In the last newsletter, we worked straight through the anatomy of the heart -- primarily to lay the groundwork for this issue. By using what we learned in the last issue, we can now explore:
Things that can go wrong with the heart.
Pregnancy Care Centre
Medical treatments.
Limitations that may be possible in some of those treatments.
What you can do to turn the equation.
Incidentally, if you haven't read the previous newsletter, Anatomy of the Heart, you might want to do that now. It's not assuredly necessary, but it will make for a more rewarding perceive as you read this newsletter.
Problems of the epicardium
As you may remember, the epicardium is the lining that surrounds the heart muscle -- inside and out. On the inside, it's called the endocardium, and on the covering it's called the pericardium. Let's start our seminar of heart problems by looking at the epicardium -- not because it's the most leading part of the heart, but because it's a easy place to start and lets us dip our toes into the field before plunging into deeper waters.
Problems that can occur with the heart lining pretty much fall into two categories
Physical damage.
Inflammation caused by infection.
Physical damage is easy to understand, and commonly easy to repair. You're driving in your car, you get into an accident. You're slammed against the steering wheel or an airbag. Your body stops suddenly but your heart, powered by inertia (an object in appeal tends to stay in motion) keeps piquant send and tears the pericardium that holds it in place before bouncing back and coming to rest. This causes bleeding in the pericardial sac, which serves as the buffer in the middle of the heart and the chest wall and lungs. The extra fluid (blood) pumps into the sac under pressure which expands the sac, thereby squeezing and constricting the heart. If the pressure isn't relieved, it can build to the point where it constricts the heart so much that it prevents it from beating. Herbs and neutraceuticals are not much use here. Fortunately, curative intervention tends to be easy and effective in these situations. A catheter inserted into the sac to drain the excess blood and ease the pressure will commonly do the trick -- along with stopping the bleeding.
Inflammation (known as "itis" in curative terminology) is a little more complex. The primary cause of inflammation of the heart lining is infection, both viral and bacterial. Depending on which part of the lining is affected, it will be called pericarditis, endocarditis, or epicarditis. The inflammation can cause chest pain, strangeness pumping, or fever. These symptoms can be mild, acute, or even chronic. Appropriate medicine includes the use of antibiotics and antivirals. These are "usually" effective unless the basic infection is defiant to the arsenal of drugs at your doctor's disposal, which is a growing problem. Fortunately, there are natural alternatives together with garlic, olive leaf extract, oil of oregano, grapefruit seed extract, etc. That can work even in the case of drug defiant infections.
Problems with heart valves
Also, as we discussed last issue, your heart valves are constructed like parachutes with tendons or cords anchoring them to the heart muscle to keep them from occasion too far. Their role is to allow blood to flow down from the atria into the ventricles, and then to seal shut when the ventricles pump so that blood doesn't back up into the atria, but is instead forced out into the main pulmonary artery from the right ventricle or into the aorta from the left ventricle. Problems with the valves are easy to understand and fall ordinarily into two categories.
Backflow, or regurgitation, is caused by misshapen or damaged valves or ruptures to the tendons that hold the valves in place. These things cause the valves to imperfectly seal with each heartbeat, thus allowing backflow into the atria.
Stenosis, or hardening of the valves, caused by disease or aging prevents the valves from fully opening. This limits the flow of blood into the ventricles so that they cannot fill completely in the fraction of a second the valves are open. Since the ventricle accommodation is now partially empty when it pumps, it generates less pressure with each beat, which ultimately reduces the amount of blood that flows straight through the body.
There can be complicated causes for both problems.
- either you were born with a problem. This can be genetic or it can be the result of nutritional problems in your parents' diet (either before you were conceived or while you were gestating).
- Over time, as a result of aging and poor nutrition, the valves shrink and turn shape.
- Infection has caused the valves to inflame so that they no longer seal perfectly.
- Diseases such as rheumatic fever and syphilis have scarred and hardened the valves.
- Valvular tissue can be damaged in the same way as heart muscle tissue as the result of a heart attack.
- Valve tendons may rupture, which means the valve no longer stays in place when backpressure is created by the squeezing of the ventricles.
