#1 Cause Of Death In Women

Transcript:

MELANIE: Hello and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition. We have a really important topic to discuss with you in continuation with National Heart Health Month. On today's episode, we're going to be talking all about women's heart health.

And as the title for today's episode says, heart disease is the number one cause of death for women. I'm Melanie Beasley, and it's my passion to help women take charge of their health through real food nutrition. As a registered dietitian for over 35 years, I've seen food trends come and go, and watched the science evolve as to what foods are recommended for heart health versus what foods are best avoided.

I'm ashamed to say I've actually taught some things, which I later found out was a bunch of hooey. So we're going to be discussing the most up to date dietary recommendations for heart health that may be different from what you've been told in the past. And joining me today is registered dietitian, Brandy Buro. And it's always fun to see you.

BRANDY: Always great to be here. Thanks for having me, Mel. And I am excited for this topic today because I think it's one that's overlooked a lot, especially when it comes to women's health.

MELANIE: Yep. I agree.

BRANDY: Heart health for women, not a lot of people are talking about it, and there are so many misconceptions about what's the best diet for your heart. So I'm excited to clear up some of those misconceptions.

MELANIE: I, there's still the echo of three decades that women, when they come in, are still fearful of so I want to talk about that.

BRANDY: Yeah, definitely. It's a it's a difficult message to unwind.

MELANIE: Yeah. Yeah, of course. It's your health. 

BRANDY: Maybe you tuned in today because this topic hits home for you. Maybe you've been diagnosed with high cholesterol or maybe high blood pressure. Or maybe you're starting to see like blood sugar numbers get off balance. And this is a pretty common reason people come to see us.

You know, their lab numbers are getting out of range. And they want to lower them naturally without using medication. Beyond that, I think we all know somebody that's impacted by heart health.

MELANIE: And we do see it a lot. I see a lot of clients that come in because they want to decrease the amount of medication they're on.

BRANDY: Right. Even if you're on medication, changing your diet, changing your lifestyle can be a way to at least take less. Reduce the dose.

MELANIE: Reduce the dose or even get some of them even get off of it.

BRANDY: I find that to be one of the most amazing feelings as a dietitian to help somebody get rid of medications.

MELANIE: Yeah, I think it's fabulous. I mean sometimes we need the meds There's no shame in that game, but with each medication comes a boomerang effect. It comes around and there's a side effect.

BRANDY: Absolutely and we'll talk about some of those side effects today for some of the more common medications that might be prescribed for high cholesterol, but even if you're not there yet in your life, you're not thinking about your heart health, this is still important because there's so much you can do to prevent developing heart disease, or high cholesterol, or, heaven forbid, a stroke or a heart attack.

MELEANIE: Well, like I mentioned, heart disease is that leading cause of death for women around the world. And a scary fact is that many women are living with heart disease and they don't even know it. So then all of a sudden, one day they have a life threatening heart event. Like a heart attack or a stroke.

BRANDY: I mean, that was literally the person I talked to this morning. Five years ago she said, my life changed when one day I had a heart attack out of the blue. Like, the last physical she had before that, her cholesterol was within normal range. And then she had a heart attack, so there weren't really any warning signs for her, which was really unfortunate.

MELANIE: And really, cholesterol is not really the warning sign anymore, so, you know, there are probably so many other aspects, but that's not really talked about in a doctor's office. It can be a silent killer, really. You can be living your life, no obvious symptoms, and like your client, she has a catastrophic event. I think a misconception is, as long as I'm not overweight I must be in good heart health or as long as I'm exercising, but that's not always the case. The good news that we're here to share today is that your heart health can be improved with proper lifestyle choices. And of course, we especially like to focus on nutrition. We're the nutrition nerds.

So, let's start by talking about why heart health is so important for women. I think it's kind of obvious, but a little deep dive might be helpful.

BRANDY: Yeah, definitely. So, for women, unfortunately, after menopause, your risk of developing heart disease increases. So this is from a lot of different things that happen this time of your life, certainly the hormonal changes. But also there's a lot of lifestyle factors that seem to shift. Maybe you're entering retirement and your whole routine kind of gets turned on its head and there's, you know, genetics can play a role as well.

Perfect storm for developing some heart issues. And there's a really scary statistic that I learned from the CDC: about every 33 seconds, somebody in the United States dies from cardiovascular disease. So, I mean, another way to think of that is every minute, two people die of a heart related event.

And that's pretty sad to think about, especially when you consider this is preventable. You know, diet and lifestyle can prevent these events. And that is why we are so passionate about teaching people about that real food eating plan and how real food can make such a big difference, not only in your heart health, but your overall quality of life.

What is heart health & what are risk factors for heart disease?

