Cancer Articles (Dr. S.N White)

What about wine and alcohol?  Wine is a rich source of antioxidants, like other grape products. It also contains alcohol. Alcohol does raise HDL (good) cholesterol, and some studies have linked moderate wine consumption in countries like France and Italy to a lower incidence of heart disease. It is well known that alcohol should always be consumed in moderation and avoided during pregnancy. Perhaps the key to wine drinking is to consume wine only with meals. Even better, you may try diluting your wine with water, as is often done at Italian meals. The basic health rule is not to exceed one glass a day for women and two for men. Less research can be found on beer, but, again, a moderate amount may be beneficial. As with wine, if you choose to drink beer, do so with a meal. Drinking to excess may increase blood pressure and cause other health problems. Recent reports about red wine show that it contains substances beyond the alcohol which have some extra benefits. A nondrinker ...

What are the functions of antioxidants? Antioxidants protect various compounds in the body from damage by some very active forms of oxygen, produced by various chemical reactions necessary to maintain body functions. Antioxidants protect cells exposed to toxic environmental factors, such as cigarette smoke, that cause cell damage, damage that can, in turn, contribute to the onset or progression of many diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Should I take vitamin E to protect my heart? In nature’s design, this vitamin is actually a group of substances called tocopherols. They are found in abundance in plant foods high in the good fats almonds, wheat germ, whole grains, nuts, seeds, peanut butter, and in cold pressed or minimally processed vegetableoils . Vitamin E and other tocopherols are powerful antioxidants, as well as vitamins. Like other antioxidants, they protect unsaturated fats from being damaged by oxygen. In humans, they help to protect against cell damage an...

Grains, cereals, beans, nuts, and other seeds should be the cornerstone or centerpiece of a diet to support the health of your heart. However, for maximum goodness nutritionally and in taste and texture, they must be unrefined. You should limit your eating of white bread or cookies to rare occasions. Historically, before the advent of roller milling in the late 1800s, which made it easy to produce the very white flour that is so prevalent today, populations ate hearty whole grains. These had flavor, texture, and all the natural, wholesome goodness that nature put into the grain. Even the white flour made from old stone mills and sifted at home to remove some of the bran was preferable to the white flour of today, as some of the bran and germ came through the oldfashioned sieves. The good fibers, proteins, vitamins like vitamin E , and minerals are in the germ or bran of the wheat. The wheat germ also contains a large number of newly discovered, precious phytochemicals that we are no...

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 ...

What about fats in plant foods?  There are many current myths about fats. That fats can play both a beneficial role and a damaging one is at the root of the confusion. If you have heart disease, you need to be extra careful about your animal fat intake. Making plant foods the centerpiece of your meals eliminates much of the worry about the amount of fat you take in you’ll automatically get the right kind of fat. Remember that the fats in plants, with a few exceptions like coconut, are good fats . It is the fat from land animals beef and chicken that you need to be concerned about, because they contain large amounts of saturated fats. Natural plant fats are usually unsaturated. Furthermore, animal foods contain cholesterol, whereas there is no cholesterol in plant foods. Aren't nuts high fat foods that I should avoid?  Nuts are high in fat, but these are the good fats. Recent studies have shown that nuts help lower blood cholesterol, and in a major study done by Loma L...

How do I choose an aerobic exercise program? If you have heart disease, are at high risk for heart disease, or have not been exercising, it is important to start slowly and build up your exercise program gradually. Gentle stretches and short walks are a good way to begin. As you begin to feel stronger, you can lengthen your walks and incorporate some uphill segments. If you decide to take the stairs instead of the elevator, take them slowly at first, resting whenever you need to catch your breath. In choosing a form of exercise, keep in mind that in order to be aerobic it must be regular and rhythmic, require an accelerated breathing rate over the duration of the exercise, and use the large muscles of the arms and/or legs. It is an advantage to practice more than one kind of regular exercise, since different muscle groups are toned and stretched by different exercises. There are hundreds of exercise options, and the key to picking the “best” one for you is to pick one or several ...

Exercise has lots of benefits, but there are some risks. How much or how little you should do depends on your diagnosis. If you have survived a heart attack or have had heart surgery, you should first talk to your health professional about supervised exercise in an organized cardiac rehabilitation program. This chapter will build on what you learn in cardiac rehabilitation and provide you with tools to maintain a safe and healthy exercise program . Whatever the severity of your heart disease, you should discuss exercise with your physician or health professional before beginning any program. In addition, your physician may have prescribed medication such as beta-blockers  that limits the body’s ability to increase the heart rate. (Not all drugs affect your ability to exercise or to increase your heart rate.) When your physician prescribes any medication, discuss how exercise might affect it. If exercise is supposed to be so good for you, why do some young athletes die suddenly...

