The truth is most people can prevent and reverse cardiovascular disease, thus markedly decreasing their risk for a future heart attack or stroke.

It is worth noting that there are many names for cardiovascular disease, but they are really the same thing: cardiovascular disease, heart disease, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, cerebral vascular disease, peripheral vascular disease, and so on. The bottom line is that they are all caused by plaque growing in your arteries, and some day this plaque growth, called plaque rupture, has the potential to pop like a pimple, causing a heart attack, stroke, or death.

Yes, you can stop heart disease. Yet, our current medical paradigm is designed to slow progression of this scourge, not to reverse it, and too often people are subjected to unnecessary procedures, too. Screening and treating risk factors for cardiovascular disease may “postpone” having a heart attack and stroke, and might even give some people enough time to die from something else, but testing for risk factors and prescribing drugs will not make your arteries healthy.

The good news is that with the Ten Years Younger Program, you can reverse arterial plaque growth and make your arteries younger!

The Ten Years Younger Program is designed to revitalize your heart and to shrink the plaque in your arteries.

At this point, you should ask, “Why should I trust and/or follow Dr. Masley’s recommendations?” The answer is that I bring a unique perspective to this discussion, and most of my patients use lifestyle choices show a clinically significant improvement in fitness, weight, cardiovascular risk factors, plus they demonstrate a reduction in arterial plaque growth over time.

My past experience varies from:

• Cardiovascular research within a 500,000 member HMO using lifestyle to reduce cardiac risk.
• Research funded by the American Heart Association on cardiovascular risk factors for 8,000 elderly subjects followed for 27 years in Florida.
• Work experience and research results as the Medical Director at the Pritikin Longevity Center.
• Research at the Masley Optimal Health Center including my upcoming publications on factors that result in arterial plaque reduction.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO TO PREVENT OR REVERSE HEART ATTACKS AND STROKES?

The Ten Years Younger Program is designed to revitalize your heart and provides all the tools you need to be fitter, trimmer, mentally sharper, and physiologically younger. Below are six steps to achieve these goals and revitalize your heart at the same time.

1. Enjoy eating from my list of Sixteen Vitality Foods.
2. Strengthen Your Heart with an Age-Busting Fitness Plan
3. Calm Your Heart with the Ten Years Younger Stress Management Plan.
4. Succeed with weight loss.
5. Set and reach heart healthy targets to ensure you stop growing arterial plaque and prevent dangerous blood clots too.
6. Support Your Heart with Revitalizing Nutrients and Supplements.

Step 1:

Enjoy vitality foods. These are specific foods you should add to your diets to revitalize your heart and circulation. “Adding” is my theme. Not only is adding more vitality foods more beneficial than cutting out foods, it is easier and more fun for you to do.

I’ve worked with programs that tell you what you can’t eat (e.g., Pritikin and Ornish) In fact I was the medical director with the Pritikin Program in Miami, Florida and the bottom line is that theses dramatic restrictions don’t work for most Americans. Both programs offer healthy food ideas and good exercise tips. The problem is that more than 90% of people will NOT be able to follow these austere recommendations long term. Although a few people will be willing to start them, most will give up within a couple weeks and return to where they started.

In contrast, I have published data proving that at least 70% of people can follow my eating plan recommendations long term. We will start our food discussion by introducing my Sweet Sixteen Vitality foods—foods that are readily accessible and should eat daily for health and vitality. Then we’ll expand that list to 100 heart healthy foods with more than 100 wonderful and easy to prepare recipes that should be consumed regularly, which are within my book Ten Years Younger. These will include choices such as:

• Berries and nonfat yogurt, a fruit and protein smoothie, or a veggie omelet for breakfast
• Sliced turkey breast, grilled shrimp, or beans with a salad or veggies for lunch
• Nuts (such as almonds, walnuts, pecans, or pistachios) with a piece of fruit, or hummus dip with sliced vegetables for an afternoon snack
• A big portion of lean protein (such as wild salmon, scallops, shrimp, lobster, turkey and chicken breast) for dinner with one glass of hearty red wine (or bottled water) plus a generous serving of grilled or sautéed vegetables. If you need more food, consider a side of black beans or lentil soup.
• And for dessert, some form of luscious dark chocolate, yogurt, and/or fresh fruit

If on occasion readers crave something heartier, like a steak, I suggest they choose healthier cuts, such as sirloin or pork tenderloin instead of fattier heart clogging cuts. One of the better restaurant choices for that occasional treat would be to order “Surf and Turf”—a small lean sirloin steak with seafood, grilled with fresh garlic and herbs and served along with double servings of vegetables—“without the butter”, skipping the white rice/pasta/potato choice on the side. I’ll also ask that they offset meat’s artery clotting potential with an ample serving of garlic, herbs, and/or curry spices, plus a glass of red wine. Not only do these condiments make food taste better, but for people with advanced cardiovascular disease they can be life saving, too.

