Cancer Articles (Dr. S.N White)

How common are these trans fats in supermarket foods?  These hydrogenated fats are so favored by the prepared food industry that they have made their way into French fries (one of the richest sources of trans fats), other fried foods, breads and other baked goods, savory snacks, and many convenience and processed foods like potato chips, com and other chips, cookies, and crackers. For years they have slipped into our foods, and it was once thought that they were as good as the unsaturated fats from which they were originally made. A large study recently suggested that limiting consumption of trans fatty acids would be more helpful in preventing heart attacks than simply limiting overall fat intake or even saturated fat intake. It is a challenge to find ready to eat products without these fats added to them. Begin by avoiding foods that list “partially hydrogenated” oil or fat on the label. Margarine manufacturers are aware of this problem, so the old margarines that were based ...

Why is exercise so important?  The heart, like our other muscles, needs to be kept in good condition. The regular pumping that keeps us alive for most people this means blood pumping in and out of the heart about 60 to 80 times every minute is not enough to keep the muscle tuned and the coronary arteries clean. Tuning up the heart is simple: you need to increase its number of beats or pumping cycles at least a few times a week for a minimum of twenty to thirty minutes each time. If you are not well enough to engage in strenuous activity, even some easy physical activity like walking for a reasonable length of time will help the tune-up process. Using muscles for physical tasks was a daily necessity in primitive societies. Humans were able to endure long bouts of exercise and exposure to heat and cold while seeking and gathering plants, hunting, and fishing. Skeletal analyses of primitive human remains indicate that the early human was an extraordinarily active creature whose...

I know smoking tobacco is bad for my lungs and health, but why is smoking bad for my heart?  ELEVATED HEART RATE AND BLOOD PRESSURE  There are two especially harmful substances inhaled while smoking. The first is nicotine, the addictive ingredient in cigarettes. When it enters the bloodstream it increases the heart rate, causing the heart to work harder and increasing the need for oxygen in all the cells of the body. Research suggests that nicotine contributes to arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats). Smokers’ risk of sudden cardiac death is about three times that of nonsmokers’. Nicotine is blamed for elevations in blood pressure while the cigarette is being smoked, which means that a moderate smoker might cause his or her blood vessels to constrict and relax at a rate twenty or so times higher than usual a day. Researchers don’t know exactly how this affects the body over time, but they suspect it is damaging. They do know that when people already have high blood pressure, ...