Healthy Living
  • Truehope Blog

Healthy Living

with

Picture

Preventing Heart Disease by Managing Blood Sugar

2/27/2019

 
Picture
Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes have risen to epidemic levels in Canada. One in four of us either has diabetes, undiagnosed diabetes, or prediabetes. Diabetes Canada says this will rise to one in three by 2020 if we don’t take action.

The numbers are concerning because diabetes is a major risk factor for heart disease. Unfortunately doctors find that people with type 2 diabetes often have a number of other risk factors for heart disease as well. These include being overweight, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and being inactive. People with diabetes are at risk of developing heart disease 15 years before those without!

Last week we talked about holistic approaches to reduce your risk of heart disease, and today we’re going to focus on the blood sugar regulation piece of the puzzle.
Picture
Want more info on OLE? Click the bottle!
Truehope OLE (Olive Leaf Extract) 
OLE is a powerful supplement to augment lifestyle approaches to managing diabetes and prediabetes. Studies show it acts as a hypoglycemic agent by slowing the digestion of starches by slowing their breakdown into simple sugars. It then slows absorption from the digestive tract into the body, while increasing the uptake of blood glucose into cells. 
Chronically elevated blood sugar levels cause significant damage when free radicals outnumber antioxidants. This is oxidative stress. This triggers inflammation and damage from a process called glycation. Antioxidant-rich OLE and it’s active ingredient oleuropein, however, can protect tissues from this damage. 

We recommend taking one 500mg capsule of Truehope OLE twice a day to start.
Truehope Inositol
Truehope Inositol helps the body use insulin, the hormone that signals our cells to take in blood glucose. It can also help with insulin signalling, which reduces insulin resistance (when the cells ignore insulin’s request to take up sugar from the bloodstream). 

When blood glucose can be moved into your cells, your body can make energy from it, lowering your blood sugar levels.

Picture
Want more info on Inositol? Click the bottle!
We recommend starting with 5g (1.5 teaspoons) of Truehope Inositol daily and increasing to a max of 25g/day. 

Other approaches to reducing your risk of heart disease
Truehope OLE and Truehope Inositol are effective partners in managing blood sugar levels. Check on your progress by working with your doctor to monitor your blood sugar and hemoglobin A1c levels. This is the standard test showing long term exposure to elevated blood sugar over the last 120 days.

For more holistic approaches to reduce your risk of heart disease, make sure you check out last week’s article. 

​​

Lifestyle Approaches to Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease

2/20/2019

 
According to Health Canada, a Canadian dies from heart disease or stroke every 7 minutes. That’s 206 people per day! Heart disease affects approximately 2.4 million Canadian adults, and is the second leading cause of death in Canada. ​​
The Heart Research Institute says ninety percent of Canadians over the age of 20 have at least one risk factor for heart disease. What can you do to avoid being part of these alarming statistics? Luckily, research by The Heart and Stroke Foundation says 8 out of 10 cases of premature heart disease and stroke cases are entirely preventable.

So let’s talk about prevention! You can reduce your risk by changing your lifestyle choices:

Quit (or do not start) smoking
It’s common knowledge, but we’ll say it anyways: quit (or don’t start) smoking. This includes marijuana too as studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and American Heart Journal show it should likely be avoided as well. While the evidence doesn’t seem as strong as with tobacco, we will be keeping our eyes open as the number of research studies increases due legalization of marijuana in Canada.

Get enough sleep
We talked about this in our last post, “The Connection Between Sleep and Heart Health”. Being underslept increases your risk of insulin resistance, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

Avoid alcohol
While there’s some evidence a glass of red wine every now and again is good for your heart, it’s not a good idea to drink more under the guise of prevention. No alcohol at all is the healthiest for your overall health.

Get regular physical activity
Exercise that raises your heart rate for 20 minutes, for a minimum of three times a week is a good starting point. Full body movements are ideal, like walking, cycling, and swimming. You’re aiming to be out of breath, but still able to hold a conversation. Of course, the best kind of exercise is always the kind that you enjoy and actually do! So get moving!

Reduce stress
Reducing stress is easy to say, but not always easy to do! Carve out the time to do the things you love. Spend time with your family, read, hike, or do some yoga. You can also learn how to set boundaries. Practice saying “no” which will help you cut back on stressful things you feel you “should” be doing. Meditation is another technique that helps, whether that’s in a group class, on your own, or using an app like Headway or Calm.

Eat nutritious foods
An easy place to begin is to start reading the ingredient labels on your food. Avoid processed foods as much as possible. Aim for foods that your great grandmother might have cooked and used. A good place to start on a heart healthy diet includes:
  • Eating coldwater fish like salmon, sardines and mackerel three times per week.
  • Eating extra virgin olive oil and Truehope OLE (Olive Leaf Extract) daily.
  • Eliminating inflammatory omega 6 rich fats like most vegetable and seed oils, including corn, canola, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, peanut, sesame and rice bran oil.
  • Eliminating trans fats.
  • Eating a rainbow of colourful fruits and vegetables with every meal. A combination of cooked and raw is ideal.
  • Eliminating processed sugars, including sugary drinks and juices.

Avoid the use of hormonal birth control
The estrogen in hormonal birth control can cause an increase in blood clots, particularly in women over the age of 35. Women who have increased risk of cardiovascular disease like age, being overweight, diabetes, or smoking should consider not using hormonal birth control.

