Category Archives: Heart Health

Compromise and Golden Milk

Killing two birds with one stone ~ or ~ stop eating in the middle of the night!

It has been a major goal of mine for a very long time–and believe me, I’ve tried everything … or so I thought.

Actor holding cross from the Night Stalker Since I’ve known Bill he’s been a “night stalker,” though not the kind that solves supernatural mysteries.  No.  He’s the kind that crawls out of bed in the night, turns on the television, and then rummages around looking for something to eat–ideally something crunchy (his nemesis), and I’m not talking celery or carrots!

Jokingly, he says this night apparition is not him at all and therefore he is not to be blamed.  He says it’s some other guy over which he has no control and he is not responsible for his actions.  That guy is really annoying.

Doctor Kracker Seeded Spelt Crispbreads fixitplan
4g Protein, 2g Fiber, 0g Sugar

After Bill’s heart event, he fortunately gave up the middle of the night crunchy snacks (which is synonymous with “highly processed” MOST of the time).  Usually he indulges in a banana (sometimes with nut butter) or a couple of clementines.  Yet sometimes I’ll see evidence of snacking on albeit healthy whole grain spelt crackers and nut butter, which makes me scowl a little in the morning, but he’ll say he had a bad night or a bad dream or just couldn’t sleep.

 

COMPROMISE

Continue reading Compromise and Golden Milk

The Promise of Pomegranate

Pomegranate for atherosclerosis fixitplanPowerful Protection for our Arteries

The prevalence of heart disease and heart attacks has most people thinking arterial plaque, also known as atherosclerosis,  is inevitable.  But now we’re seeing proof that a lifestyle of exercise, a healthy diet, and managing stress can go a long way to prevent and reverse heart disease and can even shrink arterial plaque.

Enter the pomegranate!
A powerful fruit that helps us do just that.
pomegranate for heart health fixitplan
By Anton Croos (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Digging into the research and studies from around the globe, I was surprised and encouraged to learn how the pomegranate fruit reverses some of our body’s underlying behavior that leads to heart disease.   It seems our ruby red friend has potent abilities to Continue reading The Promise of Pomegranate

Probiotic for your Heart?

fixitplan newsL. Reuteri – A probiotic that targets cardiovascular disease

As promised in the Progress Report I posted a few weeks ago, I want to tell you about something new we’ve learned.   It all started during Bill’s checkup in April last year when Dr. Crandall encouraged us to look into a probiotic for heart health.  Well.. you don’t have to ask me twice!  I researched it as soon as I got home, and Bill started taking it that very week.  It’s called Lactobacillus Reuteri 30242, or more commonly known as L. Reuteri.  It’s a specific strain of Lactobacillus–a friendly bacteria that lives in our bodies and is found in some fermented foods like yogurt. These friendly bacteria are also called probiotics.

fixitplan L. Reuteri for heart health
By Reyesangel3 (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0

The American Heart Association reported this probiotic lowers bad (LDL) cholesterol and total cholesterol in people with high cholesterol.  In the study, a dosage of 100 mg taken twice daily was used, and after only 9 weeks total cholesterol dropped an average of 9.1% and LDL dropped 11.6% as compared to the study participants taking the placebo.

And so did Bill’s!  He began taking L. Reuteri in April in a dose of 2.5 Billion CFU (colony forming units) twice daily with food.  At the end of September his new lipid profile showed his total cholesterol had dropped 6.9% Continue reading Probiotic for your Heart?

Book Review~The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up

fixitplan.com book_review
FIX IT PLAN
BOOK REVIEW

 

It’s good to re-fuel with a fresh dose of motivation and guidance, and with that in mind I want to tell you about Steven Masley, MD’s “The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up”. I talked about it in an earlier post and linked to it on the Fix It! Plan Book Review The 30-Day Heart Tune-UpBooks & Links page, and (ta-da!) I’ve just finished reading it cover to cover.

Masley sums up the book’s purpose quite nicely in the very beginning: “What is the 30-Day Heart Tune-up? It’s all about shrinking arterial plaque, improving circulation, and strengthening your heart-beat.”

An important message I got from this book is that medicine may help us live longer, but it doesn’t stop the underlying cause of elevated blood pressure or cholesterol that leads to being prescribed medication in the first place.  So if we rely on medications alone, our bodies will very likely still be forming deadly arterial plaque. Continue reading Book Review~The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up

Nuclear Stress Test

Bill Goes Nuclear

It’s time to go beyond lab work and see how Bill  is doing with the lifestyle changes we put in place two years ago.  So here we are at the nuclear stress test lab, preparing for a followup with Dr. Crandall.

Nuclear Stress Test MonitorNuclear Stress Test… sounds kind of ominous, doesn’t it?  It goes by a number of different names but this one’s called nuclear myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), and it will be done to assess the health of his heart as well as blood flow to the heart. After injecting a radioactive liquid called a tracer into his bloodstream, a series of heart pictures (32 in Bill’s case) will be taken with a special camera before and then again after exercise while his vessels are dilated to assess blood flow. As Bill’s nurse explained, “blockages don’t dilate.”  In his book, The Simple Heart Cure, Dr. Crandall writes, “the heart lights up like a lantern wherever there’s good blood profusion.  If an area of the heart remains dark, we know that blood isn’t flowing as it should.” Continue reading Nuclear Stress Test