Heart Disease
Heart disease includes range of issues that impact the health of your heart, including blood vessel deterioration, coronary artery disease, overall inflammation, and heart defects you’re born with (congenital heart defects), among others.
Are you struggling with high cholesterol and really concerned about your heart health?
Are you currently taking statins for high cholesterol?
Are you concerned because the heart medication is only helping marginally and you have a family history of heart attack?
Are you also dealing with annoying weight around your midsection that just doesn’t budge no matter what you do?
Perhaps you are looking for a more proactive approach to your heart health?
New Findings On Heart Disease
For years red meat and fat, high cholesterol, and family history of heart attack were to “blame” for heart health issues. While all of these can be factors, new scientific research has show that there are even more important and concerning factors (never previously considered) that play a big part in how healthy your heart is.
Inflammation has evolved into a major contributor to heart disease. Recent studies have shown that a diet high in inflammatory foods are the real culprits, such as fast foods and packaged foods, especially sugar and white processed carbohydrates. Other factors play a part as well like regular alcohol consumption (busting the “red wine is good for you” myth), stealth infection, exposures to environmental toxins, as well as formally researching factors such as genetics, lack of exercise, high levels of external and internal stress.
The Conventional Approach To Heart Health
When it comes to heart health it’s no longer just about having “good” cholesterol numbers, there are so many other areas that must be assessed. In fact, 77% of heart attacks happen to people with normal cholesterol levels!
A standard lipid panel only predicts about 50% of those that will go on to have a heart attack or stroke, suggesting that 50% of those with normal cholesterol levels are at risk. Measuring both systemic inflammation and inflammation within artery walls can help identify this “hidden risk.”
Unfortunately, many people don’t receive the correct testing and guidance, and experience a heart attack or a stroke as their first sign of underlying disease.
The Functional Medicine Approach To Heart Health
It is estimated that 90% of cardiovascular disease is preventable, but what most people and conventionally-trained doctors don’t know is that in order to prevent heart disease it must be a whole-body approach.
What we have found is that so many areas of our health and lifestyle directly impact heart health, including how high your current levels of inflammation are, your blood sugar levels, if you are eating an inflammatory diet, if exercise takes a “back seat” in your life, what your toxic load is currently and if you’ve had a stealth infection or are currently dealing with one.
Sarah Yoakam, MD knows that your risk of heart attack and stroke can be lowered drastically without medication by upgrading your risk factors linked to lifestyle and using comprehensive testing to understand exactly what your true risks are. Some of this testing includes advanced lipid testing which shows the number of atherogenic (dangerous) particles and the size of these particles. Other tests for specific vitamins, fatty acids, and metabolites, as well as genetic markers also provide valuable information that will impact your healing protocol.
With in-depth functional and integrative medicine and advanced lipid testing, we can catch the beginning stages of cardiovascular disease and also zero in on other issues that can impact the health of your whole body.
How do you know if you are at risk or what your level of risks are? Here are some of the risks factors that you should consider, but testing is required to show all the factors.
Risk Factors
- Obesity
- Sedentary Lifestyle
- A diet high in process sugars and processed fats
- Family History/ Genetics
- High Blood Pressure
- Heart Disease
- High cholesterol / lipids
- Homocysteine levels
- High Fibrinogen (blood clotting factor)
- Lp(a) (how cholesterol, fats and proteins are transported in your blood)
- Inflammation Levels
Take The First Step On Your
Journey With Me
Are you a COVID long-hauler? Are you suffering with vague and debilitating symptoms after COVID, such as fatigue, joint pain, shortness of breath, or brain fog? While we are still trying to determine the cause of this, functional medicine may be able to address some of these symptoms and bring some relief.
Sarah Yoakam, MD, will assess your illness, recovery and symptoms in a “whole person” method to help get to the root cause and search for improvement.