Here in the USA, the land of money-grabbing medicine, 50% of older females are taking five or more medications daily. 12% take ten or more meds daily!

This grotesque absurdity is called polypharmacy (I call it reckless-prescribing). Over the years between 1997 and 2012, overprescribing increased from around 18% to 60% of the older population.¹

Nice one for the pharmaceutical industry but not so much for the long-suffering individual, who is being squeezed for profits.

Quite aside from the question of side-effects and dangers of taking so many drugs, where the interactions are totally unknown and uninvestigated, most of the prescriptions are inappropriate (read “waste of time” or “don’t do any good”).

The American Geriatric Society (a non-profit) Beers Criteria® for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults lists a number of these (including statins, incidentally, which are dismissed as having little evidence of benefit for this population. They even went so far as to say “no clear evidence that high cholesterol leads to heart disease or death.”

They might have gone further and said there is “clear evidence” that for people aged over 50, those with the HIGHEST level of cholesterol live longer on average, a fact which is ruthlessly suppressed by pharmaceutical reps.

Also on the worthless list are wildly popular but very dangerous proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). Risks include reduced calcium absorption, leading to increased fracture risk (which can be fatal), B12 deficiency, thyroid hormone interference, acute and chronic kidney injury and C. difficile infection (very hard to get rid of and also potentially fatal).

A 2017 study among US veterans, published in the BMJ, showed there is also increased mortality with PPIs (shouldn’t medical care be REDUCING the risk of dying!)²

Thing is, I can take this list apart for you. But you can find it online if you want to know more and at this point it’s posted for public comment, if you want to dive in!³

I’d rather look at what is being missed by this pharma-controlled “science”.

For example, if you want to live healthy and live long, my number one piece of advice has been, and always will be: stay away from doctors and hospitals!

Mediterranean diet, for example, is a great start. But it’s not just a diet, it’s a lifestyle. It includes wine and good living (usually not reported). They walk, they socialize, they dine in families, they interact (paseo, passegiata, or evening stroll).

Passegiata in Siena, Italy

Americans are probably the laziest race I have ever encountered. They don’t walk. There is no culture of walking. I walk 10 – 12 miles a week and am often irritated by the fact there are whole chunks of sidewalk missing and I have to step into the road, where cars speed past recklessly. Pedestrians are unimportant is the message.

The average American driver would rather wait to park their car, until a space opens up right by the supermarket door. They take it as a personal disaster if they have to park a few spaces over and walk to the store (no, really!)

Plus Americans are very isolationist; I don’t mean politically. I mean they don’t meet with each very much. Most people have garage remotes and drive straight into their garage, the door comes down and you don’t see anybody after that. It’s like pulling up the drawbridge! (oh yes, and don’t say why don’t you knock on the door and say hello? You can but you might get shot! Americans are so fearful they’d rather shoot someone at the door than find out what they want (and they are legally entitled to do so, incidentally).

Here’s a sign we see often. Our next-door neighbors a few years back had one stuck on the front door!

Take Less Meds Live Longer

But I have spotted another significant reason why Mediterranean dwellers are so healthy and it’s not just because they don’t kill each other: I think it’s the fact they don’t take so many meds that helps them live a lot longer!

Of course there is no science behind this claim. Nobody is ever going to put up the money. But it is a good line of enquiry.

To get started, consider France—a very large country but with a definite Mediterranean border. It also happens to have one of the best healthcare systems in the world.

There the annual per capita cost of medications is $432 on average, compared to more than double that in the USA: $1,011 per capita per annum. Are the Americans more than twice as healthy? Are they hell!

In 2000 the WHO ranked France #1 in the world for health care. The USA came in at a dismal 37th!

I’m moving to France for my old age!

Seriously though, half of pharma drugs prescribed, even in France, are useless or dangerous, unnecessary and responsible for up to 20,000 deaths annually, according to a 900-page book published by two remarkable French MDs: Professor Philippe Even, director of the prestigious Necker Institute, and Bernard Debré, a doctor and member of parliament.

Among the medicines that they alleged were “completely useless” were statins. The blacklist of 58 drugs the doctors claimed are dangerous included anti-inflammatories and drugs prescribed for cardiovascular conditions, diabetes, osteoporosis, contraception, muscular cramps and nicotine addiction.

Of course they were denounced immediately by the watchdogs for Big Pharma. The Professional Federation of Medical Industrialists (drug manufacturers) declared their views were full of “confusions and approximations”. “This book is helping to alarm those who are sick needlessly and risks leading them to stop treatments,” it said in a blatantly pro-industry statement.

Christian Lajoux, the federation’s president said: “It is dangerous and irresponsible… hundreds of their examples are neither precise nor properly documented. We must not forget that the state exercises strict controls on drugs. France has specialist agencies responsible for the health of patients and of controlling what information is given to them.”

So, no change there then.

Dr. Even responded in an interview for the British Guardian newspaper, that the French consume medication worth 36 billion Euros every year. That’s about 532 Euros for each citizen who has an average 47 boxes of medicine in cupboards every year. The state covers 77% of the cost; in Britain spending on medicines is around £271 sterling ($345) per person. “Yet in the UK people have the same life expectancy of around 80 years and are no less healthy.”

According to Dr. Even, the pharmaceutical industry has a get-rich-quick attitude to making medicines and said it was interested in chasing only easy profits. “They haven’t discovered very much new for the last 30 years, but have multiplied production, using tricks and lies.”

What a shocking accusation! Ha ha!

Here’s to throwing ALL the pills down the drain and a better medical system for all!

Prof.

PS. It’s not just meds that are dangerous. Bungling surgeons are also a risk. Consider the case of kids dying at an alarming rate in All Children’s Heart Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, since the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins medical system took over. With a marketing ploy of promising to turn the heart surgery unit into “one of the best in the nation”, in fact the death rate has tripled. Other children received life-altering injuries.

Complaints about safety were ignored and parents and guardians were not made aware of the problems. The investigation also found that “surgeons made serious mistakes, and their procedures went wrong in unusual ways.”

