Top 10 Foods For Heart Failure You Are Missing

0:00 hello friends you already know fruits and vegetables are good that walking helps as stress is not great for your heart none of that is new but here is what's so strange if you actually put those pieces together correctly heart disease should be dropping but it really isn't without medications so either we're missing something or we're not connecting what we already know because heart disease is not happening from just one bad choice or one bad meal it's happening from patterns your body experiences every single day and once you see that pattern you start realizing something super uncomfortable some of the foods you think are harmless are actually quietly stressing your blood vessels and some of the foods that you barely think about

0:46 could actively help you protect them by the way my name is Doctor Lu and I'm a double board certified medical physician for almost 30 years and I've developed a unique perspective on longevity inflammation and metabolism and what I've consistently seen is this people who don't optimize their metabolism and control their inflammation they don't just get chronic diseases they also get more infectious diseases that absolutely will worsen any chronic disease and will decrease the quality of life and shorten longevity so let's start there let's start with foods to add now first let me ask you something why do you think people who eat more plants really whole plant foods

1:31 like the 7 day Adventist community in Loma Linda California consistently have lower heart disease rates is it just fiber could you buy that in a supplement or is it something else let's break it down let's start with leafy greens I have here arugula right here are onions but you can talk about spinach or kale you've heard they're good for your blood pressure and here's why they're high in dietary nitrates these have nitrates that convert into nitric oxide under the right conditions and nitric oxide does one critical thing it tells your arteries to relax and widen that means lower blood pressure smoother blood flow less mechanical stress on your vessel walls

2:17 now think about this if your arteries are slightly constricted all day long what happens over years what about decades so are you wondering what are the conditions that allow dietary nitrates to be protectants so when you eat nitrates like these greens from arugula or onions they come packaged with vitamin C polyphenols magnesium potassium fiber these things matter because they guide nitrates down a protective pathway nitrate becomes nitrite which becomes nitric oxide and later we'll talk about other nitrates found in other foods No.2 are beans and lentils now most people stop at they have fiber

3:02 but the type matters beans are rich with soluble fiber and resistant starch that lowers your LDL binds those bile acids it feeds your gut bacteria and those gut bacteria produce short chain fatty acids like butyrate butyrate reduces inflammation improves insulin sensitivity strengthens your gut barrier now connect that better gut less inflammation healthier arteries and heart No.3 are oats and oat bran you've heard it's heart healthy but why one word beta glucan beta glucan forms a gel in your intestines that gel traps cholesterol slows glucose absorption so now your blood vessels see lower cholesterol

3:49 lower glucose instead of these peaks you get stability No. 4 are berries blueberries strawberries raspberries they're not just antioxidants they're rich in anthocyanins polyphenols fiber these compounds reduce oxidative stress it improves endothelial function enhances that nitric oxide production it grows good gut microbes so berries they're not just protective they actively improve how your arteries respond and you have arteries everywhere in your body including to your heart heart attacks happen most often because those heart arteries they get blocked

4:35 No.5 are mushrooms now here's something most people don't know mushrooms they contain ergoline this is a very unique antioxidant that accumulates in high stress cells that includes your blood vessels but your body doesn't make it however it helps protect cells from oxidized damage chronic inflammation both of these leads to chronic diseases including kidney disease atherosclerosis and if you want to protect yourself from heart disease then it's super important to look for foods that reduce oxidative damage and chronic inflammation think about your diet how often do you think you should be eating mushrooms when it has so much ergothinine No. 6 are cruciferous vegetables broccoli

5:21 bok choy kale these contain molecules called sulforaphane it's in here arugula sulforaphane activates something called nerve 2 nerve 2 turns on your body's internal detox and antioxidant systems so instead of adding antioxidants you're activating your own body's ability to defend itself that means you've already had the equipment to protect yourself from chronic diseases like cancers and diabetes and high blood pressure and heart disease No. 7 are nuts and seeds walnuts flax seeds chia seeds if you think about it seeds are nature's most precious packages it spends the most amount of energy to protect it from the environment that's why it has that hard shell it contains all the nutrients

