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HOW GOOD IS TO CONSUME DARK CHOCOLATE? – (04-25-05)
Short-term administration of dark chocolate is followed by a significant increase in insulin sensitivity and a decrease in blood pressure
Need I say more? Remember, though, that this is dark chocolate, NOT milk chocolate with all it’s added sugar.
EFFECT OF COCOA AND TEA ON BLODD PRESSURE – (12-03-07)
Effect of Cocoa and Tea Intake on Blood Pressure
Let’s face it. Adding dark chocolate to your daily life really isn’t all that painful. Dark chocolate is a regular staple around our house and my 2 year old always gets a small corner of whatever I’m eating. This article is actually a meta-analysis, looking at 5 different studies on cocoa consumption and blood pressure.
The authors concluded that, in a mere 2 wks, that cocoa could drop systolic blood pressure an average of 4.7 mm. Not that may not sound like much, but remember that the best approach to any chronic condition is multifactorial, and in this case increasing intake of dark chocolate is only one intervention that would be used to help manage blood pressure along w/ managing insulin resistance, exercise and stress management.
PHYSICIANS ARE AWARE OF METABOLIC SYNDROME BUT DO NOT FULLY UNDERSTAND – (01-26-08)
Metabolic syndrome, its preeminent clusters, incident coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality
Despite the vast amount of research, few give Metabolic Syndrome the respect it deserves. I personally believe that this is because while many physicians are aware of metabolic syndrome, by not reading current literature they may not fully understand the full breadth of this condition.
Let’s put it in terms of this study. When we talk about relative risk, it gives us an idea of how much something (in this case, having MetS) increases your risk of a disease. Now, if the rates of a particular disease are already pretty high in the general population (such as with heart disease), then the risk becomes more important.
In this study, those patients having all 5 components of MetS (high BP, low HDL, high triglycerides, increased blood glucose and increased waist-to-hip ratio) the relative risk was a whopping 6.24 time higher. There’s no beating around the bush here. This is a dangerous condition and needs to be treated as such.
RISK OF HEART DISEASE INCREASES EVEN AFTER CHECKING CHOLESTEROL – (03-17-08)
Apolipoprotein A-II Is Inversely Associated With Risk of Future Coronary Artery Disease
There are many patients running around who have experienced heart attacks or blocked coronary vessels that were told that there were no reasons why this happened to them. What they usually mean is that their total and LDL cholesterol levels were not elevated and they had no high blood pressure. However, The reality of CVD risk factors runs so much broader than that. I truly believe that all patients with heart disease have some type of well established risk factor; the problem is that their cardiologist may not have known where to look.
This study just adds more information to the picture of heart disease, and again establishes the fact that just checking for total, HDL and LDL cholesterol is very outdated and will miss many patients with developing CVD.
DO WE KNOW THAT PLANT SOURCES OF PROTEIN HAVE MUCH HIGHER LEVELS OF ARGININE? – (05-26-08)
Watermelon Pomace Juice Enhances Arginine Availability and Ameliorates the Metabolic Syndrome
There is much to be said about the source of a protein or carbohydrate or fat. When it comes to proteins, one thing we know is that plant sources of protein have much higher levels of arginine than lysine when compared to animal proteins. This is one of the factors that we believe plays a role in plant protein’s health benefits. Arginine is an amino acid that is a precursor to nitric oxide, and nitric oxide is a major player in the blood vessels’ ability to relax and lower blood pressure.
In this rat study, it was shown that intake of watermelon juice (which is particularly high in L-citrulline–a precursor to arginine) raised serum arginine levels and helped to lower markers of metabolic syndrome.
FAVORABLE EFFECT OF BERRY CONSUMPTION – (08-25-08)
Favorable Effect of Berry Consumption on Platelet Function, Blood Pressure and HDL Cholesterol
When is comes to high phytonutrient value and protection of mitochondria, berries definitely are found high on the list. And, when you think about it, increasing your intake of berries is not exactly painful. A cup of wild blueberries daily can go a long way.
In this particular study, we found increases in HDL levels with berry intake. Interestingly, there are not many direct pathways I can think of that would increase HDL levels with increasing polyphenol intake from berries. Which brings to mind the subject of surrogate endpoints. Recently, human clinical trials of a drug designed to raise HDL levels was canceled when patients in the study were dying on the drug, despite higher HDL levels.
The use of surrogate end markers (instead of looking at death, we look at lab values that are linking to higher death rates, such as HDL cholesterol in this case). The trial was not the first to find that a drug designed specifically to affect surrogate endpoints has resulted in higher death rates. So maybe, just maybe, the fact that higher HDL levels seem to protect against heart disease is because HDL levels are merely a reflection of the health of the entire patient, and when they are healthy, HDL levels go up–rather then being healthy because HDL levels are elevated.
So, back to this study, maybe the HDL levels have gone up because the polyphenols from the berries are improving the entire health of the patient, resulting in the by-product of higher HDL levels.