References: 
1. Moriarity F, Hardy C, Bennett K, Smith SM, Fahey T. Trends and interaction of polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate prescribing in primary care over 15 years in Ireland: a repeated cross-sectional study. BMJ Open. 2015;5:e008656

2. Xie Y, Bowe B, Li T, Xian H, Yan Y, Al-Aly Z. Risk of death among users of proton pump inhibitors: a longitudinal observational cohort study of United States veterans. BMJ Open. 2017;7:e015735

3. https://www.americangeriatrics.org/media-center/news/draft-ags-updated-2018-beers-criteriar-potentially-inappropriate-medication-use

While cholesterol and healthy fats have been dragged through the mud, conditions much more devastating to the state of your heart health that have been allowed to go unchecked.

These true heart disease culprits have now reached epidemic proportions around the world.  This is particularly clear in developed nations that consume the Western Diet, which is also known as the Standard American Diet.

Keep an eye on your cholesterol but if you really want to protect your heart for decades to come, these are the three things you need to focus on getting (and keeping) under control.

Killer Heart Disease Risk #1: HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

Unless you’re getting your vitals checked during a regular doctor’s visit, you might not even think about hypertension – the common term for high blood pressure.

Worldwide, it is estimated that one billion people suffer with hypertension and many of them might not even know it.  It is referred to as the “silent killer” because you may never experience a single symptom to alert you to a problem.  Most cases remain undiagnosed and untreated.

There are two important numbers that can make the difference between a long healthy life and a very short one:

• Systolic (the first or top number) indicates how much pressure the blood pumping through your veins is putting on your arteries during each heartbeat.
• Diastolic (the second or bottom number) indicates how much pressure remains on your arteries between heartbeats.

Your blood pressure is considered “normal” if it is consistently lower than 120/80 – being consistently higher puts you at risk for hypertension.  Readings consistently higher than 140/90 means you probably already have high blood pressure and your risk of heart attack or stroke is increased.

HBP plays a role in 15% of deaths every year.  Most people with elevated blood pressure control it with medication.  There are ways you can lower it naturally but you should never stop taking prescribed medication until you speak to your doctor.

Exercise is extremely effective as are relaxation exercises, decreasing your caffeine and sodium intake, and eating more potassium-rich fruits and vegetables.

Are you a fan of dark chocolate or red wine?  Moderate consumption of both can help lower your blood pressure.

Killer Heart Disease Risk #2: HIGH BLOOD SUGAR

High blood sugar or “hyperglycemia” is widespread, but often overlooked, a threat to your health.  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that almost 100 million Americans have diabetes or pre-diabetes.  Most with the disease must manage their blood sugar daily.

Experts estimate that 90% of all diabetics – those diagnosed with type 2 diabetes – could prevent and even reverse their diagnosis with the right lifestyle changes.

• Once again, exercise can lower blood sugar levels! There is no getting around the fact that we need movement for a healthier and longer life.
• Decaffeinated coffee can bring your blood glucose levels down, as can unsweetened green tea. In some cases, one cup of green tea has been found to lower blood sugar by as much as 30 points!
• Adding apple cider vinegar to your salad can help block some of the post-meal insulin spike associated with consuming carbohydrates.
• Dashing some cinnamon on to your breakfast, coffee, or dessert has shown great promise in scientific studies. Cinnamon contains a compound called MHCP, which has effects similar to insulin.
• Even relaxation exercises have been shown to be effective for some patients.

Don’t ignore your blood sugar.  Get yourself checked at least once a year (or have someone with a glucose monitor check it for you).

Killer Heart Disease Risk #3: OBESITY

In the United States, as of 2016, the CDC reported that more than two-thirds of citizens are considered overweight or obese (2-in-3 people).

Excess weight can be agonizing both physically and emotionally.  Recent research links obesity to everything from heart disease to diabetes to cancer while the toll on positive body image can lead to depression and eating disorders.

Some people with a lifetime of weight control struggles move from one diet to another searching for the perfect one.  Too often, we expect instant gratification and the fad diets are ready and willing to promise almost overnight success.

Unfortunately, weight loss doesn’t work instantly – or even quickly if you want to keep it off.  There is no miracle drug.  You didn’t put the weight on overnight and it isn’t going to come off overnight.

The true success or failure of “diet plans” is almost impossible to pinpoint.  However, experts generally agree that more than half of dieters regain the weight they lost within the first year – some put that number as high as 95%.

Maintaining a healthy bodyweight is an important place to start to protect your heart.  The best results still come from the tried and true combination of exercise and healthier eating habits.

• Avoid food that comes in boxes, bags, or drive-thru windows.
• Cut out white flour, white rice, and white sugar.
• Remove all hydrogenated oils from your kitchen.
• Toss anything that says “low-fat” or “sugar-free” – the alternatives are worse.
• Exercise – every single day – for at least 20 minutes (low-impact counts).
• Make sure you get 8 hours of quality sleep every night.
• Gradually replace a portion of your sodas or high-sugar beverages with water.

To really make an impact on your long-term weight loss and overall health goals, read my book One Diet For Life.  It’s the best diet because it isn’t a “diet” at all.  It shows you how to eat the food that’s exactly right for you…because what works for someone else might be the exact wrong thing for you!

To lower your heart disease risks, you must think bigger…and that starts with the fuel that runs your body, movement, and determination that you won’t stop until you reach your goal.

Lower your blood pressure, blood sugar, and drop those pounds…permanently.

REFERENCES:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091102172026.htm

http://www.who.int/gho/ncd/risk_factors/blood_pressure_prevalence_text/en/

https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/15/health/high-blood-pressure-global-statistics/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-report.html

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/effects/index.html

https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/weight-management/health-risks-overweight

https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2014/11/17/no-95-percent-of-people-dont-fail-their-diets

No-one can argue that alcohol is not an emotional topic. Alcohol abuse is one of society’s biggest problems.

Controversy is good for the media, they say. Well I certainly stirred up a nestful of angry hornets with last week’s piece. Mostly people who want to go with their prejudices and demand that everyone else obey, regardless of what the facts show.

Harsh Words & The Health Benefits of Wine

Alcohol is good for you (in moderation) but nastiness isn’t.