MELANIE: Yeah, I agree. And it sounds so simple. Let's start with a basic overview. What does heart health and heart disease actually mean? And how can nutrition play a role? Heart health really refers to the overall functioning of heart and blood vessels. It's about keeping things like cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels in check to prevent conditions like elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. And all of these are conditions that increase the risk of heart disease.

So you may be wondering how do you know if you're at risk for heart disease? Getting these labs I just mentioned at your doctor's office can be the first clue, and many people avoid their doctor checkups because, especially at a certain age, it becomes more and more important that you actually get these checkups.

Putting your head in the sand is a very dangerous behavior. We want to know what's happening because then we can correct course before it damages the body.

BRANDY: Absolutely. And like you said, cholesterol isn't necessarily the only warning sign, but it can give us some clues if things start to get off balance.

MELANIE: 100%.

BRANDY: And of course there are some other lab tests to look at to understand what's going on in your body and some of those lab tests you might actually have to ask for, your doctor may not always run them automatically when you go in for your physical. And in the case of, you know, the client I was just talking about, they were kind of on a pattern of doing their labs every other year instead of annually, so I think they did miss some things that were kind of trending upwards because they skipped a year and then, bam.

MELANIE: What was the logic behind that?

BRANDY: I think things had been in good range consistently, so they weren't seeing the need to do it every year. And especially for women as they enter menopause or perimenopause, those hormonal shifts can throw your cholesterol off. And that can be a good time to just kind of pay more attention to those changes.

MELANIE: I agree.

BRANDY: And, you know, as dietitians, one of the most common things that people come to us for are seeing their cholesterol start to tick upwards. They're starting to see that trend where their cholesterol is increasing. And maybe their doctor is starting to talk about statin medications, or they are recommending that they see a dietitian to try to get those numbers under control.

Some people are just being proactive too. Like maybe they have family members that have a long history of heart issues. So they're trying to prevent that future for themselves. So it's a pretty common reason people come to us. And you know, I see a lot of clients that are already on those cholesterol lowering medications, like statins.

MELANIE: I think across the board, doctors are recommending them for everyone.

BRANDY: Yeah, I know. It's, so common, you know, if your total cholesterol pops up above 200, usually a statin is recommend. That's what I'm seeing with the clients I meet with.

MELANIE: Yes, which doesn't always necessarily mean you're at risk.

BRANDY: And like you said earlier, Mel, those medications, they do come along with side effects. So it's, it's not like they are no risk. Muscle aches would be probably the most common one that you might notice. Or you might just feel like really fatigued and tired. I have had some clients correlate memory loss or just cognition issues with starting a statin medication.

Maybe you've been taking these medications for several years and you're just feeling like the way that I feel is just a natural consequence of aging. But actually it could be the medication that's amplifying those feelings or maybe actually could be the cause of some of those side effects.

MELANIE: The achiness. I've also seen they're taking a statin medication suddenly their blood sugars start rising.

BRANDY: Definitely.

MELANIE: So yeah, that's a side effect of statin.

BRANDY: Absolutely. And I don't want to say that statin medications aren't necessary for some people. They can be life saving in some cases. With the right diet and certain lifestyle choices, we can prevent the use of statin medications.

MELANIE: Certainly we can lower the need.

Considerations with the whole cholesterol panel

BRANDY: So if a client comes to me with concerns about their last physical results, you know, their cholesterol panel, but their doctor told them that they have “high cholesterol”, I'm always going to take a look at the fine print of those lab results. I want to take a deeper look and see beyond total cholesterol, what are we actually talking about?

Because a cholesterol panel is going to include not just total cholesterol, but also your triglycerides, your HDL cholesterol, your LDL cholesterol. So I like to look at all of those together, how they compare to each other. And actually, taking a look at the triglycerides first can give you a pretty good idea of what your risk is of developing any kind of heart complications. So that's a good independent, lab test to look at. We want your triglycerides to be less than 100, ideally less than 70. If you're in that range, I think you're doing pretty good.

MELANIE: Agreed. Don't you find too, that triglycerides are kind of an indicator for what they're eating?

BRANDY: Absolutely. I think triglycerides tend to fluctuate the most in response to diet, or fluctuate the fastest.

MELANIE: Yeah, triglycerides are the, they're the tattletale. They tattletale on what you're eating.

BRANDY: Yeah, I love that. So, taking a look at triglycerides, and then I also like to take a look at your HDL cholesterol. So your HDL cholesterol, I think of those like the garbage haulers. We need HDL cholesterol. We actually want HDL cholesterol to be above a certain level. HDL cholesterol helps us sort of clean out our arteries, it prevents plaque buildup. It can prevent a heart attack or a stroke.

MELANIE: Yeah.

BRANDY: So, garbage haulers are the Pac Men of our bloodstream.

MELANIE: I remember in college, HDL, I remembered. H, you wanted high.

BRANDY: Yeah. Yep.