6:07 a little plant can grow from and all you gotta do is add water so when you eat it they provide Omega 3 fatty acids polyphenols fiber protein magnesium and magnesium alone improves insulin sensitivity relaxes blood vessels reduces arrhythmias and we haven't even mentioned the benefits of polyphenols and fiber that build tissue properly along with Omega 3 fats and protein now ask yourself if most people are low in magnesium low in fiber low in Omega fats what does that mean for their heart over time to be clear we're actually eating too much fats but it's not enough Omega 3 fats and that's why it's important to search for foods that are high in Omega 3 fats

6:53 such as flax seeds and walnuts so now you've seen this pattern these foods don't just add nutrients they relax your arteries reduce inflammation stabilize your blood sugars lowers your insulin improves cholesterol handling so the real question is what happens when your diet does the opposite and that's why there's so much focus about foods to limit so let's go back to something familiar a typical meal you have some refined carbs fat low fiber feels pretty normal that's a ham and cheese sandwich with white bread or a quesadilla and in my culture we wipe buns now what does your body really experience well the combination of refined carbs and fat

7:38 that will spike your glucose your insulin it will keep your fat circulating longer and the glucose spikes longer as well there's a traffic jam in your bloodstream and this induces constant inflammation your arteries are exposed to it for longer what do you think is gonna happen when you have constant inflammation in your arteries now that's why another thing to limit is ultra processed foods now there's no clear cut definition but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about soda potato chips aren't the only thing that's ultra processed and bad for you anytime you have to read the ingredients that's a processed food but when that food includes ingredients like emulsifiers preservatives artificial anything or an ingredient you actually don't recognize

8:23 or can use from your cupboard that's basically single chemicals that we put together to produce ultra processed foods Ultra processed foods still may have a main base of something that is quote unquote natural some kind of grain like wheat or rice or corn or even fruit but they're not whole and they're bad because we've combined single chemicals to pretend that they're food and when you concentrate chemicals you get concentrated side effects emulsifiers alone can disrupt your gut microbiome it could increase inflammation and one of the worst ones is carrageenan that is gut disruption causing inflammation causing vascular damage all diseases begins in the gut

9:09 that's a quote from Hippocrates he wasn't eating ultra processed ingredients and yet he lived to 90 years old despite not having our modern medicines remember ultra processed foods can also include meats that have been highly manipulated processed with nitrates remember how nitrates was actually beneficial in plants but the nitrates when they're found in meats like bacon and hot dogs and deli meats your ham they become harmful because they exist in a completely different environment then you gotta cook it high heat cooking with that high protein there's no protective antioxidants no fiber and it's often combined with fat and salt and in that setting your nitrates forms with the amino acids to form nitrosamines

9:56 they are pro inflammatory potentially carcinogenic they damage blood vessels so instead of supporting nitric oxide production to relax your arteries they contribute to oxidative stress and vascular injury how good is that for your heart just a quick note before we continue I see messages and comments all the time from people who have watched a few of my videos and didn't realize that they weren't subscribed so if you find value in my videos can you click the like button and double check that you are subscribed it's free and it really does help get my message to other people and if you are subscribed thank you very much for joining me to change the world No. 10 is excess added sugars especially fructose now we know that when you add sugar

10:42 that's just not good for your health but obviously if you take a spoonful you're not gonna kick the bucket right away added sugar it's just not gonna be like cyanide but it's much worse because you get to slowly suffer and the problem with these added sugars is that we've confused it with food and believe me if you're eating 100 pounds of it in a year you think it's food technically speaking all food is made out of chemical even if it's all natural carbon hydrogen oxygen magnesium these are all elements that you will find in the food that you eat as well as in the periodic table of elements but depending on how you combine these elements together dictate what they do to your body as a molecule for example sugars are all made out of carbon hydrogen and oxygen but when you put the carbon

