Heart Health Recap
Last week we hosted our Heart Health event here in the office. If you were unable to attend here is a quick recap of some of the things we talked about!
Heart disease is the number 1 killing disease in our country, killing 1 out of every 4 people. Every 36 seconds someone dies of heart disease. That’s you and me, your kids, your parents, and your friends. Often we assume it won’t be us, BUT the numbers don’t lie! The question then becomes WHY wont it be you or your family? If you want a different outcome than the rest of our country, then you must choose to live a different life!
We have been battling Heart Disease since the 1950’s when president Eisenhower had a heart attack. Since then trillions of dollars have been spent, decades of research have been done, and medical treatments like surgeries and drugs have been shoved at us. If money, drugs, and surgeries were the answer, you’d think we would be winning the fight against heart disease. So how are we doing? We are losing big time. Heart disease has only gotten worse, to the point that it’s now becoming a common illness in children. A study found that 70% of the population already has artery blocking plaque building before the age of 20. Not only is heart disease currently the number one killer, it has become the most deadly disease in human history, killing more people than any virus, bacteria, plague, or war ever will. What we are doing is not working. We need to look at the cause.
When addressing heart disease it is abundantly clear how the philosophy of medicine has failed us. You see, medicine looks at the body as a flawed machine that needs human intervention to help it along. Essentially, that is a belief that the body is dumb and God screwed up leaving us to figure it out. Luckily that’s not true! God designed you perfectly without flaw and He designed the body intelligently. Your body is smart and is ALWAYS doing the right thing to keep you alive and well. The body will NEVER do anything to injure or destroy itself. Your body creates high blood pressure for a reason. If you have a blocked artery that goes to your brain, your heart beats harder to get the essential nutrients and oxygen to your brain. Your high blood pressure is your body doing the right thing at the right time to keep you alive. But what do we do? We see high blood pressure and immediately throw medications at it to undo what the body was intelligently trying to do in the first place. Now your brain is being starved of oxygen and nutrients.
We do the same thing with cholesterol. Did you know that 80% of the cholesterol in your blood is made by your liver? Why would your body make more of a substance that will eventually kill you? Either your body is being really dumb or it is really smart and is doing the right thing. Cholesterol is a healing substance. It helps to combat inflammation in the body and heal you. Post injury, your cholesterol levels are elevated. After birth, women always have high levels of cholesterol. The body produces more of it to HEAL you! So if you have inflamed, damaged arteries you better pray for more cholesterol to heal the damage. However, we think the body is dumb and doing the wrong thing so we are fed statins to lower cholesterol. Did you know that more people have heart attacks with normal cholesterol than high? Did you know that more people die with LOW cholesterol than high? Now they aren’t dying of heart disease, they are dying of cancer, which is the body’s response to chronic inflammation. If you cut out the healing mechanism, inflammation runs wild.
Not only does cholesterol heal the body it is also essential for brain health. 70% of the brain is made of fat and cholesterol. Cut out healthy fat and cholesterol and you are starving the brain leading to dementia and Alzheimer’s. Hormones are made from cholesterol including testosterone and estrogen. If you have a hormone imbalance your body will raise cholesterol levels to help you! We humans think we know better so we lower it leading to things like erectile dysfunction and early menopause.
You should never interfere with the body trying to heal itself. We need to recognize that the body is far more intelligent than we are and it is always doing the right thing! We need to ask a more specific question. Why? Why is my body creating higher blood pressure? Why is my body elevating my cholesterol and what can I do to help? There are 4 main things that cause heart disease. Let’s dive in.
Inflammation: Inflammation literally means to be on fire. It is your body’s intelligent response to heal from damage. Short-term inflammation is a good thing! It helps to heal damaged tissue and fight infection. Chronic inflammation is bad. It causes more harm than good. It’s like if you sprained your ankle, it healed slightly but then you sprained it again and again and again. That is what is happening inside the arteries. They are being damaged so the body creates inflammation to heal. If we never remove what caused the damage, the fire continues to burn. Sugar, bad fats, and toxins are what cause damage in the arteries leading to inflammation and high cholesterol. What’s the solution? Cut out cholesterol? NO! Remove the cause! Cut the sugar, bad fats, and toxins! Stop feeding the fire and the fire will burn out! It’s as simple as that.
Weak cardiac muscles: The heart and blood vessels are muscles. And just like any other muscle in your body, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Muscular atrophy occurs very quickly when you stop using a muscle. The same thing happens with your cardiovascular system. If you don’t use it, it begins to weaken. We all know exercise is good for you but how good? Studies show that regular exercise decreases risk of heart disease by 60%. For reference the best drugs on the market only boast a 5% reduced risk. Regular exercise alone is 55% better for you than the best drugs humans can create! Get your butt moving if you want a healthy heart!
Stress: Did you know the most common day of the week to have a heart attack is Monday? Did you know that the most common time of year is Christmas? Why? It’s all about stress. Under high stress your nervous system goes into fight or flight mode. Your body shuts down the non-essential systems to get you out of danger. Digestion, immune function, reproduction all stop during fight or flight while your breathing, pulse, and blood pressure all go up! That’s a very good thing if the stressor is a bear chasing you, but in our modern world it’s not a bear – it’s social media, the news, emails, texts from your ex, etc. Stress comes from every direction! When you cut the stress, your nervous system switches to rest and digest mode. Pulse, breathing, blood pressure all go down while immunity, digestion, reproduction all go up. Cut the stress to put your heart at ease.
Subluxation: Speaking of the nervous system, that’s exactly what chiropractic does. Most people think chiropractic is all about the spine but it’s actually all about the nervous system. Your spine is a part of the nervous system. The two are intertwined and interconnected and one cannot exist without the other. So when damage to the spine occurs it directly impacts the nervous system. That is called a subluxation and it is a neuro-spinal degenerative process that directly causes dysfunction, disease, and leads to early death. When talking about the heart, we always look to both C1 and T2 for subluxations because those are the two areas where the nerves exit the spine to go to the heart. Did you know that a subluxation at C1 can increase your blood pressure by 17 points? All because there is incoordination between your brain and your heart! The Vagus Nerve controls the rest and digest part of your nerve system, and it is the job of your C1 to protect that nerve. One adjustment to that bone has been proven to decrease high blood pressure better than taking two medications combined! Find and fix the cause and let your body do its job!
To summarize, trust your body. It is fighting FOR you and never AGAINST you. Help it in its fight but cutting out the causes of heart disease. Stop adding fuel to the fire and your body will always heal.
In Health and Faith,
Dr. Marc
