BE OUR GUEST: THE NUTRITIONAL LINK TO HEALTH: MEN, HERE'S HOW YOU CAN SURVIVE YOUR BIRTHDAY

David A. Keiper is a research scientist, trained in both the physical and biological sciences. He has written for this space previously. His nutrition book, "How to Keep Your Bad Habits and Still Avoid Flame-Out," is available at Sibley's Bargain Books, 33 N. Main St., Cape Girardeau.

Now that there are statistics associating heart attacks with birthdays (Southeast Missourian, March 19~), the "do-gooders" will make you feel guilty about celebrating your birthday, or even holidays. No more winter sports, since exposure to cold weather also associates with heart attacks. The one good thing we hear from these heart researchers is that it is better not to go to work on Mondays, since heart attacks are more common then.

In the lack of really good answers for preventing heart attacks, many heart researchers have gone off on unfruitful tangents in their work. I believe the real truth is that celebrating your birthday could only be a very minor cause, at most.

The major cause certainly appears to be year-round incorrect food habits. It is as if incorrect food habits take you to the edge of a cliff, and then something minor like a birthday celebration will push you over the edge. The sensible thing to do is get yourself away from the edge of the cliff so that minor risk factors can't hurt you.

Many American heart researchers maintain that excess consumption of fat and cholesterol is the leading dietary contributor to heart attacks. ~However in analyzing worldwide food and health data while writing a book on nutrition and heart disease, I came to different conclusions. I saw that there are unrelated groups of people, such as the M~asai tribesmen of Africa or the Tibetan nomads who live on a high plateau in Asia, who eat a diet rich in cholesterol and fat (65 percent of calories, mostly saturated) and have no heart disease, hypertension, or significant atherosclerosis. That being the case, eating fat and cholesterol can not be considered fundamental contributors to heart disease. Still, in ~~Western countries, we see statistical associations between eating fat (at 40-45 percent of calories) and heart disease. No doubt, many ~Westerners/Americans are near the edge of a cliff most of the time.

I found other more important dietary contributors to heart disease. For men, a diet that associates extremely strongly with heart disease includes: milk, refined foods, and salt. While ordinary milk showed damaging effects, the real surprise in the worldwide data was that fermented forms of milk (that is, cheese or yogurt) showed protective effects.

To sum up the dietary changes people need for heart disease protection: switch from milk (including ice cream) to cheese and yogurt, for protein and calcium sources; switch from refined grains and sugars to whole grains and starches; go easy on salt. Additionally, it is wise to get more of the super-polyunsaturated "omega-3" oils into your diet, either by eating more fish or by getting vegetables sources like walnuts or soy oil. To prevent weight gain, cut back on other oils and fats in general. Some people are genetically more vulnerable to heart disease and need to emphasize salads and vegetables more, and also get vitamin and mineral supplements. Please understand that I'm only able to give a broad overview of what's needed in this brief piece. These dietary changes would also reduce health problems other than heart disease.

One important economic implication of the needed dietary changes is that we do not need changes in our agricultural produce, but only in the processing of it. Thus, milk must be processed more; that is, fermented into cheese or yogurt, and grains or sugars must be processed less, that is grains should remain whole and sugar should be brown. Another is that the changes would bring us all drastically reduced health care costs.