Heart Risk Factors

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker for inflammation that is directly associated with atherosclerotic plaque. It’s a blood protein that, when found in elevated levels, may indicate you could be at risk of heart attack and stroke.

Multiple studies have identified CRP as a potent predictor of future cardiovascular problems—and one that is far more reliable than elevated cholesterol levels.

Biological characteristics that are associated with high CRP levels include trauma, infections, high blood sugar, excess weight, and hypercoagulability of blood (sticky blood). Any one of these situations literally feeds pro-inflammatory mediators, ratcheting up the chances that you’ll develop atherosclerosis.

If you have heart disease concerns, other cardiovascular problems, or you’ve had trauma or an infection that could cause inflammation, you should have your CRP levels tested. Just make sure your doctor uses the high sensitivity test (hs-CRP). This test doesn’t take much time; typically, blood is drawn from a vein located either on the forearm or from inside your elbow. The blood is then analyzed in several tests to determine the level of CRP present.

For more information on heart risk factors or cardiovascular problems, visit www.drsinatra.com.

More people vacation during the summer months than at any other time of year. And the topic of “airport angina”—an old cardiology phrase—may be getting tossed around now more than usual. But what, exactly, does it mean?

Essentially, “airport angina” is a phrase coined to describe heart symptoms of ischemia (lack of oxygen to the heart) that are provoked by hauling and lifting luggage. And getting angina when you’re far from home is always an unsettling experience.

Of course, we all know that there’s more to traveling than lugging luggage, regardless of your mode of transportation. But airports are fraught with a few more built-in stressors than other forms of travel, including:

• scheduling and weather concerns;
• airport security;
• flight delays;
• cancelled flights and rerouting;
• tight connections and time urgency;
• dread about lost luggage; and so on.

So, the psychological stress combined with the isometric physical work of carrying your bags is sort of “like being in double handcuffs,” as Dr. Sinatra would say.

And, let’s face it, all traveling and vacationing has the potential for some family and other unpredictable stressors, in addition to the physical exertion of lifting bags onto “trains, planes, and automobiles.”

Dr. Sinatra will be addressing the topic of safe air travel for cardiac patients in an upcoming issue of Heart, Health, and Nutrition. And in a few days, I’ll post another blog on how heart patients can manage their luggage from a physical exertion standpoint. So, stay tuned!

For more information on angina and other cardiovascular problems, visit Dr. Sinatra’s Web site.

• C-reactive protein, 
• interleukin-6, 
• homocysteine,
• fibrinogen, 
• lipoprotein (a) or Lp(a), and
• ferritin (iron).

These blood elements are helping to explain why people with “normal” blood profiles and no obvious risks sometimes turn up with serious heart disease, and more than two of them can produce an increase in risk of heart disease.

Fortunately, these heart risk factors can be detected with a blood test, and most are extremely responsive to good cardiovascular nutrition, nutritional supplements, and other healthy lifestyle changes.

For more information on what I consider to be healthy levels of these blood elements, along with a summary of my recommendations to achieve these healthy levels, visit www.drsinatra.com or subscribe to my monthly newsletter, Heart, Health & Nutrition.

No matter what time of year, seems like we are always looking to detox and to manage our weight! Through the winter months, I convince myself that weight management will be easier in the warm weather when I can work in the yard; walk about more freely without ice, snow, and storms to contend with; enjoy longer days and more light and natural vitamin D; and so on.

Then, from my midsummer night’s dream I awaken to realize that longer days mean the joy of more social activities; more meals out with family and friends; more grab ‘n go food on our jaunts to be out of doors more; and on it goes.

This summer, Dr. Sinatra and I were mindful to create healthy, farm stand meals at home to balance dining out during vacation and business trips. And we added daily juicing to offset our dietary indiscretions.

