The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition.

Hello, I'm Kimberly King, and welcome to the mother's market radio show, a show dedicated to the Truth, Beauty and Goodness of the human condition. On today's show, your heart beats at least once every second, so it's a great idea to keep that muscle working at its optimum level, we're talking about that thing you do to keep a healthy heart, you're sure to learn something new on today's show, Plus later we'll find out what's new at mother's market and what's happening around town, but first up, we're pleased to welcome back nutritional consultant Ken Babel, an has a clinical nutrition practice in Los Angeles, and as a consultant to the natural food and supplement industry, he's an author of several books, including mushrooms for help and longevity, and seafood. Sense the truth about Seafood Nutrition and Safety. And we welcome you to the mother's market radio show.

How are you?

Thank you. I'm good, thank you. How are you?

I am fine, thank you. For those of you in our audience that may not be familiar with your mission and your work, why don't you fill in our audience a little bit before we get into the show's topic... Well, before I actually became a clinical nutritionist about 30 years ago, I just became fascinated by the concept of being able to control how you feel from day-to day just by your food choices and your habits. And I was also fascinated by the idea that the body is a self-repairing machine, it's constantly renewing itself, and you wanna replace old worn out sells with healthy new cells, and you do that by your food choices, nutrition. And the flip side of that is, how well you get rid of the waste products? cleaners.

So that's what led to my study of nutrition, and I try and inspire that in my clients and help them to personalize programs with their diet and their supplements.

Very good. It's fascinating, and I like the way you are explaining today we're actually gonna be discussing natural solutions for heart health, and we wanna begin by asking our heart attacks preventable. Absolutely, that's probably one of the best kept secrets is we don't have to have heart attacks anymore. They are completely preventable. This is a food-born illness. And we've eaten our way into this problem and we can eat our way out of it, we're not gonna solve the problem with drugs and stents and bypass operations because they don't address the cause of the problem, and we think about in 1800, heart attacks were virtually unknown was just as AIDS was unknown in 1970.So we have to ask ourselves what has changed in the last 100 years and how we can eat right to prevent heart attacks, and that's so good because you are... I know you're a man of research and we had a show earlier, and I love how you put a time stamp on things, and it makes us really realize... What are we doing differently?

So let's talk about the circulatory system and why is good circulation so important?

Well, you've got about 60000 miles of blood vessels, starting with the arteries that divide and sub-divide down to the very tiny capillaries, and then the blood returns through the veins and then the arteries again and moves in a circle, which is why we talk about the circulatory system and your good circulation brings nutrients to all the cells, carries away the waste products, distributes heat. In traditional Chinese medicine, they say, good circulation fosters good mental clarity, arose complexion and tranquility.

That's good to know. And that, which means again, the rosy complexion, and you think about... I think about people I hear in my work environment that are cold or hot, or... You piece that together and you wonder, okay, what's going on there?

I tend to be cold all the time, so I guess I wonder, alright, what's going on? What's wrong with me?

Right, and you know, sometimes if we're sitting for a long time, if we're on a long haul airplane flight, people actually develop blood clots, so physical activity, something as simple as that is gonna improve circulation, another thing people don't often think about, particularly the elderly, is dehydration, a lot of older folks, they forget to drink and the blood gets too thick and that impairs our circulation, and poor circulation is a factor in just about every disease of aging.

That's a really good point. Yeah, and we have to think about that.

What about... Let's talk a little bit about the dietary changes that occurred that increased cardiovascular risk, we... As I mentioned, there are some major changes that occur occurred in the last 100 years in our diet, one of them, of course, is imbalanced in fats, there's two facts that we need just like vitamins every day, one is classified omega-6, the other omega-3. and with the introduction of corn oil, Safar sunflower, soy oil, things have got kind of topsy-turvy, and we have an imbalance with the omega-3s, which are actually the heart healthy fats.

