Participants: Don Miller, Agatha Thrash
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000132
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00:01 Hello! I'm Dr. Agatha Thrash and we're going to be talking
00:05 the heart during the next half and hour. 00:07 The very first thing that makes a person know that there is a 00:13 child living with a mother is the heart beat and the very last 00:18 thing that we listen to, to say that the person is not living 00:22 is also the heart beat. 00:24 So how to take care of the heart is a very important function 00:27 of living so stay with us and we will discuss some important 00:31 things during this next half an hour. 00:53 Welcome to Help Yourself To health 00:55 With Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 00:58 and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 01:04 Some people call it the ticker, some people call it the pumper 01:08 but whatever you call it, it's a most important organ and 01:12 it's care is really quite simple, there isn't a lot 01:15 to taking care of it, it all has to do with lifestyle. 01:18 But there are many people who don't like to take care of the 01:22 heart, it's trouble, sometimes it is a little foreign to their 01:26 nature but a little bit of simple care can give you many 01:31 years, many decades, of trouble free use of your heart and 01:36 with me is Don Miller, he's going to be talking with you 01:39 about some types of heart disease, Don Miller! 01:42 - You know you called the heart the ticker and I remember a 01:45 story back when I was in school, I was in church one Sabbath 01:49 morning and this is back in the mid 60's and this was back when 01:53 I guess these new heart valves and tickers that we put into 02:02 our bodies were pretty new and I remember the pastor talking 02:05 a man who just had a pacemaker placed in his chest and it made 02:11 a little ticking noise when it went off: tick, tick, tick, 02:14 and I remember the pastor asking him a question: 02:17 He says does that noise ever bother you? 02:19 And the thought that came to my mind was I would be much 02:22 more worried about it if I ever stopped hearing that ticking 02:25 noise, and I'm thankful for that ticker that always is ticking 02:28 away in my heart, it has been ticking now for over 55 years 02:31 and I'm thankful for it. 02:33 But there are things that we do to make the heart go bad 02:37 and some of the things that we can do, or some of the things 02:40 that result from a bad lifestyle things like a heart attack 02:44 and basically what happens there is we get one of the 02:49 coronary arteries in the heart that's feeding the heart muscle 02:52 itself, every muscle needs blood supply and our heart has it's 02:57 own blood supply sent by the heart itself to keep it supplied 03:01 with plenty of blood because it's one muscle that never 03:03 rests, never stops, it's always going. 03:06 But if one of those little coronary arteries gets plugged 03:10 up with fat, the heart beyond there will die and that's called 03:15 a heart attack. 03:17 Now it's not always fatal, matter of fact the sooner 03:20 a person gets into medical help the better it is for that 03:23 person, but there is always something wrong with that heart 03:27 which will lead down the line to other problems. 03:31 Let me go back to a situation that happened in 1987, I was 03:36 visiting a friend and he had gone into see a doctor and the 03:40 doctor says you are going to need to have a bypass surgery 03:43 a quadruple bypass, well the man really didn't want to have 03:46 a quadruple bypass surgery and so he talked with me 03:50 and he said what should I do Don, and I said well if you do 03:53 this and this and this and this, basically start drinking water, 03:56 eat the right type of food, he used to sit there at night 03:59 time and eat bowls of ice cream and his spoon was a cookie. 04:03 He would take a cookie and get a big scoop of ice cream 04:05 and that's the way he would eat his ice cream every night, 04:07 no exercise, so I got him exercising, eating the right 04:10 type of diet, off of all saturated fats, really doing 04:14 well, within three weeks he dropped eleven pounds, 04:18 he was feeling good, no pain, so he went back for another 04:21 checkup, well that was a little bit soon to find any real 04:24 appreciable improvement in his coronary artery situation 04:28 and another doctor said the same thing, you got to have a 04:31 quadruple. 