The lowest line is that the pumping process becomes less efficient, and your heart has to pump harder and faster to compensate. Treatments can range from doing nothing, to using drugs to sell out infection and inflammation, to surgically replacing the damaged valves with artificial valves.
Doing nothing you might ask? Absolutely! In most cases, that's what doctors do. Why? The heart has gigantic support capacity. Last issue we mentioned that you can have 70% blockage of your coronary arteries and never perceive any outward symptoms. It doesn't stop there. Your heart also has a gigantic support pumping capacity and when called upon can increase output 5-8 times if needed. For example, in mitral valve prolapse (a health in which the mitral valve "falls down", or prolapses too far into the left ventricle allowing for backflow into the right atrium), there are commonly few symptoms or any problems. In most cases doctors will just make note of it and watch for any changes.
On the other hand, sometimes, there are symptoms. These can include:
- That old standby, chest pain.
- Fatigue and/or dizziness.
- Shortness of breath.
- Low or high blood pressure, depending on which valve is affected.
- Palpitations caused by irregular heartbeats.
- Even throbbing head headaches.
In those cases the valves are often substituted with mechanical valves. At one time, you could assuredly hear the mechanical valves make a little clicking sound as they opened and terminated 70-80 times a minute. This drove some population crazy when they tried to sleep at night. Newer models have overcome that qoute and are silent.
Now you might think since problems with valves are mechanical in nature that nourishment and supplements would not play much of a role in resolving them. If so, you would be wrong. Most curative doctors are not aware of this fact, but there are numerous studies showing nutrients matter -- and supplementation can assuredly turn the mechanical aspects of valve function. For example, it has been shown that magnesium plays a role in mitral valve prolapse.
Therapeutic result of a magnesium salt in patients suffering from mitral valvular prolapse and latent tetany.
Magnesium deficiency in the Pathogenesis of Mitral Valve Prolapse.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact, nourishment and supplementation can play a primary role in maintaining optimum heart health -- and even reversing many persisting heart problems. We will talk more about this later; but for now let's recognize problems that happen within the coronary arteries.
Circulatory problems
The first blood vessels off the aorta are the two coronary arteries, which subsequently split off into numerous branches that feed the heart. Blockage of these arteries straight through the build up of arterial plaque is one of the most tasteless causes of death. The net result is ischemia, which means a "reduced blood supply." As I mentioned last issue, because there is so much redundancy in the branching of the coronary arteries, you can have up to 70% blockage and yet have no inescapable symptoms. At some point, though, you will have a heart attack, also known as myocardial infarction. The myocardium is the name of the heart muscle, and infarction means the "death of tissue." In other words, a heart assault is the result of loss of blood flow to the heart muscle, which causes death of heart muscle tissue. The severity of the assault is considered by:
Which part of the muscle is damaged. (Some parts are more significant than others.)
How widespread the damage is.
In some cases, population do assuredly die from their first heart attack. In most cases, though, the attacks are progressive -- with each assault killing more and more tissue until the remaining heart muscle can no longer carry the load. Depending on the extent of the damage, Appropriate curative treatments include:
Drugs, such as:
- Beta-blockers to slow heart rates and decrease blood pressure -- thus lowering the heart's demand for oxygen.
- Nitroglycerin to open coronary arteries and sell out the heart's demand for oxygen.
- Calcium channel blockers to open coronary arteries to increase blood flow to the heart muscle.
- Angiotensin-converting enzyme to allow blood to flow from the heart more easily, decreasing the workload on the heart.
- Angioplasty uses a balloon inflated inside the blocked artery to press the plaque against the arterial wall, thus clearing the blockage -- at least temporarily.
- Stents are like angioplasty on steroids. Instead of just pressing the plaque against the wall of the artery, the balloon is also used to also press a wire mesh against the arterial wall to hold the artery open.
- Bypass surgical operation involves using a vein (usually taken from the leg) to assuredly generate a bypass nearby the clogged area of the coronary artery.
Heart transplants.
