What DOES protect your heart safely?....
Today's Post: Monday, 3-8-2010
There’s good news and bad news on this topic.
The good news first. There are literally dozens of ways to protect your heart that help & work effectively; that have abundant other health benefits; are safe with one mostly overcomable risk, and virtually side effect free.
The bad news is that doing dozens of things is a major campaign. (Some of these ways do a lot more than others and you may need some a lot more than others. So you can get a lot of leverage by doing the big things and the things your body needs most.)
The other bad news is that popular and massively prescribed statin drugs have quite a number of very negative side effects, some of them quite serious, that are ignored or minimized when they are prescribed – plus they tend to only cut the risk of heart attacks about 3 % and to NOT reduce the risk of death from heart disease significantly.
But, returning to the good news, you can do far better with the safer methods in this post and similar ones.
Doctors don’t recommend them in part since they haven’t the time to help people with the lifestyle upgrades and changes some of these ways need, or the better doctors sometimes have recommended some of these ways and found no improvement due to no use of them. They then decided that a poor drug was better than no help at all.
They also too often are unaware that niacin is far more protective, works better with most of the genetic types found by the Berkeley Heart lab than statins, and DOES reduce the overall risk of dying.
1. The major cause of heart disease is by small particle LDL that literally is so small that it sticks into the molecular chinks in your artery walls.
But it’s been found that some things reduce or increase this directly and that anything safe that increases HDL or lowers triglycerides reduces the level of small particle LDL.
Taking niacin increases HDL, lowers triglycerides, AND lowers LDL.
I only take two 300 mg capsules of niacin, one after breakfast and one after lunch. From that I do get a flush effect perhaps once to three times a month. That, I can live with, particularly since I know it may actually be protective to experience it. I also take two capsules a day of inositol hexiniacinate of 300 mg each. That’s also known as “No Flush” niacin. This supplement may be as effective as the equal amount of niacin and produces no flush.
And, it’s just low enough that it’s likely safe for my liver. For people who take well over 1,000 mg a day of niacin, you may overstress your liver and will need to have a doctor monitor you for liver distress. If your lipid readings are incredibly bad, taking niacin at that dose and getting these tests may be indicated. But statins need the same liver monitoring while niacin works better for most people and is far safer to take than statins.
2. Never, ever voluntarily eat ANY shortening, regular margarine, or any hydrogenated oils – or any product that has more than zero transfats listed on its label.
The stuff is quite literally heart attack starter. It directly causes your small particle LDL to go up. The research that showed that has been done. But far too many foods still contain it.
3. It’s hard to imagine something worse for your heart than eating trans fats. BUT, there IS one.
Tobacco smoke lowers HDL, increases CRP inflammation, speeds aging, and even keeps the HDL you still have from being protective. It’s so effective at producing heart disease that even kids under 12 exposed to secondhand smoke have been found to have measurably thicker artery walls from the plaque build up caused by the tobacco smoke. That also means, as we posted on recently, that smoking or being exposed to second hand smoke causes high blood pressure.
(Smoking also causes about 30% of ALL cancers, and particularly has been shown to cause prostate cancer and lung cancer. But as bad as that is, cancer is the LITTLE risk from smoking. Even some smokers don’t get it. But ALL smokers and people exposed to second hand smoke get heart disease.)
Tobacco smoke also TRIGGERS heart attacks in people who could otherwise have avoided them and increases the rate of aging.
Smokers even get to PAY the tobacco companies to do this to them!
That’s nuts. Do NOT smoke or voluntarily expose yourself to second hand smoke if you can possibly avoid it.
4. Be sure to work up to it gradually and not try to progress too fast, particularly when you haven’t yet got your blood indicators in good shape yet. But regular, almost every day, vigorous exercise directly lowers your small particle LDL. Even sessions as short as 2 to 15 minutes a day begin to be effective.
Plus it helps avoid too high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Plus it lowers CRP inflammation, strengthens your heart, and slows aging. It also makes you feel and be stronger and more fit. It can help you lose excess fat and look better. And, it tends to reverse depression or prevent it and reliably improves your sex life.
The other methods to protect your heart are as loaded with extra health benefits as exercise.
