Participants: Dr. James Marcum (Host), Charles Mills
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP00035A
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00:16 Feeling a bit out of rhythm or under pressure?
00:19 Hey... such is life, right? 00:22 Not if that describes your heart THAT can be deadly... stay tuned 00:27 I'm Dr. James Marcum 00:30 Are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:34 Do you want solutions to your healthcare problems? 00:36 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:39 Well, you're about to be given the "Ultimate Prescription" 00:46 Welcome to part 2 of a conversation with 00:48 cardiologist Dr. James Marcum concerning your heart. 00:52 Last time, we spoke of heart failure and coronary disease, 00:55 today, we examine hypertension and arrhythmia. 00:58 Two conditions that can lead to some rather 01:00 unpleasant consequences. 01:02 What can we do to fight back? Surprisingly, a lot. 01:06 Dr. Marcum, I see that you've included many 01:08 natural remedies in this battle. 01:10 Can we really trust our one and only hearts to such simple 01:14 and inexpensive treatments as you're about to suggest? 01:17 Yeah, well that's a good question, 01:20 and I want to throw that back at you. 01:22 Can you really trust your life and your health 01:25 to the God that made you? 01:27 Can you do that? Good answer 01:30 If the answer to that question is "yes" 01:32 then I'm asking you and our listeners 01:36 to look at the evidence. 01:37 Look at the evidence out there, 01:39 look at the scientific evidence that has been reproduced 01:42 by other physicians, other doctors, 01:44 and in yesterday's conversation we talked about natural remedies 01:49 And we define "natural" as God's way, 01:52 you know, God's way as in the Scriptures 01:54 and we've proven, chemically, how it did. 01:56 We talked a little bit about nitrous oxide, 01:58 making the arteries bigger 01:59 so the heart gets more blood flow, so everything 02:01 functions better. 02:02 We also determined that this process doesn't just stay at the 02:05 heart - it goes in ALL the blood vessels, 02:07 so it helps all the organs. 02:09 So today, we also want to move that discussion to things like 02:13 high blood pressure... 02:14 And do you know what high blood pressure is, Charles? 02:17 I would assume that is pressure in your arteries 02:19 that is higher than it should be. 02:20 Yes, it's high and a lot of people don't know... 02:22 I mean there has to be some pressure there 02:24 for it to move around the body. 02:26 But when the heart pumps out blood, 02:29 that pumping is called "systole" 02:31 and that puts pressure in the arteries to pump everywhere. 02:34 And that number, in general, 02:36 should be a little bit less than 140 mmHg 02:39 and we measure it with a fancy device. 02:41 We have one of those called the "sphygmomanometer" 02:44 ...blood pressure cuff. Okay 02:45 And we measure the pressure when the heart pumps 02:48 and then the heart relaxes and there's still 02:50 pressure in the blood vessels. 02:51 We call that "diastolic pressure" 02:53 when the heart is relaxing. 02:54 We want that to be less than 90 02:57 Well when blood pressure is up for a long period of time, 03:00 it can damage that lining we talked about yesterday 03:03 called "endothelium" and it can damage it in all the organs. 03:07 So when a person comes in and 03:08 says they have high blood pressure, 03:10 the first thing I want to make 03:11 sure is if the reading is correct. 03:13 The second question I want to know is... 03:15 high blood pressure is a symptom... 03:17 WHY do they have high blood pressure? 03:20 You know, what is the cause? 03:21 Is it something scary happened? 03:23 Thank you... Okay Yes 03:25 Is it because they don't sleep well at night 03:27 and sleep apnea and make lots of stress chemicals? 03:29 The reason that we just had that conversation 03:32 was that yesterday he scared me, 03:34 and I told him, "today, you must not scare me" 03:36 So that's why he was smiling when he just said, 03:38 "Did something scare you?" 03:39 I might have to inflict pain today to raise 03:41 your blood pressure good, so we might do that. 03:43 We got some little things that are pain inflictors... 03:44 Yes we do, lots of little things over there, but anyway back 03:48 to our discussions on high blood pressure. 03:49 Anyway, so we want to know what causes high blood pressure. 03:52 And a lot of people come and say, "I don't want to take 03:54 a medicine that my doctor put me on for high blood pressure. " 03:57 Well, the first thing I ask them is, 03:59 "Well, maybe you don't have to IF we understand 04:02 if your blood pressure is really high, so take it at home 04:05 when you're relaxed and I want everyone to do something 04:08 to lower your blood pressure right now and this will do it. 04:10 Take a deep breath in, hold it 5 seconds, 04:15 blow it out slow. 04:20 If you will do that 10 times, the part of your nervous system 04:24 called the "parasympathetic" 04:26 will help lower your blood pressure. 04:28 So I ask people that might have high blood pressure to do that; 04:30 measure your blood pressure after that, 04:32 after you're relaxed and see what it is 04:34 on several occasions. 