It’s Heart Health Month!

Living Health Integrative Medicine is kicking off Heart Health Month with a BANG!

The statistics are staggering!

More women in the U.S. die of heart attack than ALL CANCERS COMBINED, including breast cancer!

Heart Disease is THE NUMBER ONE KILLER of Americans, with similar numbers between men and women!

Those with diabetes will succumb to a heart attack or stroke more likely than any other diabetes complication.

And the worst part? Heart disease is PREVENTABLE!

Here’s what we know. There are many risk factors that we can reduce dramatically without drugs and surgery. Sometimes the drugs, while they may help prevent a minor heart attack, actually do nothing to prevent a major heart event, and can actually worsen cardiovascular health in the long-term, resulting in great likelihood of heart failure, diabetes, and stroke. All month long our radio show, Living Health LIVE, will focus on workable solutions for heart health.

Today, I want to give you a brief list of nutrients that can be found in both food and supplements that can dramatically reduce many risk factors.

The top 2 risk factors arguably are elevated sugars and inflammation, and they both will push each other up. This means that diabetes, pre-diabetes and anything that causes sugars to become elevated increase the risk of heart disease dramatically.

This means following DR. STEPH’S PLATE RULE is critical to not only preventing and reversing diabetes, but preventing and reversing heart disease. If it’s been a while since you’ve seen us, pull out our books (if you don’t have them go to www.LivingHealthMarket.com or visit Amazon and pick up a copy), or dust off your program binders if you have them, do a food log for a few days and check what your doing against the PLATE RULE. Adjust as you need to get back on track.

Once the Plate Rule is back in, then you can focus on additional nutrients to really kick things up into great health.

Here’s my top 7 list of risk factors along the nutrients that can help minimize them and the foods and supplements they can be found in.

The risk factors:

Elevated Blood glucose
What to eat/not eat: Follow Dr. Steph’s Plate Rule to help reduce intake of sugars

What to supplement with:

GLYCO BALANCE – Great multivitamin formulated with several herbs and minerals to support blood glucose in normal ranges (chromium, vanadium, gymnema sylvestre extract, etc.)

ALA BERB – a Triple Threat super supplement that contains alpha lipoic acid, along wither berberine, which has been shown to be helpful at supporting normal cholesterol levels as well as keeping yeast and bacteria overgrowth at bay.

Infection (system, internal, gut, MOUTH)
What to do/not do:

Keep your mouth well maintained with daily flossing, oil-pulling with coconut oil when possible, and brushing. Stay on top of your dental health. Not only is bad oral health and gum disease linked to increased risk of heart disease but recent research shows that bad oral health and gum disease is also an increased risk factor for CANCER!

What to Supplement with:

Monolaurin – a great all around natural anti-viral, anti-yeast, anti-bacterial supplement that we recommend long-term.

PROBIOTICS – any of our awesome suite of probiotics will be helpful at maintaining good bacterial balance.

Elevated CRP (c-reactive protein) – chronically elevated CRP on blood work indicates chronic and continuous inflammation and is a major risk factor for heart disease. The CRP blood level to shoot for is as close to ZERO as possible.
What to Eat/Not Eat:

Plate Rule with emphasis on HIGH FIBER foods such as all of the green leafy veggies.

Green veggies are great source of vitamin c (broccoli has more vitamin C than an orange) and the yolks of free-range eggs are a natural source of CoQ10.

What to Supplement with:

A combination of UBIQUINOL and Vitamin C has been shown to help lower CRP.

UBIQUINOL 200, OR COQ10 EMULSE (enough to get 200-600 mg per day to be effective)

BIO C (take enough to get 2000 mg per day to be effective)

Other supplements that can be effective at lowering CRP:

CURCUMIN COMPLEX

OMEGA 3 (OMEGA 3 COMPLETE OR OMEGEMULSE)

Elevated Homocysteine – Homocysteine is the breakdown product of a specific amino acid (methionine) that is often found in meat. An excess can both initiate AND facilitate the progression of ATHEROSCLEROSIS (hardening and plaquing of the arteries). To keep homocysteine down, we need to be able to ‘methylate’ it with the help of specific forms of B9 and B12
What to eat/not eat:

Reduce intake of meats (follow Plate Rule and keep meat intake to 3-6 oz of meat at meals)

What to supplement with:

ACTIVE B – has the complete list of B vitamins, all in their active forms, with an emphasis on B12.

