You Can't take Enough Vitamin C To Make Difference
Did I get your attention? I was told the other day by a family member that you can’t take enough Vitamin C to make a difference in your health. A recent heart incident put them in the hospital and this is what their doctor tells them. “I’ve looked into it, and you can’t take enough to make a difference”. Of course my mouth dropped. This, after a conversation regarding why people have heart issues. Of course the doctor says its red meat and fat, so change your diet. That IS good advice, for the most part. While that clearly needed to be done for this person, like 10 years ago (so much for that vitamin C that our body’s DON’T make and we need to get from FOOD) I interjected to say it’s not about red meat or fat consumption in general, it’s about INFLAMMATION (and coincidently, Vitamin C reduces inflammation, but I digress). Yes, doctors are still vilifying red meat (and fat) and ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s a tiresome conversation and one that I have to have on occasion to more willing participants, but necessary nonetheless.
A quick search on PubMed will lend you over 7,000 research papers on the effects of vitamin C for a myriad of things: sepsis, viruses, etc etc. Where did this doctor look? Under a rock? Nope, not gonna find it there!
So let’s break down why people suffer from heart disease. This is by NO means a comprehensive list, but I’ll list them from greatest to least based upon my experience as a Clinical Herbalist with 15 years experience with clients, as a nutritional counselor, and researcher as well. And guess what? They all lead back to inflammation!
I have taught classes about the heart for about as long as I have been in this field and just recently taught an online class about Type II diabetes for IPAK and The Gaeta Institute in their 15-week Herbology Course. (I will be teaching about medicinal mushrooms in May as well. Check out all the classes these two amazing people put together to empower YOU) Heart dis-ease and Type II Diabetes are intricately intertwined and I’ll tell you why. Keep reading.
pretty food makes you healthy
So here’s is my list:
Inflammation caused by:
Excessive and consistent sugar consumption in the form of food and soda including high fructose corn syrup.
Consumption of hydrogenated oils (aka trans-fats) in processed cakes, cookies, candy bars, peanut butter, fried foods etc. This includes processed vegetable oils.
High alcohol consumption. Stresses the kidneys too.
Chronic Stress (high cortisol for extended periods of time is bad for the body) This can also lead to high blood pressure.
High insulin. In Type II diabetes, the body becomes resistant to sugar, which leads to high insulin in the blood. Subsequently, insulin causes your body to retain salts and fluids which can lead to high blood pressure too. So is it the insulin causing inflammation or high blood pressure? Probably both.
Kidney inflammation which can cause, in part, high blood pressure. The kidneys are responsible for controlling blood pressure. The heart is secondary. Kidneys become inflamed by over-consumption of alcohol, powerful diuretics, and the reasons above. (there are other reasons too, like a bladder infection that went into the kidneys, medications too). It’s important to drink enough water.
Energetically the heart (and heart chakra) embodies how we love ourselves and love each other. The expression of love is sometimes difficult for men especially since in our society they are taught to suppress all emotion (except anger). I believe that this sets the stage for heart issues later in life.
What I don’t mention is eating red meat, bacon, and fat in general. Why? Because these DO NOT CAUSE HEART DIS-EASE. The amount of lipids floating around in your blood is simply not indicative of the risk of heart troubles depending upon the type of lipid. The true risk associated of heart dis-ease is inflammation markers, like CRP (C-Reactive Protein) as well as high triglycerides in the blood. triglycerides are another form of lipid. High LDL (the ‘bad’ cholesterol) isn’t good either but IMO only concomitant with high triglycerides. CRP is a common diagnostic to see how much inflammation a person has in their body. If it’s high, you have high inflammation. Sometimes this is caused by an infection, but if you are not sick or getting sick and your inflammation is high, we want to find out why. Inflammation can cause little nicks and injuries inside the vessel walls (as does high blood pressure) which prompts the liver to make and release lipids to fix the injury. This can lead to atherosclerosis. Fats in general are anti-inflammatory and should be part of a healthy diet. Foods with good ratios of fats (Omega 3:6 as an example) are things like BUTTER. Lard is another example of a fat much vilified, but is not an unhealthy fat. Why? For one thing, it does not go rancid quickly. Hydrogenated fats, like crisco are rancid fats made by exposed liquid fats (like Omega 6) to high heat, which distorts the fat molecule and oxidizes it. This distortion and because it’s rancid is the underlying issue with this fat. Keep it whole. Keep it unprocessed. Keep it real. Eat different forms of fat, like olive oil, butter, grape seed oil, walnut oil, pumpkin seed oil avocado oil…..change it up.
Seed oils are being vilified in the blog-o-spere lately so I of course looked into it. It’s basically what I am saying above, it’s not the fat itself, but the processing that makes these seed oils unhealthy. Many of these seed oils: rape seed (canola), safflower, soy, corn, are GMO seeds to begin with, so there is that, but they are exposed to high heat, then chemical solvents like hexane, given detergents and deodorizers to hide the oxidation (rancidity), then more chemicals to change their color. So it’s not the seed oil itself (non-GMO of course), but the processing. Just stay away from these processed oils. They are typically in clear containers and very cheap. Here is Chris Kresser’s take on it. I like his approach.
So, to sum up:
Red meat and fat are not the problem (and my god not eggs either). It’s sugar, highly processed fats. It’s stress. It’s INFLAMMATION. Get to the source of it and by golly don’t stop eating red meat (especially locally and humanly raised, pasture fed, beautiful cows.) Having red meat or even bacon in your diet is not the cause of heart disease. Everything in moderation of course, but get to the source!
Thank you for reading.
~Sara
Sara Woods Kender
sara@sarasherbs.com
Clinical Herbalist
Reiki Master/Teacher
Psychic Medium
Munay-Ki Attuned
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Sacred Tree Herbals
169 Daniel Webster Highway, Unit 1
Meredith, NH 03253
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