Dr. Julian Whitaker discussing Reversing Heart Disease with Randy Alvarez
High Blood Pressure Drugs Pose Health Risks
Love is the sun shining in us to sparkle our lives!
– Patricia Bragg
Dr. Dean Ornish has been able to reverse heart disease in more than 70% of his patients who follow, among other things, a low-fat vegetarian diet.
When it comes to dealing with high blood pressure, most Western doctors turn first to drug treatments. They rely mainly on pharmaceuticals – diuretics and beta-blockers. Drug diuretics (with side effects) lower blood pressure by reducing the volume of blood. With less blood, pressure in the arteries decreases. The other commonly prescribed type of drug, the beta blocker, (also with side effects), works on the autonomic nervous system. Beta blockers slow the heart rate, which reduces pressure by reducing the amount of blood the heart pumps.
Side Effects of Beta Blockers and Diuretics
These both claim to be helpful remedies for high blood pressure, don’t be too sure. Diuretics relieve one problem only to give rise to several others: They deplete blood of certain essential minerals, increase blood’s cholesterol level, and increase blood’s thickness, stickiness and acidity. These factors increase heart attack or stroke risk. Studies show that death rates increase with heavy diuretic use.
What about beta blockers? Though their cardiovascular side-effects are less pronounced than with diuretics, beta blockers are known for causing impotence, depression, and fatigue. Because their job is to make the heart lazy and slow, beta blockers ensure that the hands, feet, and brain get less blood and less oxygen!
You can avoid these dangerous drugs and maintain a healthy blood pressure at the same time. Take the advice of a growing legion of progressive medical practitioners who treat high blood pressure without dangerous drugs. Doctors like Alexander Leaf of the Harvard Medical School, and William Roberts, editor of The American Journal of Cardiology, recommend making lifestyle changes rather than drug prescriptions for high blood pressure patients.
Don’t Procrastinate – Improve Your Health
What kind of lifestyle changes is best? Those that instill the health habits we teach with The Bragg Healthy Lifestyle! A low-fat, vegetarian diet is crucial for the free and unimpeded flow of blood through your body. Reducing fat in your diet also stimulates weight loss, which, in turn, contributes to reduced blood pressure. Finally, make exercise a fixed part of your daily routine and learn to breathe deeply and relax, freeing yourself of stress while you fill yourself with ample fresh oxygen.
Please listen to Dr. Claude Lenfant, Director, National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute. He says Lifestyle changes alone can actually reverse the conditions of heart disease. When it comes to making the kind of changes needed for healthy and happy living, the truly important thing is making those changes happen. However, actually doing it, living it, making it happen – this is what counts! So don’t play procrastinating games with yourself! The moment you think, do I have time to do this right now? is the moment to stop asking and start doing. The moment you think, I want a big steak for dinner, is the time to open up a vegetarian cookbook with pictures and discover healthy, tasty new recipes. We promise you will find recipes more delicious, healthy, and satisfying than steak. If you do eat meat, limit it to 1 to 3 times a week and be sure it’s hormone-free and organically fed without harmful chemicals.
The in-between moment after you decide you want to become healthier and before you begin to act on that decision, is the hardest. Example: the moment before you put one leg in front of the other on the first step of your brisk walk is the hardest moment of the exercise.
Heart Surgery versus Natural Therapy
Unfortunately, our Western medical professionals too often turn first to invasive procedures rather than safer and less expensive non-invasive, healthier alternatives. This is true in both diagnosis and treatment.
An angiogram is an invasive and dangerous diagnostic test (causes approximately 20,000 deaths yearly) that is supposed to measure blood flow and blockages in the heart. A catheter is inserted into a patient’s leg artery (through the groin), and threaded up through the artery all the way to the patient’s heart. A National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute study found this painful invasive procedure is a shocking 82% inaccurate! Nevertheless, doctors continue to prescribe expensive angiograms. In the years since the study, angiograms performed in the
U.S. have risen from 380,000to well over one million yearly! Expensive treatment for heart disease is increasingly dominated by invasive procedures. In the 17years between 1979 and 1997, coronary bypass surgeries increased a shocking 432% – from 115,000 operations to 607,000 performed yearly! If only this trend reflected a growing, positive effectiveness of these invasive procedures – but this is not the case! These and current studies prove it! A recent Harvard University medical study reports that invasive heart surgeries have little effect on the long-term survival of most heart patients. Only in the most severe cases did dangerous, invasive operations show significant statistical merit. The study suggested that these types of surgeries could be reduced by 25% or more without endangering the health of heart patients. Rather than using this important study’s advice, doctors are increasing expensive heart surgeries at an alarming rate!
The Safer Road to Reduce Heart Disease
Dr. Julian Whitaker, one of America’s famous heart specialists, became so outraged years ago over unsafe trends that, as he says, I gave up being a surgeon to become a healer. He founded the renowned Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, California, and has the nation’s leading health newsletter, Health and Healing. A healthy lifestyle like The Bragg’s Lifestyle is his alternative to angiograms and surgery. www.drwhitaker.com
Dr. Dean Ornish, the Clinical Professor of Medicine, School of Medicine, UC San Francisco, is another world famous doctor-turned-healer. When Ornish’s heart patients embraced a healthy, energetic exercise regime and ate only nutritious, low-fat foods, their heart conditions began improving within one month! After a year, most patients had virtually no chest pains or heart problems! For 82% of his patients a healthy lifestyle reversed their arterial clogging! Web: my.webmd.com
Non-Invasive Tests for the Heart
The safer, less expensive, non-invasive alternatives can bring about greater health. The invasive heart tests and operations are extremely dangerous, expensive and often unnecessary! There are a growing number of doctors that specialize in protecting heart patients from the use of angiograms, bypass surgery, and angioplasty. As an alternative to invasive testing procedures, they place sonar devices, electronic sensors, microphones, etc. on the outside of the chest. These sensitive tests can usually judge heart disease better than procedures which use dangerous, invasive catheters, tubes, and needles. When needed, consult with some of the many physicians and health organizations working to make the healthcare of your heart a wise, safer job.
Here’s some sources:
The Whitaker Wellness Institute, Newport Beach, CA
Dr. Dean Ornish, PMRI Institute, CA • For Heart Retreats
ACAM (American College for Advancement in Medicine)
For list of holistic doctors see web: www.acam.org
