February is Heart Health Month

February is Heart Health Month

February is Heart Health month, and Herbalife is here to help with products designed to keep your heart beating in tune with your personal drummer. These products address the macro-nutrients associated with heart health. The first macro-nutrient is well known, and that’s water. I won’t talk about water here. We all know we should be drinking it. But if you don’t like the taste of water, and want to drink something to keep yourself hydrated and help you lose weight, too, try Herbal Concentrate Tea.

Fish Oil (Herbalifeline and Tri-Shield)

The first time I remember seeing anything about fish oil was a commercial on television. It was touting the low incidence of heart disease associated with the traditional Inuit diet, which is high in fat. That was so long ago, I don’t remember what year it was.

Omega-3 fatty acids are the compounds from fish oil that provide the benefits. Eating two servings of cold water, fatty fish each week is slightly better than taking a fish oil product daily, but if your diet doesn’t include two servings a week, a supplement is fine. The daily dose of fish oil is no more than 3000mg. You should talk to your doctor if you want to take more than that. Too much fish oil can cause nausea and diarrhea.

Some companies make a krill oil product. Krill is a small, shrimp-like animal from the Antarctic. Krill oil provides many of the same benefits as fish oil, but it also decreases inflammation and makes platelets less sticky, which helps reduce the formation of blood clots. It takes much less krill oil to provide the same benefit as much larger dose of fish oil. Because of this, people who have trouble swallowing pills prefer krill oil over fish oil.

Garlic (Mega Garlic Plus)

Garlic has been used in food and as medicine since ancient times. Garlic is used to help maintain blood pressure and to make blood vessels suppler, which can be useful in slowing the progression hardening of the arteries. Garlic is further used to help reduce cholesterol. There is no unifying medical theory that shows why garlic works, and although the medical community acknowledges the use of garlic as medicine, there is no agreement on its effectiveness.

Garlic is most effective when it’s crushed so that the compounds inside can mix. When garlic is heated above 140F, some of these compounds are destroyed. I love garlic, and I would eat it every day if I could. Of course, I’d be sleeping alone if I did. But everything has its own limits. How much is too much? 3 heads of raw garlic every day for 30 days for a 140lb person would prove fatal to the liver, as well as cause severe anemia.

Nitric Oxide (Niteworks)

Do a search on nitric oxide, and the first results you see are for supplement ads.  Nitric oxide is big business. It was originally thought to be a component of air pollution until its role in the body was discovered in 1980. In 1998, three American scientists were awarded the Nobel prize in Medicine for their research its role in the cardiovascular system. One of those scientists was Dr. Lou Ignarro.
Nitric oxide is naturally occurring in the body. It relaxes and opens the blood vessels.
Nitric oxide supplements supply two amino acids which promote the production of nitric oxide in the body.

All three of these macro-nutrients have other functions in the body besides heart health, including immune system support and memory function. This February, be good to yourself and good to your heart. After all, you can’t beat a healthy heart.