Dr. Sinatra’s sister, Dr. Maria Seidel, got us jumpstarted. She stayed with us after taking her nursing students to Costa Rica. There, her local hosts made her fresh juice from their organically grown gardens every morning for three weeks. Maria came home feeling like a million bucks, and juiced us every morning of her visit. Now, we are all hooked!  

Instead of an occasional juice meal to detox, Dr. Sinatra and I have made juicing a regular breakfast ritual. In fact, we both feel so much better physically and mentally that we got motivated to maintain the “habit” even when we are on the road. If we feel we have overindulged, we compensate by juicing for dinner as well.  All those live enzymes are nature’s way of cleansing and restoring your GI tract, nurturing all the cells in your body, and boosting your immune system, as well as your overall energy.

Traveling in your own car with a cooler is the easiest way to maintain a juicy life. You can pack some organic fruits and veggies to juice along with your Vitamix, Cuisinart blender/food processor, or juicer. We actually find the Vitamix and Cusinart less messy, easier to clean, AND you don’t lose all the nutrients in the pulp strained and discarded in traditional juicers. The juice is more of a textural experience as well, which we enjoy—and there’s more fiber included to boot.

When staying in hotels, we looked for those with a kitchen set up or a counter with an available electrical outlet. If we can find a Jamba-juice kind of place when we travel by air, that’s a big plus too!

There are plenty of juice recipes out there to get you started if you are new at it, but feel free to be creative and have fun too! Pick the ingredients you like to eat. Dr. Sinatra’s favorite is to combine leafy greens with fresh fruit, beets, and a splash of ginger.

Here is one if his favorites. Combine one or all from each category:

• Berries: strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries
• Other fruit: apple, banana, kiwi (no citrus)
• Vegetable: Beets are our breakfast favorite (but mixed veggie juices are great for lunch and dinner) 
• Ginger: skin and add fresh ginger to taste
• Greens: Swiss chard, baby spinach, parsley, kale, broccolini
• Add water or ice to get consistency for easy pouring

To prepare:

1. Just wash and cut fresh, hopefully organic, produce in chunks.
2. To liquefy in blender/processor, we use “chop” setting, then use food processor setting to make finer. If you use juicer, just turn it on.
3. Enjoy.

Note: These juices don’t keep long or store well, so make just enough for your meal.

For more great recipes and other cardiovascular nutrition tips, visit Dr. Sinatra’s Web site.

There has been some controversy about the effectiveness of medicinal footbaths. Dr. Sinatra and I have experienced several of them in exhibit halls at major health expos. You can imagine the numerous venders who propose many health benefits from using their products, particularly detoxification. The concept involves sitting with your feet in a small tub of water. Then, devices and solutions are added to promote detoxification.

Sodium chloride salt is usually sprinkled in the warm water and an electrode added with a positive and negative electronic charge to create a high energy complex in the water. Proponents claim that the color changes noted in the water colors represent different toxins being drawn out of the body through the feet—toxins coming from the liver, lymph glands, joints, fatty tissue, etc.

Now, while it’s true that the water does change color in these footbaths, it would do so even if your feet were not placed in the water. However, those colors do appear darker and thicker when the feet are immersed. So, what could possibly be going on?

Some proponents of the medicinal footbath claim that the highly charged water creates an energy complex that acts on the acupuncture meridians in the feet, reaching multiple systems in the body. Now remember, Dr. Sinatra is from Missouri, so you gotta show him! 

At one such anti-aging conference years back, Dr. Sinatra looked at these foot baths with a very skeptical eye. Although the theory seemed plausible, we were both thinking it a bit of a parlor trick that it could energize the body at the same time, despite positive testimonials from people who feel better after using the bath. Then one distributor offered some science: a live visual of microscopic serum analysis of blood viscosity pre- and post- footbath. 

