Participants: Agatha Thrash (Host), Rhonda Clark, Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000238
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00:01 Hello! The heart is a very simple muscle with some valves
00:08 that are made of connective tissue, some nerves, 00:11 some fairly large bundles of nerves, and some blood vessels. 00:15 Very simple construction and yet many things affect it, 00:20 many things that we do in lifestyle can affect it 00:23 for good or for not so good, so we want to learn those things 00:27 that we should avoid and encourage those things that we 00:31 should do for the health of the heart. 00:33 We'll be talking about some of these things in this program 00:36 so we hope that you will join us, and I know that you will 00:39 enjoy it. 00:59 Welcome to Help Yourself To Health 01:02 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 01:05 and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 01:08 Things that we eat, the air that we breathe, how we walk, 01:17 the amount of sunshine that we get, so many things affect 01:21 the heart directly and many of those things that affect 01:25 the heart directly also affect it indirectly, so that we may 01:29 get factors that come from many different directions 01:33 affecting the heart. 01:35 Now I would like to show you some pictures, so if you will 01:39 come with me we will see some pictures that can help you to 01:44 understand some things having to do with the heart and how 01:48 you can participate in keeping the heart healthy. 01:51 So I would like to show you a heart a cross section diagram 01:56 of the heart that will show to you the nerve system, 02:01 now this just shows the major trunks of the nerves but 02:06 you will notice at the very top you will notice a little group 02:12 of nerves all together in a bundle, and then some cords 02:18 that go down to another group of nerves all together. 02:23 This represents the electrical system of the heart and 02:27 of the way that the nerve impulses travel over the muscle 02:33 of the heart. 02:34 Now you will also notice that at the top the aorta is there 02:38 just behind the aorta is another circular type of structure 02:45 going backward from the aorta which points straight up. 02:50 That structure going backward is the pulmonary artery, 02:55 so when blood comes into the right heart it goes out as 03:01 unoxygenated blood into the artery, the pulmonary artery, 03:06 the only place in the body where an artery carries 03:09 unoxygenated blood, and then goes to the lungs gets filled 03:15 with oxygen, comes back to the left atrium, goes to the 03:19 left ventricle and then is pumped out through the aorta. 03:23 All of this is controlled by a nervous system that sends 03:27 impulses on a regular basis to the two sets of chambers, 03:33 upper chambers and the lower chambers. 03:35 Now in the next view you will see a little bit of a close up, 03:41 the SA Node, the sino auricular node is that one at the top 03:46 and you will remember from the previous diagram that it 03:49 does have cords of nerves that go to the next one, 03:53 and what is not shown is the way that these nerves fan out 03:58 over the entire aricular area and the ventricular area. 04:04 It's a little bit better shown in the AV Node that's the 04:09 auriculo ventricular node which also sends nerve impulses 04:15 down over these cords and out through the ventricles, 04:20 both the left and the right ventricle. 04:22 The next picture will show another aspect of heart health 04:26 which is a build up of atherosclerosis. 04:30 Now you may have heard of arteriosclerosis which is a 04:34 general term that includes several different kinds of 04:39 arterial and arteriolo disease, the arteriole are structures 04:46 are the smallest of the arteries, it is in this portion 04:51 of the blood vessel tree that the blood pressure is controlled 04:57 but this large one that you see on this picture shows under 05:02 the lining of the artery which could be a medium sized 05:10 artery or a large artery, or even the aorta, this cushion 05:16 of yellowish material is partly cholesterol and partly other 05:23 substances which are largely inert. 05:26 Now this fatty substance can get blood vessels growing 05:33 into it, when blood vessels grow into it then we can have 05:39 a hemorrhage inside this plaque. 05:42 If a hemorrhage occurs inside this plaque, it's going to 05:44 squeeze the remaining lumen of the artery even more and can 05:51 close it up so a tiny hemorrhage in a large plaque is one of the 05:57 important things causing the blockage of an artery. 06:00 Now in the next slide you will see the entire aorta and 06:07 part of it's arteries that come off from the aorta, 06:14 notice the three at the top, the first on the left of the 06:18 screen is the innominate which forks into two as you can see 06:23 that's the common carotid and the subclavian, 06:26 and then the left common carotid and left subclavian 06:31 come directly off the aorta, now that's important to remember 06:36 but only for surgeons who are going to be operating on the 06:39 aorta, but just below, just beyond the take off of the left 06:46 subclavian you will see that there is a huge bulge. 