Category: Preventive Cardio

White coat hypertension may more than double your risk of a heart attack. About 1 in 5 American adults have white coat hypertension (high blood pressure in the doctor’s office but not at home) In a recent review researchers analyzed  27 studies involving more than 64,000 patients in the United States, Europe and Asia. Findings revealed that compared with people with normal blood pressure readings (both at home and at the doctor’s office), patients with white coat hypertension were at elevated risk for heart attack and death. White Coat Hypertension Might be Happening Outside the Doctor's Office The data showed that those patients with untreated white coat hypertension had a 36% increased risk of getting heart disease, 33% increased risk of death due to any cause and 109% increased risk of death from heart disease. This study did not find a strong association with stroke but other studies did. I think it can increase risk. This finding was most significant for people 55 years or older. White coat is caused by anxiety. With anxiety excitatory neurotransmitters such as epinephrine and nor-epinephrine increase. These are short acting stress neurohormones that cause constriction of the vessels, driving pressure up. When the stressor...

Most of you know that ginger is a medicinal herb but its uses in preventive cardiology are not well known. Ginger is a member of a plant family that includes cardamom and turmeric. Its familiar aroma is mainly due to compounds called gingerols. At least 30 gingerol-related compounds are contained in the fresh ginger root (rhizome). The proportion gingerols depends on where it is from and how it is processed. Ginger has been used as a medicine for over 5000 years to treat many ailments. India is the largest producer. Ginger was a highly sought-after commodity back in the day and was exported from India to the Roman Empire for its medicinal properties. Recently Ginger has gained interest among the scientific community for its potential to treat various aspects of cardiovascular disease, in part due to its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antiplatelet, hypotensive, and hypolipidemic effects.These effects have all been scientifically proven although exact doses are tricky to determine in humans. Antiplatelet therapy is an effective approach for preventing coronary heart disease because this prevents clots, the main cause of heart attacks and strokes. Ginger represents a new class of platelet-activation inhibitors without the potential side effects of aspirin which can cause...

What is Chelation and How Does it Work Using chelation therapy for the treatment of heart disease is still considered to be an experimental treatment even though the most recent study showed benefit. Chelation therapy is FDA only approved for toxic metal poisoning and hypercalcemia (a condition of too much calcium). Chelation literally means "to chemically bind to." Chelation can be administered either orally or intravenously but oral bioavailability is poor. Chelation may help but this depends on many factors.  I have noticed that it is most effective when elevated levels of reactive metals are present. Several theories have been proposed for how this treatment may work. One theory suggests that EDTA chelation might work by directly removing calcium found in fatty plaques that block the arteries, causing the plaque to decrease in volume. Another is that the process of chelation may stimulate the release of a hormone (calcitonin) that in turn causes calcium to be removed from the plaques and redistributed. A third theory is that chelation therapy may work by reducing the damaging effects of oxygen ions and reactive transition metals (oxidative stress) on the walls of the blood vessels. Reducing oxidative stress could reduce inflammation in the...

I started specializing in preventive cardiology about 15 years ago. Prior to this I did general medicine in addition to optimal aging medicine, wellness, and the treatment of severe chronic diseases. One thing I noticed is that almost no one did preventive cardiology. All that I was seeing were prescriptions for blood pressure medications and cholesterol drugs, but not much else. I saw some practitioners encouraging diet and exercise and even offering specialized diet plans and supplements but soon realized that was not enough. Arterial Plaque Can be Reversed Early on in my career, about year #2 in my internship, was the first time I witnessed plaque going away in coronary arteries. The textbooks said that this could not happen and I believed too. Ever since I saw this and became fascinated with the prospects of reversing atherosclerosis and improving patients lives, and especially keeping them out of the hospital. The main deficit I saw was a lack of proper testing in the gathering of objective data. I started seeing a lot of guessing and crossing of the fingers with very little follow-up testing to prove treatments were working. Here is an example: you go to the doctor and your...