Elevated cholesterol
Have you been eliminating cholesterol-containing foods, only to find that your cholesterol levels continue to remain elevated? Did you know that avoiding eggs, bacon, butter, beef, cream, and lard won't do much of anything to lower your cholesterol levels? Perhaps your medical doctor put you on a diet of pasta, breads, grains, and other carbohydrates. Did you know that this will actually cause more of a problem with your cholesterol?
Heart disease
Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, resulting in at least 1.5 million heart attacks a year and claiming over 489,000 lives. Current allopathic treatment mainly consists of balloon angioplasty and bypass surgery. At Berglund Health & Wellness Center, we look at several factors known to correlate very well with coronary artery disease (CAD) or blockages in the main arteries supplying oxygen to the heart.
Risk factors for CAD
used by traditional medicine
- Elevated serum cholesterol and triglycerides
- Hypertension
- Diabetes mellitus
- Cigarette smoking
- Physical inactivity
- Obesity
- Positive family history for early CAD
- Male gender
The above table may only explain why 50-60% get CAD.
Other helpful links
Hypothyroidism
Dr. Berglund's podcasts
Allergies & nutrition
Conditions treated by Dr. Berglund
Success stories from some of our patients
Ditch the carbs!
We've heard it over and over from the news, medical experts and even commercials: "To lower your cholesterol, you need to cut out eggs, butter, beef, pork, bacon, deli meats, cream, and even lard." This mentality that says, "Eating cholesterol and fat means that your cholesterol will go up and you'll get fat," is prevalent. But is it accurate? Whether or not they are healthy can be argued, but patients with elevated cholesterol and triglycerides (high blood fats) that are put on a diet that is 90% or more high fat, high protein, and low carbohydrate will experience an almost insane drop in cholesterol and triglyceride levels. This makes it a challenge to justify promoting the classic low fat/high carbohydrate diets of the past nearly fifty years.
So if sugar/starch intake is more closely related to cholesterol levels, what does that say about elevated cholesterol and its link to heart disease? The truth is that we've been lowering our fat intake for years, hoping that deaths from heart disease would decline. It hasn't happened. In fact it has increased. In America, we continue to eat more and more calories and eat more sugar and white flour (processed from wheat) products and our risk rates continue to rise.
Instead of memorizing your total cholesterol levels, we've known for the past 30 years that the total cholesterol:HDL cholesterol ratio (coronary risk ratio) is a better indicator of heart disease risk. This ratio should be ideally less than 3.0, but we allow levels up to 4.0. How do you calculate this? Take your cholesterol number (say it's 200) and divide it by your HDL cholesterol level (let's say it's 50). Your coronary risk ratio would be 200 divided by 50 or 4.0. That's an acceptable ratio.
Thyroid is certainly another factor that is epidemic in the US. In his practice, Dr. Berglund finds that most of his heart patients do best if they avoid foods like white flour, white sugar, and high fructose corn syrup, in addition to having their thyroid hormonal levels boosted using nutrition. In the long haul, this is a program that will lead to lower levels of inflammation and oxidation in your system, which are the primary contributors to deaths from heart disease.