What are heart and circulatory disorders?
Heart and circulatory disorders – also known as Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) - are a large group of conditions that can affect the heart and circulatory systems, which include the heart and blood vessels, as well as arteries, veins, and capillaries.
Disorders include coronary heart disease, angina, heart attack, congenital heart disease and stroke, as well as conditions such as hypertension, high cholesterol levels, varicose veins and Raynaud’s disease.
They are grouped together because the natural approach to treatment for all of them is basically the same.
What causes heart and circulatory disorders?
Your circulatory system is mechanical in nature. Put simply, it works just like a pump circulating fluid through a series of pipes. In the same way that such a pump system would fail if there were something wrong with the pump, or if the pipes became clogged, failure of the heart or clogging of the arteries leads to a failure of the circulatory system.
Can I prevent heart and circulatory disorders?
Factors that can contribute to heart and circulatory disorders that you can control include: 
- Smoking
- Excessive alcohol consumption
- Excessive caffeine consumption
- High intake of saturated fats
- Stress
- Obesity
- Lack of exercise
- High blood pressure
- Diabetes
- ...and generally poor eating habits!
Addressing these will not only reduce your risk of developing heart disease or CVD, but also help improve your general health and wellbeing
What are the standard treatments for heart or circulatory disorders?
Many different medicines are used to treat heart and circulatory disease. Usually they either aim to reduce blood pressure or widen the arteries, but often also include cholesterol-lowering medications. All these medicines have side effects to a greater or lesser degree.
How does healthy nutrition help treat heart and circulatory disease naturally?
Heart and circulatory disorders are not an inevitable part of ageing. Many preventative measures can be taken to avoid them and in many cases prevent them from getting worse… and sometimes even reverse them.
Your diet has an important influence on the health of your blood vessels. Some of the foods you eat cause cholesterol plaques to build up in your arteries, which are the vessels that carry blood away from the heart and toward the body cells. If these vessels become clogged by plaque, blood can’t be delivered as efficiently. Similarly, if vessels harden, they're susceptible to tearing, which can lead to clot formation and clogging of the vessels.
Improving blood supply
The main goal of any treatment for heart and circulatory disease is to improve blood supply to the heart and improve the health of our blood vessels. An effective approach to keeping your heart and circulatory system healthy includes:
- Following a whole food, fibre-rich anti-inflammatory diet
- Managing cholesterol levels,
- Identifying food allergies and intolerances
- Maintaining a healthy weight
- Regular exercise
- Limiting alcohol consumption
- Correcting nutritional deficiencies
...and the appropriate use of natural supplements and home remedies.
DID YOU KNOW?
Heart and circulatory disorders are not an inevitable part of ageing. Many preventative measures can be taken to avoid them and in many cases prevent them from getting worse… and sometimes even reverse them.