red meat Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Swedish Study Reveals Low-Fiber, High-Meat Diets Fuel Dangerous Heart Attack Plaques

The AHA! Team — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 05:13:52 +0000

Cassie B. via Natural News – The study’s findings highlight a grim reality: The standard Western diet that is pushed on the masses by agribusiness and fast-food giants is engineered to create inflammation, obesity, and heart disease. A Swedish study reveals that diets high in red meat and low in fiber increase the risk of dangerous heart plaques by 67%, proving food choices directly impact heart health. Advanced scans show nearly half of those with poor diets had unstable, life-threatening artery plaques, compared to just over a third of those eating anti-inflammatory foods. The research links processed foods, sugary drinks, and red meat to higher blood pressure, inflammation, and obesity — key drivers of heart disease. Low-income and less-educated groups face higher risks due to their reliance on cheap processed foods, smoking, and sedentary lifestyles. Fiber-rich whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and legumes can prevent heart disease without side effects, debunking the need for expensive pharmaceuticals. In a world where Big Pharma pushes expensive, side-effect-laden drugs as the only solution to heart disease, a groundbreaking Swedish study exposes the truth: Your fork is your most powerful weapon against deadly heart attacks. Researchers at Lund University found that middle-aged adults eating low-fiber, high-red-meat diets were 67% more likely to develop unstable, life-threatening coronary plaques — the kind that silently rupture and trigger sudden cardiac events. The study of 24,079 seemingly healthy adults proves what natural health advocates have long warned: Processed food and meat-heavy diets are a ticking time bomb for your arteries, while fiber-rich, anti-inflammatory foods act as nature’s scrubbing brush for your cardiovascular system. The silent killers in your arteries Using advanced coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) scans, researchers detected non-calcified plaques — soft, unstable deposits prone to rupture — in 44.3% of participants with the worst diets, compared to just 36.3% in those eating the most anti-inflammatory foods. These high-risk plaques, often undetectable by standard tests, narrow arteries by 50% or more and are far deadlier than calcified deposits. The research, published in Cardiovascular Research, assigned participants dietary inflammation scores based on food questionnaires. Those penalized for red meat, processed snacks, and sugary drinks while lacking fiber-rich foods faced staggering metabolic consequences: 67% higher odds of high-risk plaques Larger waistlines and elevated triglycerides Higher blood pressure and chronic inflammation (measured by CRP markers) How the food industry profits from your poor health The study’s findings highlight a grim reality: The standard Western diet that is pushed on the masses by agribusiness and fast-food giants is engineered to create inflammation, obesity, and heart disease. While drug companies profit from statins and blood pressure medications, this research confirms that dietary changes alone could prevent countless cardiovascular disasters. Participants with the worst diets were disproportionately male (62.2%) and less educated, and this was often paired with smoking, alcohol use, and sedentary habits. This aligns with data showing low-income communities, which tend to be flooded with cheap processed foods, suffer from far higher heart disease rates. Key metabolic mediators linking diet to plaque: Waist circumference: Belly fat drives inflammation Triglycerides: Blood fats spike with sugar and processed carbs Hypertension: Salt-laden meats and snacks strain arteries Your plate is your prescription Unlike risky pharmaceuticals, fiber-rich foods carry zero side effects and cost just pennies per serving. The study’s anti-inflammatory diet blueprint includes: Fruits: Berries, apples, citrus Vegetables: Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, leafy greens Whole grains: Oats, quinoa, brown rice Legumes: Lentils, chickpeas, black beans You should aim for 25 to 35 grams of fiber daily, which is significantly more than what is indicated by the USDA’s corrupted food pyramid that has long promoted grain-industry profits over science. This study demolishes the myth that heart disease is inevitable or requires lifelong medications. With 67% higher plaque risks tied to diet and metabolic factors like waist size and triglycerides acting as accomplices, the solution is clear: Ditch processed foods, embrace ancestral eating, and reclaim your health sovereignty. Sources for this article include: TheEpochTimes.com StudyFinds.org USNews.com To read the original article, click here

