Understanding and Preserving the Function of One Heart Beat
As one heartbeat proceeds to the next and billions of heartbeats accumulate, the heart slowly wears out and becomes less adaptive. At first, the elastic fibers lining the blood vessels slowly degrade. Then, the main artery takes on more load until time causes thickness and inflexibility. The heart then forces out more pressure to keep the system functional. But as life drags on, the added pressure eventually strains the capillaries, causing nutrient, hormonal, and oxygen uptake in the cell to be narrowed. Faintly but gradually, we feel less like our former selves. We’re slower, tired, and weary, and our thoughts reflect our scope of experience. However, like everything malleable and adaptable, a decline can be suppressed, and quality of life can be prolonged. Putting this into motion and sustaining it starts with understanding that health and wellness is a lifelong journey, not a momentary lapse of emotion.
Before the practical advice for preserving the heart, let’s first quickly learn about and understand the function of the circulatory system.
Understanding the Circulatory System
Every minute at rest, 5 liters of blood passes through the heart. Trillions of oxygenated red blood cells move through the pulmonary veins of the lungs into the heart's left atrium (the upper left side of the heart), where it flows through a mitral valve into the left ventricle (the lower left side of the heart). At this point, the heart momentarily rests as it is filling. Then, in about a second, it beats, sending an electrical current of contraction and pressure, which causes the blood to flow upwards through the aortic valve into the aorta (the largest artery that carries oxygen and nutrients to the rest of your body).
Once in the aortic artery or main artery, the blood then branches off into smaller arteries along the arch of the aorta and the descending aorta and continues to branch off into smaller arteries until the branching results in even smaller arteries called arterioles. The arterioles connect with the capillary network, where blood, nutrients, and oxygen are more finely dispersed along muscles, organs, skin, and fat. To put it in perspective, capillaries are so thin that they can only be seen under a microscope.
This delicate structure, thinner than human hair, allows the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide/waste products to and from the cells, where blood continues to travel through the capillaries and into the venules. These venules or small veins gradually expand into larger vessels or larger deoxygenated veins back into the right side of the heart. However, the pressure of the heart is not efficient enough to get blood traveling upwards when standing, so veins, unlike arteries, use valves. These valves, muscle contraction, and heart pressure prevent blood from flowing downwards when open and closed like a one-way door as it makes its way up the inferior vena cava and into the heart's right atrium. The tricuspid valve opens, and down it flows into the right ventricle until the heart goes ‘Lub Dub,’ forcing the deoxygenated blood upwards through the pulmonary valve and through the pulmonary artery back into the lungs, where the blood fills up with oxygenated blood once again.
This process accounts for the entire body except for the brain, and last time I checked, the brain was still an integral part of our existence… at least anatomically.
As mentioned, when the heart beats and creates pressure, it pushes blood into the aorta. But at the aortic arch, instead of continuing down the descending aorta, it branches into the brachiocephalic artery, left subclavian artery, and left common carotid artery. With continued pressure, blood makes its way upward and flows through the right and left carotid and vertebral arteries along the neck and flows into the brain along tightly regulated walls called the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB). You can learn more about the BBB by reading “The Big 3 Supplements Everyone Needs to Preserve for Optimal Brain Integrity.”
Meanwhile, the BBB picks up necessary components (nutrients, molecules, hormones, oxygen, glucose, etc.) for the brain, while the arteries leading to the brain eventually connect to smaller blood vessels that branch to smaller veins that connect to larger veins. These Larger veins then drain blood downwards from the head into the superior vena cava attached to the upper right side of the heart back into the right atrium, and… VOILA. That is an introduction to the circulatory system in a single heartbeat.
And preserving the functional coherence of this system throughout our sedentary lives is testing. Transportation is faster, food is more accessible, and in the digital age, many jobs now promote sedentary behavior. Integrate this with stress or exhaustion, and the inclination for physical exertion and a healthy diet becomes atrophied. After some time, inch by inch, we feel worse and begin to assume our new role and state of existence. In the continuation of this article, we will cover three very different practical and science-based steps for reclaiming and preserving the integrity of the heart.
Mental
Physical
Diet
Changing Your Mentality
Altering one's mentality and behavior has, for a long time, been an ongoing subject of debate in the sphere of psychology and neurobiology. For instance, why is it easy to envision a goal and even mentally extrapolate from those goals into sufficient reasons yet fail to pursue what was visualized? Why is achieving a goal hard?
