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Though wearing your heart on your sleeve isn’t usually considered beneficial, if we could actually do it we would be able to take a close look at its condition every day. Head off heart disease by nurturing the most discussed but least appreciated organ that symbolizes love and caring.

More of us die from broken heart than any other ailment. Although we know that heart disease is the leading cause of death in Canadians over 45, few of us have questioned the conventional ways that we try to combat it. Sure, we’ve been told about healthy habits to reduce the risks – by losing weight, reducing red meat consumption and avoiding stress. But physicians continue to prescribe cholesterol-lowering (statin) drugs, calcium beta-blockers and high blood pressure medications to millions of Canadians, with side effects that outweigh benefits.

But there are more natural and sensible ways to strengthen our heart. In fact, one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, Linus Pauling, Ph.D., said that doctors have got it all wrong.

Every year half a million people die from coronary heart disease.  In a recentCNN article discussing a new study based on the data from the Framingham study concludes: The study “reaffirms the notion that coronary heart disease is the 800-pound gorilla of disease in this country, now and for the foreseeable future,” says cardiologist Dr. Stuart Seides.   Heart attacks were virtually unknown before the turn of the century.  Our diets, especially in “developed” countries have gone through dramatic changes in this period.  There is a very real connection between this new disease and our new diets.

Dr. Pauling, a two-time Nobel Prize Laureate and recipient of over 40 honourary degrees,  stressed that it isn’t cholesterol or even fatty foods that cause heart troubles; he was convinced it is caused by malnutrition. Instead of medications, Dr. Pauling believed strongly in curing heart disease with vitamin supplements. But even though millions of lives could be saved  annually by simply taking a few common, inexpensive vitamins, the medical industry would have little incentive to prescribe them.

Linus Pauling himself ingested 18,000 mg daily of vitamin C daily in order

to approximate the tissue levels of an animal of his body weight.

The few species which include humans, that do

not make their own vitamin C suffer a condition called atherosclerosis,

where white plaques narrow the arteries. This disease has been misnamed

“heart disease” because it often leads to a heart attack. The disease is not

prevalent in species that make their own Vitamin C

Vitamin C is required for tissue integrity.  Tissues that are under constant stress are particularly vulnerable to degradation from C deficiency.  This is certainly true of our arteries. 

Shortly before his death at 93, Linus Pauling and Matthias Rath had completed work on the link between atherosclerosis and Vitamin C (please see the link in the side bar).  They had concluded that chronic Vitamin C deficiency lead to a serious compromising of our arterial system.  Our bodies respond to this situation with a healing process.

According to Pauling, vitamin C prevents illness due to its role in manufacturing collagen, the protein that helps make the walls of blood vessels. He was convinced that vitamin C can help prevent cardiovascular disease by reversing damage done to blood vessels. Vitamin C’s link to healthy  blood vessels is supported by scurvy studies. It causes collagen breakdown, resulting in ruptured blood vessels, so victims bleed to death.

A great misfortune of human evolution, Dr. Pauling stated, was when our ancestors’ bodies lost their ability to manufacture vitamin C , discarded when we had a steady supply of fresh-picked fruits and vegetables. Ever since humans migrated away from the tropics, we’ve suffered deficiencies (vitamin C begins to quickly deteriorate as soon as fruits and veggies are picked.

When arteries are compromised, our systems produce a specialized, sticky form of low-density lipoprotein- called Lp(a) which attaches itself to the arterial wall to prevent blood seepage.  This is consistent with where arterial plaque is found – where there are lesions and where there is particular stress (i.e. at branches, in arteries, not veins, due to the pressure and in coronary arteries due to the stress of the constant motion).

Heart disease is a misnomer because there is no

malfunction of the heart. The underlying disease process is characterized

by scab-like build-ups that adhere to the walls of blood vessels. As the

arteries narrow, the blood supply to the heart and the other organs is

reduced, resulting in angina (“heart cramp”), heart attack and/or stroke.

The more correct terminology is chronic scurvy, a sub clinical (difficult to

detect) form of the classic vitamin C deficiency disease scurvy.

In this lectures, Pauling discussed vitamin C’s connection with lipoprotein (a), a substance linked to cardiovascular disease and a major part of plaque found in blood vessels of atherosclerosis patients. Certain fats in the blood have the ability to plug the leaks caused by lack of vitamin C by forming a kind of plaster (plaque). These are cholesterol, lipids, and lipoprotein (a). He claimed that lipoprotein (a) tries to strengthen blood vessels walls by coating them if there isn’t adequate vitamin C in the diet. He felt lipoprotein (a) was more of a factor in heart disease than cholesterol, which is a secondary tool used by the body to coat the cracks and fissures in the walls. This sticky cholesterol is a special kind of cholesterol made in our livers and not the cholesterol we get from fatty foods. Again, all plaque in the arteries is laid down as temporary repair material for damaged blood vessels. This happens only when the body is malnourished. The coating, however, narrows arteries, eventually causing blockages – and heart attacks and strokes. None of today’s heart drugs lower lipoprotein (a) levels.

Dr. Pauling created a formula for halting these effects. His therapy included megadoses of vitamin C, of course, but it also included supportive B vitamins including vitamin B3 (niacin) which also lowers lipoprotein (a), and vitamin B6, B12, and folic acid. Key amino acids l-Lysine and L-proline, vitamin A and E, magnesium, selenium and omega-3 oils were also added. He was adamant that this simple formula could stop and even reverse the majority of cardiovascular disease cases. He practiced what he preached, gradually increasing his daily dose of vitamin C to 18 grams.

What does vitamin C do? It increases  HDL (high density lipoprotein), or good cholesterol, and decreases lipoprotein (a), cholesterol and triglyceride production. It is also thought to lower blood sugar and insulin requirements. By relaxing the blood vessel walls, it lowers blood pressure when hypertension is present, and it stops inappropriate clot formation, which is often the final cause of heart attacks and strokes.

When Pauling died in 1994, he knew that cardiovascular disease would continue to rise in epidemic proportions. In the US and Canada, every other person will die of heart disease. Each year, $ 100 billion is spent on surgery and medications for vascular heart disease in the US. The bottom line is that lipoprotein (a) levels, which are rarely checked by doctors, may be the real risk factor in cardiovascular disease only because this fat is trying hard to repair damage done by eating too little of what we need.

Your heart works 24 hours a day with no breaks. It can be difficult to get enough nutrients from your diet for this hard –working organ. Supplement with vitamin C and other nutrients- they’re your body’s major line of defence against heart troubles.

For more information on Cardiovascular health & Heart disease Prevention, listen to my Cardiovascular health & Heart disease Prevention Tele-seminar;  you can get the FREE recordings here:  http://telehealthsecrets.com/rcv