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Good fats, bad fats, inflammation & the chia seed

When a heart surgeon who has seen the insides of 5,000 people’s arteries has a “change of heart” it’s definitely something to take note of! Staying on top of modern health research is important (especially now, as more studies, papers, tests & articles than ever before are being published) Especially if you want to protect your health, and the health of the ones you care for. The doctor, Dwight Lundell, actually caught onto something new and interesting. His suspicion? Cholesterol on artery walls may be a side effect! Instead of being a self-causing problem (like a broken bone) cholesterol build up may be an over-zealous response to inflammation. Much like how an allergy is an over-done response to something that’s usually harmless (pollen, pet dander, leaf mold etc) cholesterol build up may be a similar over-reaction...or just a regular reaction. Of course there’s endless reading to do when the topic is heart disease, cholesterol, and heart-attacks. Heart disease is the #1 killer of people in the USA today, and it’s likely to keep its top spot so long as no one changes their diet. Pharmaceutical companies would love the answer to be ‘cut cholesterol’ that you are eating, and take some pills. But, what if cholesterol build up on artery walls was only a SIDE EFFECT of something else going on in the body?
Diagram: Cholesterol coats the artery to protect it from inflammation. The problem arises when pieces of cholesterol break free, AND the artery becomes clogged by it's own coating of cholesterol.
What if it’s right? What if cholesterol is such a problem “now more than ever” because of the modern menu? Inflammation causing foods like alcohol, refined sugar, excess sugar, fiber-free processed grains, and an imbalance of omega 6 vs omega 3 oils could all be contributing factors in more inflammation...and according to the Doctor’s theory, more reason to apply cholesterol to artery walls to try and block it. To study this further, you need to understand inflammation. Inflammation is a body’s natural reaction to some harmful substance. A bee-sting will certainly cause inflammation of the surrounding tissue, until the poison and histamines are removed from the area. Inflammation can be good—if only continued for short periods of time. The problem occurs when certain parts of the body are frequently, or constantly inflamed. Then, instead of being beneficial, the inflammation turns to harm…and can even be deadly. In the case of the cholesterol side-effect, it’s the arteries of the body that are under attack from frequent inflammation. Cholesterol is used by the body to coat the arteries and protect them from inflammation. The problem is, this restricts blood flow and can cause dangerous pieces of this coating to break off and cause any number of maladies. This is what people today see: cholesterol as the enemy, building up to “attack” people in various ways. What’s the real problem? These low-carb, artificially sweetened, over-sweetened, omega-6 oil rich foods are actually the culprit in causing inflammation in the arteries. The main enemies are simple carbohydrates found in processed foods (these turn to sugars very quickly) , refined sugar, and omega 6 oils (oils that when out of balance produce cytokines, the inflammatory molecules).
“What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels. “ Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ
While refined sugar and simple starches may be a bit easier to avoid, what about the omega 6 oil? Your body DOES need some of it for healthy function, but it must be balanced with the healthy omega-3 oil. The ideal ratio is more omega 3 than 6. However, with saturated fats, animal fats, and other sources of omega 3 being labeled as “fattening” or “less healthy” the balance has been thrown off. Omega 6 fat also gives foods a longer shelf-life which is best for the bottom line—not you! The truth is, while omega-6 may look attractive on the surface (such as soy oil, sunflower oil, corn oil) due to slower spoilage and being ‘unsaturated’, they’re actually behind a lot of the inflammation that’s keeping people at risk.
“Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the "science" that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.”

So what’s the good news in all of this?