A goal architecturally is setting and adhering to an intervention capable of bridging the gap between the current self and/or status to a desired future self and/or achievement. Every goal fundamentally works toward something different from the present something. The more unforeseen or nebulous the goal, the more reinforcement is needed to bridge the gap between reason and goal.
For example, if the goal is to increase vitality or mental lucidity by strengthening the integrity of the heart, increasing the heart rate through brief physical exertion is generally not desirable if other steps could be taken to increase vitality and clarity. Let's presume that despite being resistant to physical work, a plan is set to run four days a week for four weeks. Even after the allotted four weeks and noticeable increases in energy are realized, it is usually a matter of time before the desire for running starts to wane and eventually cease. It ceases partly because a prolonged experience of positive adaption inevitably disassociates from that which caused favorable modification (physical exertion). We become accustomed to how we feel and inevitably want to continue feeling the way we do with less work. Complacency almost always wants to creep in once the goal is realized. One way of avoiding this is having a mentality, value, or existence that supersedes the desire to succumb. And it all begins with understanding that continuous states of apprehension are progressive, fluid, and not rigid or one-dimensional, which means that there must be a mentality derived through values and hierarchies that forces adherence despite waning motivation.
But even before the path from reasoning to achieving goals, there must first be receptiveness. A peer-reviewed paper by Elliot Berkman says it's helpful to think of behavior in goal setting from two dimensions. “The first dimension captures the skills, capacities, and knowledge required to engage in a behavior.” This could further be extended as balancing skill levels versus perceived embarrassment or inconvenience when performing that task. And the second dimension, Berkman says, “captures the desire for and importance of a behavior.” Understanding the importance of behavior calibrates goals appropriately to what is desired and achievable.
Furthermore, it becomes much easier to begin if a behavioral modification is more important than the perceived momentary embarrassment or inconvenience when starting. It is no surprise why habit modification isn’t easy. We are wired to recognize what makes us comfortable and position ourselves close to that state. If we didn’t, we would be a mess. But it is also the case that in modern society, discomfort is easier to avoid. There are many options promising results without having to feel something new. However, learning something novel has been shown to build new neurons, and sustaining it makes long-term connections. These connections eventually wire the brain to communicate better with one another, reinforcing our brain’s integrity. And in this state, bridging the gap between reason and goal gets a little easier next time.
Now that you’re a little more familiar with how to claim the right mentality for beginning and sustaining a goal, what physical modification has been consistently shown to reclaim and preserve the integrity of the heart?
Aerobic Exercise for the Heart
Whenever doing any physical activity at a sustainably strenuous pace, the contracting muscles involved in the workout require an immense amount of oxygen to function. To meet the oxygen demands of muscles, the heart beats faster. It outputs about 20 liters of blood every minute. Stroke volume, blood pressure, vascular resistance, and epinephrine increase, creating a snapshot of severe and concerning vascular complications. However, these stressful conditions during a workout reduce our baseline stress and tolerance to stress over time.
A study published in the Frontiers in Physiology tested this idea of response to stress in non-exercisers and those who reported exercise at least once a week. It is important to consider that self-reporting may include inaccuracies and further fail to consider the time spent exercising, the intensity of exercise, and how long the average participant has been exercising. However, despite these evident concerns, which can no doubt influence the outcome, the researchers could still conclude that “regular exercise protects against the negative emotional consequences of stress and suggest that exercise has beneficial effects in healthy individuals.” To further elucidate the conclusion of this study, let's look at what exercise does to our neurotransmitters and endorphins.
When we exercise, we release dopamine, noradrenaline, and endorphins. The neuromodulator dopamine is essential in reward circuitry and modulates motivation, craving, and drive. This neurotransmitter is, in fact, so vital for our survival that dopamine-deprived mice refuse activity and food altogether and die within a few weeks. Dopamine is also strongly tied to the neuronal wiring of addictive behavior. In some cases, former addicts who experience a dopamine rush from a rewarding event could reinstigate the desire to use drugs again, according to Dr. Anna Lymbke. However, the release of dopamine and endorphins during exercise is often beneficial in recovering addicts partly due to everything else happening during aerobic activity, such as an intense experience. Combine that with better-conserved norepinephrine levels, as shown with exercise, and you start to regulate anxiety, depression, and blood pressure. These effects of exercise might explain why the scientists, as earlier discussed, found resilience to stress in exercised individuals.
