An Overlooked Aspect of Heart Health
By Mark J Kaylor
While February is officially heart health month it may actually be more appropriate to have all 12 months of the year as heart health considering that every 20 seconds someone in the US has a heart attack while every 34 seconds someone dies of heart disease. With these kinds of statistics you’d think we be doing everything we can to prevent cardiovascular disease. But are we? There’s more to heart health than most folks think. Typically when one hears about blood sugar and insulin most of us immediately think of diabetes. Did you know though, that blood sugar and insulin and balances are actually at the “heart” of many cardiovascular concerns?
The primary issue here is a process that involves our cells becoming less and less sensitive to insulin thereby raising blood sugar levels and causing the pancreas to continually produce more and more insulin. This then becomes a pernicious cycle as the cells react negatively to the excessive insulin production that then leads to even more insulin resistance. Herein is the concern that many of us have overlooked with regards to our heart health; insulin resistance is a major underlying abnormality driving the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in much of the world’s cardiovascular disease. Insulin resistance is a risk factor for high triglycerides, obesity, coronary artery disease, atherosclerosis, dyslipidemia, hypertension, homocysteine, and clotting issues.
The Good News
The good news is that there is much we can do to prevent insulin resistance as well as improve our insulin sensitivity. There is a specific extraction of the Maitake mushroom called SX-Fraction that in multiple lab and clinical studies demonstrated the ability to effectively lower both blood sugar and insulin levels. In fact in one study the SX-Fraction exhibited efficacy similar to or even better to a leading pharmaceutical drug. Evidence of its ability to improve insulin sensitivity and support heart health is found in its research confirmed ability to lower blood pressure, total and LDL cholesterol, HbA1c, and triglycerides.
With research coming out almost daily emphasizing the importance for maintaining healthy blood sugar and insulin levels, as well as a number of other health concerns, it may behoove us to be more attentive to these important measures of our health.
