Heart Healthy TF Foods

[Metasequoia]

I'm interested in what TF foods are thought to be heart healthy - not just "not unhealthy" but that actually provide nutrients that specifically benefit the heart - like CoQ10, for instance. I know animal hearts, especially beef heart, has a good amount of CoQ10 - but I wonder if I can get 'enough' that way? We eat beef heart fairly regularly and it's always on the rare-med.rare side but I was thinking I could make it stretch longer if I ate it the way I eat raw liver, by just leaving it in the freezer and slicing off thin slices each day and eating it raw. I'm sure the CoQ10 is more available before the meat is cooked.

And of course, there's the fat thing - so this isn't a question that is easily 'Googlable.' I avoid vegetable oils, eat a ton of saturated fat, pretty good with the low carb thing (not so good these past couple of weeks, but am determined to get back to my ideal diet of mostly meat, veggies and fat) and definitely sugar - I was doing good with that too, and these past couple of weeks haven't been so great.

I firmly believe that blood sugar/lectin/insulin imbalances are responsible for most cases of modern heart disease, often by way of diabetes.
I have a family history of type 2 diabetes and heart disease and I notice reactions in my own body when I eat something too carby or sugary - especially when my adrenals are taking a beating.
I do think that type 2 diabetes is completely preventable by diet and exercise and for the most part, I think that about heart disease too (I know there are exceptions) but I want to try my best to avoid going down the path that my paternal grandmother, uncle and father went down.

I realize that stress plays a HUGE part in heart disease and I have so many thoughts on that...I think that because the adrenals play a huge part in blood sugar stability/carb-sensitivity, that that's one angle, but I also understand the emotional connection. I'm interested in HeartMath and am just getting into it - definitely the right path for me.

As far as supplements, I take fish oil, fermented CLO, vitamin D and K2, all of which I think benefit the heart. CoQ10 as a supplement is sooo expensive! I think that gets the most publicity, but others like L-carnitine and D-ribose coule be really important too.
I'm into getting nutrients through foods as much as possible, but I'm feeling like I should probably go a step further to support my heart and overall health since I already know my adrenals aren't functioning optimally.

Soooo, any ideas about any of this, and especially what sorts of TF foods would be beneficial would be appreciated! I need to feel like I'm being proactive or I tend to just worry....

[tanyalynn]

I'd say good sources of folate, both for the high homocysteine link, but even before homocysteine goes high, I'd think there are stresses being put on the body.

Food sources of folate: chicken liver, lentils, legumes, and leafy greens.

I just learned that magnesium deficiency can cause reduced insulin sensitivity. His post discusses it far better than I can here.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co...nsitivity.html

As for foods: nuts, halibut, some grains, leafy greens on a per-calorie basis, possibly water depending on the source.

But magnesium's sorta weird--it seems like a lot of stresses can deplete it. A recent example for us, DS got some ice cream (we're dairy-free) and the next day, was hyper (related to mag), had a rash around his mouth, and had a nosebleed (which I think was mag depletion leading to poor calcium channel regulation which depleted K, which my family is particularly sensitive to). DD just needs a lot of mag on a daily basis, by some totally separate mechanism. And type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure run in DH's family.

And magnesium can reduce peoples' blood pressure, which would seem intertwined with the heart health issue. This seems like one that some people, maybe many people? may want to supplement, beyond their good food sources.

http://dietary-supplements.info.nih....gnesium.asp#h2

Just another page on magnesium, overall the NIH site is pretty decent discussing nutrients.

[Metasequoia]

Hi Tanya. Funny, when I woke up this morning, magnesium was on my mind. I need to make sure we take that daily. My Mom has supposed 'high bp' but I'm not sure I buy it. The desired bp range gets lower with every passing year. I agree with Tom Cowan that as people age, their normal bp range can safely climb. My Mom doesn't like taking any meds (especially after seeing what they did to my Dad), but she takes the bp med & frequently feels dizzy. We've all been super stressed lately (my Dad died suddenly & unexpectedly on 2/15) so I think the stress has probably thrown her adrenals for a loop - which could explain the dizziness. I know my dizziness has been waaay worse these past 2 weeks, as is my sugar/carb sensitivity.

I wonder if she'd take magnesium....maybe I'll ask her to check with her doctor (she feels she needs to ask about everything.) I wish she'd take fish oil, CLO and D. She had a hip replacement at 59 due to osteoarthritis. Her father passed away 77 days before mine, at the ripe old age of 95 - so at least her genes (for what they're worth) seem to be strong. And jeez, losing your father and then your husband of 42 years just 77 days apart is enough to send anyone's adrenals down the tubes.

So do you think the folate in legumes outweighs the theoretical risk of lectins?

[tanyalynn]

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad's death! And your grandfather too, what a hard time for your family.

