HEART AND BLOOD CIRCULATORY PROBLEMS

Not long afterwards, I met Jan de Vries and a vast array of different methods of diagnosis and treatment, often ignored by conventional medical training and practice, was opened up to me. These various disciplines, commonly placed under the umbrella term “alternative medicine”, have fascinated me ever since and have made me examine the way medicine is organised and practised in the community and the hospitals around us.

The fact that this particular lecturer was allowed to give such a lecture to young and impressionable medical students is a sign of the change taking place in the thinking of the medical profession. This, of course, is far from universal and so very often we still encounter hostile comments from those who are less open-minded. Many patients still feel reluctant to tell their general practitioners that they are using herbal or homoeopathic remedies. I keep reminding my friends in the medical profession that many years ago herbal medicine was the only form of medicine available, and not the alternative it is seen as today.

Many readers of this book will either themselves be suffering from a heart disorder or will know of someone who is. For those affected by such problems, one of the most commonly used pharmaceutical preparations is digoxin. It is interesting to note that one of the first plants used to help those with heart problems was the foxglove, introduced by Withering in 1785 following a conversation he had with a woman who was well known for her expertise in “folk medicine”. The main active component of the foxglove was later named digoxin, and it is now one of the most useful of pharmaceutical drugs used by doctors for heart problems.

In this book, Jan de Vries has covered in great detail the many aspects of heart and circulatory disorders as viewed from one side of what may be called complementary medicine. The other aspect, so very useful in the appropriate circumstance, is the side seen by cardiology departments all over the country, and many readers will be familiar with coronary care units, ECG tests, exercise tests, heart scans etc. Operations to bypass blocked arteries can be important and there is a place for this form of treatment with the right patient, but not every patient will be needing or even wanting one. There are many heart conditions where more natural and safer methods are useful and effective, but on the other hand, arguably, one of the safest places to be after a heart attack has occurred is the hospital.

There are many points of agreement between the two sides concerning the prevention, management and treatment of heart conditions that cannot be stressed enough. Diet, lifestyle, stress, smoking, etc. are extremely important and merit careful consideration. More recent research has shown that the use of fish oils can be of great benefit to those with heart complaints, something which has been believed by those practising natural medicine for a long time, based on simple observation and intuition. No doubt, much more common ground in this and other areas of medicine will be rediscovered in time.

All through the years during which I have known Jan, he has always preached that what are known as orthodox and alternative medicine must eventually meet. For the past twenty years he has worked towards the goal of achieving methods which can be complementary. Many significant steps have been made recently, and this cannot fail to be heartening for someone whose contribution to this field cannot be underestimated.

It must have been a sixth sense that had alerted me, because all of a sudden I saw his complexion change and he toppled over to end up lying motionless on the floor. I rushed over and helped in the effort to revive him, but to no avail. Unfortunately, this gentleman had suffered a massive heart attack and the end had been very quick.

When, eventually, the commotion had died down many passengers returned to their tables. Their meals, which had by now grown cold, were quickly whisked away and they once again made their way to the counter to choose from the wide selection of foods available before settling down to continue their meals. I sat there and studied some of them returning with heaped plates and watched them putting away enormous amounts of food, all the time talking excitedly about the unfortunate event they had witnessed only a little earlier.

I was astonished that they seemed to be quite unaware of the fact that they were effectively inflicting on themselves similar dietary mismanagement to that exhibited by the unfortunate gentleman just before he expired. I found myself wondering whether they could really be so ignorant of general dietary guidelines, or whether they were merely in a holiday mood and had temporarily decided to throw all caution to the wind.

Such an abundance or even a haphazard selection of food can easily contribute to a hardening of the arteries or to general obesity. When the first of these happens extra demands are then placed on the heart, which is required to pump the blood through restricted or less flexible arteries and veins. Obesity on its own requires more effort from the heart than would otherwise be necessary.

Do any of us ever stop to appreciate the continual task the heart mostly so faithfully performs? Do we really show this organ enough of the respect it so richly deserves? The unfortunate gentleman on the ferry may have experienced several warnings that something was wrong. He had possibly ignored those signs, but it is more likely that he was well aware that something was not quite right. If he had sought advice he might still have been there enjoying the holiday atmosphere along with his fellow passengers. Any counsellor would have pointed out to him that he was putting undue pressure on his heart by continuing to over-indulge his appetite in view of the excess weight he was already carrying., There is indeed much truth in the saying that we could easily eat and drink ourselves into an early grave.

The body can be regarded as a unique piece of equipment: if the maintenance and service guidelines are not adhered to, that is, a reasonable intake of food and drink and the taking of regular and sensible exercise, this equipment will not function at its optimum.