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The Biggest Lie Ever Told; The War on Red Meat

The AHA! Team — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 05:07:23 +0000

Al Sears, MD, CNS – I’ve spent the past two decades traveling thousands of miles around the world to visit and observe the last remaining native cultures still in existence. A lot of my colleagues question my research methods. That’s because most modern doctors only treat – and most researchers only study – sickness. They don’t consider health. They see a disease and prescribe a pill. That’s not how I see it. I focus on what healthy people have in common… What protects them from getting sick in the first place. And I feel I owe it to my patients – and you – to visit these cultures and pass on their knowledge before it’s lost. Like the Maasai in Kenya. Visiting them was remarkable. I didn’t see one overweight person the entire time I was there.1 Everyone I came across in every village was lean and strong. And they have almost zero heart disease. In fact, they don’t suffer from any of the chronic diseases that have become the world’s worst killers. There’s a good reason for that… It’s a secret inherent in their native diet. A diet that includes almost no grains but plenty of red meat, fat, protein, and bone marrow — all things that are missing or extremely limited in the modern Western diet. Of course, this is exactly the opposite of what the American Heart Association and nearly every standard American doctor recommends…yet, the rate of heart disease among the Maasai is almost zero. There’s no obesity. And the Maasai don’t suffer from chronic aging problems like our culture does. From all my experiences with patients and in all my travels around the world, from Africa to Bali to South America, here’s what I’ve learned: You CAN avoid disease and obesity, and the chronic conditions that plague us in the West. But it has nothing to do with following standard medicine’s recommendations. Instead, you want to be strong, muscular, robust, lean, happy, healthy, and eat the foods you were born to eat. You have a natural desire for them. Dropping weight will come easier and faster. You will wake up charged with energy that will last the whole day, you’ll stay strong and healthy, and you’ll never have to fear heart disease. I’ve helped hundreds of people use this approach. I’ve watched them make a remarkable transition. They are becoming leaner, healthier, and they stay free of heart disease. Unfortunately, the modern medical establishment has been nagging you for over 50 years to eliminate red meat from your diet. They claim that eating red meat causes raises cholesterol, causes heart disease, and can eventually kill you. I call it the biggest lie ever told. Red meat doesn’t cause disease. As a matter of fact, we evolved to eat meat. Our primal ancestors thrived on its fat and protein. And without it, we never would have made it to the 21st century. Almost every cell in your body needs both the protein and the fat from meat to survive. You use protein to build and repair tissues. It’s an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, hair, nails, and blood. You need protein to make enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals. And the fat helps you transport nutrients around your body and deliver them where they’re needed. Vitamins A, D, E, K, and CoQ10 can’t even be absorbed without fat. But there is a problem with today’s red meat… Ranchers aren’t interested in the quality of their beef. They care about making a profit. So they feed their cattle a combination of grain and corn. But cattle evolved to eat grass. Today’s meat factories make cows diseased. So they’re pumped full of antibiotics. The antibiotics make them sick, and they’re given more drugs. It’s an endless unnatural cycle. These animals are also injected with growth hormones so they can be sent to slaughter that much sooner. Because they are confined to a crowded feedlot, they never get any exercise. The result is an unhealthy ratio of omega-3s to inflammation-causing omega-6s. And it’s this chronic inflammation from omega-6s that leads to heart disease and cancer… Eat Like Your Ancestors Avoid commercially raised red meat. I can’t say this enough… You should stay away from factory-farmed meat. Choose grass-fed, pasture-raised, hormone-free beef. I consider this to be perhaps the healthiest food you can eat. Compared to grain-fed animals, products from grass-fed animals have 10 times more omega-3 fats, more vitamins B, E, D, and K2, more CoQ10 and zinc, and more antioxidants like glutathione and superoxide dismutase (SOD).1 Choose bison meat. All bison are grass-fed. In fact, this animal would rather starve than eat corn. Nutritionally, bison has more protein, iron, and B12 than most beef. But what makes it a top meat choice is that it has more omega-3s — and a better omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. Eat “salad-bar” beef. This is what my friend Joel Salatin calls his pasture-raised, grass-fed meat. He gave it the name because the cattle he raises get to graze in an open “salad bar.” His animals are never exposed to hormones, antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, or other toxins. You can check out and order from his website at polyfacefarms.com. To Your Good Health, Al Sears, MD, CNS References: 1. Daley CA, et al. “A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef.” Nutr J. 2019;9:10. To read the original article click here.

