When blood clots (Fig. 1) circulate in our body and reach the brain, stroke is caused.
Blood clots cause life threatening condition, but recently it has turned out that there is a method to remove blood clots. In our body, there is substance that dissolves blood clots so that we can dissolve blood clots by ourselves. The substance in our body is t-PA. Actually medication using t-PA is practicalized in the field of Emergency medicine. A woman with the age of 50s was brought to the ER because of stroke. She was not able to raise her arm and not able to make a fist with the hand. 2 hours after the administration of t-PA and catheter treatment, her condition was dramatically improved by dissolving blood clots by t-PA, and she could raise her arm and make a fist. If you can secrete t-PA that is produced in our body well, you can have the constitution that is hard to form blood clots causing stroke or heart attack. When bleeding from a wound, a scab is formed by solidifying blood. Blood has the solidifying function to stop bleeding. Blood clots are the same as a scab. The solidifying function is important even when there is no bleeding, because the inside of blood vessels is always damaged by the smallest things and what covers up the damage is blood clots. What makes it easy to form blood clots? One day of a 43 years-old woman’s life was observed and after some events, her blood flow was checked. When she was eating breakfast with her son, he knocked over a glass and spilled the water. Her blood flow after this event was shown in Fig. 2. When she found a cockroach made of rubber that was placed by a staff of this experiment, her blood flow was checked as shown in Fig. 3. Blood clots are easily formed by slight nervousness, stress or fear. Long time ago, human beings were living by hunting. They had to fight against a bigger prey and that heightened the risk of injury, so when they felt the risk of injury, their blood was prepared for it in advance, meaning blood was easily solidified. How to increase t-PA The method to increase t-PA dissolving blood clots is walking. The point is fast walking. When you walk fast, the blood flow becomes faster and the inside wall of the blood vessel receives strong stimulation and t-PA is secreted more and the power of t-PA is elevated. There is a research result that 3 months’ aerobic exercises made the speed to dissolve blood clots became faster by about 20 %. If you make your stride the length of your shoe wider, you can walk as fast as recommended.
0 Comments
What do you think the cause of high blood pressure?
One of the major causes is too much intake of salt so that a lot of people try to reduce the intake of salt. But it has turned out that people who have high blood pressure because they can’t discharge the salt from the body are increasing. High blood pressure is the condition that the pressure against the wall of blood vessels is high. At present, if the top number is more than 140 mmHg or the bottom number is more than 90 mmHg, it is considered high blood pressure. If the condition of high blood pressure continues for a long time, the blood vessel which was soft becomes hard and fragile, which is hardening of the artery. In near future, it can cause heart attack or stroke. The high blood pressure preventative measures recommended conventionally are (1) reducing salt and (2) doing moderate exercises. (1) Reducing salt When you eat salty food, the amount of salt in the blood increases, water is absorbed and the amount of the blood increases. As a result of that, the pressure against the wall of the blood vessel goes up. On the contrary, if you don’t take salt, the blood flow becomes calm and the pressure against the wall of the blood vessel lowers down. (2) Doing moderate exercises When you do moderate exercises, your body tries to deliver more oxygen to the muscle and the blood vessel becomes wider. That makes the blood flow calmer, resulting in the pressure against the wall of the blood vessel lower down. But there are people whose effort to carry out the above preventative measures comes to nothing. People who can’t improve their blood pressure with reducing salt and exercises are difficult to discharge salt from their body. Even if the intake of salt is small, their blood pressure goes up because salt remains in their body. If you can’t discharge 80 % of salt through urine excluding sweat, you are considered that you can’t discharge salt properly. The difference between people who can discharge salt and people who can’t is how to sleep at night. What kind of sleep leads to storing salt in the body? If you can sleep well, you can discharge salt, but if you can’t sleep well, you can’t discharge salt. If you can sleep well, you don’t have stress, but if you can’t sleep well, you have stress. The key to cause high blood pressure is hidden in the saliva secreted while sleeping. The saliva of people who can’t sleep well with high blood pressure contains cortisol a lot. People who secrete cortisol in the middle of night try to raise the blood pressure using salt so that they can’t discharge salt and salt is stored in their body. How to improve sleeping quality to promote discharging salt in the middle of night The method is one nostril breathing method. Basically, when we breathe slowly, we can expand alveoli in the lung and activate the parasympathetic nerve. Breathing through one nostril makes breathing deeper and activates the parasympathetic nerve more. One nostril breathing method: (1) Hold one nostril with your finger and breathe in from another nostril for about 10 seconds (Fig. 1). (2) Breathe out slowly from the same nostril. (3) Repeat this breathing method alternatively (right, left, right…) for 10 minutes before sleeping. Experiment 3 persons whose salt discharge had been less than 80 % and quality of sleep had been not good continued the above breathing method before their sleep for 3 days, and their salt discharge ratios were improved by more than 20 % and they became able to sleep well through the night. An island in Japan is paid attention to from the medical professions because the ratio of emergency transport due to stroke or heart attack decreased by 80 % within 3 years.