None of these options is perfect. Angioplasty and bypass surgical operation (even though they have been in use for years) are assuredly unproven (for those of you who think everything in medicine is backed by peer reviewed studies). In fact, new studies indicate that they may assuredly give only little temporary relief with no prolongation of life -- not to mention an increased risk of stroke. Both stents and angioplasties (and bypasses too, for that matter) quickly re-plug, a qoute called restenosis, and need to be periodically redone or replaced. New forms of stents are coated with drugs to slow down restenosis but come with their own set of problems. Bypass surgical operation produces a dramatically increased risk of stroke, infection and profound depression. And heart transplants force you to stay on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of your life.
Far and away the biggest qoute with all of these treatments, though, is that they only treat one manifestation of the problem, not the basic cause -- the fact that the arteries are blocking in the first place. It is here that alternative therapies excel -- both short term, and long term. For example:
Dietary changes can have a profound impact in reversing coronary heart disease as can a amount of supplements.
Shifting the balance of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids can eliminate a major source of heart attacks.
Hawthorne berries are tonic for the heart, working to support the relaxation and dilation of coronary arteries and expanding the flow of blood and oxygen to and from the heart. In effect, Hawthorne berries work much like prescription drugs, but without the side effects.
Blood Clots
Another aspect of coronary heart disease is the blood clot or thrombus. (If it becomes dislodged and floats free, it's called an embolus.) In larger arteries, a clot will only impede the flow of blood. In smaller arteries, it can completely block it. Thrombi form most often in the veins of the leg, where they then float off (now called emboli) and end up lodging in and blocking the smaller arteries of the heart, lungs, and brain. There can be many triggers for the formation of clots and emboli, but one of the more piquant is deep vein thrombosis -- the formation of blood clots as the result of prolonged sitting in airplanes and cars.
Preventing blood clots reduces the risk of stroke, heart assault and pulmonary embolism. The Appropriate medicine for those at risk of embolisms involves the use of drugs such as Heparin or warfarin (a form of rat poison), which are anticoagulants used to inhibit the formation and increase of existing blood clots.
But these drugs are perilous and need constant watching and regulating since they can cause internal bleeding. Far safer (and best since they also dissolve arterial plaque and help promote the heal of arterial tissue) are proteolytic enzyme formulations that couple specialized enzymes such as nattokinase.
Problems with the heart muscle -- the myocardium
In the end, when you're talking about the heart, it mostly comes down to the myocardium -- the heart muscle. The danger of coronary heart disease, for example, is that it starves the myocardium of oxygen and kills it. The danger of a valve qoute is that it troops the myocardium to work too hard. The danger of a bio-electrical/conductivity qoute is that it throws the heart muscle out of rhythm and causes it to lose its beat, or to fibrillate. (Fibrillation occurs when a heart accommodation "quivers" due to an abnormally fast rhythm and can no longer pump blood well. Fibrillation of the atrium is called atrial fibrillation; in the ventricle it's called ventricular fibrillation. Ventricular fibrillation commonly leads to death.) To paraphrase the Clinton campaign in the '90's, "It's all about the myocardium."
Problems in the atria
For the most part, problems in the atria are not life threatening. Even if both atria totally lose their quality to pump or weaken and balloon out, you lose maybe 30% of your total heart function. Without pumping, gravity and suction will still bring most of the blood down into the ventricles. There are, of course, times your physician will want to address problems, but for the most part, you can live for years with barely functioning atria.
Problems with the ventricles
Ah, but the ventricles are a dissimilar story. When the left ventricle goes into fibrillation, we're talking cardiac arrest. It's time to pull out the electric paddles. So what kinds of problems are we talking about?
Myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart, is a form of cardiomyopathy (which assuredly translates as "heart muscle disease"). The qoute here is that blood flows more gradually straight through an enlarged heart, which increases the likelihood of blood clots. In addition, population with cardiomyopathy are often at risk of arrhythmia and/or sudden cardiac death. When cardiomyopathy results in a significantly enlarged heart, the mitral and tricuspid valves may not be able to close properly, resulting in murmurs. There may be complicated causes of myocarditis, together with viral infection. tasteless culprits include: influenza, herpes, Epstein-Barr, hepatitis, and salmonella.
