Natural Way Health Blog

Heart

Heart  Health – A Natural Way

OK lets assume you have little understanding about the heart and how it works (if you know more then please don’t be offended). The heart is a pump and a muscle. A pump has a discharge and a return to get the fluids back to the pump. The discharge supply from the heart is known as an artery and the return to the pump a vein.

If you stand on a hosepipe the bit nearest the tap experiences a higher pressure because of the restriction in the flow due to your foot.
The pressure in the system is known as blood pressure and generally higher pressures indicate a partial blockage in the pipework or in this case the arteries and veins. For your heart to be healthy you need to consider it to be part of a system (the blood system) and you are looking for reasonable flow rates and not a lot of back pressure which would cause the heart to have to work harder.

Let’s look at the causes of high blood pressure and reduced flow (they are linked).

1. an inefficient pump – not enough exercise the keep the heart in good order
2. fluid is too thick – not enough water most commonly
3. restrictions in the blood system
   1. external – carrying too much fat around the blood vessels – a bit like your foot on the hose pipe
   2. internal – deposits on the internal surfaces of the vessels – fur building up inside a pipe in your hot water system

The Bad News

It can and will kill you if you do nothing

The Good News

Even if you have signs of these problems there is no reason why with a change in lifestyle you can’t reverse most, if not all the damage. You may need some support to do so but we’ve seen many people turn their lives around.

Before we go too far there is a lot of jargon around heart health and a lot of poorly thought through advice (often from so called experts). Just think it through and with some help formulate a plan to begin setting the clock back and getting back to a healthy heart.

There are three main areas that cause 90% of heart disease.

1. Lack of exercise.
2. Poor diet.
3. Smoking.

Conventional Approach to Preventing/Treating Heart Disease

• Diabetes risk factor – use of drugs to control blood glucose levels – often, if not invariably, trying to solve a problem rather than correcting the problem at source (often diet and lifestyle)
• cut out or reduce salt intake – reducing is the best way but don’t cut it out completely as we need salt.
• Dietary advice is often so out of date that it is useless – often dietary advice is to reduce meat intake and fat intake – both can be helpful but it is often too little too late and not really effective especially without day to day support
• treat symptoms with drugs – blood pressure medication etc.
• DIY Exercise and heart health – how many times have you heard people join a gym only to quite after the first month
• Reduce your blood cholesterol – the medical perspective is that high cholesterol = heart disease and the drugs they use to artificially lower it have side effects – don’t blindly accept what the pharmaceutical companies or the Government want you to believe. Find a good Doctor who understands the heart and the role that diet has to play.

An Educated Way to a Healthy Heart

• eat a diet that is essentially raw fruits and vegetables for at least 30 days and evaluate after that
• take regular exercise without joining a gym
• stop smoking – a no brainer
• limit consumption of alcohol – it is only carbohydrate and raises the blood glucose levels among other things
• avoid processed food – eat things that are as nature made them and stay away from bread, rice, pasta and potato especially
• get yourself a health coach – not just a Dr but someone who will keep you on track with regular (weekly) contact and who can walk with you to a healthier heart

Many approaches advocate supplements exclusively to improve heart health. While some of this may be helpful you may be using the wrong types or spending too much money. Certainly vitamin E supplements can have some benefits, according to Dr Malcolm Mitchinson at the University of Cambridge.

‘To me the recommendation of five or six portions of fruit or vegetables every day is
completely over the top,’ he says. ‘It’s quite unrealistic for most people, myself included.’

Dr Mitchinson feels small adjustments to our living habits are all that people can take.

‘The history of medicine is littered with good advice that nobody followed,’ he adds.
‘We did a trial that showed heart attacks were greatly reduced among people
who were at high risk if they took vitamin E.’

While a supplement won’t be as good an antioxidant as eating fruit and vegetables, Dr Mitchinson points out that

‘people are more likely to take a capsule than alter their whole diet.’

Proposing massive lifestyle and dietary changes may sound good but our research shows that if you make small one or 2, often very small, changes weekly then you are much more likely to succeed.

Any one of the following will begin to improve your heart health:

• drink an extra glass of water first thing on waking
• avoid bread and sandwiches
• drink water instead of tea or coffee and make your own dressings for salads
• eat a bit of fruit or a few almonds as a snack (6-10 is normally about right)
• don’t buy pre processed foods – buy the raw ingredients and cook from scratch
  use herbs/spices for flavour instead of salt when cooking.
• get yourself a health coach who knows how to help you – support is the single most influential element in your health journey and a good one can improve your chances of success by 90% or more
• walk for 10 minutes every day