1. Manage your blood sugar. If you have insulin resistance or diabetes this can increase your number of LDL particles. Reducing your intake of sugar and processed flour is the first place to start.
2. Exercise regularly. Additionally sit less and stand or walk more – this non-exercise activity may have a greater impact on your heart health than your scheduled exercise.
3. Sleep more and stress less. Both have a significant impact on heart disease.
4. Eat cold water, fatty fish and take a high quality fish oil supplement to get plenty of omega3 fats. I’m excited about this Omega MonoPure fish oil, which is 3 times more absorbable than regular fish oil. Call the office for a consultation to see if this is a good fit for you and we can provide you with a referral code to order.
5. Eat mono-unsaturated fats from olives, olive oil, avocado, avocado oil and macadamia nuts.
6. Consume antioxidant rich foods and supplements to prevent oxidative damage (a major risk factor for heart disease). That means eat a rainbow of vegetables and some fruits like dark, leafy greens and berries. Don’t forget that red meat and organ meats like liver are rich in antioxidants like retinol (vitamin A) and CoQ10 that you won’t get in plant foods.
7. Polyphenol rich foods have been show to have a variety of health benefits:

• Dark chocolate has been shown to lower blood pressure and LDL cholesterol and improve insulin sensitivity;
• Several studies have shown that hibiscus tea lowers blood pressure in people with hypertension;
• Blueberries have been shown to lower blood pressure and oxidized LDL in men and women with metabolic syndrome.

1. 8. Soluble fiber binds to cholesterol to help your body eliminate excess and it improves insulin sensitivity. Soluble fiber is found in oats, vegetables like Brussels sprouts, turnips, carrots, sweet and white potatoes, squash and asparagus, and fruits like apricots, prunes, pears, oranges, grapefruit and mangoes. 

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Let us know if you have questions or have had improvements with any of these. We love to hear from you.

Here is a guest blog from our Women Wine, & Wellness - Lowry speaker for October, Fran Gallaher. To receive an invitation to this private event you can sign up here:  http://www.waystooptimizehealth.com/women-wine-wellness-lowry.html​.

First, what is an empath? An empath is someone who feels other peoples’ feelings. Another way to say this, though, and a way that might make an empath’s challenge clearer, is this: an empath takes on other people’s feelings. And takes on other peoples’ agendas. And other peoples’ problems.

Ahem. 

The challenge for the empath, then, is to learn to discern their feelings from among the feelings of those around them. Another way to say this is that someone with an empathic nature can lose themselves to the endless distraction of other peoples’ feelings—maybe even other peoples’ entire lives.

There are several moments where we can catch this process and intervene on our own behalf. The first is learning to be aware of our feelings, allow us to be aware of the moment our feelings change. This can take time—getting in touch with our own feelings is not exactly an empath’s strong suit. But, over time, we can discover that when our feelings suddenly change it may be that those feelings aren’t ours. Instead, we may be picking up the feelings of one or more people near us.

The second moment is when we feel overwhelmed. We can ask, are these really my problems? My issues? My feelings? If we have reconciled ourselves long ago to occupying ourselves with the lives of others, we may have learned to suppress both the first moment of realization and this second moment. But any moment of realization can be helpful—and prove to be a turning point.

The last moment is really any moment that we can begin to understand that we are not making ourselves the center of our world. Maybe a friend makes a gentle comment, or maybe we lose an important relationship—and realize that we lost ourselves long before. Or maybe it is this moment, learning that we may have been taking on much more than is ours to hold, or carry or solve.

Take a breath and reflect. Are you making your Self the center of your world? That is the only place of strength, the only place from which we can be accountable, the only place where change can begin.

To contact Fran:
www.ReallyFlourish.com | [email protected] | 303-722-5115

There is so much confusion out there about our lipid markers and sometimes our blood test results can be hard to puzzle through. Often we are concerned about an elevated LDL result but an elevated LDL number isn’t the end of the story. To find out if your cardiovascular system is healthy or what you need to do to get back on track, you often have to dig a little deeper. Here’s why….

