1. Eat higher quality small producer cage free eggs for breakfast – not dry boxed cereal. Eggs are the gold standand for complete protein and provide a good concentration of the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, important for preventing macular degeneration. Eggs are a "free food" - you can eat as many as you like. Three eggs provide 21 grams of protein and do not raise blood sugar - a better way to start your day. Fry eggs slowly in butter, lard, bacon fat, or olive oil or enjoy a tasty omlette. Eggs - not blood-sugar raising breakfast cereal - is America's traditional, healthy breakfast.
2. Letting go of stress - not resisting things you cannot change - is a pain free way of reducing your risk of a heart attack. "Stress is not all bad. It can motivate and create self confidence," said Christian Barnard, "the body's true enemy is constant haste." Resistance is the devil. Replace resistance with acceptance, cooperation, creative purpose, dignity, discernment, goodwill, honesty, love, optimism, patience, self respect, tolerance, wisdom and unity and you will lower your cortisol levels - dampen down fight or flight - and reduce your risk of a heart attack.
3. Elevated homocysteine is an independent risk factor for heart disease. When elevated, homocysteine promotes clotting, aggravates all other mechanisms in atherosclerosis, and is associated with all causes of premature mortality. Switching from refined foods to whole foods rich in B-complex vitamins - plant and animal - will reduces elevated homocysteine. Liver and other organ meats from animals raised on pasture are the best sources of folic acid and vitamins B6 and B12. B-complex supplements will also reduce homocysteine to normal levels.
4. Carnitine provides heart attack insurance. Carnitine is the molecule that delivers fuel to the heart, increasing cardiac energy. Carnitine also lowers elevated triglycerides (blood fats) and promotes protective HDL. How does carnitine perform this dual feat? Carnitine delivers fat from the blood (triglycerides) to hungry muscles cells ready to burn fat for energy. Mutton, lamb, beef, pork, and chicken - in that order - are the best food sources while fruits, vegetables, and grains are poor sources. As a nutritional supplement, L-Carnitine is important for vegetarians, the overweight, and those with unstable heart disease (at risk of a heart attack).
5. Water- and fat-soluble antioxidants support cardiac health. To promote healthy blood vessels, consider supplementing with mineral ascorbate buffered vitamin C with food-based bioflavonoids. To prevent oxidation of LDL cholesterol and other lipids, consider a natural vitamin E complex that emphasizes Gamma tocopherol and includes tocotrienols from palm oil. Your first line of defense against infection and inflammation, however, is to restrict sugar, fructose, easily digested carbohydrates, and the highly processed vegetable fats that cause injury and inflammation in the first place.
6. Do not consume homogenized milk. Under high pressure, milk fat is forced into tiny particles that can escape directly into the bloodstream where they can imbed in artery walls and oxidize! And most people should avoid pasteurized milk. (If you don't eat boxed cereal, you don't need to buy milk!) Pasteurization destroys all the enzymes in milk, making milk more difficult to absorb. If you drink milk, choose non-homogenized whole milk or - ideally - whole raw milk. Full fat whole raw milk and cheese from pasture-raised cows are healthy foods - children need them for growth.
7. If you supplement with one mineral, make it magnesium. Routine blood tests do not reveal intracellular deficiencies. Magnesium functions within muscle cells and your heart is a muscle. Good food sources include seeds, nuts, fish, beans, vegetables, eggs, and organeat. You can mineralize distilled or filtered water by adding ConcenTrace ionic magnesium from Trace Mineral Research Co. Magnesium has been depleted from the soil and common magnesium supplements, such as magnesium oxide, are poorly absorbed. If you supplement with calcium, consider supplementing with magnesium in a 1:1 ratio. Your body cannot fully tilize calcium without adequate magnesium, a host of trace minerals, and the fat soluble vitamins A & D.