04:32 He went to a third doctor and the third doctor said the magic 04:34 words, if you don't get a quadruple bypass surgery 04:37 you will be dead in one year. 04:39 Well he went in and got his quadruple bypass surgery 04:42 which probably he did need and was not going to stay on the 04:45 lifestyle that we had suggested. 04:48 I remember going to visit this man in the hospital and it was 04:54 feeding time at the hospital and he is sitting there with 04:56 this tray of greasy food again, and I said, what are you doing? 05:01 You know better than that, he says oh well the doctor gave me 05:04 these pills, he said just take one of these pills it will take 05:06 care of my problems. 05:08 One pill will not take care of the problems, I thank the Lord 05:12 that he got the surgery, I thank the Lord that he did get on to a 05:15 good lifestyle program, exercise and he lived for quite a number 05:20 of years after that in quite good shape. 05:23 But later on in his life he developed the leading cause of 05:27 hospitalizations of people over 65, and that is congestive heart 05:32 failure, basically the heart has been weakened and now this 05:35 weak heart can no longer put out the volume of blood, 05:38 can no longer move the fluids of the body like it is 05:40 supposed to and you start swelling in the ankles and 05:44 in the legs, fluid backs up into the lungs, you are tired all 05:48 the time and you have congestive heart failure, 05:51 which basically does not go away and it needs to be 05:55 carefully monitored and taken care of. 05:57 There are other various types of heart diseases, there are 06:00 things called bradycardia, where the heartbeat is to slow 06:03 and tachycardia where it beats to fast, and then there is just 06:07 basically a different type of itis', we have myocarditis, 06:12 basically an inflammation of the heart muscle itself, 06:15 you have perocarditis of the pericardium, that sac that 06:20 surrounds the heart, it gets inflamed or endocarditis the 06:24 inflammation of the lining of the heart and the heart valves 06:28 themselves, all these things are itis' and many times 06:31 they are probably cause by viral infections. 06:35 When a person gets into this type of a situation it is 06:38 a serious situation and so as people say all the time 06:42 the best treatment is prevention, so we take good care 06:46 of our hearts, we feed it good foods we take care of it by 06:49 exercising, drinking plenty of water and as we take care of it 06:53 it's going to take care of us for a lot longer than we 06:56 normally expect it to, we normally go by that one place 06:59 in the Bible where it says, it is given to man to live 07:02 Three Score and Ten, well that's an average, man is really... 07:06 As science looks at man today and what he is capable of living 07:11 he is really capable of living for 120 years and I believe if 07:15 we took care of the heart through the generations we would 07:18 be seeing people more often now living to that age 07:21 than they do now, but the heart is ours and I'm thankful for it. 07:26 We have other hearts, we've got the right and left leg which 07:28 helps pump that blood around through our bodies, 07:30 but we need to take care of this precious organ God has 07:33 given us right there in the center of our chest and I'm 07:35 thankful for my heart. Dr. Thrash, are you 07:38 thankful for yours? 07:39 - Oh yes, and the heart is really not a complex organ, it's 07:44 composed of only four tissues, muscle, nerves, blood vessels, 07:50 and connective tissue, it isn't complex like the pancreas 07:53 which has all sorts of glands and eyelets and ducts and 07:57 various tissues, isn't like the liver with the complexity 08:03 that it has with all of it's metabolic nuances and everything 08:07 that must go on there, also with tubes and glands, and all 08:10 of that kind of thing. 08:11 The heart is a very simple organ and yet it is responsible for 08:16 more deaths than any other of our organs. 08:19 There are certain nutrients that are known to be associated 08:23 with a reduction in your risk of getting a heart attack 08:26 and folic acid is one of those, and here with me is 08:30 Valerie Scheriber who is my associate at Uchee Pines 08:34 she is a lifestyle counselor and a lifestyle educator and 08:38 she will talk with you now about some of the important things 08:41 having to do with nutrients and the heart, Valerie! 