Exercise may be healthy, but how will it slow down or reverse my heart disease?  Studies have shown that regular exercise lowers the risk of death from a second heart attack ; there are about half as many heart attacks among people who exercise, as among those who don’t. Studies also show that heart disease risk factors such as blood cholesterol, triglycerides, lipids, high blood pressure, and obesity are lowered in people who get regular aerobic exercise. Angina attacks decrease in heart disease patients who follow an exercise program. Exercise has also been shown to improve glucose tolerance and retard the development of non-insulin-dependent diabetes. Exercise is also good for the heart muscle itself. When you do regular aerobic exercise , the heart beats faster, indicating that it is working harder that is, you are exercising the heart muscle. This causes an increase in the size of the muscle, and the amount of blood flowing to it. As the muscle strengthens, it can pump ...

What will I gain by exercising? • Studies have shown that regular aerobic exercise lowers triglycerides, increases HDL (the good cholesterol), and sometimes reduces LDL (the bad cholesterol). • Over time, exercise can increase the size of the coronary arteries and the capillaries that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. Some evidence exists that exercise may even promote the formation of extra blood vessels to help compensate for those that are blocked. • Exercise helps control blood pressure. If your blood pressure is normal, physical activity will help it stay that way. If it is elevated, exercise can help lower it. •Exercise helps control blood sugar and prevent non-insulindependent diabetes. • Exercise helps prevent blood clotting in arteries and veins. • Exercise improves your overall quality of life. As your heart works more efficiently, it does so with less effort. You’ll find you have more energy. • Exercise helps with weight loss and weight control . A phys...

What about depression is it the same as stress?  Many of the symptoms of stress are also symptoms of depression, but it is not clear whether depression and stress cause the same physiological responses in the body. It is estimated that between 25 and 30 million Americans suffer from clinical depression (not just moodiness), although many go undiagnosed. The hallmark signs of depression are a loss of interest in life in general and a hopeless, withdrawn, or pessimistic attitude. Depressed people often experience a loss of energy, feel restless, and have trouble concentrating and making decisions. Some do not experience the agitation and rise in blood pressure and heart rate that are part of the stress response; others do. High levels of cortisol are present in many severely depressed patients, contributing to high levels of LDL (the harmful fat in cholesterol) in the blood. If for no other reason than that depression is linked to an elevation in LDL, people with heart disease m...

Are you saying that anger, sadness, and other emotions are harmful because they cause stress?   Anger , fear, sadness, and other emotions are a fact of life. Everyone experiences them to some degree or other. Just as physical pain alerts us that something is going on in the body that needs our attention, these painful emotions let us know that something in our psyche needs attention. Sometimes these emotions arise, are acknowledged,and dissipate. At other times, particularly if these emotions are not acknowledged, they arise over and over again until they become a chronic, underlying sttfte. It is when they go unrecognized or are suppressed that emotions become stressful; emotions in themselves are healthy, not harmful.

Are some people more naturally stressed than others? There are ways in which some people typically respond to everyday situations, whether stressful or not, that result in physiological reactions that can contribute to heart disease . The strongest association with stress responses is in people who tend to get angry or hostile easily, who are fast-paced, always under time pressures, aggressive, distrustful, or cynical. This type of behavior in a person, familiar to most of us, is called Type A behavior . Books have been written about Type A behavior. People who exhibit this behavior are more likely to have a heart attack than those who are more trusting and calm. There are certain psychological characteristics of a Type A person such as hostility, cynicism, and anger that are strongly associated with increased heart attack risk. Those who have a high level of anger and hostility are at the greatest risk. Anger and hostility may cause the release of hormones such as adrenaline int...

What about nicotine gums or patches to help people stop smoking?  Although these products are available without a prescription, be sure to discuss their use with your health care professional ifyou have any symptoms of or risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Nicotine gum contains about 2 milligrams of nicotine per piece. It is recommended that you chew an average of ten or twelve pieces per day, reducing the number over a period of several months. People with certain heart disorders, ulcers, or throat and mouth problems should not use the gum, so check with your health care professional first. Some people prefer the gum to the nicotine patch because the dose is individually controllable and gives them something to carry around and manipulate. Overuse of the nicotine gum can be a temptation, however, and some people may suffer side effects burning in the mouth or throat, nausea, and vomiting. The nicotine patch releases nicotine through the skin and into the bloodstream...