MELANIE: The HDL, I wanted high. The LDL, I wanted lower.

BRANDY: That's a really great way to think about it. If your HDL is somewhat elevated, you know, we like to see that above 60, maybe above 70, that's going to impact your total cholesterol. If your total cholesterol is over 200, it's not necessarily a bad thing because it could be that your HDL is in a good place, which actually offsets your risk for developing heart complications, stroke, heart attack. So HDL is protective. We want that higher. It is going to impact your total cholesterol number, but that's not a bad thing.

MELANIE: Right. So you have to look at more than total cholesterol because there's so much more to the story.

BRANDY: Absolutely. Yep. So that is the conversation I have with my clients when they're worried about their cholesterol and they're trying to make the decision, like, should I start a statin medication or is there more that I can do? Sometimes, a lot of times actually, If they've been clients with us for a while, their cholesterol numbers are in perfect shape.

MELANIE: But I still have clients I've seen for years come in with a little bit of fear and trepidation in their voice because doctors have told them they're at risk for heart disease because their total cholesterol is above 200. And so we have to revisit. Let's break it down and look at what are the actual risk factors here and are there any?

BRANDY: Right.

MELANIE: Because we have to remember too that doctors work for us.

BRANDY: Right.

Foods that impact heart disease: ultra processed foods & sugar

MELANIE: They're employed because we are paying that's they work for us so if you don't want a medication or it's okay to say no or let me work on it. But circling back, the foods that we fuel our body with have a significant impact on the factors for heart health.

Heart disease is often linked to diets that are high in ultra processed foods made up of man-made fats and sugar. Excess sugar in the diet leads to high blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, fatty liver, pain, and all of which are linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. That sugar inflames you, inflammation puts your body at risk for developing plaque.

BRANDY: Because sugar is so inflammatory and is such a risk factor for developing heart complications, some other labs that I tend to look at to sort of look at the big picture be like what is your blood sugar doing? So also taking a look at your fasting blood sugar, your A1C.

MELANIE: Yes. Those are your risk factors.

BRANDY: Exactly so it can be just other metrics to pay attention to to understand what your risk is for developing heart issues.

MELANIE: Yeah, and you know, a diet that's rich in sugar or processed foods that turn into sugar are very inflammatory. I mean, we just had Super Bowl. We had friends that came over and she brought gluten free pistachio cookies. Oh my gosh, they were like crack cocaine. So of course, I'm like in it to win it. I had four of them and my joints hurt for three days and I was like, this is why I don't eat sugar. That sugar betrays you.

BRANDY: Absolutely.

Real foods & exercise support heart health & lowers inflammation

MELANIE: Whereas a diet rich in real foods from nature really helps support your heart health and lower inflammation. But besides diet, did you know that something as simple as walking for 30 minutes most days can lower your risk of heart disease? Ideally, 10 minutes after each meal.

Fantastic for lowering your blood sugar and lowering your risk. And if you've been living a sedentary lifestyle, you can start slowly. Again, just work your way up, but especially for those whose heart health is at risk, motion is lotion. Moving, walking, it's the nature's best tool and it's free. And, you know, here today it's five degrees in Minnesota. So I'll do something like just even deep squats after a meal. I'll do 20 deep air squats. It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive.

BRANDY: And, you know, because it's so cold, I've adapted to doing a lot of my workouts indoors and even like during work. Because it's so effective to do a little movement after you eat, I'll even just kind of walk around the office for 5 10 minutes periodically through the day.

MELANIE: Yeah, that is so great. So you know, in a small space, just get the body moving. Get your body moving. And so whenever you say a workout, I think people just get a sinking feeling if they haven't been working out. They have this envision of sweating at the gym with a bunch of people in tights.

BRANDY: Doesn't have to be that.

MELANIE: Doesn't have to be. Yeah.

BRANDY: Do what works for you. The point is, move your body, ideally 30 minutes a day, and it can be in segments, 10 minutes here, 5 minutes there.

MELANIE: Yeah.

BRANDY: We need to take a quick break, but when we get back, we're going to keep discussing risk factors for the number one cause of death for women, heart disease.  

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Welcome back to Dishing Up Nutrition. Before break, Melanie and I were just discussing our topic today, the number one cause of death in women, heart disease. So we were just talking about some risk factors, risk factors that can increase the odds that you develop heart disease, heart attack, stroke. And what I want to talk about next is alcohol.

Alcohol: risk factor for heart disease

This is one of the biggest risk factors that you have control over. Whether you drink alcohol, how much alcohol you drink, and some of you might be thinking, well I thought red wine was actually good for your heart. You know, I've seen this.

MELANIE: That's what we hear. Right?

BRANDY: I wish it were true.

MELANIE: I wish it were true.

BRANDY: But really, there is no amount of alcohol that is good for your heart, no amount of alcohol that's good for your health overall. And the small amount of antioxidants in wine do not outweigh the damage that alcohol does to your heart.