08:44 - Folic Acid deficiency may be caused by inadequacy of fresh 08:49 fruits and vegetables in your diet, now folic acid plays a 08:53 key role in the body in terms of homocystine levels and so 08:57 we want to show you today how you can keep a good folic acid 09:02 in your body. 09:04 You do it by eating the fresh fruits and vegetables, now 09:08 all you need is about five servings a day to maintain 09:11 the level that you need in your body and you do this by eating 09:16 it fresh if at all possible. 09:17 Now one of the things that will destroy folic acid is by heavily 09:21 cooking it or microwaving it, now that doesn't mean you can't 09:24 steam your vegetables some, you can certainly do that but 09:27 it will reduce it slightly, but it's best if you can do your 09:31 fresh fruits and vegetables, and it's very easy to do this. 09:33 You can get up in the morning and have a bowl of cereal 09:37 which now are fortified with folic acid, you can have two 09:40 fruits, you could have a salad for lunch and you will get your 09:43 five servings in per day. 09:46 Now I want to show you what ones are rich, the richest 09:50 source of folic that we have happens to be in the legume 09:54 family which are your beans, your garbanzos, your lentils, 09:58 your navy beans, all of those are very rich in folic acid 10:02 but along with that is your leafy green, like we 10:05 have right here. 10:06 Spinach is very rich in folic acid and your other leafy 10:10 green vegetables, and surprisingly asparagus, 10:13 delicious, asparagus is just has lots of folic acid in it 10:18 and broccoli, and oranges, and avocados, and tofu, tomato 10:25 juice, tomatoes, are just filled with folic acid so you 10:28 can get it in almost all your vegetables and fruits. 10:32 Now one caution I want to relate to you, if you happen to 10:36 be a consumer of alcohol or cigarettes, or you have been 10:41 taking a lot of aspirin products in your life, or antacids, 10:45 or your on oral contraceptives, or you've been using any kind 10:50 of anti-cancer drugs, this can reduce considerably the 10:55 folic acid in your body and so you need to be aware of this. 10:59 If you have been using these things in high consumptions 11:03 you could possibly have a very low folic acid and you want to 11:07 be cautious about this especially moms if you are 11:13 thinking about conceiving, folic acid plays a major roll 11:16 in birth defects and those birth defects happen to be 11:19 Spinal Bifida, they are the neural tube defects, Spinal 11:24 Bifida, Downs Syndrome, in young mothers and the Anti-Cephaly 11:30 which means no brain, and I know a lady that had two 11:32 different births a couple of years apart and her little boys 11:36 were born with no brain. 11:38 Well back in those days, they didn't know what was the reason 11:41 for it, but since then research has shown that it could be 11:44 a folic acid deficiency, so I encourage you mom's consider 11:49 this for yourself as well as for your children, 11:51 and all it takes is five servings of fresh vegetables 11:56 and fruits a day, Dr. Agatha! 11:59 - Now with our understanding with folic acid we need the 12:07 understanding of a wide variety of other things and so we can 12:12 see that foods need to be chosen with great care and so 12:19 Don Miller is going to show you some things now having to do 12:23 with the way that you behave yourself at the market, 12:26 and so Don Miller what do you have here for us? 12:29 - I got some of my favorite pills! 12:31 - Oh, that's very good! 12:32 - When I was growing up this was the favorite pill that 12:34 I could take growing up, and this is a watermelon, 12:39 it has a number of good things in it watermelon is very high in 12:43 potassium, now when people have heart problems the 12:46 number one thing they usually try to do is they say hmm! 12:50 were going to give this person some pills to make their water 12:57 go out of their body some diuretics. 12:59 And so they give them these medications but diuretics really 13:02 are very nicely packaged in things like watermelons, 13:06 matter of fact just drinking water is a good diuretic but 13:09 eating watermelon is a good diuretic and if you take the 13:12 watermelon in the summertime when there are plenty of these 13:15 things around, there's watermelons all over right now. 13:17 Take the seeds as you are eating your watermelon and save them 13:21 at the end of the summer you can take the watermelon seeds 13:25 and dry them and then in the winter time grind them up 13:28 and make some watermelon seed tea, you've got a good diuretic. 