How to Unclog Arteries Naturally.

0:00 Hi friends, remember this guy this was Bill Clinton in 1998 and he clogged up four of his arteries by the age of 58 and he needed a quadruple cardiac bypass in 2004, and then six years later he again clogged up half of those arteries and he needed stents and he finally wised up and dramatically changed his lifestyle and now it's 16 years later he hasn't had another procedure since then and he's I believe 79 years old he is the first person in the last four generations

0:46 to have lived over 72 days ago I turned 78 the oldest man in my family for four generations so in this video we're gonna talk about why Bill Clinton's lifestyle worked for him and how you can benefit from a similar lifestyle now when it comes to unclogging arteries most people think clogged arteries are a plumbing problem that starts with cholesterol but when scientists dissect clogged arteries this is a model of a clogged artery it's actually filled with immune cells called macrophages so clogged arteries they're a result of a plumbing problem but they begin as an injury and repair problem with your immune system so

1:31 let's talk about the ways that can injure your arteries to cause macrophages to clog your arteries now my name is Dr. Liu and I'm a double board certified physician practicing for almost 30 years and all physicians deal with clogged arteries because blood is a source of life and the lack of blood is a source of disease and when you block your arteries you block your blood flow and you increase your risk of getting lots of infectious diseases and way too many people like Bill Clinton they think that medical procedures can Roto- Rooter out their clogged arteries and he learned the hard way even bypasses don't bypass clogged arteries

2:16 they eventually happen again and unfortunately our procedures can't reach small blood vessels which it makes up most of your body so the problem is more upstream what's the root cause what is injury your arterial wall in the first place and if you can prevent the injury then you can prevent the blockage that will continue even if you get a new bypass now the immune system it makes plaques all over the body so it's not like any other part is spared and one of the biggest signals to make clogged arteries or to harm the immune system in your blood vessels is your blood pressure, and that's a number over 120 over 80 now blood pressure is not just a number on a cuff

3:04 but it's actually a force so if your blood pressure is high every heartbeat becomes a tiny hammer against the blood vessel lining of course one beat does not destroy the artery usually unless you're FDR but millions of beats over years injure that inner lining of your blood vessels and even 5 points above normal is damaging now 5 points may look very tiny on a blood pressure machine but to your arteries it means more force more stretch more stress to the inner lining with every heartbeat and that inner lining that's called the endothelium and when the endothelium is not beat up

3:49 it's actually smooth like here and it's calm and flexible and protective but when that lining is injured the artery kind of grows a pimple because it becomes reactive it becomes inflamed and that causes cholesterol carrying particles to get trapped inside these immune cells to make that pimple and those immune cells are called macrophages so these macrophages they actually turn fat and foamy have you ever eaten like a greasy meal and then feel awful well that's how foamy macrophages feel and then they release SOS inflammatory molecules to cry for help and that's why the first step in unclogging your arteries

4:34 is to get your blood pressure normal however the solution is not simply take a pill and forget about it blood pressure medications they can be life saving so if you need to take a pill you should take a pill work with your physician and don't stop your blood pressure medications just because it's normal because it's probably keeping you normal talk to your own medical doctor the better question is why is your blood pressure high in the first place because whatever is making it high is likely also driving inflammation to the arteries to make these foamy macrophages now there are several things that are well known to cause high blood pressure No.1 is not enough potassium in your food

5:22 No. 2 is becoming insulin resistant No. 3 is having sleep apnea No. 4 is to be chronically stressed No. 5 is drinking alcohol to mitigate that stress No. 6 is bad kidney function No. 7 is gaining weight. No. 8 is low nitric oxide and No. 9 is a lack of movement and No. 10 is excess sodium so logically the first step to unclogging arteries is to remove the drivers that increase your blood pressure and that starts with measuring your blood pressure correctly to know if you have high blood pressure so here's how you should do it you sit quietly for five minutes you put your feet flat your back is supported your arm is at your heart level and you wanna make sure you have the correct cuff size

6:09 you don't wanna talk and you wanna and you don't wanna measure it after caffeine exercise nicotine stress or rushing take two readings and average them and the easiest thing to remove in theory is ultra processed foods that are salty or even sweet however that's really not the only salt that's a problem right I mentioned potassium and that's the salt that needs to be added in your diet whereas sodium needs to be removed now this is not taking electrolytes or supplements this is actually looking for Whole Foods now the standard American diet has too much sodium and too little potassium the potassium sodium balance is really needed to have a healthy blood pressure