OR

METHYL MAX – can be taken with your multivitamin for higher amounts of B12, B9 and B6

OR

METHYL FOLIC if you only need higher amounts of B9

OR

METHYL B12 or B12 Drops if you only need higher amounts of B12

Hormone imbalances (high estrogen in men, high testosterone in women)
What to eat/not eat – ONLY eat hormone-free/antibiotic-free, free-range poultry and meats when consuming these foods. Eating out when you have no choice can happen, but work to limit this when possible.

Do not store food at all in plastic containers, or drink water from plastic bottles – the plastic leaches into foods and is known to be ‘estrogenic’ – meaning it will create a rise in estrogens and hormone issues that can increase risk of diabetes and heart disease!

What to supplement with –

Only take hormones if underlying diet and gland function has been worked on without and no change has been made to improve.

Excess estrogen in men and testosterone in women is greatly improved with getting sugars lowered using the Plate Rule.

To support detoxification of excess hormones or to help stay balanced generally:

MEN:

MALE UP – supports male libido and testosterone production

LIVER MAX – supports liver detoxification of excess estrogen

WOMEN:

FEM UP -supports healthy female libido

LIVER MAX – supports liver detoxification of excess estrogen

21 Day Paleo Detox – Can be done 1 week at a time over 3 months, or for 21 days straight to help detoxify the body and help balance and normalize hormone levels.

Cholesterol Imbalance (more than high total cholesterol) – low HDL (good), high LDL (Bad – especially when oxidizes) and high triglycerides
What to eat/not eat:

PLATE RULE (HAVE WE HEARD THIS ENOUGH YET??) – wild fish and grass-fed meats are an excellent source of Omega 3 fatty acids. The animal forms of these fats/oils are the best since they are in the form your body uses directly. Flax seeds and Flax oil are a plant source of Omega 3, but require the body to break them down making it very difficult to get the levels we need to stay healthy heart-wise. Chia seeds are also a good source of additional Omega 3 fats, as are eggs from chickens that are fed flax seeds (look for high DHA eggs)

What to supplement with:

OMEGA 3 COMPLETE (CAPS)

OR

OMEGEMULSE (LIQUID)

and target for 2000 mg per day

***unless on blood thinner such as coumadin

Low Vitamin D, Vitamin K and MAGNESIUM
While everyone is obsessively taking calcium supplements, calcium without the above listed nutrients can possibly make heart disease worse by leading to calcification of blood vessels (hardening of the arteries).

Vitamin D not only helps lower inflammation and improves insulin sensitivity, but it also helps pull calcium across the gut lining into the blood stream. From there, vitamin K helps pull calcium from the blood stream and into the bones. This helps prevent heart disease by lowering calcium build up and plaquing on blood vessel walls, AND helps to prevent osteoporosis by packing calcium into the bones.

Magnesium is needed for over 500 chemical processes in the body. While Calcium causes contraction of muscles (including heart), magnesium is the ‘relaxor’ of muscles (including the heart). It’s the other half of the heart pumping equation…if it’s low, then heart muscles can get ‘stuck’ in contraction…this is essentially a heart attack.

Magnesium also helps ‘relax’ the arterieswhich helps lower blood pressure.

What to eat/not eat

Plate Rule with a couple of servings of organic nuts as snacks throughout the day helps provide magnesium (almonds and pumpkins seeds in particular), as well as green leafies such as spinach.

Vitamin D is hard to get in diet/food – the best source is exposing naked skin (no sun block) to the sun 30-60 minutes each day. Since this is NOT possible many months of the year for us, we MUST supplement with this vitamin.

Vitamin K1 is found in all of the leafy greens (kale, spinach, collards, etc), and the even more important K2 is made in our gut by our beneficial bacteria, and can also be found in fermented foods such as sauerkraut (NOT canned in vinegar) and kimchi.

What to supplement with:

D3-EMULSE, D3-5000 OR D-K EMULSE – target 4000-8000 i.u.’s per day but get tested at least yearly to monitor

K2-45 (IF NOT TAKING D-K EMULSE)

MAG PLEX

NEURO MAG

For more information on these high quality, heart healthy supplements above or to purchase them, visit our online store www.LivingHealthMarket.com.

For more in-depth testing for nutrient levels and risk factors, contact our office today for a free consultation, 410-216-9180!

For more on heart health read: 8 Ways To Keep Your Heart Healthy Through Nutrition.

Happy Heart Month Everyone!!