Cardiovascular Disease

Common concerns:

• Hypertension
• High cholesterol
• Diabetes
• Weight management

Cardiometabolic diseases are conditions that involve your heart and energy management systems. They are becoming much more common due to our modern sedentary lifestyle and current trend of consuming nutrient poor processed food. Diagnosis of hypertension (high blood pressure), hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol), insulin resistance/diabetes (high blood sugar) and excessive weight gain are all linked and affect each other. Doctors call this combination the “metabolic syndrome”. Together these conditions greatly increase the risk of cerebrovascular diseases, heart attacks, congestive heart failure and peripheral artery disease. There is no surprise that heart disease is the number one cause of death in North America

Conventional Treatment Options

General practitioners will prescribe medications to try to reduce blood pressure, lower triglycerides and LDL while raising HDL and to sensitize the body to insulin again. While very important in reducing risk and life saving in certain situations, most GPs know that eating more vegetables and health promoting foods and increasing exercise give the most benefit. However, with the consultation time limit they are unable to go through these large lifestyle changes step by step.

Naturopathic Treatment Options

The greatest improvement on metabolic syndrome is from diet and lifestyle change. A naturopath will work together with their patient to set realistic and desirable goals and coach them through how to reach them. Naturopathic doctors seek to find the behaviors that contribute to disease – stress increasing blood pressure, overwork making fast food the easiest option, toxic interpersonal relationships, etc can all affect health. Weight management has huge impact on treatment of these conditions

Botanicals and nutritional supplements such as Omega 3, coenzyme Q10 and garlic extract have protective effects on the heart. Studies have shown omega 3 to reduce chances of getting heart attacks and that coenzyme Q10 may enhance exercise capacity in those who had a heart attack and garlic has lipid and blood pressure reducing effects. However reaching therapeutic dose and avoiding interactions with current medications is very important. Please see a licensed practitioner to reduce the risk of this happening.