8. In his busy medical practise, the late Dr. Robert Atkins noted that people start losing control of blood sugar around age 50. Blood sugar has a narrow optimum range (between 80 and 100), and levels over 100 represent increased risk of heat disease. Risk is linear; the higher your blood sugar the greater your risk. Diabetes is diagosed when fasting blood sugar tops 125, but damage to the vasculature begins when blood sugar goes over 100. While elevated blood sugar is a predictive risk factor risk of heart disease; total cholesterol, which has a wide normal range (180 to 350), is not.
9. Select low glycemic index carbohydrates from the vegetable kingdom; avoid high glycemic foods that contain flour, processed grains, and sugar. High glycemic food products like dry boxed cereal cause a rapid rise in blood sugar. Low glycemic carbohydrates like cabbage and Brussels sprouts do not. When choosing carbohydrates, emphasize low glycemic vegetables. Among fruits, as an example, an apple is better than apple sauce, apple juice, or apple juice concentrate. This is especially important for the overweight, diabetics, and those diagnosed with metabolic syndrome (carbohydrate-related heart disease).
10. Elevated triglycerides (TG) are the most predictive risk factor for heart disease. Triglycerides are blood fats made in the liver from carbohydrates. High carb diets are associated with elevated triglycerides and depressed levels of protective HDL. You can reduce elevated triglycerides by consuming an Atkins-style high fat diet. Dietary fat promotes protective HDL. Eggs are a reliable food for boosting HDL, especially when you are replacing cereal and breakfast bars, which raise triglycerides. You want your HDL as high as possible (over 60 for men; over 70 for women) and you want your triglycerides below 100. Appendix 1, Cereal Killer, provides a complete review of all heart disease risk factors.
11. Don't be a couch potato – and don't over-exercise. Extreme exercise weakens the immune system, promotes magnesium excretion, causes atrial fibrillation, and may result in sudden death or slow, suffocating heart failure. The over emphasis on strenuous exercise in the Dietary Guidelines may be dangerous for people who have serious undetected heart disease. Walking, dancing, shopping, swimming, and other daily physical activities promote longevity; excess strenuous exercise may kill you.
12. If you tolerate grains, eat whole grains that have been properly prepared. Phytic acid, found in the hulls of nuts, seeds, and grains, must be neutralized. Nourishing Traditions cookbook by Sally Fallon provides recipes and in-home preparation techniques that neutralize the phytates in these foods. Phytic acid is a strong chelator of important minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc and can create debilitating mineral deficiencies. Whole grains can be healthy - but not for everyone. Whole grains can be nutritious - but only if they are soaked overnight, sprouted, and properly prepared.
13. Use circulation tonic herbs like cayenne, ginger, garlic, onion, and hawthorn to stimulate, cleanse and nutritionally support healthy blood circulation. Cayenne is the most powerful circulatory stimulant. Taken with meals, cayenne helps prevent fibrin build up. Fibrin is a blood protein that collects platelets together into a clot. Cayenne, ginger, garlic, and onion promote fibrinolysis - the body's own fibrin/clot dissolving system. Flavonoids in hawthorn berries, blossoms, and leaves, over time, help nourish the heart and help dilate (open) the coronary arteries. Don't forget magnesium!
14. Do not eat margarine, vegetable shortening (like Crisco), partially hydrogenated vegetable fat, deep fried foods at fast food restaurants, or liquid vegetable oils like soybean, sunflower, and Canola. Highly processed vegetable oils are the fats of mass destruction - unsafe at any meal. Since Crisco was introduced in 1911, hydrogenated vegetable fats have been a significant source of trans fatty acids in the American diet. Unsaturated fats are chemically unstable - that's what "unsaturated means." Heat damaged, they cause injury and inflammation in the cells and tissues of the body. The new unesterified fats being used in restaurant deep fryers are no better and they may be worse than the hydrogenated fats they are replacing. If your are going to eat French fries, deep fry them in beef tallow. If you fry potatoes, fry them in lard. If you eat a baked potato, bury it in butter and sour cream. These healthy natural fats are need for mineral absorption and they reduce the glycemic index value of the meal.
