The One Critical Thing You Can Do to Protect Your Blood Vessels

You can eat right … you can exercise. But despite doing all of these things, you still haven’t done the number one thing that will protect your blood vessels.

And that’s critically important if you want to live a long and healthy life.

When you’re young, your blood vessels are thick and flexible. They provide blood flow to your heart – keeping it pumping strong. And they deliver oxygen-rich blood to every single organ in your body.

But by the time you’ve hit your 40s, chances are slim that your arteries have the elasticity they had in their youth.

It’s important to keep your arteries firm and flexible – so your heart and lungs can deliver oxygen-rich blood to your extremities, heart and brain.

You can take the single most important step toward keeping your blood vessels strong, elastic and performing their job for years to come.

It’s not cholesterol. It’s not triglycerides or calcium deposits.

This Substance is Floating in Your Bloodstream

For the past 20 years, I’ve noticed something interesting. Many of my heart patients have something in common: High blood levels of a simple, typically harmless amino acid: homocysteine.

I say “typically harmless,” because when levels are normal, it’s not a problem. However, when you have too much of it in your body it can affect the health of your arteries.

But there’s good news.

I’ve had success treating my patients with key nutrients that quickly reduce excess homocysteine. Many patients show an increase in their arterial health within a matter of weeks.

And here’s the great news: Even if you already have high levels of it racing through your blood, it can be easily addressed – as long as you get these nutrients in the right ratio.

It’s a surefire way to support your blood vessels, and today I’m going to share it with you. First, let me tell you about …

A Strong Link to Cardiovascular Health

It’s important to keep homocysteine at bay to keep your arteries strong, healthy and flexible, and to support your cardiovascular

health. In fact, there are a number of studies showing just that:

  • In a study published in the journal of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, researchers found that for every 10% increase in the blood level of homocysteine, there was an almost equal rise in the risk of developing serious arterial problems!1
  • Research from the Physician’s Health Study, which tracked 15,000 male physicians, found that those with low levels of it had overall better heart health than those with higher levels.2
  • A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms these findings. They discovered that high levels of this simple amino acid are the strongest predictor of death. More so than any other measured factor – including cholesterol.3

I’ve seen at least 20 more studies like this, indicating a strong link between high levels of this amino acid and overall cardiovascular health.

Bottom line: Maintaining low levels of homocysteine is critical to support the health of your heart and arteries.

Busting the Cholesterol Myth

Homocysteine Was Never
a Problem… Until Now

There was a time when high levels homocysteine weren’t a problem. Here’s why …

Almost everything our ancestors ate gave them the life-giving, heart-protecting nutrients they needed to stay healthy and strong. Their food was pure … untainted by the hands of man and modern technology. Their diet automatically gave them all the critical nutrients needed to flush out excess buildups of homocysteine.


Today’s world is a whole different story.

Now, most of our food is heavily processed and stripped of the powerful nutrients your body needs to heal and protect itself from disease. What’s more, even unprocessed foods like fruits and veggies are severely lacking in essential vitamins and minerals.

That’s because of advances in technology like over-farming, genetic modification, hybrid crops and commercial fertilizers. The net result is nutritionally impotent food that fails to give your body what it needs.

For example, you’d have to eat 10 servings of vegetables to equal just one serving from 50 years ago!

That’s why homocysteine has become such a big problem in today’s world. Without the critical nutrients that were once abundant in our food supply, your body is powerless. It can’t stop this amino acid from building up to dangerously high levels.

It always surprises me to see how many doctors let this potentially harmful amino acid – homocysteine – slip by unnoticed.

That’s because mainstream medicine is still hell-bent on lowering cholesterol.

But you know what?

Low cholesterol doesn’t mean healthy veins and cardiovascular system. Just take a look at some of the research that debunks this myth …

  • Research done at the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University found that nearly twice as many people with low cholesterol developed seriously poor cardiovascular health compared to those with high cholesterol.4
  • One of the most well-known and publicized heart studies is the Framingham study. The findings are nearly identical to the Yale study. Half of the subjects developed extremely poor heart health despite having low cholesterol. 5

The truth is there’s a sea of research that proves homocysteine is an important predictor of cardiovascular health.

For instance, in Norway, doctors studied a group of men for six years. They found that those with lower levels of homocysteine had better cardiovascular health.6

Another study found that men with low levels of it were less likely to have serious heart problems.7

When taken together, all this research suggests one thing: Homocysteine is a better predictor of cardiovascular health than cholesterol.

Every doctor learns about this amino acid over the course their medical training. So it’s a mystery why most don’t give it a second thought, since the benefits of lowering it have been documented repeatedly in clinical studies.

Good news is, all you need are three, all-natural, everyday nutrients to sweep out any excess of this amino acid from your bloodstream.

