Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Avoiding Heart Disease

blog.harjtaggar.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 142 posts

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#81

Post by carbocation »

Justsignedup wrote: post #76
carbocation wrote: post #63

How to avoid heart disease: (0) Be female. Don't be born with heart defects. Don't be old. Don't have Marfan or Loeys-Dietz syndromes. (All of the unfair/can't modify factors will get lumped into recommendation #0.) (1) Don't use tobacco or cocaine, and don't drink too much alcohol. (2) Don't get exposed to radiation or chemotherapy. (3) Don't have diabetes. (4) Don't have high blood pressure. (5) Have low levels of…

Well, I'm fucked. Grandfather was in decent shape at 40 when pretty much all his arteries clogged. He is now 87 with half a single artery left in his heart. He is not what I would call "living" as much as existing. On the other side, my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother have intense high blood pressure with no understandable reason. Well, I figure I may have till I'm 50. Though I hope doing biking marathons…

To the extent that it is important to you, you can work with your doctor to modify the risk factors that you can and would like to modify. Interestingly, 90% of Americans over 55 will develop high blood pressure; it is the norm [1]. (Not saying you are an American, as I don't know; just saying that I also don't know if this applies to the rest of the world.)

1 = http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/hypertension/speaker2.ht...

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#82

Post by vidarh »

mhurron wrote: post #42
gabemart wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Quinoa is 14% complete protein, and chia is almost 17% Quinoa provides 3.8 grams of protein per 100kcal of energy [1]. Boneless skinless chicken breast provides 18.8 grams of protein per 100kcal of energy [2]. A weightlifter who wished to consume 100 grams of protein per day would have to eat 2632 kcal of quinoa, vs. 532 kcal of chicken breast. [1] http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/6383 [2] http://ndb.nal.usda…

http://breakingmuscle.com/nutrition/how-to-build-muscle-mass... Just as a quick look to see details as to what would be required. Quinoa is hardly the only source of non-meat protein. Now, yes that does include a lot of protein shake stuff, that's not that unusual for most weightlifting diets. That's also a vegan diet, so you might be able to add eggs, cheese and milk to that diet and cut back on the powder in the me…

The biggest problem I see with that meal plan is that it is planned for someone with a ridiculous activity level - it reaches "only" 207g protein for 3387kcal.

For comparison, I'm a powerlifter. I'm 238lbs currently. My maintenance calorie intake is roughly 2450kcal on average. I aim for about 2800kcal on training days, and equivalently lower on rest days to roughly meet that average. Fitting 220g or so of protein in that is not that hard: I can eat 400g lean chicken and get 100g protein for If I were to eat 3387kcal to meet 207g protein, I'd be adding 1-2kg a week.

That's well in excess of the protein synthesis a typical human male body is capable of. In other words: A substantial percentage would be fat. Quite possibly I might end up adding 1.5kg of fat a week on a diet like that, which would get me quite a lot less protein than what I do on my current diet.

For a body builder exercising heavily 2-3 hours a day, on steroids (otherwise lifting heavily for that long every day would just be a total waste of time), that calorie intake might be reasonable. Or for someone who combines the exercise with a highly active job, like say, construction.

It'd be interesting to see that diet brought down to 2400kcal or below with the same protein levels. I suspect it would look a whole lot less pleasant (and that diet looks awful to me in the first place, but I love my meat).

(Now, protein amounts this high are in the "might as well, just in case" level - the possible incremental benefits hinted at in the literature are as far as I know quite marginal - so a lower protein intake would not necessarily be bad, and then it'd quickly become a lot easier to meet it with a reasonable calorie intake)

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#83

Post by simplexion »

oceanic wrote: post #78

Catalyst, an excellent science program on the ABC [1], Australia's national broadcaster, has just had a two-part episode called "The Heart of the Matter", about the science (or lack of it) behind the cholesterol theory. The researcher Dr Maryanne Demasi[2], herself a research pathologist, has spent three years gathering data, interviewing researchers, scientists and doctors on both sides of the argument, and the show…

Don't bother with the first episode. It is full of nonsense, including a naturopath as an "expert". The second episode regarding statins is far more evidence-based.

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#84

Post by Noxchi »

melling wrote: post #23

Number one leading cause of death: Heart Disease. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate What's scary is that we really don't know much about it. I heard Randell Schwartz (of Perl fame) talk about how the modern carb diet is killing people. He lost 60 pounds by monitoring his carb intake. https://plus.google.com/+RandalLSchwartz/posts/9fYhGYfLNY3

We may not know much about it, but the doctor who invented bypass surgery and a partner did a study where they reversed everyone who changed their diets heart disease.