It can be helpful to make a few lists and carry them with you. • Make a list of situations that most strongly trigger your smoking urge. This will help you recognize them immediately when they occur, or even ahead of time. Work out some advance strategies to respond to this urge, listing some options that might work for you (e.g., leaving the situation, performing some alternative action like gum chewing, taking a walk, eating candy, or saying something prerehearsed to yourself or to others present). • Decide what you will say when you are offered a cigarette, asked if you’ve quit yet, or teased. Rehearse these lines often; advocates of the power of positive thinking claim that mental rehearsals are perhaps just as powerful as real-life experiences in the quest to change your behavior. • Make a list of your motivations to quit so you can reread it whenever you need to. • Make a list of all your reasons not to smoke, including health reasons. This last suggestion is really a fo...

Are cigars safer than cigarettes? Cigar smoking and smokeless tobacco have been heavily promoted and have increased in use in recent years. Cigar smokers, as well as pipe smokers, differ from cigarette smokers in that they usually do not inhale. It is true that cigar and pipe smoking carries a lower risk of heart disease than cigarette smoking. However, former cigarette smokers who are used to inhaling may inhale when they switch to cigars, even though cigar and pipe smoke is more irritating to the lungs than cigarette smoke. Those cigar smokers who do inhale actually have higher rates of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases than cigarette smokers; and those who don’t inhale each puff still passively inhale some of their own secondhand smoke. Whether one inhales or not, the use of cigars and chewing tobacco carries an increased risk of cancers of the mouth and throat, as does inhaling secondhand cigar smoke. Smokeless tobacco, such as chewing tobacco or snuff, provides a dose o...

It’s never too late to lower your risk of heart disease. The risk of heart disease rapidly decreases once you stop smoking. In the first twenty four hours after quitting, your blood pressure and pulse return to normal, as do the oxygen and carbon monoxide levels in your blood. This alone relieves some of the extra stress you have been imposing on your heart. Within three months after quitting, you will experience a sharpening of the senses of taste and smell. Your circulation will be improved and your lungs may work at up to 30 percent greater capacity. After a year, your risk of CHD will be about halfway between a smoker’s and a nonsmoker’s. Abnormality of blood clotting due to a higher level of fibrinogen (a component of blood that makes blood clotting, possible) and platelets (particles in the blood that by aggregation make the clots possible) related to smoking will disappear, but it takes longer to undo the damage to the arteries. If your smoking has contributed to plaque de...

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, ...

How can you say that smoking causes heart disease and stroke?   If you ask smokers, nonsmokers, or ex-smokers what they think are the consequences of smoking, no one will hesitate to mention lung cancer, emphysema, chronic coughing, and other respiratory problems. Only a few will mention heart disease. Smoking not only is a major risk factor for lung cancer and emphysema but also doubles an individual’s likelihood of developing heart disease. Smokers with heart disease are up to 70 percent more likely to die of heart disease than are nonsmokers. The heart disease risk increases in relation to the number of cigarettes smoked each day. Individuals who smoke up to 14 cigarettes a day are approximately twice as likely to develop heart disease as those who don’t smoke. Those who smoke 15 to 24 cigarettes a day are about four times as likely, and those who smoke more than 25 cigarettes a day are six times as likely to develop heart disease. These statistics, added to the risk statis...

What about cardiac rehabilitation centers?  A cardiac rehabilitation center is a facility located in your community, perhaps at a YMCA or in a hospital. These centers are staffed by nurses trained in the skills needed to supervise physical activity and provide guidance on medications, diet, and rate of recovery after a heart attack. Physicians are readily available if needed and are sometimes in attendance. These centers can make your recovery much easier and help you build confidence by meeting other people who are recovering successfully from a heart attack. Cardiac rehabilitation centers will help you implement the program outlined in this blog, and going to a rehabilitation center can be the very best way to get back to a normal life as soon as possible.  A cardiac rehabilitation program works on all of the risk factors and your individual program is designed to help you make the transition from knowing in your mind what you need to do to actually doing it. You wil...

While in the first week survival is still the key issue in your mind, for the next five weeks or so you should be planning physically, psychologically, and emotionally to return to full activity in your normal life. In this period you have to give it your best effort to achieve full recovery. Focus more than ever on taking your medications, quitting smoking, avoiding secondhand smoke, reducing stress, controlling depression, exercise, and diet, reducing alcohol intake, and lowering your weight if you are obese.