One angry lady used the F-word and told me, in no uncertain terms, to F**k Off! Her family, she said, were all alcoholics and then proceeded to diss me, as if I had caused it.

Of course she was highly dysfunctional emotionally; children of alcoholics almost invariably are.

But get a grip, lady. I was not advocating alcohol abuse. I never have. I merely remarked that the so-called science around the values of alcohol—which are very real—is constantly picked at and twisted by people who put their own agenda above what research actually shows.

People are entitled to know the truth.

Yes, there is a link between (excess) alcohol and certain cancers (not all); yes, you are more likely to get killed in a car wreck (or kill somebody else); yes, alcohol abuse will shorten your life.

But the fact remains that deaths from all causes are lower in people who drink even 6+ drinks per week than those who completely abstain. What’s there to argue about?

Temperance morals, of course. Alcohol cannot benefit humans because we say it’s bad and “Screw the science.”

This shows up, for example, in descriptions of the famous Mediterranean diet. Lucky Mediterranean dwellers consume easily half a liter of wine per day. In some countries like Spain, with strong tradition of wine as part of a balanced diet, wine has been recognized by law as food!

Yet most researchers fail to mention this important detail.

Pivotal research in the New England Journal of Medicine (25 Feb, 2013) confirmed well-worn notions that the Mediterranean diet, including 7 or more glasses of wine per week, significantly reduced rates of heart attacks and strokes, as compared to a low-fat diet.

That’s not saying that the health benefits of wine are the sole source of benefits gained from the Mediterranean diet. But I am saying you can tell phoney researchers from the honest ones: phoney researchers hide the wine element and just pretend it isn’t there.

I’m prepared to go on record as saying that the figures just wouldn’t come out the same without the wine—but nobody to my knowledge has studied teetotal Mediterraneans (is there such a thing, I ask!)

There’s more to this: researchers for Kaiser-Permanente have measured the positive effects arising from alcohol consumption and the same health benefits could be reached only with 5 years of regular physical exercise.¹ I’d rather drink the wine, it’s easier!

I’m saying wine specifically (as I always have asserted) because the among the different alcoholic beverages, Gronbaek demonstrated a reduced relative risk of mortality in subjects who daily consumed moderate amounts of wine; the same effect was not observed with beer and spirits.² You will have heard of the so-called “French paradox”: the fact that the French down HUGE quantities of wine (and fat!), yet don’t seem any the worse for it. Why? It’s nearly always wine.

Authors Renaud and De Lorgeril (1992) postulated that a regular wine consumption was responsible of the great difference they observed among France and other Northern European Countries in terms of cardiovascular mortality.³

Wine, as the Italians say, is like bottled sunshine. It’s good for us.

To finish the point, you can download a PDF of good science from… “Ta-ra!”, an Italian university here.

It’s titled, rather nicely: Wine Consumption in the Mediterranean Diet: Old Concepts in a New Sight.

What If You Can’t Tolerate Wine?

Plenty of respondents were busy telling me about their intolerance of alcohol, as if I didn’t know about such as effect. Perhaps many of them were not aware they were talking to one of the world’s leading experts on food and drink reactions!

In my book Diet Wise I extensively covered alcohol intolerance, both as a Candida problem, and as a food allergy problem.

My great mentor Theron Randolph used to say that alcoholic beverages were “jet-propelled food allergy”, meaning the reaction was greatly intensified if accompanied by alcohol.

See, alcoholic drinks are made from foods: yeast, grapes, potato (proper vodka), corn, wheat and barley. If you are allergic to any of these foods then, of course, you will react to the alcoholic drink containing it.

In that book I gave a food table of what drinks contain what foodstuffs. If you have a problem, you need to get yourself a copy. It’s a great book to have anyway; a once-in-a-lifetime exploration that could put decades on your life.

But meanwhile, here’s a quick rating. Best tolerated by those with food allergies and intolerance are white wines and champagnes. Did you know that red wine has 100 times more histamine content than white wine? Of course champagne will blow some people’s head off. These individual sensitivities do not alter the overall picture of the health benefits of wine.

Beer has few of the benefits, though my German subscribers would argue about that!

Not so good are spirits. One of the tests you can do for grain allergy is abstain from all wheat and alcohol for 4 days and then down a double scotch. It will often put the patient in bed for a couple days (of course that’s not really recommended as an allergy test).

So, once again, I toast your very good health. If you can’t join me, I’m sorry! Here’s me and Viv on Monday of this week, enjoying a glass of wine in the Bardot Brasserie, Las Vegas, on her birthday. She’s beautiful and looks almost 20 years younger than she actually is!

Wine never hurt her!

^References:

^{1. A. L. Klatsky, G. D. Friedman and A. B. Siegelaub, “Alcohol Consumption before Myocardial Infarction. Results from the Kaiser-Permanente Epidemiologic Study of Myocardial Infarction,” Annals of Internal Medicine, Vol. 81, No. 3, 1974, pp. 294-301}

^{2. M. Gronbaek and T. I. Sorensen, “Alcohol Consumption and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease,” British Medical Journal, Vol. 313, No. 7053, 1996, pp. 365-366. doi:10.1136/bmj.313.7053.365}

^{3. S. Renaud and M. De Lorgeril, “Wine, Alcohol, Platelets and the French Paradox for Coronary Artery Disease,” Lancet, Vol. 339, No. 8808, 1992, pp. 1523-1526}

And I mean alcohol health benefits facts:

Fact 1. People who drink live longer on average than teetotallers. In fact those with the highest alcohol intake, for both men and women, death rates did not reach the same level as that abstainers! That’s pretty bad news for the moralizers.

Fact 2. There is “strong evidence” that alcohol protects against heart disease.

Fact 3. There is moderate evidence that alcohol protects against dementia.

Fact 4. The U.S. is not a heavy-drinking nation, yet its health outcomes are poor compared with other economically-advanced nations who drink much more on average. (For example, despite being heavily out-drunk by the English, Americans have almost exactly twice their levels of diabetes, cancer, and heart disease).

Daily wine drinking has been a health habit of the Old World for 1,000s of years!

So why isn’t this being talked about and made more widely known? American reactionary puritanism, basically.

