Nitric Oxide and Endothelial Cells (How to Prevent Heart Disease and Dementia at the Same Time)

I've referenced Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's work on preventing and reversing heart disease several times in this blog. (Search for "Esselstyn" for previous posts using the Search engine in the left margin.) He is well-known for laymanizing (my term for putting science in layman's terms) the critical link between oil/fats, nitric oxide, and the endothelial lining or arteries.

In today's Happy Healthy Long Life blog post this connection is further explained on the basis of newly published research. In her typical clear and thorough fashion, medical research librarian and plant-based proponent (and Esselstyn fan) Debby explains the new research and why the same diet/lifestyle factors that promote heart health also may prevent dementia by keeping blood flow to the brain healthy. (She doesn't mention this in her post, but the same applies to erectile dysfunction for men since the healthy version of that event is dependent, at least in part, on vigorous and sustained blood flow which is dependent on open and elastic arteries which are dependent on nitric oxide and a healthy endothelial lining in the arteries. Or you could just take a pill and hope you don't land in the ER after four hours! But I digress.)

Debby's entire post is worth the few minutes it will take to read it. If you don't have time for that, here is the take away in terms of diet and lifestyle — what stimulates the endothelial cells to release ample supplies of nitric oxide:

What impairs the supply of nitric oxide?

It's a Catch-22. Nitric oxide is diminished by all the usual suspects--the cardiovascular risk factors--like high cholesterol, high triglycerides, high homocysteine, high CRP (marker for inflammation), insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and smoking. These culprits impair the delicate endothelial cells' ability to produce ample nitric oxide.

What role does diet play in this endothelial cell/nitric oxide story?

Here's how Dr. Esselstyn explains it: "The basic understanding we all need to accept is that with every meal of oil, dairy, or meat we eat, within minutes there is damage & injury to the "life jackets" of our vascular health--which is the single layer of endothelial cells that line all of our blood vessels. The endothelial cells produce the "magical gas" called nitric oxide which keeps our blood vessels relaxed, prevents our white blood cells & platelets from becoming sticky, and prevents the growth of plaque--the dread "hardening of the arteries".

Is there anything we can eat to insure that our endothelial cells will have the raw materials to produce this healing nitric oxide?

Beans & leafy greens. Load up on kale, collards, Swiss chard, bok choy & beans and you will be well on your way to healing the linings of your blood vessels. Ditch the meat, dairy, & oil. And be sure to include a daily bowl of oatmeal while you're at it--with its nitric-oxide increasing avenanthramides.

The Un-education of American Teenagers

On the NBC Nightly News program tonight, Brian Williams reported on the just released results of the 2009 edition of the PISA test—Program for International Student Assessment. The PISA is administered to high school students in countries around the world. In 2009, 470,000 students in 65 countries took the test. 2009 was the first year that China participated.

First, the bad news. American students ranked "average" compared to 34 similarly developed nations. Out of the 34 countries, America scored 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in math. America's scores were slightly higher than on the 2003 and 2006 tests, so there has been improvement, but still ranked far below nations like Finland, South Korea, Hong Kong (Singapore), China (Shanghai), and even Canada. China (surprise, surprise) scored highest of all nations in math.

In an article about the PISA results on the NBC web site, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said (in part), "We have to get much more serious about investing in education."

I almost laughed out loud! For years, America has spent more money per child on educating than any other nation. Among the 2009 country-participants, only Luxembourg spent more than the U.S. Estonia and Poland scored about equal with the U.S. on the tests while spending half per-child of what the U.S. spends. The problem is obviously not money.

The video accompanying the news piece spoke volumes to me. The video of a class session in a Chinese high school (public? private? I don't know) showed neatly groomed teens sitting at desks arranged in careful rows listening attentively to an instructor who was at the board explaining math. The students all wore matching sweatshirt-type tops with a logo of some kind on them. Very impressive --

The video of an American high school class was less so. Students at desks arranged rather haphazardly -- I won't say the kids were slouching, but there was a marked difference. And of course, they were all dressed differently. ("Self-expression," I guess we call it.) One shot showed the very obese upper arm of a girl being raised to ask or answer a question. (Didn't see any obese kids in the Chinese class.)

