Heart disease is still the top killer in the U.S., but while pharmaceutical companies claim that their medications offer a dependable solution, research shows that just isn’t true.
For years, alternative practitioners have been touting the best way to protect your heart health: Do things like eat real, whole foods, consume plenty of fruits and vegetables, exercise with a purpose and take the right supplements to keep your cardiovascular system in working order.
Meanwhile, drug companies bombard us with messages about how their products can ease your way to a heart-healthy future.
Unfortunately for Big Pharma, researchers have confirmed what alternative medicine has been insisting on for years: The best way to deal with heart disease is to head it off with true natural lifestyle measures.
A study in Sweden confirms that if you want to survive heart problems, going along with conventional medicine’s belief in drugs to improve heart health doesn’t help much.
But changing your lifestyle offers effective protection.
The 16-year study found that 75 percent of the improvement in heart health among Swedes was due to natural, lifestyle efforts to incorporate cardiovascular-improving habits into daily living. Drugs to treat people who were already having heart difficulties were some help, but didn’t come close to measuring up to the natural methods.
The study shows that:
- A healthier diet containing more fruits and vegetables improved people’s cholesterol and was responsible more than half of the improvement in reducing deaths in Sweden from heart disease. “… drugs were responsible for very little of the improvement,” says researcher Lena Björck.
- Lifestyle measures like exercising, losing weight and getting enough sleep that reduced blood pressure was responsible for almost 20 percent of the improvement.
- Fewer people smoking contributed about seven percent to the decline in heart disease deaths.
In case you didn’t notice, these aren’t the “healthy lifestyle” as the mainstream has defined it, with their low-fat, high grain content diet. I’m talking about eating protein and produce, getting lean, getting sleep and staying away from chemicals – like those in medications, cigarettes, etc. – as the things that count.
If you need help putting all of those things into your own real healthy lifestyle, keep reading Easy Health Options for all the latest advice and tips on the easiest and best ways to have optimal health.
