Constipation increases your risk of a heart attack, new study finds – and not just on the toilet
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If you Google the terms “constipation” and “heart attack” it’s not long before the name Elvis Presley crops up. Elvis had a longstanding history of chronic constipation and it’s believed he was straining very hard to poo, which then led to a fatal heart attack.
We don’t know what really happened to the so-called King of Rock “n” Roll back in 1977. There were likely several contributing factors to his death, and this theory is one of many.
But after this famous case researchers took a strong interest in the link between constipation and the risk of a heart attack.
This includes a recent study led by Australian researchers involving data from thousands of people.
Are constipation and heart attacks linked?
Large population studies show constipation is linked to an increased risk of heart attacks.
For example, an Australian study involved more than 540,000 people over 60 in hospital for a range of conditions. It found constipated patients had a higher risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes compared to non-constipated patients of the same age.
A Danish study of more than 900,000 people from hospitals and hospital outpatient clinics also found that people who were constipated had an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
It was unclear, however, if this relationship between constipation and an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes would hold true for healthy people outside hospital.
These Australian and Danish studies also did not factor in the effects of drugs used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension), which can make you constipated.
How about this new study?
The recent international study led by Monash University researchers found a connection between constipation and an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart failure in a general population.
The researchers analysed data from the UK Biobank, a database of health-related information from about half a million people in the United Kingdom.
The researchers identified more than 23,000 cases of constipation and accounted for the effect of drugs to treat high blood pressure, which can lead to constipation.
People with constipation (identified through medical records or via a questionnaire) were twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke or heart failure as those without constipation.
The researchers found a strong link between high blood pressure and constipation. Individuals with hypertension who were also constipated had a 34% increased risk of a major heart event compared to those with just hypertension.
The study only looked at the data from people of European ancestry. However, there is good reason to believe the link between constipation and heart attacks applies to other populations.
A Japanese study looked at more than 45,000 men and women in the general population. It found people passing a bowel motion once every two to three days had a higher risk of dying from heart disease compared with ones who passed at least one bowel motion a day.
How might constipation cause a heart attack?
Chronic constipation can lead to straining when passing a stool. This can result in laboured breathing and can lead to a rise in blood pressure.
In one Japanese study including ten elderly people, blood pressure was high just before passing a bowel motion and continued to rise during the bowel motion. This increase in blood pressure lasted for an hour afterwards, a pattern not seen in younger Japanese people.
One theory is that older people have stiffer blood vessels due to atherosclerosis (thickening or hardening of the arteries caused by a build-up of plaque) and other age-related changes. So their high blood pressure can persist for some time after straining. But the blood pressure of younger people returns quickly to normal as they have more elastic blood vessels.
As blood pressure rises, the risk of heart disease increases. The risk of developing heart disease doubles when systolic blood pressure (the top number in your blood pressure reading) rises permanently by 20 mmHg (millimetres of mercury, a standard measure of blood pressure).
The systolic blood pressure rise with straining in passing a stool has been reported to be as high as 70 mmHg. This rise is only temporary but with persistent straining in chronic constipation this could lead to an increased risk of heart attacks.
Some people with chronic constipation may have an impaired function of their vagus nerve, which controls various bodily functions, including digestion, heart rate and breathing.
This impaired function can result in abnormalities of heart rate and over-activation of the flight-fight response. This can, in turn, lead to elevated blood pressure.
Another intriguing avenue of research examines the imbalance in gut bacteria in people with constipation.
This imbalance, known as dysbiosis, can result in microbes and other substances leaking through the gut barrier into the bloodstream and triggering an immune response. This, in turn, can lead to low-grade inflammation in the blood circulation and arteries becoming stiffer, increasing the risk of a heart attack.
This latest study also explored genetic links between constipation and heart disease. The researchers found shared genetic factors that underlie both constipation and heart disease.
What can we do about this?
Constipation affects around 19% of the global population aged 60 and older. So there is a substantial portion of the population at an increased risk of heart disease due to their bowel health.