MELANIE: Yeah, I like the way you put that.

BRANDY: So really, think of alcohol as something that is going to damage your heart. It increases inflammation in the entire body, so it can interfere with quite a few things. Alcohol is one of the fastest ways to increase those triglycerides, which you were just talking about earlier. That's kind of the tattletale. So if I see elevated triglycerides, it could be from alcohol use.

It could be from high carbohydrate and sugar intake. Alcohol is also going to interfere with your body's ability to regulate blood sugar, so alcohol use can lead to higher blood sugars over time. Something else that I see with alcohol is worse sleep, which can dysregulate your blood sugar.

MELANIE: And put you at a higher risk for heart disease.

BRANDY: Exactly.

MELANIE: Our sleep is when we rest and repair.

BRANDY: Right. So there's really not a lot of good that comes from alcohol, plus the snackies, the munchies, after a couple glasses of wine or cocktails.

MELANIE: Yeah, I think we have one of the dietitians that works here, Britni, she always says, what do you eat after you've had a couple cocktails? Versus, what would you have eaten if you didn't have any? And I, that always stuck with me. So really, when working with women, I especially find it challenging for them to say no to the wine, the wine to unwind.

BRANDY: Right.

MELANIE: Whether it be happy hour, book club. But the truth is that drinking alcohol is really very stressful for your heart and for your body. So, ideally, we recommend no alcohol or very limited. The sober curious movement is big right now and there's tons of non-alcoholic alternatives that have been available in recent years. They've got beverages with adaptogens that have similar calming effect without the detriment of the alcohol, so you can still feel like you're having a special drink when you're out with friends, just without the alcohol.

BRANDY: Yeah, exactly. So if you can, you know, if you're going out to eat, you're going out to happy hour, something I work on with my clients is practicing ordering that mocktail, or even better yet, I think soda water with lime or like a little slice of citrus, just to see what it's like, you know, oftentimes I find that once you get over that hump of like the drink ordering time with that first five minutes, you're going to have a great time with your friends. The conversation will still be great. You're still enjoying each other without the alcohol.

MELANIE: Otherwise you need new friends.

BRANDY: Yeah, that can be a kind of a wake up call for some people. You know, and the best friends are going to support that decision. They're not going to pressure you to order a drink. You know, because this is your health and they care about you.

Melanie: You might start a trend.

BRANDY: That's right.

Are saturated fats/foods that contain cholesterol okay to eat for heart health?

MELANIE: You know, there have been many other nutrition myths when it comes to heart health, but my clients come to me confused oftentimes about butter and eggs and red meat. We may not be your favorite people after telling you to cut out alcohol, but hopefully we can win some points back by telling you that all these foods are okay to eat. Eat the butter, eat the red meat, eat the eggs, you know, we want them pasture raised and grass fed meat and grass fed butter as part of a healthy diet, but that does not put you at risk.

BRANDY: Right, I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions about heart health and diet is that like saturated fats and foods with cholesterol in them are raising your cholesterol and that's bad for your heart. The research tells us otherwise.

MELANIE: Well, the research tells us that the fat and cholesterol raises the HDL. You're, what did you call it? The garbage collectors.

BRANDY: Right. The garbage collectors.

MELANIE: We want more of those guys.

Nutrients for optimal heart health

BRANDY: We do want that. And when we think about what nutrients we really need for optimal heart health, there are a few key players. We do need healthy fats, and the omega-3 fats are probably the most famous fats when it comes to heart health.

We also want vegetables, because they provide fiber and antioxidants. Minerals like magnesium and potassium, these are all critical for a healthy cardiovascular system. And we do need animal proteins. There's bonus nutrients in proteins that help balance blood sugar, which is one strategy to help minimize your risk for heart issues.

So maybe we could just go over, like, what a heart healthy meal plan looks like. That includes the good proteins, the healthy fats, all those fiber rich vegetables. So again, we do want to incorporate mostly real foods, foods that have an expiration date. So, we want to phase out the processed foods that you could put on a counter and they look exactly the same three weeks later. That is a sign it's, it's not good for you.

MELANIE: Right.

BRANDY: So there's a phrase that's kind of easy to think about it. If it goes bad, it's good for you. If it stays good, it's bad for you.

MELANIE: We want the food that rots.

BRANDY: That's right.

MELANIE: We want the food that rots. You know, I'm going to circle back to what you said, too, about, the grass fed, the omega-3s. Grass fed meat, one of the reasons we keep always saying grass fed and grass fed, grass finished is even better because the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 in the fat of the meat is optimized when you're eating grass fed. So it's higher in omega-3s.

BRANDY: Right.

Are cereal & oatmeal heart healthy?