06:50 now that unfortunately is a very bad pathological condition 06:57 it is an aneurism. 07:00 This aneurism may be from hardening of the arteries or 07:05 atherosclerosis or medial calcinosis, and of a variety of 07:10 diseases that can occur of the aorta and then because of the 07:14 disease it begins to loose its elasticity of going 07:19 back and forth with each hear beat stretching out and then 07:24 snapping back to it's original size. 07:27 It looses that elasticity and becomes fusiform as you can see 07:34 there, here in the first one on the left, there is not a 07:40 connection there with the renal arteries stops short the 07:48 aneurism stops short of the renal arteries as you can see 07:53 but the second one does involve the take off of the 07:56 renal arteries, that makes it much more serious. 07:59 Then the third one comes down a little farther, 08:02 involves the renal arteries and goes down almost to the 08:07 common iliac arteries which is the fork at the bottom, 08:11 and then the last one on the right of the screen, you can 08:17 it still involves the renal arteries and more of the 08:24 common iliac arteries. 08:26 Now as we see these graphics we can understand the 08:31 seriousness of problems that can occur in the aorta, 08:37 this largest of the blood vessels largest of the 08:40 arterial tree just in this one thing and of course our 08:45 having aneurisms is a serious problem and can often be 08:51 corrected by surgery. 08:53 So the next slide will show what we use to correct it with 08:58 in surgery, we have here a Teflon graft, this graft is not 09:06 as good as the original by any means but it can 09:09 save a person's life. 09:11 Notice how it is a mesh work and so it is inserted into 09:17 or attached to the aorta and to the common iliac arteries 09:22 in this case and we can see it in the next slide, we can see 09:27 it already in place. 09:29 Now you might think well this is good, now we've got a 09:33 new artery, yes we do have a new artery but unless there is a 09:39 major change in lifestyle this artery will not function long 09:45 and pretty soon it's going to be filled also with the same 09:49 kind of material that filled the first artery. 09:53 So always a lifestyle change is necessary, 09:58 so hardening of the arteries the answer is not surgery 10:02 the answer is lifestyle change, although we can be very happy 10:06 that we have surgery that can help us over a serious blockage 10:12 in blood vessels, that's not the best answer, the best answer 10:16 is dealing with the atherosclerosis so then we 10:21 face the question, is there hope for atherosclerosis? 10:24 So I have asked a friend of mine a colleague at Uchee Pines 10:29 Rhonda Clark and RN to join our program this morning, 10:32 we are glad you are here. 10:33 - Thank you for having me! - I know that you have done some 10:37 research on atherosclerosis and I would like to hear what 10:41 you have to say about the hope for atherosclerosis. -Great! 10:44 - Is there any hope? 10:45 - The good news is that indeed there is hope and this can be 10:49 very encouraging for any of you who like me have not always 10:51 lived a perfect lifestyle, and you begin to wonder, 10:55 have I already done damage beyond what there is any hope 10:58 of recovering. 10:59 The conventional belief about atherosclerosis even just as few 11:04 as 20 years ago was that once it developed as it was 11:08 developing, there really was no hope, there was no opportunity 11:11 of that to be halted or reversed and it wasn't until 11:15 1990 when a physician by the name of Dean Ornish led a 11:19 research team out in San Francisco, California 11:21 that did show indeed that there is hope for atherosclerosis 11:26 that these plaques of atherosclerosis that get built 11:29 up in our arteries can indeed be reversed. 11:31 What's interesting Dr. Thrash is that all of this in his study 11:35 was about lifestyle measures, it wasn't about procedures. 11:39 - I would like to mention that many years, even probably 11:44 about a decade and a half before Dean Ornish did his study 11:48 we already knew at Uchee Pines that lifestyle could make a 11:52 major change, and the way that it happened was this. 11:56 There was a patient at Wildwood Hospital and Lifestyle Center 12:00 who had been a severe alcoholic and had lived on milk and 12:06 these little cheese crackers that you can buy from the 12:09 vending machine for about two years, and until her daughter 12:14 came and said this is going to stop, and so she took her to 12:20 Wildwood where she stayed on an excellent lifestyle program 12:24 for about eight months until Thanksgiving time, 12:28 and then she heard about Uchee Pines being very close to 12:31 Columbus, Georgia. 