The rate of deaths due to brain hemorrhage around the islands including this island is the worst in all over Japan. The average blood pressure of the people in this island measured 4 years ago was more than 140. The condition of their blood vessel was very poor until 3 years ago so that the ratio of emergency transport due to stroke or heart attack was extremely high. A doctor was assigned to this island 4 years ago and he improved various things that were making the condition of blood vessels worse. (1) Cigarettes were removed from the island By removing cigarettes from the island, nobody became able to get cigarettes in the island, so the ratio of smoking in the island decreased by 35 %. (2) Habit of exercises Walking in the evening is recommended because evening is the best time to build muscles. The hormone to maintain muscles, which is growth hormone is secreted in the evening. Muscles repeat decomposition and regeneration called metabolism. Growth hormone regenerates the muscles decomposed by exercises. The time that growth hormone is secreted most while awaking is evening (4-6 pm). Exercises in the evening promotes restoring the muscles damaged by exercises and leads to building up muscles and burning extra fat and sugar in the body efficiently. (3) Dietary life It has recently turned out that maintaining muscles prevents hardening of arteries, improving blood sugar, cholesterol, neutral fat and blood pressure. The important nutrition to maintain muscles is Leucine. Leucine is a type of essential amino acids contained in protein. Leucine is not only the material of muscles but also plays a very important role as the switch to synthesis muscles. When repeating decomposition and synthesis of muscles, if leucine is not enough, synthesis of muscles is not processed and muscles are declined. So it is important to take leucine after exercises. Leucine is rich in soy products, meats, fishes and dairy products. High blood sugar causes stroke or heart attack, but according to the recent researches, high blood sugar elevates the risk of cancer and dementia as well.
To prevent high blood sugar, it is recommended to take sufficient dietary fibers that slow down the absorption of sugar, to do exercises, to sleep well, to reduce stress, to take low sugar meals, etc. But it has turned out that there is a totally different method to prevent and improve high blood sugar. It has turned out that there is a food that increases insulin which lowers blood sugar. Insulin is the only hormone which lowers blood sugar in our body. According to a research published in the Europe Diabetes Society 4 years ago, when research participants whose blood sugar are high took extract of the food, their insulin level was more than twice as high as before. Their blood sugar also lowered by 28 %, which was almost normal level. The food increasing insulin is Whey. A cheese called ricotta is made from whey. But even if you are not so familiar with ricotta, there is a familiar food that contains whey. The familiar food is Yogurt. The clear liquid on top of yogurt is whey so that yogurt contains a lot of whey. Major foods containing whey are: (1) Whey protein (2) Whey cheese like ricotta (3) Yogurt (4) Milk Whey contains various substances such as carbohydrate, protein, vitamin C, vitamin B, phosphorite, iron, zinc, copper, sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc. Within these 12 substances, protein helps lowering blood sugar. Protein of whey is milk whey protein which is balanced and rich in essential amino acids. Milk whey protein stimulates the small intestine and the hormone promoting the secretion of insulin increases. Increasing the secretion of insulin suppresses the elevation of blood sugar. The important thing is when you eat yogurt. If you eat yogurt before a meal, milk whey protein promotes the secretion of insulin and when you finish your meal, it starts to suppress the elevation of blood sugar (Fig. 1). When cholesterol in the blood increases, cholesterol is accumulated on the wall of the blood vessel, causing stroke or heart attack.