So to correct that, we want to cut down on those common refined oils, which you also happen to find in a lot of snack food, some packaged foods, and increase the omega-3s and the daily diet, which would be fish, flax seed, leafy greens, that would be the way to correct that particular imbalance, and think about it, the Greenland Eskimos were virtually free of heart disease, and they attribute that to this high ratio of omega-3 fatty acids in their diet from fish and wall blubber and so on, and it seems... I guess, how do you... We always stay up in front of the pendulum sometimes it seems... Or I'm asking you, does it seem like the news changes on what's good or does... Like the fats for instance. Does that sometimes seem like it changes or...

Sure, yeah, you remember when in, I think it was back in the 80s, and we had the fat-free trend, everything was fat-free, and people seemed to have forgotten, as I say, some facts, we require like vitamins every day, and what... Vitamins are good for you. Now that vitamin is good or... Yeah, you said fat free, and then... But you're in an industry where you are on top of it and you do do your research, but then here comes the media and they say, Oh no, no, that's not good for you anymore, so I know it can be confusing to consumers, actually, if you listen to the natural food advocates, we've been talking about this for decades, and now modern medicine is just beginning to catch up, but just in my career, I could remember a time when we were called health nuts and food Faust and worse, but now it's gratifying to see that the medical professions. Coming around to our way of thinking. No, you guys were right from the very beginning... Yes, I mean, when it started substituting margarine or butter, we said, No, that can't be good for anybody... You knew it from the very beginning because... Yeah, sure.

What is marrying to outsmart nature?

Yeah, natural is always best.

What types of a diet are best... We used to think that heart disease was irreversible, and it was back in the 90s that Dr. Dean Hornish, right here, UCLA, California, showed that you could actually reverse the plaque that forms an arteries, and he did that by putting his patients on a low fat, a semi-vegetarian diet, he put them through stress modification practices and put them on an exercise program, and he showed it, you is actually able to reverse that plaque that forms an arteries now, as critics, of course, they said, Well, was it the exercise or was it the stress reduction, how much of it was diet... We don't necessarily have to be vegetarian to prevent or reverse heart disease, as a matter of fact, one of the most scientifically documented diets in the whole world is a traditional Mediterranean diet, which is what... Well, that was a diet people were eating in the 1960s and parts of Greece and Spain and Italy, and at that time they had a rate of heart disease was 90% lower than that of the US, that's 90% lower.

And it was actually put to the test, there was a study called the Leon study, where patients were put on the traditional Mediterranean diet or the American Heart Association diet, and after only a few months, they had to terminate the study because it was so obvious that the people on the traditional Mediterranean diet, we're getting all these benefits, and it would have been unethical to continue with the study.

That's 90%. That's a huge percentage there. And traditional Mediterranean diet, that is great food all over inside to MANOS EAs only fresh vegetables and fruits, whole grains and so on, and it's a diet, it's not a diet I think anybody would feel deprived on... Right, right. Oh, that makes me hungry.

And I think I'm gonna go and go to dinner. Right. What are you doing right now? Let's all go to dinner.

Yeah, that's... You're right, nobody would feel deprived on that, so I would think I'm getting hungry as reserve too.

Yeah, no, that's great. And I would think that at any particular mother's market that would be readily available for anyone.

Sure, that wouldn't be a problem to go shopping and fill your basket with those types of... And it's not just about what you exclude from the diet, also what you include, and I think, for example, with vegetables, only about 25% of the vegetables we commonly eat have been associated with disease reduction, so we're not talking about French fries, obviously, but the simplest approach and I know there's a lot of different dietary philosophies, but the simplest approach is to go to the produce section, get your fresh vegetables and fruits, you go to the bulk section, you get your whole grains and beans, and then you have your Lean or vegetable protein, like Jack Lane used to say, If man makes it, don't eat it.

A really good point. isn't it? Oh, that's good.

Well, this is so interesting, and we're gonna take a quick break, but we will be right back with more of nutritional consultant. Ken Babel will be right back.

Welcome back to the mother's market radio show. And we wanna remind you that if you've missed any portion of today's show, you can find us on iTunes by searching mother's market or download the show from our website, mothers market dot com, click on the link for radio and listen to our past shows. Plus download our Healthy Recipes and money savings coupons, all available at mother's market dot com. And now back to our interview with nutritional consultant, Ken Babel, and we're talking about natural solutions for heart health, so can we also wanna talk about dietary changes that have occurred in the American diet?

