What is Good for the Heart is Good for Everything

Mark Smith • October 6, 2025

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Health News Update: What is Good for the Heart is Good for Everything                          10.6.25

Hello everyone: There is an old saying that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats.’ It turns out that this saying definitely applies to our health. About 2 decades ago the American Heart Association (AHA) put forth the concept of Life’s Simple 7 lifestyle factors as a basis for improving cardiovascular health (CVH), because it is well know that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and disability around the world. The good news is that their idea worked pretty well with the added bonus that they found that the health of the entire body also improved significantly…lowering the risk of many different diseases and conditions.

 

“Life’s Simple 7 is the American Heart Association’s guidelines for achieving and maintaining ideal cardiovascular health. The factors include not smoking, a nutritious diet, regular exercise, a healthy weight, optimal blood pressure, controlled blood sugar and well-managed cholesterol. (My comment: the AHA recently added sleep to this list and now call it ‘Life’s Essential 8’.)

 

“A few years ago, we learned that heart health and brain health are very closely tied. Through this review, we found that almost every organ system and bodily function also benefits from maintaining the healthy lifestyle behaviors of Life’s Simple 7,” said lead study author Dr. Liliana Aguayo in a statement. “We were pleasantly surprised to find that Life’s Simple 7 at optimal levels touched every aspect of health, from head to toe. It goes well beyond just cardiovascular health to encompass whole-body health,” … plus “One of the most significant findings of the research is that a little change makes a big difference when it comes to lifestyle and health, Aguayo said.”

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/JAHA.124.038566 Life’s Simple 7

https://www.heart.org/-/media/files/professional/workplace-health/detailed-overview-whs-with-ls7-journey-1218.pdf?la=en&hash=9D16F77814743A12695010D025065588CD1F9A44 Life’s Simple 7/Essential 8

 

Bottom Line: As I reviewed in a recent blog, it is the combined components of our lifestyle (what we Eat, Think, & Do) that will predict how well we will age, what diseases we may suffer with, what disabilities we may or may not acquire. The AHA broke it down into 8 parts and what they found out was life and health affirming. Because food is foundational to all other aspects of life, for the dietary part, I would recommend the Green Mediterranean Diet.

 

Yet we never hear about things like this on the news, nor is it broadcast from our public health authorities who are responsible for guiding this country to optimal health. It is simply up to each one of us to come to grips with the junk health information supplied by what used to be called our ‘trusted media’. For me, it makes it easier to stick to these types of ideas when I put it into the context of realizing that each of us is a vital part of a complex planetary/universal ecosystem. Every part is fundamentally linked and interdependent and our individual health in some way reflects our planetary health.

 

The bare facts are that the world population has never been sicker, and our environment has never been more trashed. If we adopt the practice of being proactive in our support of well-being as opposed to solely relying on reactively trying to treat illness and broaden our approach to placing some needed focus on attending to all of the underlying drivers of illness…we can become motivated to properly tend our Temples because we see and feel how our own actions impact everyone else. When we understand the interconnectedness of the shared stewardship we all are responsible for, it becomes so much easier to upgrade our lifestyle as we see that is assists all living beings.


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Health news Update: High Fat Diets Promote Inflammation and Illness 6.22.26 Hello again: This news has been slow to surface with the popularity of keto and paleo dietary trends, but the following information is what is known about the typical Standard American Diet, also known as the Western Diet. “Conclusion : HFD-associated low-grade inflammation results from overlapping effects of dysbiosis and high fat intake, with crosstalk between microbiota and fat-driven inflammatory processes independent of gut flora involving multiple mechanisms. For this reason, it is difficult to determine what occurs first, thus, HFD-driven dysbiosis and HFD-related inflammation should be considered partially independent but closely correlated mechanisms.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8619527/ High fat promotes inflammation Bottom Line: As you all know by now, inflammation will cause, perpetuate, and/or aggravate every known illness or condition, including aging. The next logical question is what to eat? The answer is the Green Mediterranean food plan…which essentially going vegan but allowing some animal-based foods no more than 3 times per week. This takes some planning but is most easily achieved by using a ‘crowding out’ method. This is simply accomplished by including more and more unprocessed, whole plant-based foods in place of processed or fatty foods and naturally reducing those less than healthy items. Below is some more information to help you make the switch…knowing that you can improve your day-to-day nutrition by making small consistent upgraded choices is critical. Upgrades to improve your health path do not usually arise from one big resolution but from those small individual choices made every day…and these add up to some major improvements over several months and longer. “The gut microbiota is responsible for recovering energy from food, providing hosts with vitamins, and providing a barrier function against exogenous pathogens. In addition, it is involved in maintaining the integrity of the intestinal epithelial barrier, crucial for the functional maturation of the gut immune system. The Western diet (WD)—an unhealthy diet with high consumption of fats—can be broadly characterized by overeating, frequent snacking, and a prolonged postprandial state. The term WD is commonly known and intuitively understood. However, the strict digital expression of nutrient ratios is not precisely defined. Based on the US data for 1908–1989, the calory intake available from fats increased from 32% to 45%. Besides the metabolic aspects (hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, sympathetic nervous system and renin-angiotensin system overstimulation, and oxidative stress), the consequences of excessive fat consumption (high-fat diet—HFD) comprise dysbiosis, gut barrier dysfunction, increased intestinal permeability, and leakage of toxic bacterial metabolites into the circulation. These can strongly contribute to the development of low-grade systemic inflammation.”
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