MELANIE: So I had a client say, well, shouldn't I be eating more fish? And I was like, if it's grass fed, grass finished, you're getting a good omega-3 in your beef. So you might be thinking too, but what about cereal boxes that have the big red heart on the front and they're labeled heart healthy. It's marketing and when they have claims that they will help lower cholesterol, remember when you're grocery shopping, if a food is packaged, the front is designed to sell the product, roll it over, read the ingredients.

The standard overall criteria for that “heart healthy”, and I'm using air bunnies here, heart healthy check mark on food product, is that it is low in sodium and low in fat and dietary cholesterol. It's archaic. It hasn't been changed, because it sells product.

But they're not looking at the quality of the ingredients. So cereal can sit for a long time dry in a bowl and it's going to look exactly the same a decade later because it doesn't go bad. But they're not looking at the quality of those ingredients also that's in that cereal.

Think of common plain cereals. They're marketed as heart healthy. And I'm here to tell you it's a big fat lie. Most of those cereal’s main ingredients are some type of genetically modified grain, like wheat, rice, oats, or corn. And somebody is screaming out there going, what about my oatmeal? It's so heart healthy.

Well, then the next ingredients on there are salt and sugar, starch, preservatives, added synthetic vitamins, not even ones you absorb or utilize well. Not to mention, box cereals are some of the highest source of glyphosate, which is extremely harmful pesticides sprayed on grains.

BRANDY: Yeah.

MELANIE: These are a type of food that don't expire. And so they're detrimental to our health. We have to let the cereal go.

BRANDY: Even if it's, “whole grain”, it's still going to be higher carbohydrate. There's potential to spike your blood sugar, so quality aside, it's still something that is likely spiking your blood sugar and causing inflammation for your heart.

MELANIE: Right. When the blood sugar, you know, does that roller coaster, it goes really, really high, really, really low, extremely inflammatory and stressful to the body. Sugar causes that. Cereal converts to sugar. So there you have it.

BRANDY: Yes. So no matter what you see in the front of the box, again, flip it over, see what you're dealing with. And the fact that you're looking at a box should be the clue that you need. It's a processed food that's inflammatory, and it's actually not great for your heart.

MELANIE: The only thing that cereal does for you is fill up your stomach. It's volume, and that is it. There's no nutrients. It's a nutrient void.

Limit sugar for heart health

BRANDY: Some cereals are going to have a ton of added sugar on top of the grain. So kind of a double whammy. And speaking of sugar, maybe we should talk a little bit more about straight up sugar.

MELANIE: I love that.

BRANDY: This is something we really need to limit as much as we can when it comes to your heart health because it is so inflammatory. Generally, it's recommended to limit your daily added sugar intake for women to about six teaspoons or less. And I often recommend a little less than that, like four or five teaspoons.

MELANIE: You are so nice. I'm like none. Zero. You're asking me, do I want to get shot with a shotgun or a pellet gun? I mean, either one is going to be painful. Yeah. You're nicer than me, but I'm the old cat.

BRANDY: Well, less is more is another way that I phrase this. If you want some context around that, like we talk about like, what does five teaspoons look like? What does that mean if you're looking at, actual sugar or a nutrition facts panel? So that six teaspoons of sugar is about the same as 24 grams worth of carbohydrates. And what this does not take into account is the total carbohydrates. So we're really just talking about added sugars, so like maple syrup, agave, straight up sugar, honey.

MELANIE: And agave is probably one of the worst. It seems like a natural sweetener. I want to talk about that because I get asked a lot, is agave okay? Agave is so high in fructose, and fructose leads to diabetes, fatty liver, so agave is not a good choice.

BRANDY: Not a great choice, because the fructose, I have seen that too with people that are testing their blood sugar, they might switch to agave thinking it's just a better substitute for sugar, but because it's high in fructose, it could actually spike your blood sugar more dramatically than table sugar.

MELANIE: Yes.

BRANDY: Yeah. So that added sugar, that six teaspoons a day, it's only, we're only considering those added sweeteners. It's not really taking into account carbohydrates in all of your other foods, like your fruit, beans, other vegetables. But we do know that all foods that have carbohydrate in them convert into sugar and that can increase your blood sugar. But ultra processed foods tend to do it the most dramatically.

MELANIE: Yes. They're sneaking sugar in so many different forms and so many different words for it. Maltodextrin is something you should absolutely turn and run from because it has, I think higher glycemic index than even sugar.

BRANDY: Okay, good to point that out. All the more important to read your labels and see what you're eating.

MELANIE: And you may be wondering, I've always been told to avoid high fat foods and to eat low fat foods for heart health. That's that what we were talking about those three decades of being told that fat was the demon for heart health. And now we're telling you it's really sugar that is the most harmful to my heart health. So, let's talk about that. 