13:32 The same thing in the summer time if you have corn growing 13:35 take the corn and save the silk, dry the silk slowly in an oven 13:40 powder it and put it in a jar and make corn silk tea in the 13:45 winter time, a very nice diuretic for those who are 13:48 having things like congestive heart failure and need to get 13:51 rid of some of the fluid in their bodies. 13:53 Now Valerie is a woman and she has this beautiful display 13:58 and I bring my stuff in an old grocery bag, but there are some 14:02 wonderful things we can find in grocery bags. 14:05 Here we have a simple tomato, now a tomato is full of Lutein, 14:11 so is the watermelon full of Lutein which we find protects 14:14 the arteries, it also has Lycopene, as a matter of fact 14:18 let me tell you something about this tomato, Cornell University 14:21 did a study, they have a really good nutrition lab there, 14:24 they say that in each tomato there are over 10,000 different 14:29 phytochemical, phyto meaning plant and a chemical. 14:33 Everything we eat is a chemical, you are a chemical, oxygen, 14:37 nitrogen, carbon, they are all chemicals and so there are 14:41 over 10,000 different phytochemical in just the 14:45 tomato alone. 14:46 God has put all the medications that we need in his foods 14:50 if we just eat the foods like we are supposed to. 14:53 They did a study of men, about 43,000 men and they found that 14:58 those men who ate tomato sauce two to four times a week had 15:02 35% less prostate cancer, so run out there and get yourself 15:06 some tomato sauce. 15:07 The nice thing about the phytochemical like Lutein 15:11 in the tomato is they are not altered by heating and by 15:16 cooking, God realized that we were going to want to cook 15:19 some of the food after while and he's made it so that we can. 15:22 An apple, there are some marvelous things we can do 15:27 with apples, we were in Ukraine a number of years ago and we 15:30 found that people had extremely high blood pressure in a number 15:34 of places, we find that people with extremely high 15:37 blood pressure, if we put them on a three day apple fast 15:40 normally their blood pressure comes down to normal, 15:43 and at that point we say alright follow this no salt 15:47 diet, no fat diet, and put them on a good exercise program 15:50 and they can keep it down. 15:51 But for the purpose of the heart we find that an apple is 15:55 high in Omega 3 fatty acids, now you have heard about 15:58 Omega 3 fatty acids and if I would ask you the question 16:02 where do they tell you to get the Omega 3 fatty acids 16:04 you would say squeeze a fish, I really don't want to get a 16:07 squeezed fish and get the oil out of a fish, 16:09 basically the fish was swimming today in polluted waters. 16:13 When Jacques Cousteau died they published his memoirs 16:18 and in his memoirs he said, (this was towards the end of 16:21 his life), that the world's oceans would be dead 16:23 in 20 years. We are polluted everywhere 16:26 and fish swimming in polluted waters are going to themselves 16:31 be polluted by bio-magnification and bio-intensification and so 16:35 we find that if you want your Omega 3's you can get it through 16:38 apples, you get it through walnuts, you can get it through 16:41 flax seed, flax seed is the best source of Omega 3's that we 16:46 can find. 16:48 We also can find that one of the nicest heart foods is grapes, 16:53 there is a phytochemical called Resveratrol in a grape that is a 16:59 product that keeps you from clotting your blood. 17:02 Normally when a person had a heart problem or is prone to a 17:05 stroke they will give them blood thinners, put them on 17:08 an aspirin a day or some other type of a blood thinner but we 17:12 don't really need to do that if we are supplementing with 17:15 good foods and not eating foods that are going to cause our 17:18 blood cells to aggregate to each other, stick together. 17:23 Another very nice form of a blood thinner is something 17:27 as simple as garlic, it has an anti-platlet stickiness 17:31 factor, one clove of raw garlic a day will give you as much 17:35 anti-platelet stickiness factor as will an aspirin a day, 17:38 it might also help you keep the mosquitoes away. 17:42 We find that something like a green pepper also has Lutein 17:47 in it, this has some very good phytochemical that protects 17:50 the arteries, now I could pull out all these kinds of fruits 17:54 and vegetables like the good old carrot which has 17:59 plant sterols which is going to protect against cancer for a 18:03 woman, ovarian cancer, or breast cancer, but at the same 18:06 time, the thing about a carrot is it is a vegetable. 