Is my heart disease a symptom of modern malnutrition?
A frightening diagnosis
After a routine medical examination in 2017 and subsequent intense follow-up, I was diagnosed with advanced heart disease. I had calcified arterial plaque in all the wrong places, and apparently quite a lot of it. After a years-long investigation, I’ve concluded that I’d become malnourished and as a result was suffering from serious ill-health.
“After my frightening diagnosis, I asked what I could do to improve the situation and was told to stick to my existing lifestyle, diet and medication. Now there are people who do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different outcome, but I’m not one of them.”
I followed the rules yet still had a problem
For most of my life I’d done everything that the healthcare profession asked of me. I played team sports into my 30s, I ran in my 40s, and was a mountain biker in my 50s. I ate, as recommended, a varied diet low in animal fat, with moderate red meat intake, fruit and vegetables, and cooked with seed oils. My GP routinely monitored my blood pressure, LDL, HDL and triglycerides and had put me on medications when my markers wouldn’t come down. After my frightening diagnosis, I asked what I could do to improve the situation and was told to stick to my existing lifestyle, diet and medication. Now there are people who do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different outcome, but I’m not one of them.
The dawning of realisation – the nature of what we eat is more important
I never believed that good health was quite as simple as calories in versus calories out but I was guided strongly by that maxim. I assumed that because I exercised and my weight was good, all was well. I was utterly unprepared for what I discovered in the literature. I learned that what we eat is much more important than how much we consume. It has taken me years to trust the unorthodox views I read since my diagnosis, and then to eliminate the harmful, and re-build a new and healthier lifestyle. I’m now happy to report many noticeable improvements in my health. My traditional cardiovascular blood markers are stable without medication, I’m the same weight as I was at age 18, my energy levels are high and very consistent, my exercise anaerobic tolerance is greatly improved and I have eliminated life-long allergies and skin dryness. What did I do differently?
Step one – eliminate what causes damage
First, I had to stop the harm. I largely stopped consuming highly processed and readily bioavailable carbohydrates (e.g., sugar, breakfast cereals, bread, rice, pasta, pastries, fruit juices, etc.). Also, fats derived from seeds (e.g., canola, corn, rapeseed, soy), high-fructose fruits (e.g., melons, bananas, oranges), and a range of starchy root vegetables (e.g. potatoes, carrots, and beets). There are strong associations between these and chronic inflammation which can lead to a range of so-called chronic diseases, which includes heart disease.
Step two – eat my way to good health
After my elimination phase, I had to start re-building. I now appreciate the close and complex synergistic association between my body and the microbes in my gut (my gut microbiome). I also recognize that certain foods eaten together may deliver greater nutritional benefit than when the same foods are eaten alone. I now eat for my body and my gut microbiome. My diet includes a range of natural macro-nutrients containing a high density of micro-nutrients. Every day, I consume some animal protein, eggs, whole fruits such as apples and seasonal berries, cow’s milk, seasonal vegetables high in phytochemicals, that are cooked, where necessary, with natural animal fats, olive, or nut oils. I also regularly consume nutrient-dense meats (e.g., liver, heart, thymus, tongue), bone broth, and a range of foods produced from lactic acid fermentation (e.g., kefir, sour kraut, kimchee).
“There is ample evidence in the literature that my heart disease may be an example of a metabolic syndrome associated with insufficient nutrition.”
My improved perspective on health and longevity
Some of my friends and family have questioned my use of the word “malnourished” to describe my condition before I changed what I eat. Many of them associated that word with images of starving children. Those poor souls are obviously malnourished. However, a broader definition such as “supplied with less than the minimum or an unbalanced amount of the nutrients or foods essential for sound health and growth” is warranted? There is ample evidence in the literature that my heart disease may be an example of a metabolic syndrome associated with insufficient nutrition. Other non-communicable chronic diseases documented as associated with our modern diet include obesity, type-2 diabetes, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, hypertension, dementia, cancer, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If it is the case that many of us may be suffering from a chronic sickness brought-on by what we eat, I think we should use words like malnourished to describe ourselves if for no other reason than to understand that our condition may, after all, be manageable, and maybe even reversible.
