By: Dr. Barry Sears
For years the medical establishment has been telling Americans that fighting heart disease means a war against cholesterol. Slowly but surely, like the powerful Wizard of Oz façade, the cholesterol story has been slowly eroding. Now the scientific data is shifting more to inflammation as the underlying cause of heart disease. Of course, this makes common sense since the number-one drug to prevent a heart attack is an aspirin. Although aspirin has no effect on cholesterol levels, it has a dramatic effect on reducing inflammation. Recent articles in the New England Journal of Medicine have again confirmed the importance of inflammation on heart disease. A crude indictor of inflammation, C-reactive protein, appears to be more powerful than bad cholesterol levels in predicting future heart attacks.
But what if there was an even more powerful predictor of inflammation that could predict heart attacks? As I describe in my newest book, “The Anti-Inflammation Zone,” such a blood marker exists. It is the ratio of arachidonic acid (AA) to eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This marker of inflammation precedes C-reactive protein by years. You could take drugs, such as statins, on a lifetime basis to reduce C-reactive protein.
Of course, there are some side effects, such as memory loss, muscle weakness, neuropathy, and liver damage. But statins don’t reduce the AA/EPA ratio – they actually increase it. On the other hand, taking high-dose fish oil reduces the AA/EPA ratio, and the only known side-effect is to make you smarter. The amount of fish oil you need to reduce inflammation depends on how well you control insulin in your diet. The more you control insulin by following the Zone Diet, the less fish oil you need. On the other hand, the less you control insulin, the more fish oil you need. The choice is yours. Whatever approach (drugs or diet) you choose, just keep in mind that controlling inflammation is a much wiser medical approach to reducing heart attacks than controlling cholesterol.