Apart from aerobic exercise, it has also been shown that diets largely influence the heart's health. And undoubtedly, some diets generally tend to do better than others. However, considering the vast range of variations and predispositions, it would be very irresponsible of anyone to conclude that their diet is optimal for you. Instead, one can suggest alterations or additions and take these alterations and closely analyze whether it is right for you. That said, the next section will briefly cover two nutritional intervention that has been shown to promote the integrity of the heart.
Omega-3 for the Heart
Higher blood levels of omega-3 have been associated with lower cardiovascular disease and lower total mortality in a study conducted in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Omega-3 has been shown to increase HDL, lower triglycerides, and decrease platelet aggregation. Aspirin also reduces platelet aggregation, which is why a doctor might prescribe it after a stroke.
Omega-3 binds to receptors and transcription factors that suppress interleukin-2 (an inflammatory marker) and prevents a bacterial toxin called lipopolysaccharide from forming. Furthermore, omega-3 can alter cellular function by affecting membrane channels and proteins. Membrane channels allow molecules to pass from the outside of a cell to the inside. As discussed earlier, the circulatory system is the channel in which molecules pass from capillaries to the cells.
Where to get Omega-3
Not all omega-3 is created equal. Good food sources of omega-3 would be sardines, anchovies, and salmon. Since fish get their omega-3 from the algae they eat, opting for smaller fish would generally be better for getting the most omega-3. Selecting a supplement would also be a great choice, as many studies show positive results through taking a supplement. Similar to food, supplements are also not created equal. The best brands are in triglyceride form; even better brands test their omega-3. These brands are listed below:
NORDIC NATURALS (vegan)
Olive Oil for the Heart
Consuming just 7 grams or 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil daily has been shown observationally to lower the risk of death by cardiovascular disease by 19%. Another slightly more rigorous study found that consuming four tablespoons or 56 grams of olive oil daily (which is a lot) led to an 82% reduction in heart attacks after adjusting for dietary and non-dietary confounders.
Olive oil contains monounsaturated fats, phenols, and micronutrients that improve endothelial dysfunction (such as arterial constriction), oxidative stress, inflammation, blood pressure, and lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. Phenols from olive oil, especially oleocanthal, inhibit the conversion of arachidonic acid to prostaglandins by inhibiting COX 1 and COX 2 enzymes. Ibufrophen's main effect for lowering inflammation is limiting these enzymes, which slows prostaglandin production. In other words, olive oil imitates ibuprofen but to a lesser degree. And Ibuprofen, unlike olive oil, can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Where to get Olive Oil
A study from the National Consumer League purchased and sampled 11 extra virgin olive oil bottles from major retailers. After testing, they found that 6 of the 11 bottles didn’t meet the IOC standards for extra virgin. Unfortunately, finding good olive oil at your local retailer is not as easy as it should be. Instead, shopping online for better quality and higher phenolic olive oil would be recommended. However, if you shop in-store, choose an extra virgin olive oil produced in California. This type tends to be cold pressed and minimally processed. According to UC Davis, only 10% of this type didn’t meet the criterion for extra virgin. The website that I recommend for olive oil is olio2go.com.
Bottom Line
Without blood circulation, the body’s organs wouldn’t be able to get the oxygen and nutrients needed to survive. The organs wouldn’t be able to fight infection, manufacture, or process their vitamins and hormones. The liver wouldn’t be able to regulate hormones and chemicals. The kidney wouldn’t be able to clear the body of waste. Everything would cease. We often ignore the heart’s circulatory system to improve our health. Instead, we ask ourselves, “what substance will make us smarter? What will help me lose weight? How can I get more energy?” We often don’t consider that by improving the heart's function, we can improve all three of these concerns simultaneously.
Avicenna, a Persian physician, and philosopher of around 1000 AD, thought the heart was the source of all body functions. We now know that he wasn’t entirely correct, but he wasn’t quite wrong either. Although scientists have uncovered a lot, more investigation is needed to determine what this fist-sized muscular organ is capable of.
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