Hearty advice for heavy executives

Press, 12 October 1976, Page 43

Hearty advice for heavy executives

The harried, desk-bound executive who was overweight and under-exercised, who smoked two packets of cigarettes, had three cocktails a day, dined well, and travelled the country frequently should try rocking to and fro on the balls of his feet while he opened his mail, a leading United States cardiac pathologist, Dr W. C. Roberts, said in Christchurch on Sunday. Dr Roberts is in New Zealand as the 1976 National Heart Foundation visiting lecturer. He is chief of the pathology branch at the National Heart Institute in Maryland. If the harried executive rocked to and fro on the bails of his feet and took to using the stairs instead of the lift his chances of developing heart disease would be reduced.

Hyptertension, one of the major contributors to high blood pressure became a factor in heart disease only when it was combined with other indications such as high cholesterol level—from a diet too heavy in protein foods and animal fats —smoking, lack of exercise and overweight, Dr Roberts said. "Hard work never killed anyone,” Dr Roberts said. "People with high-pressure jobs who know how to pace themselves are not candidates for heart disease on that basis.”

The races with the highest levels of hypertension were black Africans, but these had a remarkably low incidence of coronary disease.

How high was a high cholesterol level In Japan and Africa a norma! cholesterol level was struck at 180 mg of cholesterol to 100 millilitres of blood. In these countries cholesterol intake was habitually below this, and coronary

disease was conspicuously absent from the list of mortal diseases. In America and most Western nations, however, what was regarded as norma) was too high —260 mg to 100 ml. A safer guide for the New Zealander in a country so used to eating freely of butter, cheese, eggs, milk and meat, and in which coronary (artery disease was the major (killer, was 200 mg. “Ip countries where calories are so accessible it is very difficult to keep an ideal body weight but if you want to live a healthy life you simply can’t eat all that food. If you go out to tea and have 2000 calories in one sitting skip a couple of meals the next day. A person’s ideal body weight was probablv pretty clo.-e to his weight at the age Of 18. I “The reason why people put on t weight,” Dr Roberts said, “is because thev don’t burn up as much energy as. they did when they were 15 No-one eats as much as a 15-year-old, but the average 15-year-old is not overweight. "If we gain weight, we get lazy, and the lazier we get the more weight we put on. The theory advanced by an eminent United States cardiologist was that coronary artery disease came with the motor car. The exact contribution of smoking to coronary heart disease was not known but it seemed clear that smoking increased the secretion of adrenalin which caused blood clotting. It had become evident from tests he had done himself that biood clotting was at least an initial factor in 1 atherosclerosis, which caused (most coronary conditions, said Dr Roberts. • Atherosclerosis was the

' name given the condition I caused by gradual collection of “gunk” on the artery wall • through high cholesterol levl els. A coronary artery condii tion developed when one or . more of the arteries feeding ' the heart muscle became • blocked or partly blocked f with the fatty deposits. 1 It was something of an ' indictment of the Westerner's r life-style that he could manage to block these arteries • which were naturally del signed to get bigger a« ha < got older, Dr Roberts said > Dr Roberts was sceptical ' about the relationship bef tween the oral contraceptive and coronary artery disease ElEvMance was bo hazv and ■ complex that it took samples of thousands of people, combined with a control group of ' the same size, to establish : |even nominal differences in Jt he increased blood clotting ? |that resulted from taking the ' i oral contraceptive. I “Evrything you put in your (mouth is a risk That one is (worth it.’ he said ’ No-one could get moralistic about another man’s life-style, but poop determine their own risP fac1 tors. Every person should • know his blood cholesterol 1 level and his blood pressure. What was an acceptable ’ blood pressure? "The lower the better, f There is no magic normal or t abnormal If a man can stand t up from a reclining position , and run or walk without f fainting his blood pressure is I not too high. The nitty gritty of the cort onary heart disease syndrome . was a change tn basic life sjstyle, but how was anyone i|to be convinced that he 1 (should make the change. 1’ “How do you convince an alcoholic not to dnnk?" Dr said.