12:32 Well she had some relatives living in Columbus, Georgia 12:35 so she said well I'll just move down to Uchee Pines, 12:38 she stayed on the same good lifestyle program, 12:41 she unfortunately died suddenly of a ruptured brain cyst about 12:48 a year and a half after she had come to Uchee Pines. 12:51 At an autopsy the angiogram which had been done at Wildwood 12:56 showed remarkable clearing of various large blood vessels 13:03 that had been studied before so we already knew before 13:07 Dean Ornish published his wonderful study, we were 13:10 very happy to see it, we didn't have enough cases that we could 13:13 publish it but Dean Ornish did and we were very happy about it. 13:17 - Well people may be interested to know what was it exactly 13:19 about this program that had helped, so I want to share that 13:22 with you but I do want to mention in conventional medicine 13:25 the treatment has to do very little with reversing the 13:28 process of atherosclerosis. 13:30 One of the common treatments is angioplasty, where a balloon 13:34 on a thin tube is threaded into the heart where areas of 13:37 blockage occur, then it's inflated to kind of push open 13:41 the passage ways spreading the plaque a little thinner 13:45 against the walls of the artery. 13:46 It's distressing to learn that in a single vessel that has 13:51 received the angioplasty the failure rate is 35-45% in 13:55 six months, and if multiple vessels are done, 13:57 the failure rate is 50-60% in six months. 14:01 The procedure is very costly it's risky and it does nothing 14:05 to treat this underlying problem of atherosclerosis. 14:08 What was so exciting about Dean Ornishes program 14:11 which was know as the Lifestyle Heart Trial, was that he put 14:15 people on a very low fat very low cholesterol diet. 14:20 A typical low cholesterol diet in that era was about 300 mg 14:25 of cholesterol a day, Dean Ornishes program allowed only 14:29 five, that gave the person the opportunity to have one nonfat 14:34 serving of skim milk or yogurt per day. 14:37 The only animal product that was allowed in the diet 14:39 other than egg whites, everything else was plant based 14:42 rich in fiber, rich in healthful nutrition, and he was very 14:46 strict with the participants in the study that they could 14:49 not smoke, they could not use caffeine, which I am sure 14:52 you are familiar with Dr. Thrash can be not only a contributing 14:55 factor to heart rate irregularities and 14:57 high blood pressure, but interestingly can raise the 15:00 blood fat levels as well. 15:02 - And can increase the problems that one might have with 15:05 diabetes, even in inducing diabetes, coffee is a bad news. 15:12 - Yes! - Even decaffeinated is 15:14 bad news. - Yes! 15:15 The other two aspects of his program included exercise 15:18 and stress control, for some people that was building the 15:22 spiritual aspect of their life or for other it was taking walks 15:25 outside, things that they could do to help relieve and manage 15:28 stress, and the results were astounding. 15:31 Previously on a low cholesterol diet people might expect after 15:35 four or five years to have a decrease in their total 15:38 cholesterol count of about six percent, and always the 15:42 atherosclerosis worsened. 15:44 There was one interesting study called 15:46 The Program For Lipidemia Control that had people followed 15:51 for 10 years, they followed a 25% fat diet, 200 mg of 15:55 cholesterol per day, which at that time they thought was 15:58 very low and strict and these individuals over ten years 16:02 only lowered their cholesterol counts about 10 points 16:05 on average, almost all 85% of them had worsened the 16:10 atherosclerotic plaques in their arteries. 16:13 On Dean Ornishes program by angiogram the individuals on 16:17 this program had not only prevented further worsening 16:20 of their heart disease, but had actually shown improvement. 16:24 The plaques in their arteries had opened had released, 16:27 and it was encouraging to find that those who had the 16:30 worst lesions or blockages at the beginning of the study 16:34 had the best results. 16:36 Some of them had as much as 50% increase of blood flow 16:39 to the heart muscle, and this all occurred in one year, 16:43 this astounded the medical community, and was so 16:46 encouraging for those of us who have felt the Lord intended 16:50 for us to have... - Have lifestyle! 16:52 - Yes! - It has a major treatment 16:55 modality in the treatment of heart disease. 16:58 There is hope for the person who feels either from a 17:02 diagnosis or feels from their lifestyle that they may have 17:05 atherosclerotic plaques there is hope through following 17:09 plant based diet, exercise, managing stress, 17:11 staying away from caffeine and tobacco, those are proven 17:16 success remedies against atherosclerosis. 17:18 - Very good, thank you so much Rhonda, I appreciate your 17:23 being on the program and we hope to have you again sometime. 