The truth is that sugar inflames the blood vessels. So, how does this really work? When we eat a lot of sugar or a high carb food that turns rapidly into sugar, think chips or crackers, that increases our insulin levels, and high insulin levels result in more inflammation in all of the arteries throughout your body. More specifically, we know that the walls of the lining of those arteries become inflamed, which causes them to become stiff and grow thick and even slow down the blood flow to the heart.

And many doctors refer to these inflamed arteries as a disease called atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries. It makes everything becomes sort of sticky and the plaque can cling better to the wall of the artery.

BRANDY: Right. And then, you know, as that progresses, your blood vessels get narrower and narrower, and that just increases the odds that something's going to get stuck in there, so there can be a lot of down the line health issues starting from too much sugar. And maybe you're thinking, well, I don't really have a problem with sugar, I'm not a desserts person, I'm not a sweets person, so I know I'm okay. But, it might be surprising that the highest source of added sugar is what you're drinking. It's the beverages.

MELANIE: You won't be talking about kombucha.

BRANDY: Even kombucha, I mean, kombucha has, in some cases, as much added sugar as, as some like lemonades and sweetened teas. So, you really have to be careful. Coffee drinks, like those fancy flavored lattes, just loaded with sugar. I would even consider, like, bottled juices a source of sugar because there's, while it is natural, “natural”, there, there's no fiber in there, so you're taking all the fiber from the fruit and leaving only the sugar, so it spikes your blood sugar like a soda would.

MELANIE: And most of us wouldn't sit down and suck the juice out of ten oranges, which when you get one of those bottles, you're getting about ten oranges.

BRANDY: Yeah. Another place sugar is hiding I think of is like the coffee creamers.

MELANIE: Oh boy.

BRANDY: You know, how many cups of coffee do you have with that creamer? Condiments, barbecue sauce, ketchup, they're like over half sugar.

MELANIE: And I had a client just today who every day goes into a coffee house and gets a coffee with coconut milk, but I did my own little research, and I called around to all the coffee houses, and I could not find one coffee house that had no sugar added oat milk, coconut milk, or almond milk. They all had sugar in, so she's still getting sugar, even though she doesn't add sugar and she's not doing the pump of some sort of flavor.

BRANDY: So even when you think you're doing the right thing, the sugar's still sneaking in there.

MELANIE: It sneaks in.

BRANDY: Just because you're cutting sugar out doesn't mean you're not still drinking a lot of sugar.

MELANIE: We have a fabulous class that has so much impact on any of my clients who've taken it called Breaking Up with Sugar.

How to balance blood sugar

BRANDY: So we touched on this briefly earlier in the show. But we refer to it here as the magic of three. We basically want to hit three categories with every meal, every snack, to keep your blood sugar balanced. So we want real protein, real vegetables, and real healthy fats every three hours or so.

MELANIE: And by real you mean?

BRANDY: Unprocessed. What is your saying? Because I like your saying.

MELANIE: If you can't name the plant you pluck it from or the mother it came from, don't eat it. I also tell my clients, can you pluck it or hunt it?

BRANDY: So that's your clue. If you can name the plant it came from or the mother it came from, it is a real food.

MELANIE: There is no canola bush.

BRANDY: There's no muffin tree.

MELANIE: Yep.

BRANDY: So we really want to hit those three categories every three hours throughout the day. that is going to help stabilize your blood sugar and keep your energy up throughout the day, prevent cravings so you're not craving more sugar or processed carbohydrates. So try to get out of the habit of skipping meals or skipping breakfast if that sounds like you. You're just setting yourself up for failure later in the day.

MELANIE: If you get too hungry. That's when we sort of lose our minds. And you know some examples of what you might be eating. Let's start with fat because I think people are confused about fats now. They think they're all bad.

BRANDY: Yeah.

Real, natural fats are heart healthy

MELANIE: Real natural fats actually benefit your heart health because they help reduce inflammation, they help lower triglycerides, they anchor your blood sugar, they support the lining of the arteries, and that includes fats like butter, real butter, grass fed is always best, avocados, avocado oil, coconut milk, real coconut milk comes in a can, coconut oil, olive oil, raw nuts and seeds that are, maybe they're roasted with only salt.

So we want to include these types of healthy fats each time you eat, whether you're cooking with it or whether you're putting sunflower seeds in your salad. On the flip side, the big four oils to avoid are canola, cotton seed, corn, soybean, and now I want to put in there sunflower.

BRANDY: The way that they make it is, it's still as refined as some of these other oils you mentioned.

MELANIE: Yeah, so avoid the sunflower oil too. And these are what are used in most ultra processed foods. So you can do your own little study by reading labels and see what oils are in there. So it may say all organic, it may say all gluten free, what is the oil in there?

BRANDY: Good point.

MELANIE: Fast foods, you know, those are just, those are trash oils.

