The Real Cause of Heart Attacks
If a blockage isn't the cause of the heart attack, then what is? Cowan makes a strong case for three basic causes of heart attacks, in the following order of importance or likelihood:
1. Decreased parasympathetic tone followed by sympathetic nervous system activation. You have two nervous systems, a central and an autonomic. Your autonomic nervous system has two arms: the sympathetic fight-or-flight, and the parasympathetic, which governs rest and digestion.
Decreased parasympathetic tone results from stress, diabetes, high blood pressure and other factors, including emotional and psychological ones. That's the first thing that happens. Then, while under the influence of a low parasympathetic tone, you experience some sort of emotional, psychological or physical stress that activates your sympathetic nervous system.
This shifts your cell metabolism from the mitochondria to the cytoplasm, meaning the cells in your heart shift from using fat for fuel, to generating fuel in a glycolytic way through the fermentation of sugar. Once that glycolytic shift occurs, you enter into glycolytic metabolism where you burn sugar for fuel and make lactic acid. As in other muscles, lactic acid in the heart muscle causes the telltale cramps and pain known as angina.
Since your heart cannot stop contracting to allow the blood flow to flush out the lactic acid, the lactic acid builds up, causing localized metabolic acidosis that necroses or destroys the cardiac tissue. Also, when the tissue becomes acidic, calcium cannot enter the tissue. As a result, the heart muscle cannot contract properly.
Next, pressure in the arteries embedded in the non-moving area of your heart builds, which then breaks off little pieces. These are the "clots" conventional cardiology believes are the cause of the heart attack.
But the clots are not due to plaque, they're the result of pressure in the non-moving area of your heart, which is the result of not getting calcium into the cells, which is the result of lactic acid forming from the altered metabolism in the heart. This chain of events, Cowan believes, is the real cause of most heart attacks.
2. Collateral circulation failure. Diabetes, smoking and high-stress all affect collateral circulation, not major blood vessels, and all of these are known to raise your risk of a heart attack.
3. Particularly badly placed plaque formation. This is not the norm, but could occur.
Indeed, one of the problems with using carbohydrates as a primary fuel — which a majority of people in the West are doing — is that it generates more reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secondary free radicals. Chronically, this will cause mitochondrial damage. I like to simplify it by saying that carbs are dirty fuels — dirty in the sense that they generate excessive amounts of free radicals that poison the mitochondria.
It's this dirty fuel — the net carbs — that creates fermentation metabolism and subsequent lactic acid production. The answer is not to take more antioxidants. The answer is to reduce the production of free radicals by reducing net carbs and increasing the amount of healthy dietary fats you eat.
This is a core tenet of a healthy diet, and if you understand Cowan's explanation above, and how carbs act as a dirty fuel, you'll have a good understanding of why a high-sugar diet causes heart disease and heart attacks.
Treatment Alternative for Heart Disease
To address the primary issue of decreased parasympathetic tone followed by sympathetic nervous system activation, an adrenal hormone called ouabain, or strophanthin, could be used. Strophanthus is the name of the plant, the active ingredient of which is called g-strophanthin in Europe, and ouabain in the United States.
G-strophanthin is an endogenous (meaning "made in us") hormone that goes into your blood, to your heart, where it converts the lactic acid into pyruvate, which is actually the preferred fuel for your heart. In this way, g-strophanthin breaks and eliminates the buildup of lactic acid that is causing all the trouble. Not only that, it converts it to a fully usable fuel, allowing your heart to function properly again.
G-strophanthin also helps create more neurotransmitters of the parasympathetic nervous system. So it performs two central functions: 1) It supports your parasympathetic nervous system, and 2), It flushes out lactic acid. Unfortunately, strophanthus can be hard to find. You cannot simply pick it up at your local health food store.
"Strophanthus was first identified by the famous African explorer, Livingston, who apparently saw the natives dip their arrows in it. They would make a really high dose and it would stun their prey … He dipped his toothbrush in a strophanthus extract and noticed the change in his heart rate. It slowed down. Basically, from there, it became a heart medicine.
It's in the same family as digitalis, but digitalis doesn't convert lactic acid into pyruvate. Digitalis does not support the parasympathetic system. It's really different because digitalis is fat soluble, while ouabain, g-[strophanthin] is water soluble. There are a lot of differences."