Cholesterol level can be checked by blood test, but you don’t go see a doctor so often. But you can check cholesterol level by checking the thickness of Achilles’ tendon. How to check whether cholesterol level is high or not (1) Sit on a chair and cross your leg. (2) Pick the thinnest part of Achilles’ tendon with your fingers. (3) Measure the length between fingers (Fig. 1). If the thickness of your Achilles’ tendon is more than 1.5 cm (0.6 inches), there is a possibility that you have high cholesterol. Why is Achille’s tendon checked for cholesterol? Achille’s tendon tends to store cholesterol. Achilles’ tendon is located at the lower part of the body, so the weight is always on Achilles’ tendon and Achilles’ tendon is easily damaged. To restore the damage, cholesterol is soaked out from the blood vessel nearby. Cholesterol is originally fat to restore the damaged tissue, but if the cholesterol level is high, Achilles’ tendon becomes swollen (Fig. 2). According to a research, one of ten people who had heart attack had more than 1.5 cm thick of Achilles’ tendon. Mona Lisa had high cholesterol? When you look at around the eyes of Mona Lisa, you can find a fatty deposit (Fig. 3), which is called xanthoma (Fig. 4). If you have this kind of fatty deposits, there is a possibility of high cholesterol.
According to a newest research published on New England Journal of Medicine, a specific substance prevented the aging of the heart and decreased the risk of death caused by heart failure.
The substance is a ketone body, which everybody can produce in the body. How can a ketone body prevent the aging of the heart? The number of heart beat in its lifetime is determined by a kind of animal. The number is about 700 million times. For example, the heart beat of a mouse is 600 times per minutes so that it reaches 70 million times in 2 years. That is why their lifespan is about 2 years. The heart beat of a horse is about 45 times per minutes so that it reaches 70 million times in 25 years. The less the number of heart beat is, the longer the lifespan is. So it is important to decrease useless heart beat in order to prevent the aging of the heart, and the key factor is a ketone body. But the amount of ketone bodies depends on a person. Healthy person’s heart beat is about 100 thousand times per day. If it is less than 100 thousand times, their heart can keep healthy longer. The more the heart beat is exceeding 100 thousand times, the easier the heart is aging by the useless heart beat. The more ketone bodies are, the faster the elevated heart beat comes back to the original state, reducing the burden on the heart and preventing the aging of the heart. The more ketone bodies are, the more sufficiently heart beat goes down while sleeping, preventing the aging of the heart. How to secrete more ketone bodies Ketone bodies are produced in the liver and work as energy source to move the body instead of sugar and fat. When you have shortness of breath after climbing up stairs, the heart starts to pump out blood to all the body to deliver oxygen in order to relieve shortness of breath. When ketone bodies are used to pump out blood, the amount of blood pumped out at once increases because of the better energy efficiency, compared to normal energy sources such as carbohydrate or fat. That means heart can work easily and suppresses heart beat, leading to long life of the heart. How can we secrete more ketone bodies? The most effective method is fasting. A 46 years old male whose ketone bodies were 51 (μ mol/L) tried 2 days fasting with drinking a glass of vegetable juice for every meal. After 2 days fasting, his ketone bodies became 4665 (μ mol/L) which was more than 90 times. The amount of ketone bodies produced in the body depends on the amount of sugar in the body. Sugar is used as the source of energy to move the body, but if the amount of sugar decreases due to fasting or other reasons, ketone bodies are produced in the liver as substitute energy of sugar. But it is impossible to continue fasting long time. So how can we secrete more ketone bodies without trying too hard? The important thing is making fasting time longer. The recommended method is mini-fasting which keeps the interval between dinner and breakfast long. A 50 year old woman whose ketone bodies were 19 (μ mol/L) (Reference value: 85 μ mol/L) attended an experiment. She was eating some snack after dinner so that the interval between the snack and breakfast was only 7 hours. She stopped eating snack and made the interval between dinner and breakfast 11 hours for 5 days. After the 5 days experiment, her ketone bodies were 497 (μ mol/L). Let's check the condition of your heart