It’s not too late! Chances are, if you are reading this article, you CAN reverse some of the damage to your artery walls. And you can also prevent more inflammation from occurring in the future. When you cut out inflammation, you also stop the body’s need to plaster the artery walls with potentially harmful cholesterol. There are also many delicious solutions, and great reasons to raise omega-3 levels. Omega-3 may actually play a part in weight loss success! Jade Beutler an author of Understanding Fats & Oils says “Omega 3 fatty acids are gaining popularity with those looking to lose weight while attaining optimal health and the latest research has revealed numerous slimming secrets attributed to Omega-3s”. USA Weekend magazine also reports on a study where overweight dieters who included omega 3s in their eating plan lost 2 more pounds monthly than the control group, who did not.
First, eat greener: Try to add more unprocessed foods to your diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables may have carbohydrates, but they are mostly complex-carbohydrates. Even in the sweetest fruits, these are broken down more slowly and blood sugar isn’t so heavily affected. Stay away or minimize starchy foods like white breads and sugar-glazed cereals. The healthiest food is the food that’s closest to its natural state. Grass fed beef, free-range chicken/turkey, colorful fruits, squash, vegetables, nuts and seeds are the key to minimizing inflammation so your natural healing process can take over.
Want to help balance your omega-3 and omega 6? As you may know, fish and fish oil are rich in healthy omega-3 oils. But what if you don’t want fish every night? Don’t like the idea of cod-liver-oil? Worried about fish absorbing harmful pollutants and spreading them to your family? Or maybe, you want to follow the vegetarian path so that the oceans can recover from over-fishing. No matter what your reason, Omega-3 just got a lot healthier and easier to add to your diet!
Chia Seed Bowl Photo
Enter, the Chia Seed This tiny seed is nature’s richest plant-based source of omega-3 oil. By weight, it is even richer than salmon, so every spoon full of chia can help you tip the balance to the healthy omega-3 side. The best part is, there’s no flavor. You can add these seeds to whatever you like (unlike fish!) to raise your daily amount of omega-3. They’re also full of b-vitamins, more calcium than milk, and more magnesium than broccoli…all with the taste of whatever you’d like!
Next: “Waste” Your Cholesterol The liver uses cholesterol. If you want less cholesterol, you can help your liver use it up by making bile-acid. Bile acid is dispensed by the liver to help digest foods, but it requires cholesterol to make it. High fiber foods cause the liver to dispense more bile acid. However, most modern menus include lots of refined foods that have had the fiber removed. When you add fiber back into your diet, bile acid is used to try to proces it, then, it all gets moved out through the colon. Chia seeds have so much fiber, both soluble and insoluble that you can actually see it! Soluble fiber in plants is usually so small, as to be invisible to the naked eye...but when you wet chia seeds with filterd water, you can see a small ‘halo’ around each one: this is the soluble fiber. Feed the “good guys” Harmful bacteria can also be a source of inflammation in the body. If cholesterol is going to be an effect of inflammation of any sort, it’s important to try and stop it. Good bacteria, called probiotic bacteria help stamp out the harmful ones. They also help you break down your food, meaning you get more nutrients. But, they thrive when given soluble fiber. You may not be able to digest it, but probiotic bacteria can...and they’ll do their job better when they’re well fed. “Food of convenience” is part of the reason for this obesity and cholesterol epidemic. Easier, faster, tastier, and longer-lasting has been the motto. Chia Seeds may be the ultimate convenient food. What is easier than sprinkling a spoonful onto something you were going to eat or drink anyway? What is more delicious than the best taste that YOU specify? And what natural, uncooked, preservative free food lasts 2 years without refrigeration? Nothing else but ‘the chia seed’ can answer yes to all these questions. The first step in changing your health is usually in changing your eating habits. Chia seeds make it easier to do so, by packing in so many health benefits into a single, easy to use food. The convenience lure is very real. People’s lives are much busier and temptation is around every corner, and that’s why it’s so important to have a go-to food that’s both healthy and that you’re unable to get tired of. 
Want some Chia Seeds? Get the best quality seeds with our Chia Seed Order Page or You can read more Chia Articles This article can be read on Articles Base Want to learn more about cholesterol and what Dr. Lundell has to say? Use The Great Cholesterol Lie The quote above can be found in his book.

Heart surgeons’ change of heart?