Even as health bodies like the CDC and Dietary Guidelines for Americans (prepared by Health and Human Services) now recognize the decisive benefits from moderate drinking, each such announcement is met by an onslaught of opposition and criticism, and is always at risk of being reversed.

For example, when the Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released by the Department of Agriculture and HHS, there was uproar, including public denunciations from busybody Strom Thurmond, Senator for South Carolina, himself a teetoaller. Apparently he doesn’t like to drink, so nobody else must.

Noting that even drinking at non-pathological levels above recommended moderate limits gives you a better chance of a longer life than abstaining draws louder protests still. Yet that’s exactly what the evidence tells us.

Driven by the cultural residue of Temperance, most Americans still view drinking as unhealthy; many call alcohol toxic. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Aversion To The Truth

Larry King underwent a bypass procedure in 1987 following a heart attack. In 2007, he hosted a two-hour PBS special, “The Hidden Epidemic: Heart Disease in America”, about the pioneering Framingham Heart Study. King led a panel of five experts in a discussion of diet, sex, exercise, smoking — just about everything that people do that impacts the health of their hearts.

Everything, that is, except that beverage alcohol conveys heart health advantages, and that abstinence from alcohol is among the major risk factors for heart disease. It was never mentioned.

Not discussing the beneficial impact of alcohol on heart disease has been a systematic policy of the U.S. public health establishment. The National Institutes of Health, which funded the Framingham research, forbad Harvard epidemiologist Carl Seltzer from publishing the benefits of drinking, he later revealed.

Why hide the facts? If drinking good for you, people should be told.

But no, old beliefs and prejudices still stalk the halls of power and out-of-date attitudes are exalted above one of the most famous health studies of all time!

Epidemiological study after study (that is, research tracing drinkers, their consumption, and their life outcomes) produces consistent findings — there are now hundreds of such studies. But whenever any sort of research can be teased out to shakily suggest drinking is bad for you, it will be reported with a huge fanfare as the final “truth”!

An example of this twisted manipulation of the facts is that, when people with a gene associated with less alcohol consumption (including less binge drinking), as well as other effects, were found to have better outcomes, this highly indirect evidence — as opposed to research measuring actual drinking and heart disease — was cited to “prove” alcohol does not benefit the heart.

Yet in 2006, the Archives of Internal Medicine, an American Medical Association journal, published an analysis based on 34 well-designed prospective studies — that is, research which follows subjects for years, even decades. This meta-analysis, incorporating a million subjects, found that “1 to 2 drinks per day for women and 2 to 4 drinks per day for men are inversely associated with total mortality.”¹

The more alcohol a society consumes, the fewer alcohol-related problems and alcohol-related deaths (including cirrhosis) it has.

Here’s Why

Studies of drinking habits vs. health usually suffer from 2 fundamental snags:

1. When people report their drinking habits, they mostly lie. I reckon it’s safe to DOUBLE what people claim they are doing. Ergo “safe intake” is approximately double what is claimed by naïve interviewers. The English and French habits more or less confirm this.
2. The dangers of binge drinking are considerable (and stupid advice from health authorities is driving people to binge drinking). There is a world of difference between drinking 10 beverages in one night and drinking 2 or 3 beverages a day over a 7-day period.

So the more you drink — up to two drinks a day for woman, and four for men — the less likely you are to die, provided you drink regularly. If you only drink occasionally, you must be guarded when you do.

There is a small cadre of people who cannot drink “safely” and these are women with the “breast-cancer gene” mutations (BRCA1 and BRCA2) or a first-degree (mother, sister) relation who has had breast cancer, for whom alcohol consumption is far riskier.

Of course, frequent, heavy binge drinking is unhealthy. But then you knew that already, didn’t you? If you don’t distinguish binge drinking from daily moderate drinking, that would be due to some Americans’ puritanism, which causes them to interpret any daily drinking as addiction! It isn’t.

Additionally, objectors note, drinkers showing longevity may be wine-sniffling, upper-middle-class professionals. Now I’m prejudiced in favor of wine as the healthiest drink. But even I have to admit that virtually no study has ever found that the type of alcohol consumed impacts these results.

Alcohol Health Benefits Include Dementia Too

That’s important for us Boomers.

A 2008 Research Society on Alcoholism review noted: “In over half of nearly 45 reports since the early 1990s, significantly reduced risks of cognitive loss or dementia in moderate, non-binge consumers of alcohol (wine, beer, liquor) have been observed.” This finding has been affirmed numerous times, for example in this article based on the Whitehall Study, the British equivalent of Framingham.

Yet, even in the Whitehall study, in which “The authors concluded that for middle-aged subjects, increasing levels of alcohol consumption were associated with better function regarding some aspects of cognition,” the researchers cautioned, “it is not proposed that these findings be used to encourage increased alcohol consumption.”

What is comes down to is that despite all the evidence that drinking is good for you—and I repeat—even serious drinkers of 6 or more drinks a day, live longer than abstainers. Yet the onslaught of busybodies telling you not to drink continues virtually unchecked.

What about encouraging moderate alcohol consumption??? It’s good for you!

The fact is that alcohol is that happy combination: a pleasurable substance that also conveys health benefits. Those benefits are greatest if you drink moderately. But even drinking more than is “perfectly” recommended, without displaying clinical symptoms of problem drinking or alcohol dependence (and these are not subtle), is generally better for you than drinking nothing. The puritans can’t stand that.

I believe people have a right to know that drinking is among a list of positive health behaviors, along with good diet, not smoking and exercize.

As Stanton Peele remarked in an article entitled The Truth We Won’t Admit: Drinking Is Healthy, for Pacific Standard magazine,² “Human beings have grown up alongside alcohol: Beverage alcohol has been found at the site of every early center of civilization. The more alcohol a society consumes, the fewer alcohol-related problems and alcohol-related deaths (including cirrhosis) it has, since these societies, such as those in Southern Europe, integrate drinking with social life.”

Cheers!

^{References:
Arch Intern Med. 2006;166(22):2437-2445. doi:10.1001/archinte.166.22.2437
https://psmag.com/the-truth-we-won-t-admit-drinking-is-healthy-4d3c7b12fa9a#.4w5s3axzq}

It’s staggering to understand that almost one-third of all deaths (for both men and women) are due to hearts that stop working for one reason or another.

