Avoiding Heart Disease and Stroke

Edited by Jonathan D. Kantrowitz

Published by Tsadek Press

Copyright Jonathan Kantrowitz 2014



This book is a compendium of reports on all the latest research on the ways to avoid cardiovascular disease.  There are so many good things you could be doing - most of them are easy! Eating, drinking, taking supplements, and exercising can have such a huge influence on your future health. This book may open your eyes to new ways to protect yourself and you family.. Don't wait another minute to order and read it!

8.5 x 11, 228 pages

$14.95

2 Tsadek Press books $19.95
3 Tsadek Press books $24.95

Call 1-800-232--2224 to order a pdf of this title

Table of Contents

Healthy Diet and Lifestyle

Aspirin                                              

Chocolate                                         

Coffee                                                           

Exercise                                            

Fiber                                                  

Fish and Fish Oil                            

Fruits and Vegetables                     

Mediterranean Diet                        

Vegetarian Diet                               

Moderate Alcohol Consumption   

Olive Oil                                          

Nuts                                       

Pulses and Whole Grains  

Protein                                  

Tea                                        

Vitamin D                             

Coenzyme Q10                    

The 'Obesity Paradox'  
      

Appendix: Dangerous Foods

Appendix: Stress                 

Sample Articles

Caffeine may prevent heart disease death in elderly

Habitual intake of caffeinated beverages provides protection against heart disease mortality in the elderly, say researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and Brooklyn College.

Using data from the first federal National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Epidemiologic Follow-up Study, the researchers found that survey participants 65 or more years old with higher caffeinated beverage intake exhibited lower relative risk of coronary vascular disease and heart mortality than did participants with lower caffeinated beverage intake.

John Kassotis, MD, associate professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate, said, "The protection against death from heart disease in the elderly afforded by caffeine is likely due to caffeine's enhancement of blood pressure."_

The protective effect also was found to be dose-responsive: the higher the caffeine intake the stronger the protection. The protective effect was found only in participants who were not severely hypertensive. No significant protective effect was in patients below the age of 65.

Green tea, coffee may help lower stroke risk

Green tea and coffee may help lower your risk of having a stroke, especially when both are a regular part of your diet, according to research published in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

"This is the first large-scale study to examine the combined effects of both green tea and coffee on stroke risks," said Yoshihiro Kokubo, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.H.A., F.A.C.C., F.E.S.C., lead author of the study at Japan's National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center. "You may make a small but positive lifestyle change to help lower the risk of stroke by adding daily green tea to your diet."

Researchers asked 83,269 Japanese adults about their green tea and coffee drinking habits, following them for an average 13 years. They found that the more green tea or coffee people drink, the lower their stroke risks.

- People who drank at least one cup of coffee daily had about a 20 percent lower risk of stroke compared to those who rarely drank it.

- People who drank two to three cups of green tea daily had a 14 percent lower risk of stroke and those who had at least four cups had a 20 percent lower risk, compared to those who rarely drank it.

- People who drank at least one cup of coffee or two cups of green tea daily had a 32 percent lower risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, compared to those who rarely drank either beverage. (Intracerebral hemorrhage happens when a blood vessel bursts and bleeds inside the brain. About 13 percent of strokes are hemorrhagic.)

- Participants in the study were 45 to 74 years old, almost evenly divided in gender, and were free from cancer and cardiovascular disease.

During the 13-years of follow-up, researchers reviewed participants' hospital medical records and death certificates, collecting data about heart disease, strokes and causes of death. They adjusted their findings to account for age, sex and lifestyle factors like smoking, alcohol, weight, diet and exercise.

Previous limited research has shown green tea's link to lower death risks from heart disease, but has only touched on its association with lower stroke risks. Other studies have shown inconsistent connections between coffee and stroke risks.

Initial study results showed that drinking more than two cups of coffee daily was linked to increasing coronary heart disease rates in age- and sex-adjusted analysis. But researchers didn't find the association after factoring in the effects of cigarette smoking — underscoring smoking's negative health impact on heart and stroke health.