The pre-treatment blood showed red blood cells stacked on one another like poker chips, known as rouleaux (pronounced rooo- low). Rouleaux formation indicates clumpy, sticky blood and increased blood viscosity, a risk factor for cardiovascular problems, such as heart attack and stroke. The post-foot bath blood analysis revealed red blood cells that were not sticking together; they were flowing freely in the microscopic field.

Mildly impressed, but still skeptical, Dr. Sinatra and I joined two another MD colleagues and tried the footbath for ourselves—and had the same blood results. For my husband, there was even relief of his right hip pain. The intervention had also included drinking a solution called Ioncleanse, a mixture of silver chloride and other minerals. The internalization of the minerals and the external charge are supposed to raise the overall energy field, thus making the detoxification and energetic process even more profound.

Needless to say, we all ordered footbaths for our own homes.

That was back in 2004. Flash forward to today, and many health professionals endorse footbaths and are convinced they may be a vital tool in energizing and detoxifying the body. Even the prestigious Townsend Letter described how the footbath works.

For now, we continue to have an open mind that the footbath may even be a viable intervention to reduce blood viscosity and inflammation—two factors that contribute to developing and worsening of heart disease. And the benefits of detox cannot be underscored; inflammation is the root of many illnesses.

We have the most experience with B. E. S. T. (Bio-Electric Stimulating Technique) footbath, and there are many others in the marketplace. Some companies offer electrodes that can be placed in your own bathtub. Many alternative medicine practitioners offer footbath treatments in their office or clinic if you want to experience one yourself.

For more information on cardiovascular problems, as well as new ways to reduce heart risk factors, visit Dr. Sinatra’s Web site.

Reference:
Walker M, Walker R.  IonCleanse detoxification—getting the issues out of tissues. Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients. 2004:101-104.

Research has found a connection between high blood pressure levels and non-aspirin painkillers. A report from the Harvard School of Medicine’s ongoing Nurses Health Study concluded that women are at increased risk for high blood pressure levels if they take daily doses of painkillers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil and Motrin).

The Harvard study involved 5,123 women age 34 to 77, each of whom had healthy blood pressure at the onset. Here are the results:

1. For women not taking painkillers, the risk of developing high blood pressure levels was about 1 to 3 percent a year.
2. Women taking an average daily dose of more than 500 mg of acetaminophen (one extra-strength tablet) had a 93 to 99 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure levels within three years, compared to women taking less than 500 mg.
3. Women taking more than 400 mg a day of over-the-counter NSAIDS (the equivalent of two ibuprofen) had a 60 to 78 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure levels, compared to women taking less than 400 mg.

For more information on high blood pressure levels and other cardiovascular problems, visit www.drsinatra.com.

If you’re working hard to prevent heart attack and stroke, as well as the occurrence of other cardiovascular problems, you need to beware of the dangers associated with salt. 

As any decent doctor or holistic practitioner will tell you, having too much salt in your system can make it difficult for you to maintain healthy blood pressure levels, as well as healthy cholesterol levels.  In fact, too much salt can severely compromise your overall health and force you to deal with a myriad of serious heart risk factors you’d do well to avoid.

Here are four things you may not know about salt consumption:

1. Your body requires sodium (a component of salt) to regulate fluid balance and distribution, as well as nerve and muscle cell function. Although you need some sodium, the standard American diet includes way too much. That’s why I urge my patients to try what I often refer to as "the healthiest diet of all." You'll be amazed at how effective it can be.
2. The current recommendation for salt consumption is less than 2,400 mg of sodium a day, which amounts to about one teaspoon of salt. Recent research suggests that people ingesting less than 1,500 mg of sodium a day are better able to keep their blood pressure low. If you have high blood pressure, you should definitely aim for that kind of level. Don’t use salt from the shaker, and read labels to add up the amount you’re taking in.
3. Many items at fast food restaurants are high in salt, so you can easily exceed the recommended level with one serving.
4. You can easily make up for the reduced salt in your diet by cooking with fresh herbs and spices such as basil, garlic, oregano, rosemary, chives, parsley, and onion. What’s more, all of these flavorings contain natural substances that are good for your health. Garlic, in particular, has been shown to have a positive effect on blood pressure when consumed on a daily basis.

