Let’s start with what we all know, or what we assume is true.  We can all agree that heart disease is the leading cause of death.

So why can’t we conquer heart disease?

Really heart disease is a new problem.  It has been a bugger for the past 60 years, but closer to the 1900’s it was rare, really rare.  Heart disease is a by-product of modern western living.  No disease has risen to prominence so fast.  In less than 50 years heart disease went from being rare to the leading cause of death and hasn’t looked back.

Early authors, implicated the FAT content of western diets as the main problem plugging up all the arteries.  Aahaa, Mr. Watson we have solved the mystery.   Not so fast.  After all, when patients come in, I see the box on their prescription sheets “follow a low-fat diet”, checked off.  I think that check box has been there for 60 years.

The current medical view is that the arteries accumulate plaque and slowly narrow.  In times of stress on the heart (exercise or emotional trauma) either the blood flow is insufficient and a patient gets “angina” (heart pain) or a piece of plaque breaks off and blocks the artery altogether and there is a sudden heart attack.  Death comes if the amount of damage to the heart is great enough.  Sounds logical.

Hey what about cholesterol?
That’s the gunk that is lining the arteries.  Dr. Ancel Keyes began this idea in the 1950’s and for more than 50 years nothing has really changed.  So now we have drugs to lower cholesterol and low-fat diets and since the nail is in the coffin there is only one question that remains.  Why do arteries plaque?  This is modern cardiology’s mission to find out “why”, and how to prevent plaque from breaking off.

If we skip all the medical, commercial, and pharmaceutical mumbo jumbo and just look at the facts, there are a lot of questions that still have not been answered.

• Why don’t people have a kidney, or liver, or pancreas attacks?  If there is plaque in the arteries, all of them are affected.  Why does the heart seem to suffer

• Not all heart attack victims have artery plaque? or blockages?  Ouch, how do you explain that fact.

• Blockages can occur without a resulting heart attack.

• According to actual autopsy research.  After a person dies from a heart attack the longer it takes to do an autopsy the more blockage a person has.  The authors concluded that the arterial blockages are a consequence, not a cause, of the heart attack.

• After a 20 year study by the VA and the NIH on bypass surgery, they concluded that long-term survival was no different between surgery and medications.

We clearly don’t know a lot about heart attacks.  The theory that blockages cause heart attacks is not a very strong one.

That is probably enough head spinning for one day.  We will look into another possibility that fits all of our criteria.  I’ll be nice and give you a clue.  Heart attacks are more common in diabetics for a particular reason.  The next article will have more juicy details.

Sounds pretty great right.  Almost unbelievable!  Thankfully it is true and as you will see very possible and somewhat free.  I’d like to say that you’ll even live longer but I can’t predict the future.   This simple solution could save over a million lives a year so please pass this along.  The #1 thing you can do is not eat sugar.  I know that sounds impossible, but even if you scale back, you’ll make a major difference.  Let me show you a few eye opening things about sugar and disease.

From the CDC:

Number of deaths for leading causes of death

• Heart disease: 631,636
• Cancer: 559,888
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
• Diabetes: 72,449
• Alzheimer’s disease: 72,432

Not all of these are related to sugar, but I put them up there for a comparison.  Clearly heart disease and cancer are the biggest whales.

“A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.”
~Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Now don’t call PETA because we are going to slay some whales.   Let’s start with the smallest problem.

#1 Diabetes: How is diabetes caused?

This really is about Type II only.  The driving force behind diabetes is the over consumption of sugar and simple carbohydrates.   It is really that simple.  The ridiculous recommendations for people to eat 6-11 servings of carbohydrates such as bread and cereal have given this country an epidemic of diabetics.   Don’t believe me, I can guarantee you that if you have a testing kit and are diabetic you’ll be amazed, test it yourself.
Give up the idea that cereal is good for you and open your mind to the world of real food and try this.

Actual patient example for breakfast:
Day 1: Cereal, toast, orange juice
Her blood sugar was 200 two hours later.

Day 2: After one of my lectures
Chicken, celery, cottage cheese.
Her blood sugar was 110 two hours later.

A simple diet change freed her from diabetes.  I wish the medical community would have the courage to tell people the truth.

#2 Cancer:  How does cancer start?

Good question and we have many answers for that.  It is often said that we get cancer everyday but our immune systems wipe out the problems before they really get rolling.  But if cancer does start, sugar   is probably the number one thing that will keep it going.

Johns Hopkins Press Release February 16, 1998

Johns Hopkins researchers have found evidence that some cancer cells are
such incredible sugar junkies that they’ll self­-destruct when deprived of
glucose, their biological sweet of choice.

