Diabetes Forum : Secretes of Eating -
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Published on: 2/9/2001
Last Visited: 12/13/2001
Biochemist Ron Goor, Ph.D., of Bethesda, Maryland, doesn't have diabetes, but like people with diabetes, he's a high risk for cardiovascular disease, specifically heart attack.His father had the first of three heart attacks in 1943 at age 31 when Ron was only three.Goor grew up with parents who preached the gospel of low-cholesterol, low-fat diet, but their young son didn't listen."I thought: Why should I?" Goor, now 56 recall."My father was the one with heart disease, not me." When Goor turned 32, he felt perfectly healthy, but the memory of his father's first heart attack spurred him to have his cholesterol measured for the first time.It was 311 milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dl), considerably higher than the average level of people who have heart attacks (235 mg/dl), even higher than the 200 mg/dl, the American Heart Association (AHA) recommends as the safe maximum, and way above the 160 mg/dl or so heart disease experts suggest as the ideal level for health and longevity.Like his father, and like most diabetics, Goor was at high risk for a heart attack, the nation's leading cause of death."My cholesterol scared the hell out of me, "he says."I was waiting for a heart attack to happen."Goor's heart attack risk spurred a change of heart about his career.He quit his job at the National Institutes of Health, and returned to school, earning a Masters in Public Health.In 1973, he went to work for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute as the coordinator of the Coronary Primary Prevention Trial (CPPT), an experiment to determine if lowering cholesterol could reduce heart attack risk.The results of the seven-year study were impressive: Cutting cholesterol definitely reduced heart attack risk.For every 1 percent decrease in cholesterol level, heart attack risk dropped 2 percent.Many other studies have subsequently confirmed the Coronary Primary Prevention Trial's findings.Participants in the CPPT cut their cholesterol with drugs, or by reducing the cholesterol and saturated fat in their diets, or both. (Saturated fat is the type found in red meat, butter, and whole-milk dairy foods).During the study, Goor went the exclusively dietary route, and cut his cholesterol from 311 to 200-thanks of his wife, Nancy, an artist and children's book author, who loved to eat and refused to believe that dishes low in cholesterol and saturated fat had to be unappetizing.Formore than 10 years, she tinkered with recipes and substituted ingredients, learning how to cook tasty, heart-health cuisine.
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