Kardea Nutrition Teams with The Cooking Cardiologist®

Kardea Nutrition™ is pleased to announce that it has teamed with Dr Richard Collins, a Mayo Clinic trained cardiologist, also known as The Cooking Cardiologist®, to advance an integrated nutritional approach promoting cardiovascular health and wellness.

“What you eat and how much you eat can significantly alter cardiovascular health,” say Dr. Collins, ”Certain nutrients can be very helpful. Others can be quiet harmful. The power of nutrition lies with the overall eating patterns and preferences.”

The National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association have long asserted that dietary choices are the foundation of cardiovascular disease prevent and health promotion. The NIH recognizes that lifestyle choices, emphasizing nutrition “compares well with many of the cholesterol-lowering drugs.[i]” For some, food choices allow individuals to maintain healthy cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels without the use of medications. For others, food choices reduce the medications required to achieve healthy levels.

In addition to serving on Kardea’s Board of Advisors, Dr. Collins will join Kardea’s founder, Robert Leighton, in co-authoring The Kardea Gourmet: Great Science, Fantastic Foods and Cardiovascular Health. This book will provide readers with a clear understanding of how inflammation and cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels interact to affect cardiovascular health. It then will review the impact of specific nutrients and overall diet. Gourmet chefs from noted restaurants around the country also will be providing the meal plans that deliver the right nutritional balance and heart healthy nutrients including Omega-3s, fibers, plant sterols and antioxidants.

Sections of the book, including recipes, are posted on kardeagourmet.com . Updates are being added on a weekly basis. Kardea is seeking input from interested readers.

Founded in 2007, Kardea Nutrition™ LLC was launched to empower people to manage their cholesterol, naturally and nutritiously. Kardea Nutrition™ has since extended its scope to enable the power of nutrition to advance overall cardiovascular health. It products are currently available at many retailers throughout the United States including Whole Foods , Nordstrom, drugstore.com and Hy-Vee. Products can also be purchased directly from Kardea’s online store.


[1] Your Guide to Lowering Cholesterol with Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, December 2005. www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/chol/chol_tlc.pdf

From Heart Health Claims to Cardiovascular Health Optimizing Nutrition

Take a stroll through any grocery store, and you may become overwhelmed by the dizzying array of heart healthy products. Cereals, soups, super-fruit drinks, popcorn and chocolate, salad dressings, margarines and oils, yogurts and nutritional bars, pastas and many other food categories have products proclaiming their ability to lower cholesterol and blood pressure, fight inflammation and control blood sugar levels —all factors in the development of cardiovascular diseases. No food or specific nutrient rules in the quest for the healthiest. “Low in sodium,” “low in saturated fat,” “no cholesterol and no trans-fats,” “high in potassium or high antioxidants”, “with plant sterols”, “an excellent source of Omega-3’s ,” and “contains cholesterol lowering fiber” are only some of the pronouncements. Walk over to the vitamin aisle and you will find numerous supplements with similar associations to heart health: CoQ-10, Vitamin E, psyllium, niacin and red yeast rice are just a few.

Many consumers remain dubious. See full article at The Kardea Gourmet.

Kardea Nutrition for Natural Cholesterol Lowering

Lifestyle & Heart Health: Important 2009 Studies

January 4, 2009 Dallas, TX - The American Heart Association (AHA) chooses important 2009 research papers on heart health and lifestyle choices. One provides insights into obesity prevention and the "best diets." The other cautions that cardiovascular risk-factor control isn't just for older people. A third reviews the significant role of laws restricting smoking in public places to sharply lower the incidence of hospital admissions for heart attacks.

These selections emerged from a process led by the AHA immediate past president, president and president-elect. The choices were based on nominations from the organization's scientific councils. The chairs of the councils had been charged with recommending the year's "most meritorious, most substantial, most significant" papers in cardiovascular medicine, according to AHA current president Dr Clyde W Yancy (Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, TX). Several of the studies in the final cut, he told heartwire, had been backed by multiple scientific councils.

No Best Diet

In a randomized comparison in more than 800 overweight adults of four "reduced-calorie" dietary interventions consisting of fat, protein, and carbohydrate intake in different proportions, such as 40%, 15%, and 45%, respectively, or 20%, 25%, 55%, respectively(1).

Participants lost about the same amount of weight over six months, an average of 6 kg, regardless of which group they were in; in general, metabolic risk factors also improved in all four groups.

In its coverage when the study was published, Dr Robert Eckel (University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver) stated that the study affirms that people who are successful at losing weight are those who stick to a specific program. "Ownership, by the patient, of the weight-loss program is what proves successful, not the type of diet you chose," he said.

It really dismissed the notion that there's something clever about weight loss, showing that it really is about calorie consumption. "We all thought the statement made in that study was pretty profound," Yancy said. "It really dismissed the notion that there's something clever about weight loss, and that it really is about calorie consumption or, to make it even more straightforward, portion control. You can spend a lot of time wringing your hands about which diet and the composition of which diet, but it really is a simple equation of calories in and calories out."

Another analysis based on multiple studies that together indicated a 17% drop in estimated one-year risk of hospital admissions for acute MI in North American and European communities that adopted strong laws restricting smoking in public places, compared with rates in those communities before implementation of the restrictions (2). The risk declined steadily with increasing follow-up time.

And a combined analysis from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study and Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) suggested that young adults with a low risk of developing heart disease over the short term (within 10 years) by conventional measures can be classified into high- and low-lifetime-risk groups [4]. Those with low short-term but high long-term risk were described as having a greater degree of atherosclerotic disease progression (3).

"This study is an important look at how the presence of risk factors early in life can be crucial to the lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease," according to the AHA. In its coverage of the analysis, heartwire quoted lead author Dr Jarett Berry (University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas), who said that even at younger ages, less than 50 years, "the clock is ticking" for many adults who are unaware that they already have progressive atherosclerosis.

Kardea Nutrition Serious Nutrition for Cardiovascular Health

Reference

(1)Sacks FM, Bray GA, Carey VJ, et al. Comparison of weight-loss diets with different compositions of fat, protein, and carbohydrates. N Engl J Med 2009; 360:859-873.

(2)Lightwood JM, Glantz SA. Declines in acute myocardial infarction after smoke-free laws and individual risk attributable to secondhand smoke. Circulation 2009; 120:1373-1379.

(3)Berry JD, Liu K, Folsom AR, et al. Prevalence and progression of subclinical atherosclerosis in younger adults with low short-term but high lifetime estimated risk for cardiovascular disease: the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults study and Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Circulation 2009; 119:382-386.