“The change when we took away glucose was dramatic,” says Chi Van Dang, M.D.,
Ph.D., director of hematology. “By the next day, we knew very quickly that the cells we
had altered to resemble cancers were dying off in large numbers.”
Scientists have long suspected that the cancer cell’s heavy reliance on glucose, its main
source of strength and vitality, also could be one of its great weaknesses, and Dang’s new
results are among the most direct proofs yet of the idea.

One of our patient’s was going through a course of chemo and during one of the tests the “snack” that was given was a processed package of cookies.  When it comes to cancer and nutrition you have to fend for yourself.

Your brain still needs sugar to run well so a good plan if you don’t have cancer is to start decreasing what you eat.

• Have a much smaller piece of dessert

• Stop adding sugar to your coffee
• Stop eating toast or cereal for breakfast
• Choose water instead of soda
• Make fruit your sweetener
• Etc.

The one thing I have really noticed over the years is that the more I try and avoid sugar the more I dislike it.  I can’t eat very sweet things anymore.

#3 Heart Disease: How to prevent heart disease

It may not be what you think.

This is a very broad and mysterious problem.  There are many causes and contributing factors and cholesterol is the least of your concerns.  You can’t take a statin drug and sleep well at night thinking you are protected from a heart attack.  If that were true, the incidence of heart attacks would be going down year after year because more and more people are taking these drugs.  Drugs aren’t the answer.  Since many things contribute to heart disease, ponder how sugar may make it worse.

• Sugar increases insulin production in the body.  Insulin tells the body to store the sugar/carbs as fat AND hang on to it and not let it go.  This is one of the primary reasons 2/3 of America is obese.   Also, exercising to burn fat becomes pointless when the insulin won’t the body burn it as fuel.  This sobering fact alone contributes to heart disease through shear volume.   It takes at least 100 miles of blood vessels to support a pound of fat.  I’ve seen estimates up to 200 miles.  So for example, if you are 20 lbs. overweight you heart has to pump more blood volume through an extra 2000 miles of blood vessels.   That’s just more stress on it.

• Brace yourself.  This will probably be a new concept for you.  Don’t let that fool you.  Going back to the very beginning of the Cholesterol Theory there have been so many holes in the theory doctors have doubted it for over 50 years.  The only reason anyone believed it was because of advertising.   I’ll cover more of that later in another longer and larger article.  Those of you who read my book will realize that heart attacks occur from a lack of oxygen to the heart muscle, NOT from a blockage.  Just go with me here.  As we talked about in the book, a blockage is an after effect from a heart attack not the cause, so the BIG question is how does the heart suffer from lack of oxygen?

Since we are talking about sugar here I’ll give you sugar scenario.  Basically, sugar and oxygen combine to give you energy.  Your heart is an energy hog because it never rests.  If you consume enough sugar you will actually drop the overall blood sugar due to the action of insulin.  If you drop the blood sugar too fast often by combining a high sugar meal and exercise indirectly you can starve the heart of oxygen.  Without the blood sugar the oxygen can’t be used by the heart.  I am greatly simplifying it here, but just let that roll around awhile and it’ll make sense.

If everyone took this simple advice in this email, we could probably save over a million lives a year by decreasing heart attacks, improving cancer survivability, and eliminating type II diabetes and obesity.  Who knew national health care reform could be so simple.  Eat protein at every meal, take some good fats, eat your veggies and skip the packaged foods and viola` we have a new nation again.  It has to start with you.  At the bottom of the article you can make a large impact in the world by emailing it, Digging it, and using StumbleUpon.

Now if you cut back on your sugar and package food consumption, just think of all the money you’ll save on not buying bad food and getting better / cheaper health insurance.  Heck, if you lose weight you can shop in the clearance section for all the skinny clothes no one buys anymore.  Being healthy is a necessity and the ways you can save money are many.  Plus, you have more energy and look better.  Just even try and imagine how much money the government could save if we eliminated heart disease, cancer and diabetes.  The government won’t mandate that you eat less sugar, that is something you must do personally.

Bruce West Review of newest articles

**Important office info **
Due to the ever increasing media frenzy outside the office at the Brown county courthouse, parking has been a little more difficult.  If the driveway is open, please use it.

**Additional Note**
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***One more***
I am switching the article notifications to Feedburner.  I will sign you up in the next few days.  The sign up is on our website if you want to do it yourself.  All you need to do is confirm it, that’s it.   As a bonus, I will give you my shopping list.  I will post it exclusively for the Feedburner subscribers next week.    The emails from here will be for office notifications only, like hours changes, holidays, and sales for internet subscribers only.

BACK TO THE GOODIES

Full March issue of Bruce West Here .

This months Bruce West has some pretty juicy stuff on the heart and those lovely medical studies.

