3317: Yes, Even Athletes Get Heart Disease by Nancy Clark on Heart Health in Athletes

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This is Optimal Health Daily.

Yes, even athletes get heart disease by Nancy Clark of NancyClarkRD.com and I'm Dr.

Neal.

Hey there, happy Saturday.

Thank you so much for being here and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, where I act

as your narrator of the best health and fitness blogs all for free.

And don't forget we have a few shows where we do this very same thing, covering a bunch

of topics.

Just search for Optimal Living Daily in any podcast app to find them.

Alright, and with that, let's get right to it and start optimizing your life.

Yes, even athletes get heart disease by Nancy Clark of NancyClarkRD.com.

As he indulged in a jumbo sugar-covered fried pastry, the athlete unabashedly remarked,

I'm skinny, I can eat this.

Well, the truth is, even skinny athletes die suddenly of heart attacks and strokes.

Heart disease is the number one killer ahead of cancer and accounts for one in four deaths.

No one can out-exercise a bad diet.

While we've all heard, let food be thymedicine, the latest dietary advice from the American

Heart Association focuses less on individual foods and nutrients and more on lifestyle

and dietary patterns.

Given cardiovascular disease starts in the womb, adopting heart-healthy eating patterns

early and maintaining them throughout one's life is important.

Thankfully, the same food plan that invests in heart health invests in sports performance,

as well as reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, mental decline, and environmental issues.

Here are some recent American Heart Association dietary guidelines.

Because these guidelines are targeted to the general public, athletes can appropriately

make a few tweaks to support optimal sports performance.

One, adjust energy intake and expenditure to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight.

Most athletes do a good job with body weight control and body weight maintenance.

Just remember, large portions of even heart-healthy foods can contribute to weight gain.

Two, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and choose a wide variety.

Fruits and veggies, in particular, those with deep colors like peaches, berries, spinach

and carrots, offer natural vitamins and minerals as well as phytochemicals that improve heart

health.

Many fruits and veggies are rich in potassium, which has been associated with lower blood pressure.

Some fruits and vegetables such as arugula, romaine lettuce, beets, and rhubarb are nitrate

rich, which can improve blood flow and therefore improve aerobic performance.

If you have trouble including plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in your daily meals, make

food preparation easier by using frozen fruits and vegetables.

They actually offer more nutrients than the wilted produce that's been sitting in your

refrigerator for several days.

Frozen produce is ready to use, reduces food waste, and costs less than fresh, so stock

up.

Three, choose foods made mostly with whole grains rather than refined grains.

The fiber and whole grains helps feed gut microbes that enhance the immune system and overall

health.

While most of your breads, cereals and pastas should be whole grain, eating refined grains

at one meal a day will not undermine your health.

That is, if you eat oatmeal for breakfast, whole wheat bread at lunch, and popcorn as

a snack, eating white pasta for dinner still fits within the guidelines that more than

half of your grains should be whole grains.

Four, choose healthy sources of protein, meaning mostly protein from plants like legumes and

nuts, fish and seafood, low fat or fat-free dairy products instead of full fat.

If meat or poultry are desired, choose lean cuts and avoid processed forms.

Plant protein is excellent for heart health, lentils, hummus, edamame, tofu, basically

all beans and nuts.

The more nuts and nut butters, the lower the risk of cardiovascular disease, especially

stroke.

The benefits of low fat and fat-free versus full fat dairy are controversial and continue

to be debated.

To date, the American Heart Association reports, full fat yogurt and kefir are positive additions

to your diet.

Note, nut milk is actually just nut juice, it's low in protein and lacking in most nutrients.

The better plant-based alternatives to dairy are soy milk or p-milk.

Not processed meats like ham, hot dogs, bacon, sausage, pepperoni and salami have a stronger

link to cardiovascular disease than lean red meats.

The potential negative effects of red meat on heart health have been attributed to a combination

of factors including saturated fat, heme iron, the gut microbiome, and TMAO, which is basically

a meat metabolite.

The American Heart Association has historically limited eggs because of their high cholesterol

content.

Currently, there is no specific limit on dietary cholesterol.

So the question arises, are eggs a contributor to cardiovascular disease?

Or is the bacon or sausage that accompanies the eggs the culprit?

The intake of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat tends to increase in parallel, meaning,

if we're eating eggs, we usually eat that with bacon and sausage.

Their cholesterol itself may be less of a nutrient concern.

5.

Use liquid plant oils rather than tropical oils like coconut, palm and palm kernel oil,

as well as animal fats like butter and lard and partially hydrogenated fats.