Managing chronic constipation through dietary changes (particularly increased dietary fibre), increased physical activity, ensuring adequate hydration and using medications, if necessary, are all important ways to help improve bowel function and reduce the risk of heart disease.
Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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How Not to Die – by Dr. Michael Greger
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Dr. Greger (of “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” fame) outlines for us in cold hard facts and stats what’s most likely to be our cause of death. While this is not a cheery premise for a book, he then sets out to work back from there—what could have prevented those specific things?
Some of the advice is what you might expect: eat green things and whole grains, skip the bacon. Other advice is less well-known: get a daily dose of curcumin/turmeric, take it with black pepper. Works wonders. If you want to add in daily exercises, just lifting the book could be a start; weighing in at 678 pages, it’s an information-dense tome that’s more likely to be sifted through than read cover-to-cover.
If you’re a more cynical sort, you might note that since the book doesn’t confer immortality, but does help us avoid statistically likely causes of death, logically it significantly increases our chances of dying in a statistically unlikely way. (Ha! Your mental exercise for today will be decoding that sentence )
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Reishi Mushrooms: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?
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Reishi Mushrooms
Another Monday Research Review, another mushroom! If we keep this up, we’ll have to rename it “Mushroom Monday”.
But, there’s so much room for things to say, and these are fun guys to write about, as we check the science for any spore’ious claims…
Why do people take reishi?
Popular health claims for the reishi mushroom include:
- Immune health
- Cardiovascular health
- Protection against cancer
- Antioxidant qualities
- Reduced fatigue and anxiety
And does the science agree?
Let’s take a look, claim by claim:
Immune health
A lot of research for this has been in vitro (ie, with cell cultures in labs), but promising, for example:
Immunomodulating Effect of Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi) and Possible Mechanism
(that is the botanical name for reishi, and the Chinese name for it, by the way)
That’s not to say there are no human studies though; here it was found to boost T-cell production in stressed athletes:
Cardiovascular health
Here we found a stack of evidence for statistically insignificant improvements in assorted measures of cardiovascular health, and some studies where reishi did not outperform placebo.
Because the studies were really not that compelling, instead of taking up room (and your time) with them, we’re going to move onto more compelling, exciting science, such as…
Protection against cancer
There’s a lot of high quality research for this, and a lot of good results. The body of evidence here is so large that even back as far as 2005, the question was no longer “does it work” or even “how does it work”, but rather “we need more clinical studies to find the best doses”. Researchers even added:
❝At present, lingzhi is a health food supplement to support cancer patients, yet the evidence supporting the potential of direct in vivo anticancer effects should not be underestimated.❞
Check it out:
Anticancer effects of Ganoderma lucidum: a review of scientific evidence
Just so you know we’re not kidding about the weight of evidence, let’s drop a few extra sources:
- Ganoderma lucidum: a rational pharmacological approach to surmount cancer
- Ganoderma lucidum as an anti-cancer agent
- Extract from Ganoderma lucidum suppresses cervical cancer cell malignancy
- Ganoderma lucidum spore oil induces apoptosis of breast cancer cells
- Ganoderma lucidum enhances carboplatin chemotherapy effect
- Ganoderma lucidum inhibits prostate cancer cell migration
- Ganoderma lucidum fruiting body extracts inhibit colorectal cancer
- Inhibitory activity of medicinal mushroom Ganoderma lucidum on colorectal cancer
- Ganoderma lucidum (reishi mushroom) for cancer treatment
By the way, we shortened most of those titles for brevity, but almost all of the continued with “by” followed by a one-liner of how it does it.
So it’s not a “mysterious action” thing, it’s a “this is a very potent medicine and we know how it works” thing.
Antioxidant qualities
Here we literally only found studies to say no change was found, one that found a slight increase of antioxidant levels in urine. It’s worth noting that levels of a given thing (or its metabolites, in the case of some things) in urine are often quite unhelpful regards knowing what’s going on in the body, because we get to measure only what the body lost, not what it gained/kept.