I hope you'll share this information with your friends and loved ones. It's just another example of how you can do something simple to help control your cardiovascular health.

For more information on blood pressure levels and other cardiovascular problems, visit www.drsinatra.com.

One of the common conditions we cardiologists treat has nothing directly to do with the heart itself, but rather with blockages of blood vessels going to and from the kidneys, stomach, arms, legs, and feet. We call this condition peripheral vascular or arterial disease. You may know it as “poor blood circulation.”

An estimated 12 million Americans are affected by the disease, and its incidence increases with age—about one-fifth of people age 70 and older have it. The condition is sometimes called a smoker’s disease because it’s particularly prominent among people who have smoked at some point in their lives.

Most doctors and holistic health practitioners agree that blood circulation problems are typically due to the buildup of plaque in the affected blood vessels—similar to the kind of buildup we see in the coronary arteries that feed the heart or the carotid arteries leading to the brain. The result is restricted blood flow, discomfort, tiredness, heaviness, and, often, cramping.

To combat the condition, doctors often use drugs, angioplasty, or surgery. My approach takes a different tack. I focus on the muscle cells and how to get rid of their metabolic by-products, which become increasingly toxic because of the poor blood circulation.

The solution is to help remove the toxins. To do this, I suggest taking glycine propionyl-L-carnitine (GPLC), a recently developed form of L-carnitine that can help improve blood circulation, as well as blood pressure levels. Like other forms of carnitine, GPLC gets quickly into the muscle cells’ mitochondria (the part of the cell where energy is produced). There it acts as a ferry, ushering in the fatty acids that are burned as fuel, and escorting out the toxins that otherwise would build up inside the cell.

GPLC has also been shown to increase the primary enzyme responsible for nitric oxide production in the arteries. Nitric oxide, as you may know, helps regulate the dilation of blood vessels. Proper dilation is necessary to keep blood circulation problems at bay.

For more information on poor blood circulation, ways to improve blood circulation, or other cardiovascular problems, visit Dr. Sinatra's Web site.

Dr. Sinatra has long believed in the famous words of Hippocrates, the Greek physician of centuries past who is now recognized as the “Father of Medicine.” Hippocrates employed food to assist his patients in healing their physical ailments. With all our high tech medical approaches and complex pharmaceutical agents, it is amazing how much we have forgotten that simple approach!

After years of applying nutritional solutions to the myriad faces of heart disease—high blood pressure levels; chronic hypertension; high triglycerides; elevated L(p)a; angina; and heart attack and stroke—Dr. Sinatra has finally answered his patients’ many requests for a book that they can have as a reference at home. His research and personal experiences with his family, friends, and cardiac patients has continually impressed my husband that Hippocrates was so right on—and provided the foundation for this effort.     

Dr. Sinatra has collaborated with former pro athlete and health editor Jim Healthy, as well as recipe queen Rebecca Bent to write Bottom Line’s The Healing Kitchen. The Healing Kitchen is a strategic resource for making healthy grocery selections and healing meal planning guidelines, as well as specific recipes to assist you in selecting the right healthy foods to meet your specific health and fitness needs.

Subscribers to Heart, Health, and Nutrition have been reading Dr. Sinatra’s take on which foods, herbs, and supplements can help with their cardiovascular problems (not to mention cancer and other diseases caused by inflammation) for many years. Now all that information and more is the basis for this one reference to help guide you to foods that can heal your body.

For instance, the omega 3 essential fatty acids—especially those found in squid and fish oils—assuage cardiac arrhythmia, lower blood pressure levels, reduce LDL cholesterol levels, and even prevent plaque rupture.