The condition of the heart can be presumed by the color of nails. (1) Squeeze the nail part of an index finger for about 5 seconds. (2) Release the index finger in 5 seconds. (3) Observe the color of the nail. (4) Count the time to return to the original reddish nail from whitish nail (Fig. 1). If the time was within 2 seconds, you could survive when the coronary artery was clogged. If the time was more than 2 seconds, you couldn’t survive. Experiment 11 persons with the ages of 60s attended the experiment. 6 persons’ nails returned to the original reddish color within 2 seconds and according to an ultrasound examination, all 6 persons’ hearts were softer and younger than their ages. On the other hand, 5 persons whose nail didn’t return to the original reddish color within 2 seconds had harder and older heart than their ages. What is the relationship between the color of nail and the condition of the heart? What is observed from the nail color returning test is the condition of capillaries. Capillaries deliver nutrition and oxygen to the whole body. The length of capillaries, if they are all connected, is about two and a half rounds of the earth. If capillaries can be confirmed clearly, it proves that the function of capillaries and the blood flow is maintained. The capillaries in the nail of the person who took 1.8 seconds to return to the original color are clearly seen (Fig. 2-Left). On the other hand, the capillaries in the nail of the person who took 4 seconds to return to the original color are not clearly seen (Fig. 2-Right). The condition of the capillaries in the heart can be analogized from the finger. Maintaining the function of capillaries is the secret to invigorate the heart. The capillaries maintaining the function decrease with age. If the function of capillaries declines, nutrition and oxygen don’t reach throughout the heart, and the risk of heart diseases becomes higher. On the contrary, if capillaries are active, there is a possibility that you can survive even if a coronary artery is clogged. 99.9 % of blood vessels in our body are capillaries. The heart requires large amount of oxygen to expand and contract, so the heart has more capillaries than other organs (Fig. 3). Characteristics of capillaries Con: The function of capillaries declines with age. By aging, blood can’t pass through capillaries or capillaries disappear. Pro: New capillaries can be created (Fig. 4 & 5). When a coronary artery is clogged and the heart doesn’t have enough oxygen, new capillaries extend from another carotid artery to the clogged coronary artery in order to deliver blood to the area where oxygen is insufficient. How to elevate the function of capillaries There is nutrition that elevates the function of capillaries and prevents heart attack. The nutrition is Taurine. Taurine is rich in seafood, especially in shells, octopus, squid and blue back fishes. Sudden death is unexpected death caused by a disease, which happens within 24 hours after development of the disease. Check the risk of Sudden Death
How many clauses apply to you? If it is more than five, the risk of sudden death is high. People who live with the above life style easily feels stress and their life tends to be irregular. That causes the elevation of blood pressure and heart rate, putting a burden on the heart. It also easily happens that the flexibility of the blood vessel is lost, causing the hardening of the blood vessel. As a result, the risk of sudden death becomes higher. 60 % of sudden death are heart diseases. Acute Heart Failure Acute heart failure which we hear often as the cause of sudden death is the condition that the function of the heart suddenly declines and the heart stops. The major causes of acute heart failure are cardiomyopathy, valvular disease and myocardial infarction (heart attack). Among these, acute myocardial infarction has the highest risk of sudden death. Acute Myocardial Infarction The coronary artery which delivers blood to the heart muscle becomes narrower due to hardening of the blood vessel caused by the accumulation of cholesterol or others and if blood clots block the narrowed pathway and stops blood flow, the heart muscle can’t receive blood and becomes necrotic. This is called myocardial infarction. If the blocked area is not good, the heart suddenly stops and sudden death occurs within a few minutes, which is acute myocardial infarction. Sign of Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) Most myocardial infarctions happen after the process of angina. Angina is the condition that the heart muscle is lack of blood due to narrowing of coronary arteries. The major symptom in angina is pain in the chest accompanying pressure like squeezing. However, only half of people with angina shows this symptom. The remaining half complains about pain in abdomen, back, shoulder, arms, lower jaw, teeth or throat. This is called referred pain. Referred pain of angina occurs within 30 cm from the heart. Referred pain is caused by the brain mixing up pain in the other area with pain in the heart because the nerve for the heart goes into the same bundle of nerves as the nerves for other part of the body around the spinal cord. If the cause of the pain in the above area is unknown, it can be caused by angina. Risk Factors of Myocardial Infarction (Heart Attack) Risk factors causing myocardial infarction are: High blood pressure, Smoking, Dyslipidemia, Diabetes, Stress, Obesity, Aging, Heredity, etc. The risk of myocardial infarction caused by three major risk factors which are high blood pressure, smoking and dyslipidemia is twice higher than normal people if one of three applies to you, and the risk becomes 5 times higher if two of three apply to you, and the risk becomes about 10 times higher if all three apply to you. The key to prevent sudden death is Vascular Age Vascular age is a guide line of how old your blood vessel is. Blood vessels become harder with age. While blood vessels of 20s are flexible, soft and elastic, the blood vessels of 70s become hard and fragile. The higher the vascular age is, the higher the risk of hardening of blood vessels is. High vascular age elevates the risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack), cerebral infarction (stroke), high blood pressure and diabetes. Check the risk of your vascular age
