The Primal Blueprint (21 page)
Read The Primal Blueprint Online
Authors: Mark Sisson
So why are millions being misguided to take dangerous, powerful drugs when lifestyle intervention is more effective and less expensive and has no side effects? Perhaps we like to search for easy answers with quick results, and statins produce a graphic and quick decline in blood cholesterol levels. Like other elements of Conventional Wisdom, there are billions of dollars invested and powerful market forces pushing us in the direction of swallowing drugs and their side effects, while the full story is lost amidst the hype of “lower your numbers quick!”
If you are currently taking statins or other medications, I realize that asking you to reject Conventional Wisdom and the specific recommendations of your trusted physician can put you in a very uncomfortable position. I strongly urge you to engage in lifestyle modification (after all, there are no side effects or potential compromises to your drug regimen when you improve your diet), while concurrently addressing the possibility with your doctor of gradually reducing your dependence on medication.
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By simply adopting the Primal Blueprint laws, you can enjoy superior results without the perilous side effects and huge expense of drug therapy
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How to Sneeze at Heart Disease
The catchall term
Metabolic Syndrome
is used to describe an assortment of heart disease risk factors widely attributed to today’s prevailing poor dietary and exercise habits. The highly respected Cleveland Clinic states that “the exact cause of Metabolic Syndrome is not known…[but] many features are associated with insulin resistance.” When you have three or more of the following five markers, you are diagnosed as having metabolic syndrome.
Elevated fasting blood glucose:
100 mg/dl or greater
Blood pressure:
130/85 mm Hg or greater
Waistline measurement:
40 inches or more for men and 35 inches or more for women
HDL:
less than 40 mg/dl for men and less than 50 mg/dl for women
Triglycerides:
150 mg/dl or greater
The U.S. government and other sources report that some 47 million Americans have Metabolic Syndrome—about one in five Americans. It’s a chronic condition that develops and worsens over time (with no immediate discernable physical symptoms) unless you take dramatic steps to alter your lifestyle. The Cleveland Clinic and
Journal of the American Medical Association
report that more than 40 percent of Americans in their 60s and 70s have the condition. Dr. Richard Feinman, one of the most often-published and highly regarded researchers in the fields of nutrition and metabolism, has suggested that “Metabolic Syndrome may be defined by the response to carbohydrate restriction” (restrict carbs and immediately improve your five markers).
Supplemental Blood Tests
A routine physical exam and blood panel will give you an indication of your Metabolic Syndrome status. Many experts recommend a few additional blood tests to assess overall health and risk factors, including:
C-Reactive Protein:
High sensitivity–C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) is produced by your liver as part of an immune system response to injury or infection. In the absence of other acute infections, high levels of hs-CRP in your blood are associated with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, and sudden cardiac death. Because atherosclerosis is primarily a disease of inflammation, some researchers contend that hs-CRP is a strong predictor of your heart disease risk.
Lp2A:
Another key inflammation marker associated with small, dense LDL particles.
A1c (estimated average glucose):
A1c measures how much glucose is attached to a hemoglobin molecule, a reliable marker for the dangers of elevated blood glucose levels over an extended time period (i.e., a dietary “batting average” versus a single trip to the “plate” for a sugar rush home run).
Fasting Blood Insulin Levels:
High levels are indicative of prediabetic conditions.
Vitamin D:
indicates adequate exposure to sunlight, a critical health component we’ll discus in
Chapter 7
.
Diet and Exercise Prevention Tips
If you are diagnosed with or on the borderline of Metabolic Syndrome, following the
Primal Blueprint
for 30 days can turn four of the five Metabolic Syndrome markers around (it might take a bit longer to get your waistline back in the safe zone) and cause your heart disease risk to plummet—even if you have a family history of obesity, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Here are some specific recommendations and corresponding benefits of following the
Primal Blueprint
:
Balance Omega-6 to Omega-3 Ratios:
Minimizing consumption of omega-6 polyunsaturated fats gives you a greater surface area of saturated (and therefore protected) fats in lipoprotein lipid layers and fatty membranes. Increased consumption of omega-3 oils helps control the inflammation that is the precursor for atherosclerosis and virtually all other metabolic diseases.