18:10 That means it has no saturated fatty acids and no cholesterol, 18:14 nothing in my bag has any cholesterol in it and so that 18:18 means it is all heart friendly foods. 18:21 Do you like strawberries? Again a very good phytochemical 18:25 in here will protect the heart, no cholesterol, nothing in there 18:31 to harm the heart but everything to make your heart feel better. 18:34 Another very nice phytochemical is found in apricots, 18:38 heart friendly, cancer unfriendly, it's going to keep 18:42 you healthy, all the foods God has given us, He has given us 18:45 everything to keep us healthy. 18:48 You know the Bible talks in the book of Revelation about the 18:51 leaves of the trees being for the healing of the nations 18:54 well right now we got the fruits of the trees and the 18:57 fruits of the ground, and we got the fruits all over the 18:59 place that God has given us to help us be healthy, wealthy, 19:03 and wise, if that's what we can be, and God has given us 19:06 good foods and I love this type of medicine Dr. Agatha. 19:09 Matter of fact this is one of my favorite medicines and I just 19:12 might go over here and have some medicine right now 19:13 if you don't mind. 19:15 - Well we certainly can enjoy this kind of medicine and they 19:19 are very good pills now we are learning something's that we 19:22 keep and some things that we get rid of, we've already said 19:27 that in order to keep our folate high we need to get rid of some 19:31 things that we may be doing and here are some pills, 19:35 these are aspirin and some antacids and I'm going to give 19:40 these to Melissa and she can just take these away so that 19:43 we can be sure that you know that these cigarettes are not 19:48 part of those things that we recommend. 19:50 This beer that is not part of what we recommend. 19:53 We like for you to see those things that we do recommend 19:57 we want these to be firmly fixed in your mind. 20:01 Now there are three chemicals in the blood, I have a graphic 20:05 to show these so that you will be able to spell these words 20:08 and see just how they are written. 20:10 These chemicals have to do with marking your blood tests 20:17 so that you can tell whether your own blood is likely to be 20:22 the kind that a person with a heart attack might have: 20:25 Like cholesterol, cholesterol is high often in people who are 20:31 going to have a heart attack. 20:33 Triglycerides are also high in people who are going to 20:36 have a heart attack. Homocystine is also high, 20:41 now that's a word that you may not have heard of. 20:43 Homocystine is a breakdown product of some of the 20:47 amino acids in the body and as such they can let us know 20:54 if we have a likelihood of getting a heart attack, 20:58 and Valerie was telling you about Folic Acid or Folate, 21:01 which is one of those protectors against having to much 21:06 homocystine, B12 will also help you no to have to much 21:11 homocystine, and so will vitamin B6. 21:14 Now as I look at this table I see a number of other things 21:18 that I would like to have Valerie tell you about because 21:22 these are keepers also, they are keepers in the heart 21:25 and they are keepers in the menu. 21:26 Valerie tell us about some of these beautiful things here! 21:29 - Well Mom's, I want to show you how you can cook a delicious 21:33 meal, getting all your folate in it for your family plus 21:36 many other nutrients in amino acids. 21:38 So one of the ones that we are going to use is lentils, 21:41 lentils are absolutely delicious, I don't care how you 21:44 cook a lentil it's good, soups and stews and burgers and loaves 21:49 and pâtés, it is absolutely delicious, but you know when 21:53 you are going from the transition of eating the all 21:57 American diet and you are trying now to incorporate good healthy 22:01 food sometimes when you look at it like you look at this 22:04 it's kind of like ohh! You are used to seeing that 22:07 big juicy steak or whatever and you are used to that, 22:10 so I've had Mom's come to me and say I'm trying to do this 22:14 but the kids give me a hard time, my husband gives me a 22:17 hard time. So I got to thinking how can we make it so that they 22:21 will want to eat it, and make it more appetizing. 22:25 Well you know one of the things is so appetizing to children 22:28 as well as adults is guess what? Potatoes! 