To say your heart health must be your primary concern (at every age) is an understatement. To ignore your heart health (as most do) is a recipe for disaster.

While the mainstream medical community and health organizations often get the particulars of heart disease wrong (stop putting all the blame on cholesterol!), there are a few heart disease risks we all agree are damaging your cardiovascular system one cell at a time.

Top 5 Heart Disease Risk Factors

1. Poor diet
2. Lack of exercise
3. Smoking
4. Excess alcohol consumption
5. Obesity

These are the five big ones. The ones that raise your heart disease risk by leaps and bounds. First and foremost, these habits cause massive inflammation throughout your body. You already know that inflammation is the root cause of all major diseases and conditions.

Macronutrients Essential to Your DNA

Protein, fats, and carbohydrates are the three macronutrients you require to live. You cannot survive without the calories and energy they provide to fuel you on the cellular level and keep your body’s systems running.

I’ve talked extensively about healthy fats and carbohydrates but today, I’m going to focus on the power of the third macronutrient.

You must increase your intake of protein.

This is a choice for your health that you can make right now. It’s critical that you get this simple and highly effective essential macronutrient into your body. Experts estimate this single substance makes up more than 15% of your total body weight.

According to the National Institutes of Health, “Protein is composed of amino acids (compounds made of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, or sulfur). Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and proteins are the building blocks of muscle.”

Your muscles, your metabolism, fail without enough protein. It fills you up with fuel your body uses in its entirety – wasting nothing.

The 9 Best Food Sources of Protein

1. Pure whey protein
2. Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and Swiss cheese
3. Eggs (one of my personal favorites)
4. Beef, pork, chicken, and turkey
5. Tuna, halibut, salmon, and tilapia
6. Canned anchovies or sardines
7. Beans, legumes, and nuts
8. Peanut butter
9. Wheat germ or quinoa

Unfortunately, the standard diets of developed countries mean we don’t take in enough pure protein. We negate the benefits of many protein-rich foods by the way they’re grown, processed, and prepared in our kitchens.

You need to keep the process simple to ensure you’re getting what your body needs consistently – not just when the perfect storm comes together in the occasional meal.

The Value (and Convenience) of Pure Whey Protein

In a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers from several national health agencies found that whey protein directly affects heart disease risk. “Whey protein lowers blood pressure and improves endothelial [lining of your blood and lymphatic vessels] function and lipid biomarkers in adults with hypertension.”

Whey protein is the clear liquid that separates from cow milk during the manufacturing of cheese. It’s considered a “complete” protein because it provides the right balance of all nine essential amino acids your body requires.

Benefits of Whey

• Highly digestible
• Necessary for muscle growth and maintenance
• Lowers heart disease risk
• Stimulates glutathione production (used in every cell in your body)
• Moderates blood sugar
• Reduces inflammation
• Regulates low-density (LDL) cholesterol
• Filling and beneficial to your weight loss goals

University of Reading (UK) researchers discovered their participants taking whey protein experienced an 8% drop in overall heart disease risk.

One of the study’s authors, Professor Ian Givens, explained, “By giving people a high dose of whey protein, similar to the amount used by athletes, we were able to see a significant impact over an eight-week trial.”

Getting Complete Nutrition Has Never Been Easier!

Scientists used to think you couldn’t do anything to change the genetics you were born with. The study of nutrigenomics has shown researchers that your genes are similar to light switches.

“Bad” genes are in the “off” position. These can contribute to things like low energy or difficulty losing weight. You can turn them on with the right nutrients!

It’s more than the sporadic “good for you” meal that includes a brilliant salad. Choosing to eat kale now and again isn’t going to give you consistent results.

You need a very specific blend of nutrients. Something you can consume each and every day to provide your body with the combination of good stuff it really requires.

Dr. Keith’s Own^® Protein Meal Replacement Shake helps you put your pro-protein plan to lower heart disease risk into action!

• No synthetic ingredients
• Zero sugar
• Quality healthy fats
• 400% more fiber than similar shakes
• 20 grams per serving of highest quality whey protein available
• Digestive enzymes and probiotics
• No growth hormones, antibiotics, or other impurities
• No lactose or casein
• Packed with vitamins A, Bs, C, D, E, K, calcium, chromium, folic acid, iron, potassium, magnesium, and more!

Even if you’re not trying to lose weight or become a bodybuilder, making these incredible shakes part of your daily routine is one of the best (and easiest) things you can do for your health.

Imagine tossing a scoop of sweet chocolate cream into a strawberry-banana smoothie in the morning. The decadent flavors will make it feel like dessert but your body will easily digest, absorb, and use all the powerful compounds.

You’re going to feel amazing.

Your body needs protein to live. Your risk of heart disease drops with pure protein consumption. Here’s a simple and highly effective way to look better, feel younger, and live longer.

Many causes of high blood pressure – poor diet, lack of exercise, inadequate sleep, smoking, substance abuse – are well known and well documented.

There is one area that is fairly new to scientific research that has a far greater impact than anyone ever imagined. Over the last ten years, chronic stress (and the out of control inflammation it stimulates internally) has been identified as a root cause of most major disease.

In those same ten years, one recently acknowledged source of chronic stress has spread faster than any Biblical plague of locusts.

It would be difficult to find adults (or young people) without a cell phone on their person. The United Nations states that 6 billion people have access to mobile phones and that’s more than the 4.5 billion people who have access to a working toilet.

According to U.S. Statistics from Pew Research Center

• Approximately 67% of cell phone users check their phone constantly for notifications – despite not receiving a vibration or audible alert.
• More than 44% of cell phone users sleep with their phone beside them so they don’t “miss” anything.
• A whopping 29% of cell phone users are so dependent on their phones that they can’t imagine being without it.
• At least 7% have no other means to access the internet without their cell phone.

I use my cell phone for business and personal tasks. I’m certainly not alone.

