Dietary and Metabolic Acids Lead to Obesity and Heart Dis-ease

Heart specialists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere
report what is believed to be the first wide-scale
evidence linking severe overweight to prolonged
acidic inflammation of heart tissue and the subsequent
damage leading to failure of the body’s blood-pumping
organ.

The latest findings from the Multiethnic Study of
Atherosclerosis (MESA), to be published in the May 6
issue of the Journal of the American College of
Cardiology, appear to nail down yet one more reason
for the estimated 72 million obese American adults
to be concerned about their health, say scientists
who conducted the research.

“The biological effects of obesity on the heart
are quite profound,” says senior study investigator
João Lima, M.D. “Even if obese people feel otherwise
healthy, there are measurable and early chemical signs
of damage to their heart, beyond the well-known
implications for diabetes and high blood pressure.”

He adds that there is “now even more reason for them
to lose weight, increase their physical activity and
improve their eating habits.”

In the latest study, researchers conducted tests and
tracked the development of heart failure in an
ethnically diverse group of nearly 7,000 men and women,
age 45 to 84, who were enrolled in the MESA study,
starting in 2000.

Of the 79 who have developed congestive heart failure
so far, 35 (44 percent) were physically obese, having
a body mass index, or BMI, of 30 or greater. And
on average, obese participants were found to have
higher blood levels of interleukin 6, C-reactive
protein and fibrinogen, key immune system proteins
involved in acidic inflammation, than non-obese
adults.

A near doubling of average interleukin 6 levels
alone accounted for an 84 percent greater risk of
developing heart failure in the study population.

The researchers from five universities across the
United States also found alarming links between
acidic inflammation and the dangerous mix of heart
disease risk factors known as the metabolic syndrome.
Its combined risk factors for heart disease and
diabetes - high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose
levels, excess abdominal fat and abnormal cholesterol
levels, and particularly obesity - double a person’s
chances of developing heart failure.

“More practically, physicians need to monitor their
obese patients for early signs of inflammation in the
heart and to use this information in determining how
aggressively to treat the condition,” says Lima, a
professor of medicine and radiology at the Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart
Institute.

“Our results showed that when the effects of other
known disease risk factors - including race, age, sex,
diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, family history
and blood cholesterol levels - were statistically
removed from the analysis, inflammatory chemicals
in the blood of obese participants stood out as key
predictors of who got heart failure,” says Lima.

“Both obesity and the inflammatory markers are
closely tied to each other and to heart failure,”
says lead researcher Hossein Bahrami, M.D., M.P.H.

"Each year, nearly 300,000 Americans die from heart
failure. The major contributing causative factor is
an acidic lifestyle and diet," states Dr. Robert
O. Young, a research scientist at the pH Miracle
Living Center.

According to Dr. Young, "obesity is the body's way
of protecting itself from an over-acidic lifestyle
and diet. People who are over-weight are in reality
over-acid. The body holds on to fat to park excess
dietary and metabolic acids that are not properly
being eliminated through urination, perspiration,
defecation, and respiration. Fat is protective
and not the cause of acidic metabolic syndrome that
can lead to heart dis-ease and the presence of
alkaline buffers in the blood such as fibrinogen,
cholesterol, C-reactive protein and interleukin."

"Obesity is not the problem - dietary and metabolic
acids are the cause of acidic metabolic syndrome
and the increase in heart attacks. Fat is saving
preserving life and acid is destroying the quality and
quantity of life. If one wants to prevent or reduce
the risk for heart attack or stroke then one must
maintain the alkaline design of the body. When
this is done the body naturally lets go of the
excess protective fat that is holding onto dietary
and metabolic acids. This is how you protect the
heart and other organs that sustain life," states
Dr. Young.

To learn more on how to lose weight naturally go to:

http://www.phmiracleliving.com/phm-products.htm