6:56 and healthy heart function and that's because potassium rich foods they help your body handle the sodium and they help your blood vessels relax so they're not so tight and so small so unless your doctor has told you to restrict potassium because you have kidney disease or you are on certain medications then you really need to go out of your way to find potassium so how do you find it well foods like beans lentils potatoes sweet potatoes leafy greens tomatoes squashes oranges kiwi bananas edamame beans mushrooms and you know lots of other vegetables they all have potassium and when you eat these foods

7:41 they change actually your biology not only to lower your blood pressure but to benefit all your muscles in your body so here's another reason to eat plants and to eat these certain plants because when you eat these plants you lather your arteries in nitric oxide now nitric oxide is one of the most important artery relaxing molecules in the body it tells the blood vessels to relax that means a blood vessel lumen it gets bigger when it relaxes now of course it's not broken apart like this now when nitric oxide is healthy arteries are more flexible blood flows more easily your platelets which are clotting factors they are activated by your immune system and they are less likely to stick

8:28 in the presence of nitric oxide your vascular resistance improves now notice how when I talk about your arteries I'm talking about changes because they're dynamic they're not like fixed pipes and the problem is that nitric oxide actually can go down for a number of reasons including if you have high blood pressure or chronic inflammation then it's not gonna be as effective and that's why it's vital to get normal blood pressure now here's a list of foods that are rich with nitric oxide leafy greens like arugula spinach beats celery bok choy Swiss chard parsley cilantro even lettuce and other nitrate-rich vegetables

9:15 contain nitric oxide. Technically, they actually have nitrate which gets turned into nitrite and then nitrite gets turned into nitric oxide and this pathway actually starts in your mouth because you have bacteria that convert nitrate into nitrite and that means that your mouth is part of your arterial system and that's why it's important to take care of your mouth that means your gums, your saliva your oral bacteria and your blood vessels are all connected so if you have bad oral hygiene it may contribute to cardiovascular problems you may also want to reconsider those mouthwashes that kill 99.9% of germs because you kind of need those germs at least the good ones now don't confuse nitrates in plants

10:02 with nitrates in preserved meats unfortunately the protein with the nitrates they react together and then that ax forms a new compound called nitrosamines which is actually quite toxic and considered to be cancerous hence preserved meats should be reduced if not avoided altogether so let's now talk about blood sugar by the way many of you have commented that you weren't sure if you were subscribed now if you find value in this video could you please um check and if you're not subscribed please hit the subscribe button hit the like button and then hit the share button and if you've already subscribed thank you for joining me to change the world now most people they think of diabetes as a blood sugar disease

10:48 but you know diabetes is also a clogged artery disease have you ever heated up sugar in a pan you know remember what happens it melts and then it turns brown and then it hardens right hardens into a rock so when you eat sugar it melts in your body cause your body is warm and then the sugar comes out of the solution which is your blood and it can stick to stuff right and this happens all over your body sugar sticks to all different kinds of molecules including proteins and that induces oxidative stress and inflammation and what happens with inflammation you get pimples so then that causes your immune system to react right

11:36 to make these pimples so ultimately because of high blood sugars your blood vessels they lose their flexibility and again you get clogged up so insulin itself can also drive this whole inflammatory cascade even if your blood sugars get lower and that is why improving your insulin sensitivity matters not just lowering your blood sugars that's definitely not the same as having normal blood sugars because when you have normal blood sugars you may still have high insulin levels and become or be insulin resistant because blood sugars are really a marker of how your body responds to carbohydrates and if it's not responding well or if you need a lot of insulin you're insulin resistant and this is a very common condition

12:22 in people who are prediabetic now you can also be insulin resistant even if you avoid all carbohydrates um you can also take extra insulin to counteract your high blood sugars right exogenous insulin because you have type 1 diabetes so let's not confuse the symptom of high blood sugar what the cause of high blood sugar the real cause of insulin resistance yet this is accumulation of fat and there are many different ways to get excess fat you can eat excess calories everything you eat can be turned into you get it fat you can be overweight and then you're shedding these fat cells or these fatty acids in your body all the time to then plug it into mitochondria

