It All Starts With Your Stomach
I have a strong family history of heart disease, so this is something I am very mindful of when it comes to my health options. After a lot of reading, two things are becoming quite clear:
– modern medicine treats symptoms of heart disease (ie high cholesterol), not the cause
– statins (a $13 billion industry) do not help anyone aside from those who already have heart disease. For everyone else, the side-effects mean they should not be prescribed. But that doesn’t stop doctors.
Here’s some info on what doctors should really be doing:
Conventional doctors miss the mark when they look at cholesterol levels in isolation, as do holistic doctors when they hardly consider it at all. The truth is, high cholesterol is a risk when inflammation is present.
When looking at what causes heart disease and how to treat it, atherosclerosis, the formation of plaque within the arteries, is the bottom line. But it’s shortsighted to simply blame atherosclerosis on high cholesterol. Rather, atherosclerosis comes from an immune response. The immune response creates inflammation, with this inflammation gradually worsening into lesions in the arterial walls. Since the body’s priority is to stay alive now, even if means self-sabotage in the long run, it speedily delivers cholesterol to the lesions to patch them up, hence causing atherosclerosis.
The key for the practitioner then is not simply to lower cholesterol, leaving the arterial walls more vulnerable to failure, but rather to ferret out what’s driving the inflammation. This is where the skill and ongoing education of the practitioner come in. For instance, newer research shows that some people develop atherosclerosis due to an autoimmune disease in which the body attacks it’s own arterial wall tissue.
The article goes on to identify the real culprits behind heart disease:
Dysbiosis – when there is more bad bacteria than good bacteria in the gut. Taking antibiotics is one way of achieving this, and drinking Yakult seems to be the something worth trying to right the balance. The most common bad bacteria in your gut is helicobacter pylori – a bacterium unique in its ability to survive the highly acidic environment of the stomach, is best known for causing peptic ulcers, gastritis, and duodenitis. AND it also destroys vascular tissue!
Heart Disease Viruses – Cytomegalovirus, coxsackievirus, chlamydia pneumonia and porphyromonas gingivitis all attack the cardiovascular system. They can easily go undetected, and doctors should for indicative antibodies to diagnose these.
Poor Liver Function – heart disease goes hand-in-hand with inflammation, and the key indicator of inflammation is C-Reactive Protein (CRP). When your liver is not functioning correctly (fatty liver or drugs could cause this), then tests can show your CRP levels to be normal (even though you have inflammation), and this might cause a mis-diagnosis. Amazingly, statins also have the same effect!
Insulin Resistance – causes higher blood pressure, thicker, stickier blood and elevated cholesterol. Also gives men breasts and women beards, via messing with their hormones.
Thyroid Functionality – if your thyroid gland is not working properly, up goes your triglycerides and cholesterol.
When I get a check-up, even with a heart specialist, I don’t think they nearly go far enough. I know my blood is checked for cholesterol, triglycerides and diabetes. Possibly thyroid function as well. I’m pretty sure I’m not checked for those viruses listed above, although they probably have other symptoms that would come to light.
The standout for me is gut bacteria. Here’s the full story from the article’s author, Datis Kharrazian :
Our gut is exposed to many pathogens, including h.pylori, daily. A healthy stomach sufficient in hydrochloric acid (HCl) destroys pathogens as soon as they enter. It’s estimated that 90 percent of Americans are deficient in HCl, and that h.pylori can be found in 50 percent of the world’s population, so it’s easy to see why this may be the most common infectious disease worldwide. Not to mention that most, if not all, chronic users of antacids harbor excess h.pylori.
So why hasn’t medicine launched a full-scale attack? Because an h.pylori infection is asymptomatic, quietly wreaking havoc before more telltale signs such as gastric ulcers enter the picture. And since most practitioners, both conventional and natural, practice based on symptoms, it can easily go unnoticed until it’s too late.
I do not like using the serum antibody test for h.pylori. A retest will not show whether we have successfully treated the infection, for the antibody levels stay elevated for up to a year after treatment. The breath test is more useful diagnostically. Because this bacteria is so contagious (by saliva), I have found treating an individual for h.pylori does not have lasting success unless the entire family is treated. I once had a patient whose h.pylori infection kept rebounding, despite treating his family. It was when he sheepishly brought in his mistress for treatment that we were finally able to kick the infection for good.
A separate article (also at SOTT) lists causes of inflammation:
- Poor diet – mostly sugar, refined flours, processed foods, and inflammatory fats such as trans and saturated fats
- Lack of exercise
- Stress
- Hidden or chronic infections with viruses, bacteria, yeasts, or parasites
- Hidden allergens from food or the environment
- Toxins such as mercury and pesticides
- Mold toxins and allergens
and then lists how you should live to avoid the above:
- Whole Foods – Eat a whole foods, high-fiber, plant-based diet, which is inherently anti-inflammatory.
- Healthy Fats – Give yourself an oil change by eating healthy monounsaturated fats in olive oil, nuts and avocadoes, and getting more omega-3 fats from small fish like sardines, herring, sable, and wild salmon.
- Regular Exercise – Mounting evidence tells us that regular exercise reduces inflammation. It also improves immune function, strengthens your cardiovascular systems, corrects and prevents insulin resistance, and is key for improving your mood and erasing the effects of stress.
- Relax – Learn how to engage your vagus nerve by actively relaxing. This powerful nerve relaxes your whole body and lowers inflammation when you practice yoga or meditation, breathe deeply, or even take a hot bath.
- Avoid Allergens – If you have food allergies, find out what you’re allergic to and get stop eating those foods – gluten and dairy are two common culprits.
- Heal Your Gut – Take probiotics to help your digestion and improve the balance of healthy bacteria in your gut, which reduces inflammation.
- Supplement – Take a multivitamin/multimineral supplement, fish oil, and vitamin D, all of which help reduce inflammation.