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Heart disease and metabolism
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Photo: Alison Clarke
Heart disease, a term that is generally interchangeable with cardiovascular disease, is the number one killer of Americans. There are several risk factors for heart disease, including: smoking, lack of exercise, and a diet high in fats and processed foods. When most people think of what kind of diet causes heart disease, they often think of fatty, greasy foods, and this may certainly be true for some people at risk. However, the term processed foods doesn’t just include lunch meats and sausages: the majority of processed food is from carbohydrates (sugars). Ironically, for many people the amount of fat they eat in their diet may not be a prime contributor to their development of heart disease: it may be excess carbohydrates instead that are causing problems.
Why would this be true? In order to understand why, we need to understand how fats and sugars are broken down in the body and used for energy. Sugar is digested mainly in the mouth and the intestines, where it is then taken to the liver, and often processed further before entering the bloodstream. It is there that the important hormone insulin is released in order to send a signal for the body’s cells to take up the sugar from the bloodstream. The sugar is then broken down (metabolized) to completion, generating energy and heat. The body prefers to break down sugars first, followed by fats, and then proteins last. Unfortunately, when too much sugar is taken in, fat burning ends up slowing down while the body tries to get rid of the excess carbohydrates. Contrary to popular belief, excess sugar is not automatically converted to fat: it stays in the bloodstream until it is finally taken up by the body’s cells. In time, sugars can corrode the lining of the bloodstream (the arteries), contributing to heart disease.
As was mentioned above, the hormone insulin is released in response to more sugar entering the bloodstream after a high-carbohydrate meal. The more sugar enters the bloodstream, the more insulin is released to help shuttle it into the cells. Excess insulin in the bloodstream does a number of destructive things to the body. These include: thickening the arteries, lowering the heart-friendly minerals potassium and magnesium, stimulating fibrous tissue in the artery linings that can form arterial plaques, stimulating blood clot formation, and promoting increased oxidation of fats in the bloodstream. The body’s insulin receptors then try to adapt by becoming less responsive to insulin, a phenomenon known as insulin resistance. There is evidence that insulin resistance itself can be a major factor in the progression of heart disease.
So far, we have only discussed the ways that excess sugar can cause heart disease. On the surface, it can sound strange that sugars can cause as much heart disease (or more), as fats do. If you are skeptical about the correlation between sugar intake and heart disease, take a look at the following statistics: in the 19th century, sugar consumption in America rose from 15 lbs per person per year to 85 lbs per person per year. As of 1993, sugar consumption averaged a whopping 135 lbs per person per year (that’s almost six ounces of sugar per person per day, which is about 670 calories worth of simple carbohydrates). What about the rates of cardiovascular disease? In 1800, death from cardiovascular disease was uncommon enough to not even be included in mortality statistics. In 1900, one in seven Americans died from this disease. By the 1990’s, a staggering one person in three died from cardiovascular disease. Clearly, something is going on that modern medicine cannot easily address.
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