5. Here’s a short list of other things that also increase your HDL.
Moderate drinking, particularly of red wine, increases HDL. (Heavier drinking than moderate tends to cause obesity, high blood pressure, and death from car and other avoidable accidents, however. So, THAT is NOT a good idea.)
Choline increases HDL and tends to increase your mental abilities. Egg yolks, wheat germ, and liver are high in it. You can also take choline, lecithin, or phosphatidyl serine, or PS supplements; and many B Complex supplements include choline as it’s considered a B vitamin.
The supplement chromium polynicotinate also works. Apparently both the chromium and the niacin radicals increase your HDL.
Eating nuts if you aren’t allergic to them and you eat only raw or dry roasted nuts not only increases your HDL, it tends to increase your longevity!
Eating berries such as blueberries and cranberries and blackberries increases your HDL and has massive other health benefits besides.
NOT eating foods made from refined grains, NOT drinking soft drinks, and eating foods with sugar only a few times a week or less tends to have a triple benefit. Your HDL will go up; you’ll either avoid gaining excess fat or lose a good bit if you were ingesting this stuff several times a day; you’ll be dramatically less likely to get or keep high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes; AND your CRP inflammation will go down. EACH of these things is heart protective. (White potatoes and French fries and chips made from them have similar effects.)
6. Things that lower CRP inflammation and/or triglycerides include.:
NOT eating foods made from refined grains, NOT drinking soft drinks, and eating foods with sugar only a few times a week or less tends to have a triple benefit. Your HDL will go up; you’ll either avoid gaining excess fat or lose a good bit if you were ingesting this stuff several times a day; you’ll be dramatically less likely to get or keep high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes; AND your CRP inflammation will go down. EACH of these things is heart protective. (White potatoes and French fries and chips made from them have similar effects.)
Note the extra emphasis on this one! In addition, many of the packaged snacks and desserts containing this stuff also have excessive amounts of salt and some still have hydrogenated oils and transfats.
Eat berries or other fresh fruit, nuts, or even some dark chocolate instead of this list of bad actors -- and your overall health and heart health AND your blood indicators will be dramatically better. Your doctor may even ask you what you did, they’ll improve so much.
Using wild caught fish and purified fish oil, omega 3 supplements; nuts and avocados; and extra virgin olive oil for over 90 % of your fat and oil intake AND NOT using oils high in omega 6 such as soy, corn, canola, and safflower protects -- your heart and health in many ways.
And, since grains are high in omega 6 oils, don’t eat foods made from refined grains; go a bit easy even on whole grains; and mostly avoid eating meat from grain fed animals or farmed fish as their meat also has excess omega 6 oils because of their diet of grain that they are not evolved to eat. (That’s in addition to the herbicides and pesticides that are in the grain they are fed.) Wild caught fish, animals fed only grass or pasture fed on their natural diets do not have this problem. The other alternative is to eat the lowest fat version of meat from grain fed animals you can find – and eat more beans and lentils and wild caught fish and less meat.
7. Avoiding severe stress and or getting decent stress relief from enough, regular sleep, meditation, tai chi or other effective physical stress relievers also is heart protective, lowers high blood pressure, and slows aging.
In this list, #4 above, regular exercise is an effective method for stress relief if you don’t overdo it and you include some more moderate kinds that you actually like such as gardening, dancing, or walking in nice places, etc.
Stress relief is a huge subject; but anything effective you can do and do regularly will protect your heart.
8. Today’s news also brings the information that these two things are heart protective.:
a) A study recently released found that anyone who loses 12 pounds or more and keeps it off and does so in part by eating a more health supporting diet actually reverses plaque in their arteries and their blood pressure goes down!
b) Another study found that the worst kind of meat to eat for your heart is a kind I used to like myself, processed meats such as hot dogs, ham, bacon, sausage, pepperoni, and salami. These processed meats not only tend to be made from grain fed animals, they are high in excess saturated fat, and have high amounts of salt and nitrates added to them. Plus I strongly suspect that many have added MSG. That means they tend to increase high blood pressure and CRP inflammation in addition to their high levels of saturated fat.
So, eat those only on occasion. And, where you can, eat a more healthful version in small quantities. Eat bacon from Whole Foods that’s nitrate free a few times a year instead of regular bacon several times a week, for example.
Today's Post: Monday, 3-8-2010
There’s good news and bad news on this topic.
