Did you know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for Americans? In fact, more than 800,000 people die a year (one in three overall deaths). The American Heart Association (AHA) lists ‘Life Simple 7’ which are risk factors to help monitor cardiovascular health. These seven risk factors are not smoking; being physically active; having normal blood pressure, blood glucose, and total cholesterol levels, and weight; and eating a healthy diet. Free resources are available on the American Heart Association website that also provides personal self assessments for free. Along with the health assessment, it provides an action plan to take steps for better health.
If you are putting off going to that website, perhaps reading Jennifer LaRue Huget’s article in the Washington Post describing embarrassing low trends in the overall health of Americans might motivate you. I was surprised and greatly motivated.
There are many free health resources and lots of attention supporting good health, but why is it still difficult for people to achieve healthy outcomes? Donald Lloyd-Jones’ commentary on the study that Huget references reiterates what most all public officials agree on — there need to be large societal changes to help guide people to change. It seems that this is slow in coming, and instead of waiting for it, it’s time for Americans to make the changes individually. Are you ready?
Partners in Health and Wholeness wants to help you make needed changes. There is something that we all can do differently to improve our health. We want people of faith to engage in healthy behaviors, and to be supported within their congregations. Please see our resources for churches here. One way to get started with our free resources is to sign the endorsement resolution. If your church is already engaging in health initiatives, then compare yourselves against our PHW certification levels and get rewarded for your hard work.
–Joy Williams, PHW Regional Consultant
Partners in Health and Wholeness is an initiative of the NC Council of Churches. Please visit our website to view more resources on health and faith.
How Is Your Heart?
A healthy heart delivers life-giving blood. God shows how sacred blood is in Leviticus 17:10-14 when He tells us“the life of the flesh is in the blood.”
Diseases of the heart are the major cause of death and cholesterol in the blood has been attributed as the major contributor to cardiovascular disease. The drug industry’s solution is to reduce levels of cholesterol by using statin drugs, so it is not surprising that most doctors are prescribing statin drugs to lower the risk of heart failure.
Statins are the world’s top-selling prescriptions and Lipitor is the best-selling drug in the history of pharmaceuticals. It is estimated that 30 million people take statins every day that is approximately eleven billion pills a year. Statins work by blocking the production of cholesterol in the liver. Most of the cholesterol in the body is not ingested, but manufactured in the body by the liver and is considered among our most vital lipids. Reducing the body’s production of cholesterol, may it be through a drug or through nutritional intervention, could have very serious outcomes to the heart.
Cholesterol is the foundation to many hormones like cortisol and corticosteroids, DHEA, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone, aldosterone, and pregnenolone. Knowing this, it should not come as a surprise that some of the many symptoms associated with taking cholesterol-lowering medications are fatigue, muscle wasting, and loss of sex drive.
Statins also block the production of a related substance called dolichol. Dolichol plays an important role in sugar metabolism, insulin sensitivity and influences all the hormones involved with your mental condition, including your emotions and moods (neurohormone production). Why doesn’t everyone taking a statin have emotional problems or all of the reported side-effects? One answer for this comes from the former astronaut Dr. Duane Graveline, a Medical Doctor with a Master’s degree in Public Health.
“I expect there are some people that won’t get any effects of dolichol suppression because they have alternative pathways. The same thing probably holds for CoQ10.”
Statins not only block dolichols, but also depletes the body of an essential Co-enzyme Q10 needed for protecting the heart and for cellular function. While CoQ10 can be replaced with supplements, doctors often don’t prescribe them. In 2004 the first of many research reports stated that statin drugs disrupt insulin signals, which is the process through which insulin moves glucose from the bloodstream into muscle and fat cells.
Dolichol levels have been similarly found to be remarkably low in people with Alzheimer’s disease, which may explain why statin use has also been linked with memory loss. The brain needs cholesterol for normal memory function. In essence, statins restrain a number of vital elements needed for proper brain functioning, including cholesterol, antioxidants and co-factors like CoQ10, and dolichol.
This year the Food and Drug Administration has issued new label guidelines for statin drugs; warning users that taking them can result in elevated blood sugar levels, diabetes and memory loss. This is in addition to their previously known side effects of muscle damage and liver disease.
It is vital to be fully informed and not to be misinformed by doctors well intended assurances that statins only have minor side effects and does not outweigh the benefits of taking the medication. A 2011 Cochrane Review showed, basically, that taking statins does almost nothing to reduce heart attack risk in people who have not previously experienced a heart attack. Many doctors, and their patients, have been misled about the side-effect issue of statin drugs. So complete has been the acclimatizing of doctors by pharmaceutical reps and statin drug literature that a possible side effect to the statin drug is often overlooked. After years of prescribing statins and reassuring patients of statin safety, the last thing a doctor wants to hear is that he has been wrong all this time, especially when the drug performed as advertised quickly reduce cholesterol.
There are two tactics used by the companies that manufacture statins use and used by doctors who have readily accepted their premises. One… If you have been labeled as being in a high-risk group for heart disease or have started taking the drug, you need to be on it for the rest of your life. Two… It really doesn’t matter what your cholesterol is, you need to take a preventive statin drug.
Likewise doctors will often tell diabetics that statins will also reduce the probability of peripheral neuropathy (nerve damage) as a complication of diabetes. If you suffer from diabetic neuropath the last thing you want to do is to make it worse. A 2002 population study estimated that statin users substantially increased the risk of neuropathy.
Inflammation caused by sugar, flour and products made from them, and excessive omega-6 vegetable oils that are found in many processed foods, are at the root cause cardiovascular disease. Quite simply, it is caused by highly processed carbohydrates. Extra sugar in the blood attaches to a variety of proteins that in turn injures the vessel wall. This constant injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. Cholesterol is the body’s response to heal the inflammation in the blood vessels. The average American diet increases blood sugar similar to putting sand inside your sensitive blood vessels. Even then cholesterol is not a problem until it oxidizes and hardens causing plaque.
The reality is that the food and pharmaceutical industry are making billions by not tell us this plain truth. Proverbs 4:23 encourages us to “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
Joe Magaro
Lord of Life Lutheran Church