Step 2:

Strengthen Your Heart with an Age-Busting Fitness Plan

Of all the options for preventing and treating cardiovascular disease, the single most effective one is exercise. People who exercise regularly have 40 percent fewer heart attacks, strokes, and cases of sudden death. As 78 percent of adults engage in less physical activity than currently recommended, simply walking a couple miles on a regular basis would be of enormous cardiac benefit and would cut the risk of all cardiovascular events by at least 33 percent.

Exercise improves blood pressure, blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels, weight control, mental speed and performance, inflammation, and clotting factors. It also improves the function of the critical cells that line the arteries, ensuring that they dilate even when stressed. Regular exercise can help to turn a sick, stiff, plaque-forming artery into a healthy one. Arteries in reality are muscles in tubular form that must be exercised to function optimally.

The Ten Years Younger Program will show you how to use treadmill testing to assess and fine tune an aerobic exercise program at home or in the gym. In particular, I focus on measures you can conduct on your own. In particular, you will focus on three key markers of cardiovascular fitness, namely:

1. Aerobic capacity, measuring endurance during a standardized treadmill program
2. Blood pressure response you exercise (measures artery flexibility and ability to dilate under stress)
3. Heart rate recovery after exercise (measures cardiac fitness)

If you need help with your exercise program, then by all means contact our coaches for ongoing support, Click here for Coaching.

Step 3:

Calm Your Heart with Stress Management

Modern living can be packed with stressors and unhealthy behaviors. A restless soul leads to poor eating, inactivity, and angst. Often, a downward spiral occurs: the worse you feel, the less you exercise, the more poorly you eat, the worse you feel, and on it goes.

Excessive unmanaged stress increases cortisol and adrenaline hormone production. Over the long haul, these hormonal changes lead to weight gain, fatigue, high blood pressure, impaired mental function, bone and muscle loss, and even an increased rate of heart attacks and Alzheimer’s disease. Moreover, people who are too stressed often fail to follow nutrition and exercise regimens.

The goal here is to reverse the spiral. You eat better, you exercise more, and you feel better. As your stress management improves, it becomes easier to maintain a healthy diet and work out regularly. The key steps to stress management are:

• Add 15-30 minutes of peace and calm every day
• Ensure adequate sleep—most people need at least 7-8 hours nightly
• Avoid using caffeine or alcohol in excess.
• If you are highly stressed, start a meditation (deep prayer) program for 20-30 minutes daily.
• Ensure you share love, intimacy, friendship, and kindness frequently, at least several times per day.

Step 4:

Succeed with Weight Control

For weight control tips, please see succeed with weight loss.

Step 5:

Set and reach heart healthy targets to ensure you stop growing arterial plaque and prevent dangerous blood clots too.

Sadly, having an average cholesterol, blood pressure, or weight for American is no longer something we should strive towards. Minimal goals reflects drug treatment targets for insurance based health care. If you want to truly reverse and prevent cardiovascular disease, then you should aim to achieve optimal targets without medications, using primarily diet, exercise, and weight control .

For people at high risk for a cardiovascular event, statin medications can be appropriate, which would be prescribed by your physician. For reasons outlined below, I normal recommend you add Co-Q-10 if you take a statin medication. But up to 10% of people don’t tolerate statin medications due to liver inflammation, muscle aches (myalgias), or profound fatigue. If this is your case, then you should discuss the option with your medical provider for using a couple products, in particular red yeast rice extract and a Nutraceutical food product that have been shown to lower cholesterol levels in randomized clinical trials.

Red rice yeast extract isn’t as powerful as most statin medications so it doesn’t lower your cholesterol as much a medication, but in clinical studies where people could not tolerate a statin medication and thus took red rice yeast extract, they often could tolerate the supplement form much better and also had a reduction in their cholesterol levels. The greater tolerability may relate to the idea that red rice yeast extract contains many forms of statin medications, and multiple low dose forms seem to work and be better tolerated in some patients than one high dose form from a med. So if you have high cholesterol, talk to your medical provider to see if red rice yeast extract might be appropriate for you. The challenge is getting a high quality form as many brands may be contaminated with toxins or lack adequate effective ingredients. I would highly recommend a high quality product called Choleast-900 with 1,800 mg of red rice yeast extract per two capsules.