A word much bandied about nowadays is “cholesterol”. It has become such a fashionable word that it appears more and more frequently on the labels of jars and bottles, especially in the case of dairy produce. Excess cholesterol often contributes to arteriosclerosis and as such endangers our health.

Only recently I returned from a most interesting visit to India, where, once again, I had seen for myself the effects of food shortages or the lack of nutritional variety. In the relatively affluent western world we have an abundance of food, a fact we so often involuntarily abuse; moreover, by doing so we endanger our health. While in the Far East and other Third World countries under-nourishment constitutes a serious health threat, we in the West could well be accused of risking our health by over-eating. The strain we place on our hearts by our modern lifestyles can be just as fatal as if we were subjected to under-nourishment. Many facets of our health are affected by gluttony, but for now I intend to concentrate on its effects on the heart.

The heart is only a small organ — barely larger than a fist — but for twenty-four hours a day, day in and day out, it ceaselessly performs a valiant task. During an average lifetime the heart pumps 500 million pints of blood through the body. Taking into account that the average body contains 8–10 pints of blood, the continual circulation of the blood through the body means that the heart pumps as much as 14,000 pints of blood daily. The lungs also play a major part by renewing the oxygen in the blood before it is pumped through the body again and again. This means that the heart beats about 100,000 times a day — almost 3,000 million times during an average lifetime. The heart muscles contract spontaneously every twenty-three seconds and the task these muscles perform can be equated to lifting a weight of 70 kg to a height of 300 metres every day. The heart depends on an intricate network of arteries, veins and capillaries which, if placed end to end, would have a total length of thousands of kilometres. These figures are very impressive, all the more so as they relate to only one of our major organs.

In days gone by, the heart was often referred to as a spiritual matter, and this does not appear to be totally unjustified in the context of emotions, shocks or fears. We have all experienced sudden palpitations when, for example, we have come to realise how narrowly we had just escaped danger by reckless driving. We also feel our heart miss a beat if we are suddenly startled out of a reverie or while we were preoccupied with another matter, and when it picks up the beat again it does so with a thump. To a certain extent I must confess to agreeing with some of the mysticism ascribed to the heart. Even the Egyptians considered the heart to be “the soul of the body”. No doubt the Greeks had a more sophisticated turn of phrase for a similar idea and other civilisations also identified the heart with the life power or the spirit of the individual.

William Harvey (1578–1657), the English physician, had his own beliefs regarding the heart and when he published his conclusions on the movement of the blood by the heart he made a great impression on the medical world of his time.

Today we have well and truly reached the age of transplant surgery, but many of us can still remember when we heard about the first successful heart transplant operation. Since then the medical establishment has progressed to combined heart and lung transplants to name but one advance, and much research is still continuing. Even so, let us remember the biblical quote that “from the heart come the exits of life”.

The heart fulfils a physical, mental and spiritual role in life and its functions can be encouraged and animated by following a regime of healthy food and drink intake, sensible exercise and mental stimulation through relaxation and meditation.

The incidence of coronary thrombosis is already presenting enormous problems. The occurrence of heart attacks and strokes is constantly on the increase and when we read or hear the relevant statistics we are often left wondering how we can improve our chances against falling victim to such illnesses.

As a youngster during World War II I actually ate grass to avert my hunger pains when there was no food available whatsoever. I can remember, too, seeing people collapse in the street and dying because of the lack of food and even more so the lack of adequate nutrition. Yet during those days, coronary thrombosis, heart attacks, and strokes claimed relatively few victims and the proportion of deaths attributable to heart failure or arterial problems was significantly lower than it is in our period of relative affluence.

The higher standard of living we enjoy today is certainly responsible for the present trends; in particular the tremendous increase in the use of sugar is contributory to two of the major problems, namely high blood pressure and cholesterol. Both afflictions can be countered with dietary changes. However, the increase of coronary thrombosis cannot be blamed solely on high blood pressure or lack of exercise. Factors such as tension, stress, smoking and drinking also account for the accelerated incidence of such illnesses.

It is a well-established fact that smoking is harmful. We often worry about cholesterol in the arteries but we ought to be equally if not more worried about loose particles being moved through the arteries by circulating blood. It is a fact that smoking and drinking exacerbate such problems. There is no doubt that nicotine is harmful as it constricts the coronary arteries and therefore acts like a slow poison.

A few months ago I unexpectedly lost my brother due to heart failure while he was enjoying his annual holiday. Like me, he was brought up with the knowledge that smoking and drinking were detrimental to one’s health and when at all possible my mother had raised us on a healthy and varied diet. However, during the war my brother took up smoking, initially without the knowledge of my parents, and he had continued to smoke ever since. He used to be an excellent sportsman, always remained active and throughout his life he had never lost a day’s work due to illness. He had a clean record with his doctor and only a few days before setting off on his fated holiday with his wife and a couple of friends, he participated in a sponsored swim.