17:28 - I would be happy any time. 17:29 - I would like to talk with you about angina, angina is another 17:35 very common term that you hear dealing with the heart 17:41 and angina has been treated in a variety of ways for a long 17:45 time, most of these ways are not curative they are merely 17:51 palliative for the symptoms, but I would like to talk with 17:55 you about a few things that can be curative for angina. 18:00 One thing is the very same program that you heard Rhonda 18:05 speaking about, the control of the diet, so that it's low 18:10 in fat, low in cholesterol, so that maybe even no cholesterol 18:15 at all, which would mean a plant based diet almost entirely 18:21 if not entirely, and plenty of exercise, and avoiding those 18:25 noxious substances that we know are cardio-toxic that's the 18:29 first thing, always start with that. 18:31 Then there are some very wonderful herbs that can be 18:37 helpful, one is of course Hawthorne. 18:40 I think at any time that some one who know anything about 18:43 herbs and the heart, any time they hear heart disease or 18:48 artery disease, the next thought is going to be Hawthorne. 18:52 Hawthorne berry is a tiny little apple like fruit, 18:58 it grows in several places in the United States, the southeast 19:03 is one of those places, it just grows wild there 19:06 and the local people call it haw, it has thorns on the tree 19:11 and it's a little yellowish, or pinkish yellow, or reddish 19:15 yellow fruit, just about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch big, 19:21 with some large seeds that's characteristic of the 19:24 Hawthorne Berry and then it grows widely in Europe 19:28 especially in Germany and Eastern Europe, 19:31 very widely there. 19:34 Hawthorne should be always one of the first lines 19:38 of herbal treatment for the heart or for the 19:41 blood vessels in any way. 19:43 Then there are some others, some anti-platelet herbs 19:47 which keep the platelets from getting sticky and making 19:51 tiny clots inside blood vessels which then make a scar 19:57 when they heal and the scar that is a weakened place on the 20:02 artery, then comes fat and it sticks to this weakened place 20:08 and that's the beginning of the plaque that we saw earlier. 20:13 So anti-platelet stickiness herbs are colius, which is also 20:18 good for the blood pressure, and ginger also good as a 20:24 blood vessel opening herb, and the common turmeric 20:31 which we have in the kitchen. 20:33 Turmeric has a most wonderful substance that causes 20:39 anti-platelet stickiness and a half teaspoonful three or 20:43 four times a day in a little water is the dosage that one 20:48 should take. 20:50 And then some people use capsicum, or red pepper 20:55 it also has blood vessel dilating effects and 20:59 anti-platelet stickiness factor, I reserve Cayenne 21:03 Capsicum for really serious and acute cases. 21:07 Then there is Valerian and corydials, many of these are 21:15 common herbs that you know but have not been used as a 21:20 Cardiac herb, one of those that you've used for it's 21:24 immune system boosting is Astragalus which is very 21:28 healthful to boost the immune system to help you to fight 21:31 germs, but also in many parts of the world it is not used 21:37 in that way at all, it is used as a cardiac herb, 21:41 and so I recommend that to you when you are 21:43 dealing with angina. 21:44 Now another very important part of the work that we do 21:49 is to lecture in health and I have asked Dr. Donald Miller 21:55 who is our world lecturer, he goes to various parts of the 22:00 world from Uchee Pines, supported by Uchee Pines and 22:03 encouraged by Uchee Pines and Dr. Miller welcome to the 22:08 program today. - Thank you! 22:10 - You always have some interesting things 22:13 and so I would like to have you tell us what you have here 22:18 simple things I can see. - Simple things! 22:21 - What are they going to do for us with the heart? 22:24 Well this is good things and bad things here, and I do a lot 22:27 of traveling and a lot of long distance flying and 22:30 I remember it seemed to get to the point in my flights 22:34 that almost every time there was some type of 22:36 medical emergency on the air plane, there would be a little 22:40 murmur, they would have to sit down and there would be 22:43 people rushing up and down in the aisle's, and then when we 22:45 finally landed. 22:46 Please everyone remain in your seats while we cart this 22:49 poor soul out of the air plane and they are having a lot 22:52 of problems of people having cardiac events on the air plane. 