The Year of the Fat

During the first few months of this year, we’ve seen at least three strong signs suggesting that health authorities have misled the public for several decades about dietary fats. This finding is of particular interest because later this year the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans will be published. Ever since the beginning of the 1960s, “eat less fat, in … Read more

What About Saturated Fats if You Already Have Heart Disease?

We’re all aware of the aggressive campaign driven by public health authorities and medical professionals to decrease blood cholesterol. It all started more than fifty years ago when the Framingham Heart Study reported that high blood cholesterol was a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (1).     Central to the dogma was the belief that lowering blood cholesterol would … Read more

HDL Cholesterol – The “Good” Cholesterol Explained

High-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL cholesterol) is commonly measured to assess the risk of heart disease. If you’ve had a blood sample drawn for assessment of lipid panel you probably already know if your cholesterol level is acceptable or not. You might also recall something about good and bad cholesterol and the ratio between these two. Of course, … Read more

Vegetarian Diet – Will Going Vegan Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease?

I became a bit puzzled the other day when I read a blog article written by Kim A Williams MD, a cardiologist at Rush University in Chicago and the next president of the American College of Cardiology.   Doctor Williams describes how one of his patient’s history inspired him to change his dietary habits and adopt a … Read more

The Modern-Day Heart Patient – From One Risk Profile to Another

Although the death rate from coronary heart disease (CHD) has declined rapidly during the last few decades, CHD remains the most common cause of death in most countries around the world. The reduction in death rate is partly due to fewer people being diagnosed with CHD and partly due to a better prognosis of those … Read more