Current advice for heart bypass patient diet?!


Question:

Current advice for heart bypass patient diet?

My dad had a 4 bypass heart surgery several years ago. For years, he has avoided fat, not allowing more than 10 grams of fat per day in his diet. This, of course, has been difficult and mundane. What is the current diet advice? Is this overkill to exclude fats this strictly? Need sound advice because he's very bored for years of this routine. All of his blood chemistries and lipids are waaaay good. Thanks!


Answers:

Sorry. He will have to stay on this boring diet - low fat, low salt diet. The lower the better. Fat free is not healthy, but as low of fat as possible, and as little salt as possible.

Any fat can build up in his already clogged blood vessels - in his heart, brain, neck, etc. Study shows that only when one's LDL level is very low (into 30-40's with HDL more than 50's) do you have some - and only minimally some - decrease in the cholesterol plaque. Anything more than that may induce more clogging.

Salt, on the other hand, causes blood pressure to go up, thereby increasing the workload on the heart. That is no good either.

It was the previous exciting diet that got him the bypass surgery. As good of his lab may appear, he already had a bypass. If the bypass grafts are blocked - and they typically last only 10-15 years unless you are very good - your dad will have NOTHING more to bypass. That would not be good.

It is not worth the risk of another heart attack or stroke. Instead of concentrating on the boring mundane diet, have him concentrate on the good things in life - grandkids, traveling, the smell of roses, the songs of birds. However, there are something he needs to give up in life in order to be alive.




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