If more than 4 clauses apply to you, your vascular age can be more than your age. How to rejuvenate vascular age To rejuvenate your vascular age, increasing NO in your blood is effective. NO softens and widens blood vessels. As a result of that, blood flow becomes better and waste matters are hard to attach the wall of blood vessels. It is important to take LTP (Lacto tripeptide) in order to increase NO. Food to rejuvenate your vascular age Experiment: 66 years old woman whose vascular age was 80 years old ate a specific food for a week and her vascular age became 64 years old (-16 years old). 67 years old male whose vascular age had been 70 years old ate the same food for a week and his vascular age became 44 years old (-26 years old). 6 out of 7 people who attended the experiment had younger vascular age after eating the specific food for a week. The food to rejuvenate your vascular age is Blue Cheese. 30 grams (1 Ounce) per day is recommended amount (Fig. 1). The amount of LTP (within 100 grams): Blue Cheese: 46 mg Cheder Cheese: 40 mg If you don’t like blue cheese, cheder cheese can be a replacement. Vascular Massage to rejuvenate Vascular Age 1. Put your left hand on the right chest below the clavicle. 2. Massage the muscle of the chest up and down, left and right with your palm for a minute (Fig. 2). 3. Massage the left chest with your right hand for a minute. 4. Massage inside of the forearm from the wrist to the elbow with the strength of good pain for both arms (Fig. 3). NO is secreted by the stimulation to the blood vessels. A healthy heart moves widely, repeating contraction and expansion. By this movement of the heart, blood is delivered to all over the body and we can maintain our life.
But if the function of the heart declines with age, the movement of the heart becomes smaller like the heart itself becomes hard. That makes the contraction and expansion of the heart smaller as well, and sufficient blood can’t be delivered to all over the body. This condition is the aging of the heart. Aging of the heart can cause sudden death such as heart failure even if you were fine the day before it happens. It has been considered so far that the major causes of heart failure were high blood pressure, high cholesterol and others. Recently a substance aging the heart has been discovered. The substance aging the heart exists in everybody’s body. if the substance aging the heart is secreted too much by some influence, negative effects are caused to the muscle of the heart, declining the pump function of the heart. According to a research conducted to 3000 Japanese people, the increase of the substance aging the heart doubled the risk of having heart diseases in 10 years. The substance aging the heart is a type of protein Protein taken from meals is broken down and transformed into various kinds of other protein in the body. The protein aging the heart is one of them. There are about 100 thousand kinds of protein in our body. Typical protein synthesized in our body are: Hemoglobin is a type of protein that delivers oxygen to all over the body by moving in the blood. Insulin is a type of protein which is a hormone controlling blood sugar. Collagen is a type of protein which consists of skin, bones, blood vessels, etc. The protein aging the heart is Angiopoietin-L2 which is normally secreted from the heart cells and maintains the condition of the heart cells, but over-increase of angiopoietin-L2 damages the muscles of the heart and declines the heart function. Angiopoietin-L2 is secreted from all the body cells. If it increases too much in the heart, aging of the heart is caused. If it increases too much in blood vessels, hardening of blood vessel is caused. If it increases too much in the skin, wrinkles are caused. According to a research using a mouse, if Angippoietin-L2 is always high, that elevates the risk of developing cancer. What increases Heart aging protein Angiopoietin-L2? One of the causes is aging, but the biggest cause is fat around the heart. Fat cells around the heart also secrete Angiopoietin-L2, so if there is a lot of fat around the heart, the heart function declines. What is the life habit accumulating fat around the heart? The difference between a person with high Angiopoietin-L2 (more fat around the heart) and a person with low Angiopoietin-L2(less fat around the heart) is sitting time (Fig. 1). According to a medical research paper published in US in 2014, regardless of doing exercises, the longer the sitting time is, the more fat around the heart accumulates. Continuing the life habit of sitting for a long time accumulates fat around the heart and other organs. There is a possibility that fat is accumulated around the heart if the weight has gained more than before. If you stand up once within an hour, more calories are consumed than sitting and it is expected to decrease the fat around the heart. Stretching decreases Heart Aging Protein It has turned out that stretching muscles suppresses the production of angiopoietin-L2. In addition to standing up at least once every hour, stretching yourself when you stand up is more effective. When you stretch yourself, raise your arms above your head crossing your fingers with your abdominal muscles stretched. |
IchiroThis Blog is for a memo of my clinical realizations, information about health I have learned recently and update information. Archives
April 2024
Categories
All
|