Heart Health

The current leading cause of death for women is heart disease. Most heart disease is lifestyle-related. Now is the best time to start reducing your cardiovascular risk factors as lifestyle diseases are preventable and often reversible.

Risk factors for heart disease include:

• Being a smoker
• Being overweight
• Not regularly exercising
• Having long-term stress or anxiety.
• Having blood sugar irregularities such as insulin resistance or diabetes
• Genetics such as MTHFR. But having MTHFR doesn’t kill you, it's the lifestyle factors such as liver toxicity and poor diet with low folate containing vegetables that switch this gene on.
• High homocysteine - can be due to MTHFR and low B vitamins especially B12.
• High cholesterol, high triglycerides, high LDL, low HDL, high lipoprotein A - these can be diet-related.
• Having high blood pressure - this can be weight-related, stress-related, nutritionally related
• Having poor dental hygiene
• Nutritional imbalances, eg high ferritin (iron) or sodium, low magnesium or potassium

Solutions

• Vitamin C - helps regulate blood pressure and cholesterol
• Vitamin D - deficiency may be linked with heart disease, stroke, heart attack, and dangerous cholesterol levels
• Vitamin E - may reduce total cholesterol and LDL’s
• Fish oil - can lower blood triglycerides
• Resveratrol - lowers LDL cholesterol, and has an anti-platelet effect
• K2 - reduces artery calcification and plaque
• B12 - lowers homocysteine
• B9 - may lower blood pressure
• Calcium - is needed for muscular contraction and works opposite magnesium. Together they regulate electrical conduction and blood pressure.
• Magnesium - is a muscle relaxant and your heart is made up of cardiac muscle fibres, and your blood vessels are filled with smooth muscle. Therefore magnesium is needed for their ability to relax following a contraction. Magnesium also helps stabilise electrical conduction. And is a vasodilator
• CoQ10/Ubiquinol - this antioxidant is reduced if taking cholesterol medication. It can improve oxygenation levels, energy levels, may reduce LDL and lower blood pressure.

Herbs

• Hawthorn - is the most respected herb for heart health. It's best known for its ability to tone the heart and reduce blood pressure
• Ginkgo - improves circulation and oxygenation
• Motherwort - is the herb of choice for women experiencing palpitations with their hot flushes.
• Withania - is a relaxant, it slows down thought patterns and reduces blood pressure  

Tests

• BP
• Cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, HDL, Lipoprotein A
• MTHFR
• Fasting homocysteine
• Ferritin
• Fasting glucose, insulin, and HBA1C
• Vitamin B12
• Vitamin D