Another product that has been shown to lower cholesterol and blood pressure levels in a randomized clinical trial and has published results behind it is UltraMeal 360. It is a nutraceutical medical food product designed to support conditions associated with the metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. I have used it in my medical clinic, especially for patients with high cholesterol levels who don’t tolerate statin medications.

Step 6:

Support Your Heart with Revitalizing Nutrients and Supplements.

Supplements can only enhance a healthy lifestyle. They can’t replace it. Indeed, they will never make up for eating junk food, or being stressed or inactive. But supplements can benefit health substantially if one eats well, exercises regularly, and manages stress.

I believe everyone should be taking a personalized supplement program. While supplements can’t make up for eating poorly, they can provide some nutrients otherwise lost. At least eighty percent of Americans are nutrient deficient. Yes, we get plenty of calories, but we don’t get enough vitamins and minerals. The top two clinically important nutrient deficiencies impacting the heart are fiber and omega-3 fats. The most common vitamin deficiencies are folic acid, B₆, B₁₂, C, D, and food sources of vitamin E. Frequent mineral deficiencies include zinc, calcium, magnesium, and chromium. Moreover, nutrient content continues to drop in the food supply. Despite the fact that iron deficiency is common, from a cardiac perspective too much iron is much worse, as excessive iron acts as a toxin to heart arteries.

Marine sources of omega-3 fats, impact clotting, sudden death risk, artery plaque formation, inflammation, brain function, and are involved in hundreds of anti-aging reactions in the human body. Most Americans are omega-3 deficient, and sadly most fish oil supplements that are sold today are of very poor quality.

For hints on selecting high quality fish oils, visit Fish oil (omega-3 oils) for details…

Please take the Ten Years Younger quiz to customize your supplement needs, and if you feel you need additional information, then please schedule time to address your unique nutrient needs by scheduling time to speak with one of my Ten Years Younger coaches.

If you are taking a cholesterol lowering medication, keep in mind that most statin medications lower an essential compound in energy production called Co-Q-10 by at least 20%, and you should take a Co-Q-10 supplement with your customized supplement regimen.

Co-Q-10 is a chemical compound that has a dual function in energy production. First in nearly every cell in the body, Co-Q-10 carries fuel across the mitochondria membrane to generate energy. Second it neutralizes free radicals produced during energy production, preventing oxidative stress. Co-Q-10 has been claimed to boost energy levels, reverse heart failure, slow aging, and other claims, but in clinical outcome trials has only been proven to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

Although its anti-aging potential seems fascinating from laboratory studies, we are still waiting for clinical evidence as to how it works. On the positive side, it has been studied in multiple clinical trials and appears very safe with normal dosing. Warning! Although Co-Q-10 has had an excellent safety profile in clinical studies to date, for cardiac patients who are taking Coumadin (warfarin), Co-Q-10 can modify their INR levels, potentially increasing bleeding risk, so only consider combining these agents under the strict supervision of your physician and medical providers.

Some patients use Co-Q-10 to boost energy, and although individuals might feel better, there is no proof that it works in this regard.

The most common use is when taking Co-Q-10 with statin medications that lower cholesterol, as lowering cholesterol production typically lowers Co-Q-10 levels by 20% too. No proven harm has been documented from dropping Co-Q-10 levels in this way, but there is growing evidence that restoring Co-Q-10 to normal levels with makes good preventative sense.

Absorption is an important consideration with Co-Q-10 supplementation, as regular inexpensive crystalline Co-Q-10 only has a 1% absorption when taking in tablet form. Co-Q-10 dissolved in oil has a 4% absorption, and nano-lipid spheres have an 8% absorption. So although cheap Co-Q-10 may be 1/3 the cost of more expensive  forms, the very poor absorption makes it in reality more expensive. So buyer beware when choosing Co-Q-10 products.

Having searched extensively for a Co-Q-10 (Ubiquinone) product that is well absorbed and reasonably priced, I recommend Q Best by Thorne Research. Some scientists make a big issue out of choosing Ubiquinol (the reduced form) rather than the typical form, Ubiquinol (which is oxidized). Although ubiquinol is the most active form, these forms convert back and forth thousands of times per second, and my opinion is that the added expense for Ubiquinol isn’t worth it.