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| By Dr. Ronald Hoffman
Earlier this week, I spoke at NYU Langone Medical Center as part of their Heart Health Lecture Series. The subject was “Fostering a Healthy Microbiome for Cardiovascular Health.” Along with Dr. Lea Ann Chen, a gastroenterologist who is doing research on the microbiome, we explored an area often overlooked in medicine: How the balance of organisms that populate our intestinal tracts can impact heart disease risk.
Thanks to the many who showed up, but for those who couldn’t attend, here’s a brief synopsis:
The bacteria that reside in our intestines outnumber human cells in our bodies by about 20 to 1. Research is now revealing that they exert major influences on our health. I reviewed some of these relationships in a recent article. We’re coming to rediscover what the ancient Greek “Father of Medicine,” Hippocrates, declared twenty-five hundred years ago: “All disease begins in the gut.”
How have we been messing up our microbiome in the last century? We have been quaffing antibiotics at an unprecedented rate, both from deliberate use as well as via the antibiotics that we pump into conventional livestock and poultry; We drink chlorinated and fluoridated water; We overuse powerful acid-blocking medications; We increasingly birth our babies via C-section, which bypasses vaginal “seeding” with beneficial bacteria; Mothers eschew breast-feeding which primes the baby’s gut for a healthy microbial population; We disinfect everything with powerful antiseptics, even in our toothpastes and mouthwashes; We eat chemicalized food—commonly used emulsifiers are particularly disruptive to normal bacterial populations; We consume lots of refined carbohydrates, which feed pathogenic bugs; When not gorging on sugar, we use artificial sweeteners which have been shown to devastate the microbiome and promote obesity; Even stress, coupled with our sedentary lifestyles, adversely affects the balance of microbes in our guts.
So how do the bugs in our intestines affect heart health? There are a variety of ways.
So what’s the take-home message for preventing heart disease by fostering a healthy gut? Notwithstanding the encouraging news about LP LDL®️, I wish there was a sure-fire cardio-protective probiotic, but until the advent of such a miracle breakthrough, here are some general tips:
Eat a low-carb diet rich in plant fiber and beneficial polyphenols; Avoid chemicalized food, artificial sweeteners, and GMOs, which can disturb the microbial balance; Seek antibiotic-free meat, poultry, and eggs; Avoid taking antibiotics and acid-blocking medication unless absolutely necessary; Exercise frequently, which has been shown to improve microbial diversity; Manage your stress, a known risk factor for microbial disruption; and take a high-quality probiotic along with unpasteurized fermented foods like kimchi, sauerkraut, or coconut yogurt.
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