Pooler - The organic heart: a gluten-free, dairy-free, clean food cookbook

Skyhorse and Skyhorse Publishing are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. Cover design by Jane Sheppard Cover photograph by Amanda Allphin Photography Print ISBN: 9781510719989 Ebook ISBN: 9781510720008 Printed in China For Jason Cooking is one of those great gifts you can give to those you love. Ina Garten Contents Foreword By James B. LaValle, Americas Wellness Expert, Clinical Pharmacist, Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist A few years ago, I had a client referred to meI must say it was one of the more heart-wrenching cases Ive had over the years.

A young man, just newly wed, walked in with a defibrillator vest on and told me his heart had gone into failure. It was medically classified as an idiopathic (unknown cause) cardiomyopathy. Though he survived, he remained very weak and unable to resume normal activity months out from the event. His color was ashen, and I knew we would have some work ahead, but I felt fairly confident we could at least get him some improvement. Naturally, his family members were also stunned by the event and were very concerned for his prognosis. What sort of future would he have when he could barely perform normal daily activities, much less his former active life? Perplexing as it was, he had just played several hours of basketball a few days before this event.

His cardiologist said not to expect an improvement in something called ejection fraction (a measurement of how much blood leaves the heart with each beat), which at that point was very low. He was also told he would most likely be put on a transplant list if certain heart functions did not improve. So, I got to work using what we in integrative health practices call a systems biology assessment approach, to determine which systems or networks in his body needed the most support. This particularly includes: the patients history since birth, drugs theyd been on, illnesses theyve had, how they slept, what their stress levels were like, diet, etc. In other words, we really try to get an understanding of how he ended up in the health crisis he was sufferingwhat underlying health issues could have possibly contributed to the heart failure of a man so young . Then, we assess what nutrients and other nutritional supplements we could use to help correct underlying issues, while also supporting the heart itself to restore his health as much as possible.

I found the primary area in need of support was his gut health. In physically assessing Jason, one of the things that stood out was the presence of soft white patches in the skin, which I recognized as a fungal skin condition and which are often overlooked in conventional medical care as just some sort of idiopathic skin pigmentation issue. Upon inquiring, I found out hed had it since his teenage years. Jasons event actually occurred just about the same time that medical research began linking something called lipopolysaccharides and heart failure. Lipopolysaccharides are toxic substances from dying gut bacteria that can leak into the bloodstream and cause damage to the heart muscle. Its a long story, but a true one, and by addressing that issue, along with the use of certain key nutrients (like CoQ10, carnitine, taurine, and creatine pyruvate) which are supportive for the function of heart muscle tissue, Jason did start toover timeregain strength and resiliency, and is now living very actively and normally once again.

It was exciting the first time he could walk into my office and not have that defibrillator vest on anymore! What went into his recovery program? I have spent the last thirty-three years of my life researching the use of dietary supplements as supportive treatment for people in chronic conditions. Jason still needed his cardiologist, and he still needed to be on the medications he was on, but he was stuck and not improving. Diet and targeted nutrients could help his body get the inertia needed to rejuvenate his healtheven if we only got partway there, it beat being stuck where he was. First, we used dietary supplements to replete and restore nutrients or address other issues that were important to his condition. For the most part, I selected nutrients to support his heart, but sprinkled in some supplements for his gut health as well. For Jasons heart: CoQ10 is a molecule in the body that helps produce energy in the cells needed for all cell functions.

It is also an antioxidant. It has helped people in heart failure improve their ejection fraction and it has been published in studies, so it was a no-brainer first step. Adding l-carnitine (an amino acid that is naturally produced in the body and plays a role in helping with energy production for cells) helps with improving ability to exercise, peak oxygen capacity, and has been shown to improve ejection fraction by as much as 13.6 percent. Anything that helps energy production in the body is especially important for the heart. D-Ribosethis is a sugar found in the B vitamin riboflavin, that is a fuel source for the muscle (heart muscles in particular) and can improve ventricle efficiency. That was important because we didnt want Jasons heart to overwork and enlarge any more.

Multiple studies have reported that ribose helps to restore energy production in the heart after an event like Jasons. Creatine Pyruvate (creatine that has been bound with pyruvic acid) has been used for performance enhancement for a few years, but it made sense to select this supportive nutrient for Jason. In several trials, creatine had shown the ability to improve difficulty breathing under physical exertion. One of my goals for Jason was to be able to exercise again and maybe even get back on the basketball court. Taurinethis amino acid, important for cardiac muscle energetics, was added because two studies showed that this amino acid could improve ejection fraction and exercise capacity in as little as two weeks. Magnesium is a key mineral that is essential to efficient muscular contraction and since Jason had previously had a major sweet tooth, his diet was very poor in minerals like this.

Low magnesium has been linked to all sorts of cardiometabolic problems. In addition, I wanted to include this nutrient because one of the meds he was on is known to deplete magnesium. Nicotinamide Riboside/PQQboth of these nutraceuticals help with mitochondrial rejuvenation, or in other words, help the powerhouses of the muscles. While this effects all muscle tissue, again I was primarily concerned with support for the heart muscle specifically. Vector 450 was used. This is an egg-based immunoglobulin we used to help strengthen Jasons immunity, in case a virus had been involved in the heart failure.