It’s February—happy American Heart Month! Here are five important (yet simple) dietary ways to love your heart. Enjoy!

1.     Eat six to eight servings of colorful vegetables each day (a serving of vegetables is half a cup). Choose fresh, frozen, or home canned (in glass jars) over canned vegetables in metal cans. Eat a variety of colors to be sure you’re getting an assortment of nutrients—the compounds that make vegetables colorful actually have different health benefits! Vegetables can be easily and healthfully enjoyed raw, lightly steamed with olive oil or grassfed butter, or stir-fried with your favorite protein source.

2.    Eat two to three cloves of garlic daily, or if you’re not a fan of garlic take a daily garlic supplement in pill form. Garlic contains compounds which have been shown to reduce the formation of unwanted blood clots—an important benefit in preventing heart attack and stroke.

3.    Eat two tablespoons of raw walnuts each day. Walnuts are significantly higher than other nuts in omega 3 fats, the type of fat that has been shown to lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. They taste great on their own as a snack, or can be chopped up and served over oatmeal or salads.

4.    Eat one tablespoon of cold pressed olive oil daily. Olive oil is a rich source of antioxidants and monounsaturated fat, two key ingredients that have been found to keep cholesterol levels in balance and prevent heart disease.

5.     Eat small, clean fish twice per week. Fish contains protein and heart-healthy fats that fight inflammation. Smaller varieties of fish contain less mercury than larger fish. See www.gotmercury.org for a list of healthy fish choices.

There are simple things that you can do to ensure that you live free from the common ailments that afflict much of the world today, such as heart disease and stroke. Just like taking care of your car, preventive maintenance for your body is an important component of living a healthy lifestyle.

One of the greatest ways that you can keep your body tuned up is to optimize your circulation system. The easiest way to do this is to move your body. We are all descendants of cave men that had to “use it or lose it” if they wanted to stay alive.  Although we don’t have to run after our food to catch it these days, we are not much different from them in that our bodies are built to move vigorously and consistently.

Another way to help your circulation system is to include lots of fruits and vegetables in your diet and if you’re going to eat meat and dairy products make sure they are organic and not full of pesticides, antibiotics and hormones.

A third way to keep your circulation system free from all blockages is to take a great herbal heart tincture as a regular tonic, such as MFC’s  “Heart Health”.  From the description: “The herbs in this formula have been known to help reduce the risk of heart attack, regulate cardiac rhythm and generally tone the circulatory system.”
 
Remember, maintenance is what you do on a regular basis, even when nothing’s wrong with your car — or your body.

Information on the herbs in Heart Health:

-Hawthorne, known to ancients as the traditional “heart herb”, helps to promote a steady heartbeat and is coupled with other powerful heart-healthy herbs to help reduce cholesterol as well. Hawthorne strengthens the heart and promotes a strong, regular heartbeat. In addition, Hawthorne may help reduce chest pain and arrhythmia and prevent stress-related heart attacks.
-Garlic affects the circulatory system by lowering blood levels of sugar and LDL (harmful cholesterol). Garlic may also reduce blood pressure and raise the level of HDL (good cholesterol).
-Motherwort is an all-purpose heart tonic, helping to regulate the heartbeat.
-Gingko leaf has antioxidant properties, enhances heart efficiency and gradually tones blood vessels.
-Red clover blossoms have an inherent ability to remove toxic waste from the blood.
-Ginger root and Cayenne pepper are two of the best-known circulatory and herbal cardiac tonics.
-Cactus grandiflora, a cardiac tonic and regulator, increases the heart s ability to pump stronger without increasing the heart’s oxygen demand.

Most people know that Vitamin C is great for colds, but did you also know that it plays a tremendous role in heart health? With our focus this month on healthy hearts I thought it would be fun to share a few facts regarding this incredible supplement.

- Vitamin C helps prevent arterial inflammation and plaque.

- It helps enhance the body’s level of natural glutathione (glutathione is a potent free-radical scavenger known to prevent coronary artery disease.)

 - Vitamin C is crucial for the synthesis of collagen, a part of the connective tissue that strengthens your blood vessel walls. When these walls become irritated they are more likely to allow plaque build-up, permitting noxious toxins to cause inflammatory reactions in the vascular lining.

- Helps repair connective tissue and cartilage thereby contributing to healthy blood vessels.

- At higher doses Vitamin C can help patients coping with arterial fibrillation (AF), the most common kind of arrhythmia.

So, how much Vitamin C is safe to take on a daily basis?

- Most research supports Vitamin C intake of around 200 to 300 mg per day, which for the average person is definitely in the safe zone. In fact, for many people doses below 1,000 mg are probably safe although the research is not as conclusive for this intake level.