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First, eat greener: Try to add more unprocessed foods to your diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables may have carbohydrates, but they are mostly complex-carbohydrates. Even in the sweetest fruits, these are broken down more slowly and blood sugar isn’t so heavily affected. Stay away or minimize starchy foods like white breads and sugar-glazed cereals. The healthiest food is the food that’s closest to its natural state. Grass fed beef, free- range chicken/turkey, colorful fruits, squash, vegetables, nuts and seeds are the key to minimizing inflammation so your natural healing process can take over.
Omega 3 vs Omega 6 Oils Heart Health Article Header
When a heart surgeon who has seen the insides of 5,000 people’s arteries has a “change of heart” it’s definitely something to take note of! Staying on top of modern health research is important (especially now, as more studies, papers, tests & articles than ever before are being published) Especially if you want to protect your health, and the health of the ones you care for. The doctor, Dwight Lundell, actually caught onto something new and interesting. His suspicion? Cholesterol on artery walls may be a side effect! Instead of being a self-causing problem (like a broken bone) cholesterol build up may be an over-zealous response to inflammation. Much like how an allergy is an over-done response to something that’s usually harmless (pollen, pet dander, leaf mold etc) cholesterol build up may be a similar over-reaction...or just a regular reaction. Of course there’s endless reading to do when the topic is heart disease, cholesterol, and heart-attacks. Heart disease is the #1 killer of people in the USA today, and it’s likely to keep its top spot so long as no one changes their diet. Pharmaceutical companies would love the answer to be ‘cut cholesterol’ that you are eating, and take some pills. But, what if cholesterol build up on artery walls was only a SIDE EFFECT of something else going on in the body?
Artery & Cholesterol Illustration
Diagram: Cholesterol coats the artery to protect it from inflammation. The problem arises when pieces of cholesterol break free, AND the artery becomes clogged by it's own coating of cholesterol.

Heart Surgeon’s Change of Heart!

Good Fats, Bad Fats, Inflammation

& The Chia Seed

What if it’s right? What if cholesterol is such a problem “now more than ever” because of the modern menu? Inflammation causing foods like alcohol, refined sugar, excess sugar, fiber-free processed grains, and an imbalance of omega 6 vs omega 3 oils could all be contributing factors in more inflammation...and according to the Doctor’s theory, more reason to apply cholesterol to artery walls to try and block it. To study this further, you need to understand inflammation. Inflammation is a body’s natural reaction to some harmful substance. A bee-sting will certainly cause inflammation of the surrounding tissue, until the poison and histamines are removed from the area. Inflammation can be good—if only continued for short periods of time. The problem occurs when certain parts of the body are frequently, or constantly inflamed. Then, instead of being beneficial, the inflammation turns to harm…and can even be deadly. In the case of the cholesterol side-effect, it’s the arteries of the body that are under attack from frequent inflammation. Cholesterol is used by the body to coat the arteries and protect them from inflammation. The problem is, this restricts blood flow and can cause dangerous pieces of this coating to break off and cause any number of maladies. This is what people today see: cholesterol as the enemy, building up to “attack” people in various ways. What’s the real problem? These low-carb, artificially sweetened, over-sweetened, omega-6 oil rich foods are actually the culprit in causing inflammation in the arteries. The main enemies are simple carbohydrates found in processed foods (these turn to sugars very quickly) , refined sugar, and omega 6 oils (oils that when out of balance produce cytokines, the inflammatory molecules).
“What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels. “ Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ
While refined sugar and simple starches may be a bit easier to avoid, what about the omega 6 oil? Your body DOES need some of it for healthy function, but it must be balanced with the healthy omega-3 oil. The ideal ratio is more omega 3 than 6. However, with saturated fats, animal fats, and other sources of omega 3 being labeled as “fattening” or “less healthy” the balance has been thrown off. Omega 6 fat also gives foods a longer shelf-life which is best for the bottom line—not you! The truth is, while omega-6 may look attractive on the surface (such as soy oil, sunflower oil, corn oil) due to slower spoilage and being ‘unsaturated’, they’re actually behind a lot of the inflammation that’s keeping people at risk.
“Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the "science" that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.”