BRANDY: Fast food, basically any food you're getting from a restaurant, in most cases, unless it's high end, they're using these oils.

MELANIE: They are. I've called around and there is a few restaurants, which you can do in your local area, that they use ghee, clarified butter on the grill. But that's pretty rare. So we encourage you to be a detective, be your own advocate. We're all busy. Just take some time. Because you deserve it. You deserve health and wellness.

BRANDY: Absolutely. And you deserve to make yourself a good meal. And when you're cooking for yourself, you have complete control over what oils you're using. I personally love to cook, and one of my favorite ways to incorporate these healthy fats into my diet is just putting some butter. Just put some butter on some vegetables.

MELANIE: Yum.

BRANDY: Simple. But I'll also like to make, kind of a flavorful sauce to drizzle over my vegetables. So maybe I'm making a tahini sauce. So ground sesame seeds with some lemon juice and, maybe a little olive oil.

MELANIE: Oh, that sounds good.

BRANDY: And that's pretty simple, but it just jazzes up my lunch pretty quickly. Adding fat to your vegetables is a great way to add flavor, makes it easier to eat all those vegetables, but it's also going to help you absorb the nutrients from those vegetables better. So they work synergistically.

MELANIE: You know, one of my favorite things lately has been to make carrot fries in my air fryer. I just chop up carrots like the size of French fries, spray them with avocado oil, little salt and pepper and air fry them, but I dip them in the avocado mayo that I mix with a little truffle oil and garlic salt.

BRANDY: There's a lot of ways to make good tasting dips from real healthy fat for your vegetables. And we've got a lot of recipes on our website, weightandwellness.com, so check that out.

MELANIE: So just to recap the discussion about fats, for decades, we were told to eat low fat for heart health. But that has been proven to be faulty science. And we know that healthy fats are actually protective for your heart, including saturated fats from real food sources like butter and coconut oil and red meat. You don't have to be afraid of those anymore.

BRANDY: What a relief.

MELANIE: Yes.

BRANDY: Same thing with eggs. Are they good? Are they bad? Eggs have been so controversial because they are high in dietary cholesterol, but this is what we found through research. The dietary cholesterol, so the cholesterol that's naturally found in foods, does not really increase your blood cholesterol. You know, that's more connected to sugar, more connected to those refined oils we just talked about. So, go ahead and eat your eggs.

MELANIE: The fat that you eat does not adversely affect the cholesterol numbers that you're reading. There's not that direct, I ate eggs, therefore my cholesterol goes up. In fact, if you don't get enough cholesterol in your diet, your liver will just start making it.

BRANDY: I think a big takeaway here is eat your eggs. Yay; they're actually very nutrient rich, protective for your heart. If they're pasture raised, they will have a good amount of omega-3s, which are great to reduce inflammation, great for your heart.

MELANIE: You can have them every day. I remember teaching three eggs a week was the limit. And that's, you know, faulty science. So, that may be, you know, new information for some people. There might be some eyebrows raised, but, trust the science.

Omega-3’s are heart healthy

You probably have heard of omega-3 fats as being heart healthy, and you'd be right. You can find these in the highest amounts in good, wild caught fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, and even, like we mentioned, the pasteurized eggs, beef. And butter. So the highest usable amount of heart healthy omega-3s come from animal sources. That means your body can actually use them to fight inflammation.

BRANDY: Right, because I know there's some omega-3 fats in things like chia seeds and ground flax seed, but our bodies aren't able to convert that into a usable form very well. So I do like to think of like your fatty fish, grass fed beef, pasture raised eggs as the better source.

MELANIE: But it doesn't mean there's not benefit; you're getting some benefit. Like fiber.

BRANDY: A lot of fiber, fiber booster.

MELANIE: Right.

BRANDY: But I, I just think of those animal based sources as the primary source of your omega-3s.

MELANIE: Much more bioavailable to us.

BRANDY: Right. So when I have this conversation with clients, you know, we're talking about those food sources, fatty fish, especially, not a lot of people are eating fatty fish regularly, or they just don't like it. So we're almost always talking about an omega-3 supplement as part of their foundational supplement protocol, a heart healthy protocol.

So it is important to get your omega-3s however you do it, whether it's through food or high quality supplement. Be really careful about the supplement that you pick because not all fish oil or omega-3 supplements are created equal. The brands that we carry at Nutrikey are all, vetted and of the best quality pharmaceutical grade, so I trust the brands that we carry there at Nutrikey. They're third party tested too, so we know exactly what you're getting in the amounts that you think you're getting.

MELANIE: That means that someone's testing it to say, is what in the bottle, is what says it's on the bottle. So yes, they've been tested and vetted, just like you said.

Supplement considerations for heart health

BRANDY: So they're, they're trusted brands. And as long as we're talking about supplements for heart health, I do want to give a shout out to CoQ10. So I like to think of CoQ10 as sort of the spark plug that keeps your body's engine running.