LOWERING EFFECTS OF DIETARY NITRATE
Gastroprotective and blood pressure lowering effects of dietary nitrate are abolished by an antiseptic mouthwash
Talk about interconnected. Follow this…nitrates in vegetables that we eat and converted by nitrate reducing bacteria in the mouth the nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is well known to be anti-inflammatory and to protect the cardiovascular system. So destroy the good bacteria in the mouth with antiseptic mouthwash and you lose all this protection AND you increase the risk of gastric ulcers. Pretty interconnected, I’d say…and always brings to mind just how far reaching the dangers of antibiotics can be..
HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE DRUGS LEAD TO SERIOUS CONDITION
Blood pressure problems are extremely common in today’s nutrition poor lifestyles. As a result, many in our population are on medications to lower blood pressure. Rather than helping, this actually creates many problems.
There are several main classes of blood pressure drugs:
- Beta blockers (“ols”)
- Angiotensen converting inhibitors (“prils”)
- Diuretics
- Angiotensen II receptor blockers or ARBs (“ars”)
- Calcium channel blockers
Sounds like we have all kinds of options, right??
- Beta blockers increase the risk of both stroke and diabetes
- ARBs and diuretics have concerns over increased cancer risk.
- Diuretics combined with calcium channel increase the risk of heart attacks.
Still sound promising?
As if this wasn’t enough of a concern, this particular article looks at the risk of gout in patients taking high blood pressure medications. If you ask anyone who experiences gout, they will tell you it’s not a whole lot of fun. Gout is also strongly associated with prediabetes (uric acid levels rise with prediabetes).
While calcium channel blockers and losartan actually lowered the risk of gout. The data was not so pretty with the other classes of drugs:
- 2.36 times the risk for diuretics
- 1.48 increased risk for β blockers
- 1.24 greater risk for angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors
- 1.29 for non-losartan angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs)
The bottom line is, as always, that lifestyle is the ONLY way to lower blood pressure that will not kill you some other way first. There are many changes to make to lower blood pressure through lifestyle. They include:
- Use of the Resperate or meditation to lower blood pressure
- The full list is here
7 FACTORS FOR HEART DISEASE–ARE YOU IN THE 1%?
By now we can all accept that heart disease is almost entirely lifestyle in origin. I’m sure there are a few events per year that were entirely mediated by genetics, but, in general, if you have heart disease, it’s because of the choices you have made. And likely continue to make.
Everyone out there who is looking forward to their first heart attack please raise your hands. Great…now everyone who has had a heart attack and wants a second, you can raise your hands now. Lastly, those of you who just can’t wait to have your sternum cracked open with a spreader, your circulatory system put on a bypass around the heart and veins stripped from your leg to re-plumb your heart, go ahead and send both hands up.
Looking around, there is not a single hand in the air. Imagine that–not a single person has a desire to experience a cardiac event. Go figure. NOW let’s ask the important question…
Who is willing to make changes to their lifestyle to avoid the aforementioned events?
Not so many hands, I’m guessing.
Why is that? It really is that clear cut. Does society think that medicines will save us from these outcomes? If so, think again. You could not be further from the truth. Medicine is very, very bad at preventing events. Sure, we run around telling everyone “our numbers are under control,” but this house of cards soon falls after the first heart attack.
Look at this particular study here. Researchers looked at 7 cardio-protective behaviors:
- Ideal healthy diet
- Physical activity
- Ideal body mass index
- Non-smoking
- Ideal blood pressure
- Low total cholesterol
- Low fasting blood glucose
That’s it. 7 simple factors. I could easily add another 10 and tighten up what they consider “healthy diet.” But, overall, pretty basic guidelines. So, how many people (out of 14,500, aged 20 and above) had all seven of the factors present?
Are you sitting down?
Less than 1%. That is flat out sickening and extremely disappointing. There is a massive disconnect in this society between what WILL happen and what we think will NOT happen to us.
Are you in the 1%? If not, what will happen to those you leave behind?
THOSE STUPID LIFESTYLE CHANGES DON’T WORK ANYWAY…
For many, at first thought, the idea of adopting a healthier lifestyle seems almost painful and certainly not worth it. Many have tried and did not see results in what they thought was a reasonable time frame. Many think they have made healthy changes, but in reality their choices were the wrong ones.
A frequent retort to the suggestion of making healthier lifestyle changes usually runs along the lines of “Well–Uncle George smoked 6 packs of cigarettes per day, drank Jim Bean like water and never ate a vegetable in his life and he still lived to 104 until he was taken out skiing off a cliff on Machu Picchu…”
I call this the “genetic lottery” approach. How many of us sit on our duffs watching Jerry Springer reruns from the couch, assurred that we are going to win the lotto? Do some people win the lotto? Of course. But do you want to hang your hat on that miniscule chance? Didn’t think so. So why are you so willing to do that with your health?
I have covered the concept of flow mediated dilation and pulse wave velocity in a prior post, but suffice it to say that these are very important markers for looking at how healthy our blood vessels are (or are not..).
This particular article looked at prediabetic patient adopting a low sugar diet combined with a high intensity workout (>3 times per week at >75% VO2 max) and found that, after 12 weeks and again at one year, pretty much every marker they looked at had improved pretty dramatically. 64% of the participants no longer met the criteria for prediabetes.
This is not a complete lifestyle overhaul, but rather very straightforward changes in merely two aspects of lifestyle. Before you begin to shake your head and think you can’t adopt these simple changes, remember that your fate is not likely to mirror Uncle George.
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