I have to say that I was shaking my head at the end of the news report having seen the video segments. I can only say that I am profoundly grateful not to have children I love in America's public school system that is dominated by the NAE union whose top priority is teacher/administrator tenure and retirement, weak accountability, and maintaining the status quo. We've been talking about education reform in America for years -- and yes, there have been some improvements as mentioned above in terms of international rankings. But until public schools once again become centers of education instead of centers for social experimentation and interaction among culture-infected teenagers, progress will surely be slow.

Like many, I grieve for what America has become -- from the very early days when young teens were required to know Latin and Greek before entering Harvard, to the present. But there are bright spots . . .

The last feature on the broadcast was about a trio of beautiful, poised, and amazingly talented young African-American teenage girls from Chicago—three cousins who call themselves the SugarStrings—who play classical music on violin, viola, and cello. They've been performing together for six years—the feature showed them giving a concert at a local predominantly black grammar school where the children were clearly enthralled with the music. (Encouraging to see the children's matching school shirts!) The SugarStrings were amazing. They began playing at ages 5, 3, and 3 at the prompting of parents and grandparents. You can see the NBC segment at this link (look around for the SugarStrings segment.)

I'm not naive enough to think that China has it all together and America doesn't. But in the decades to come, I don't see how "average" is going to compete with #1.

Backyard Deer

Looked out my back window this morning to see these four deer feeding on the acorns beneath a large oak tree in my neighbor's yard -- an adult and three adolescents. Hard for me to imagine where they live. The woods in the background of these photos are a buffer about 50 yards wide and maybe 500 yards long with houses on all four sides of the woods. I can't imagine they live in that area alone. They fed on the acorns and grass for about a half-hour, then when the juveniles started getting restless and playing, mom gathered the brood and retreated back into the woods.

A Challenge to the Red Cross

I've been giving blood to the Red Cross on a regular basis for several years. At the most basic level, it's because of the simple words of Leviticus 17:14: "For the life of every creature is its blood: its blood is its life" (ESV). That is obviously true physically, but the spiritual implications are even more profound. The reason animals were sacrificed and their blood poured out as an atoning sacrifice in the Old Testament was to graphically illustrate the giving of an innocent LIFE for a guilty LIFE. The innocent animal's blood was shed so that the blood of the guilty human could remain un-shed; so his LIFE could be spared. This was preparatory and temporary for the ultimate blood exchange yet to come. This physical-spiritual sacrificial substitution motif culminated, of course, in the Lamb of God, Jesus of Nazareth, shedding His innocent blood in place of the "guilty" blood of human beings. He gave His blood (His LIFE) so that my blood (my LIFE) could be saved.

My blood, it goes without saying, has no atoning power. If it did, the Red Cross wouldn't hound me with phone calls every 50-odd days to come back and give again. Those who received a transfusion of Kruidenier blood would rise whole and healed and my blood would be in constant demand. Such, alas, is not the case.

I give blood purely for the physical help it may provide to another—someone in need of LIFE as a result of surgery or an accident. My blood is the most valuable physical possession I have. Nothing else I own is able to keep another person alive and convey new LIFE to someone who might otherwise die. So when I tithe my blood (give away one of my 10 pints) every 2-3 months, it's just another way to stay in touch with Jesus' "better to give than to receive" viewpoint (Acts 20:35). (And I confess: I would much rather be a giver of blood than a needer of blood.) (But giving blood is also healthy from what I have read. It deletes accumulated iron stores in men who don't lose blood monthly the way women do, and giving a large block of blood at one time stimulates fresh blood reproduction in the body. Out with the old, in with the new.)

