RE: Vegetarians have 15% chance of developing heart disease compared to 50% chance for meat eaters
Excellent points raise, I particularly want to zero in on one point you made "if you are genetically vulnerable". It's a very important point that a lot of people don't pay attention to. Your genes play a very huge role in your overall health. An I like to think of your environment (diet) as an ingredient that shows your strength or weakness. Given the genes involved, if they are dominant, even with a good diet it would eventually show up. Quite a few of these cardiovascular disease are genetic and multifacturial involving several genes, one should always consider they family history to give them an idea of their vulnerability. Vegan also have to be aware of B12 deficiencies associated diseases that may arise and it is just as dangerous as eating loads of cabs. To sort of end off, before one considers a specific diet, they should be aware of their genetic deposition and gauge their diet accordingly.
Thanks for the well reasoned comment.
The more I dig, The more I find that can be issues for vegans. It's not just B12. Albumen, DHA, Vitamin K2, and the healthy saturated fats are just some of the missing elements in the vegan diet. Plant derived ALA converts to DHA only about 2% to 5%. It's just not enough, our brains need more. This does not even include the huge overdose of omega-6's that vegans have to try to balance to limit inflammation. High omega-6 content is also a problem with the grain fed meats.
Brant Cortright, Ph.D. in his book 'The Neurogenesis Diet and Lifestyle' discusses a bit of this, though it is not the main focus of the book, and not the only resource discussing this.
Genetics is a substantial part of the puzzle, but epigenetics is a handle that we have to alter how the genes are expressed. Diet and environment play large parts in this.
I find, that in all anti-meat arguments, the difference is never made between the factory farm, feed lot, grain fed meat and the healthy, pastured, grass fed, grass finished meat, devoid of feed treated with pesticides, herbicides, and devoid of animal treatments with antibiotics, hormones, and feed efficiency increasing drugs. It usually seems just a bit disingenuous to me, hiding behind poorly considered pretenses at morality to bolster a vegan argument with so many obvious holes. There is no sound logic supporting the presupposition that veganism of vegetarianism is more or less moral than omnivorous dietary habits.
Torturing animals with the wrong food, and drugs and hormones they've never encountered in nature, does not lead to a positive outcome for the animal regardless of it's end, but that does not render omnivorous diets immoral. It could even be that carnivores are immoral, but I doubt it.
Genes, diet, and environment literally as in the location you live, all influence risk. For example in environments with higher air pollution it is shown that this air pollution causes all kinds of damage. In that environment maybe it's much more important to eat clean and focus on maintaining low insulin levels.
The B12 thing I know from personal experience.
Yep, what is interesting, well it was known since 2000's a phenomenon known as epigenetics, where certain environmental factors seem to influence the behavior of certain genes turning them on and off. Like you said "environments with higher air pollution it is shown that this air pollution causes all kinds of damage", the enigma now is identifying how it actually occurs. If we can find that out, we can easily influence the disease course of many conditions today...It's also a good area in genetics where funding in available and these thesis tend to generate Nobel prizes because its impact can be immense
No one has figured it out. We do know inflammation goes up and asthma rates rise but as far as I know they haven't determined exactly whats going on. Inflammation causes endothelial damage which leads to heart disease.
You are right with that...you just tap into my cerebrum when you mention inflammation, one of my personal favorite topics....excuse the excitement... we have a reasonable understanding of the role of type 1 cytokines play in inflammation together with antigen presenting cells and their specific effects on the endothelial cell, in fact it is a known fact that this is start of many cardiovascular disease, when you have endothelial damage added with leakage into those tiny spaces and adhesion of by-products of metabolism with kinetic dynamics of the cardiovascular system its the origin of many of these disease...Interesting enough there certain adhesion factors that need those B vitamins as co-factors to function properly...thanks for the info, its good revision for me
My theory on inflammation is that it is a main contributor to aging and early death. It not only causes heart disease through endothelial damage but it also seems to be a possible cause for asthma, diabetes, possibly even a contributor to development of cancer.
Inflammation is a problem but we don't know where it comes from. It seems to have a casual relationship with cardiovascular disease and has some strange effects on the immune system which I don't understand. These immune reactions can trigger asthma, diabetes, and other problems.
Perhaps blood tests which check for inflammation can be a way to track the biological age of a patient? If a person has chronic inflammation which is rising then is this a sign that they are aging or aging at an accelerated rate? Exposure to toxic mold could possibly trigger asthma and other illnesses too, so air quality has a definite role.
References
You are certainly correct...In some peer reviewed journals it has been shown that inflammation is often the starter of many of these disease...in fact, any astute physician or scientist will look at inflammation markers to ascertain whether inflammation is playing a role. One of the markers that are used are CRP (C reactive protein), its an excellent diagnostic tool and it can also tell the stage of disease progression and state of liver. We have two main types of cytokines that play a role in inflammation, type 1 and type 2. Type 1 basically mashes the X while type 2 mashes the brakes. Now you have what is known an Antigen Presenting Cells like dendritic cells that produce type 1 cytokines an create a battle field like environment where cells try to get rid of what they perceive to be foreign. When type 2 cells fail to neutralize the environment it create condition where you can have varying disease manifestation. Now this is simplified picture but there are other factors involve that assist in disease progression or prevent disease progression. The body has a number of check-points to ensure that these mechanisms are kept in check however, these checkpoint fails and result in varying conditions. Cancer, for example, depending on the type is a direct result of a fail check-point. This is what makes immunology such a fascinating study because you can look at inflammation and the possibilities are endless. I hope I did justice to your question...thank you for the intellectual stimulation, we have only touch the surface