Highlights in this month’s Bruce West Newsletter

Here we go again with a new study showing remarkable results from the statin drug CRESTOR^®.  This expensive statin drug was having trouble finding a market because of a lukewarm acceptance from doctors, so the drug company underwrites a study claiming the drug could save millions of lives if millions of people were using it.  The “medical experts” are calling it “paradigm shifting”.

Where are the double-blind studies comparing Crestor to cheaper drugs, or even non-drug therapies.   Why is the price so high?  What are the long term effects of these drugs.  Past 3-5 years people start to suffer.

Medical studies are just that—Medical studies.  They never compare them to anything alternative nor do they EVER study alternatives.

Dr. Altman here–If you want a true “paradigm shift” read my book coming out later this week.  Some of the most remarkable things about the heart are in there that I haven’t even seen Bruce West writing about.

Back to Bruce…

Add points of interest about CRESTOR^®
¤ For every 2 years of Crestor Therapy 991 out of 1000 will recieve no benefit

¤ 60% of statin drug trials failed to report side effects

¤ 25% of people in the trial stopped on their own.  Side effects are suspected

¤ Crestor is still patented for $105/month.  Generics are $10

¤ The disclaimer list at the end of the trial takes 1/2 page of tiny print.

Cholesterol functions you may not want to interfere with.

¤ It patches damaged blood vessels.
¤ Necessary for all hormone production.
¤ Vitamin D production.  (This is why statin users have a higher rate of osteoporosis)
¤ Brain cell function
¤ Proper health of every cell you have.

For some amazing heart attack prevention that has nothing to do with drugs check out page 2 of the full newsletter.

Prostate health on page 3

This is one of my new favorite subjects.  The great antioxidant hoax.

I had a banana this morning.  Many of you probably have had a banana this week.  The first thing you do is peel it, right.  The peel can be very deceptive.  Mine was brown and spotty, yet the banana on the inside was perfect.  Now, eat the peel.

The peel is the antioxidant protector of the good fruit on the inside.  Antioxidants are not for you.  They protect the valuable vitamins on the inside.  Supplement makers would like you to eat 10,000 chemical copies of that peel.

Stick to REAL whole food supplements and you won’t have to worry about any monkey business.

Read the full March issue of Bruce West Here .

For the past months there has been a problem with a new distributor for Bruce West’s newsletter. So I am a few months behind in getting the info to you. Maybe it is supposed to be that way, because this new issue contains a potentially life-saving heart test you can do for free and at home. It goes well with our focus on heart disease.

Inside the issue:

…Back and Rib Pain. The amazing help a chiropractic adjustment can give.

…How some prescription drugs cause blindness, check the list.

…Kids shaking at night and growing pains.

…The Heart Recovery Test – If you don’t know this you could miss early heart trouble warning signs.

…The dangers of the chicken-pox vaccine.

…The lost vitamin of amazing joint health.

For the full Newsletter click the file below

Bruce West September 2008

Last night Dan Buettner was in New Ulm talking about his book the Blue Zones.  He was the keynote speaker for the kick-off of New Ulms Heart health project.  They are sure this is going to be followed nationally and possibly internationally.  They want New Ulm “to be a model for the world” -Lori Wightman

Here are the highlights of my notes in case you did not make it there.  I saw a few of you there.

…According to the CEO of Allina hospitals, the U.S. healthcare system costs 2.5 times more than any other country and we get to be #24 on the list of countries for longevity.

Basically our medical money is wasted.  The nice thing is he recognizes the problem and wants to do something.  They are looking to “focus upstream on wellness.”

According to the CEO, 60% of the resources are wasted in chronic diseases like heart disease.

And I thought this was shocking!

The hospitals don’t get any payments for wellness visits, only for E.R. visits.  Basically there is no financial incentive to promote wellness.  I have no idea how they intend to solve that one.

Wait, wait, wait they answered this question on KARE 11.  They are getting 40 million for the project.

The next speaker was Dr. Kevin Graham, Cardiologist and President, Minneapolis Heart Institute .

“1/3 of the people with a heart attack never make it to the E.R.”

“1/3 of the deaths in Brown County are from heart disease”

We could create a dramatic  reduction in risk if “everyone took an aspirin and 2 fish oil capsules a day”  I couldn’t believe that they would recommend something besides a drug.  I have to give them a lot of credit, that’s a big jump.  This time a year I will argue that cod liver oil would be a better choice, so if you aren’t taking any everyday, get down here and get some.

85 people died last year of Heart attacks in New Ulm.  They are trying to get that down to zero.  A very noble effort, but I think they have the wrong focus in HOW to do it.