What are LDL and HDL?
In order for cholesterol (and other fats, fat soluble vitamins and antioxidants) to be transported around the body in the blood, it has to be carried by special proteins called lipoproteins that are soluble in water. These lipoproteins are classified according to their density; two of the most important in cardiovascular disease are low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and high-density lipoprotein (HDL).

Why do LDLs often get the name “Bad Cholesterol”?
Science used to tell us that the amount of cholesterol being carried around the bloodstream was an important measure for heart disease risk. When you get your LDL level tested it is measuring the amount of cholesterol in the particles.

Now we know that it’s actually the number of LDL particles that tells us more. The more particles there are in the blood, the more likely they are to crash into the lining of the artery and penetrate the artery wall. This would be where the damage starts to happen. This is not something your doctor typically measures but more LDL particles doesn’t necessarily mean more cholesterol in the LDLs and vice versa.

Get in touch for a more in depth Lipoprotein panel so you can see what your risk is. Also know that risk factors are just that, risk factors. A high number of LDL particles does not mean that you have heart disease!

What is the most common cause of high LDL particle number?
You’re probably sure the answer to this one is eating animal foods containing saturated fat. But no, that’s not the case!! Recent cholesterol feeding studies show that dietary cholesterol has very little impact on blood cholesterol levels in about 75% of us. This is because the body controls production levels of cholesterol tightly; when dietary cholesterol goes up, production in the liver goes down. The remaining 25% of the population show modest increases in both LDL and HDL, but it does not affect the ratio of LDL to HDL or increase the risk of heart disease. In other words, eating cholesterol isn’t going to give you a heart attack.

So, back to the most common cause…
The typical pattern for high LDL particle number is metabolic syndrome. The more factors for metabolic syndrome that you have, the more likelihood there is that your LDL particle number is elevated. These include insulin resistance, leptin resistance, obesity (especially abdominal obesity), high blood pressure and high triglycerides. Since triglycerides, along with cholesterol, are also carried in the blood by LDLs, when there are more triglycerides there need to be more LDL particles to transport them around even though the cholesterol in the particles may not be high.

If this is you, then eating a low carbohydrate diet is going to be a helpful track to follow to reduce your LDLs. Improving your body’s ability to handle the glucose-insulin interaction by making sure you have the right levels of the micronutrients involved is also key. Let us know if you’d like help navigating this with dietary changes and micronutrient testing.
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Other causes to consider or rule out

• Poor thyroid function can impact LDL levels in a number of ways, impacting production, absorption and metabolism. This can be the case even in subclinical hypothyroidism, where T3 and T4 are normal but TSH is elevated. Make sure you get these tested if you are concerned or have symptoms of poor thyroid function.
• Infections like H Pylori (symptoms include burping, bloating, abdominal pain or burning and nausea) and others can also be responsible for a high cholesterol profile, including high LDLs. The exact mechanism for this is not yet well understood. It is possible that the infections alter lipid metabolism in the infected cells. Alternatively it may be that LDLs have protective antimicrobial qualities.
• A leaky gut can be a cause. When your intestinal barrier is not strong it can leak toxins produced by gut bacteria into the bloodstream and cause an immune response. That immune response involves particles that are carried through the bloodstream by LDLs and so can increase LDL particle number. Let us know if you’d like to check on your intestinal permeability and get help healing a leaky gut.
• Genetics can play a role. Those with Familial Hypercholesterolemia have genetic mutations that impact the ability of LDLs to deliver nutrients to the cell so that they cannot be removed from the blood. Cholesterol levels can be anywhere from 350 to 1000 mg/DL for these individuals.

What else can you do?
Check out my blog next time for my list of heart-healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices. In the meantime, let me know if you have questions or comments. I’d love to hear from you.