However, I’m still in the lower range of daily use compared to how some utilize their mobile devices. As are many of my colleagues who tell me it’s the best way to stay in contact with friends and family. They’re able to get photos, information, and even reminders of important life events such as birthdays and anniversaries.

For every person who uses the map feature to resolve being hopelessly lost, the email feature to send a forgotten follow up while on vacation, or uses the camera to snap a photo of something that must not be forgotten…there are others who cannot put their phone down for any amount of time without feeling something akin to panic.

I’ve watched people in restaurants obsessively look at their screens as if they might have missed something in the moments since they last checked.

As a human being, it makes me wonder about the mass “connection” of the human race despite the distinct isolation apparent in how people interact with one another. As a doctor, it makes me worry about the health and mental/emotional wellbeing of a person who can’t let go of their phone for even a small amount of time.

That’s one reason that cell phones are now classed as a growing addiction.

Put It Down and Lower High Blood Pressure

Globally, hypertension affects more than one billion people. That statistic is considered low because many people who have it might not even know. The American Heart Association cautions every person to regularly check their blood pressure because sustained high blood pressure damages the tissues of your heart, arteries, and other organs.

You could literally have hypertension for years and not realize. The “symptoms” listed on websites are misleading because only a small portion of patients experience any at all.

By the time you realize, you could already be in crisis. For far too many, their first sign of needing to lower high blood pressure is a stroke or heart attack.

There are many places to check your blood pressure for free. Chain pharmacy locations and even big box stores that have pharmacies tend to offer a small monitoring station for anyone to use. Avoid taking your BP immediately after exercise, smoking, or drinking a large caffeinated beverage because it could give you the wrong reading.

Throughout the day, your blood pressure fluctuates. It will go up during a meeting with your boss or commuting home but lower if you’re enjoying time with your family or taking a relaxing shower. These fluctuations are normal.

What isn’t normal is sustained BP levels above 120/80. The first number is systolic. That’s how hard your blood is hitting the walls of your arteries with each beat. The second number is diastolic. That’s the pressure on your arteries in between beats.

If your reading is consistently higher than 140/90 then you already have hypertension.

Maintaining a healthy body weight, eating right, and getting regular exercise is critical but researchers with the University of Worcester think we might need to take our heart healthy routine a bit further and examine cell phone usage.

Richard Balding, senior author of the Worcester study, explained, “Smart phone use is increasing at a rapid rate and we are likely to see an associated increase in stress from social networking.”

In another study conducted by doctors at Guglielmo da Saliceto Hospital, patients on cell phones could experience a dramatic jump in blood pressure from 121/77 to 129/82.

Simply from talking on the phone.

Tom Stafford with the University of Sheffield drew a correlation between gambling and cell phone use using the variable interval reinforcement schedule. “Rather than reward an action every time it is performed, you reward it sometimes, but not in a predictable way. With email, usually when I check it there is nothing interesting. Every so often, there’s something wonderful – an invite out or maybe some juicy gossip – and I get a reward.”

That’s going to keep your stress in a constant state of up and down, hoping for something great in a sea of inane texts, emails, and social media posts. To put it bluntly, that’s not good for your heart! If you haven’t checked your BP lately – I cannot urge you strongly enough to do so. You cannot address lowering high blood pressure if you don’t even know you have it!

Cell phone use is growing and access to cell phones is both a blessing and a curse. As with anything in life, moderation is key. Don’t sleep with it and turn it off when you’re relaxing.

A phone is supposed to make life easier but if you spend all your time staring at a screen, you might be missing a lot going on around you.

People and experiences are waiting for you in the real world. Happening right now.

For decades, cardiovascular disease has claimed the lives of hundreds of millions globally while scientists scramble to unravel the mysteries surrounding the human body.

Every year, new information comes to light about our critical organs, how our bodies work, and what we can do to protect them.

Researchers at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine just learned exciting new details about the respiratory cycle functions.

Up until now, conventional thought stated that the respiratory system used two gases – oxygen and carbon dioxide. Your red blood cells gather and transport inhaled oxygen to your cells while picking up waste carbon dioxide to be exhaled.

All this time, there’s been an unknown third gas cycling in and out of your heart: nitric oxide.

The Benefits of Nitric Oxide

Nitric oxide determines when and how the oxygen carried by the red blood cells is released into your tissues. Without this third gas carried along with the oxygen, the proteins in your cells (hemoglobin) wouldn’t be able to do this crucial job.

Jonathan Stamler is a cardiologist and professor at Case Western who was one of the authors of the study. “Blood flow to tissues is actually more important in most circumstances than how much oxygen is carried by hemoglobin,” he explains.

Without the benefits of nitric oxide, the human respiratory system would be unable to function at all. The mystery of why there was an disproportion in oxygen delivery (what was picked up and what was actually delivered to cells) is finally clear.

Nitric oxide controls the overall blood flow. They refer to it in their final results as blood flow autoregulation and the mapping for this cycle is wired into the hemoglobin. Without sufficient nitric oxide, oxygen doesn’t make it to the cells that need it. No matter how much oxygen your red blood cells load up, delivery is dependent on this third gas.

Professor Stamlin stated, “Within the tissues, the tiny vessels and the red blood cells together make up the critical entity controlling blood flow. Red blood cell dysfunction is likely a hidden contributor to diseases of the heart, lung and blood such as heart attack, heart failure, stroke and ischemic injury to kidneys.”

This scientific breakthrough (and that happens much more rarely than I’d like) could change the way heart disease is approached going forward. It’s entirely plausible that the benefits of nitric oxide could hold the key to a healthy heart.

Not to mention every other cell in your body that needs that regular delivery of oxygen!

Facts about Nitric Oxide

Most people don’t know much about this molecule but it’s often confused with nitrous oxide (laughing gas). It’s created by your body, in the lining of your blood vessels. The healthier you are, the better your production. If you have health issues, chronic stress, or rampant inflammation, your body makes less nitric oxide.

