Cardiovascular Health

& Functional Medicine

 Cardiovascular problems encompass a wide range of issues. When most people think cardiovascular they are generally thinking about high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart attacks, or maybe a stroke.

The reality is that it includes all of those things, but also anything else related to either the heart or the entire circulatory system. Some of the many areas and/or symptoms that functional medicine can help with and we often see in our offices include the following:

Heart Attacks

TIA’s - Transient Ischemic attack

Cardiomyopathy

Cardiomegaly

Migraines

Reynauds - which is also a for of an Autoimmune disease

Hyperlipidemia - High cholesterol

Arrhythmia - Irregular heart beat

Edema - swelling in the extremities

Hypertension - High blood pressure

Varicose veins

Congestive heart disease

The biggest “Drug” to prevent or reverse heart disease isn’t a medication.

  • Dr. Mark Hyman

 

Most, but not all cardiovascular issues can be traced back to some other imbalance in the body that caused the problem in the first place. It is not that your body all of sudden decided to create plaque on your artery walls or that cholesterol goes up for some mysterious reason or that you have a lack of some cholesterol medication.

Nope. It is that your body is responding to some other imbalance in the body, and it is being manifested in a cardiovascular way.

Here is an example I like to give.

Let’s take the case of plaque or hardening of the arteries. It’s not necessarily from too much cholesterol. Yes, it does contribute to it or set the stage. But it’s not the cause.

Let’s say you have a piece of metal sitting outside. And that piece of metal gets exposed to air and water. That will cause that piece of metal to oxidize, which then causes rust. If we use this example in the body, think of cholesterol in the body as a piece of metal. Think of inflammation (the real culprit) as the air and the water. The inflammation is what causes the plaque to form, not the cholesterol. Because with a lot of inflammation, regardless of how much cholesterol you have, you will get plaque build-up.

Another Example - The high cholesterol / hormone link

 
 

Here is another great example and explanation of how hormones and high cholesterol can “play” together. All hormones start off as cholesterol. This is why we want to make sure we have enough. Also, as a side note, your brain is about 60% fat. If you lower cholesterol too much, it may contribute to brain issues.

So, if all hormones start off as cholesterol, if there is some other imbalance that occurs in the body that causes those hormones to drop or become imbalanced. Such as adrenal fatigue, birth control, hormone replacement therapy, etc. The bodies response to that drop or iimbalance is to try to rebalance things. Since hormones begin as cholesterrol, your body may send a signal to the rest of your body to eithe make or absorb more cholesterol in an attempt to try to make more hormones.

Can you see the vicious cycle that can occur in conventional medicine?

Let’s say you have adrenal fatigue or a digestive issue that is causing your body to contribute to low testosterone (check out some of our youtube videos on how this can happen) in a male. That low testosterone will then trigger your body to make or absorb more cholesterol to try to compensate. A primary doctor will see high cholesterol and give you some sort of cholesterol-lowering medication. This will lower testosterone more. Since testosterone helps build muscle mass, increase energy, burn sugar, etc. weight gain will occur. Since fat is estrogenic (produces estrogen), hormones become more imbalanced. Your body tries even more to compensate. Cholesterol goes up. Medications go up. And the cycle continues over and over again. The Trick is to stop the crazy train and fix the underlying reason.

Some last parting thoughts

Sudden cardiac death is responsible for half of all heart disease deaths. This essentially means that in 50% of cases, the first sign of a heart attack is death. Don’t be a statistic. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.