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Study Shows New Links Between High Fat Diets and Colon Cancer

AHA Publisher — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 07:00:45 +0000

Arizona State University via EurekAlert – For decades, physicians and dieticians have urged people to limit their intake of high fat foods, citing links to poor health outcomes and some of the leading causes of death in the U.S., such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, dietary components high in saturated fats such as red meat are thought to be risk factors for colon cancer. Diet is thought to strongly influence the risk of colorectal cancer, and changes in food habits might reduce up to 70% of this cancer burden. Other known epidemiological risk factors are family history, inflammatory bowel disease, smoking and type-2 diabetes. But out of all the risk factors that elevate colon cancer risk, diet is the one environmental and lifestyle factor that may be the easiest to control —simply by changing people’s behavior and eating habits—-if we knew the exact connections. “There’s epidemiological evidence for a strong link between obesity and increased tumor risk,” said School of Life Sciences assistant professor Miyeko Mana. “And in the intestine, the stem cells are the likely cell of origin for cancer. So, what is that connection? Well, diet is something that feeds into that cycle of obesity and colorectal cancer.” Now, a new ASU study led by Mana and her team has shown in greater detail than ever before of how high fat diets can trigger a molecular cascade of events that leads to intestinal and colon cancer. The study was published in the journal Cell Reports. Tales from the Crypts As foods are broken down and make their way through the gut, they interact with intestinal stem cells (ISC) that lie along the inside surfaces of the gut. These ISCs reside in a series of regularly folded valleys of the gut, called crypts. ISCs are thought to be the gateway that coordinates intestinal tumor formation when they adapt to high-fat diets, and elevate cancer risk. Within the ISCs are high-fat sensor molecules that sense and react to high-fat diets levels in the cells. “We were following up on mechanisms that might be required for stem cells to adapt to the high fat diet —and that’s where we came across the PPARs,” said Mana. These peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (or PPARs) trigger a cellular program that elevates cancer risk, but the exact mechanisms were unclear because there are multiple types of PPARs, and complexities in teasing out their roles. “There is a family of 3 PPARs, named delta, alpha and gamma. At first, I thought just PPAR delta was involved, but in order to see if that gene is really responsible for the phenotype, you have to remove it.” Mana’s team was able to explore and unmask the role of individual PPAR delta and alpha using a mouse model that controlled their activity in the cell. In her team’s study, mice were given a long-term high fat or normal diet, and the activity of each PPAR was carefully monitored to study the effects on cancer risk. In their knockout study, they first removed the PPAR delta gene. “But when we removed it from the intestine, we still observed the phenotype. So, we wondered if maybe another PPAR was compensating and that’s where we thought about PPAR alpha. Both of those (PPAR delta and PPAR alpha) appear to be required for this high fat diet phenotype within the stem cells.” This was frustrating to Mana because she knew right away that developing a potential therapeutic to offset the PPARs just became a much taller task. “When you think about this therapeutically, if you are incorporating a lot of fat into your diet and you want to reduce your risk of colon cancer, targeting two different factors is more challenging then if you are targeting just one.” Looking Farther Downriver To further tease out the genetic complexity, Mana next turned her attention downstream of the PPARs. From their studies, and using new tools of the trade, they were able to slowly tease out the details—down to the level of doing molecular sequencing from individual cells from different areas of the small intestine and colon, mass spectrometry to measure the amounts of different metabolites, and radiolabeled isotopes of fuel sources to measure the carbon flow. Their first big clue came from the metabolic analysis. The high fat diet found in the ISC crypt cells they isolated increased the metabolism of fats, while at the same time, decreasing the breakdown of sugars. “So, we looked more downstream at what these two factors (PPARs) may target, and that was this mitochondrial protein, Cpt1a,” said Mana. “This is required for the import of long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) into mitochondria for use. The LCFAs are part of the high fat diet.” And when they performed the mouse knockout study of Cpt1a, they found they could stop tumor formation in its tracks. The loss of Cpt1a prevented both the expansion and proliferation of the ISCs in the crypts. “If you remove Cpt1a, you are spared this high fat diet phenotype in the intestinal stem cells,” said Mana. “So, you lower your risk of tumorigenesis at this point.” A New Model Emerges From their data, Mana’ team could trace the development of cancer, from diet all the way to tumor formation. First, fats are broken down to free fatty acids. The free fatty acids then stimulate sensors such as the PPARs and turn on genes that can break down the fatty acids. Next, the surplus free fatty acids are transported to the mitochondria, which can burn them up by oxidation to make more energy to feed the stem cells, which multiply, grow and regenerate gut tissue. But when the ISCs numbers are expanded, there is a greater likelihood that mutations can occur—just from random mutations and sheer numbers of cells—that lead to colon cancer. “The idea is that this larger pool of cells remain in the intestine and accumulate mutations, and that means they can be a source of mutated cells leading to transformation and tumor initiation,” said Mana. “We do think that is a likely possibility when there are conditions that expand your stem cell pool.” Mana’s group also found that feeding a high fat diet dramatically accelerated mortality in this model compared with the control condition, by accelerating tumorigenesis. “The levels of these fats that you can get through your diet are going to impact your stem cells, probably in a fairly direct way,” said Mana. “I think one of the surprising things we are finding in our studies is that fatty acids can have such a direct effect. But you can remove these PPARs, you can remove CPT1a, and the intestine is fine.” New Hopes With the new evidence from the study, the hope is to one day apply their work to human colon cancers. “These studies have all been in these mouse models to date,” said Mana. “One idea we started with was to understand the metabolic dependencies of the tumors that can arise in a natural or pharmacological context and then target these metabolic programs to the detriment of the tumor but not the normal tissue. We are making progress with the high fat diet model. Ultimately though, the goal is to eliminate or prevent colorectal cancer in humans.” To read the original article click here.