Garlic is a potent blood thinner and, like onions which are rich in quercetin, helps you prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol. Garlic and onions are both superb foods for lowering blood pressure levels. And, speaking of hypertension, Dr. Sinatra also recommends sardines and wakame seaweed as natural blood pressure lowering foods.

And that’s just the beginning! Did you know that the right diet can help alleviate your migraines headaches, or that non-inflammatory foods can heal your arthritis?

Foods can also protect women from menopausal symptoms, as well as heal and protect us from cancer. The lutein in tomatoes along with pumpkin seeds and other fine herbs and spices can help men with their prostate concerns. From heart disease and diabetes to sleep and sex, The Healing Kitchen will educate you about natural, tasty remedies for many of the illnesses that afflict the 20th century. 

If you are looking to use simple, healthy foods, herbs and spices to get your body back on track, and keep it there, you will love this book!

For more information on healthy heart nutrition or some of Dr. Sinatra’s famous recipes, visit his Web site at www.drsinatra.com.

I worry about the fact that so many women still think that cardiovascular problems, like heart disease and stroke, is primarily a problem for men. The truth is that heart disease is a major health risk for women, but many physicians did not realize this until recently, so they’ve done little to encourage their female patients to take steps to protect their heart health.

I also worry because much of our knowledge about heart disease describes how the condition affects men. This leads many physicians, including some holistic practitioners, to diagnose and treat women as if heart disease affected them the same way. Nothing could be further from the truth. Heart disease affects men and women very differently and I’ve written about that here in this in newsletter articles, books, and here in this blog.

For example, if a 45-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man both come into the emergency room with chest pain, most physicians will probably admit the man and tell the woman her symptoms are due to stress and anxiety. Not many physicians realize that the incidence of coronary events among women quadruples as they reach middle age.

What You Can Do About It

I want you to understand that much of this, in both women and men, is related to lifestyle and the choices you make.

• Choose to seek natural ways to lower blood pressure if that’s a problem for you.
• Choose to adhere to good cardiovascular nutrition, which may include increasing the amount of fresh vegetables you consume and lowering the amount of breads and other starches you eat each day.
• Choose to do what you need to do to maintain good cholesterol levels, improve blood circulation, and healthy triglycerides.
• Choose to exercise so that you can more easily prevent blood clots and maintain a healthy weight.

In short, while it may be difficult at the start, choose to live a healthy lifestyle.  Choose life.

For more information on women and cardiovascular problems or tips for good cardiovascular nutrition, visit Dr. Sinatra's Web site.

The dangers of excess refined carbohydrate and sugar consumption are downright endemic in our society. Sugar causes a myriad of health concerns from obesity and diabetes to high blood pressure levels and cardiovascular problems. Excess sugar is even a major culprit in anxiety, depression, fatigue, and pain.

As Dr. Sinatra has warned in lectures, books, newsletters, e-letters, and blogs, elevated blood sugar stokes inflammatory processes that fuel disease. In fact, his concern for the overconsumption of sugar is what led Dr. Sinatra co-author Sugar Shock in 2006 with Connie Bennett.

Dr. Sinatra also recommends Beat Sugar Addiction NOW! (Fair Winds Press, March 2010), the newest book from one of Dr Sinatra’s “top docs,” Jacob Teitelbaum, MD.  In the book, Dr. Teitelbaum reveals four types of sugar habits and their hidden causes. “Understanding your sugar addiction type, you can take steps to beat it and in the same stroke improve your overall health,” says Dr Teitelbaum. “Knowing the type of sugar addict you are also helps to solve many other chronic medical problems.”

