Heart Disease: Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, resulting in at least 1.5 million heart attacks a year and claiming over 489,000 lives. Medical treatment primarily consists of pharmaceutically controlling high blood pressure, prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs, and utilizing procedures like balloon angioplasty (and the use of stents to keep the vessels open) and coronary bypass. The challenge with the modern medical approach is that it doesn't deal with the cause of the problem. For years, the consensus has been that we should avoid eggs, switch from butter to margarine, and then we'll be fine. The truth of the matter is both simple and complicated.
Did you know...?
The current medical system would have us believe that heart disease is determined by the level of cholesterol in the system and is treated by cholesterol lowering and high blood pressure drugs as well as a low fat diet.
In reality, keeping your cholesterol under control has more to do with inflammation and oxidation, in addition to diet.
Lowering cholesterol
Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States, resulting in at least 1.5 million heart attacks a year and claiming over 489,000 lives. Current allopathic treatment mainly consists of balloon angioplasty and bypass surgery. At Berglund Health & Wellness Center, we look at several factors known to correlate very well with coronary artery disease (CAD) or blockages in the main arteries supplying oxygen to the heart.
Risk factors for CAD (used by traditional medicine)
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Elevated serum cholesterol and triglycerides.
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Hypertension
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Diabetes mellitus
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Cigarette smoking
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Physical inactivity
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Obesity
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Positive family history for early CAD
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Male gender
The above table may only explain why 50-60% get CAD.
Cholesterol
Natural Treatments
Treatment options
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Get any sugar or carb handling situations taken care of. Typically this shows up on the lab tests as elevated glucose, elevated triglycerides, or glycosylated hemoglobin.
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Get any thyroid problem taken care of. The thyroid is the body’s furnace and in healthy levels it will burn up the excess cholesterol. Note: some cases of low thyroid show up in lab studies and other lab studies will miss cases of low thyroid.
Supplements
Once the above things are taken care of, potential supplement options include:
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Vitamin E (tocopherols): elevates HDL (good) cholesterol and keeps the LDL cholesterol from getting oxidized.
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Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C): replenishes vitamin E and helps in healing the inside surface of the arteries, veins and capillaries.
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Beta Carotene: with the thyroid gland, can get transfered to vitamin A. However, heart benefits appear to be due to it's antioxidant ability.
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Selenium: mineral that's very beneficial for the heart.
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Flavonoids: includes the bioflavonoids as well as the rich colored compounds in wine, fruits and veggies.
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L-Carnitine: this amino acid helps feed the heart and muscles fat and oxygen.
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CoQ10: this supplement is an antioxidant that increases the mitochondrial function throughout the body.
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Taurine: amino acid known to help with high blood pressure in addition to congestive heart failure
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Pantethine: this supplement is known to decrease total cholesterol and triglycerides as well as increasing HDL.
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Red Yeast Rice: this herb is known to act like a natural statin drug.