[lou_lou]

Herbalism and clinical nutrition

by Paul Bergner

Medical Herbalism 07-31-97 9(2): 4-5

This quarter’s editorial will seek to solve three enigmatic riddles of the history of medicine in the U.S. in the twentieth century.

Why were heart attacks rare n the U.S. in 1900, and the leading cause of death by the late 1940s?

Why was the flu pandemic of 1916-1918 more deadly to the younger population than it was to the elderly, reversing the general pattern of mortality in influenza?

Why did the Eclectic and homeopathic medical professions die out after the first decades of this century while the naturopathic medical profession has survived?

These seemingly unrelated phenomena may be linked by a common factor: the dietary changes in the U.S. after the turn of the century.

A heart attack was so rare in 1900 that most physicians never saw one in their practice. For the last fifty years, heart attacks have been the leading cause of death in the U.S. The cause of the heart attack has been a moving target ever since it began to appear, and has not yet been conclusively identified. Despite the publicity given to links between a high fat diet, high blood cholesterol, smoking, diabetes, and hypertension, these are only statistical risk factors, and not even strong ones at that. Fully half of individuals suffering heart attacks have none of these risk factors. Another possible explanation is the industrialization of the food supply at the turn of the century. Three kinds of food were made universally available that had formerly been only occasional treats, if available at all: sugar, processed white flour, and refined vegetable oils and margarine. All of these have been linked with heart attacks.

http://medherb.com/Therapeutics/Gene...on.htm#_VPID_4
more history of medicine
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/if...u_knew_04.html

[girija]

Tina,
Thanks for posting this. What you posted about diet contributing to heart attacks is so true at least among the upper middle class Indians living in India. These are the studies conducted by a group i know in Bangalore, not sure if these studies are all published yet. These hstudies identified changes in dietary habits coupled with life style changes of Indians between the ages of 35-50 being tightly correlated with increase in heart diseases. This age group is the present upper middle class of India who have gotten used to junk food, exactly the way you described here.

e" kinds of food were made universally available that had formerly been only occasional treats, if available at all: sugar, processed white flour, and refined vegetable oils and margarine. "All of these have been linked with heart attacks.



In addition, this group is sedentary (no time walk to work or the grocery store or to exercise and heavily dependent on cars), stressed (high stress hormones, heat shock proteins in the blood) and their body is in chronic inflammatory state (Pro-inflammatory cytokines, especially il-6 in the circulation) when compared to their parents or compared to less fortunate (not so sure of that!) ones in terms of financial status.

It is a beautiful study of how India's technological advances as well as economic growth and associated changes in the life style are affecting the health of the present generation. I bet Similar factors are at play here in USA too. Seems like a lot of disorders finally come down to what you eat!

Thanks
Girija