11:27 and hydrogen and oxygen together make glucose it becomes fuel for your body you can store it as glycogen in your muscles but when you put carbon hydrogen and oxygen to make fructose that's a molecule that is a slow toxin to your liver but you've probably have never heard of anybody acutely kicking the bucket when they eat fructose why cause it's a slow burn it's not an acute poison this is not rattlesnake venom that's why when you concentrate fruit juice you're gonna get a ton of fruit dose but because I eat whole fruit I eat a ton of it and I'm still doing pretty well and I can live to make another video I eat fruit all day long because the simple reality is whole fruit has very little sugar

12:12 and it's protective for your cardiovascular system but when you concentrate the juice in fruit or you put added sugar in it or honey or molasses high fructose corn syrup maple sugar maple syrup well you're basically destroying that food matrix you're leading to concentrated fructose that causes the novel lipogenesis making fat in liver it increases your triglyceride which is linked to insulin resistance and heart disease nothing in the body acts alone hi friends I am so thrilled that you want to take charge of your health 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

13:00 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 No. 11 is low fiber diets this is actually a hidden one because without fiber cholesterol is reabsorbed it gets higher in your blood system blood sugar spikes more which leads to higher insulin levels and your gut bacteria it actually becomes more negative and toxic for your body so even if you eat calories the same the outcome will be different ask yourself are your meals repeatedly creating a low fiber environment what is that doing to your arteries what do you think they're adapting to do you think that's good for your heart

13:46 now let's shift to moving your gut muscles to moving your skeleton muscles which is a powerful way to talk to your heart for free and you already know this and you already probably do some of this and that's move now this is not exercise movement is all about circulation if you move a lot repetitively then we call that exercise but if you're going shopping and walking to get there that's activities of daily living folks that has been traditionally piggyback with something else that we're doing to add to the quality of our life we used to walk to gather food or we would walk to go shopping or to meet friends we don't just exercise staring in front of a screen at one time all those things were very normal in our lives right

14:32 and when we do that we're circulating our blood that interacts with our heart interacts with our nervous system but in this modern world we've lost the ability to do normal things that our bodies were built to do and as a result we may no longer be walking to gather food we don't even walk to shop you literally are probably using your app to have someone deliver somebody else walk to deliver your groceries to you that takes away your ability to move your ability to talk to your nervous system and heart so you're ignoring your heart if you're not moving and if this is you then it'll be in your favor to strategically move so that you can replicate what the human body normally did and that's No. 12 walking after meals think about it

15:17 after you eat with your family you would walk to go to your house now we walk to go to our cars and our cars take us home but if you spend that time walking you actually will reduce glucose spikes immediately it just takes a couple of minutes and literally you can change how high your blood sugar spike for the entire duration of digesting that meal even though you're not moving for that duration now obviously if you can walk more than two minutes that's better our lives are so busy now that we're always doing things for others doing things for our boss doing things for our kids and our family how about ourselves we have forgotten ourselves and to do the most important thing to ourselves is to take care of ourselves you know how in the plane they say when the oxygen comes down feed yourself first that oxygen

16:03 that's what we need to do to care for our heart so No. 13 move throughout the day and move frequently think about it do you think sitting is a form of movement after you sit what happens your butt hurts your lower back hurts you literally are choking off circulation it's like forming a dam underneath your thigh and your bottom to prevent blood from flowing back from your toes to your heart sitting significantly slow circulation and it is one of the most common reasons that elderly people present with infections in their legs or cellulitis that's because they tend to fall asleep sitting hence I don't sit I don't have a chair in my office I prefer standing I'm either standing or laying down when I'm sleeping

16:50 unless I'm riding in a car then I'm forced to sit I know sitting is brutal cause every time I'm done driving my lower back hurts my bottom hurts my thigh hurts and then one day I realized that I really don't have any muscles to buffer the sitting position and that's when I started No. 14 strength training and I felt so much better after I started strength training and I know my metabolism is so much better because I've been increasing my muscle mass muscles are your largest glucose sink that means it's taking glucose out of your bloodstream which means there's less glucose in your blood vessels and we talked about how high glucose causes inflammation so if you've ever heated up sugar in a pan remember what happens it melts