Yeah, I mentioned the fat imbalance, omega 6 and omega 3. the other thing that has occurred is the potassium to sodium ratio, we're actually getting more salt in the diet, then we are potassium, which is... Topiary should be the other way around. And as a result... Some people may think, Oh, I don't have high blood pressure, I don't have to worry about salt. But all of us do this. potassium, sodium imbalance has been implicated in other conditions we don't normally think of, for example, osteoporosis, certain types of cancer, and this is because these two minerals are involved in the passage of nutrients across cell membranes, and so when that gets upset, you're leaving yourself open to all sorts of health problems. So the way to correct that would be obviously to cut down on sodium, and believe it or not, most of the sodium in the diet doesn't come from the salt shaker, it comes from process fast foods, canned foods and so on. So if we eliminate those from our diet and get plenty of fruits and vegetables, and by that I mean, you wanna think vegetables and fruits every meal, think about how you could work them in, maybe get a cookbook and on vegetables. But soups and salads, steam vegetables, every meal that will restore the proper balance of those two minerals, and I guess the last one in which we were talking about on the break here is the preponderance of sugar in the diet. Now, some of the latest figures I've seen, we consume about 150 pounds of sugar per year per person, and that sets us up for diabetes and even pre-diabetic conditions, which of course, when the glucose level starts to rise as we get older, that begins to damage blood vessels and leaves us open to complications from diabetes, heart disease, and things such as amputation and blindness. So part of the problem, I think, is we don't drink water, I see families drinking having two liter bottles of Coke, Pepsi on their dinner table, they don't drink water, so one way to cut down on the sugar would be to... Don't drink your calories, drink water to quench your thirst, and you do that, then maybe you'll be happy with maybe a half a cup of something sweet and bubbly, that's a really good point. And you know, if you look at the ingredients in anything anymore, it's practically sugar is the first or second ingredient there, and I don't have to tell you that, but if you're trying to give up on the sugar, I cut it back, it's in everything anyway.

I know a catch-up.

It's not just the Sugar Bowl... Yeah, right. And it's just shocking when... It's just, it's amazing. So you're right, it's just hidden if it's not just right in front of you, so let's talk a little bit about the risk factors for heart disease and how we might address them naturally.

Well, yes, I think that's important. Certainly, cholesterol is a risk factor, although more and more experts are beginning to believe that may not be the most important risk factor, when you think about a cholesterol is also a nutrient, it's important for hormone production and so on, but we do have ways to effectively lower cholesterol naturally in studies, studies have shown that diet can be as effective as the statin... The cholesterol-lowering medications.

So obviously, we want to cut out some of the bad fats, cholesterol, 90% of the cholesterol in the bloodstream is home-made, we don't consume it, our bodies are making it, and we make it from saturated fat, which you find in meat and dairy products, which is not necessarily bad, but if we have too much of it, it's gonna squeeze out other essential fats that come from fish and nuts and seeds and so on, but as far as natural remedies, we probably a lot of listeners are familiar with red yeast rice, which is very actually very similar to the statin drugs and quite effective, however, there are many other naturally occurring compounds in red East rice that are not found in the statin drugs, so a lot of us feel a little safer using the red Easter and we do the statin drugs.

So that I usually suggest when the cholesterol level is very high, if it's moderately high, we've got things, Patten, Even garlic supplements, or we might use some of the combination formulas for cholesterol that we find in the natural food start.

Okay, what about for homocysteine? Yahoo cysteine is another risk factor some people may not be familiar with, but as it turns out, people with normal cholesterol levels, many have dropped dead of a heart attack, and it turns out that homocysteine was the corporate... This is a sort of a toxic compound in the bloodstream, the damages blood vessels, homocysteine is a very simple matter of getting in B vitamins in the diet, we know that foliation is very effective for lowering homocysteine, and this is something everybody should know. If it's not included in your standard blood work, ask your doctor for it... Okay, that's B-vitamins. And then you said folic acid too.

Right, and I know women have that when they're pregnant, I remember that very well.