Exercise Primal Blueprint Style:
Regular exercise helps lower LDL and raise HDL.
Increase Antioxidant Intake:
If your antioxidant intake is appreciable (from abundant servings of
Primal Blueprint
staples of fruits and vegetables), it’s likely that you’ll help your natural defenses against oxidation. Supplements are a great idea if you lead a stressful life (who doesn’t?), your diet falls short from time to time, or you are at an increased risk of heart disease.
Reduce Carb Intake:
This will help lower your production of triglycerides, raise HDL, lower LDL, and dramatically lower the small, dense LDL (because it’s high levels of triglycerides that prompt small, dense LDL production).
A major feature of
Primal Blueprint
eating is that it provides high levels of healthy saturated and unsaturated fats. While Conventional Wisdom generally positions saturated fats as something to diligently restrict, they are an excellent energy source and offer a variety of nutrients critical to health. Consuming ample amounts of saturated fat helps prevent oxidative damage to your cells (saturated fat is an integral part of cell membranes). While your eyes might bug out at this statement, it’s virtually irrefutable and proven by many respected long term studies:
Eat (healthy) fat and help prevent cancer and heart disease. Avoid fat and increase your risk of cancer, heart disease, and even obesity
.
Fortunately, omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids don’t have an image problem and are universally regarded as healthy. Adequate omega-3 consumption supports healthy
cardiovascular, brain, skin, and immune function. By turning on genes that improve blood circulation, reduce inflammation, and support healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels, omega-3s help reduce the risk of high blood pressure, blood clots that cause heart attacks, arthritis, autoimmune disorders, and cognitive problems such as depression, Alzheimer’s, and even ADHD. The important role of omega-3s in supporting cognitive function is made even more evident by the fact that half the brain consists of fat, including concentrated levels of the omega-3 docosahexanoic acid, DHA.
The benefits of high omega-3 intake and optimum fatty acid balance are strikingly evident from data on cultures that consume substantial amounts of fat but have markedly reduced heart disease rates compared to Westerners, such as the
traditional
Japanese diet (i.e., for those who frequent sushi bars instead of the 3,598 McDonald’s in Japan) centered around fish and vegetables.
Another form of polyunsaturated fats called omega-6s plays a vital role in our health as well, but their extreme prevalence in the Western diet—from vegetable oils, animal fats, bakery items (donuts, cookies), and processed snacks (the highly offensive trans and partially hydrogenated fats are classified as omega-6)—leads to a dangerous imbalance of excessive omega-6 and deficient omega-3. The ideal omega-6 to omega-3 balance is 1:1 or 2:1, ratios that Grok likely met with ease. Even 4:1 is okay today, but the typical modern eater has a ratio of 20:1 or worse! It’s also interesting to note that imbalanced fatty acid intake can exacerbate the insulin resistance problem discussed earlier. Omega-6 fats (particularly arachidonic acid) suppress expression of the major insulin receptor gene governing insulin sensitivity (GLUT4), while omega-3 fats increase expression of GLUT4.
Once again, your genes are only doing what they are told to do by the signals you give them. The imbalance of fatty acids in the typical modern diet triggers a genetically programmed inflammation response throughout the body. Under normal circumstances, inflammation is your body’s highly desirable first line of defense against pain, injury, and infection. Inflammation detects and destroys toxic material in damaged tissue before it can spread to the rest of the body. Consider examples like a bee sting, taking a fastball to the eye, or turning an ankle on a hiking trail—the reddened skin, black eye, and ballooned ankle help your body quarantine the damage from the trauma to the inflamed areas, instead of letting toxins run wild through the bloodstream. Unfortunately, an out-of-control body-wide inflammatory response (also known as systemic inflammation)—resulting from stress and imbalanced dietary and/or exercise habits—confuses your body into thinking it’s under assault from destructive, infectious foreign agents or that a major trauma has just occurred. That’s when the disease process begins.