04:35 If you're at night at home and... you know everyone is high 04:38 when they come to the doctor's office. 04:39 Yeah, I was going to say, just visiting the doctor's office 04:42 may not be the most relaxing thing that we do. 04:44 And what can be dangerous is if you give a medicine 04:47 for high blood pressure and the blood pressure is not 04:49 really high - then it goes really low and you could get 04:51 dizzy and pass out because enough blood doesn't go 04:54 to the vital organ called "the brain. " 04:56 So anyway, once we determine that they do have 04:59 high blood pressure, and that sometimes takes some time, 05:03 we say... WHY do you have high blood pressure? 05:05 You know, and we go through all the different things 05:07 it could be - from sleep apnea to problems with the kidneys, 05:12 thyroid disease, chronic pain, chronic stress, 05:15 certain medications, DIET. 05:18 In other words, high blood pressure is a natural thing 05:20 the body does - it raises the pressure in the arteries; 05:24 your blood pressure goes up under certain circumstances 05:27 and that's a good thing when that happens. Yeah 05:29 But it should go right down, if it stays up all the time, 05:33 we look for the reason why because then it can 05:36 damage these blood vessels, cause endothelial damage 05:39 which predisposes to plaques. 05:40 It can cause aneurysms, lots of problems if it goes untreated. 05:44 High blood pressure can raise the chance of having stroke; 05:47 raise the chance of heart disease, kidney disease, 05:50 aneurysms - it affects, again, the whole body. 05:53 So once we determine a person has high blood pressure, 05:55 we want to know WHY. 05:57 So we start looking and, unfortunately, in this country 06:00 that we live in, a lot of people have high blood pressure 06:02 just because they carry extra weight. 06:05 Extra weight raises the blood pressure. 06:07 How does extra weight raise blood pressure? 06:08 When you have extra weight, usually people don't exercise 06:11 when they have extra weight. 06:12 It makes a bunch of chemicals that put stress on the body. 06:16 The stress cascade raises the blood pressure... 06:18 So extra weight - sometimes just losing extra weight 06:21 LOWERS blood pressure. 06:22 Any type of stress on the body - chronically 06:25 can raise blood pressure through chemicals like adrenalin. 06:29 So, we look and we see why a person has stress... 06:32 Some people have stress because of the food they eat. 06:35 There are certain foods that raise the blood pressure. 06:38 Let me give you an example... 06:39 People that eat high fat, high processed foods and diets 06:44 of what I call a "meat-based diet" - they have lots of 06:47 chemicals and lots of sodium in those things, 06:50 and when you do that, the viscosity of the blood gets 06:53 thicker because we have lots of fat in the blood. 06:55 I mean it literally gets thicker; 06:57 the blood gets sludgy... 06:58 Because we have this lipoprotein ... fat in the blood! 07:01 So fat in the blood, the blood gets sludgy. 07:03 We have shown that people that eat a plant-based diet 07:06 and drink lots of water, that helps get the 07:09 sludge out of the blood so the viscosity is less 07:17 so the blood pressure goes down. 07:18 Another thing that happens is this endothelial lining 07:21 can now get bigger. 07:22 So the process of eating a lot, 07:24 you get a bigger endothelium, you get less viscosity 07:27 that can also lower blood pressure. 07:30 So if diet is causing it and exercise - 07:32 Sometimes I can just simply recommend exercise 07:35 and a plant-based diet and they bring it down themselves, 07:38 so they don't need a blood pressure pill 07:40 And that's being natural because we've discovered that 07:43 natural is God's way and exercise and diet 07:46 certainly was something that He created for us 07:48 right there in Eden. Exactly! 07:50 So if you could understand the reason why... 07:54 Now a lot of people want natural remedies, 07:56 they don't want to do the work. 07:57 You know, they just want to a natural pill. 08:00 And I tell them, there's really no difference between 08:03 that and the pill I give you. 08:04 You know, let's get at the cause. 08:06 Now some people, have sleep apnea... 08:08 They get the mask, their blood pressure comes down; 08:10 a thyroid problem that's treated, 08:12 come off the medication, 08:13 but what I see nowadays is most people really 08:16 don't really know what their true blood pressure is 08:18 because they're always in a state of STRESS! 08:21 Emotional stress - they come to the doctor, they're stressed, 08:23 their blood pressure is always going to be high... 08:25 And the doctor's tendency is to give a person the medicine... 08:27 And they don't really know what it really is 08:30 when a person is nice and relaxed... 08:31 Things like music, relaxing, worship; 08:35 all those things have also been shown 08:38 to lower the blood pressure 08:39 because there is chemistry behind that. 08:41 Sometimes I have to drive in to Washington, D.C. 08:43 for my work from where I live, 08:45 and the closer I get to the city, 08:47 I start changing the radio channel to a classical station. 08:52 It just makes a big difference when I'm driving into the city 08:54 with all the noise and commotion going around the traffic, 08:57 and I turn on that beautiful music - the classical music. 