Rejuvenate Your Heart in Nine Simple Steps

06/21/07

1. Stop smoking. Smoking is one of the single biggest causes of heart disease. If you need a good reason to quit, dramatically lowering your risk of heart disease might be the impetus you need.
2. Eat a heart-healthy diet. High carbohydrate diets lead to overweight and high blood sugar levels, and very often, to diabetes. As you continue to read this list, you'll see that these factors are each independent risk factors for heart disease. A VLC diet (Very Low Carbohydrate diet), high in Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids, is the fastest, surest way to lower insulin and blood sugar levels, lose weight, decrease inflammation and slash heart disease risk at least four-fold. Diets higher in "good fats" (NOT low-fat diets!) and low in carbs have proven to be the heart-healthiest.
3. Get optimal doses of heart-healthy nutrients. Certain nutrients are essential to healthy heart function and are often missing in the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.). Nutrients needed by the heart include:
   • B complex vitamins, needed for normal nerve function and homocysteine levels.
   • magnesium, the relaxing, anti-arrhythmic mineral that is absolutely necessary for normal heart function. Unfortunately, magnesium is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies in the SAD diet.
   • antioxidant nutrients (especially vitamins C, E, and beta-carotene). Studies have shown that people with higher blood levels of antioxidants have a lower incidence of heart disease. Among people who have a heart attack, higher levels of antioxidants decrease free radical formation and reduce heart damage.
   • chromium helps stabilize and lower blood sugar levels, thereby lowering sugar-associated heart disease risk.
   • Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oils) are so well-known to decrease inflammation and heart arrhythmias that the FDA now allows label claims for fish oil. We now also have an over-the-top expensive prescription fish oil for heart patients (many of whom would have less stress on their hearts if they bought fish oil for $20 instead of $200!).
   • soluble fiber helps keep blood fats, including cholesterol, at a happy level, although high cholesterol is not the big heart disease risk factor it has been portrayed as.
4. Increase physical activity. If you don't use it, you lose it. Make your heart work harder than getting up from your easy chair and going to the refrigerator once in a while. This doesn't mean you need to train for a marathon. As little as ten minutes of brisk walking per day, especially if this is more than you currently do, will improve heart function.
5. Lower body-wide inflammation. Subtle inflammation, as measured by an hs-CRP test ("highly sensitive C-Reactive Protein", a simple blood test), is a more sensitive measure of heart disease risk than cholesterol or other elevated blood fats. This type of inflammation, which is often so minor that you may not feel it but which irritates the blood vessel lining and sets the atherosclerotic process in motion, can be corrected by simple diet changes, nutritional supplements and anti-inflammatory herbs. Decreasing inflammation also lowers your risk of cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's and other "age related" diseases.
6. Lower your blood pressure naturally. There's a lot of evidence that higher blood pressures (especially systolic B.P.'s consistently over 140) are associated with higher risk of heart disease. Interestingly (at least to this physician!), there are a number of big, long-range studies which show NO BENEFIT to lowering B.P. with drugs. People with "normal" blood pressures who were only "normal" because of medications are still at significantly higher risk of heart disease. As naturopathic as this conclusion sounds, these studies point to the fact that lowering blood pressure naturally, by correcting the cause of the elevation, is life-saving where chemical control is not.
7. Curb depression, anxiety and stress. The emotional factor doesn't get much "press" or discussion in the cardiologists office, but there are numerous studies showing that negative emotional states increase subtle inflammation. Possibly because depression and stress (or more accurately described as our reaction to stress) increase inflammation, these emotional states are associated with higher risk of heart disease and poorer prognosis in people with already-existing heart disease or who are recovering from heart surgery. If you suffer from depression, be sure to get help. And remember that depression isn't caused by a Prozac deficiency!
8. Lower high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar levels, high insulin levels or outright type II diabetes are major risk factors for heart disease. The pitiful part of this connection is that type II diabetes is completely curable through diet alone, usually in under three months. Sadly, I find that many diabetics would rather live with the risk (and worry about their risks), rather than make a few healthy diet changes that would erase this major danger. Go figure.
9. Achieve and maintain a normal weight. Overweight increases subtle inflammation, which as you should know by now (if you've been paying attention!) is an important risk factor for not only heart disease but also cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer's and more. When an overweight person loses weight, their hs-CRP (inflammatory marker) also comes down, corresponding to a lower heart disease risk. Of course, the low-carb, high Omega-3 fat diet that lowers blood sugar and corrects diabetes also leads to weight loss, making it easy to correct several problems at once through diet changes alone.

These same measures that dramatically lower your risk of heart disease also increase natural immunity, slash your risk of cancer, diabetes, arthritis, depression, Alzheimer's and senile dementia and a host of other diseases that we fall prey to with age. Even at advanced age or stages of disease, much improvement and protection is possible (in other words, you can reclaim a lot of healthy ground), by turning a few habits around in a healthier direction.