These were very sick heart disease patients who were told by their cardiologists they had a year to live, and Dr. Esselstyn (recommended in OPs blog post comments) and Dr. Farvalaro (the guy who invented bypass surgery) cured them all, then took photographic proof with an angioplasty.

Diet is the problem, and a proper diet can fix heart disease.

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#85

Post by Noxchi »

albertsun wrote: post #27

It's possible that genetic factors count for more than everything else for certain people. The family history profiled here http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/13/health/seeking-clues-to-a-... sounds extremely similar.

I have a theory that rather than heart disease being genetic, it is environmental that is passed down through family.

Lets say your family eats a certain way when you are young, and your family members die of heart disease. And you continue that pattern into adulthood, eating the same way you were brought up, and you get heart disease.

Is it genetic or is it passed-down environmental?

I think it's the latter.

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#87

Post by vidarh »

eshvk wrote: post #52
mhurron wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://breakingmuscle.com/nutrition/how-to-build-muscle-mass... Just as a quick look to see details as to what would be required. Quinoa is hardly the only source of non-meat protein. Now, yes that does include a lot of protein shake stuff, that's not that unusual for most weightlifting diets. That's also a vegan diet, so you might be able to add eggs, cheese and milk to that diet and cut back on the powder in the me…

Most of the protein shake stuff would not solve the issue for a vegan diet. Most of the protein shake stuff is made from Whey or Casein or egg whites which IIRC are not vegan. There is pea protein or hemp protein but my quick googling tells me is high carb and low protein and can easily throw you off your calorie limits.

Both pea protein and soy protein products with comparable protein to kcal ratios are available from the company I buy my protein from.

I'm not vegan, so I've never bothered trying them, but it doesn't seem like it'd be a big problem.

My concern (see my other comment) would be that the diet shown certainly is extremely high calorie, and it looks like it'd be pretty much all nasty shakes to get it down to a more normal level with the same amount of protein.

(EDIT: Note, this would only really be an issue if you do heavy resistance training, as the protein level in that diet is very high for someone who isn't doing weight lifting)

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#88

Post by Justsignedup »

carbocation wrote: post #81
Justsignedup wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm fucked. Grandfather was in decent shape at 40 when pretty much all his arteries clogged. He is now 87 with half a single artery left in his heart. He is not what I would call "living" as much as existing. On the other side, my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother have intense high blood pressure with no understandable reason. Well, I figure I may have till I'm 50. Though I hope doing biking marathons…

To the extent that it is important to you, you can work with your doctor to modify the risk factors that you can and would like to modify. Interestingly, 90% of Americans over 55 will develop high blood pressure; it is the norm [1]. (Not saying you are an American, as I don't know; just saying that I also don't know if this applies to the rest of the world.) 1 = http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/hypertension/speake…

Soviet Union represent! Moved to America bout 22 years ago. And of course after all these diseases hit the family. For the record only my father is overweight, and he's the healthiest of them all (not true but at least his heart is alright for now)

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#89

Post by voltagex_ »

oceanic wrote: post #78

Catalyst, an excellent science program on the ABC [1], Australia's national broadcaster, has just had a two-part episode called "The Heart of the Matter", about the science (or lack of it) behind the cholesterol theory. The researcher Dr Maryanne Demasi[2], herself a research pathologist, has spent three years gathering data, interviewing researchers, scientists and doctors on both sides of the argument, and the show…

I'm not sure Catalyst is excellent anymore - it's certainly not as good as when it was called Quantum. That particular episode has been extremely divisive and for me personally I'm not sure what to take from it at all.

Re: Avoiding Heart Disease

#90

Post by oceanic »

simplexion wrote: post #83
oceanic wrote: post #78

Catalyst, an excellent science program on the ABC [1], Australia's national broadcaster, has just had a two-part episode called "The Heart of the Matter", about the science (or lack of it) behind the cholesterol theory. The researcher Dr Maryanne Demasi[2], herself a research pathologist, has spent three years gathering data, interviewing researchers, scientists and doctors on both sides of the argument, and the show…

Don't bother with the first episode. It is full of nonsense, including a naturopath as an "expert". The second episode regarding statins is far more evidence-based.

I think the stuff about the effects of high sugar and high carbohydrate diets in the first episode is pretty solid.

Which one is the naturopath?

Post reply on HN