Heart surgeon issues warning against food eaten by millions daily ‘destroying your heart'
You might be thinking that when it comes to heart disease and the reasons most people end up under the knife of heart surgeon Dr Philip Ovadia it'd be red meat, saturated fats and salt.
However, he pointed the finger of biggest blame at 'highly processed carbohydrates' and warned that they were 'in most people's kitchens right now.
Dr Ovadia has performed heart surgery over 3,000 times and argued that there were some items people should cut out of their diet right away for the sake of their own health.
He warned that he could tell exactly how a patient had ended up having their heart attack while he was operating on them, noting that he could see the build up of plaque on people's hearts which blocked off their blood supply and put them at risk of death.
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The doctor listed 11 foods commonly found in the kitchen which he'd really recommend getting rid of for a healthier diet and heart that might keep you off his operating table.
Describing the main factors that resulted in people having plaque that results in heart attacks as 'insulin resistance, chronic high blood sugar, inflammation, and visceral fat', he listed all sorts of foods people eat on a regular basis.
"I don't just mean candy and soda," the heart surgeon explained, advising that people completely cut out all of the following foods from their diet:
- white bread
- bagels
- breakfast cereals
- crackers
- pasta
- crisps
- granola bars
- flavoured yogurt
- fruit juice
- instant oatmeal
- most wholegrain packaged products
Dr Ovadia added: "Even foods marketed as healthy, like low-fat granola, whole wheat bread, and rice cakes are loaded with these refined carbs.
"These foods spike your blood sugar and your insulin repeatedly, they promote chronic inflammation, they drive visceral fat storage.
"And they create exactly the inflammatory environment that turns into that soft, unstable plaque I see causing heart attacks every week in the operating room."
His advice to people is to cut out the processed carbs from their diets as they're the foods he sees doing 'the most damage' to people's hearts, and he reckons people ought to replace them with 'real whole foods' like vegetables, animal proteins and 'healthy fats in their natural form'.
Fellow heart surgeon Dr Jeremy London agrees that heavily processed foods are really bad for your heart, as he told people to stay well away from things packed full of additives and artificial ingredients but are light on actual nutrition.
Basically, it was pretty much any food he reckoned 'your grandmother wouldn’t have' somewhere in her kitchen.
Meanwhile, NHS doctor Chris van Tulleken said heavily processed foods had 'overtaken tobacco as the leading cause of early death on planet Earth'.
The symptoms of a heart attack
According to the NHS, the symptoms of a heart attack include:
- A painful crushing or squeezing sensation in your chest that might spread to your arm, neck or jaw
- Feeling short of breath
- Feeling sick or being sick
- Feeling like you have indigestion or feeling bloated
- Sweating
- Pale, blue or grey skin
Topics: Food And Drink, Health, Lifestyle
Joe Harker