Guard Your Blood Vessels with 3 Simple Nutrients

You should get your blood levels checked. You could have high homocysteine levels and not know it.

There are no symptoms. Fortunately, a simple blood test can give you an accurate reading. I always tell my patients to keep their homocysteine level at 7 or below to maintain arterial health.

If your levels are high, don’t panic. There’s an easy way to lower your homocysteine levels: B vitamins. B vitamins are the “missing” link your body needs to get rid of this potentially harmful amino acid.

Researchers at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) found that those who took B vitamins saw their homocysteine levels drop. But those who didn’t take them saw their levels actually increase.8 This confirms what I’ve seen in my heart patients in the last 20 years.

Vitamin B-6. B-6 is one of the most overlooked supplements. Over 60 different bodily enzymes rely on B-6 to do their job properly.

You can get B-6 from the following foods:

Food

Quantity

B-6 (mg)

Chicken Breast

3 ounces

0.6

Pork Loin

3 ounces

0.4

Banana

1 medium size

0.6

Watermelon

1 cup

0.23

Black Beans

1 cup, (boiled)

0.12

Spinach

½ cup

0.22

I recommend getting at least 50 mg of B-6 daily for your heart health.

Vitamin B-12. A study from Oxford in England found that as much as 500 micrograms of B-12 lowers homocysteine.9

Lean meats — particularly grass-fed beef — and organ meats are a great source of B-12. Here’s a list of other good sources:

Food

B-12 (mcg)

Mollusks, clams, cooked, 3 oz

84.1

Liver, beef, braised, 1 slice

47.9

Trout, rainbow, wild, cooked, 3 oz

5.4

Salmon, sockeye, cooked, 3 oz

4.9

Beef, top sirloin, lean, choice, broiled, 3 oz

2.4

Haddock, cooked, 3 oz

1.2

Tuna, white, canned in water, drained solids, 3 oz

1.0

Milk, 1 cup

.9

Vitamin B-9. You probably know vitamin B-9 better as folate or folic acid. Folate is the nutrient found in food, while folic acid is the supplement form. It’s a key B vitamin for heart health.

Folic acid lowers levels of toxic substances that irritate the heart’s lining. Less endothelial irritations equates to a reduction in cardiac events.

One study found that “folic acid supplementation significantly improved endothelial dysfunction…” 10

The best natural sources of folate are vegetables. Vegetables with the highest folate content are dark, leafy greens like spinach, kale and romaine lettuce. But, your body only absorbs half of the folate you consume. So taking folic acid as a supplement is a good idea. I recommend getting 800 mcg a day.

And there’s one other supplement I recommend to lower your homocysteine levels. It’s called trimethylglycine (TMG).

When researchers at the University of New South Wales studied people with genetically elevated homocysteine, they discovered that adding TMG to a regimen of B vitamins kept homocysteine levels at 25% of the pre-TMG levels. 11

I recommend getting 1,000 mg of trimethylglycine each day.

  1. Verhoef P, et. al. Plasma total homocysteine, B vitamins, and risk of coronary atherosclerosis. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology 17:989-995, 1997.
  2. Stamper M et al. A prospective study of plasma homocysteine and the risk of myocardial infarction in US physicians. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1992 Aug 19; 268(7): 877-881
  3. Nygard O, et al. Plasma homocysteine levels and mortality in patients with coronary artery disease. New Engl J Med, 1997, 337:230-6.
  4. Krumholz HM, Seeman TE, Merrill SS, et al. Lack of association between cholesterol and coronary heart disease mortality and morbidity and all-cause mortality in persons older than 70 years. Journal of the American Medical Association. 1994 Nov; 272(17): 1335-1340.
  5. Gordon T, Castelli WP, Hjortland MC et al. High density lipoprotein as a positive factor against coronary heart disease. The Framingham Study. American Journal of Medicine. 1997 May; 62(5): 707-714.
  6. Nygard, O., Nordrehaug, J.E., Refsum, H., et al. Plasma homocysteine levels and mortality in patients with coronary artery disease. New Engl J Med, 1997, 337: 230-6.
  7. Wald NJ, Watt HC, Law MR, Weir DG, McPartlin J, Scott JM. Homocysteine and ischemic heart disease: results of a prospective study with implications regarding prevention. Arch Intern Med. 1998; 158:862-7.
  8. Howard N. Hodis, MD et al. “High-Dose B Vitamin Supplementation and Progression of Subclinical Atherosclerosis,” Stroke. 2009;40:730-736
  9. Clark R, et al. Vitamin supplements and cardiovascular risk. Semin Thromb Hemost. 2000;26(3):341-8.
  10. Title L. et al., Effect of folic acid and antioxidant vitamins on endothelial dysfunction in patients with coronary artery disease. Am Coll Cardiology 2000 Sep; 36(3): 758-65
  11. http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag97/july97_cover3.htm