15. Use a variety of traditional fat in the kitchen: Butter, lard, beef tallow, coconut, palm oil, extra virgin olive oil, and high quality sesame oil. Vitamin A-rich butter is used in baking, low temperature frying, and in creams and sauces. Eat as much as you want! Vitamin-D rich lard is a good choice for frying chicken, potatoes, liver, and salmon patties. Beef tallow is a stable fat for occasional deep frying. Coconut is a good choice for baking, frying shrimp, and making popcorn. Stable, palm oil is a rich source of palmitic acid, the type of fat that protects our lungs. Extra virgin olive oil is the best all around vegetable oil - made without high-heat processing. High quality sesame oil is a good choice for stir-fry. In Know Your Fats, Mary Enig, PhD, offers her own all-purpose oil recipe for sauteing and light frying: One-third each coconut oil, sesame oil, and olive oil. Teaspoon, tablespoon, and cup measures all work (you may have to heat up the coconut oil for easy mixing.)
16. Milled flaxseed is the best source of plant-based omega 3 fatty acid alpha linolenic acid (ALA). Milled flaxseed also provides protein, minerals, plant lignans, and both soluble and insoluble fiber (no digestible carbohydrates). Unrefined flax oil can be used in salad dressings and help protect against cancer when combined with sulfurated proteins (like quark, old fashioned yogurt, or cottage cheese). Flaxseeds contains a beneficial 3:1 ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 - helping to balance the essential fats in the American diet. Milled flaxseed can be used in baking, sprinkled on salads, added to soups, and - together with butter and cream - added to old fashioned oatmeal or porridges soaked overnight. Pumpkin seeds and walnuts are also a good source of ALA and minerals like magnesium that protect the heart.
17. Emphasize protein at each meal, especially breakfast. Eggs are the gold standard of complete protein followed by wild game and pasture-raised beef, lamb, pork, chicken, and turkey. Animal foods provide complete protein - amino acids in the optimum ratios. Along with dietary fat, protein is a major building block - accounting for 20 percent of our body weight. Protein is a vital component of hair, skin, nails, tissues, enzymes, and immune cells. Beef and lamb from pasture-raised animals provide complete protein, omega 3 fatty acids, omega 6 Arachidonic acid, fat-burning conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) plus a bounty of critically important minerals like iron and zinc. B12 is only available in animal foods. B12 supports the production of red blood cells, prevents anemia, allows nerve cells to develop properly, and helps your cells metabolize protein, carbohydrate, and fat. Don't skimp on protein!
18. Eat deep sea cold water fatty fish as often as possible. Wild salmon, sardines, herring, mackeral, anchovies and tuna are good choices. Fatty fish provide the very long chain omega 3 essential fatty acids EPA and DHA. Fatty fish are also a good source of complete protein and essential minerals. EPA and DHA help keep your heart in rythym and serve as anti-inflammatory agents when consumed on a regular basis.
19. Test for, monitor, and restore health-promoting hormone levels with bio-identical Pregnenolone, Progesterone and DHEA (Testosterone is prescription only). Learn more about the importance of saliva testing and supplement applications by visiting www.johnleemd.com. (For decades, the late Dr. John Lee safely used natural progesterone in his medical practise and accumulated extensive clinical data to document its safe, effective use.)
20. Replace soft drinks with green tea, herb tea and pure water. Alcohol in small quantities (1 or 2 drinks daily) raises beneficial HDL cholesterol, prolonging longevity. If you drink coffee, choose certified organic "shade grown" coffee. You are supporting ecologically correct farming, and commercial coffee beans may be heavily sprayed with hazardous chemicals. Like alcohol, coffee may be beneficial in small amounts but potentially harmful if consumed throughout the day.
21. Ask your doctor for a complete lipid evaluation. Understand all of your coronary heart disease risk factors. Remember, total cholesterol is not a reliable predictor of heart disease and the majority of people who have heart attacks have cholesterol "in the target range" set by the National Cholesterol Education Program. A complete review of all heart disease risk factors can be found in Cereal Killer, Appendix 1.