So what’s the good news in all of this?

It’s not too late! Chances are, if you are reading this article, you CAN reverse some of the damage to your artery walls. And you can also prevent more inflammation from occurring in the future. When you cut out inflammation, you also stop the body’s need to plaster the artery walls with potentially harmful cholesterol. There are also many delicious solutions, and great reasons to raise omega-3 levels. Omega-3 may actually play a part in weight loss success! Jade Beutler an author of Understanding Fats & Oils says “Omega 3 fatty acids are gaining popularity with those looking to lose weight while attaining optimal health and the latest research has revealed numerous slimming secrets attributed to Omega-3s”. USA Weekend magazine also reports on a study where overweight dieters who included omega 3s in their eating plan lost 2 more pounds monthly than the control group, who did not.
Want to help balance your omega-3 and omega 6? As you may know, fish and fish oil are rich in healthy omega-3 oils. But what if you don’t want fish every night? Don’t like the idea of cod- liver-oil? Worried about fish absorbing harmful pollutants and spreading them to your family? Or maybe, you want to follow the vegetarian path so that the oceans can recover from over-fishing. No matter what your reason, Omega-3 just got a lot healthier and easier to add to your diet!
Enter, the Chia Seed This tiny seed is nature’s richest plant-based source of omega-3 oil. By weight, it is even richer than salmon, so every spoon full of chia can help you tip the balance to the healthy omega-3 side. The best part is, there’s no flavor. You can add these seeds to whatever you like (unlike fish!) to raise your daily amount of omega-3. They’re also full of b-vitamins, more calcium than milk, and more magnesium than broccoli…all with the taste of whatever you’d like!
Chia Seed Bowl Photo
Next: “Waste” Your Cholesterol The liver uses cholesterol. If you want less cholesterol, you can help your liver use it up by making bile-acid. Bile acid is dispensed by the liver to help digest foods, but it requires cholesterol to make it. High fiber foods cause the liver to dispense more bile acid. However, most modern menus include lots of refined foods that have had the fiber removed. When you add fiber back into your diet, bile acid is used to try to proces it, then, it all gets moved out through the colon. Chia seeds have so much fiber, both soluble and insoluble that you can actually see it! Soluble fiber in plants is usually so small, as to be invisible to the naked eye...but when you wet chia seeds with filterd water, you can see a small ‘halo’ around each one: this is the soluble fiber. Feed the “good guys” Harmful bacteria can also be a source of inflammation in the body. If cholesterol is going to be an effect of inflammation of any sort, it’s important to try and stop it. Good bacteria, called probiotic bacteria help stamp out the harmful ones. They also help you break down your food, meaning you get more nutrients. But, they thrive when given soluble fiber. You may not be able to digest it, but probiotic bacteria can...and they’ll do their job better when they’re well fed. “Food of convenience” is part of the reason for this obesity and cholesterol epidemic. Easier, faster, tastier, and longer-lasting has been the motto. Chia Seeds may be the ultimate convenient food. What is easier than sprinkling a spoonful onto something you were going to eat or drink anyway? What is more delicious than the best taste that YOU specify? And what natural, uncooked, preservative free food lasts 2 years without refrigeration? Nothing else but ‘the chia seed’ can answer yes to all these questions. The first step in changing your health is usually in changing your eating habits. Chia seeds make it easier to do so, by packing in so many health benefits into a single, easy to use food. The convenience lure is very real. People’s lives are much busier and temptation is around every corner, and that’s why it’s so important to have a go-to food that’s both healthy and that you’re unable to get tired of. 
Want some Chia Seeds? Get the best quality seeds with our Chia Seed Order Page or You can read more Chia Articles This article can be read on Articles Base Want to learn more about cholesterol and what Dr. Lundell has to say? Use The Great Cholesterol Lie The quote above can be found in his book.