So we need CoQ10 for energy production. So if we don't have CoQ10, energy production declines. Vital organs like the heart start to struggle to function. And as we age, CoQ10 is something that we naturally produce less of, so supplementing with that at a certain point can be really helpful. Especially if you're taking a statin medication.

MELANIE: Which blocks your ability to make CoQ10.

BRANDY: Exactly.

MELANIE: So, if you were in Europe and you were placed on a statin medication, CoQ10 is in the statin.

BRANDY: Yes. If that tells you anything.

MELANIE: How desperately we need it to protect cardiac health. Earlier in today's show, we were talking about statin drugs being the most prescribed medication in the country. And if you are on a cholesterol lowering medication, please, please, please get on about 200 milligrams of CoQ10.

BRANDY: Yep.

MELANIE: It's going to help with those muscle aches.

BRANDY: Yeah, I think that's the first thing people start to notice. Another supplement that I want to mention for heart health is magnesium. We can't forget about magnesium. I think of this as the magic mineral.

MELANIE: I do too.

BRANDY: So, magnesium is really important for regulating blood pressure and muscle contraction. So, it's going to help keep your heart rhythm nice and steady. So, if you do have high blood pressure, it's really important to supplement with magnesium.

MELANIE: Sometimes, even if the client says they get heart palpitations, you always want to have that checked out by your cardiologist. But if the cardiologist says, nope, everything's fine, a lot of times it's a magnesium deficiency. It can help lower your blood pressure, and it helps you sleep.

BRANDY: Yeah. If I skip a night of magnesium, I'm not going to get, like, really deep sleep.

MELANIE: Yeah.

BRANDY: So I don't skip that one.

MELANIE: So make sure you get the right form so you don't get diarrhea.

BRANDY: Oh, good point. So, I like Magnesium Glycinate, personally. That one helps me relax the most. If you are dealing with constipation, you could try maybe a mix of the glycinate form and citrate, magnesium citrate.

MELANIE: The Mixed Magnesium, the Nutrikey brand has a Mixed Magnesium. Also, it's very, very important when you buy magnesium glycinate that it is chelated. So that's a little buzzword you want to find on the label. That means it's highly absorbable.

BRANDY: Right. Yeah, when you're choosing magnesium, really important to check the label. Glycinate and or citrate is what you're looking for. Oxide is not going to do you any good.

MELANIE: It will loosen your stool, though. But you won't really absorb it, so you're not going to get the, you know, the interior benefits.

Summary of actionable tips to improve heart health through nutrition

We've covered so much today. I want to wrap up with some practical, actionable tips that anyone can use to improve their heart health through nutrition. Every time you eat, remember the power of three. Real animal protein, real natural fats, and some real carbohydrates in the form of colorful vegetables. And you want to eat that frequently, maybe every three to four hours, to keep your blood sugar up so you don't have that hunger, and then you're grabbing for the chips and the crackers.

BRANDY: Exactly. So we're trying to avoid sugar. Again, most of the sugar in our diets comes from sweetened beverages and those ultra processed foods.

MELANIE: That means if it's in a box or a package, you want to avoid it.

BRANDY: Exactly. And don't be afraid of those fats, including the saturated fats from butter, from eggs, from grass fed beef. Cook with real, natural oils: coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil. And avoid the heavily processed seed oils like corn oil, cottonseed oil, canola oil, soybean oil, deep fried foods. These are all inflammatory oils that will damage the heart.

MELANIE: As close to nature as you can go. And then key supplements we talked about for heart health, omega-3 fish oils, CoQ10, and magnesium. Those are the winners for this month for cardiac health.

BRANDY: Absolutely. Top priorities. And don't forget hydration. Drink enough water. It's an easy way to support your heart health. Your blood pressure is so connected to your hydration status. Just drinking enough water can be a really simple thing to do to help maintain healthy blood pressure.

We recommend about half your body weight in ounces, which for most people works out to be eight to ten big glasses a day. More if you are somebody that's really active, sweating a lot, or somebody like us, we talk all day.

MELANIE: So I, I tell people if you get like a favorite water bottle you love, and put the number of rubber bands that you need to fill that water bottle to get half your body weight in ounces of water. And every time you refill it, roll a rubber band down; all the rubber bands are at the bottom, you get to go to bed.

BRANDY: Yeah. I love it.

MELANIE: So you, you're going to try to get it before, you know, nine o'clock because you don't want to be up all night.

BRANDY: Exactly.

MELANIE: So remember, take care of your heart. This is a lifelong journey and we at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we believe in the power of real food for real health. It's a simple but powerful message. We would love to be part of your health journey. To meet with one of our dietitians, you can visit us at weightandwellness.com or give us a call at 651-699-3438.

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Thanks for tuning in and have a heart healthy day.