Heart Disease
by Phillip Day

Profile
The leading cause of death in the western world today is heart disease. Over 3,000 Americans die EVERY DAY from heart disease in its various forms. So, if we are interested in living to be 100, heart disease must be one of the first hurdles we must overcome. Is that possible?

If you were able to remove heart disease from the general population, our world today would be radically different from what we see. How many relatives would still be with us? How much more money would there be available for proper research to conquer other, less well-known problems?

We are about to find out that heart disease can end today based entirely on existing scientific knowledge. That is why I become increasingly tired of the whining British National Health Service and its government over cash shortages in Britain and how financially strapped the hospitals and health services are today. None of this would be happening if the population and its health services WOULD EXERCISE PREVENTION INSTEAD OF CURE. For who, in reality, is responsible for the soaring costs of healthcare today, if not we, the population, through not taking proper care of ourselves? That's our responsibility, by the way, not the government's.

Types of heart disease
All forms of heart disease will be dealt with in this chapter as the approaches to them are essentially the same. Let's first take a look at the major problems:

Cardiomyopathy: Any disease affecting the heart muscle's ability to pump juice. The heart works through electrical/muscular contraction. When this becomes impaired, the decreased efficiency of the heart to circulate blood begins to cause warning signs. Shortness of breath, arrhythmia (see below), fatigue, a chronic, unproductive cough and blue extremities are common indications.

Congestive heart failure: Failure or impairment of the pumping action of the ventricle of the heart, resulting in a back pressure of blood, engorging the veins in the neck creating fluid retention in the tissues, or edema. Shortness of breath, even when lying prone, swelling of the legs, etc.

Myocardial infarction: The classic heart attack, where part of the heart muscle, usually the left ventricle, dies, following an interruption of the blood supply. The patient experiences a 'heart attack' - an abrupt, severe chest pain, which may spread to the arms and throat.

Arrhythmia: Any disturbance or abnormality in the regular beating of the heart. These include specific variations, such as ectopic beats, atrial fibrillations, ventricular tachycardias and severe ventricular arrhythmias. Arrhythmias may result from a whole host of different heart conditions. More ominously, the Oxford Concise Medical Dictionary warns: "Arrhythmias may… occur without apparent cause."

Atherosclerosis: Fatty lipoprotein plaque build-up in the arteries, which prevents proper blood flow, leading to heart failure and other conditions.

Arteriosclerosis: Hardening or thickening of small artery walls. The term is often used interchangeably with atherosclerosis (incorrectly).

Thrombosis: A condition in which liquid blood solidifies or thickens in an artery, preventing blood flow. This may happen in the brain artery, impairing blood flow to the brain, resulting in a stroke. Thrombosis in any artery disrupts blood flow to the tissue it supplies. Coronary thrombosis often results in myocardial infarction, or 'heart attack'.

Angina pectoris: What I term 'the slow heart attack'. Pain in the centre of the chest, spreading to the arms and jaw. Often brought on by exercising, where the demand for blood from the heart exceeds the cardiovascular system's ability to provide it. Angina often occurs as a result of damaged or occluded arteries (athero/arteriosclerosis and other heart conditions).

Embolism: A blood clot or other solid body restricting blood flow to vital organs (including the heart and lungs) and tissues. The embolus may become detached and be carried to another part of the body, where it becomes lodged, creating localised or systemic problems.

Heart murmurs: A mitral valve prolapse occurs when this heart valve becomes misshapen or deformed, causing a leakage of fluid between the left upper chamber (atria) of the heart and the left ventricle. Such murmurs may be detected by stethoscope.

Commentary
So, here we are, examining the leading killer of humankind in the western industrial nations…. Doesn't that give you a clue to the where the problems may lie immediately?

The heart and its circulatory (cardiovascular) system are all about tubes, a pump and lots of blood. Notice the problems described above in semi-medical vernacular really come down to the fact that if you don't want to get the leading cause of death, you must have a strong and efficient heart muscle, clean, well constructed pipes (veins and arteries) and blood that is pure and not filled with the kind of debris and rubbish you might find in a Staten Island junkyard.

The human heart beats around 100,000 times every 24 hours, pumping six quarts of blood through a freeway system of over 96,000 miles of blood vessels. This staggering feat is the equivalent of the heart moving 6,300 gallons a day, or shunting 115,000,000 gallons of blood by time you reach fifty. None too shabby, eh?