The top benefits of nitric oxide you need to know…

• Improves oxygen delivery to every cell
• Expands blood vessels and improves overall circulation
• Lowers risk of plaque accumulation on arterial walls
• Aids in preventing blood clots
• Helps to regulate your blood pressure
• Improves erectile dysfunction (the most common ED drugs use nitric oxide)
• Raises the effectiveness of your workouts by getting more oxygen to muscles
• Critical to neurotransmissions in the brain and helps prevent cognitive decline

Nitric oxide is your own version of nitroglycerin. That’s the drug used to alleviate pain in patients with angina, which converts into the natural form once ingested. The drug uses the same biological pathways as the nitric oxide created by your body.

You can boost your levels of beneficial nitric oxide through your diet and lifestyle choices. Following a pro-antioxidant eating plan and limiting pro-inflammatory behaviors such as excessive alcohol consumption and smoking also benefit your body’s ability to make this critical third gas you need more than anyone ever imagined.

Best Foods to Boost Nitric Oxide Production

• Grass-fed meat
• Eggs
• Leafy greens (kale, spinach, arugula, cabbage)
• Beets and beet juice
• Celery and carrots
• Radishes

Lowering your stress, getting vitamin D through sunlight, exercise, and adequate sleep also help lower inflammation and heal your body. So many diseases and conditions are prevented or improved by these same habits.

You might not have known much about nitric oxide before but now that you do, you need to make sure your body stimulates enough. Your heart (and every other cell in your body) is going to thank you!

Poor Choices Are Catching Up to Us

I watched as the “low-fat” craze swept the world in the eighties and knew we were going to see serious repercussions. I watched sugar take a place at the head of our diet table and knew it would come with critical consequences. I found myself amazed as food manufacturers filled the stores with junk I wouldn’t feel comfortable feeding a pet, much less a human being.

As a doctor, I shuddered at the explosion of the pharmaceutical industry over the last four decades. I found myself in true shock as pills flooded the market, prescribed hundreds of thousands of times, without proper long-term testing or explanation of side effects.

I’ve stared on in bafflement as other doctors turned almost completely to treatment of symptoms rather than resolving the cause of one disease after another. The “new solution” of the latest drug handed to millions of patients as doctors pocketed fortunes in kickbacks from Big Pharma.

Shaking my head, I’ve been a front row witness to the degeneration of the medical industry, drug companies, and insurance corporations focused too much on profit and not nearly enough on the wellbeing of the people who need help.

Women’s Heart Disease Still Unimportant to Media

One aspect of human health that continues to amaze me is the blind eye regarding women and heart disease. While we lose hundreds of thousands of women in the United States annually – around 8 million women worldwide – it seems bizarre that no one is talking about it.

Where is the outrage? Where are the walks and ribbons?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that a vast majority of women don’t even know heart disease is a serious risk!

Ask any woman what they think is the biggest health risk they have to worry about and they’ll tell you breast cancer. The media storm surrounding breast cancer makes it seem the biggest, baddest threat on the horizon. You’d think more women die from breast cancer than anything else and that it’s the main thing females need to be worried about in regards to their health.

It’s not even close.

A woman dies almost every minute from heart attack or stroke. Every minute of every day, a woman dies and more than two-thirds of them won’t feel a single symptom. They won’t know what’s happening. For many, a major (and possibly deadly) heart event will be their first indication of a problem with their cardiovascular system.

Heart disease is the #1 killer of women.

When women and heart disease interact for the first time, women have a lower chance of survival than their male counterparts.

The Ugly Truth Behind Heart Disease in Women

There was a time that only women over the age of 55 had to be worried about heart disease. Post-menopause and changes to hormones were thought to increase risk.

Now…women ages 40-65 are the highest risk demographic. It seems that every year, the ages of men and women impacted by heart disease are younger and younger.

It infuriates me. It’s true that more people are surviving massive heart events than they used to but why are so many people having heart attacks and strokes in the first place? What are the main reasons women’s heart disease statistics are so out of control?

1. Poor diet
2. Increased stress
3. Out of control inflammation
4. Prolonged sleep deprivation
5. Chronic dehydration
6. Smoking
7. Too much alcohol
8. Ignored overweight and obesity
9. Other diseases such as diabetes

Then there is the fact that women aren’t counseled about heart disease by their doctors. If they present to the hospital with symptoms of a heart event that isn’t like the “television heart attacks,” they have even been sent home!

A woman having a heart attack isn’t like the ones that happen in the movies. The heart attacks you see on the big screen represent the most common symptoms (numbness in the left arm, chest pain, shortness of breath) that men have during a heart attack…not women.

As I mentioned, two-thirds of women won’t have any signs at all! When they do feel “something isn’t right,” they still might not think it’s a heart attack because it isn’t usually similar to what men feel before a heart attack.

Heart Attack Symptoms Too Often Ignored

• Dull pain or discomfort in the chest (angina)
• Unusual pain in the upper back, lower back, or abdomen implies stress to the heart
• Throbbing pain in the jaw, neck, or throat (can manifest for weeks before a heart event)
• Fatigue that doesn’t lessen with rest or sleep
• Nausea or flu-like symptoms (can manifest for weeks before a heart event)
• Shortness of breath (can manifest for weeks before a heart event)

The bottom line is that women must act right now to protect their hearts.

Men have to get involved and know the facts about heart disease and women. We all have wives, mothers, sisters, and friends who think WE MEN are the ones at risk!

My good friend Alex Bradford has written a special free report for women specifically called “Why Your Heart is Modern Medicine’s Deadliest Blind Spot” and I highly recommend you download it right now.

Do it for your heart or for the hearts of the women in your life. In the time it took you to read this article, several more women died from heart attack or stroke.

Heart disease. As much of a woman’s disease as a man’s and we have no time to waste.

There may not be walks, there may not be ribbons, so we need to utilize word of mouth and get this knowledge out to women. Right now.

Doctors have it drummed into them that fats (in particular saturated fat) are bad for us. Whereas in fact certain fats are essential to survival and form part of our all-important cell membranes.

Gosh, even our brains are forty percent fat; how would we even think without good clean fats?

Just about every media outlet, doctor, university, and health “expert” jumped on board the “kill the fat” wagon…but it was premature! It also turns out that it was wrong. Saturated fat is not the enemy.

In developed nations we eat far too many processed foods that contain refined partially hydrogenated and so-called “heart-healthy” oils such as: peanut, cottonseed, canola (rapeseed), vegetable, and corn.

