At this time of year I spend extensive time in conferences, learning everything from the latest in fracking to heart health. The oil patch by and large shuts down for spring breakup, and it's a good time to get caught up on maintenance, training and networking.
March 19 I had the chance to sit in on the South East Enviro and Safety Seminar in Estevan, held at the Saskatchewan Energy Training Institute. The one-day seminar touched on leadership, traffic safety, individuals stepping up to look after their own safety interests, environmental testing and dietary supplements. The final speaker, Dr. Mark Moyad, spoke on "Fad diets, dietary supplements & Rx from A-Z: What works, what's worthless and what's new in 2014."
What struck me in his presentation was one basic premise - essentially everything runs through heart health. Many of the complications from diabetes, which I have had since the age of 12, are tied to cardiovascular disease.
"We tell people we have all these diets, the breast cancer diet, the cancer diet - all we really need is the heart-healthy diet. Everything is connected through the heart. If you keep all your pipes clean, it pays off," he said.
This really struck me because I personally am dealing with this very thing. After 27 years of Type 1 diabetes, the complications they warned me about when I was 12 have started to come home to roost. It culminated with an angioplasty in 2012 just hours after my blood work started to show the signs of a heart attack. A few more hours or days, and I probably wouldn't be here typing this now. I did suffer heart damage, but am significantly better now.
I spoke to Dr. Moyad briefly after his presentation, noting how the focus on the heart made particular sense. He was surprised that I had heart issues at such a young age. Being diabetic for 27 years will do that for you, I pointed out.
It is with his words on heart health ringing in my ears that I've been spending more time recently thinking of this heart-healthy bandwagon. It is so easy to fall off, with the biggest culprit being restaurants.
I've scoured menus from fast food joints to Chinese to 24-hour breakfast diners. The reality is there are next to no truly heart-healthy meals for the offering on these menus. Precious little meets the stipulations my dietician pointed out, with low sodium and low fat. Even the salads, which don't provide me with enough carbohydrate to keep my blood sugar from bottoming out, are heavy in fat due to their dressings.
Grocery stores are not much better. Want some munchies? Let's see, this one has 14 grams of fat per serving, that one has 13.5 grams, and no one stops at one serving. Baked chips? Woohoo! Only a few grams of fat. Then you bite into them, and wonder if it was actually the cardboard box you sank your teeth into.
It's no wonder then that cardio vascular disease is the number one killer in North America. Dr. Moyad pointed out this has been the case for 114 of the past 115 years. Only after the First World War did influenza beat out heart disease as the top killer.
I get extremely frustrated looking at my ever-expanding waistline and trying to live this heart-healthy lifestyle. It is next to impossible to find something to eat that fits the profile. Either we as a society have to make wholesale changes to the way we prepare and consume food, or we are going to keep dying as a result of it.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