Then consider that those six quarts of blood each of us have are made up of over 24 trillion cells, seven million new ones of which are produced by our body every second, to replace worn-out cells and continue the work of transporting nutrients and removing waste and toxins. This amazing pump, responsible for all the action, has the capability to run maintenance- and service-free for decades without missing a beat. And no, it doesn't come with a warranty.

Coronary heart disease, heart attacks, angina pectoris, thrombosis, myocardial infarctions - trouble by any name - can be caused by certain types of drugs, as we shall see, and also by coronary arteries that have become progressively clogged by fatty material which prevents normal blood-flow (atherosclerosis). If you take your garden hose, which is supplying water to your lawn sprinkler (in countries which allow you to have one), and bend the hose, the water flow ceases to the sprinkler. Likewise, if the arteries supplying blood to the heart become clogged with deposits, or blood clots brought on by sticky platelets, the same starving of liquid to the pump will occur.

Drs. Pauling and Rath
But it's the underlying cause of almost all heart problems that is the most provocative and misunderstood issue in medicine today. Two doctors, Linus Pauling and Matthias Rath, popularised the scientific truth that had been whispered fearfully in medical corridors for decades, but which had failed to come out because of huge vested interests in the corporate profitability of heart disease - namely that heart disease was primarily a fulminating deficiency of vitamin C complex and the amino acids lysine and proline, which help form the collagen fibres that knit the artery walls together. Dr Matthias Rath sums up his findings:

"Animals don't get heart attacks because they produce vitamin C in their bodies, which protects their blood vessel walls. In humans, unable to produce vitamin C (a condition known as hypoascorbemia), dietary vitamin deficiency weakens these walls. Cardiovascular disease is an early form of scurvy. Clinical studies document that optimum daily intakes of vitamins and other essential nutrients halt and reverse coronary heart disease naturally.

The single most important difference between the metabolism of human beings and most other living species is the dramatic difference in the body pool of vitamin C. The body reservoir of vitamin C in people is on average 10 to 100 times lower than the vitamin C levels in animals."

What a revelation, eh?

Low density lipoprotein - Lp(a)
The makings of scurvy
Scurvy occurs when the collagen matrix in the body begins to break down. With heart disease, the scurvy process is much slower, sometimes taking years to develop. As Dr Rath reports, vitamin C is essential for the production of collagen and elastin, the elastic, fibrous materials which knit the walls of arteries and blood vessels together. Collagen fibres are a lot like the steel girders you see when builders are erecting a new skyscraper. Each fibre has been calculated to be far tougher and stronger than an iron wire of comparable width. Collagen cells form the structure for arteries, organs and skin, and so a chronic vitamin C deficiency causes the beginning of a collapse in the arterial walls, necessitating a healing process to commence, in the form of lipoprotein(a) fats which the body attempts to use to bond the thousands of tiny breaches in the arterial walls.

These lipoproteins are Nature's perfect Band-Aid. They are extremely sticky and form the atherosclerotic deposits associated with advanced forms of heart disease today. Cardiovascular medicine, unaware or willingly ignorant of the underlying nutritional deficiency cause of atherosclerosis, focuses its attention on vilifying the lipoproteins' LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol content as one of the primary causes of heart diseases, when it is in fact the healing (survival response) precursor brought on by a chronic vitamin C deficiency. Today the drug industry has predictably mobilised a multi-billion-dollar business of anti-cholesterol drugs, which have wrought devastating results in cardiac patients, necessitating a further $20 billion drug program to combat all the side effects. Rath and Pauling discovered that

• Optimum vitamin C intakes (600 mg - 3 g daily), along with supportive intakes of vitamin E (800-1,000 IU), the amino acids lysine and proline, the B vitamins, essential fatty acids (EFAs), magnesium, minerals, trace minerals and amino acids, provide healthy arteries
  
• A long-term vitamin C deficiency will lead to atherosclerotic deposits in the arterial walls to cover the breaches caused by the disintegrating collagen, eventually resulting in coronary heart disease and, further north, strokes in the brain
  
• Vitamin C depletion over a few months will lead to massive blood loss through collagen disintegration, resulting in leaky artery walls, collapsing organs and death by scurvy

Vitamin C depletion (complete absence of the nutrient) in the industrial nations is almost an impossibility, even with the ghastly diets with which we feed ourselves today. However long-term vitamin C deficiency is very common and occurs in almost all the population, hence the prevalence of heart disease in all its forms.

Coronary arteries sustain the most stress since they are the primary roadways for blood being pumped by the heart. The need for ongoing repairs of the leaky artery walls produces an overcompensation of repair materials, such as cholesterol, triglycerides and low-density lipoproteins (LDL), produced in the liver, which lead to infarctions as this plaque builds up. Other areas, such as arteries in the legs, are also affected. Varicose veins often develop as a result of this ongoing healing process (see Varicose veins).