22:31 And if you mash them and make them delicious you can put it on 22:35 any food and they are going to eat, so I want to show you 22:38 how to do that. Now here's this lentil loaf 22:40 and really it's delicious, once you've been eating this way 22:42 for a long time and you look at a lentil loaf it doesn't 22:45 have to be decorated, you know it's good and so you'll eat it, 22:48 but when you are starting out it is real important to do this. 22:51 You make yourself some mashed potatoes, and you just icing 22:54 it like you would a cake, and just put it on here, 22:58 and you can do this on burgers, you can do it on loaves, 23:03 and you can make it real pretty and real delicious because 23:09 you know that the children love it, and Dad loves it, 23:13 and you can do fun things when you get through with this. 23:18 Some times I decorate them I put smiley faces on them, 23:21 flowers, I've run outside and picked flowers right out of 23:24 the garden and put them right on top of it, and you know 23:27 you make things either look really tasty or make them 23:32 amusing to the family and you know if it's amusing like 23:37 putting a smiley face on, they are so amused that they will 23:39 say well let's try it and make Mom happy, and if it's delicious 23:43 looking and they all love potatoes, they are going to 23:45 sit down and eat it. 23:46 So in the beginning I do this kind of thing, and let me just 23:50 show you what I did today, now here you have it all ready 23:54 icing up real nice, and then you can go right outside 24:00 and you can just pick some weeds and wash them off real nice 24:04 and you can lay one weed down this way, or put that one 24:07 in the center like this, and put this going in this direction 24:12 and then you can pick some leaves, I just picked these out 24:17 along in the yard today, and you put a leaf there and put 24:21 another over here like this, and then I took carrots and 24:26 cut them into little flowers, and you put one right here 24:30 and one right there, and one right here, and see it looks 24:37 so pretty and isn't that appetizing? 24:40 Wouldn't you just like to have a piece of that? 24:41 Then you can go ahead and take your vegetables like this 24:47 and lay them all around with your carrots and some more 24:52 broccoli, I'm telling you I don't care who you are you are 25:00 going to want to eat this wouldn't you say, doesn't that 25:02 look delicious? So now what you can do is to 25:06 fix a plate, put your broccoli some carrots on here for your 25:11 family, and you can cut yourself a nice piece of loaf 25:25 and lay it right there with the potatoes and then you can 25:28 go ahead and serve yourself up another big whapping bunch of 25:37 potatoes and you can make a nice gravy, and here is 25:43 your meal. Now who wouldn't want to eat this? 25:48 There you go, Thank you! 25:54 - That's nice! Did I see something else over here? 25:57 - Oh! - I have had my eye on that! 26:01 - Let me tell you what this is Dr. Agatha, this is what they 26:06 call Humus, but if you don't add extra water in it you can 26:10 make it like a pate', and you take any of the legume family, 26:15 the beans, I don't care if it's pintos or navy or lentils, 26:19 or garbanzos, and you can make the most delicious European 26:23 pates' you have ever put in your mouth, and that's what 26:25 I did with this, I sautéed up sesame seeds and I just ground 26:35 up garbanzo's, and mom's, you know it's important in the 26:40 kitchen to make it easy for yourself because at first you 26:43 look at this and you go "oh my dear, we've got to cook like 26:46 grandma did and how am I going to do it all. 26:48 Let me just tell you real quick how to set up your kitchen, 26:51 I do it just like this, here is lentils, everything for this 26:57 loaf is in here, except for the lentils, and you cook the 27:02 lentils and you put all of this right in your freezer so when 27:05 you get ready to make a lentil loaf you can just pull this out 27:07 put it in the bowl, mix it up and put it in the oven and you 27:10 have it in less than five minutes. 27:12 My kitchen is called the fast food painless cooking kitchen. 27:16 - I like that, thank you very much! 27:18 Now you know when was it that God put all these wonderful 27:24 nutrients in all these foods? Did He do that when we started 27:28 having heart disease, and we starting having a problem with 27:31 Spinal Bifida, did He do it at that time? 27:34 No He had done that way back in the great riches of antiquity 27:41 and as I contemplate these things I think how wonderful 27:45 our God is, how Ingenious He is to have made so many 27:50 wonderful things for us, and I'm thankful for that. |
Revised 2014-12-17