Working preventatively
These basic lifestyle factors can help reduce your risk of cardiovascular problems. According to Health Canada if you have already experienced a heart attack or stroke, they can help reduce your risk of having another one.
There are risk factors that we can’t control -- age, gender, family history, and ethnicity -- which makes the things we can control even more important.
While working preventatively and managing your lifestyle to be heart healthy doesn’t guarantee you won’t get heart disease, but it does mean you’re more likely to avoid or delay it.

Why a Good Night's Sleep is Heart Healthy

2/13/2019

 
Picture
For some of us sleep is elusive, something we chase, desperately hoping for more. At the same time others eschew it to squeeze more into their day. Commonly, sleep is seen as expendable. We load up on coffee and power through because being productive is highly valued in our society. However, while we might feel we get more done, the effects of not getting enough sleep are wide-reaching.


The truth is if you’re chronically underslept you have a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease. This is true regardless of your age, how much you weigh, your exercise habits, and whether you smoke.

The 8 Sleep facts you need to know
  • Less than 6 hours of sleep per day is associated with low-grade chronic inflammation. Chronic or systemic inflammation is connected to every chronic illness.
  • Sleeping less can increase your C-reactive protein (CRP), something your body produces when under stress and inflamed. Your CRP levels are a better predictor of cardiovascular problems than cholesterol levels.
  • Poor sleep affects the hormones that regulate your appetite, making you want to eat more calories, and eat more processed foods like candy and chips.
  • Six or less hours of sleep per night is connected to worsening insulin resistance, an increased risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
  • Sleeping less than 8 hours a night leads to an increased body mass index (a measure of body fat in relation to height) proportional to the decreased amount of sleep.
  • A decrease in sleep from your normal 6, 7, or 8 hours a night, is connected to increased mortality by cardiovascular disease.
  • Chronic sleep deprivation is associated with increased heart rate, and increased blood pressure.
  • Being underslept makes you tired and sluggish, decreasing your energy expenditure and making it harder to exercise, eat well, or stick to all your healthy intentions.

There is hope though. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation “8 in 10 cases of premature heart disease and stroke cases are preventable through healthy lifestyle behaviours.” To maintain a heart healthy lifestyle, you need to be getting 7-8 hours of sleep per night.
Nothing else can happen without a good night's sleep!


People who can genuinely thrive on 5-6 hours sleep without negative health consequences are as rare as supermodels. Are you a supermodel? We’re not either, so let’s be honest with ourselves:

  • Do you feel refreshed when you wake up in the morning (no snooze button!)?
  • Are you fully functioning, at peak performance throughout the day without dips in your energy?
  • Can you sit quietly and read a book on the sofa without feeling sleepy?

If the answers to the these questions are ‘no’, then maybe you should start by getting more sleep.

Sleep is often overlooked in our society. We go to bed later and later because we see sleep as expendable, a time that can be better spent doing more “productive” things. But the science is clear, the length and quality of your sleep is fundamental to your cardiovascular health. We recommend making sleep a priority in your cardioprotective lifestyle plan.

Olive Leaf Extract and Heart Health

2/6/2019

 
Picture
You’ve probably heard about the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet, and that it has been linked to a decrease in chronic diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease.

​One of the main ingredients of the Mediterranean Diet is olive oil and it’s the polyphenol Oleuropein that makes olive oil so special. Oleuropein can be found in all parts of the olive tree, and it’s a powerhouse when it comes to heart health!
Picture
Want to know more? Click the bottle!
Studies show the cardioprotective nature of Oleuropein in Olive Leaf Extract is significant. The Oleuropein found in Truehope OLE (Olive Leaf Extract) is a liquid extract made from fresh olive leaves, and is standardized to 17% Oleuropein. This concentration allows you to get all the benefits at a greater concentration than you get from the oil.
Olive Leaf Extract has nearly Double the Antioxidants of Green Tea
Lower blood pressure
Olive Leaf Extract helps with blood pressure regulation both preventatively and as a treatment. One study - “Olive (Olea europaea) leaf extract effective in patients with stage-1 hypertension: comparison with Captopril” - showed Olive Leaf Extract worked as well as a prescription ACE-inhibitor. Both were equally effective in vasodilating and reducing tension in the blood vessel walls, leading to lower blood pressure.

Protects against oxidative damage
The antioxidant property of Olive Leaf Extract reduces LDL cholesterol. It also prevents free radicals from oxidizing LDL cholesterol, which could otherwise contribute to inflammation that damages arteries and contributes to atherosclerosis.

Acts as an anti-inflammatory
While acute inflammation is beneficial and necessary to heal things like cuts and sprained ankles, systemic inflammation is a factor in chronic disease. Systemic inflammation is caused by a wide variety of nutritional, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Olive Leaf Extract helps to decrease the the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines involved in the development of systemic inflammation.

Improves overall cardiovascular health
Olive leaf extract helps fight damage to the vascular endothelium, the thin layer of cells lining the blood vessels. This damage is called endothelial dysfunction, and contributes to the hardening of the arteries in atherosclerosis.

Truehope OLE is an essential part of a cardioprotective lifestyle. We recommend taking one 500mg capsule twice a day (at minimum) to reap the heart healthy benefits! 
    Picture

    Author

    We want to provide nothing but the highest quality information and advice for our followers to improve their health, which is why at Truehope Canada, we're happy to say our writer is a Certified Life Coach and Registered Holistic Nutritionist.
    We know, we're excited about this too!  

    Categories

    All
    Holidays

    Previous Posts

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018

      Want to be notified of upcoming Truehope Presentations, Promos and Products? Sign up!  

    Subscribe to Newsletter
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Truehope Blog