A typical cup of coffee or tea in Japan was approximately six ounces. "However, our self-reported data may be reasonably accurate, because nationwide annual health screenings produced similar results, and our validation study showed relatively high validity." Kokubo said. "The regular action of drinking tea, coffee, largely benefits cardiovascular health because it partly keeps blood clots from forming."

Some chemicals in coffee include chlorogenic acid, thus cutting stroke risks by lowering the chances of developing type 2 diabetes. Further research could clarify how the interaction between coffee and green tea might help further lower stroke risks, Kokubo said.

Chocolate reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke

A number of recent studies have shown that eating chocolate has a positive influence on human health due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. This includes reducing blood pressure and improving insulin sensitivity (a stage in the development of diabetes).

However, the evidence about how eating chocolate affects your heart still remains unclear. So, Dr Oscar Franco and colleagues from the University of Cambridge carried out a large scale review of the existing evidence to evaluate the effects of eating chocolate on cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke.

They analysed the results of seven studies, involving over 100,000 participants with and without existing heart disease. For each study, they compared the group with the highest chocolate consumption against the group with the lowest consumption. Differences in study design and quality were also taken into account to minimise bias.

Five studies reported a beneficial link between higher levels of chocolate consumption and the risk of cardiovascular events and they found that the "highest levels of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in stroke compared with lowest levels." No significant reduction was found in relation to heart failure.

The studies did not differentiate between dark or milk chocolate and included consumption of chocolate bars, drinks, biscuits and desserts.

The authors say the findings need to be interpreted with caution, in particular because commercially available chocolate is very calorific (around 500 calories for every 100 grams) and eating too much of it could in itself lead to weight gain, risk of diabetes and heart disease.

Avoiding Cancer

Edited by Jonathan D. Kantrowitz

Published by Tsadek Press

Copyright, Jonathan Kantrowitz 2014

This book is a compendium of reports on all the latest research on the ways to avoid, or mitigate the harm caused by, cancer.  It's not readily apparent that there are many life-saving techniques , often easy to apply, that can have such a huge influence on your future health. This book may open your eyes to new ways to protect yourself and your family from the scourge of cancer. Don't wait another minute to order and read it!

8.5 x 11, 180 pages

$14.95

2 Tsadek Press books $19.95
3 Tsadek Press books $24.95

Call 1-800-232--2224 to order a pdf of this title

Table of Contents

Aspirin           `                                                                      

Chocolate                                                                             

Coffee                                                                                               

Exercise                                                                                

Fiber                                                                                      

Fish and Fish Oil                                                                

Fruits and Vegetables                                                         

Mediterranean Diet                                                            

Moderate Alcohol Consumption                                       

Olive Oil, Nuts, Whole Grains                                          

Tea                                                                                        

Vitamin D                                                                             

Miscellaneous Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements

Foods To Avoid

Sample Reports

Aspirin for Primary Prevention in Men When Cancer Mortality Benefit Added

While aspirin has been shown to be effective in preventing heart attacks in men, it also increases the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding and possibly stroke, even at low doses. As such, national guidelines suggest that aspirin be used for prevention only in men at higher risk for cardiovascular events, so that the benefits of aspirin are greater than its adverse effects.

Recent data suggest that aspirin may also be effective for reducing cancer deaths. Would the possible combined health benefits of reducing heart attacks and cancer outweigh the risks of gastrointestinal bleeding and stroke for middle-aged men?

A research team, including UNC scientists, reports that including the positive effect of aspirin on cancer mortality influences the threshold for prescribing aspirin for primary prevention in men. The benefit of aspirin for cancer mortality prevention would help offset the risks and thus lower the age and increase the number of men for whom aspirin is recommended.