Collagen in our body is made up of proteins composed of amino acids, particularly lysine and proline. An optimum supply of vitamin C complex, E, proline and lysine are decisive factors for the regeneration of connective tissue in the artery wall and thus for the reversal of cardiovascular disease. These factors are almost never prescribed by allopathic medicine, which is why, in spite of the most technical medicines and surgical procedures available, heart disease continues to be the main killer of industrialised, commercially fed, vitamin C-deficient humanity.

Let's look at the problem in action
An interesting parallel can be seen in nature with hibernating animals which, during their extended sleep period, deplete their vitamin C reserves, due to lack of incoming nutrition. As a result, fat molecules are deposited along their artery walls, which lead to a thickening of these vessels. In spring however, once these animals recover from their hibernation and begin consuming vegetation and fruits, such as berries, their vitamin C, amino acid and antioxidant intakes rise sharply, resulting in a reversal of these repair factors, leading to a re-stabilisation of their arterial walls and their normal function.

Lack of antioxidant material is also a major contributing factor. Current theories on this subject suggest that oxidative elements, known as free radicals, are brought into the body through smoking, car exhaust, pollution and smog, damaging the collagen in the artery walls, bringing on the need for further lipoprotein repairs. It is believed the damage is done because electron-hungry free radicals rob healthy cells to produce degradation in the cell and cell-death. These oxidative elements are now widely thought to be the leading cause of pre-ageing and cell degradation.

Autopsies of military personnel killed during the Korean and Vietnam wars showed that up to 75% of the victims had developed some form of atherosclerosis even at ages of 25 or younger. Yet those servicemen who had been captured by the enemy and incarcerated on rice and vegetable diets were later, upon release and a medical examination, found to have cleared the plaque during their period of captivity.

Victims of accidents are often found to have developed atherosclerotic deposits that would have become a problem for them, had they lived longer. Dr Rath comments:

"The main cause of atherosclerotic deposits is the biological weakness of the artery walls caused by chronic vitamin deficiency [malnutrition]. The atherosclerotic deposits are the consequence of this chronic weakness; they develop as a compensatory stabilizing cast of Nature to strengthen these weakened blood vessel walls."

Heart disease studies with nutrition
So chronic vitamin and mineral deficiencies produce a breakdown of collagen in the arterial walls, leading to increased artery wall tension, narrowing of the artery diameter, thickening of artery walls and therefore high blood pressure. The result is heart attack, strokes (impairment of arterial flow to the brain), high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) and heart failure. Interestingly, as time marches forward, the public's ability to garner adequate supplies of vitamin C from its diet through fruits and vegetables becomes progressively less as our food chain is corrupted further with processed, chemical foods and the public's penchant to move away from healthy, natural foods in favour of the more 'tasty' and better advertised artificial alternatives.

Ironically heart disease manifested itself less in medieval times during spring, summer and autumn since the predominantly vegetarian diet of the average working class citizen often provided well mineralised vegetables and fruits. Winter however was another matter. Freezing was not possible back then, and nutritional intake took a dive as diets only comprised those foods that could be adequately salted and preserved during the winter months. Strokes and heart disease were common during these months.

Back then, of course, the killer was the more extreme of the vitamin C deficiency ailments - scurvy - which resulted when sailors, for instance, dramatically halted their vitamin C intake, due to the restriction of provisions available on board their ships.

Dr James Enstrom and colleagues from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) dramatically proved the heart disease link with vitamin C when they studied the vitamin intake of 11,000 Americans over 10 years. Funded by the US Congress, their study demonstrated that citizens taking in at least 300 mg per day of vitamin C in their diet or through supplementation cut their risk of heart disease by up to 50% in males and 40% in females. This study alone should have made headline news. Who before could have claimed such a reduction in the number of deaths from the leading disease killer in the western world? But nothing was mentioned! The study focused primarily on vitamin C, but, as we will see, other nutrients also play a key role in the prevention or complete elimination of heart disease. We must always remember too that nutrients in the body work in synergy, not in isolation, so any supplementation regime we embark upon should be a complete program, together with a suitable diet.

Dr G C Willis demonstrated that vitamin C complex could reverse atherosclerosis. Willis gave a sample of his patients 1.5 grams of vitamin C a day and gave the remainder of the group no vitamin C. After a year, the atherosclerotic deposits in the patients fed the vitamin C had decreased in 30% of the cases. In contrast, no reduction in deposits was observed in the control group, which had even grown further. In spite of the clear evidence over 40 years ago of the benefits of just vitamin C through Willis' work, no follow-up study was ever commissioned.