13:08 so the first step to getting insulin sensitive is really to avoid added sugar and refined starch so that means your soda your juice sugary coffee and tea you know energy drinks or snacking white bread pastries cereals chips crackers desserts I mean this whole video could be about low fiber processed foods that keep signaling your body with the wrong hormones and I think the worst offender of all is liquid sugar because it hits your body fast it doesn't make you full it pushes your glucose up as well as your insulin up and it can raise your triglycerides it can overload your liver and it sends like tons of inflammatory signals to your blood vessels all over your body right

13:54 so processed foods that are full of sugar and refined starches you really should consider replacing them with whole carbohydrates such as beans and lentils oats barley quinoa potatoes sweet potatoes fruits eat a ton of fruits. I love my fruits and of course vegetables these are not the same as all those ultra processed chips and crackers pastries white bread sugary cereals right, intact carbohydrates from the original package from nature have fiber have potassium, magnesium, resistant starch polyphenols antioxidants it's a whole package that you're getting along with food structure hi friends I am so thrilled that you wanna take charge of your health

14:40 and take charge of your food now I know nutrition can be complex but it doesn't have to be and I'm here to support you in this lifelong journey so if you point your camera app to this QR code it'll take you to a link for a free handout that I created just for you and if you like it if you wanna see other handouts please go to the link in my show notes and then you can leave me your feedback on what I could do to help you in your journey okay back to the video now and another way to unclog your arteries and get insulin sensitive is to move after you eat because your muscles can pull glucose out of your bloodstream you have 650 muscles use them that lowers your burden of sugar which lowers your amount of insulin you need to release

15:28 so if glucose and insulin are lower after meals then your liver has less fuel to overload the arteries there is less sugar to clog them up and the whole system just gets calmer even two minutes helps after your meals but of course the more the better so if you move 10 minutes that's even better and remember when you move you're not only drawing out sugar you're keeping your blood flowing you're training your muscles to be your best glucose sink, right you're making them practice the more metabolically active your muscles are the less glucose gets dumped to places it shouldn't be at and then you have less inflammation in your arteries to clog them up so if you're serious about protecting your arteries you gotta move folks you gotta move intentionally and you have to build muscles

16:15 so things that you could do are squats wall sits resistant bands push UPS rows lunges step-ups weights they all matter and you should rotate it if you've never done any of it go get yourself a trainer so you don't injure yourself you're not just exercising to burn calories folks you're exercising to build muscle to build that metabolic organ your muscles to protect your arteries oh by the way do you smoke if so stop smoking in fact if you smoke that's the single most important first step that you could do to unclog your arteries before everything else smoking directly injures blood vessels it increases oxidative stress it makes blood more clot-prone and it stimulates your immune system

17:00 to worsen the environment inside your blood vessels it reduces the amount of oxygen you get it accelerates plaque formation I mean I can go on and on need I say more I would like to go back to insulin now ever heard of visceral fat that's the stuff inside your belly so the fat under your skin is not the same kind of fat as the stuff around your organs that's visceral fat and visceral fat is metabolically active kind of like your muscles except that it works against you it releases inflammatory signals and free fatty acids to worsen your insulin resistance so it contributes to high blood sugars high triglycerides fatty liver high blood pressure and vascular dysfunction so if someone has belly fat inside

17:48 around their organs and they have high triglycerides high blood pressure low HDL, prediabetes fatty liver sleep apnea this is all not separate. This is the same problem it's metabolic syndrome and the arteries are they get a direct hit from the metabolic chaos so if that is you then you can get healthy by losing weight now the goal is not crash dieting crash dieting will make you lose muscle right which goes against metabolic health it triggers hunger it reduces metabolic rate it leads to rebound more weight gain so how can you lose weight while preserving your muscle so let's go back to step 1

18:35 cut out the ultra processed food and then center your meals on high fiber low calorie intact whole plant foods in addition remove the alcohol and improve your sleep quality Now start by adding whole plant foods to displace the harmful foods you know add some beans to your diet some lentils some chickpeas split peas oats barley vegetables and fruits leafy greens and mushrooms potatoes sweet potatoes right tofu tempeh edamame beans flax seeds nuts and seeds chia seeds walnuts these are all things you can add they're not diet food just eat them first they can help to unclog your arteries

19:22 help to fill you up and help you wean off the junk now when people actually examine the plaque you know they found fats right you have different kinds of fats in your artery so one fat is called triglycerides that will rise when your liver is shipping out excess energy especially when the body is struggling with insulin resistance or fatty liver or excess sugar or excess refined starch or alcohol or just eating excess calories so anyone struggling with any of these conditions they're gonna have high triglycerides and high triglycerides it's basically not just a lab number they are a signal that tells you that your liver is exporting too much fuel

