Cardiovascular health. What matters?
When it comes to taking care of our heart, let’s take a look at the few things that matter most:
The cardiovascular system is composed of the heart, the blood, and the blood vessels. Basically, a pump, miles of distributed hoses, and a priceless liquid. The heart is a very large, electrically stimulated muscle, the only one that works incessantly for all of life, which beats ~3 billion times in a lifetime!
• What’s important? Mitochondrial function, thyroid function, magnesium/potassium, amino acids, insulin sensitivity, exercise, reduced exposure to toxins.
Blood vessels transports nutrients, gas, and wastes to and from All the cells in the body.
• What’s important? Antioxidant capability, blood sugar control, HDL (reverse cholesterol transport), methylation, immune function, detoxification capability (bile flow, bowel movements), collagen, Vitamin K2, melatonin, Omega-3s.
Blood is ideally about 92% water.
• What’s important? Hydration (water and electrolytes), optimal
cortisol, kidney function, nutrients (B12, Fe, Cu).
One of the most common disease dynamics is Endothelial dysfunction:
Blood vessel intima is the innermost layer, lined with endothelial cells that are responding to their environment. Here is where nitric oxide is released.
• Modern lifestyle and experiences cause an increase in oxidative damage to this layer and an increase in circulating inflammatory compounds. As tissue is damaged, it compounds a localized inflammatory response. This becomes chronic and inherently dysregulated.
• Atherosclerosis is triggered by some combination of insults or irritants which chronically increase permeability and “stickiness” of the arterial wall. Occurs within the arterial wall which causes it to thicken, primarily with oxidized LDL particles, recruiting macrophages to control the process, with insufficient HDL support to remove the resulting lipid pool.
• Chronic build-up of vessel-blocking plaque in the intima of arteries eventually results in significant stenosis that restricts blood flow and causes critical tissue hypoxia.
• Nitric oxide production fades with age and with increasing damage to the endothelial lining.
Excessive Fructose intake>>Increased Uric acid>>Decreased Nitric Oxide>>Endothelial dysfunction AND Increased Insulin Resistance>>Hypertension, Atherosclerosis, Arteriosclerosis, Systemic Oxidative damage
When measuring Cholesterol, ideally, we look at all relevant markers (usually not available in a regular test). We need: the absolute number of LDL cholesterol particles and the size of those particles (is it Pattern A-large and fluffy- or Pattern B-small and dense-) and (to a lesser degree) also the ratio of total ApoB particles (VLDL, IDL, LDL) to ApoA (HDL) correlate well with cardiovascular disease (ApoB/ApoA).
Furthermore, the ratio between Triglycerides and HDL is the most accurate indicator of Cardiovascular risk.
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