High blood pressure, high blood pressure can put stress on the heart, and he's actually muscles around blood vessels that squeeze and make the blood pressure go up, and magnesium is something that helps muscles to relax, something would be very helpful for high blood pressure. Again, people can use natural supplements, combination formulas for the problem, or individual nutrients, for example, salary seed quite effective in lowering blood pressure, as a matter of fact, if you were to juice for stocks of salary in your juice or that in and of itself, you would see a slight reduction in blood pressure, now the celery seed extract is a little more potent in that regard, so those are two good choices, how about high triglycerides? high triglyceride, a kind of blood fat, dietary fat is not so much the culprit, and in this case as consuming too much sugar, excess sugar is converted into fat, high triglycerides, actually fish oil is one of the very best things for lowering triglycerides. In fact, there is a pharmaceutical company came out with their own brand of fish, only they got FDA approval to market it for high triglycerides. Really no different than what we have in the stores. But for each gram of fish oil, you could see a proportionate amount of lowering of the triglycerides, it's very effective for that purpose, fishes also, I know we talk a lot about fish oil on this show, but it has many great uses all around, but I know that's good for your brain. It's good for your skin. It's good for a lot of things, right in the brain is 60% fat, and it's primarily omega-3 like what you find in fish oil. But okay, well, that's good to know.

CRP, yes, CRP stands for C-reactive protein. This is something else that should be included in your blood work, and this is a measurement of inflammation, and I know normally when we think of inflammation, we think of arthritis, colitis, gingivitis, the itis diseases, it turns out there's a low grade of chronic inflammation that occurs in the blood vessels, which we are not often aware of, and so it makes sense to follow an anti-inflammatory diet, there are foods that are quite effective in reducing inflammation and it's a short list, I can give it to you, okay.

Anti-inflammatory foods would be fish, flax seed, fresh fruit, particularly berries, cherries and grapes, garlic, olive oil, green tea, ginger, and curry, you have some of those foods in your diet every day, you're gonna reduce levels of inflammation.

That's good to know.

What about artery plaque? Otherwise known as atherosclerosis.

Okay, yes, artery plaque can be reversed, contrary to opinion out there, but this has been demonstrated in medical studies, and we've got a few things that have shown an ability to reduce artery plaque and reverse it, not overnight, of course, nothing changes in the body overnight, but after about two years, we've seen reductions with oil supplements, and another good one is pomegranate, or has an additional benefit to in that it's been shown to reduce high blood pressure.

One other thing I'll mention to you and may be not familiar to many people, it is a sub-group of vitamin E called Too trials, unlike vitamin E, which helps to prevent plaque formation, tuco tries can actually pull cholesterol out of the plaque and reverse it really.

So very exciting research.

Wow.

And all of these, so these are all supplements and these would all be available at mother's market knowledge. Okay, this is great. So what are some of the new products that... To look for... Well, New Heart Health products, coenzyme, Q10, very high priority coins on Q10 is a very poorly absorbed molecule, so we wanna look for a high absorption formula. For example, there's a product called H-absorbed.

Another one would be nataka or product called NATO Max, which is actually a derived from NATO, a Japanese for minute soy food. It's a natural blood thinner.

Also, there's a new form of fish oil called phosphor Mega, and like it sounds, it's a form of Omega-3s and phospholipid form, the same form in which they occur in the body, and because of that, you get better absorption of it and no verbs. And that I've read that about that and heard this, especially with fish.

Well, is there anything else you wanna end on here before we end the show about heart... Well, I guess I'll just give a plug for my book, a lot of the information is in seafood since truth about Seafood Nutrition and Safety.

Very nice, and yes, you have a couple of books and we thank you, you've, we know your research has been phenomenal, and it's been so interesting talking to you, so... My pleasure, thank you.

It's been lovely having you on once again, you can catch more Ken on his website, nutrition musician dot com, or you can see that mother's market and take in one of his great seminars. Thank you so much again. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to the mother's market radio show, and for shopping at mother's market, there's market... The advice and informational content does not necessarily represent the views of mother's market and kitchen, mother's recommends consulting your health professional for your personal medical condition,