Food vs Pharmaceuticals: Step One Foods, New Study Highlight Power of Nutrition Over Pills for Improving Heart Health

It’s putting to listen to Dr. Elizabeth
Klodas, a training heart specialist, say that in her 14 years of
medicine-related coaching, not even an hour was spent on diet.

“The huge ‘secret’ is that we’re not taught about meals in any respect within the drugs
monitor,” she advised Sustainable Brands®.

That reality would possibly assist clarify the prevalence and morbidity of coronary heart illness in
the United States: The situation is the leading cause of death in the
US, in accordance with the CDC,
liable for 697,000 deaths in 2020 alone.

One of the primary contributors to coronary heart illness is excessive ldl cholesterol — which, whereas
there generally is a genetic part, is most frequently introduced on by poor food regimen, lack of
train and/or underlying circumstances corresponding to diabetes. The 2022 printed
outcomes of a multi-year study — of
which Klodas was a lead writer, together with physicians from the Mayo Clinic
and the University of Manitoba — supply laborious proof that the reply to
decreasing LDL ldl cholesterol (the dangerous variety) might exist inside meals alone.

Food as drugs

The research evaluated sufferers with excessive LDL ranges over two four-week intervals —
one incorporating meals objects from Klodas’ meals model, Step One
Foods; and a non-treatment interval. The aim was
to check the impact of integrating these meals, in comparison with utilizing a statin — a
pharmaceutical generally given to assist decrease ldl cholesterol.

Step One Foods wasn’t reinventing the wheel, essentially — however relatively,
refocusing a small portion of sufferers’ diets on naturally cholesterol-lowering
meals corresponding to chia, flax and oat; all integrated into low-sugar, low-salt and
high-fiber merchandise. Step One’s present product line consists of snack bars, a
pancake combine and a floor granola — meals which might be straightforward to include into most
diets and usually straightforward on the abdomen. The research additionally confirmed the
diet-over-drug plan supplied putting outcomes.

“In our trial, 80 % of individuals responded (with a lowered LDL studying),” she
says.

On common, LDL ranges lowered by 9 %, a big drop for not a lot
greater than modifying a affected person’s food regimen “across the edges,” as Klodas describes.
Patients continued consuming considerably as regular however changing or modifying issues
they had been consuming twice a day with Step One merchandise.

“From the general public well being perspective, even this small discount would dethrone
coronary heart illness as our number-one killer,” Klodas asserts.

This doesn’t even consider the sufferers who responded with 20-40
% reductions in LDL ranges, which is medication-level ldl cholesterol
discount. That, in itself, is an eye-opening consequence that’s probably breaking
new floor within the dialog round utilizing meals as a first-choice remedy
plan.

Of course, the concept of meals as drugs isn’t new; however many medical doctors, particularly
within the medication-heavy fields corresponding to cardiology, have been educated to look to
treatment as the primary alternative in remedy (particularly with not-so-subtle
nudges from the pharmaceutical trade). This has led to a critical
overmedication
problem,
which itself presents two main issues: decreasing the effectiveness of
medicines for individuals who want them; and growing the price of insurance coverage and
remedy, as these prices get handed by way of our nation’s advanced insurance coverage
system.

Food as a primary step

Statins have lengthy been used to decrease ldl cholesterol as a result of they’re efficient; however
they’re not low-cost. Generic statins can simply run within the a whole bunch of {dollars},
even when coated by insurance coverage, as sufferers typically start a protracted course of use when
prescribed.

Klodas hopes that due to this research, Step One merchandise may finally be
coated by insurance coverage — giving sufferers an choice to make use of their pre-tax insurance coverage
{dollars} on a extra pure strategy to therapeutic. She says the corporate is exploring
this; however not surprisingly, getting insurance coverage protection for a product within the US
will be fairly difficult.

Klodas additionally sees Step One as one other software cardiologists can use to assist deal with
sufferers, particularly these hesitant about utilizing treatment.

“Physicians aren’t simply there to offer medicine; they’re meant to assist people,”
she says. “We (physicians) have to have information to really feel assured in prescribing or
recommending one thing. We didn’t do that research to show Step One works — we did
it to create a well-recognized foundation of proof for clinicians.”