If you have not read part 1, please scroll to the article before to do so.

Part 2
by Dwight Lundell MD

February 6 2009

Take a moment to visualise rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding.

Let’s say you keep this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you can tolerate this painful brushing, you will have a bleeding, swollen infected area that worsens with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualise the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.

Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, everyday, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.

While we savour the tantalising taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived to declare war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. Unfortunately these foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.

How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick? Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works. When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.

What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. It is this repeated injury to the blood vessel wall that sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, everyday, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.

While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator – inflammation in their arteries.

Let us now get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for

longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential – they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell – they must be in correct balance with omega-3’s. If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation. Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favour of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.

To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated. There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume. 

Ed. Note: Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital , Mesa , Arizona . His private practice, Cardiac Care Centre was also in Mesa , AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heartdisease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is the author of ‘The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.’