Reverse Heart Disease Naturally

Reversal of heart disease and other common American killers through natural means is becoming an increasingly valid solution for us all. Dr. Dean Ornish of the Preventive Medicine research Institute is showing amazing evidence of major disease prevention and treatment. Dr. Ornish is the founder and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif. He is clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

For over 32 years, Dr. Ornish is the director of clinical research finding, for the first time, that holistic lifestyle, diet, and nutrition changes may be capable of reversing late stages of advanced coronary heart disease, and other major American killers. Dr Ornish was senior oversight for the world’s first randomized, controlled double blind clinical trial hypothesizing and showing that comprehensive lifestyle changes may stop or reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer. His research showed that comprehensive lifestyle changes affect DNA repair mechanism efficiency resulting in improved genetic expression. Further, these studies show evidence of “turning on” disease-preventing genes and “turning off” genes that promote cancer and heart disease. In collaboration with Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, he also showed that these lifestyle changes can lengthen telomeres, or chromosomal ends which are slowly eliminated through life as cells proliferate resulting in DNA mutations and cancer.

Dr Ornish has authored six best-selling books, including New York Times’ bestsellers Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease; Eat More, Weigh Less; Love & Survival; and his most recent book, The Spectrum.

Dr Ornish has found that our “genes are not our fate” despite popular scientific opinion to the contrary. The short version of Dr Ornish’s teachings includes four main components. Healthy eating, exercising, managing stress, and loving more. The factors can have a profound affect on blood flow to the brain thereby increasing oxygen to the brain. From this, the brain will achieve neurogenesis, or neuron development. It was found that by simply walking three hours per week for only three months that the number of neurons in the brain increased to a point of measurable size increase. Next, there are dietary changes capable of increasing cranial neurons as well. Some of the most effective dietary components include:

• Chocolate
• Green Tea (Polyphenols and Catechins)
• Blueberries & Blueberry Extract
• Alcohol (moderate) (Resveratrol)
• Stress Management
• Cannabinoids (found in marijuana)

Whether achieved through a change in eating habits or through supplementing with nutritional supplements such as tablets, capsules, and softgel products amazing results can be achieved. On the other hand, there are dietary stressors providing opposite effects to increased blood flow and oxygen distribution, including:

• Saturated Fat
• Sugar
• Nicotine
• Opiates
• Alcohol (excess)
• Chronic Stress

In addition to increasing the brains size and function, aging can be slowed through this increased blood flow. Increased blood flow and increased oxygen availability within the body will have a beneficial effect to almost every organ in your body. Further, the Ornish diet will allow your skin to look and feel younger. When combining dietary and lifestyle changes with current advanced cosmetic & anti-aging products, optimized age defying can be achieved. Beauty really does come form the inside.

Now to the heart. Healthy blood flow to the heart is vital to a healthy life for obvious reasons. Not only does the heart pump our blood, but the heart also works very closely with the lungs to ensure our red blood cells flowing the heart are well oxygenated to ensure normal energy production. The basic principle to remember is that with improper diet, and lifestyle habits reduced blood flow to the heart, and decrease health. Now how do we go about preventing, slowing, or curing heart disease? We will go back to teh four basic principles of change, including:

• Eat better:

Eating better means following a low fat diet, and a diet with less simple carbohydrate foods such as white flour, white rice, sugar, and alcohols (bad carbs). Rather, a diet rich in good carbs and good fats such as whole foods or fruit vegetables, whole wheat flour, brown rice, and soy products, and omega fatty acids in their natural forms. Good carbs and good fat products will help to provide a feeling of fullness quicker, will produce lowered insulin release resulting in less fat storage, and reduced caloric intake as a result of felling full quicker. Supplementing with bio-available anti-oxidant products such as Alpha Lipoic Acid, Coenzyme q10, and whole food vitamins can help to provide additional benefits to diet changes.

• Exercise

Exercise is important for many reasons but for the purpose of heart health exercise can help to increase blood flow, increase heart rate to health levels for sustained periods, and allow you to focus on yourself for as long as you decide to exercise. Exercise assists in the physical and spiritual factors of better health, and for our purposes better heart health. For those of you experiencing heart disease or potential heart disease it is recommended to discuss with your physician the level of exercise you are capable of performing before designing an exercise routine.

• Managing Stress
  

Stress Management can be a critical factor in lifestyle change. Typically periods of short term stress can cause weight loss while chronic stress can cause you to gain weight, especially in the stomach where fat is the most dangerous. To put it simply reduction of chronic stress is an integral part of this program. However, stress reduction can be a product of the other components of this routine. Stress reduction is a personal achievement and can only be accomplished by an internal want for change, and the discipline required to make the change.

• Loving more

Loving more is the essence the spiritual side of the Ornish diet. To put it simply the difference between Illness, and Wellness is I and We. Increasing intimacy with others provides a level of self importance which triggers the neurotransmitters responsible for happiness. Loneliness, depression, and isolation increase mortality rate in sick individuals by 3 - 7X, even when following the other recommended factors. If you are experiencing Illness give intimacy a try. It can be as simple as joining a group of people who are suffering from the same condition you are and dropping all emotional barriers to speak about how it is effecting you. There are many other ways of Loving more, but this is something which you will have to discover for yourself in your own life.

So why are these obvious factors being discussed as preventive measures for heart disease and the other mentioned disorders? Through advancements in modern analytical biotechnology, and the breakthrough research of Dr Ornish and other alternative medicine researchers we are able to demonstrate quantifiable results of the recommended diet and lifestyle changes.

Visual evident through cardiac PET scans shows clear visual evidence reduced clogging in arteries of coronary heart disease patients following only the changes of the Ornish diet, without the use of drugs or surgery.

Amazingly, prostate and breast cancer patients practicing the Ornish Diet achieved regenerative effects on both types of cancers. The most promising data for cancer treatment shows a 70% reduction in prostate cancer tumor growth vs. 9% in the control group. Most recently, and arguably most amazingly, this these doctors have released studies showing the turning on of the genes responsible for eliminating cancerous cells, while simultaneously turning off genes responsible for eliminating cancerous cells, by these simple dietary and lifestyle changes. This increased blood flow to the reproductive organs not only prevents and reduces cancer, but also has a positive effect on sexual organs. Increased blood flow provides increases potency within sexual organs, and increased sexual performance.

In conclusion, the Ornish diet has been formulated, and clinically studied by arguably the most progressive alternative medicine physicians in history. Through this clear evidence of treatment for coronary heart disease, advanced aging of the skin, prostate and breast cancers, and impotence, some of the most present topics in main stream drugs sales to date, the growing use of aggressive drugs and surgical treatments can potentially be avoided naturally. Although, the modern drug industry is making great strides in assisting the world community towards better health, and increased life expectancy. Think of what we could do if there was similar funding to alternative medicine research. For more information on natural and alternative approaches to disease prevention check out my profile and stay tuned.