Heart Health in a Heartbeat :: Health and Disease

Heart Health in a Heartbeat
by author Michael T. Murray, ND

Each day the human heart beats 100,000 times and pumps up to 5,000 gallons of blood. That’s a lot of work, and it illustrates how essential the heart is in delivering oxygen and nutrients to all parts of the body.

Having a healthy heart and circulatory system is essential to a long and healthy life. However, heart attack or stroke is by far the biggest cause of death in North America.

What is Heart Disease?

The term heart disease most often refers to the buildup of plaque containing cholesterol, fatty material, and cellular debris in the coronary arteries through the process of atherosclerosis (hardening of the artery walls).

A heart attack (myocardial infarction) occurs when something blocks the flow of blood to the heart–it can be a clot, a spasm of a coronary artery, or accumulation of plaque. This hard-working pump requires a steady supply of oxygen and other nutrients. The coronary arteries feed the heart. If something interrupts the blood supply, the starved muscle tissue begins to die very rapidly. The longer the blockage lasts, the greater the risk that the heart attack will be fatal.

Reduce Major Risk Factors

The good news about heart disease is that it is usually highly preventable. Since it is often a silent killer, in that the first evidence of heart disease is a fatal heart attack, it is important to be aware of the major risk factors for developing heart disease:

exposure to cigarette smoke
elevated blood cholesterol levels
high blood pressure
diabetes
physical inactivity

If your lifestyle includes two or more of these major factors, your risk increases significantly. For example, if you smoke, have high cholesterol, and have high blood pressure, you are more than 700 times more likely to develop heart disease–and you could die 20 to 30 years sooner–than someone without any of these factors.

In addition, there are several other risk factors that have been shown in some studies to be as important as the major risk factors. These are:

elevation of markers of silent inflammation such as C- reactive protein
low levels of omega-3 fatty acids
low dietary antioxidant intake

Lifestyle Prescriptions

To significantly reduce risk for heart disease, it is also important to follow a health-promoting lifestyle that includes avoiding cigarette smoke, engaging in regular physical activity, getting enough sleep each night, and dealing with stress effectively through such measures as meditation, prayer, yoga, Tai Chi, or deep breathing exercises.

Regular physical exercise is essential in reducing the risk of heart disease and strokes. It accomplishes this by lowering cholesterol levels, improving blood and oxygen supply to the heart, increasing the functional capacity of the heart, reducing blood pressure and obesity, and exerting a favourable effect on blood clotting.

Food Prescriptions

One diet that appears to provide significant protection against heart disease is the traditional Mediterranean diet. This diet, high in plant-based fibres and low in saturated fats, can play a role in fighting heart disease and cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes.

The two components of the Mediterranean diet that have received a lot of attention are red wine and olive oil. Red wine is thought to be responsible for the “French paradox,” a term used to explain why the French consume more saturated fat than Americans, yet have a lower incidence of heart disease. The protective effect is the result of the flavonoids in red wine, which protect against oxidative damage to the arteries from LDL (the “bad”) cholesterol.

Olive oil contains a heart protective monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid, and several antioxidant agents that prevent circulating LDL cholesterol from becoming damaged and subsequently damaging arteries. Olive oil lowers harmful LDL cholesterol levels and increases the level of protective HDL cholesterol. It has also been proven to lower elevated blood triglycerides.

C-reactive Protein

Inflammation is an important factor in the buildup of atherosclerotic plaque. To measure the degree of inflammation, physicians determine the level of C-reactive protein (CRP) in the blood. Most studies show that the higher the CRP levels, the higher the risk of developing heart attack.

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Michael T. Murray, ND, is widely regarded as a leading authority on natural medicine. He is the author of over 20 books, including The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods (Atria, 2005).

Source: alive #280, February 2006

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