Medicine: Take A Walk on the Well Side

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With its shop-lined main street, baseball field and grassy square, Wellsburg, W. Va., is in many ways a typical American town. Perhaps too typical. A survey last spring found that almost 70% of the Wellsburg area's 11,000 residents were at risk for heart disease. "I was just shocked that my cholesterol was that high," says Kitty Weidner, 75, whose reading was 241 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) of blood. Admits store owner Tom Zurbuch, 46, a former junk- food junkie whose cholesterol level was about 265: "Apparently, we haven't been eating right."

But Wellsburg had a change of heart last May, when Bayer, the pharmaceutical company, launched a $4 million, two-year experiment aimed at improving the townspeople's coronary fitness by teaching them the rudiments of healthy living. The basic rules: throw away the cigarettes, control blood pressure and, perhaps most important, bring down blood-cholesterol levels through diet and exercise programs. Among the first results late this summer: an average 8.3% decline in cholesterol levels.

What's good for the residents of Wellsburg is good for other Americans, who are increasingly getting the message that poor eating and living habits are major contributors to heart disease. Scientists are convinced that well- designed prevention programs can cut the incidence of heart disease in the U.S. by two-thirds, perhaps even more. "Twenty years from now," says Dr. Scott Grundy, a nutrition researcher at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, "I expect to see a dramatic reduction in heart attacks."

The food industry is slowly adapting to the recommended changes in diet. Some hotels and restaurants now offer low-fat, low-cholesterol menus. Sunshine Biscuits, maker of Hydrox cookies, is no longer using coconut oil in its products and soon plans to eliminate palm oil, both of which are cholesterol- boosting saturated fats. By next summer an American Heart Association seal of approval may be carried on foods that meet its heart-healthy guidelines.

Although the overall objective is to decrease the amount of total cholesterol in the bloodstream, best results are achieved by lowering levels of LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, while maintaining or increasing levels of HDL, the "good" cholesterol. The basic approach: cut down on cholesterol and saturated fats in the diet, both of which raise LDL levels, and get regular aerobic exercise, which tends to raise HDL counts. Here's how:

Cholesterol. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute suggests that Americans limit themselves to 300 mg ( 1/100 oz.) of cholesterol a day. Cholesterol is found only in animal products, sometimes to a high degree: one egg yolk has 272 mg, and 3 oz. of beef liver has 331 mg. Saltwater fish, on the other hand, are extremely low in cholesterol and also contain omega-3 fatty acids, which may lower LDL levels. Not all seafood is as highly recommended: shrimp and crab, for example, have twice as much cholesterol as fish. Grundy's major candidates for removal from the diet are eggs and organ meats, such as liver.