Heart Failure Articles

Your Heart’s nutritional needs can be met by a diet of whole foods. The realization that our heart needs  vitamins, and minerals is not well understood. The overall consensus is that a heart condition such as a heart attack, heart failure, atrium fibrillation, stroke, heart valve problems, and infections are just circumstantial occurrences. The aging process is blamed, along with stress, and genes. What is left out is that healthy bodies are produced by good nutrition, our hearts are no different.

A healthy heart program is not that different than a healthy lifestyle. It is known among holistic practitioners that the heart and circulatory system is dependent on, and responds to nutrition. The energy dense foods, with high nutritional value are the ones that supplement and support muscular movement, nerves, cell health, and immune function. The heart is a muscle and can recover in the same way muscles do. Muscle strength is not a product of a pharmaceutical.  Pharmaceutical drugs can and do cause a loss of nutrients, that are vital to heart health.

Your heart is made up of cells that depend on nutrients. The low fat craze is worrisome, because eliminating healthy fats will cause more problems than it will fix. The type of low- fat foods on the market are high-tech, nutritional robbers, that will have the opposite effect. Low-fat diets are low in fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamins A and D, plus others. You need good fat for your body to be able to absorb the many nutrients from plant food. Healthy people around the world do not count the fat grams in every piece of food.

Magnesium, Calcium, iodine, and B complex are important to the heart muscle, and normal heartbeat. These are not the ones that come in a capsule, because those are not going to be assimilated. What supplies the body with what it needs comes from whole foods. The thyroid is dependent on iodine, but so is the body both dependent on thyroid function and iodine. Remember it takes awhile before the body shows signs of poor nutrition, and that is one of the reasons it appears as if heart disease increases with age.

Irregular heartbeats can be caused by a magnesium deficiency. Magnesium can be obtained from wheat brand, wheat germ, cashews, sesame seeds, millet, wild rice, brown rice, greens, and dried figs etc. It is referred to as a natural calcium channel-blocker. Magnesium can lower blood pressure, and helps the heart function.

Vitamin P available from citrus fruits, aids in absorption of vitamin C from our food supply. Capillary health is promoted by the action of this nutrient. Vitamin P flavenoids have the ability to decrease inflammation, improve blood flow, and strengthens blood vessels. They aid in the prevention of coronary disease because they also combat free radicals, and improve immunity. A diet high in vitamin P may decrease the chance of heart disease. Citrus fruits are full of Flavonoids, which are known help with conditions from hay fever to cancer. By reducing cellular damage caused by free radicals, they are a holistic therapy.

This is a list of some of the foods that contain flavonoids: grapefruit, oranges, apples, apricots, pears, peaches, tomatoes, blueberries, cherries, cranberries, red plums, strawberries, red cabbage, onions, parsley, prunes, and rhubarb. Bioflavonoid helps lower cholesterol levels. Bioflavonoids have an antibacterial effect and promote good circulation.

Omega-3 fatty acid found in fish oil, has an effect on heart function, including decreasing the risk of arrhythmias, decreases triglyceride levels, and reduces the growth rate of atherosclerotic plaque, and may slightly lower blood pressure. We are talking about substances that help you stay both active and healthy, when we are talking about your heart’s nutritional needs.

There is a reason that mainstream medicine is not very effective at treating Cachexia, they do not understand the underlying cause. Cachexia needs an alternative treatment that helps reverse the condition, while at the same time restoring health. Cachexia is an inflammatory response to injury, tumor secretions, an imbalance in the patients internal environment.

This condition is seen in heart failure patients, anorexics, and pancreatic cancer patients. Patrick Swayze is a prime example. It can occur less often with other tumors. The problem is in mainstream medical thinking or lack of it. Unless they are thinking, but the thoughts are about profits, which means there were funds spend on the research, development, in anticipation of a financial payoff.

Western medicine lacks an understanding of the healing powers of the human body when it’s given the right tools. Oncologists want to see the patient eat as many calories as possible. Most do not see a difference from one calorie to another. Whatever the source, which can include everything form milk shakes, ice cream, mayonnaise, Omega 6 fats found in gain fed beef along with some hormones and antibiotics, processed food, and even sugary confectionery treats, soda included.

The Cachexia Patient is suffering from malnutrition, and this can occur with a high caloric diet. Most of the obese and overweight population are suffering from malnutrition. It is known that malnutrition leads to a depressed immune system and more infections. Malnutrition goes unrecognized in hospitals, look at the food they serve to patients. That alone should be a hint that they do not know the ramifications of a poor diet. Hospital food and their nutritional drips may contain corn syrup solids, maltodextrin dextrose, canola oil, artificial flavor and color along with the chemical version of vitamins.

Hospitals are known for spreading some pretty nasty infections. So far it is blamed on many things, while they all need to be addressed, they some how left out nutrition status of the patient and staff. Cachexia needs an alternative treatment, that is based on healing the person through sound nutritional based therapy.

Cachexia treatment should be based on nutritional protocols. This is a condition of muscle wasting that is usually a by-product of a specific condition. This is the part that can do you in, especially if you depend on a medical fix for the problem. Heart Failure, cancer, and AIDS are known to produce Cachexia. This is the body’s attempt at getting what it needs to function.

This is the issue that needs to be address in a new way. So far the medical establishment has dismally failed at turning this condition around. When a patient succumbs to their disease, it usually is because of starvation. What the medical establishment does is hook a patient with cachexia to a feeding tube filled with a high glucose solution.

This is the wrong approach, if it was right it would solve the problem.  Extra calories alone will not fix this problem. However, good nutrition, the right enzymes, resistance exercise, good source of protein, and Omega 3 fish oil do help.  A study conducted in the UK shows that fish oil is helpful addressing cachexia. Researches at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh tested omega 3-fatty acids on advanced pancreatic cancer patients who displayed signs of cachexia. Cachexia symptoms include a general loss of vitality, poor appetite, weight loss, loss of muscle mass. This syndrome compromises the immune system.

The most amazing part to this study is what the results say about our approach to health. There were 200 patients divided into two groups, 95 received a daily-calorie protein supplement, enriched with vitamins C and E and about 2 grams of omega-3 fatty acids, and 105 received a similar supplement that didn’t include the additional vitamins or fatty acids.

At the beginning of the study, subjects were losing an average of approximately 7 pounds per month. But over the 8-week period of the study, subjects in both groups stopped losing weight. What researchers found that the omega-3 group showed significantly higher rate of weight gain, as well as increased lean body mass compared to the other group. Furthermore, weight gain was associated with improved quality of life only in the omega-3 group.

This is the part that amazes me, all these conditions respond to nutritional intervention. Heart Failure, cancer, and AIDS came about because the body was not getting the building blocks it needed. There a few studies that demonstrate how omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil improve cardiovascular health, and cut the risk of heart problems. Only fish Oil contains both eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docohexaenoic acid (DHA). When combined, these two fatty acids have been shown to help prevent many conditions.

Cachexia or wasting is a response to injury. It is a process that can occur with cancer, heart condition, or anything that causes tissue damage. When confronted with this the body does its job to try and clear the damage and repair it. To get the energy plus the amino acids which are the building blocks for this particular response, you get muscle wasting. It is using the muscles to supply what the body needs to heal. Cachexia Treatment as it is practiced today will not heal the patient. What is needed is a new medical model built on respect for the power of the body to heal given the right tools.