In honor of National Cholesterol Education Month, Hotze Health & Wellness Center (HHWC) is encouraging both men and women to take a proactive role in healthy aging, specifically heart disease prevention. HHWC is advocating effective measures to prevent heart attacks and is shedding new light on cholesterol myths and the dangers of cholesterol-lowering (statin) drugs.
“Everyone including conventional physicians is fixated on lowering high cholesterol levels, but in truth high cholesterol is not the underlying cause”
Conventional medicine teaches individuals that the cause of heart disease is diet, high cholesterol, heredity and smoking. However, one-third of those who had heart attacks did not have the usual risk factors such as high cholesterol or a family history of heart disease, and only 40 percent of this same population had high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Steven F. Hotze, M.D., founder and CEO of HHWC, explains that heart attacks are caused by coronary artery disease, a blockage of the arteries in the heart.
"Everyone including conventional physicians is fixated on lowering high cholesterol levels, but in truth high cholesterol is not the underlying cause," said Dr. Hotze. "While Americans are focused on a quick fix to lower cholesterol levels, the real killer is overlooked. The cause of heart disease is inflammation and damage that causes weakness in the blood vessels."
The key is to prevent or heal damage naturally before lipoprotein cholesterol is sent in to patch up tearing that occurs in the artery walls.
Six Ways to Prevent Coronary Artery Disease:
- Natural Thyroid Hormone supplementation: Hypothyroidism increases risk for coronary artery disease as seen in the 2008 Hunt study.
- Testosterone supplementation in men.
- Progesterone and estrogen supplementation in women.
- Eliminating toxins from the body.
- Vitamins & minerals:
- Selenium: A natural detoxifier
- Fish oil: Omega-3 fatty acids are crucial to maintaining cell membranes throughout the body; they also are known for their heart protective benefits.
- Magnesium: Powerful anecdote to arrhythmia (an irregular heartbeat).
- CoQ10: Coenzyme Q10 supports cardiovascular health and increases circulation in the body.
- Vitamin D: May reduce inflammation; it has been shown to help control blood pressure and prevent artery damage.
- Vitamin C: Crucial to every system in the body, specifically your heart. It also has been shown to neutralize damaging free radicals.
- Decreasing prescription drug use. Avoid taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Common complications of statin drugs include liver toxicity, muscle aches, declining memory and stroke.
- Viox: Anti-inflammatory drug. Although it did decrease the pain caused by arthritis, it also increased the rate of coronary artery disease.
- Vitorin: A drug to lower cholesterol; findings showed it accelerated blockage of the arteries in the heart.
Women remain underserved in cardiovascular disease treatment despite advances