17:37 becomes liquid and then it becomes hard right well essentially your body is an oven a heated oven with excess sugar is just gonna harden everything that it touches from your proteins to your arteries hence it's really important to flush your system circulate it move it around so it doesn't get stuck and that's why people talk about No. 15 zone 2 cardio it doesn't just improve circulation but you're actually training your muscles to be more efficient on energy usage because you're training your mitochondria to burn your fuel zone 2 cardio is when you can still speak full sentences but you don't have the ability to sing you're sweating but you're not exhausted things like a brisk walk a light jog or easy cycling

18:22 the reality is if you can do No. 16 short bursts of physical exercise then you can improve your vascular elasticity it's like cleaning your house and you don't have to go to the gym to do this think about what matters more a 45 minute workout at the gym or how your body behaves the other 23 hours I mean what you're doing is giving your body light stress throughout the day sprinkled around that light stress trains your muscles to get stronger and more efficient what we don't want is negative mental stress and now this is the piece most people underestimate how powerful mental stress is to your heart loneliness is an epidemic loss is devastating pain we've all felt it

19:09 but here's the extreme version takosubo cardiomyopathy that severe emotional stress which literally enlarges and weakens the heart this is nothing to do with your cholesterol plaques it's all your mind controlling your heart destroying your heart so if your mind can negatively change the shape of your heart what do you think positive forward thinking can do for your heart it's not easy to be positive it's actually a training mindset and if every day you start training yourself by giving yourself a list of what you're grateful for then when you have those negative thought pull up those list that can help you reset your mindset another thing you can try when you're feeling anxious is number seventeen slow breathing that activates parent sympathetic nerves

19:58 to calm your heart so when you're anxious your heart is racing that's your sympathetic nervous system it's too active and that's why deep slow breaths four seconds in to hold it and then hold it at the top for about four seconds and then release it for about six seconds that can calm your nervous system to calm your heart and sometimes we are anxious or upset simply because we haven't properly done No. 18 sleep people underestimate the power of sleep it's a way the human body recharges this regulates cortisol and blood pressure so when you sleep better your cortisol and blood pressure improves and when you don't get enough sleep what do you think is going to happen to your cortisol and blood pressure and that's why it's important to do

20:44 number nineteen reducing chronic stress input to reduce your chronic constant stimulation this means don't sweat the small stuff which is easier said than done I know because I'm one of those people too worrying is really a habit that we can train out of and anything that you can do to reduce your daily stress can be very beneficial to your heart personally right now I'm going through a broken hearted loss of a loved one I can feel my heart my chest just doesn't feel like it did before the trauma so I actively work on this mental stress so it doesn't physically affect me as much and when I work on it I'm working through it with friends and family and that's why No. 20 is super super important to build social connections

21:32 and this is directly linked to survival and longevity if you know someone who's going through something difficult go visit them call them Facetime them zoom them send them an email send them a card focus on that individual and build that social connection it will strengthen your nervous system to focus out and that can strengthen your heart emotional stress is brutal that definitely can lead to physical stress and trauma and imagine if stress alone can affect your heart then what do you think constant low level physical about chemical stress that goes unnoticed is doing now let's step back for a moment we didn't just talk about 20 different ways to lower heart disease we talked about patterns do you see a pattern in your life patterns

22:17 that your arteries are constantly responding to what's flowing through your blood how often do you move how your body handles stress and the most important part you actually already know most of this you just hadn't connected it in a way your body experiences it but here's where it gets even more interesting because even if you understand all of this there's still one major piece most people completely miss and it's a part that determines whether your body actually benefits from these changes or it keeps moving forward towards disease or away from disease and that is the APO B factor so if you want to learn more about APO B watch the next video