Natural Approach to Heart Disease

HEART AND CIRCULATION-AN EPIDEMIC OF HEART FAILURE CAN BE STOPPED..WITH A NATURAL APPROACH TO HEART DISEASE!

Heart disease is not a simple problem. It is not caused by one factor alone, but instead by a complex maze of biochemical changes occuring in your body. The majority of these caused by lifestyle choices,stress, toxins and an inability of your body to cope.

Things just wear out...have "had the biscuit" and start to breakdown.

And believe me, its not because your body lacks "Plavix, Accupril, Norvasc, Lipitor or any heart medication that you are not well...the cause is deeper, functional and I believe...treatable and curable.

STATISTICS ON HEART DISEASE......

LOOKING AT HEART ATTACK INCIDENCE TRENDS...

(From the American Heart Association)

Estimates for the year 2003 are that 71,300,000 Americans have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

High blood pressure -- 65,000,000.
Coronary heart disease -- 13,200,000.
- Myocardial infarction (mi"o-KAR'de-al in-FARK'shun) (acute heart attack) -- 7,200,000.
- Angina pectoris (AN'jih-nah or an-JI'nah PEK'tor-is) (chest pain or discomfort caused by reduced blood supply to the heart muscle) -- 6,500,000.
Stroke -- 5,500,000.

Cardiovascular diseases (Heart and Blood Circulatory System)

The statistics on heart disease show us that it claimed 910,614 lives in 2003 (37.3 percent of all deaths or 1 of every 2.7 deaths). (Preliminary)
Other 2002 mortality: total cancer 554,643; accidents 105,695; HIV (AIDS) 13,544 (preliminary).
Over 152,000 Americans killed by CVD are under age 65.
2003 preliminary death rates from CVD were 359.1 for white males and 479.6 for black males; for white females 256.2 and for black females 354.8. (Death rates are per 100,000 population. The rates listed use the year 2000 standard U.S. population as the base for age adjustment.)
From 1993 to 2003, death rates from CVD declined 22.1 percent (preliminary).
In the same 10-year period the actual number of deaths declined 4.6 percent.

Coronary heart disease (Disease of the blood vessels of the heart)

Coronary heart disease is caused by atherosclerosis (ath"er-o-skleh-RO'sis), the narrowing of the coronary arteries due to fatty build ups of plaque. It's likely to produce angina pectoris (chest pain), heart attack or both.

Coronary heart disease caused 479,305 deaths in 2003 and is the single leading cause of death in America today (preliminary).
13,200,000 people alive today have a history of heart attack, angina pectoris or both. This is about 7,200,000 males and 6,000,000 females.
This year an estimated 1.2 million Americans will have a new or recurrent coronary attack.
About 330,000 people a year die of coronary attack in an Emergency Department or without being hospitalized. Most of these are sudden deaths caused by cardiac arrest, usually resulting from ventricular fibrillation (ven-TRIK'u-ler fib"rih-LA'shun).
From 1993 to 2003 the death rate from coronary heart disease declined 30.2 percent (preliminary).
In 2003, coronary heart disease death rates per 100,000 people were 209.2 for white males and 241.1 for black males; and 125.1 for white females and 160.3 for black females (preliminary). (Death rates are per 100,000 population. The rates use the year 2000 standard population for age adjustment.)

Mortality -- The total number of deaths from a given disease in a population during a specific interval of time, usually a year

Therefore the heart attack incidence trends show us that while the number of people dying from heart disease has gone down..primarily because of acute care and drugs "managing" it. The number of people getting heart disease is increasing...so again the "cure" has not been found..at least not in the typical traditional medical world.

NATURAL APPROACH TO HEART DISEASE

We need to step back and consider the factors causing heart disease.

This would inlcude looking at the relationship between the immune system and CVD (cardio-vascular disease), look at risk factors beyond cholesterol (in the traditional medical world..everything revolves around cholesterol and that's just not true) and consider personalized programmes for heart patients not just the same drug used over and over across the board for every patient.

So what do we know about the heart as part of the human "whole" and what can we do to change someone's heart disease or family potential to heart disease?

Pump

1) We know its a "pump"..moving around via the circulation, blood, oxygen and nutrients to all the body.

Organ of Love and Emotion

2) It IS an organ of love and emotion. Now science has shown us there are actual receptor sites (landing pads for connection) for the "molecules of emotion". Probably the best book on these molecules is Candace Pert's Molecules of Emotion.

Hormone Responsive

3) It has a hormone component and is affected by these. For example on experiencing stress or fear..your adrenals secrete cortisol and this ends up causing the heart to beat faster. Hence this is the simplified pathway of why stress can initiate a heart attack.

Immune Organ

4) It is an immune reactive organ. In other words, it responds to the same negative or positive influences which affect your immune system. In this respect, your heart experiences inflammation...and this more than anything is probably the factor which ultimately leads to most heart disease and attacks....more on this later.

Importance of Cardiac Muscles

5) The heart, like your muscles and brain is referred to as "post-mitotic tissue". Yes, I know...Big Bad Medical Term (BBMT)...and we'll come across a lot of these.. More simply put..this type of tissue, after development in the uterus and growth throughout childhood to maturity, doesn't replace itself much at all throughout your life. In fact as we age, one tends to lose these cells, the result being a downward slide of their numbers. This shows the importance of cardiac muscles.

Essentially, then, once you "fry" these cells..you've had it. So although you can build the size of the muscle cells and you can build up the heart muscle through exercise..you can't replace their number. Therefore its a REALLY good idea to protect what you have, starting early in life.

Heart Is An Engergy Organ

6) The heart is an energy organ. What does that mean?

Inside all cells are little complexes called mitochondria (BBMT) which are responsible for producing the energy needed by the cell for function. Some organs or tissues are which are particularly "busy" have more of these structures. The cells of the heart are 75% by volume mitochondria!

This high production of energy results in a great deal of "free radicals" being produced as a bi-product. These are very reactive molecules which can cause tissue damage if there are not enough anti-oxidants around to counteract their negative effects.

When we are short of antioxidants, then the resulting effect on the heart is inflammation and so we are back to number 4 above. This demonstrates the interconnectedness of various chemical pathways in the body...one having several effects on the other.

What I'm getting at here is the fact that there is NO one factor to heart disease (such as cholesterol) but a whole picture we have to look at.

Testing

Treatments

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