YTOM: Chapter 2

The Beat Goes On: Your Heart and Arteries

According to this chapter your heart is similar to the water main in your house.  It controls the water (blood) flow, so you have clean water to drink and wash away germs.  The blood in your body has a similar job to the water in your house, it provides nutrients and cleans out the germs and waste. In reference to our health, nothing is scarier than a stopped heart, because "If our heart stops working, so do we."

The Anatomy
Heart:  4 chambers (right and left atria - top 1/2, right and left ventricles - bottom 1/2), uses a top down pulse to push the blood into the aorta (main artery).  As the pulse relaxes the heart refills with blood, including the coronary arteries that feed the heart nutrients.
Valves:  "doorkeepers," their job is to keep the blood from flowing backward (for example from the ventricles back to the atria, or from the aorta back to the ventricles).  When the heart pulses the valves open, and when it relaxes they close, giving us the sound of a heartbeat.
Arteries:  3 layers intima, media, & adventitia.  The intima is the innermost layer.  It is nice and slippery for the blood to flow through.  The second layer, the media, is the support structure of the artery. This layer is muscular and contracts or relaxes to allow more or less blood flow.  The third layer is the adventitia and is like a casing, and holds the artery together. When the layers are nicked it leads to cholesterol clogs, which leads to clots by the platelets in the blood.  Clots can lead to inflammation and spasms, which further constrict the artery.
Electrical System:  Keeps the heart going because it has a constant blood supply.  If parts of the heart have died due to lack of blood the muscles start fighting each other, which is called fibrillation (all of the muscles moving in different rhythms instead of together). In order to get the muscles moving together again the system needs an electric shock.  This can be provided by an Automatic Internal Cardiac Defibrillator (AICD) which shocks the system for you, to achieve the regular rhythm.

The main disease discussed in this chapter is coronary artery disease, which is the leading cause of death in all developed countries. Coronary artery disease is caused by damaged arteries and ultimately slows you down by affecting how well all of your other organs function.

The Action Plan
1. Pump Your Heart: exercise to burn between 3,500 and 6,500 calories a week (general physical activities) and get in 60 minutes of stamina training (elevated heart rate for an extended period of time).  This can be broken into 3-20 minute workouts a week.
2. Know Your Numbers:  Blood Pressure (optimal 115/76), Blood Test (includes Cholesterol, Homocysteine, C-Reactive Protein, & Blood Sugar), and Physical Tests (Maximum Heart Rate and Recovery Time)
3. Get Mental & Develop Lifelong Friends:  Friends help you to fight negative emotions such as anger, hostility and depression.  They can also help you to de-stress.
4. Eat Your Heart Out: Food is a powerful too to keeping your body healthy.  YTOM recommends the following to keep your heart healthy: 1 handful of nuts a day, olive oil to raise your HDL (good cholesterol), 3 portions of fish a week (especially fatty fish like salmon, cod and bass), 331 milligrams of flavonoids a day, and limiting your saturated fats, trans fats, simple sugars, and white processed foods.
5. Don't Ignore the Relatives: Know your family history of heart disease and illness, so you know what you may have to combat.
6. Go on Da Pills:  1/2 a regular asprin a day, a multivitamin (containing: magnesium, calcium, vitamin D, vitamin C, vitamin E and potassium), folate (B vitamin)
7. Schedule Sleep:  7-8 solid hours per night for men and 6-7 solid hours for women has been shown as optimal. You need at least 2 hours in a row before your sleep becomes truly restorative.

So far, I feel this book has a lot of very good information.  My biggest problem with it is #6 in the action plan.  It recommends taking asprin every day. I am not an extremist, but I try to avoid taking any medication and let my body do its thing to heal itself. If I knew I ate what my body needed in terms of fruits and veggies, I would probably forgo the multivitamin too.  I like knowing what things can potentially help me feel better and potentially have a longer life, but part of why I'm working toward a healthier lifestyle is to prevent taking pills and the need for medication just to stay alive.  This doesn't make sense to me.  I'll keep reading and see if they convince me it's really a good idea to take asprin every day.