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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Myth Busted: Junk food doesn't cause heart disease

One of the things I like to do on this blog is highlight medical myths, and it now appears as though the belief that modern junk food is the cause of atherosclerosis (hardened arteries) is yet another myth.

According to the Associated Press:
"Even without modern-day temptations like fast food or cigarettes, people had clogged arteries some 4,000 years ago, according to the biggest-ever hunt for the condition in mummies. Researchers say that suggests heart disease may be more a natural part of human aging rather than being directly tied to contemporary risk factors like smoking, eating fatty foods and not exercising. 
"CT scans of 137 mummies showed evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardened arteries, in one third of those examined, including those from ancient people believed to have healthy lifestyles. ... 'Heart disease has been stalking mankind for over 4,000 years all over the globe,' said Dr. Randall Thompson, a cardiologist at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City and the paper's lead author."
So it's apparent that Mayor Bloomberg and other progressives who have been championing against foods they perceive as unhealthy may be all wrong.  It is apparent that the "so called experts on healthcare" aren't so expert after all. It's also probably evident that cigarettes don't cause clogged arteries either, as previously suspected (not that I'm championing for people to smoke).

It is evident Big Macs and Coke do not cause hardened arteries, as hardened arteries were present in 75 percent of mummies, and Big Macs and Coke did not exist back then.  Another think to note is that only poor people ate pigs in Ancient Egypt, so none of those mummies got hardened arteries from eating fatty bacon.

Another interesting thing to note about ancient Egyptians is their average lifespan 40 years, so they were getting hard arteries at an earlier age that we are.  That means that the lifestyles that we live are allowing us to generate these diseases at a later age.  This is stunning news, considering we are told every day the American way of life is killing us.

It's ironic, in a sense, how people are living longer today than ever, and yet we are told the way we live is killing us.  It almost makes me think there is a political agenda among the people who say stuff like this.  These people are using such scare tactics so we think they are doing what's best for us.  It's all an excuse for them to create more government programs and more laws that aren't needed. They claim these laws are needed because at present we have too much freedom and aren't using it wisely, so they must decide what's best for us, and force us to live the way they think we need to to stay healthy so they don't have to pay for us because of our bad choices. They do this under the auspices of making your life healthier.

Yet their beliefs are silly if you think about it.  The earth has been around for hundreds of thousands or billions of years, and human beings have been around for over 30,000 years, and our scientific knowledge is only in it's infancy.  Yet these few people who call themselves experts purport to know it all.  What if they are wrong? What if their laws take away all our freedom, destroy our economies, and then we find out their "theories" are not true.  This is why I find it funny when people consider theories as facts, instead of the theories they are.  I have no problem respecting a theory, but to consider it fact is puerile

Studies and evidence like this purport that heart disease is attributable to genetics and aging, and not diet. This is true despite the fact we have been bombarded with politicians claiming we have too much freedom to decide on our own what's good for us, so they need to make laws to force us to make good decisions.  It's time we have a public outcry to stop them in their tracks before it's too late. 

Other myths we have busted on this blog:
Further reading

4 comments:

Rick Frea said...

After I published this, I came across a 1905 book that described one of the most common Egyptian diseases found in mummies: hardened arteries.
You can read about it here. The reference is: Cyril, Bryan,s book, "The Papyrus Ebers," 1930, London, The Garden City Press, Bryan's book was an English translation of the German translation of the papyrus.

Rick Frea said...

1930 book that was written in 1930.

Rick Frea said...

Obviously whomever came up with this myth had no knowledge of history.

Rick Frea said...

Oh, the page is xxvi.