You should get a copy of The Calcium Lie. As a WAP person, I don't agree that calcium intake is actually "too high" but I strongly believe that the supporting nutrients, especially magnesium, are lacking. The book basically says that relatively too much calcium compared to such a lack of magnesium and many other minerals that are needed to use it _properly_ leads to a specific pattern of health problems (and of course we'd add fat soluble vitamins to the things necessary to use it properly). DH's family has most of the health issues he links, and my family flat-out does not, things really seem to cluster--high BP, type 2 diabetes, obesity (well, yes, that's my family too), osteoarthritis, and even hearing loss. Magnesium was a big deal in the book and has been a big deal to DH and DD.

I'm torn on the BP/aging thing. People in _my_ family don't get higher BP as they age, we just don't, so I'm leery of just saying it's all fine, but especially if it seems to cluster with other health issues that one is susceptible to. I think it's too easy to justify nutritional stresses and getting rundown due to years of not getting what we need as just an aspect of normal aging--but I don't think I've really seen what normal aging _could_ be like, so I feel like I just can't know enough.

As for lentils, I think it depends on how you deal with them--both in terms of individual susceptibility and preparation. I think people can get a lot of folate from leafy green stuff, if they really eat/drink it (juicing seems to be a pretty efficient way to do it if you need a lot). It's hard because grains and legumes don't seem to be as much of a problem for me and my side of the family as they are for some others. DH--not sure, overall I think some legumes are going to be fine.

One way to make it easy is to make idlis, they're fermented. I'd think that, for most people, that would make them easy enough to digest that the positives outweigh the negatives. And it's nice to have something bread-like. But for people who just can't tolerate any grains (50-50 lentils and rice) then maybe they just wouldn't work.

But for most people, I think getting the folate is FAR more important than avoiding lectins--lack of folate can mess ya up something fierce, and it's only a relative lack--"lack" from whatever your body needs, which depending on stresses and genes can be very different from someone else.

Have you read stuff on strokes/heart disease/high homocysteine/cancers and folate--and MTHFR? Some people need more folate than others, there are gene variants out there, not all that rare. If the family history is noticeably tending in one direction or the other (mine toward MTHFR not being an issue) I don't think testing is required. And there are folate-only supps for folks who have really good diets and don't need the other stuff in a multi.

[Metasequoia]

I haven't read much on the MTHFR stuff - I felt like my mind was going to explode after everything I learned in 10/08 with my Dad's health crisis. Right now I don't think I can absorb or process anything too in depth.

I take Thorne's B-complex and IIRC, it has a good source of folate - I think it may have been you who suggested it in the adrenal thread?

I'll try to get my hands on The Calcium Lie - I have known about that and about the importance of magnesium supplementation. My Mom used to get calcium deposits behind her ears - jeez, she is probably seriously deficient in magnesium. She hates taking anything though and I don't know if I could get supps in her. I'll have to figure out what foods have a lot of magnesium.

You know, isn't selenium a good mineral for the heart? We need to get back into our daily Brazil nut habit.

I guess we could all take a folate supp. - I definitely need the whole B complex (& probably Dd1) for the adrenals.

I've been drooling over the idlis recipe in NT for over a year, but I'm not sure the carbiness would do me any good. Maybe after I'm really strict with the carbs/sugar for a while and I get my adrenals back to where they were before my father's death, I can make idlis once in a while.
Lentils tend to give us all gas/bloating , even when I soak them for 24 hours. It'll be interesting to see if actually fermenting them helps with that.

Thanks for the ideas, Tanya.

[tanyalynn]

To play with folate simply: the Thorne Basic B complex has 400mcg of folate, and if a person was one of those who actually needed closer to 800mcg per day (from all sources, but every day of their adult lives), then with a good diet like I know you have, adding maybe 800mcg in supplement form may make a noticeable difference and help address long-term deficiencies.

Here's a different recipe for idlis, NT seems iffy sometimes. I use 50-50 lentils-brown rice, some recipes use 2 parts (white) rice and 1 part lentils but that tends to defeat the purpose for me.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.co...-ix-idlis.html

[Metasequoia]

I LOVE that blog! And you can bake them! I never knew... and yes NT can be sketchy at times.

I think Thorne has a good type of folate, so I'll need to look for that specific kind in a separate supp - right?

[tanyalynn]

Depends on how you want to go about it. You could just take 2 of the Basic B complex, stress can deplete Bs anyway (or whichever B complex you use, B5 is pantethine and it's related to adrenals), or Thorne has a product called MTHFR (nationaldiscountvitamins.com sells a lot of Thorne stuff and you can view all their products in alphabetical order) and it's got 1000 mcg of folate. You should be able to just take, say, 2-3 per week and be good. It's just the MTHFR form of folate (not folinic acid) which works well for everyone.

[Metasequoia]

This is perfect ~ I need to do a supplement order within the next few days - thanks TL!