- Some researchers, such as the great Linus Pauling, suggest 10,000 mg or more daily for optimum health.  For instructions on determining your own need see our blog on the Vitamin C Flush.

Excellent food sources of vitamin C include: parsley, broccoli, bell pepper, strawberries, oranges, lemon juice, papaya, cauliflower, kale, mustard greens, and Brussels sprouts. Marilyn Farms also offers Vitamin C in a variety of formulas including chewable, powder, and Vitamin C 1000. tablets. Visit our website to learn more and take advantage of our February special on this heart-healthy supplement.

Red yeast rice is a type of yeast that has been found to be, in many cases, as effective as statins to lower cholesterol without the negative side effects.  Below is a link to a Discovery Health article that discusses the benefits of red yeast rice in more detail. 

http://health.discovery.com/centers/althealth/cholesterol/cholesterol.html

Red yeast rice can be found in Omega LDL, along with Coenzyme Q10 and fish oil, two compounds that are vital to heart health!

For this week’s entry, I thought to share with you a few interesting facts about cholesterol that will be covered in more detail at our webinar this Saturday (to register click here).  Here they are!

 People with higher cholesterol are more likely to live longer, healthier lives than their counterparts with low cholesterol.
 Cholesterol is absolutely necessary for memory and learning, which may be why two common side effects of statin therapy are memory loss and cognitive decline.
 People with low cholesterol are more likely to experience mood disorders such as depression and exhibit violent behavior.  In fact, some researchers attribute the rise in domestic violence and child abuse over the past 30 years to the increased use of cholesterol-lowering medication.
 Exposure to heavy metals is usually followed by a rise in blood cholesterol, possibly because cholesterol acts as a “raft” to get toxins out of the body quickly.
 Every cell in your body makes cholesterol.  In fact, only 15% of cholesterol in your body comes from your food – the rest of it is synthesized by your body because it is that important!
 Fatty plaques in the arteries are actually a sign that there is underlying inflammation in the body.  Cholesterol rises as a response to this inflammation to try to repair damaged portions of blood vessel walls – cholesterol is NOT the root cause of artery plaques, inflammation is!
 If you are stressed about the results of your cholesterol test, it is likely that your results will be higher than they would be if you weren’t stressed.  Stress causes cholesterol levels to rise, and they may not return to normal for 24 hours or more.   
NOTE: Please talk to your physician before making any dietary or supplement changes.  This blog is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified healthcare practitioner.

Here is a great website that was brought to my attention by a fellow researcher:

www.cholesterol-and-health.com

I highly encourage you to look at this website, which gives an accurate view of the benefits of cholesterol.  For more info, please tune into our webinar, “The Truth About Cholesterol,” which will air on Saturday May 16th. 

To register click here.

Last week I attended a 4-day conference in Chicago on nutrition and chronic disease.  The conference itself was fantastic, but I’m writing this blog to tell you of my 4-day love affair with the free samples of magnesium glycinate (the same form of magnesium found in our very own Mag Calm and Essential Calm) that were provided at the conference.  You see, the conference was sponsored by a supplement company that wanted to make sure the practitioners in attendance knew all about the wonders of their supplements so they had open bottles of their entire product line for us to sample.

Magnesium is commonly used for the nutritional treatment of a diversity of issues including osteoporosis, pre-menstrual syndrome, fatigue, fibromyalgia, arthritis, insomnia, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, arrhythmia, and diabetes.  I personally experience none of the above but since an estimated 80% of the US population doesn’t get enough magnesium in their daily diet I thought I’d take advantage of the free samples.

After just one day of taking about 400 milligrams of magnesium I found myself sleeping better, waking up easier, and just generally feeling relaxed and refreshed – which is not usually how I feel when sitting in a chair for 8 hours a day listening to scientific lectures.  The dosage I took is slightly above the RDA of 310 mg/day for women but magnesium is hard to overdose on when taken orally – if you get too much your body will eliminate the extra via the bowels (translation: if you find yourself running to the bathroom, you took too much).  The only exception to this would be if you have inadequate kidney function or are on medications that alter your metabolism of magnesium.

As I write this blog I’m staring at my own bottle of Mag Calm, which I keep by my computer to remind me to keep up the experiment I started at the conference.  It’s been a week and I’m still feeling energetic and waking up refreshed and happy in the morning which is highly unusual for me when it starts getting cold outside!

Magnesium has so many amazing qualities that I couldn’t do it justice in one blog so I wanted to also provide you with a link to one of my favorite reference websites on nutrition – the Linus Pauling Institute.  Here is the link to their page on magnesium.  Enjoy!
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/magnesium/