So again, let’s press on:
Reduced fatigue and anxiety
Most of the studies for this that we could find pertained to health-related quality of life for cancer patients specifically, so (while they universally give glowing reports of reishi’s benefits to health and happiness of cancer patients), that’s a confounding factor when it comes to isolating its effects on reduction of fatigue and anxiety in people without cancer.
Here’s one that looked at it in the case of reduction of fatigue, anxiety, and other factors, in patients without cancer (but with neurathenia), in which they found it was “significantly superior to placebo with respect to the clinical improvement of symptoms”.
Summary:
- Reishi mushroom’s anti-cancer properties are very, very clear
- There is also good science to back immune health claims
- It also has been found to significantly reduce fatigue and anxiety in unwell patients (we’d love to see more studies on its benefits in otherwise healthy people, though)
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Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
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Most people know that boiling vegetables to death is generally not best for them, but raw isn’t always best either, and if we want to not sabotage our food, then there’s more to bear in mind than “just steam them, then”.
So, what should we keep in mind?
Water solubility
Many nutrients are water-soluble, including vitamin C, vitamin B-complex (as in, the collection of B-vitamins), and flavonoids, as well as many other polyphenols.
This means that if you cook your vegetables (which includes beans, lentils, etc) in water, a lot of the nutrients will go into the water, and be lost if you then drain that.
There are, thus, options;
- Steaming, yes
- Use just enough water to slow-cook or pressure-cook things that are suitable for slow-cooking, or pressure-cooking such as those beans and lentils. That way, when it’s done, there’s no excess water to drain, and all the nutrients are still in situ.
- Use as much water as you like, but then keep the excess water to make a soup, sauce, or broth.
- Use a cooking method other than water, where appropriate. For example, roasting peppers is a much better idea than roasting dried pulses.
- Consume raw, where appropriate.
Fat solubility
Many nutrients are fat-soluble, including vitamins A, D, E, and K, as well as a lot of carotenoids (including heavy-hitters lycopene and β-carotene) and many other polyphenols.
We’re now going to offer almost the opposite advice to that we had about water solubility. This is because unless they are dried, vegetables already contain water, whereas many contain only trace amounts of fat. Consequently, the advice this time is to add fat.
There are options:
- Cook with a modest amount of your favorite healthy cooking oil (our general go-to is extra-virgin olive oil, but avocado oil is great especially for higher temperature cooking, and an argument can be made for coconut oil sometimes)
- Remember that this goes for roasting, too. Brush those vegetables with a touch of olive oil, and not only will they be delicious, they’ll be more nutritious, too.
- Drizzle some the the above, if you’re serving things raw and it’s appropriate. This goes also for things like salads, so dress them!
- Enjoy your vegetables alongside healthy fatty foods such as nuts and seeds (or fatty animal products, if you eat those; fatty fish is a fine option here, in moderation, as are eggs, or fermented dairy products).
For a deeper understanding: Can Saturated Fats Be Healthy?
Do not, however, deep-fry your foods unless it’s really necessary and then only for an occasional indulgence that you simply accept will be unhealthy. Not only is deep-frying terrible for the health in a host of ways (ranging from an excess of oil in the resultant food, to acrylamide, to creating Advanced Glycation End-products*), but also those fat-soluble nutrients? Guess where they’ll go. And unlike with the excess vegetable-cooking water that you can turn into soup or whatever, we obviously can’t recommend doing that with deep-fryer oil.
*see also: Are You Eating AGEs?
Temperature sensitivity
Many nutrients are sensitive to temperature, including vitamin C (breaks down when exposed to high temperatures) and carotenoids (are released when exposed to higher temperatures). Another special case is ergothioneine, “the longevity vitamin” that’s not a vitamin, found in mushrooms, which is also much more bioavailable when cooked.
So, if you’re eating something for vitamin C, then raw is best if that’s a reasonable option.
And if it’s not a reasonable option? Well, then you can either a) just cope with the fact it’s going to have less vitamin C in it, or b) cook it as gently and briefly as reasonably possible.
On the other hand, if you’re eating something for carotenoids (especially including lycopene and β-carotene), or ergothioneine, then cooked is best.
