Heart Disease
HEART DISEASE
DEFINITION
Heart disease includes elevated cholesterol and blood pressure, heart attack, arrhythmias. and stroke. Your lifestyle diet, body composition and inflammatory stress can all play a role in your risk for heart disease. When we focus on lowering cholesterol levels with pharmaceutical drugs rather than treating lifestyle imbalances we can find ourselves at greater risk for dysfunction and ultimately disease.
In fact, it is only diet and exercise that can reverse heart disease. Every 6 pounds of weight loss can increase your HDL (good cholesterol) by 1 point and this acts as a broom to clean out your arteries preventing plaque formation!
LABORATORY ASSESSMENT
Micronutrient Panel in order to reveal nutrient level information more relevant to cardiovascular disease risk that may have a stronger correlation to inflammation and heart disease.
LPP (Lipoprotein Particle Test) to assess the risk factors most recently revealed by medical research that are responsible for cardiovascular incident and stroke.
TREATMENT PLAN
- Individualized Consultation
- Medical Assessment with Comprehensive Lifestyle Intake
- Coordination of care with specialists, primary care physician, and medical team
- Food-as-medicine education about:
- Mechanisms of heart disease
- Foods that lead to increased risk
- Foods that decrease risk
- Lifestyle changes to support wellness outcomes
- Customized Meal Plan emphasizing foods that are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant rich; preventing the root cause of heart disease
- Nutritional supplement recommendations: assess those currently taking, prescribe pharmaceutical-grade options to help balance system to promote wellness and decrease medications
The purple pigment anthocyanins aids in reducing the risk of arteries to harden and improve overall blood flow. After 24 weeks of consuming 320 milligrams per day of anthocyanins – found in berries and grapes – study participants found a 12% to 22% reduction in harmful inflammatory compounds. (American Journal of Clerical Nutrtion. 2012)
Try berries on your Greek yogurt parfait. oatmeal, salads. or as a snack paired with nuts/seeds!
“Rather than causing erectile dysfunction, depression, muscle aching, vitamin D deficiency, and increasing risk for diabetes and alzheimer’s disease, with pharmaceutical drugs… Naturally Nourished treatment plans increase libido, energy levels, improve body composition changes, promote weight loss, and most importantly… decrease CVD risk!”
DID YOU KNOW?
Cholesterol is a necessary fat for producing hormones (serotonin, testosterone, steroid hormones, Co-enzyme Q10), vitamin D, and bile. The production of cholesterol by the body is an essential component to several biological processes. When we are over-medicated through high-dose statin drugs, we inhibit our natural cholesterol production which may may lead to dangerously low levels (less than a total cholesterol of 150) where we can see symptoms of deficiency such as erectile dysfunction (from low testosterone), depression (from low serotonin), and low energy/increased risk for disease (from vitamin D deficiency).
Cholesterol is the band-aid or plaque formation following an injury to the vessel. Our vessels are at highest risk for damage when inflamed (puffy, rigid) and under high-pressure (as seen with high blood pressure). When we get tares in our vessels, cholesterol comes in to repair the injury with plaque, when this plaque dislodges it leads to stroke, when it continues to restrict an artery we get a blockage. Naturally Nourished focuses on treatment plans that are anti-inflammatory and antioxidant-rich, keeping vessels fluid and lubricated rather than puffy and rigid, decreasing risk for injury before cholesterol can even be an issue.
When it comes to cholesterol, at Naturally Nourished, we lower your small dense LDL particles and triglycerides, without blocking essential metabolic pathways. Rather than causing erectile dysfunction, depression, muscle aching, vitamin D deficiency, and increasing risk for diabetes and alzheimer’s disease, Naturally Nourished treatment plans increase libido, energy levels, improve body composition changes, promote weight loss, and most importantly…decrease CVD risk!
Particle Size of your cholesterol and your state of inflammation are more accurate gages of risk for heart disease.
A standard Lipid Panel from the doctor’s office is often misleading or insufficient for prediction of cardiovascular health. Half of the population that has suffered from a heart attack had normal cholesterol levels according to The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. It is now understood that the lipoprotein particles responsible for transporting cholesterol give a better indication of cardiovascular health than the total value and that only when the particles are oxidized can they create plaque.
Although in America, we call all LDL cholesterol “bad”, small dense LDL particles are more likely to be oxidized than large buoyant LDL particles. Small dense LDL particles or an increased number of particles put someone at greater risk for atherosclerosis (plaque formation). This could explain why a person can have high LDL numbers with no CVD complications yet another person could have moderate LDL numbers yet suffer from multiple CVD complications.
At Naturally Nourished, in addition to considering a standard lipid panel, we can assess your heart health through the LPP test which look at size of molecules, a particle count, oxidative stress, and assessment of inflammation the root cause of CVD! Click here for more information.