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Drop the Steak Knife: Red Meat Linked to Higher Risk of Heart Disease

AHA Publisher — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 08:00:14 +0000

Cornell University via Newswise – Eating two servings of unprocessed red meat, processed meat or poultry a week has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. Newswise — ITHACA, N.Y. – A new study from researchers at Cornell University and Northwestern University found that eating two servings of red meat, unprocessed meat or poultry – but not fish – per week was linked to a 3 to 7% higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Additionally, eating two servings of unprocessed red meat or processed meat – but not poultry or fish – was associated with a 3% higher risk of all causes of death. “Modifying intake of these animal protein foods may be an important dietary strategy to help reduce risk of cardiovascular disease and premature death at population level,” said lead study author Victor Zhong, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Cornell, who did the research while he was a postdoctoral student at Northwestern. The study found a 4% higher risk of cardiovascular disease for people who ate two servings per week of poultry, but the evidence so far is not sufficient to make a clear recommendation about poultry intake, Zhong said. The researchers suggest dietary alternatives, such as fish, seafood and plant-based sources of protein, to lessen one’s risk of heart disease and premature death. “Our study findings support current dietary guidelines that recommend limiting processed meat and unprocessed red meat intake,” Zhong said. “People can get needed nutrients from various other foods. Take protein for example: people can choose egg whites, fish, legumes, whole grains and nuts to replace processed meat and unprocessed red meat.” To read the original article click here.

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No Need to Cut Down Red and Processed Meat for Health Reasons, Controversial Findings Suggest

AHA Publisher — Wed, 09 Oct 2019 07:00:50 +0000

McMaster University via Science Daily – Contrary to previous advice, five new systematic reviews suggest that most people can continue to eat red and processed meat as they do now. The major studies have found cutting back has little impact on health. To read the original article click here.

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