A number of genes, one of which was given the name chromosome 9p21, have been associated with an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes, and hardening of the arteries. Researchers are now interested in studying whether people with chromosome 9p21 can lower their risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) with changes to their diets. They can.
A terrific new study was published last week on this topic. The results, from McGill University, were published in Public Library of Science (PLoS)-Medicine and funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. The study compared the number of heart attacks in two groups of people with 9p21. One group ate lots of fresh produce, while the other group ate the standard industrialized diet.
Here is what the researchers found: In a study of more than 8000 individuals of different ethnicities who carry the 9p21 gene, a diet high in raw fruits and vegetables decreased the risk of CVD by one-half. They concluded that “These findings suggest that the deleterious [negative] effect of 9p21…might be mitigated by consuming a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Let’s take a closer look at this conclusion. We know that the standard American diet causes obesity in approximately 65 percent of people who eat it, and diabetes in approximately 20-30 percent. How do we know this? Because these are the numbers that we are working with in the current American population. We expect one-third of current ten-year-olds to become diabetic if present trends continue.
Remember that people who carry chromosome 9p21 have a higher risk of heart disease than average, and that they can halve their risk of heart attack by substantially increasing their intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. Why is that?
Eating a diet rich in produce has two benefits: The first benefit is that you eat more fruits and vegetables, but the second (equally important) is that by replacing manufactured items with produce, you end up eating fewer manufactured calories. Depending on their genetic makeup, stripped carbohydrates and trans fats probably affect some people more quickly and severely than others.
I would say that the standard industrial diet causes heart disease, but some people are more susceptible than others. Humans are meant to survive on a diet containing large amounts of produce. This is the diet we evolved to eat.
This, therefore, is my conclusion: “These findings suggest that while the industrial diet is deleterious, its effect is worse in individuals who carry the 9p21 chromosome. Consuming a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables will likely decrease the risk of heart attack in all individuals, but the benefit may be more dramatic in individuals who carry the 9p21 chromosome and/or other chromosomes associated with heart disease.”
Let me explain by sharing an imaginary experiment using frogs. Frogs are meant to survive in cooler waters. High temperatures cause death, and some frogs are clearly more susceptible than others. Now put aside the gruesomeness factor, and remember that the frogs are just pretend. Here is an example that gets the point across.
A terrific new study was published last week on this topic. The results, from McGill University, were published in Public Library of Science (PLoS)-Medicine and funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario. The study compared the number of heart attacks in two groups of people with 9p21. One group ate lots of fresh produce, while the other group ate the standard industrialized diet.
Here is what the researchers found: In a study of more than 8000 individuals of different ethnicities who carry the 9p21 gene, a diet high in raw fruits and vegetables decreased the risk of CVD by one-half. They concluded that “These findings suggest that the deleterious [negative] effect of 9p21…might be mitigated by consuming a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Let’s take a closer look at this conclusion. We know that the standard American diet causes obesity in approximately 65 percent of people who eat it, and diabetes in approximately 20-30 percent. How do we know this? Because these are the numbers that we are working with in the current American population. We expect one-third of current ten-year-olds to become diabetic if present trends continue.
Remember that people who carry chromosome 9p21 have a higher risk of heart disease than average, and that they can halve their risk of heart attack by substantially increasing their intake of fresh fruits and vegetables. Why is that?
Eating a diet rich in produce has two benefits: The first benefit is that you eat more fruits and vegetables, but the second (equally important) is that by replacing manufactured items with produce, you end up eating fewer manufactured calories. Depending on their genetic makeup, stripped carbohydrates and trans fats probably affect some people more quickly and severely than others.
I would say that the standard industrial diet causes heart disease, but some people are more susceptible than others. Humans are meant to survive on a diet containing large amounts of produce. This is the diet we evolved to eat.
This, therefore, is my conclusion: “These findings suggest that while the industrial diet is deleterious, its effect is worse in individuals who carry the 9p21 chromosome. Consuming a diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables will likely decrease the risk of heart attack in all individuals, but the benefit may be more dramatic in individuals who carry the 9p21 chromosome and/or other chromosomes associated with heart disease.”
Let me explain by sharing an imaginary experiment using frogs. Frogs are meant to survive in cooler waters. High temperatures cause death, and some frogs are clearly more susceptible than others. Now put aside the gruesomeness factor, and remember that the frogs are just pretend. Here is an example that gets the point across.
Let’s begin by filling a large pot with cool water, and then adding lots of frogs of all different sizes, shapes and colors, collected from all over the world. Now put that pot over a blazi
ng fire so that the temperature of the water begins to rise.
As you can imagine, some of the frogs, just 2 or 3, are going to get into trouble pretty quickly. Maybe they come from near the South Pole. Whatever the reason, these select few cannot tolerate even mildly elevated temperatures. The temperature in the pot continues to rise, and by now almost half the frogs have died. As the temperature gets hotter and hotter, more and more frogs die until, finally, the last few succumb. Once all the frogs have died, the pot is removed from the fire.
You run the experiment a few more times and discover that you can actually predict how many frogs will die at each temperature. Once the first frog dies, you observe that one-third of the frogs die by the time the temperature rises just five more degrees. Ten degrees higher, and two-thirds of the frogs are gone. Five degrees beyond that, and all the frogs are dead.
Now you do a chromosomal analysis of the frogs’ DNA and discover that all the frogs who died at the lower temperatures contained a chromosome that we’re going to call F9HW. All frogs with F9HW were in one of the first two groups to die, and none of the frogs in the last two groups had F9HW. For some as-yet-unknown reason, frogs with the F9HW chromosome had a much harder time tolerating hot water than did the other frogs.
You might draw this conclusion: “These findings suggest that the deleterious effect of F9HW might be mitigated by avoiding high heat.” But then again you might see that such high temperatures constitute an unusual and extremely abnormal environmental stress, and that while some of the frogs appear to tolerate it better than others, it is, ultimately, lethal to them all.
If I were to give this phenomenon a diagnosis, I’d call it “dyscalorimetry.” But dyscalorimetry doesn’t mean that heat intolerance is genetic. It means that hot water is deadly.
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