And work hard it does. In one day, the typical adult human heart beats about 100,000 times, circulating 1.5 gallons of blood through some 100,000 miles of blood vessels. A December article in the Journal of the American Medical Association proves again that a low-fat, vegetarian diet, along with mild exercise, no smoking, and reduced stress, is the best bet for heart disease patients. The majority following the AHA guidelines got progressively worse, while those who made intensive changes got progressively better.
Plant foods contain no cholesterol.
Animal products always do. For every 1 percent increase in cholesterol levels, heart attack risks rises by 2 percent. High blood pressure, or hypertension, also adds to the risks of heart attacks. In addition, vegetarians store less iron, which counters the strong link between excessive iron and heart disease. A healthy, ecological, compassionate vegetarian diet also delivers such other benefits as significantly lowered rates of strokes, cancers, cataracts, diabetes, gallstones, kidney stones, asthma, and osteoporosis.