According to the FDA, 12 percent of all processed foods contain at least one partially hydrogenated oil, aka trans fat.

These chemically created oils create inflammation and it is inflammation that is at root of cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, coronary artery disease, all the problems of aging, including depression, allergy sensitivity, autoimmune disease, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

Clearly, the media and “health experts” want to keep you in ignorance, but I want you to know the real science behind the benefits of saturated fat.

Are These The Healthiest People in the World?

Did you know that people on this little known tropical island of Kitava boasts no cancer, no heart disease, no diabetes or obesity – not even Alzheimer’s or dementia!

And although this native island population has remained isolated for hundreds of years – cut off from the “miracles” of western medicine, science, and nutrition…

…Researchers have been unable to document a SINGLE case of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, or obesity!

What’s more – while their bodies show no sign of chronic disease, the natives’ minds also remain sharp and engaged.

Elderly tribe members participate in physical labor, complex decision-making, and leadership roles.

They stay fit and active well into their 80s and 90s, they have no concept of spontaneous death from stroke or heart attack.

In fact, these may in fact be the healthiest people in the world.

So how do they do it?

All this is possible because these people eat the right kinds of fat every single day – instead of buying into the “low-fat craze” that has been going on for way too long!

They discovered what’s called… The Healing Fats of Life.

My close friend Alex has produced a marvelous book and it is hands down the best book on fats ever written!

I’ve wanted to write a book about this topic, but Alex beat me to it! It explains exactly why your body NEEDS healthy fats, how to use them with practical tips and how-to’s, which ones to choose, written in a lovely easy to understand style, all with thorough and accurate science page after page.

I’ve said it multiple times before that – eating the wrong fats can lead to inflammation – which creates a breeding ground for many chronic diseases, but when you eat the RIGHT kinds of fats you get incredible benefits such as:

• Supercharged brain health
• Improved memory and recall
• Rapid weight loss
• Preventing Alzheimer’s
• Reversing type-2 diabetes
• Preventing and reversing heart disease – the #1 killer in the western world
• Detoxing your body
• Boosting your immune health
• Balancing your hormones…
• and much more!

If you are ready to dump the faulty science and misleading propaganda of the food industry, you need to get the real truth about the most maligned class of foods and read this masterpiece!

It will change the way you think about fat forever! I recommend it 110% …click here and discover The Healing Fats of Life today!

Kidneys work hard to…

• Remove waste products from your body through the urine that are by-products of the foods you eat.
• Flush out toxins you accumulate from your environment, lifestyle habits such as smoking or substance abuse, and the chemical by-products of pharmaceutical drugs.
• Produce active vitamin D that keeps your bones strong.
• Affect your uptake of the essential vitamin calcium from the intestinal tract.
• Keep your body’s fluid levels in balance.
• Regulates your production of red blood cells.
• Control blood pressure with the release of hormones.

The link between kidney health and heart health is becoming better understood every year.

A recent study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that a decrease in kidney function might be a measurable heart disease risk factor – including determining who is at risk of sudden death from heart attack or stroke. Their research findings were published in the Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology journal.

Known Heart Disease Risk Factors – Not Preventable

• Age: The majority of those who die from heart failure are over the age of 65 and suffer from long-term damage to arteries, weaker heart, and thickening of the heart muscle.

• Family History: If you have an immediate family member who developed heart disease before the age of 55, your risk is higher.

• Gender: Males are at greater risk of heart disease but women are more likely to die of a heart attack than men.

• Congenital Heart Defect (something you are born with)

Known Heart Disease Risk Factors – Preventable

• Poor Diet: If you consume too many unhealthy fats or eat a diet high in refined sugar, flour, or salt. If you do not consume enough fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, and antioxidants, your risk for heart disease rises.

• Smoking: If you smoke, your risk of heart disease is 2-4 times higher than a non-smoker and you are more likely to die of a heart event than a non-smoker.

• Substance Abuse: Excessive alcohol consumption or drug use puts a strain on all of your vital organs.

• Diabetes (the risk factors for heart disease and diabetes are similar)

• Sedentary Lifestyle: You should try to exercise at least 30 minutes every day – even if it is low-impact. This is a risk factor of heart disease and many other serious illnesses.

• Stress: Ongoing stress leads to chronic inflammation, which damages your arteries and can directly cause high blood pressure. HBP that is out of control eventually leads to hardening of the arteries.

• Obesity: This particular risk factor can make other risk factors listed here much worse. For instance, if you are obese and a smoker, your risk is even higher.

Testing kidney function is a common procedure done in the United States for patients with diabetes and heart disease. One test checks for creatinine and determines the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). The other measures the output of protein (albumin) in the urine. These tests can determine the existence of kidney malfunction or failure.

Lead researcher in the Johns Hopkins’ study, MD, PhD Kunihiro Matsushita, explained, “Cholesterol levels and blood pressure tests are good indicators of cardiovascular risk, but they are not perfect.”

Their data was collected from two dozen prior studies done on more than 637,000 people without prior history of heart disease. Both kidney tests were found to pinpoint a valid risk factor of heart disease.

If you suffer from kidney disease, your risk of heart disease is double that of a person with healthy kidneys. It is critical to keep them in excellent condition at all times!

5 Ways to Protect Your Kidneys and Lower Heart Disease Risk

1. Eat a balanced diet. I talk about this constantly! Get rid of the junk and replace it with organic produce, healthy fats, and high antioxidant content. Limit your intake of many pro-inflammatory goods such as alcohol or caffeine.

2. Exercise daily. Whether you feel like it or not, get moving. Choose a low-impact form to get you in the habit and then keep going.

3. Avoid taking too many pills. If you don’t truly need over-the-counter medication, stop taking it! Talk to your doctor about reducing your number of prescriptions.

4. Quit smoking! No excuses because you know what this does to every cell inside you!

5. Control your weight. This isn’t about feeling bad about your outer image, this is about the health of every organ you have. Obesity puts a strain on you and raises your risk for every primary disease – and it can be changed.

These tips are good to lower your risk of every critical disease and they are based on common sense. Get started on a healthier you right now.