How to Find Strophanthus
For over 20 years, strophanthus was the main treatment for angina and heart attack prevention in Germany. Millions of doses were given and hundreds of studies were done. One 1972 study involved 150 patients with angina. After taking strophanthus for one week, 144 were symptom free. After two weeks, 146 were without symptoms. It clearly has a long history of successful clinical use.
"In fact, in the '50s and '60s, there was a test called a strophanthin challenge test … All physicians know, sometimes a person comes in with chest pain. We don't know if it's because they're breathing too hard or if it's muscle pain or something.
You want to figure out whether that's from their heart. They [would] give them g-strophanthin. If the pain went away, it was considered from their heart. That was the g-strophanthin challenge test, because simply, it flushes the lactic acid. No lactic acid, no pain. But it's not just for pain relief. It actually breaks the cycle that leads to heart attacks," Cowan says.
"Now, there are very few places to get it. There's one compounding pharmacy in Germany, which you can import [from]. There's a company in Brazil that makes an extract of the strophanthus seeds. That's what I've been using mostly for about 10, 15 years. I've had it tested so I know how much ouabain per milliliter is in there.
It's been one of the best medicines I've ever used. People [who] can't walk to the mailbox, they take it for a couple of weeks, they can walk to the mailbox, go skiing, etc. It relieves their chest pain and it does the exact things that you would hope a medicine would do."
To make strophanthus more available, Cowan suggests finding a practitioner who is willing to give it to you and supervise your medical condition. Then contact Cowan's office via HumanHeartCosmicHeart.com. Cowan will talk to the practitioner and explain how strophanthus works and how it should be taken. The practitioner can then obtain it through the website and give it to you.
Enhanced External Counterpulsation — Another Alternative Treatment for Heart Disease
Enhanced External Counterpulsation (EECP) is an alternative for bypass, provided you're not dealing with a proximal left anterior descending (LAD) obstruction. EECP will increase collateral circulation, which is another common factor responsible for heart attacks.
"EECP.com will tell you if or where there is a site that does this in your area. It's a Medicare insurance-approved therapy, believe it or not. There are studies that show just EECP alone will relieve about 80 percent of angina. It definitely has some conventional literature behind its effectiveness. It's very simple and straightforward," Cowan says.
As explained earlier, the reason you don't experience a heart attack due to blockage is because you're protected by collateral circulation. However, if you have diabetes or chronic inflammation, that will eventually deteriorate your small blood vessels (capillaries), reducing this built-in protection.
EECP works by inflating compression cuffs on your thighs and calves that are synchronized with your EKG. When your heart is in diastole (relaxed), the balloons inflate, squeezing the blood. This is a very powerful and safe alternative to coronary bypass surgery for most. Rather than bypassing one or two large arteries you create thousands of new capillary beds that supply even more blood than bypassed vessels.
The sessions are about one hour long, and one requires about 35 sessions to receive benefit. It has insurance approval for angina, and even if you had to pay the $5,000 dollars out of pocket, it is certainly far safer than having your chest cracked open.
It is also very effective for many other conditions like heart failure and diastolic dysfunction (which is an emerging cardiac epidemic). Many professional and elite athletes use it as an aid to maintain cardiac fitness when they are injured and unable to actively exercise.
EECP Triggers Growth of New Blood Vessels
By doing that for an hour, five days a week for seven weeks (a total of 35 treatments), your body will form new blood vessels, thereby improving your collateral circulation. It's as simple as that. Your body will literally sprout new blood vessels in response to the increased pressure. In addition to eliminating angina, the new flow may also increase your physical endurance and sexual function by 20 and 40 percent. The effects typically last five to eight years.
"Some people call this 'passive exercise,' because [that's] the only other thing I know of that actually really encourages the sprouting of new blood vessels. [H]igh-intensity strength training … encourages new blood vessel formation. If you're going to make muscle, you have to make more small blood vessels to nourish the flow.
That's what happens. Anytime you're doing high-intensity strength training or running up hills or whatever it is you're doing, that also does it. It makes more collateral circulation," Cowan explains.
"The problem is a lot of people who come with heart disease, you can't tell them to do high-intensity training or hardly any exercise. The only thing they can do is just lay on the bed and do this passive exercise. Then they have much more capacity. Then they can get into more of a strength training or some sort of exercise program, and have a much greater capacity."