The good news first. There are literally dozens of ways to protect your heart that help & work effectively; that have abundant other health benefits; are safe with one mostly overcomable risk, and virtually side effect free.
The bad news is that doing dozens of things is a major campaign. (Some of these ways do a lot more than others and you may need some a lot more than others. So you can get a lot of leverage by doing the big things and the things your body needs most.)
The other bad news is that popular and massively prescribed statin drugs have quite a number of very negative side effects, some of them quite serious, that are ignored or minimized when they are prescribed – plus they tend to only cut the risk of heart attacks about 3 % and to NOT reduce the risk of death from heart disease significantly.
But, returning to the good news, you can do far better with the safer methods in this post and similar ones.
Doctors don’t recommend them in part since they haven’t the time to help people with the lifestyle upgrades and changes some of these ways need, or the better doctors sometimes have recommended some of these ways and found no improvement due to no use of them. They then decided that a poor drug was better than no help at all.
They also too often are unaware that niacin is far more protective, works better with most of the genetic types found by the Berkeley Heart lab than statins, and DOES reduce the overall risk of dying.
1. The major cause of heart disease is by small particle LDL that literally is so small that it sticks into the molecular chinks in your artery walls.
But it’s been found that some things reduce or increase this directly and that anything safe that increases HDL or lowers triglycerides reduces the level of small particle LDL.
Taking niacin increases HDL, lowers triglycerides, AND lowers LDL.
I only take two 300 mg capsules of niacin, one after breakfast and one after lunch. From that I do get a flush effect perhaps once to three times a month. That, I can live with, particularly since I know it may actually be protective to experience it. I also take two capsules a day of inositol hexiniacinate of 300 mg each. That’s also known as “No Flush” niacin. This supplement may be as effective as the equal amount of niacin and produces no flush.
And, it’s just low enough that it’s likely safe for my liver. For people who take well over 1,000 mg a day of niacin, you may overstress your liver and will need to have a doctor monitor you for liver distress. If your lipid readings are incredibly bad, taking niacin at that dose and getting these tests may be indicated. But statins need the same liver monitoring while niacin works better for most people and is far safer to take than statins.
2. Never, ever voluntarily eat ANY shortening, regular margarine, or any hydrogenated oils – or any product that has more than zero transfats listed on its label.
The stuff is quite literally heart attack starter. It directly causes your small particle LDL to go up. The research that showed that has been done. But far too many foods still contain it.
3. It’s hard to imagine something worse for your heart than eating trans fats. BUT, there IS one.
Tobacco smoke lowers HDL, increases CRP inflammation, speeds aging, and even keeps the HDL you still have from being protective. It’s so effective at producing heart disease that even kids under 12 exposed to secondhand smoke have been found to have measurably thicker artery walls from the plaque build up caused by the tobacco smoke. That also means, as we posted on recently, that smoking or being exposed to second hand smoke causes high blood pressure.
(Smoking also causes about 30% of ALL cancers, and particularly has been shown to cause prostate cancer and lung cancer. But as bad as that is, cancer is the LITTLE risk from smoking. Even some smokers don’t get it. But ALL smokers and people exposed to second hand smoke get heart disease.)
Tobacco smoke also TRIGGERS heart attacks in people who could otherwise have avoided them and increases the rate of aging.
Smokers even get to PAY the tobacco companies to do this to them!
That’s nuts. Do NOT smoke or voluntarily expose yourself to second hand smoke if you can possibly avoid it.
4. Be sure to work up to it gradually and not try to progress too fast, particularly when you haven’t yet got your blood indicators in good shape yet. But regular, almost every day, vigorous exercise directly lowers your small particle LDL. Even sessions as short as 2 to 15 minutes a day begin to be effective.
Plus it helps avoid too high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes. Plus it lowers CRP inflammation, strengthens your heart, and slows aging. It also makes you feel and be stronger and more fit. It can help you lose excess fat and look better. And, it tends to reverse depression or prevent it and reliably improves your sex life.
The other methods to protect your heart are as loaded with extra health benefits as exercise.
5. Here’s a short list of other things that also increase your HDL.
Moderate drinking, particularly of red wine, increases HDL. (Heavier drinking than moderate tends to cause obesity, high blood pressure, and death from car and other avoidable accidents, however. So, THAT is NOT a good idea.)