20:07 because there's too much around and when triglycerides are high your good HDL is often low your insulin resistance is often high and your LDL cholesterol particles they become more inflammatory smaller and more numerous and we're gonna go into LDL cholesterol a little bit later now this pattern is linked to metabolic dysfunction so by now you're probably wondering you know how do you get your triglycerides to a normal value well remove liquid sugar and then reduce the refined starches eliminate alcohol because alcohol will raise triglycerides your blood pressure worsens sleep and add stress to your liver now replace the ultra processed foods

20:52 with intact carbohydrates like fiber like what I mentioned beans lentils they're one of the best examples because they give you that starchy feeling yet they're full of fiber resistant starch which you can't digest full of protein minerals polyphenols and together they lower your blood sugars and your triglycerides not only in this meal that you're eating it with but in the subsequent meal and like I said there are lots of fats including cholesterol that travel in your bloodstream and online there is a lot of confusion about cholesterol and people are left wondering if high cholesterol matters and the simple answer is yes because plaque contains cholesterol but cholesterol is not just one number and knowing your total cholesterol is not enough

21:41 because cholesterol is separated into different types of cholesterol-protein carriers and these cholesterol-protein carriers are basically the trucks that carry cholesterol from one end of the pipe to the other unfortunately every truck that carries cholesterol can block traffic so those are the protein carriers and you actually need to know how many trucks are on the you know lanes so that you can calculate how blocked your traffic is and that's actually a different measurement that's called ApoB that gives a better estimate of the number of trucks or particles that are carrying cholesterol that will eventually get stuck in macrophages so the more lipoproteins with ApoB you have floating around in your bloodstream the higher the chances macrophages will gobble them up

22:26 and be foamy and cause inflammation and that eventually clogs your artery and the best way to reduce how much ApoB you have is to reduce foods with saturated fat so if your goal is unclogging your arteries then the more saturated fat you eat the more clogged your arteries can become because the more ApoB you'll have so that includes butter cheese cream cheese fatty meats processed meats ghee coconut oil fast food pastries desserts right all those snacks things that have high saturated fat can raise your LDL cholesterol and it will worsen the congestion in your artery and that's why the trend of eating deep fried stuff in ghee is um quite a horrible idea if you want to unclog your artery

23:13 now I didn't even mention all the environmental toxins that accumulate in animal fat like dioxins that are actually quite poisonous but that's a different video but here's the important part to unclog your artery the goal isn't just to eat less fat the goal is to improve the environment that the artery is in so if you lower saturated fat but you replace it with refined sugar and white flour that's not progress folks that happened in the 1990s the low fat craze where you were told to avoid fat but then they substituted it with sugar and refined starches and people didn't turn out any better in fact people turned out worse because everybody gained a ton of weight and then they never reduce the fat

23:59 so don't do that the goal is to reduce inflammation and the best way to do that is to replace your saturated fat with high-fiber plant foods that contain natural fats and unsaturated fat, so less butter and cheese and cream and fatty meats and processed meat and coconut oil and ghee right less of all those fried foods and pastries and convert that into unmono unsaturated fats you can use that to cook your beans your lentils your tofu your tempeh right you can eat nuts and seeds that have those monosaturated fats you can eat avocado do you know what all these foods Whole Foods that I mentioned have in common they all have one ingredient in common that's fiber fiber is the No. 1 most powerful artery tool for you

24:49 to work on multiple systems at once It helps you lower your cholesterol it helps remove bile to reduce recycling so that your body has to pull out more cholesterol it feeds your gut microbiome it helps you to get full so that you don't overeat and therefore you lose weight it improves your insulin sensitivity so you lose weight even faster it improves your triglycerides your cholesterol numbers fiber helps lower your blood pressure as well as inflammation. Also, if you're eating whole-food fiber, it contains potassium and magnesium which most of the country is not getting enough of but remember this isn't eating fiber from a can, folks

25:34 this is eating actual Whole Foods right plate your foods with fiberless foods and if you can replace some of the fiberless foods on your plate with fiber-rich foods your arteries will get the right signal to reduce inflammation so how much fiber should you eat in a day I would say at least 30 g the size limit but if you're not used to that much fiber I would do it very slowly and drink a lot of water so don't just eat a bowl of beans or lentils or chickpeas you gotta start with one at a time right literally one bean at a time slowly increase fiber-rich foods so that they're not just side dishes and they start replacing your main meals this is the arterial medicine Bill Clinton used and when you eat these whole food fibers