Replacing solid at room temperature saturated fats like butter and coconut oil with soft

or liquid polyunsaturated and monoinsaturated fats has robust scientific evidence of protecting

against heart disease by lowering bad or LDL cholesterol.

These types of soft or liquid polyunsaturated and monoinsaturated fats include corn, canola

and olive oils, as well as walnuts and peanut butter.

And by lowering bad or LDL cholesterol, this may reduce the risk of developing heart

disease.

In comparison, coconut oil has a high saturated fat content and has been found to raise LDL

cholesterol levels with little evidence of positive health benefits.

6.

Choose minimally processed foods instead of ultra processed foods.

Ultra processed foods like ramen noodles, cheese curls, commercially baked cookies and

so on are so easy to over consume.

This is more minimally processed if not completely unprocessed foods such as homemade granola

bars and trail mix made with nuts and dried fruit.

7.

Minimize intake of beverages and foods with added sugars.

Sugar comes in many forms, glucose, dextrose, sucrose, corn syrup, concentrated fruit

juice, honey, maple syrup and on and on.

The same athletes, whose scrutinized food labels for added sugar, often consume lots

of sports drinks, gels and chops.

Simple to digest sugars actually what your body needs during extended exercise, when the

theme is survival and not good nutrition.

Sugar becomes a problem when athletes skip, wholesome meals get too hungry, start to crave

sugary foods and then eat the whole plate of cookies.

Preventing hunger is the key to preventing cravings for sugary foods.

Eating a hearty, protein-rich breakfast can set the stage for reduced sugar cravings

towards the end of the day.

8.

Choose and prepare foods with little or no salt.

In general, reduced salt intake is linked with reduced blood pressure.

That said, most athletes actually have low blood pressure.

They also lose salt or more correctly sodium in sweat.

Athletes who sweat heavily can easily replace their sodium losses by just eating salty

foods.

The leading sources of dietary sodium are processed, restaurant and packaged foods.

If your sports diet is mostly unprocessed foods, it may be low in sodium, but probably

unlikely.

9.

If you don't drink alcohol, no need to start.

If you choose to drink alcohol, limit your intake.

The link between alcohol intake and heart disease is complex depending on what and how

much you drink.

Athletes are known to drink more alcohol than non-athletes.

Alcohol has negative effects not only on heart health, but also athletic performance, and

has been linked to injuries, violence, digestive diseases, poor pregnancy outcomes, and some

forms of cancer.

And 10.

Adhere to this guidance, regardless of where food is prepared or consumed.

Because so many athletes buy takeout foods, healthy eating patterns need to apply to both

meals prepared in and outside of the home.

Occasional treats are fine, just be sure they are not the norm.

By following these guidelines, you will be taking steps towards a lifetime of better

health.

Choose your foods wisely, enjoy your active lifestyle, and miles of smiles.

You just listen to the post titled, yes, even athletes get heart disease by Nancy Clark

of NancyClarkRD.com, and I'll be right back with my commentary.

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Dr. Neil here for my commentary.

A few years ago, I was teaching my students about cardiovascular disease.

I wanted to put a human face to this disease to hopefully make the topic more impactful.

So I started the talk by showing pictures of famous people that have experienced different

forms of cardiovascular disease.

For example, I talked about former US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt who likely died

from a stroke because of years of living with high blood pressure.

They didn't know about it until they conducted an autopsy.

I talked about Tony soprano himself James Gandalfini and how he died from a sudden heart

attack.

Then I talked about Darrell Kyle, a former baseball player for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Darrell died of a sudden heart attack caused by coronary artery disease.

That's when the arteries on the heart become blocked.

At that point, a student's hand shot straight up in the air before I could even call on

him.

He blurted out, wait a minute.

You mean to tell me that someone that played professional sports died from a heart attack?

You said that you wouldn't have these problems if you exercised.

So what's the point of exercising?

It doesn't help at all.

My response was very similar to what today's author Nancy said at the very beginning of

today's post.

I told the student and the class that you can't out exercise a bad diet.

So maybe he was active but didn't follow a nutritious diet.

I also added that we don't know if the player had an underlying condition which may have

placed him at an increased risk for coronary artery disease and we didn't know his family

history or his body fat percentage and on and on.

I then thanked the student for asking this question and mentioned that we're going to discuss

some of these risk factors as part of this topic.

That seemed to appease the student.

Alright, that'll do it for today.

I hope you have a great weekend if you're listening in real time and I'll see you back

here tomorrow for the Sunday show and where your optimal life awaits.