual causes
of cardiovascular disease because this is a sequence
of causation. Food number 10 is rice and it’s not
as bad as some of the other foods we’re going to
talk about but it can still be a problem and here
is why. So we need to understand what glucose and
carbohydrates are. When we talk about carbohydrates
it’s plant food that we eat that gets picked apart
and we absorb it into the bloodstream as glucose,
it’s called blood sugar or blood glucose and that’s
a six carbon ring that is called glucose. Now that’s
a monosaccharide and all plants are made up mostly
of glucose. When we eat something sweet then it is
usually a table sugar. It’s a disaccharide and if
we have glucose on the one side and fructose on
the other, we have a six carbon ring and a five
carbon ring that is called sucrose or table sugar.
So this side of it is the same thing and then
depending on which disaccharide it is then this one
will change up, it could be different things and
here’s the part that most people miss because they
say that sugar is bad but complex carbs are good
and here’s what they don’t understand that they are
exactly the same thing that if we take this glucose
and we start chaining it together then it becomes
long chains and they’re called starch, that is what
we find in rice, potatoes, and grains, etc. When the
body stores carbohydrate then we chain them up a
little bit differently and it’s called glycogen but
it’s the same stuff. Even wood and fiber is still
made up of glucose except it’s just configured a
little differently so in some cases we can’t break
it down. So now that you understand this once and
for all that virtually all carbohydrates are glucose
that becomes blood glucose now you can see that
starch is 100% glucose and therefore it will raise
blood sugar and therefore it will also raise insulin
so anytime that we raise blood sugar, the blood
sugar cannot get into the cell where it needs to
perform work and turn into energy until insulin
helps it through the gate, so to speak. So whenever
blood sugar goes up, the body responds with insulin,
it’s a beautiful mechanism, it works beautifully
unless we start using excess carbohydrate. If we eat
some now and then, and seasonally then it’s not a
problem, the system balances itself but when we eat
carbohydrate as the foundation of our diet and we
eat it 365 days a year, all day long, now it becomes
a problem. It becomes too much and the system becomes
overwhelmed and we kind of clog up the system,
if you will and we develop insulin resistance. So
the question I always get is „Well, how come Asia could
eat rice for all those years?“ And the reason they could
do that was that historically there was not an abundance
of food. They ate their rice but they didn’t eat all the
processed food in addition. They were physically active,
they had physical labor most of the day. They ate two or
three meals per day, not six meals. They didn’t have soft
drinks and Coca-Cola to sip on all day long and they had
no processed foods because processed foods contain a lot
of grain and a lot of sugar and a lot of chemicals. So if
you eat the rice by itself and that’s all you eat or very
little else, there’s no abundance, then your body can
tolerate it. But once you start eating the rice plus the
processed foods, now it becomes a problem. And once you
have become insulin resistant, once you have already
clogged up your body, now rice becomes a bad thing because
it keeps you from reversing it. And I want to mention one
more thing about what we just talked about relating to
carbohydrates because a lot of people know that white sugar
is bad and a lot of people have heard that high fructose
corn syrup is bad. So they say, „I’ll avoid those too.“ But
there is really no difference to all the other kinds of
sugar. So whether we call it brown sugar or light brown sugar
or powdered sugar, agave or honey or dextrose or grape sugar
or molasses or glucose syrup, it is all the same stuff. It
is different combinations and ratios of glucose and fructose,
that’s all it is. So it’s still going to affect your blood
sugar the same way. It’s still going to create insulin
resistance and it’s going to prevent the reversal. And then
people go, „Okay, I get it. I understand that those are not
so great. But of course fruit is still fantastic, right? We
need to eat more fruits and vegetables, right?“ Actually, no.
And fruit is not a bad thing unless you have already developed
insulin resistance and poor metabolic health. So most people
can have some fruit, but if you’re trying to reverse a disease
condition, the sugar in fruit is exactly this. It’s different
ratios of glucose and fructose. There is no difference. The
body doesn’t metabolize it any differently. Fruit is better
than candy bars because it has more water, it has some fibre,
and it’s processed a little differently in terms of speed.
But the sugar and the insulin required is exactly the same. So
if you’re metabolically healthy, enjoy some fruit. If you’re
diabetic, then cut it down to a bare minimum. You can still
have some berries here and there, but I would avoid fruit
and definitely don’t buy into the slogan of eating more fruits
and vegetables. More fruits and vegetables, you eat more
vegetables and less fruit. And like we said, starch is 100%
sugar. It breaks down into glucose and that includes things
like rice and potato and beans. They have some other things in
there but they’re very high in carbohydrate. Corn is very high,
that’s why they make corn starch from it. And tapioca and
sorghum are also different forms of starch. So a lot of people
think that, „Yeah, I don’t eat the grain. I heard that gluten
and wheat is bad, so I eat gluten-free pizza and I eat
gluten-free bread.“ Well, you’re still eating 100% sugar in
the starch that they substitute. So they often put in rice
flour or tapioca or sorghum, but it’s still all starch. So
don’t fall for that. Food number nine is bread and all the
things we talked about for rice holds true for bread. But
this one is a little worse. The starch is the same, the
insulin is the same, but the allergies are much, much more
common with bread, and with wheat, and with gluten. And a
lot of people having trouble with gut health is because of
allergies to bread and to gluten. So even if you don’t
test as allergic to gluten, you might want to cut it out
and just see what happens to these things. And if you have
allergies, if you have poor gut health, that creates
inflammation that contributes to cardiovascular disease.
Food number eight that causes heart disease is alcohol.
And why would that be? Well, alcohol is natural in small
amounts. It is a natural substance. We have an enzyme
called alcohol dehydrogenase that is a fit that we can
break that down. So it’s not a poison in that sense.
However, when we have excess then it overwhelms the liver
because the liver is the only place that can process and
break down alcohol. So you put it in the body and it
circulates and it affects every cell. But the liver is the
only place that can break it down and get rid of it, to
neutralize it. So a lot of things that are not necessarily
toxic, they become bad when we have too much. So a glass of
wine here and there is not a problem, a bottle of wine every
day is a big problem. And when we overwhelm the liver, we
create something called fatty liver. It used to be that
the most fatty liver was called alcoholic fatty liver
disease and now most fatty liver is non-alcoholic fatty liver
disease caused by fructose. So if you remember sucrose is half
glucose, white table sugar is half glucose and half fructose.
That fructose is very similar to alcohol in creating fatty liver
and it is very, very addictive. So a lot of the things that are
bad for you, there’s kind of a limit in how much you will eat.
You’ll have a few things, you’ll have a few bites and then you’re
good. You go eat something else. But sugar doesn’t work like that.
After you’ve had a soda, you can have another and very often people
can drink a two-liter bottle in a day. They can drink a bottle or
a half gallon or a gallon of sweet tea in a day because sugar is so
addictive and it doesn’t leave any sense of fullness at all.
And like I said, the problem is that it is in so many things.
Some people are aware of it, some people don’t really think about
it but in things like soda that you can drink one after the other,
and when I say sugar, I’m including high fructose corn syrup,
they’re the same molecule, just slightly different configuration.
It’s in cookies and desserts and ice creams and in food that we
all very often don’t think about like barbecue sauce is sweeter
than Coca-Cola even and it is ubiquitous, it’s in virtually all
processed foods. And that’s the problem with sugar is that we get
it everywhere. And remember that everything that we talked about
here is bad because it contributes to inflammation, oxidative
stress and insulin resistance. And virtually all of the foods
you’re told that causes heart disease are fine if you lay off the
stuff that we talked about as bad.
