Heart Disease is a state in which the heart muscle is sick or about to become sick. The type of sickness that is most common is damage to the heart muscle caused by insufficient blood reaching the muscle because of blockages in the arteries that supply oxygen and nutrients to the muscle.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 600,000 people die of heart disease [think heart attacks] every year in the United States.
Heart disease was the #1 killer of older Americans in the 1960s and is still the #1 killer of older Americans today. The right approach to prevention and treatment can have a significant impact on your health and your quality of life.
Did you know that heart surgery or stenting for tightly blocked arteries does not cure the patient or solve the underlying problem of heart disease?
Dr. Ruess began doing open heart surgery on patients with severe Heart Disease in 1979.
At Five Star Vein and Wellness we understand the underlying processes that lead to heart disease. We can put you on a pathway to prevent the development and progression of blockages that clog your arteries and cause heart attacks and strokes.
The Functional Medicine approach to illness concerns itself with identifying and treating the underlying or root causes of disease.
So now that we know that blockages in the heart’s arteries cause heart disease, we need to take a deeper dive to understand what causes those blockages. There are many factors that go into the production of these blockages.
However, central to all of these factors is a phenomenon known as INFLAMMATION. Without inflammation most, if not all, of these blockages would not form!
Inflammation is simply the body’s way of responding to injury, toxins, and other unwelcome and unwanted substances that we encounter in our daily lives. Inflammatory response is a NORMAL response. When it gets out of control and occurs at the wrong time or place, that’s when we run into problems.
So where are the areas of unwanted inflammation in heart disease? They are at the lining cells of the arteries supplying the heart muscle. [The same is true for the brain, kidney and all other lining cells of arteries in the body].
So why do these lining cells of our arteries get inflamed? A good question, requiring a long discussion and a very deep dive into the scientific information.
Suffice it to say that we would like to minimize all sources of unwanted inflammation in the body in order to preserve the health of the heart, as well as other organs.
Here is a list of key areas that need to be addressed to preserve the health of your heart muscle by decreasing the load of unwanted inflammation in the heart arteries:
This single, simple sounding factor is the MOST IMPORTANT factor at the basis of heart disease [and many other diseases as well]. It sounds easy, but changing one’s diet to minimize inflammation is often quite difficult for a variety of reasons.
The less toxins and heavy metals, the less inflammation.
Some medications are just not needed and can contribute to unwanted inflammation.
This condition brought on by bad diet is pro-inflammatory and contributes to the body’s overall inflammatory state
This category could be placed under toxins or diet. These do contribute to inflammation.
These can almost always be controlled with diet, thus cutting down on the amount of unnecessary inflammation in the body.
These help balance hormones and chemicals which keep inflammation under control.
This is critical in keeping total body inflammation under control and is closely associated with DIET.
This is listed last, but should be 1st. Your ability to control your health, with the help of your physician and wellness team is absolutely critical. If you don’t participate, you will not be successful. If you embrace the challenge, you will change your life!
You can do it. Are you ready?
Dr. Ruess and the entire team at Five Star Vein and Wellness provide you with the expert care and the step-by-step guidance you need to effectively manage or prevent Cardiovascular Disease.