Choline increases HDL and tends to increase your mental abilities. Egg yolks, wheat germ, and liver are high in it. You can also take choline, lecithin, or phosphatidyl serine, or PS supplements; and many B Complex supplements include choline as it’s considered a B vitamin.
The supplement chromium polynicotinate also works. Apparently both the chromium and the niacin radicals increase your HDL.
Eating nuts if you aren’t allergic to them and you eat only raw or dry roasted nuts not only increases your HDL, it tends to increase your longevity!
Eating berries such as blueberries and cranberries and blackberries increases your HDL and has massive other health benefits besides.
NOT eating foods made from refined grains, NOT drinking soft drinks, and eating foods with sugar only a few times a week or less tends to have a triple benefit. Your HDL will go up; you’ll either avoid gaining excess fat or lose a good bit if you were ingesting this stuff several times a day; you’ll be dramatically less likely to get or keep high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes; AND your CRP inflammation will go down. EACH of these things is heart protective. (White potatoes and French fries and chips made from them have similar effects.)
6. Things that lower CRP inflammation and/or triglycerides include.:
NOT eating foods made from refined grains, NOT drinking soft drinks, and eating foods with sugar only a few times a week or less tends to have a triple benefit. Your HDL will go up; you’ll either avoid gaining excess fat or lose a good bit if you were ingesting this stuff several times a day; you’ll be dramatically less likely to get or keep high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and type 2 diabetes; AND your CRP inflammation will go down. EACH of these things is heart protective. (White potatoes and French fries and chips made from them have similar effects.)
Note the extra emphasis on this one! In addition, many of the packaged snacks and desserts containing this stuff also have excessive amounts of salt and some still have hydrogenated oils and transfats.
Eat berries or other fresh fruit, nuts, or even some dark chocolate instead of this list of bad actors -- and your overall health and heart health AND your blood indicators will be dramatically better. Your doctor may even ask you what you did, they’ll improve so much.
Using wild caught fish and purified fish oil, omega 3 supplements; nuts and avocados; and extra virgin olive oil for over 90 % of your fat and oil intake AND NOT using oils high in omega 6 such as soy, corn, canola, and safflower protects -- your heart and health in many ways.
And, since grains are high in omega 6 oils, don’t eat foods made from refined grains; go a bit easy even on whole grains; and mostly avoid eating meat from grain fed animals or farmed fish as their meat also has excess omega 6 oils because of their diet of grain that they are not evolved to eat. (That’s in addition to the herbicides and pesticides that are in the grain they are fed.) Wild caught fish, animals fed only grass or pasture fed on their natural diets do not have this problem. The other alternative is to eat the lowest fat version of meat from grain fed animals you can find – and eat more beans and lentils and wild caught fish and less meat.
7. Avoiding severe stress and or getting decent stress relief from enough, regular sleep, meditation, tai chi or other effective physical stress relievers also is heart protective, lowers high blood pressure, and slows aging.
In this list, #4 above, regular exercise is an effective method for stress relief if you don’t overdo it and you include some more moderate kinds that you actually like such as gardening, dancing, or walking in nice places, etc.
Stress relief is a huge subject; but anything effective you can do and do regularly will protect your heart.
8. Today’s news also brings the information that these two things are heart protective.:
a) A study recently released found that anyone who loses 12 pounds or more and keeps it off and does so in part by eating a more health supporting diet actually reverses plaque in their arteries and their blood pressure goes down!
b) Another study found that the worst kind of meat to eat for your heart is a kind I used to like myself, processed meats such as hot dogs, ham, bacon, sausage, pepperoni, and salami. These processed meats not only tend to be made from grain fed animals, they are high in excess saturated fat, and have high amounts of salt and nitrates added to them. Plus I strongly suspect that many have added MSG. That means they tend to increase high blood pressure and CRP inflammation in addition to their high levels of saturated fat.
So, eat those only on occasion. And, where you can, eat a more healthful version in small quantities. Eat bacon from Whole Foods that’s nitrate free a few times a year instead of regular bacon several times a week, for example.
Labels: effective ways to protect your heart WITHOUT statin drugs, prevent heart attacks, protect your heart
posted by David at 2:46 PM
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