My brother was happily driving along in his car when suddenly his friend in the passenger seat noticed that he was losing his control over the steering wheel. This friend managed to manoeuvre the car onto the hard shoulder. My brother had suffered a massive heart attack and his death was instantaneous.

I could hardly comprehend the news when I was told. So often when we hear of the death of a family member or a friend we realise that we ought to have recognised the signs because their mental or physical activity or alertness had decreased. This had not been the case with my brother. I do, however, feel that if he had paid heed to our warnings and had stopped smoking a long time ago, he might have been able to enjoy a much longer life.

It is sensible to undergo a medical check-up every now and then. After all, when our car is three years old we take it in for an MOT test. Surely, the importance of our car cannot be less than that of our health! So often we can hear little alarm bells if we are only prepared to listen – I call it a kind of body language telling us that something is out of sorts. If we train ourselves to be attentive to them, we may be able to bring things under control before any serious harm is done. However, more often than not it seems easier to ignore such signs because of the pressure we apply to ourselves in demanding jobs and our general pace of life. It may not seem convenient just at that particular moment to make a doctor’s appointment. Next week will do! But the following week we forget about it until the next warning — that is if we are lucky enough to get another warning! We owe it to ourselves to pay heed to and interpret such body language that indicates that we are on the wrong track.

To help us in this there are some simple tests and I will give further attention to these in a later chapter in this book, where I will also offer some preventative advice (see page 129). One rule, however, is to sit down after having taken some exercise and enjoy a minute’s rest. Then take the pulse rate over a period of thirty seconds. Double the count of the pulse and if this is higher than 130, your exercise was too strenuous. A total count of about 100 constitutes a good level of fitness. There are quite a few simple tests and they will help us to discover our level of fitness and whether we are placing ourselves at undue risk.

If is often claimed that good health is determined by a strong and healthy heart, by clean and free-flowing blood and by unobstructed and flexible blood vessels. Of course this accounts for a sensible outlook on life, but in order to sincerely respect our health without taking it for granted, we must remind ourselves of the enormous and continual task the heart performs. Without interruption, the blood is pumped through the body, transporting oxygen and nourishment to the furthest extremities, as well as directing waste products to their destination.

Even the most competent scientist would be hard pressed to exactly identify and specify the workings of our blood circulatory system. It is stated in the Bible that “the soul is in the blood” and we must never allow ourselves to become complacent and forget how important it is to keep our blood clear and free-flowing and our circulatory system in as good a working order as we can. This “river of life” can be easily disturbed by unnatural influences, for example, drug abuse, nicotine, alcohol or an inadequate dietary regime.

It is amazing to realise the distributive function of the lymphatic or white bloodstream that is responsible for the body fluids. The so-called white bloodstream distributes leukocytes — which act as a kind of police force — and the essential lymphocytes — constituting circulatory cells.

The arteries branch out into veins, which in turn branch out into capillaries, which provide blood to each and every cell in the body; together, these vessels cover an enormous distance. This system deserves our full support to keep this magnificent function in optimum working order and if we take sufficient care, we ourselves will be the beneficiaries. If, on the other hand, we allow the condition of our blood to decline, our health will undoubtedly decline too. It is the purpose of this book to direct the reader towards ways in which we can take the necessary care to maintain a good circulation and from the following chapters it will become clear how important a role our lifestyle plays in this respect.

The early symptoms of angina could quite easily be overlooked and dismissed as a minor discomfort. If ignored, this condition could easily develop into a full-blown angina pectoris displaying not only the aforementioned symptoms but also a painful tightening in the chest caused by a restriction in the supply of blood to the heart. This again is often conveniently explained away as a muscular strain.

Some time ago I had diagnosed a middle-aged to elderly female patient as suffering from all the symptoms of angina and stressed the importance of her seeking her general practitioner’s help. Afterwards, I learned that she had not taken my advice and within six months she had died from heart failure. So often I see that apparently minor discomforts are brushed aside without a second thought, while later they are found to have been the first tell-tale signs of a serious illness. It is difficult to draw the line between when one might be considered a hypochondriac and when it is wise to make further investigations. The body will always let us know if something is not quite right, but please do not become neurotic about every little sign of a minor discomfort. Learn to listen to the language of your own body because usually it is a combination of seemingly unconnected and trivial irregularities that point towards a more major disorder. Any persistent, niggling complaints could well amount to an early warning system. If this happens to you, do something about it.