Professor Gey, from the University of Basel in Switzerland, conducted studies in which he compared the vitamin C, vitamin A (beta carotene) and cholesterol intakes of citizens living in Northern Europe with those in the southern regions of the continent. His findings were recorded thus:

• Those living in the northern nations of Europe had the highest levels of cardiovascular disease and the lowest blood levels of vitamins
  
• Southern European populations had the reverse statistics of their northern counterparts and so were more healthy
  
• An optimum intake of vitamins C, E and A had a far greater impact on decreasing risks of cardiovascular disease than the reduction of cholesterol, now becoming increasingly viewed (correctly) as a secondary factor in heart disease risk (an inevitable result of the primary deficiency of nutrients leading to the breakdown of the arterial walls).

Gey's report also highlighted the preference for the Mediterranean diet, rich in wine and olive oil, abundant in bioflavonoids (another part of the C complex) and vitamin E, as a main prevention regimen for heart disease in almost all its forms.

Further studies showed that these nutrients separately produced impressive results for cardiac disease prevention:

• Vitamin C intake lowers cardiovascular risk by 50%
  
• Vitamin E intake lowers cardiovascular risk by one-third, documented in 87,000 study participants over six years
  
• Beta carotene (vitamin A) intake lowers cardiovascular risk over 30%, documented in more than 87,000 study participants over six years
  
• No prescription drug has ever come close to matching these figures in preventing heart disease

However, when these nutrients were combined with other synergistic agents, such as magnesium, vitamin B3 (nicotinic acid), vitamin B5 (pantothenate) and the amino acid carnitine, and levels of these maintained in the body over the long-term, near total prevention could be expected, and in those already suffering from a variety of cardiac ailments, a clear record of efficacy in reversing these conditions was observed.

Learning from our animals
While the World Health Organization announces that more than 12 million people each year die from the consequences of heart disease and strokes, this death rate is just not occurring in the animal kingdom. When vitamin C levels in animals were measured, procured as a result of their diets and own production of vitamin C, they were found to have between 1 g and 20 g available a day, when compared with human bodyweight. Humans on the other hand, unable to produce their own vitamin C, are now consuming less and less foods containing the essential nutrients available in fruits and vegetables, themselves now depleted of vital nutrients because of commercial and over-farming practices. Some do not even make the miserable 'Recommended Daily Allowance' (RDA) of C - 60 mg a day. This dramatic paradigm shift in nutritional intake by the human over the past 150 years, from a diet almost completely vegetarian (5-10% animal protein intake - meat was largely unavailable to many of the poorer citizens) to one dominated by animal food sources, has manifested itself in the most disastrous death toll from cardiovascular disease, which can now be identified primarily as a metabolic, nutritional deficiency disease.

High blood pressure and arrhythmia
Modern medicine does not know the actual cause of high blood pressure in many of its cases, referring to these unknowns as "essential hypertension". Drugs prescribed can be diuretics, beta-blockers, blood thinners (including the rat poison, Warfarin) and other medications. Yet studies again exist demonstrating that vitamin C , coenzyme Q10 , magnesium and the amino acid arginine are able to lower blood pressure very effectively without the attendant side-effects of prescription medications. Vitamin C also increases the production of prostacyclin, a small molecule hormone that relaxes the blood vessel walls and also keeps the blood viscosity at optimum levels.

Arrhythmia, or inconsistent heartbeat, is also much misunderstood by conventional medicine. The term "paroxysmal arrhythmia", so often used, simply means "causes unknown". Beta-blockers, calcium antagonists and pacemakers are often prescribed in ignorance of the true underlying nutritional causes. Rath states:

"The most frequent cause of irregular heartbeat is a chronic deficiency in vitamins and other essential nutrients in millions of electrical heart muscle cells. Long-term, these deficiencies of essential nutrients directly cause, or aggravate, disturbances in the creation or conduction of the electrical impulses triggering the heartbeat. Scientific research and clinical studies have already documented the value of magnesium, calcium, carnitine, coenzyme Q10 and other co-factors in helping to normalise different forms of irregular heartbeat, thereby improving the quality of life for the patients."

Other problems linked to the heart
Coffee is known to cause heart problems. Coffee stimulates the release of the hormone adrenalin, which relies on vitamin C as the catalyst for its production. Stress also produces adrenalin, drawing down and depleting supplies of vitamin C in the body, resulting in C deficiency problems. The Pill and other hormonal medications also have the effect of drawing down levels of C in the body, producing the attendant effects of heart disease in its various forms.