Now -- to the point of this post. I have worn my curmudgeonly hat to give blood on more than one occasion, yesterday being one of those days. I never leave home with the hat on, but I find it has assumed its cranial cap once I have finished giving blood and I'm invited to "have a snack" -- the post-operative way the RC has of thanking you for coming in and getting your blood sugar stimulated so you don't faint on the way out the door and end up needing back the blood you just gave. As usual, after donating blood yesterday, I was invited to sift through a Trick or Treat-like collection of junk snacks and have my choice of a soda. Which would mean, if I availed myself of these offerings, my remaining blood would be less healthy upon leaving the Red Cross venue than the pint I was leaving with them.

Another reason I give blood regularly is because I believe it's in pretty decent shape and might actually be a healthy addition to the average person's body. But I am always amazed that the Red Cross -- an organization in the business of promoting and saving lives, offers their donors nothing better to build up their donor's health than soda and processed, trans-fat laden junk food.

Yesterday, there were a couple of volunteers my age who were helping man the "recovery" area. When I was offered soda and a snack, I opted for a bottled water and no snack. (This is where I found the curmudgeonly hat had appeared.) I said to the two guys (I've learned to do this in a laughing, winsome way so as not to offend), "No thanks. You know, it always amazes me that the Red Cross offers snacks to people that make their blood worse than it was before they came in. You'd think they would want to set a better example."

The guys chuckled (they knew I was right) and one of them started rifling through the box and came up with a "granola bar." I said I'd seen that bar before and passed because it was full of trans-fats (hydrogenated oils), which set in motion a couple minutes of label reading. The granola bar went back in the box and this time a packet or raisins was extracted. I said that looked better: "Let's see what's in it." We immediately began looking for a couple of lines of ingredients on the label and I couldn't seem to find a list. Suddenly I realized why: The ingredient list had only one word in it—Raisins. No cane sugar, no added anything. So we cheered and all three of us had a packet of raisins.

There have been a couple of instances when the blood donation was held at a church and some of the church members (I assume) had baked fresh goodies for donors to sample: cookies, brownies, and the like. But even then, there would always be the Red Cross staples of junk-food snacks and soda (sometimes small containers of fruit juice) for the hard-core American donors to feed on. Even though the homemade snacks were probably not particularly healthy, they were a step in the right direction. And even though I didn't eat them, I thanked the volunteers for providing them.

So my challenge to the Red Cross is this: In keeping with your commitment to sustaining LIFE by collecting blood, how about matching it with a commitment to building better blood among your donors. How about setting a better example by providing fresh fruit and fruit juices for donors to snack on (or, at least, "healthy" cookies, etc.) after they give blood. (Or asking your host organizations to provide it.) I'm in the habit of taking along a banana or apple to eat, along with one of their bottles of water, after donating. But I know most folks aren't going to do that. So here's hoping the Red Cross will continue not only their good work of service in so many ways, but grab a small opportunity to increase the quality of the blood they hope to collect and dispense to those in need.

We Need a New Word

Now that 7-Eleven is selling vegan food, you know the movement has been co-opted and it's time to find another word to replace "vegan." This is not news, of course -- other (better) words have been used in place of "vegan" for a while now, "plant-based" and "nutritarian" being two good examples. The point is that one can be a vegan by living on Twinkies and Ho-Ho's and potato chips -- but that's not exactly what the vegan movement has stood for, at least on the nutrition side.

The same has happened to "organic." Once the USDA took ownership of that term, it began to be used by corporations selling dog food and shampoo and other things that were never part of the movement. So a lot of old-school (and many new-school) organic farmers refused to participate in the USDA system (which basically disallows use of the word "organic" unless you're certified by the government) and created new labels: "Beyond Organic," "Natural" and others.

It's the life-cycle of good ideas: message > mission >movement > monstrosity > monument > memory > new message.

Of course, it's good that healthier choices of food are being offered in 7-Elevens -- which is actually not a huge accomplishment. Here's hoping some of the regular 7-Eleven clientele will try them.