Ischemic cardiomyopathy is a feebleness in the muscle of the heart due to inadequate oxygen delivery to the myocardium, with coronary artery disease being the most tasteless cause. (Ischemia plainly means "reduced blood flow.") Anemia, sleep apnea, and hyperthyroidism can also contribute to ischemic myocardium.
Myocardial infarction assuredly means the "death of heart muscle tissue." Since heart muscle does not grow back, this has a snowball effect. If you have a heart assault that starves part of the heart muscle of oxygen so that it dies, that scar tissue does not recover. You now have a weakened heart that is more likely to suffer a subsequent assault -- leading to more heart muscle damage and increased chances for a third attack. And so on. It's not too hard to see where this leads -- to long-term loss of heart muscle activity and persisting heart failure.
Congestive heart failure (Chf) is a health in which your weakened heart can no longer pump out all the blood that flows into it. Chf is the most tasteless cause of hospitalization for population over age 65. It kills more than 50,000 population a year in the Us and costs the health care theory more than billion per year. The heart is just like other muscles. When it is weakened, it becomes enlarged and inefficient. This leads to congestion and flaccid muscle tone. In fact, it can even lead to prolapse of the heart in which the heart assuredly "drops" from its primary position in the chest. It is not unusual to need a stethoscope placement three to five inches below the general area when listening to a weakened heart.
Unfortunately, contemporary medicine comes up short when it comes to problems of the myocardium. Mostly it just deals with the aftermath.
If the heart stops beating, use the electric paddles to get it going again.
If no paddles are near, pop a nitroglycerine tablet.
Perform a coronary bypass to try and prevent any supplementary damage.
Use nitroglycerine tablets to open up the arteries in an urgency and prevent a heart attack.
When it comes to the muscle itself, nothing! But as luck would have it, here's where alternative therapies shine.
- All of the B vitamins, but especially vitamin B4 are significant for heart health.
- Congestive heart failure has been strongly tied to significantly low blood and tissue levels of CoQ10.
- Supplementation with CoQ10 can assuredly turn the size and shape of the heart.
- Studies have shown that high concentrations of heavy metals such as mercury directly compare to higher incidences of acute coronary events. Quarterly heavy metal detoxing directly reduces and ultimately eliminates that risk.
- Studies have also shown a direct connection in the middle of periodontal disease and acute coronary events. Quarterly use of avocado soy unsaponifiables, proteolytic enzymes, immune boosters, and pathogen destroyers can sell out the risk.
- Incidentally, electric paddles are not the only thing that can get a heart muscle going again. In an urgency cayenne pepper can do the trick too. A teaspoon of cayenne pepper in a glass of warm water taken every fifteen minutes can raise the dead.
- And in the end, the heart is a muscle, and like all muscles responds to exercise. Cardiovascular exercise, particularly interval training, can improve the efficiency and force of your heart.
Heart rhythm disorders
The heart is an unusual organ. It has millions and millions of cells, and each cell has the possible for electrical activity. In the general heart these electrical impulses occur in Quarterly intervals. When something goes wrong with the heart's electrical system, the heart does not beat regularly. Unlike most organs in the body, all the cells in the heart are wired together so that if a single cell fires prematurely or late, the neighboring cells will be activated and a mistimed wave will voyage over the heart. The irregular beating results in a rhythm disorder, or arrhythmia.
To quickly communicate from last issue.
Every heart beat begins in the sinoatrial node (Sa node) located in the right atrium. The Sa node is "smart" and adapts to the body's widespread need for blood and increases the heart rate when necessary, such as during exercise.
Electrical impulses leave the Sa node and voyage straight through special conducting pathways in the heart to the atrioventricular node (Av, node). The purpose of the Av node is to furnish a pathway for impulses from the atria to the ventricles. It also creates a delay in conduction from the atria to the ventricle. This delay allows the atria to compact first, allowing the ventricles to fill with blood before they compact themselves.
The delay ensures allowable timing so that the lower chambers have time to fill completely before they contract.
From the Av node, the signal travels down straight through a group of fibers in the center of the heart called the bundle branch-- and then to the ventricles.
So what can go wrong?