The great fatty acid boys
Fats are essential, which is why they call them 'the essential fatty acids', but they have to be the right kinds of fats! Omega-3 and omega-6 oils especially are the two important types of essential fatty acids. The suffixes '3' and '6' refer to differences in the particular oil's chemical structure. These 3 and 6 oils are vital for optimum health and play a central role in preventing and healing heart complaints. Needless to say, most of us get plenty of the commercial junk fats, which the body struggles to break down and eliminate, but few of the sixes and threes (and nines), let alone in their optimum configurations.

The main omega-3 oil is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), prevalent in flaxseed (58%), pumpkin seeds and walnuts. Fish oils, such as contained in oily fish like salmon, cod and mackerel, contain the other important omega-3 oils, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid). (Ensure these fish are fresh and cold-caught, NOT FARMED).

Linoleic acid or cis-linoleic acid is the main omega-6 oil and is found in many plant and vegetable oils, including safflower (73%), sunflower, corn, and sesame. The most useful type of omega-6 oil is gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), found in evening primrose oil, used to treat kids with ADD/ADHD problems. Once in the body, omega-3 and omega-6 are converted to prostaglandins, hormone-like substances that regulate many metabolic functions, particularly inflammatory processes. (For more information on the fat boys, see A Guide to Nutritional Supplements).

Summary
If we examine the three main areas for heart disease treatment and prevention, we arrive at diet (and supplementation), exercise and lifestyle choices (rejecting smoking, alcohol, drugs and adverse character traits, such as anger, jealousy and irritability) as a means of normalising blood pressure, adrenal hormone secretions and even androgens (male hormones), which are linked to male pattern baldness and a higher risk of heart disease.

The diet, exercise and lifestyle strategies relevant to avoiding heart disease are explained in the Take action section below. The dietary and supplement regimens are designed to optimise nutrition in a way that is very similar to the nutritional intake of those peoples who do not suffer these problems. Modified nutrition and an associated vitamin and mineral supplementation assure optimum protection against heart attack and stroke.

THESE SIMPLE MEASURES ARE ALSO THE SAME FOR OTHER SERIOUS DISEASES, meaning, as we proceed, that we can develop a common lifestyle strategy that will work across the board for all the major problem areas. This strategy must be applied consistently. Those looking for a magic formula to repair a health condition need to know that the magic formula is doing the right thing and doing it CONSISTENTLY. Once again, there are things we must do, and there are things we must avoid.

Take action
So, here we go. If you have a heart complaint, or are recovering from a heart attack or stroke, firstly engage the services of an MD or ND trained in nutritional medicine. Important considerations are contraindications with medications which may have been prescribed to you. In Health Wars, there are two chapters on the heart which get into more detail on the problems with stress, existing diabolical medications for heart conditions, which come with their own serious side-effect problems, and how these affect your performance and well-being. Heart patients, under medical supervision and recommendation, may benefit from the following:

• DIET: COMMENCE THE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIFESTYLE REGIMEN
  
• DIET: Note the things in this regime you need to give up!
  
• RESTORING NUTRIENT BALANCE: COMMENCE THE BASIC SUPPLEMENT PROGRAM, ensuring:
  
• Vitamin C complex (ascorbates plus bioflavonoids), 3-5 g per day, spread throughout the day
  
• Vitamin E, 800-1000 IU per day
  
• Vitamin A emulsion, as directed
  
• Lysine and proline, as directed
  
• Magnesium, 200-400 mg, three times per day
  
• Coenzyme Q10, 150-300 mg per day
  
• L-Carnitine, 300 mg, three times per day
  
• Vitamin B1, 200-250 mg per day
  
• Omega 3 & 6 essential fatty acid complex (EFAs), as directed
  
• TIP: Avoid stress, even if it means ditching your whiz $2 million-a-year city job to go farm Christmas trees in Moose Jaw. You can't drive that Ferrari if you're dead
  
• TIP: Avoid the contraceptive Pill and take some serious medical advice on discontinuing HRT, ERT and other hormonal medications
  
• TIP: Avoid eating heavy amounts of any commercially produced meats, especially the red variety (see Health Wars - Meating the Main Problem)
  
• TIP: Exercise wisely but regularly, according to your physician's advice

Further Resources
The ABC's of Disease by Phillip Day
Health Wars by Phillip Day
Food for Thought by Phillip Day

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