Cardiologist Explains How to Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease

You can do a lot to lower your risk of heart disease. In fact, heart attacks are easily prevented. Please don’t think that heart disease is in your “genes”. A large population of U.S. adults have coronary disease or hypertension. Do they all have bad genetics? We are built in a very special way. Why would we be destined to heart disease? The answer is, we are born to thrive, not just survive.

Here are the 11 things cardiologist Dr. Jack Wolfson shares with audiences around the globe to reduce the risks of heart disease:

1. Follow a heart healthy diet.That means you only eat organic, Paleo friendly foods such as free-range, grass-fed meats and wild seafood.

Organic is important because it eliminates two of the prime causes of heart disease: pesticide-covered and genetically modified foods. Eat food the way nature intended.

Paleo is important because it means you are eating only natural foods, not processed, and you aren’t consuming artificial or excessive amounts of sugar.

This helps you maintain your ideal weight. Excessive weight damages your heart. It leads to high blood pressure and diabetes, two ailments that destroy heart health.

You will get to your ideal weight by following the Paleo diet. You’ll also significantly lower your risks of high blood pressure and diabetes.

Quality animals mean they are free from growth hormones and antibiotics. They’ve been raised in humane conditions, eating the food they are born to eat.

Seafood is one of the healthiest thing on the planet. Make sure you eat plenty.

2. Avoid toxins. Most household products and personal care products are toxic cesspools that destroy your heart. From air fresheners to laundry detergents, from deodorants to oven cleaners, these products are killing our hearts.

Get rid of these toxic products and use safer alternatives for a healthy heart.

Here’s an excellent article on the 8 common toxins in cleaning products, and how you can replace them with safer alternatives.

Here’s a list of what we use in our home and for our personal care.

3. Get active outdoors. It’s an established fact that people who don’t exercise are more likely to suffer from heart disease.

Health clubs and gyms are full of toxins that harm your heart. The smell from the cleaning products and air fresheners alone are enough to do lasting damage.

That’s why you should be active outdoors. It’s the natural thing to do.

Walk. Bike. Hike. Run. Swim. Do body weight exercises and basic interval training. Shoot for 30 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week.

Whatever activity you do, gradually increase the intensity and duration. The person who gets in trouble with exercise is the one overdoes it.

Consult your holistic physician before starting any exercise program.

4. Get chiropractic. The brain connects to every organ in the body, including the heart and blood vessels. Improve your connection with chiropractic care. Chiropractic is proven to lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and improve heart rate variability. See your Doctor of Chiropractic today!

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5. Stay hydrated. Dehydration places unnecessary strain on your heart. Blood volume decreases when you are dehydrated. This causes your heart to beat faster and increases your heart rate.

Studies show that proper hydration may lower heart attack risk. A 2002 study showed that staying properly hydrated lowered the risk of coronary heart disease by 46% in men and a whopping 59% in women.

Drink at least half your body weight in ounces of quality water each day.

6. Sleep 8 hours a day. Quality rest is essential to heart health. Our body rejuvenates during rest. It heals. It relaxes. All these things are vital to heart health.

Our ancestors went to sleep with the sundown and awoke with the sunrise.

The American Heart Association cites an irregular sleep pattern as a prime link to a host of heart ailments like coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.

I see it all the time in my practice. Sleep deprived people show more inflammation and stress hormones that lead to heart disease.

The evidence is clear: sleep is essential. Eight hours a day.

7. Take nutritional supplements. Proper nutrition and a healthy lifestyle are your best weapons to fight heart disease.

Unfortunately, due to soil depletion over the centuries, the wide-spread use of pesticides and air pollution, it’s nearly impossible to get the proper nutrition we need from food alone.

Read this article for more information about why crops grown decades ago were more nutritious than the crops grown today.

Since food alone can’t supply the vitamins and minerals we need for good heart health, we must take nutritional supplements.

Blood testing can tell us what vitamins and minerals we are deficient in and your holistic physician can prescribe a supplement regime ideal for you.

We have developed some specific nutritional supplements designed to promote good heart health. Heart Beet supports healthy blood pressure, blood flow and blood oxygen levels.  Vessel Support boosts nitric oxide levels and supports heart health in a variety of different ways.

8. Get sunshine. Our ancestors were in and out of the sun, naked, every day. Everyone knows that sunshine cranks up vitamin D. But did you know that sunshine increases nitric oxide, leads to melatonin production, and supports healthy hormone levels?

Studies point to vitamin D deficiencies as increasing the risk factors heart attacks, congestive heart disease strokes and conditions associated with heart disease like diabetes and high blood pressure.

Because we spend less time outdoors and Big Business has convinced most to cover themselves in toxic sunscreens when they are outside, there is a general vitamin D deficiency in most Americans.

I want you in the sun at least 30 minutes a day. Be naked in the sun when you can. Sunshine is good for you and is absolutely necessary to lower your risks of heart disease.

Use organic sunscreen when necessary. Sunburn bad, sunshine good.

9. Don’t smoke or drink alcohol or sodas. You know that. Smoking is bad for you.

So are these other things. Stay away from them. If you do drink alcohol, keep it under 3 drinks per week.

And while I am at it – don’t do drugs. Prescribed or illicit. I saw the impacts of drugs and alcohol when I worked in the hospitals. Nasty stuff. Leads to heart disease and heart attacks. Stay away.

10. Get grounded. Connect your body with the energy naturally present in the earth’s surface.

Grounding is the practice of walking barefoot on the ground.

Solar radiation and lighting strikes fill the Earth’s surface with electrons the body absorbs when it makes contact with the ground.

These electrons reduce inflammation and keep the body properly balanced. Both benefit your heart tremendously.

This is why it feels so good to most of us to walk barefoot on the beach or in a green grass meadow.

Inflammation is a prime driver of heart disease. Grounding helps fight inflammation which helps the heart.

When was the last time your bare foot touched the earth’s surface? Take off your shoes and socks and get grounded now.

11. Manage anger and stress. Stress kills. The literature is very clear. We never discussed this in my medical training, but to underestimate the impact of poor mental health will lead to your demise.

Learn to manage stress and anger in effective ways that benefit your health.

Mediation. Prayer. Yoga. Fellowship with others. Physical activity.

All are proven ways to reduce stress and manage anger.

Try them. Get stress out of your life.

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