The extreme stress of my Chronic Cardio training regimen and my highly inflammatory grain-based diet led to excessive and prolonged inflammation throughout my body. What I should have been seeking was a more desirable temporary state of moderate inflammation (pumped muscles, elevated heart rate, oxygenated lungs, etc.—factors that enhance peak performance), from a
Primal Blueprint
–aligned training regimen and plenty of recovery time and good food choices for my body to return to homeostasis. My undesirable “overtraining” inflammatory response compromised the optimal function and recovery of my muscles, joints, and immune system. Interestingly, after extreme endurance events like a marathon or ironman race, blood levels of CPK (creatine phosphokinase; it leaks into the bloodstream when muscle, heart, or brain tissue is traumatized) can be elevated for weeks afterward. In fact, if you presented in the ER with such levels and didn’t explain that you had recently run a marathon, the doctor might think you were suffering from a heart attack! In my case, when I adjusted my diet and training habits, virtually all my inflammatory symptoms vanished.
We know that most forms of systemic inflammation have a strong dietary component and can usually be resolved with a few dietary modifications. Nevertheless, Conventional Wisdom within the medical community has recommended fighting our widespread inflammation-related health problems with corticosteroids, COX-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx and Celebrex, and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (asthma meds work on a similar chemical pathway). I have a nonscientific name for this approach:
digging a hole to install a ladder to wash the basement windows
. As you might imagine, because these medications interfere with normal hormone pathways and gene expression, they almost never address the underlying cause of inflammation. They simply mask the pain in the short term—if they mask it at all. Dietary modification (and exercise modification if you are overdoing it) is almost always a superior method of treatment and protection against pain and serious diseases triggered by systemic inflammation.
“
I have a nonscientific name for this approach:
digging a hole to install a ladder to wash the basement windows
.”
The
Primal Blueprint
eating style, with its emphasis on high omega-3 foods (such as organically grown animal meats, eggs, fish, nuts and seeds) and its aversion to processed foods, provides an ideal dietary fatty acid balance without you really having to worry about it. When you combine healthy eating with the other
Primal Blueprint
laws, you can naturally avoid the systemic inflammation that is now believed to be the root cause of the major health problems affecting modern humans.
While you likely have a basic understanding of what carbohydrate, protein, and fat do in the body, it’s important to examine the role of each nutrient further in the context of how they support the
Primal Blueprint
. This is particularly true in light of the massive misinformation, distortion, and confusion presented by opposing camps on this issue. For decades, we’ve been bombarded with messages, ranging from hairsplitting debates on what percentage of total dietary calories should come from carbs, protein, and fat (I’m never concerned where my own percentages fall, because I know they will land in the optimal range when I choose the right foods) to campy marketing glitz served up by the diet celebrity of the month.
Most popular daily diets (and fitness programs) follow the “calories in, calories out” Conventional Wisdom to pursue weight loss, failing to understand the importance of context when making this otherwise literally true statement. Your body uses macronutrients for a variety of different functions, some of which are structural and some of which are simply to provide energy (as calories)—immediately or well into the future. The food you eat can be stored as glycogen and/or body fat or used to build muscle. But just as easily, you can burn off that body fat, deplete glycogen and even tear down muscle for fuel. It’s all based on signals you provide in what you eat, how much you eat, when you eat, what you’re doing before or after you eat—even what you’re thinking when you eat. Yet because your body always seeks to achieve homeostasis (balance), the notion of you trying to zero in on a precise day-to-day or meal-to-meal eating plan is generally fruitless, not to mention practically impossible and incredibly frustrating.
