Heart Disease Simplified

With 64 million Americans suffering some form of heart disease and over a million
deaths attributed annually to what is the number one cause of mortality in the
U.S., there is perhaps no health issue that is more worthy of discussion then
how to keep your heart healthily humming.

We’ve been talking about nutritional supplements for improving heart health on The Bright
Side (you can click on the listen live link or check out the archive page at http://www.brightsideben.com/ if you’d like to learn about some of the many strategies you can use to
protect yourself from heart disease) and indeed there are lots. In fact, even more important than the specific nutrients and dietary routes you can take to your help your ticker, is
the very idea that if you have heart health issues and you’re on a prescription
drug and you want to get off of it, there are many, many non-toxic,
non-pharmaceutical options you can use that restore cardiac vigor and at the
same time contribute many other health benefits.

In a later post, we’ll list the top nutritional and dietary strategies for improving
cardiovascular health. In this article we’d like to begin to clear up some of the confusion that surrounds the names and descriptions of the various forms of heart disease.

Atherosclerosis (arteriosclerosis) – “sclerosis” is the Greek-derived medical term for “hardening”, thus athero- or arterio-sclerosis refers to hardening and thickening of arterial walls (also known as “hardening of the arteries”). This can ultimately lead to a blockage of blood supply and oxygen, and subsequent to damage to heart cells. The ultimate fate of
long term blood and oxygen deprivation can be heart disease, strokes, and heart attacks. The biggest problem associated with prevention of arteriosclerosis is its asymptomatic nature. Unfortunately many people do not know that there coronary arteries are hardening until they suffer from one of the unfortunate end results.

Angina – literally form the Latin for chest pain, this unfortunate condition affects an estimated 10 million Americans. Symptoms of angina are similar to those of a heart attack and include chest pain and pressure, nausea, sweating, dizziness, difficulty breathing and throat, upper back, shoulder or jaw pain. Unlike a heart attack however
the symptoms are temporary and usually subside with rest. Still, angina symptoms are a serious sign of cardiac deficiency and need to be addressed immediately.

Myocardial Ischemia (MI) - refers to a lack of blood flow to the heart. Myocardial means “heart muscle” and ischemia is the Greek term for “stopping blood”. The most likely cause of is arteriosclerosis and the end result of long-term blockage can be permanent damage to the heart muscle. A sudden, severe ischemia will often result in a heart attack.

Cardiomyopathy– literally, heart muscle disease, this is a generic term that describes a diseased heart muscle and results in a diminished pumping action.
This typically refers to a weakened left ventricle, which is responsible
for the ejection of freshly oxygenated blood through the aorta to the rest of the body.

Myocardial Infarction (MI) – colloquially referred to as a “heart attack”, an MI occurs after a section he heart has been deprived of blood long enough for heart cells and ultimately
heart tissue to begin to die. Symptoms like chest pain and pressure can resemble those of angina except unlike angina rest does not bring relief. Interestingly, although there are 1 million heart attacks that occur every year in the U.S, it is estimated that another 200,000 occur unrecognized
because they have no symptoms. These so called “silent heart attacks” occur
most commonly in diabetics.

Arrhythmia – when the normal pacing (rhythm) of heart beats is disturbed, and the heart beats either too fast (“tachycardia”) or too slow (“bradycardia”), the abnormal pacing of
heartbeats is called an arrhythmia. These can be caused by non-heart conditions like lack of sleep, too much caffeine, and fever or thyroid disease. If it is related to cardiac pathology the cause can be an electrical malfunction or disturbance in the heart’s blood supply caused by fatty deposits and plaques. Symptoms of cardiac arrhythmias include palpitations, shortness of breath, dizziness, panic sensations and chest discomfort.

Heart Failure (HF) – while still pumping normally during HF, the heart’s blood supply begins to slow down and either it’s structure or size begin to change. There may be no dangerous symptoms as the heart begins to fail but gradually signs like fatigue and difficulty exercising (which may be attributed incorrectly to normal aging) eventually will begin to show up.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) – As heart failure progresses, eventually blood is not pumped into or out of its chambers and fluid begins to accumulate and “congest” the lungs and heart. The lungs can become stiff resulting in constant fatigue, weakness and shortness of breath. Swelling in the extremities is a common occurrence with CHF. Sometimes CHF suffererers will
awaken from sleep with sensations of breathlessness, coughing or wheezing. Neck veins may be swollen and occasionallythere is indigestion, a feeling of fullness or a lack of appetite. According to the Texas Heart Institute, people over 40 have a 1 in 5 chance of developing Congestive Heart Failure in their lifetime.

More on Cholesterol and Hardening of the Arteries

Are you on a statin drug? Is your doctor obsessed with your HDL or LDL statistics? Are you concerned about heart disease. If you answered yes to any of the above you’re gonna want to read this post about cholesterol and the silliness around cholesterol-mania; this crazy idea that lowering cholesterol levels by poisoning the liver is somehow an appropriate strategy for reducing the risk of atherosclerosis and heart disease. Lowering cholesterol production in the liver pharmacologically is a biochemically ignorant health strategy. There are however, some very effective strategies, nutritional strategies that can very effectively reduce the risks of atherosclerosis that is hardening of the arteries. And by the way atherosclerosis doesn’t just cause heart problems. All the arteries in the body can become sclerotic, which simply means hardened. So sclerosis is clearly a health issue and the fact that cholesterol is present in the hardened patched inside the arteries is not evidence that cholesterol is the cause or that lowering cholesterol manufacturing in the liver is appropriate strategy. However there are some very effective nutritional strategies for reducing atherosclerosis and unlike the biochemical lunacy that is behind the use of the stating drugs, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, chromium, lowering blood sugar levels, lowering insulin. There are literally dozens of different ways you can keep your heart healthy without touching a drug, going to a doctor, needing health insurance help or any other mainstream medical technique we’re told we have to do. In the world of nutrition when we talk about some of these nutrients, one of the most important facets is this feature that supplements have that makes them useful in a whole variety of ways. You know Vitamin C helps with skin and insulin and the liver and the brain and the adrenal glands etc. Calcium for bones and blood pressure and the heart and the brain and perhaps no more nutrient is as significant as magnesium which in addition to being calcium’s partner and involved in over 300 different chemical reactions in the body is also one of the most common nutritional deficiencies. The bottom line is: If your doctor has “ordered” you to be on a statin on some other cholesterol lowering drug, you do have options, nutritional non-toxic alternative that you may want to consider.