CREATING A HEALTHY HEART

In his fascinating book Why Animals Don’t Get Heart Attacks…. But People Do! Doctor Rath claims the primary difference between humans and animals is that animals produce their own vitamin C, whereas humans need to consume vitamin C in their diets. Vitamin C is used to repair our heart. So a diet high in vitamin C may be essential in keeping our heart healthy.

CHOLESTEROL

In addition Doctor Rath goes on to claim that cholesterol is actually helpful to our heart. We produce our own cholesterol as well as absorb cholesterol through our diets. Typically about two thirds of our cholesterol is made in our liver. So why do we make cholesterol?

Cholesterol has several useful functions, including the health of membranes in our body, the absorption of fats and vitamins, intracellular transport and function of hormones. Doctor Rath claims cholesterol acts as a bandage whilst our body repairs tissue in our heart and circulatory system.

He suggests high cholesterol is a sign of the heart needing to repair itself and a sign that more vitamin C would be helpful. It is possible that by artificially bringing cholesterol down through medication may risk prolonged damage to the heart. This makes sense when people eating a generally healthy, low fat diet diet still experience high levels of cholesterol

There are also claims that the measure of what is a healthy level of cholesterol is artificially low, with the suggestion that companies that manufacture the statins used to lower cholesterol, have a vested interest in seeing that doctors use the lowest figures for safe levels of cholesterol, thus increasing sales.

In his book Doctor Rath claims that mono-unsaturated oils, such as olive oil or fish oil reduce the risk of cholesterol sticking to healthy tissue.

VITAMIN C

This suggests a diet that includes regular raw vegetables and fruit helps ensure we consume regular amounts of vitamin C. Vitamin C is temperature sensitive so cooking destroys the vitamin C in a dish. Excellent sources of vitamin C are raw parsley, bell peppers, strawberries, oranges and lemon. Broccoli cauliflower, kale, mustard greens, Brussels sprouts, are great sources if steamed for one minute or less. Kimchi and sauerkraut are high in vitamin C.

MONO-UNSATURATED OILS

The vitamin C can be complimented with regular use of raw cold pressed olive oil and oily fish such as salmon, tuna, trout, mackerel, herring, sardines and eel. Best to look for wild river fish, sea caught fish or organic farmed fish.

To download a copy of Why Animals Don’t Get Heart Attacks…. But People Do! click here.

 

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