By understanding your metabolic makeup, you are more likely to succeed in kicking your sugar habit. See if you recognize yourself as one the types Dr. Teitelbaum describes:

• Type 1. Sugar addiction driven by fatigue. This is characterized by being hooked on so-called “energy drinks,” which are in reality energy loan sharks.
• Type 2. Sugar addiction driven by adrenal exhaustion. This is when your body's stress handlers (the adrenal glands) are exhausted by the stresses of modern life. It is characterized by intermittent feelings of “feed me now or I'll kill you!”
• Type 3. Sugar addiction driven by yeast/Candida overgrowth. In addition to fatigue and sugar cravings, this is often associated with digestive problems (irritable bowel syndrome/spastic colon) and chronic nasal congestion or sinusitis.
• Type 4. Sugar addiction driven by depression and anxiety caused by hormonal shifts. These include PMS, perimenopause and menopause in women, and andropause (testosterone deficiency) in men.

The best part of his down-to-earth approach is that Dr. Teitelbaum doesn’t give you some insurmountable goals to achieve. He doesn’t wasn’t you to obsess about it! Rather, he shows you how to simply make sugar your dessert, instead of the main course!

For a good chuckle, and an introduction to the four sugar addiction types defined in the book, check out the animation promo on YouTube.

And for more information on proper nutrition or other health concerns, visit Dr. Sinatra's Web site.

Though you wouldn’t know it based on today’s obsession with cholesterol levels, cardiology has been slowly veering away from the narrow view of cholesterol as a primary cause of coronary artery disease (CAD).

The field is finally realizing that although good cholesterol levels can help deter the biochemical process that creates damage in arterial walls—which in turn leads to plaque, occlusions, and clots—it’s a relatively minor one. In other words, they’ve realized that even though they may find cholesterol at the scene of the crime, it’s not necessarily the perpetrator.

An excellent example of this is shared in a population study that showed how the French have the highest total cholesterol levels in Europe—about 250—but the lowest incidence of cardiovascular problems, including heart disease.

This being said, I continue to encourage you to find natural ways to maintain healthy cholesterol, including adhering to a smart, cholesterol lowering diet.  I just want you to also realize that cholesterol is just one of many heart risk factors, and is not necessarily the most deadly.

For more information on reducing cholesterol and other cardiovascular problems, visit Dr. Sinatra's Web site.

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a marker for inflammation that is directly associated with atherosclerotic plaque.

It’s a blood protein that, when found in elevated levels, may indicate risk of heart attack and stroke.  Multiple studies have identified CRP as a potent predictor of future cardiovascular problems—and one that is far more reliable than elevated cholesterol levels.

Biological characteristics that are associated with high CRP levels include trauma, infections, high blood sugar, excess weight, and hypercoagulability of blood (sticky blood). Any one of these situations literally feeds pro-inflammatory mediators, ratcheting up the chances that you’ll develop atherosclerosis.

If you currently have cardiovascular problems or you’ve had trauma or an infection that could cause inflammation, you should have your CRP levels tested. Just make sure your doctor or holistic health practitioner requests the high sensitivity test (hs-CRP). This test doesn’t take much time; typically, blood is drawn from a vein located either on the forearm or from inside your elbow. The blood is then analyzed in several tests to determine the level of CRP present.

For more information on heart risk factors and cardiovascular problems, visit Dr. Sinatra's Web site.

The leading causes of high blood pressure levels include stress, genetics, being overweight, a high-sugar diet, heavy metal toxicity, and lack of exercise. 

This blog is loaded with posts that can help you manage all of these.  And once you have them under control, you’ll be well on your way to avoiding a host of cardiovascular problems, including heart attack and stroke.

Obviously, it’s better to prevent high blood pressure levels than to treat them.  That’s why I work so hard to educate my readers.  I want you all to know that there are natural ways to lower blood pressure, including:

• reducing stress,
• losing weight  (you can get great tips for doing this here),
• controlling your sugar intake, and
• exercising more.

You also want to adhere to good cardiovascular nutrition and following my PAMM diet makes that easy.  You’ll never go hungry, but will enjoy delicious foods filled with the nutrients you need to maintain good health.

For more information on blood pressure levels and healthy blood pressure, visit Dr. Sinatra's Web site.