Do you know your numbers? What numbers? The numbers the American medical community has focused on for the past decade – and longer – to determine your risk of having a heart attack. For years, your LDL (bad) and HDL (good) cholesterol numbers, your blood pressure (systolic/diastolic) numbers, your fasting blood glucose number, and your BMI (Body Mass Index) number have been seen as the key indicators of the health of your cardiovascular system. That is, until now.
Dr. Mark C. Houston is a hypertension and vascular specialist who practices preventive cardiology, and the author of the just-released book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Heart Disease (Grand Central, 2012). He writes that there are more than 400 risk factors for coronary heart disease, and elevated cholesterol is not the primary cause. It has long been believed by both the medical community and the general public that the “Big Five” risk factors that could lead to having a heart attack are: elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and smoking. Patients have been told that if they keep these five risk factors under control, it is very unlikely that they would ever experience a heart attack. Dr. Houston disagrees. He warns his readers that simply taking medications to lower cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar numbers may give patients a false sense of security because these supposed top risk factors are actually the result of the true risk factors for heart disease: inflammation, oxidative stress (free radical damage) and autoimmune damage to the arteries.
THE TRUE RISK FACTORS FOR HEART DISEASE
In What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Heart Disease, Dr. Houston explains how heart disease is the result of inflammation, oxidative stress (free radical damage) and autoimmune damage to the arteries. Inflammation is a natural and all-too familiar response by the body designed to prevent infection and repair damage that typically results in outward signs of inflammation: swelling, redness, warmth and pain. This type of inflammation is beneficial and necessary for our survival and is usually short term.
However, inflammation in the cardiovascular system is hidden within the body, without overt signs. Fortunately there is a prominent indicator of inflammation, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (HS-CRP), and your doctor can track your level by a blood test.
Some conditions and situations cannot be measured but are likely contributors to an increased risk of inflammation; this includes an increased intake of refined carbohydrates, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, smoking, and chronic autoimmune diseases. If blood tests indicate an inflamed state, Dr. Houston says it is important to begin using natural means of reducing inflammation, like reducing abdominal fat and consuming a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids.
Oxidation, like inflammation, is a biochemical reaction necessary to life that causes problems only when it gets out of hand. Highly reactive molecules, called free radicals, are unbalanced molecules that interact with other molecules and cause damage to proteins, cell membranes and genes. When a free radical “steals” an electron from another molecule in an attempt to balance itself, it leaves the second molecule unbalanced and sets off a chain reaction of electron-stealing causing widespread damage to tissues, organs and even entire bodily systems. One of the ways to combat oxidative stress is to increase your intake of antioxidants.
THE ICDPP PREVENTION PROGRAM
According to Dr. Houston, the key to reducing your coronary heart disease risk is early detection combined with early and aggressive prevention and/or treatment of all identified risk predictors. He encourages his readers that it is never too late to begin to prevent, slow down, stabilize, or even reverse coronary heart disease. And to help his patients and readers do just that, in his book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Heart Disease (Grand Central, 2012) Dr. Houston presents an 8-step plan that he calls the Integrative Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Program. Following is a brief overview of those eight life-changing steps:
- Get a thorough medical check-up, one that goes beyond measuring the “Big Five” risk factors. Dr. Houston stresses the importance of measuring blood pressure correctly as there is a very real link between blood pressure and heart disease. High blood pressure (hypertension) increases the amount of inflammation and oxidative stress within the arteries. In his book Dr. Houston explains that a single blood pressure reading in a doctor’s office will miss a great number of clues. He recommends that people who are at risk of having high blood pressure should have a 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring done. This will identify some of the hidden issues within their blood pressure diagnosis and help determine what type of treatment they really need.
- Reduce inflammation, oxidative stress and immune dysfunction with proper nutrition, nutritional supplements, and exercise.
- Counteract problems with cholesterol and blood fat. To best do that, remember that routine cholesterol tests only give a single number representing your overall HDL/LDL level. Your physician should go beyond the HDL/LDL ratios and look at all of your lipid particle numbers and sizes with new advanced lipid profile tests for: HDL, LDL, VLDL, total cholesterol and blood fat levels.
- Exercise following Dr. Houston’s ABCT (Aerobics, Build, Contour, and Tone) Exercise Program. The ABCT Program is designed to be simple, effective, adaptable to varying exercise needs, and scientifically proven. Some of the benefits of following the program include: reduced risk of heart disease, lowered blood pressure, reduced body weight and body fat, lowered blood sugar, improved memory and focus, and improved sleep.
- Attend to any other diseases that may contribute to inflammation, oxidation, and auto-immune dysfunction.
- Make lifestyle changes to: achieve ideal body weight and composition; reduce stress; sleep more. Dr. Houston has created an eating program/lifestyle that he introduces to his readers that is a combination of the best of the best dietary approaches to protecting and improving cardiovascular health. It is appropriately named the Integrative Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Program Diet and can be used to reduce or maintain body weight.
- Use standard medications as appropriate and, with your doctor’s guidance, integrate with nutritional supplements.
- Stop using tobacco products of any kind.
About the Author
Mark C. Houston M.D., MS, SCH, ABAAM, FACP, FAHA is presently an associate clinical professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is the director of the Hypertension Institute and the Life Extension Institute at Saint Thomas Hospital, Nashville, TN. Dr. Houston is triple board certified with certifications by the American Board of Internal Medicine (1977), the American Society of Hypertension (ASH) as a specialist in clinical hypertension (SCH) (2000), and the American Board of Anti- Ageing Medicine (ABAAM) (2003). In addition to his medical degrees, he also holds a Master of Science degree in clinical human nutrition from the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut (2003). A nationally renowned guest lecturer, he is the author of numerous best-selling books including The Handbook of Antihypertensive Therapy, Vascular Biology for the Clinician, What Your Doctor Does Not Tell You About Hypertension: The Revolutionary Nutrition and Lifestyle Program to Help Fight High Blood Pressure (Time Warner Books) and his newest book What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Heart Disease (Grand Central, 2012).
For more information on Dr. Houston, go to www.Hypertensioninstitute.com or contact him by email at [email protected].