AMERICAN HEART HEALTH MONTH. UNDERSTAND YOUR RISK AND TAKE STEPS TO REDUCE YOUR RISK. YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT
February is American Heart Month, a time when all people can focus on their cardiovascular health.
President Lyndon B. Johnson, among the millions of people in the country at that time who’d had heart attacks, issued the first proclamation in 1964. Since then, U.S. presidents have annually declared February American Heart Month.
Despite the annual awareness, billions of dollars in research and funding, cardiovascular disease remains the number one killer of men and women around the world.
Cardiovascular Disease accounts for 1 in every 4 deaths in America. Every year, in the U.S., 610,000 people die of heart related disease. Every 42 seconds someone has a heart attack and each minute someone dies from a heart disease related event. The amount of people dying from cardiovascular disease is equivalent to 4 jumbo jets crashing and killing everyone on board every single hour of every single day each year.
Why isn’t this statistic the daily headlines?
We Know What Causes Cardiovascular Disease & We Know How to Prevent it…So What’s the Problem?
These statistics are simple unacceptable. We know what causes cardiovascular disease, the lack of nitric oxide.
We know how to diagnose cardiovascular disease and recognize the symptoms associated with it.
We also know how to prevent the loss of nitric oxide, ameliorate symptoms and prevent the onset and progression of cardiovascular disease and even reverse heart disease.
So, what’s the problem?
The problem is education, awareness and implementation into the practice of medicine and the treatment of patients. Training and educating physicians on new science and concepts is like teaching an old dog new tricks.
So, our approach has been to educate patients and consumers so then they can go to their doctors and ask the right questions and be pro-active on their own health. Prescribing another pill is not the answer.
Addressing the root cause is the only solution and it is a very cost-effective solution.
Understanding Risk Factors & Symptoms of Heart Disease
The top risk factors for heart disease and stroke are:
1. high blood pressure
2. diabetes
3. obesity
4. unhealthy diet
5. physical inactivity
6. erectile dysfunction
All of these top risk factors are associated with depleted nitric oxide levels. That alone explains mechanistically why they are risk factors.
The top symptoms of heart disease are:
1. Chest pain, chest tightness, chest pressure and chest discomfort (angina)
2. Shortness of breath
3. Pain, numbness, weakness or coldness in your legs or arms if the blood vessels in those parts of your body are narrowed
4. Pain in the neck, jaw, throat, upper abdomen or back.
The reason these symptoms appear is because your body cannot dilate blood vessels to improve oxygen delivery to the heart, lungs and extremities. As a result, you get ischemic pain or pain that is due to insufficient blood flow.
This can be due to a clot or narrowed and diseased vessels in the heart.
You cannot dilate blood vessels or deliver oxygen without nitric oxide. The functional loss of nitric oxide precedes the structural changes that occurs in cardiovascular disease by many years, sometimes decades.
Prevent Heart Disease by Improving Nitric Oxide Levels
So, if you have any of the above risk factors or symptoms, your only hope is to improve your nitric oxide levels. In my more than 20 years of research in nitric oxide, we have discovered many things that deplete nitric oxide levels and also discovered many strategies to improve your nitric oxide levels.
All you have to do is follow these two rules:
1 Stop doing the things that disrupt or inhibit nitric oxide production
2 Start doing the things that are clinically proven to restore and replete nitric oxide production
It is really that simple.
Things that disrupt nitric oxide production
1. Antiseptic mouthwash: If you are using mouthwash, please stop. There is clear and indisputable evidence that mouthwash kills commensal good bacteria in your mouth that are there to generate nitrite and nitric oxide.
2. Fluoride: You must stop using fluoride toothpaste. Not only is fluoride a neurotoxin that causes neurological damage, it destroys your thyroid function and acts as an antiseptic that kills good oral bacteria and leads to nitric oxide deficiency. Fluoride is also in municipal water. Invest in a water purification system that removes fluoride from your water that you drink, cook in and bathe in. If not, you are constantly poisoning yourself. It is no wonder we have an epidemic thyroid disease and heart disease.
3. Antacids: If you are using antacids, you must stop. Antacids, particularly proton pump inhibitors have been shown to inhibit nitric oxide production. Furthermore, those on PPIs for more than 3 years have a more than 30% higher incidence of heart attack and stroke. The evidence is clear. Antacids lead to increased heart attacks and strokes.
4. High Carbohydrate diet: Eating a high starch, high carbohydrate diet leads to glycation of proteins, including the enzyme that makes nitric oxide. This results in insufficient nitric oxide production in the lining of our blood vessels and leads to advanced cardiovascular disease.
5. Sedentary Lifestyle: If you are not active, your body is not activating or stimulating nitric oxide production. The result is that you get high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, the top risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Things that stimulate, activate and replete nitric oxide
1. Physical activity: When we start to exercise, it tells our blood vessels we need to deliver more oxygen to the working skeletal and heart muscle to keep up with the metabolic demand. This signals our blood vessels to make nitric oxide. This explains why exercise is medicine.
2. Consumption of green leafy vegetables: Green leafy vegetables are on average highest in inorganic nitrate. Nitrate is converted to nitrite and nitric oxide by oral and gut bacteria. The standard American diet (SAD) is deficient in nitrate. Add more vegetables to your diet. Unfortunately, organically grown vegetables are low in nitrate due to restrictions of nitrogen-based fertilizers.
3. Sunlight or infrared sauna: Certain wavelengths of light have been shown to stimulate and release nitric oxide. This is why people who live in northern hemisphere or near the Arctic have on average higher blood pressure than those that live in areas where there is more sunlight. Infrared lights can stimulate mitochondria and activate nitric oxide.
4. Safe and effective nitric oxide supplement: If your body cannot make nitric oxide, consider taking a product that delivers nitric oxide. This can be done through standardized nitrate products that provide the body with a natural substrate that is missing in many of our foods. Also consider a nitric oxide releasing lozenge.
Don’t Become Just Another Statistic
If you follow these very simple steps above you are taking steps to reduce your risk of becoming a statistic to cardiovascular disease. Then and only then can we start changing the statistics.
This is cost-effective, simple and clinically proven to work.
If you don’t have the discipline and motivation to do it for yourself, do it for your family. There is nothing worse than losing a family member to something that is preventable and treatable. It is a senseless death. We can do better and we must do better.
The knowledge and information is out there. Help me by sharing this information with everyone you know. This is information your doctor will not tell you. They only thing they know is to prescribe you another pill. We see how that strategy is working.