Their results were published in the June 2013 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Michael Pignone, MD, MPH, and study lead author, says, “We found that including a risk reduction for cancer deaths had a substantial impact on the overall benefits of aspirin, especially for early middle-aged men from 45 to 55 years of age. Based on this effect, several million men who were not previously good candidates for aspirin prevention would now become eligible.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, of which Dr. Pignone is a recently appointed member, recommends aspirin for primary prevention in men “when the potential benefit of a reduction in myocardial infarctions outweighs the potential harm of an increase in gastrointestinal hemorrhage.” This recommendation was issued in 2009, before the potential benefits for cancer reduction were recognized.

Coffee Reduces Breast Cancer Risk

Recently published research shows that coffee drinkers enjoy not only the taste of their coffee but also a reduced risk of cancer with their cuppa. More detailed research published May 10, 2011 in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research shows that drinking coffee specifically reduces the risk of antiestrogen-resistant estrogen-receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer.

Researchers from Sweden compared lifestyle factors and coffee consumption between women with breast cancer and age-matched women without. They found that coffee drinkers had a lower incidence of breast cancer than women who rarely drank coffee. However they also found that several lifestyle factors affected breast cancer rates, such as age at menopause, exercise, weight, education, and a family history of breast cancer. Once they had adjusted their data to account for these other factors they found that the protective effect of coffee on breast cancer was only measurable for ER-negative breast cancer.

The group from Karolinska Institutet explained that, "There is often conflicting information about the beneficial effects of coffee -- when we compared our results to that of a German study we discovered that their data showed the same trend, but the relationship was much weaker. We suggest that this may have something to do with the way the coffee was prepared, or the type of bean preferred. It is unlikely that the protective effect is due to phytoestrogens present in coffee since there was no reduction in the incidence of ER-positive cancer in this study."

So while it is evident that coffee may have beneficial effects in protecting women from ER negative breast cancer the exact mechanism and compounds involved are not yet clear and not all types of coffee are the same.

Exercise and rest reduce cancer risk

Exercise is good for more than just your waistline. A recent study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research suggests that regular physical activity can lower a woman's overall risk of cancer – but only if she gets a good night's sleep. Otherwise, lack of sleep can undermine exercise's cancer prevention benefits.

"Greater participation in physical activity has consistently been associated with reduced risk of cancer incidence at several sites, including breast and colon cancers," said James McClain, Ph.D., cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study. "Short duration sleep appears to have opposing effects of physical activity on several key hormonal and metabolic parameters, which is why we looked at how it affected the exercise/cancer risk relationship."

Even though the exact mechanism of how exercise reduces cancer risk isn't known, researchers believe that physical activity's effects on factors including hormone levels, immune function, and body weight may play an important role. The study examined the link between exercise and cancer risk, paying special attention to whether or not getting adequate sleep further affected a women's cancer risk.

Researchers assessed the association between physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE), sleep duration and incidence of overall, breast, and colon cancer in 5,968 women at least 18 years old with no previous cancer diagnoses. The women completed an initial survey in 1998 and were then tracked through the Washington County Cancer Registry and Maryland State Cancer Registry for nearly 10 years.

The results pointed to a sleep-exercise link. "Current findings suggest that sleep duration modifies the relationship between physical activity and all-site cancer risk among young and middle-aged women," he said.

Out of those 5,968 women, 604 experienced a first incidence of cancer, including 186 breast cancer cases. Women in the upper 50 percent of PAEE showed significantly reduced risk of overall cancer and breast cancer. Among women 65 or younger when surveyed and in the upper half of PAEE, sleeping less than seven hours a day increased overall cancer risk, negating much of the protective effects of physical activity on cancer risk for this group.

The next step, says McClain, would be to confirm current findings and investigate potential mechanisms underlying the interaction between sleep and exercise in order to better understand their roles in cancer prevention.

Research is expanding rapidly on the effect of insufficient and prolonged sleep duration on many health outcomes although few studies have examined the association of sleep duration with cancer risk. This novel study examining the interaction of sleep and physical activity suggests another future focus of research on health behaviors and cancer outcomes.

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