Re: SuperFood from Dr. Schulze

Find out the numbers for yourself. I just had someone return from the doc who had blood pressure of 130/90 (and who is on bp meds too) to whom the doc said, 'Perfect'...

Also - remember that the 'under 200 is good' as far as total cholesterol is for the average american. Not for the average person who has a family history.

Studies have shown that people who have cholesterol under 150 DO NOT HAVE HEART PROBLEMS at all.


Heart disease, a phenomenon unique to the 20th century, afflicts 40 million Americans. The majority of Americans has elevated cholesterol levels almost entirely due to food choices. Studies show that the risk of heart attack increases when high cholesterol levels, smoking and high blood pressure are all present. The good news: recent research conducted by Dean Ornish, MD, author of Reversing Heart Disease (Random House) shows that heart disease can be reversed with lifestyle changes. Ornish contends that although heart and blood vessel disease kills more people than everything else combined, it is completely reversible if people are willing to make major changes in their diet and lifestyle. His suggested changes include an extremely low-fat diet (only 10% fat), moderate exercise and daily stress reduction through yoga and meditation.

"For people with heart disease, following the more conventional recommendations, for example, of the American Heart Association, is not enough to stop the disease from getting worse," he says. At his Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif., Ornish oversees these diets and lifestyle changes in patients who come to him for help reversing heart disease. His book, Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease (Random House), details this life-changing program and includes over 160 low-fat recipes and cooking tips.

Diet is not the only solution, cautions Ornish, who encourages stress reducing activities such as meditation. "Coronary heart disease is the end product of a chain of events that occurs over a lifetime.Treating only the physical manifestations of heart disease without addressing the more fundamental causes will provide only temporary relief, and the disease is likely to recur."

Neal Barnard, MD, author of The Power of Your Plate: A Plan for Better Living (Book Publishing Co.) agrees that we can control our cholesterol levels through diet. Barnard believes the key is to phase out animal products such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, cheese and yogurt, replace them with foods from plants such as grains, beans, vegetables and fruit. One study conducted in Framingham, Mass., under the direction of William Castelli, MD, supports Barnard's views. Castelli found that heart attacks do not occur in anyone who has a cholesterol level under 150. The average cholesterol level in the United States is 211. Barnard believes that too many doctors are satisfied with this and avoid recommending levels too much lower because they believe a level too low would be an unrealistic goal for patients to reach.

While Barnard and Ornish focus on diet and lifestyle changes to reverse heart disease, other natural approaches include the use of herbs such as Garlic and Hawthorn berry. Stephen Fulder, PhD, author of Garlic, Nature's Original Remedy (Healing Arts Press), reports research showing that garlic lowers blood cholesterol, reduces the body's production of fats, prevents blood clotting, acts as a diuretic and improves the ratio of "good" cholesterol (HDL) to "bad" cholesterol (LDL). "There's no miracle drug for a healthy heart," Fulder says. "But garlic works well in the diet to promote better health. Garlic can lower cholesterol by about 15%, which translates into a 30% reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease."

Christopher Hobbs, a fourth generation herbalist and botanist and author of numerous books about herbal medicine, says Hawthorn is the single herb most recommended by European doctors, pharmacists and herbalists to help make a healthy heart. Hobbs says that research has found hawthorn to dilate the arteries that supply the heart muscle with blood, oxygen and fuel, providing a better supply of these essential nutrients. This results, he says, in a stronger, more efficient heartbeat. "Considering that heart disease is the number one cause of death in industrialized countries, it's amazing that hawthorn is not more widely used or understood."

Hawthorn also acts as a powerful free radical scavenger, explains Hobbs, protecting the heart against the harmful effects of lessened oxygen a common result of vascular disease such as atherosclerosis. "It can also steady an irregular heartbeat, as it did for my father when he suffered from heart disease several years ago," Hobbs notes. "He took hawthorn liquid extract, with excellent results; his heartbeat soon became regular and stronger."

http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/Heart%20Disease.htm

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