26:21 you breed a healthy gut microbiome you reduce inflammation you lose a ton of weight and it changes your whole metabolism it changes your insulin sensitivity and immune signaling and what you feed your gut actually determines what your gut produces so if you eat a low fiber ultra processed food diet that creates a pretty inflammatory environment as opposed to if you eat a fiber-rich plant forward whole food diet and this is why the first step of unclogging your arteries is not avoid bad foods it's also feed the system that repairs you feed your gut right there's so many options to choose from it's so important to feed your friends

27:08 and to be strategic at what you're feeding it because not all foods are equally powerful now the most important thing that you can do that's free is actually to sleep sleep is not passive it's actually intentional and it's a recipe for your body to improve your blood pressure insulin sensitivity cortisol rhythm hunger hormones reduce inflammation and allow your body to repair your blood vessels if it needs to now if you're not sleeping well this can actually go in the opposite direction especially day after day after day so poor sleep raises your stress hormones worsens your cravings, increases your blood pressure worsens your insulin resistance

27:53 so that you have worsening blood sugars the next day and unfortunately too many people they don't realize that they're not sleeping well because they can't breathe um there's a very common condition called sleep apnea which repeatedly drops a person's oxygen when they sleep at night and people don't realize it it activates the sympathetic nervous system because you're essentially getting hypoxic or you you can't breathe at night even though you're breathing you're not actually getting what you need and people who have sleep apnea they generally snore they wake up feeling unrefreshed if this is you talk to your medical provider because we have treatment you know part of the treatment is losing weight but part of the treatment is getting enough oxygen while you're trying to lose weight so the ideal amount of sleep is at least 7 hours

28:41 whenever it's possible and to achieve that you want to keep caffeine before noon and don't do heavy meals at night also remember avoid alcohol you may feel relaxed but alcohol fragments your sleep and even if you're passed out you're not gonna have restful sleep because it prevents you from going into deep sleep and if you snore wake up choking or have morning headaches or daytime sleepiness or you're having problems with your high blood pressure you just can't get it controlled or atrial fibrillation you just find that your metabolism is just getting worse you know you may have sleep apnea ask your doctor about it and untreated sleep apnea that's a great way to hammer your blood vessels

29:28 during your sleep that's pretty stressful isn't it that's unconscious stress which you don't have direct control over except to get that sleep apnea treated but you do have direct control over conscious stress when you feel stressed different hormones go up like cortisol now cortisol is not necessarily bad it's a normal hormone that you need to wake up in the morning and it also helps to maintain your blood pressure I mean you need it to live but the problem is when you have cortisol all the time because it regulates inflammation and when you have high cortisol all the time, your body is in a state of constant inflammation so that's the problem with chronically elevated cortisol from chronic stress and that will worsen your blood pressure

30:13 your blood sugar your visceral fat your appetite inflammation and the pressure on your blood vessels so stress is gonna make your arteries tighten so that the same blood pressure is gonna do more damage but remember stress is not only emotional right poor sleep of any sort especially sleep apnea or you know medication such as alcohol or when you're eating you know ultra processed stuff can also cause unconscious stress which leads to more inflammation and part of distressing your body is to get yourself into a good daily routine so that means in the morning go get sunlight by walking outside practice deep slow breathing box breathing, strength train

31:00 right at least three times a week resistance training and allow your body to recover and remember if you need caffeine do it earlier so all these things they can help you unclog your artery but of course plaque is not gonna disappear overnight you're not gonna be pouring Drano in, right some plaques can regress modestly but really the goal is to stabilize these soft plaques that kind of break off because when these break off they can cause an acute blockage right and that's what we don't want to happen so a stable plaque one that's like rooted here where it can't come off is unlikely to rupture and that's why when you lower your blood pressure to reduce mechanical stress on when you lower ApoB to reduce the traffic

31:45 that causes inflammation in the wall and you get better insulin sensitivity lower your glucose you all this while increase your nitric oxide can make a better arterial environment so that you have less plaque growth and less plaque rupture like what happened to Bill Clinton and when you do these things that's real prevention so how do you do some of this stuff watch the next video and I'll show you