Cholesterol-A Man Killer?

The theory at the heart of all this excitement attempts to explain how heart disease starts as a minuscule spot on the artery wall and can lead to, in many people, a massive coronary. Researchers have been getting closer and closer to understanding the disease for years, making phenomenal headways when they established the link to blood-cholesterol levels and dietary fat in the late 1970s. That discovery, backed by strong scientific studies, allowed us to link 
heart disease to high levels of cholesterol. But most of the people who have heart attacks don't  have outrageously inflated cholesterol levels. In fact, some of them are below the 200 range (the National Cholesterol Education Project recommends a level of 200 or less).

And there are people who do have high cholesterol counts who do have no sign of heart disease. So researchers suspect that there's more to heart disease than cholesterol alone. Scientific evidence has long hinted that this "something more" may involve vitamin antioxidants. Heart-attack victims have consistently low levels of vitamin C in their blood, as do smokers, who are at higher risk of atherosclerosis. In a recent study, researchers found significantly lower vitamin E levels in men with angina (chest pain that signals heart disease) than in those who were symptom-free, regardless of other risk factors, like cigarette smoking, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and excess weight. Another study suggested that low vitamin E levels might have an even stronger link to heart-disease deaths than well-estabilished risk factors like high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

A New Foe: Free Radicals?

So scientists set out to discover the possible connection between antioxidants, cholesterol and heart disease. Their top priority was to figure out how cholesterol, specifically LDL cholesterol (the worst type), gets into the walls of arteries and turns into the stuff that clogs arteries. this stuff, the fatty streaks that eventually become the advanced lesions that bypass surgery must remove, is the first sign of what could be a heart-attack-to-come. Researchers knew that the artery-blocking fatty streaks form when white blood cells enter the artery wall and there gobble up LDL. But when they paired with blood cells with LDL particles in test tubes, the white blood cells were slow to swallow the LDL. So, the researchers guessed, something must happen to LDL to make it more appetizing.

Dr. Steinberg's theory says that free radicals are the answer. Free radicals are naturally occurring, highly unstable oxygen molecules that have been accused of contributing to everything from cancer to cataracts. Their mean trick is to damage, or oxidize, body tissues and blood fats. The free radicals' effect on LDL is similar to what happens to a steak when it sits out on the kitchen counter too long - it goes bad. That, researchers speculate, sets off the deadly process. The white blood cells - immune cells out to  consume their enemies - gorge themselves on the bad-stuff-gone-bad, thinking they're protecting the body, when they may actually be harming it. LDL-bloated white blood cells in the artery wall soon become a bulge that threatens to completely block the artery.

Fighting Back with Vitamins

If the creation of free radicals, as scientists believe, is a naturally occurring, constant process, does that mean we're doomed to a life of congested arteries and crippling angina? Enter the antioxidants - vitamins and enzymes in our bodies that fight oxidation caused by free radicals. Scientists believe that antioxidants may be able to stop free radicals from making LDL "go bad."

Dr. Steinberg first observed the antioxidant effect in heart-diseased laboratory rabbits by feeding them a synthetic drug, probucol, that doctors sometimes prescribe to lower cholesterol. Dr. Steinberg's experiments revealed that the compound is also a powerful antioxidant. And while it didn't do much to drop the rabbits' cholesterol levels, it did make a dramatic reduction in atherosclerosis, possibly because it was able to fend off free radicals. But researchers are looking into whether the natural self-sacrificing antioxidant in our food can have the same impact as antioxidant drugs on heart disease - without side effects. Most of their attention is focused on vitamin C (present in the water components of blood), the vitamin A precursor beta-carotene and vitamin E (both found in the fat components of blood, such as the LDL molecule).

Test-tube studies suggest that vitamin C may be the most potent of them all. Balz frei, Ph.D., exposed  plasma to different sources of free radicals to see which of the innate antioxidants worked best. In every case, vitamin C was the first to be oxidized, indicating that it's the most protective. "We think vitamin C traps free radicals in the surrounding environment before they can attack the LDL particle, "Dr. frei says, "And as long as there is vitamin C, free radicals cannot attack LDL because the C forms a very tight, protective shield around it." Studies have also shown that people with higher vitamin
C levels also have higher HDL levels.

Answer to Come

Over 300 men, a subgroup of a Physicians' study, already had some sign of heart disease, unlike the rest of the study participants. After
six years on the every-other-day beta-carotene regimen, 165 of these men had half as many strokes, heart attacks, cardiac deaths and artery-opening medical procedures as the 173 men on a placebo pill.

Another spin on the free-radical theory suggested that olive oil and canola oil - predominantly monounsaturated fats - may also work as antioxidants. (Monos have already been linked to cholesterol - lowering effects, independent of their possible antioxidant role.)
LDL contains both polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, but the free radicals have more of a taste for the polys.  In a highly preliminary animal study, Dr Steinberg found that the LDL particles 
of  laboratory rabbits on a mono-only diet were better able to defend themselves from free radicals then the LDL of rabbits on the poly-only diet.

Beyond Cholestrol

Garlic Extract

Flax Oil

Choline

Hawthorn Berry