22:55 So they started doing things differently on our long flights, 23:00 on every air line that I have flown on in the last number 23:05 of years, in the air line magazine, there is always 23:08 a section giving you exercises, and not only do they give you 23:12 a section on exercises that you do in your seat, but they will 23:15 show you on the screen a little program on how to do exercises 23:20 while you are sitting there because when you sit still 23:22 for a long period of time, your blood sort of settles out 23:25 and one of the problems that we have had in airplanes 23:28 over the years and I still see it out there, is the food 23:31 that they feed you is normally very high in fat. 23:35 I always get my meal first because they are always 23:38 searching out those few people who are on special meals, 23:41 although I am finding, the more I travel, the more people 23:44 are getting those special meals. 23:46 The un-special meals, the ones that everyone else gets are 23:50 always very high in fat and there is a big difference 23:53 between fat and water. 23:55 Now it's interesting they will give you this big fatty meal 23:58 and when you want something to drink it's a very small 24:00 container of water, this isn't the container, but they will 24:03 give you small glasses and usually they will also have 24:07 Coka-Cola and other different types of sugar drinks, 24:10 and the sugar makes your blood thicker which is not good. 24:11 The fat makes your blood thicker, that's not good 24:17 and if you are sitting there for seven, eight, ten hours 24:20 with all this fat and thickness in your blood, it has a tendency 24:25 to slow down and sometimes forming clots. 24:28 That can cause very severe cardiac events, 24:32 so what I recommend you do if you travel and when you 24:36 travel and not just on the airlines, if you have a long 24:39 car ride, they recommend very importantly if you have 24:43 a long automobile ride, especially if someone is older 24:45 in a vehicle and even if you are young every two hours 24:49 you stop and you do a Chinese fire drill we used to call it, 24:52 go around the vehicle, walk around the rest area. 24:56 - And partake of the water! - And drink copious amounts 24:59 of water, the nice thing about drinking water, it makes you 25:02 have to stop every once in awhile and then you get your 25:04 exercise, it is very good. 25:06 I remember once on tour, we used to travel a lot we'd have 25:11 a few team members with us and of course we were always 25:14 on a deadline, and I remember one time we stopped 25:17 and Dr. Thrash looks at her watch and says 55 seconds, 25:20 so you got good exercise getting into the little room and 25:23 getting back out in 55 seconds. 25:25 - I remember one team member jumped out of the van. 25:29 - Yes! - She went sailing out 25:33 to get back in 55 seconds. 25:35 - And it was always a challenge so when you start, 25:38 it's very important when you are in an airplane they also 25:41 recommend this, get up and walk around some. 25:43 If you have a tendency or have a danger of forming clots, 25:50 or of having strokes or heart attacks, or your doctor says 25:53 you are in this area, maybe you are one of those they've said 25:55 take an aspirin a day which we don't necessarily recommend, 25:59 we say take a clove of garlic a day or some 26:02 purple grape juice a day. - Or keep drinking your water! 26:03 - Keep drinking your water, just keep the blood thin 26:06 and keep it moving through your system, but get up and 26:09 walk around if you think that you might be in this area 26:12 and then do your exercises, whatever you want to do 26:15 keep those muscles moving. - And stretch! 26:17 - Stretch! - And yawn! 26:19 - But please be gentle with the guy behind you, I was 26:23 on my last flight I was sitting there and just real comfortable 26:26 and the person in front of me pushed their button, 26:28 and they came back whoosh! and their thing was right in 26:30 my face, so he was probably trying to stretch and I 26:33 gave him that break but if you are going to put your seat 26:36 back, push your button and slowly lean back, 26:38 don't give them a heart attack thinking the plane is crashing, 26:41 and then do your nice big stretches and you might 26:45 survive your flight and not have to have a medical emergency 26:48 at the other end. - Yes! Well I'm thankful 26:50 that we have all this instruction that can keep us 26:54 healthy in this way, not having heart attacks and blood clots 26:58 on air planes. 27:00 Remember that if you have the health of your heart 27:05 as being an important thing in your life, remember that you 27:09 should be getting a C-reactive protein and a homocystine 27:14 level done annually as well, and more frequently if get an 27:21 abnormal test, these are new markers that we know are as 27:26 important as getting a cholesterol test, 27:28 they test for different things that also affect the heart 27:32 in an adverse way. 27:34 Now I hope with these very important things that we have 27:38 mentioned that you will have more hope that you can have 27:42 a healthy heart and that your lifestyle will be more healthful 27:46 than it has been before. 27:48 Now when you realize that your heart is healthy, 27:51 give our divine designer the credit for giving us 27:56 this good heart. |
Revised 2014-12-17