09:01 I could actually feel my blood pressure going down. 09:05 Right, you can and when your body is under stress, 09:07 the blood pressure goes up, 09:08 so when it's under chronic stress, 09:10 the blood pressure also goes up. 09:12 So the treatment for that is not necessarily a pill 09:15 because one pill might lower it some, 09:18 but then you're under stress - A Beethoven pill! 09:20 Right, you're under more stress, 09:21 so you take another pill and you take another 09:23 stress and you're on another pill, 09:25 so the real solution of your blood pressure problem 09:27 might be to find a different route 09:29 or to listen to nicer music 09:30 or DON'T GO into Washington, D.C. 09:32 Some people might be healthier living AWAY from stress. 09:36 Amen! Think about that... 09:37 You might be healthier avoiding your stress 09:39 no matter what that is. 09:41 You might be able to avoid it. 09:42 It might be a chemical stress. 09:43 It might be a physical stress. 09:45 It might be emotional stress. 09:46 Because you might not be able to handle the stress... 09:47 That's the thing - some people just have a hard time 09:50 handling certain things that happen in life, 09:53 and the answer may be GET AWAY FROM THAT, 09:56 and that may mean a change of job... 10:01 We have to decide what is important. 10:03 What is the most important thing? 10:04 Your job or your health? 10:06 If you don't have health, 10:07 you're not going to keep your job... 10:09 So maybe health is #1 10:10 Maybe we need to make that an absolute priority in our lives. 10:13 HEALTH over job, over anything else, 10:16 even location where we live. 10:18 Well your most valuable asset, 10:19 is it your car? is it your bank account? 10:21 it's your health, you lose that, you lose everything, 10:23 and YOU are your best doctor. 10:25 We have to take responsibility. 10:27 So in blood pressure, that's sort of a 10:29 general approach. 10:30 A lot of people come with funny heart rhythms. 10:34 And a lot of the heart rhythms are not dangerous rhythms, 10:37 but they are just stress-related rhythms. 10:39 These palpitations - when your body makes a lot of adrenalin. 10:43 The heart is going to go faster when it's stressed out, 10:45 and sometimes it will skip as well. 10:47 Now, there are tests we can do 10:48 to see if these skips are dangerous, 10:50 if they're pathological rhythms, 10:52 but a lot of people just have palpitations. 10:54 They feel their heart beating. 10:55 Again, all the stress we have in our world, 10:58 all the symptoms we have in our world, 11:00 the real treatment for that is not necessarily 11:03 to reach for the pill first. 11:05 It's to make a clean diagnosis, ASK the reason why, 11:10 figure out what the stress is; 11:12 see if that individual is willing to maybe change 11:14 things that's stressing their lives. 11:16 It's either causing their blood pressure or their heart 11:17 to skip or something else to go wrong, 11:19 and see if they can change the mindset, 11:21 and bring down the chemistry naturally, 11:23 and let the body heal itself. 11:26 Now sometimes, most people nowadays, the mentality is 11:31 they want a pill. 11:32 That's what they hear all over, 11:34 and blood pressure is a rising problem. 11:36 Skipped beats is a rising problem. 11:38 Well, it only makes sense because 11:40 over the last 100 years the stress levels have gone up, 11:43 up, up - it's going to be more of a problem so - guess what? 11:45 There's going to be more blood pressure; 11:47 there's going to be more skipped beats; 11:48 there's going to be of all of this, 11:50 and people are going to search for solutions, 11:52 and I want to tell people the search for solution 11:55 is the natural reasons... 11:56 Find out the cause, plug back into God's ways, 11:59 and not necessarily look to the pills first 12:02 even though there's a place for it. 12:03 You know, if we brought a farmer back from 100 years ago, 12:06 and brought him in the studio here, 12:08 and he'd say, "Well yeah, we had stress, 12:10 but we didn't have it all the time" 12:12 That's the thing - the chronic stress is the problem. 12:14 That farmer would say - you know, 12:16 "The storm came and I was worried about my crop" 12:18 That was stressful. 12:19 But, we have storms coming all the time. 12:22 We are worried about our crops all the time, 12:25 day and night - when we try to sleep, 12:27 we are not thinking about restful things. 12:29 We're thinking about things that are bothering us, 12:31 and that are causing us fear and trepidation. 12:35 We need to just really get back to this natural way of living, 12:38 and that's important. 12:40 And you can do that in the city! 12:41 There are people who can drive into Washington, D.C. 12:44 and have absolutely no problem with the stress level, 12:46 and don't have to listen to classical music like I do. 12:48 These people have the ability, but some people don't. 12:51 And if you are one of those people, 12:52 if you cannot control the stress, 12:54 it is time to make some changes. 12:57 We'll take a short break and when we come back, 12:58 questions from heartwiseministries. org 13:01 so stay tuned. |
Revised 2014-12-17