I want to be clear about my position on individuality. I do not believe that there is a single nutritional magic bullet, although I suspect that avoiding highly processed food ingredients is a general principle worth applying. What works for me may not do the job for you, and what works for me today may not work for me with time. The literature available describes large differences in metabolic and gut microbiome response to nutrition between individuals and within the lifespan of an individual. Elizabeth Blackburn is credited with writing “Genes load the gun, and environment pulls the trigger.” I wonder if so many of us suffer from such a range of so-called chronic diseases because we are exposed to a common cause of malnutrition which triggers our individual genetic payload.
“The interactions between nutrition, human metabolism and the human-microbiome relationship are so complex, so poorly understood, and so subject to intense debate that no single remedy seems plausible.”
I experienced the physical, emotional and cognitive benefits of exercise so long ago and in so many ways that it has been a part of who I am for years. I have, more recently however, come to believe that no amount of exercise can compensate for the metabolic harm caused by poor food ingredients and come to believe in the benefits of things like hot and cold therapy (e.g. sauna and plunge pools), good sleep, and time-restricted eating. I’ve never slept well and am actively exploring ways in which to improve on that front. So far, hot and cold therapy, and time-restricted eating feel more like fine-tuning than the bedrock goodness of sound nutrition, exercise, and good sleep.
Finally, prevention seems better than any “cure” available to me. The interactions between nutrition, human metabolism and the human-microbiome relationship are so complex, so poorly understood, and so subject to intense debate that no single remedy seems plausible. I choose to stop the harm and to nourish myself with what I consider a more natural diet, to exercise and practice what I preach as consistently as my flawed character will allow.
What next?
I have three future objectives in mind.
First, I want to conduct more disease-specific diagnostics on myself. I’ll have another coronary calcium scan to compare with the one that alerted me to my condition in 2017. I have requested such a scan from my regular GP but was refused on the grounds that the test is not sensitive enough. I’ve read otherwise but realise that I will need to find a private practitioner to conduct and interpret the scan in a more contemporary manner. There are blood biomarkers that I want to assess in addition to the concentrations of LDL, HDL and triglycerides that my GP looks at. I’ll probably go private for those also.
I take supplements every day to compensate for what I believe is lacking even in my improved nutrition. My second objective, therefore, is to gradually replace those supplements by nourishing myself more naturally. There is strong evidence in the literature that our food ingredients are depleted in nutrients such as copper, magnesium, zinc and phytochemicals compared to several decades ago. It appears that this depletion is related to the way that our food is grown and processed before we consume it. At the centre of our food production lies the microbial world within which we exist. Every visible living thing evolved into a microbial world and those microbes act synergistically around and within the bodies of everything alive today. We are part of something larger than a human with a microbiome and our wellbeing is dependent upon healthy soil, plants, and animals from which we derive our nutrition. Regenerative farming appears to provide a solution to the loss of nutrients in our food ingredients and I aim to better understand this subject and to consume more from regeneratively farmed sources.
Finally, I’m going to expand on the themes I cover here with future pieces. Until next time…
Selected bibliography
Feinman, R.D. (2019) Nutrition in crisis: Flawed studies, misleading advice, and the real science of human metabolism. 2nd ed. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing
Kendrick, M (2007) The great cholesterol con: the truth about what really causes heart disease and how to avoid it. London: John Blake Publishing
Kendrick, M. (2021) The clot thickens: The enduring mystery of heart disease. London: Columbus Publishing
Lustig, R. (2021) Metabolical: The truth about processed food and how it poisons people and the planet. London: Hodder and Soughton
Li, William (2019) Eat to beat disease: The body’s five defence systems & the foods that could save your life. London: Penguin
Malhotra, A (2021) A statin free life: A revolutionary life plan for tackling heart disease – without the use of statins. London: Hodder and Stoughton
Montgomery, D. and Bikle, A. (2016) The hidden half of nature: The microbial roots of life and health. London: Norton and Company
Montgomery, D. and Bikle, A. (2022) What your food ate: How to heal our land and reclaim our health. London: Norton and Company
Taubes, G (2020) The case for Keto: The truth about low-carb, high-fat eating. London: Granta Publications
Yudkin, J (2012) Pure, White and deadly: How sugar is killing us and what we can do to stop it. 4th Ed. London: Penguin