Additionally, if your food is high in oxalates (such as spinach), and you don’t want it to be (for example because you have kidney problems, which oxalates can exacerbate, or would like to get more calcium out of the spinach and into your body, which which oxalic acid would inhibit), then cooked is best, as it breaks down the oxalates.
Same goes for phytates, another “anti-nutrient” found in some whole grains (such as rice and wheat); cooking breaks it down, therefore cooked is best.
This latter is not, however, applicable in the case of brown rice protein powder, for those who enjoy that—because phytates aren’t found in the part of the rice that’s extracted to make that.
And as for brown rice itself? Does contain phytates… Which can be reduced by soaking and heating, preferably both, to the point that the nutritional value is better than it would have been had there not been phytic acid present in the first place; in other words: cooked is best.
You may be wondering: “who is eating rice raw?” and the answer is: people using rice flour.
See: Brown Rice Protein: Strengths & Weaknesses
Want to know more?
Here’s a great rundown from Dr. Rosalind Gibson, Dr. Leah Perlas, and Dr. Christine Hotz:
Improving the bioavailability of nutrients in plant foods at the household level
Enjoy!
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Bold Beans – by Amelia Christie-Miller
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We all know beans are one of the most healthful foods around, but how to include more of them, without getting boring?
This book has the answer, giving 80 exciting recipes, divided into the following sections:
- Speedy beans
- Bean snacks & sharing plates
- Brothy beans
- Bean bowls
- Hearty salads
- Bean feasts
The recipes are obviously all bean-centric, though if you have a particular dietary restriction, watch out for the warning labels on some (e.g. meat, fish, dairy, gluten, etc), and make a substitution if appropriate.
The recipes themselves have a happily short introductory paragraph, followed by all you’d expect from a recipe book (ingredients, measurements, method, picture)
There’s also a reference section, to learn about different kinds of beans and bean-related culinary methods that can be applied per your preferences.
Bottom line: if you’d like to include more beans in your daily diet but are stuck for making them varied and interesting, this is the book for you!
Click here to check out Bold Beans, and get your pulse racing (in a good way!)
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Cacao vs Carob – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing cacao to carob, we picked the cacao.
Why?
It’s close, and may depend a little on your priorities!
In terms of macros, the cacao has more protein and fat, while the carob has more carbohydrates, mostly sugar. Since people will not generally eat this by the spoonful, and will instead either make drinks or cook with it, we can’t speak for the glycemic index or general health impact of the sugars. As for the fats, on the one hand the cacao does contain saturated fat; on the other, this merely means that different saturated fat will usually be added to the carob if making something with it. Still, slight win for the carob on the fat front. Protein, of course, is entirely in cacao’s favor.
In the category of vitamins and minerals, they’re about equal on vitamins, while cacao wins easily on the mineral front, boasting more copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, and phosphorus.
While both have a generous antioxidant content, this one’s another win for cacao, with about 3x the active polyphenols and flavonoids.
In short: both are good, consumed in moderation and before adding unhealthy extra ingredients—but we say cacao comes out the winner.
If you’re looking specifically for the above-depicted products, by the way, here they are:
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Enjoy!
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Peach vs Passion Fruit – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing peach to passion fruit, we picked the passion fruit.
Why?
It wasn’t close!
In terms of macros, passion fruit has more than 2x the protein, 2x the carbs, and 7x the fiber. That’s a big difference!
In the category of vitamins, peach has more of vitamins B1, B5, E, and K, while passion fruit has more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, B7, B9, C, and choline. Again, not close.
When it comes to minerals, peach has more manganese and zinc, while passion fruit has more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium—and most of those margins are “by multiples”, not just a fraction more. Again, a clear winner here.
Adding up these three overwhelming wins for passion fruit makes for an obvious total win for passion fruit.
As ever, enjoy both, but if you’re going to pick one, then one of these fruits is extra passionate about bringing you nutrients.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Top 8 Fruits That Prevent & Kill Cancer ← peaches are on this list!
Take care!
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