Due to natural aging or disease, the Sa node starts losing function and no longer produces the right amount of signals at the allowable rate.
The Av node commonly has one group of cells straight through which the electrical impulse can travel. However, due to aging or heart disease, it is possible for the Av node to create two or more groups of conductive cells. Because of the extra conduction pathways, your heart can at times beat more quickly than normal.
The bundle field (see above) becomes "blocked" as a result of a heart assault which damages the inner heart muscle and nerves. This stops the signal from traveling from the Av node to the ventricles. Left to their own devices, the ventricles create their own rhythm of about 20-40 beats per minute. This is much too slow for health and results in weakness, fainting, and shortness of breath.
Valve stenosis (stiffness) causes increased pressure in the atria (since blood never fully clears) which causes ballooning of the walls of one or both of the atria (aka atrial dilation). Because the atrium is now bigger, it increases the distance signal has to travel. The increased distance means it takes longer for the signal to reach its final destination which throws off the pacing of the heartbeat.
Medical Treatments
Typical curative medicine involves drugs such as adenosine, calcium channel blockers (e.g., diltiazem, verapamil), short-acting beta-blockers (e.g., esmolol), and digitalis.
The other option, of course, is the pacemaker. The pacemaker uses electrodes attached to the heart that take over from the Sa node to operate the beating of the heart. The pacemaker is run by a small computer installed in the body. contemporary pacemakers are externally programmable and allow for the selection of optimum pacing modes for personel patients. Some can even self-regulate and adapt to changing requirements such as stress or exertion. And some couple a pacemaker and defibrillator in a single device.
Drugs and pacemakers work reasonably well at keeping the heart going, but still address the qoute after the fact. Keep in mind that in most cases the rhythm of the heart was lost straight through degradation based on nourishment or disease. Installing a pacemaker does not address that problem; it merely bypasses it. On the other hand, it is possible to reverse many of those conditions nutritionally and thus reverse many of the connected problems.
Alternatives
Mineral deficiencies particularly in calcium, sodium, magnesium, potassium, and many of the trace minerals can have a profound result on the electrical efficiency of the heart since they are responsible for running it. Supplementing with minerals and liquid trace minerals can make a profound difference.
Supplementing with CoQ10 can significantly improve the energy level of each cell in the heart, thus enhancing its quality to answer to an electrical stimulus and pass the signal on to its neighbor in a timely manner.
Shifting the balance of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids can eliminate a major source of potassium imbalance which can trigger heart attacks.
Conclusion
Let's take a break here, and next issue we'll desist our seminar of the heart by exploring what happens in your doctor's office:
- What tests does your physician run?
- What do they mean?
- What can you tell from them?
- What questions should you ask your physician when viewing the results?
For now, though, it's worth reviewing a key concept:
Although many problems with the heart may seem to be biomechanical in nature and beyond the purview of nourishment and supplements, that's not necessarily true. As we've seen:
- Magnesium supplementation can turn the shape and health of heart valves.
- The B vitamins can help rebuild the heart.
- CoQ10 can reenergize every single cell in the heart and can assuredly remold the size and shape of the heart after the onset of congestive heart failure.
- The use of Omega-3 fatty acids can reverse damage caused by Nefas.
- Proteolytic enzymes can furnish nutritional support for your body as it works to clean out the coronary arteries and heal damage to epicardial tissue surrounding the heart.
- The use of heavy metal chelators such as cilantro and chlorella can sell out the risk of an acute coronary event.
- Quarterly supplementation of a tonic made with cayenne and Hawthorne berry can rebuild the force of the heart.
- allowable dental care and the use of avocado soy unsaponifiables and proteolytic enzymes can sell out the incidence of periodontal disease, which reduces the chances of an acute coronary event.
- Quarterly use of immune enhancers and pathogen destroyers decreases the risk of most inflammatory heart disease and the incidence of viral and bacterial infections that can adversely influence the heart.
- And Quarterly exercise can advance the heart and improve its efficiency even in your eighth and ninth decade of life.
As usual, it's not just about pharmaceutical drugs and surgical procedures. Following the theory of the Baseline of health schedule can turn your heart...and your prospects for long-term survival.
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