Dr. Graham is looking to make heart disease a “medically treated disease”  He talked about this on KARE 11 last night.  They are looking for a magic drug to treat heart disease or to early detect people to get them on a drug cocktail that will hopefully prevent heart attacks.

One thing I found impressive was that Dr. Graham talked about calcification  (plaque) in the arteries as being a MORE important indicator of heart disease than cholesterol.  It “trumps” cholestrerol.  I loved it.  Maybe the great cholesterol myth will finally die.  Plus, Dr. Graham said that diabetes makes it all worse.

Well if diabetes makes it all worse, we can also focus on preventing diabetes.  Which is purely a nutritional issue.

Now, stay tuned to my emails because I am going to fill some gaps for you on plaque, on cholesterol, on heart attacks and ways to prevent them and ironically the next Bruce West newsletter (which you will see shortly) has a lot of these very issues in there.

PART 2 of New Ulm’s Heart health project was a lecture from Dan Buettner on the BlueZones.  Areas in the world that outlive the rest.  This is very similar to the work Dr. Weston Price did in the 1930’s.  There were more places back then that hadn’t had modern influences.

Here are some of my notes from the BlueZones.

The 4 BlueZones are Loma Linda, California;Okinawa, Japan; Saldinia, Italy; Northwest corner of Costa Rica.

In Sardinia, the cheeses were very high in omega-3 fatty acids (decreases inflammation and pain) compared to our cheese which is higher in omega-6 fatty acids (pain, inflammation).  Why?  Because their animals are still grass-fed.  Most of ours are grain fed.  Products from grass-fed animals are healthier for you.  They also drink wine regularly.

In Okinawa, they have a saying they say before every meal kind of like our Grace.  I couldn’t repeat the Japanese, but this was the rough translation.  “Stop eating when your stomach is 80% full”  they say that before each meal.  It takes 20 minutes before your stomach realizes what you have eaten, so the message here is eat slowly.  If you remember to stop at 80% you will consume about 400 calories less per day which = about 8lbs. a year.

Also, they have a social circle that is setup when they are 5 years old.   Basically given friends that they are expected to take care of for life.  Dan had slides of a group of ladies that had beengetting together regularly for 96 years.  They all were 101.

They also have an “ikigei”  .  The rough translation is “why I wake up in the morning?”  What is your purpose?

Off the cuff he said the longest lived people sleep 7 hours a day.

In Loma Linda, they were only the 7th day Adventists.  They took their diet from the bible.

Grains, seeds, nuts, green plants, no meat, and some fish.  They had regular routines they followed and they focused on keeping the sabbath.  They focused on God, family and going for nature walks together.

In Costa Rica, they had a special diet, very hard water, family focused, a light dinner, dry climate, strong social network, worked into older age and had a strong PURPOSE in life.

Dan Buettner summed up his findings for living to 100 and beyond in a few simple terms.

#1 Move naturally.  They didn’t run marathons or any other extreme.  They all lived inn walkable communities.

#2 They had the right outlook.  They had positive attitudes and lived a downshifted life.  They either prayed everyday, or napped, or meditated.

#3 They didn’t diet.  They eat wisely.  They ate a lot of plants.  They followed the 80% rule and ate slowly.  This may surprise some of you.  They had a few alcoholic drinks / night.  Mostly wine.

There has been a long association between alcohol and a decrease in heart disease.  2 drinks max.

#4 They put their family first.  All of them.  Grandparents on down.

#5 They had a strong sense of belonging.  All but 5 of them believed in God.  Being religious adds 4-7 extra years to your life.

#6 The hung out with the RIGHT people.  Positive people like them.  He noted that you are your peer group.  Smokers tend to be with smokers.  Overweight people cluster together or influence others in the group to gain weight.  BBC NEWS

For some fun 
Take their longevity test.  Here was mine.

Now realize that telling the future is impossible, but it is still a fun look at your lifestyle.  See how you are doing at bluezones.com

My Biological Age and life expectancy from the BlueZones.com

If you are looking at the above numbers and thought, “Dr. Altman could squeak out 2.2 more years.”  Well, I have a few nit-picks with their questions.  So I don’t think this is perfect but it has many admirable qualities.  They don’t differentiate between salts.  They just assume all salt is bad, and that isn’t true at all.  They also want people to regularly consume whole grain bread, and I don’t, and you shouldn’t either.  3-6 servings of grain a day is no way good for you.

#1 Grains have omega-6 fatty acids that contribute to inflammation and heart disease.

#2 Grains are considered simple carbs for all practical purposes.  The more carbs you eat the easier it is to gain weight.  Every extra 1lbs. of fat takes 100 miles of blood vessels to support that.  Simple math tells you that isn’t good for your heart.

So that is where I got docked some points for their scale.  But, I thought I’d share it with you
Have fun,