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.


Go Green Mediterranean to Lose Fat, Gain Health

By Mark Smith • September 29, 2025
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: Modern Food Losing its Mojo

By Mark Smith • September 22, 2025
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Do You Know Where 80 to 90% of Your Health Comes From?

By Mark Smith • September 15, 2025
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What You Eat Can Save Your Life…or Not

By Mark Smith • September 8, 2025
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To Avoid Chronic Disease, Watch What You Eat

By Mark Smith • September 1, 2025
To Avoid Chronic Disease, Watch What You Eat

Health News Update: Inflammaging is Bad News

By Mark Smith • August 25, 2025
Hello everyone: I think I have mentioned inflammaging before but never really focused on it. So, let’s dig into this interesting topic. Inflammaging is when chronic, low-grade inflammation develops with age as dietary and environmental stress accumulates, contributing to the development of all of the various age-related diseases and health issues. It results from a loss of control over systemic inflammation, which tends to come from an unbalanced and dysregulated immune system. One of the key drivers of inflammaging is diet…which means that one of the key tools to slow and reduce aging is our what we eat as well as what we don’t eat. In this paper, the authors reveal that the typical Western Diet (what science calls the Standard American Diet or S.A.D.) is the best example of a pro-inflammatory diet pattern. “ Conclusion: Inflammation is a key physiological process in immunity and tissue repair. However, during aging it becomes increasingly more chronic. In addition, we found that certain foods such as saturated fats have pro-inflammatory activity. Taking this into account, in this review we have proposed some dietary guidelines as well as a list of compounds present in foods with anti-inflammatory activity. It must be taken into account that the amounts used in the studies that detect anti-inflammatory activity of these compounds are very high, and the intake of a single food to achieve its anti-inflammatory power is not feasible. (My Comment: what this means is that it is the overall dietary pattern that matters the most.) However, the combination of foods rich in compounds with anti-inflammatory activity could exert beneficial effects during aging and in pathologies associated with inflammation and in reducing the detrimental effects of foods with pro-inflammatory activity. Therefore, we can conclude that the compounds in our diet with anti-inflammatory activity could help alleviate the inflammatory processes derived from diseases and unhealthy diets and thereby promote healthy aging. Thus, we can use diet not only for nourishment, but also as medicine.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8389628/ anti-inflammatory diet and health aging https://www.healthline.com/health/5-minute-guide-to-inflamm-aging Bottom Line: We all must age, and how we do so is largely under our own control. To create an anti-inflammatory lifestyle is not that difficult, especially if you put it all together in stages. Start with a clean, whole-food, unprocessed plant-based food plan. And to begin, first focus on what you can add into your menus and use those additions to sort of crowd out the things that are more inflammatory…sugar, refined grains, processed and pre-packaged things. Set realistic goals such as going plant based one or two days a week, or even one meal…just start and gradually work up. It has to be doable so don’t stress. Next, start moving and doing regular exercise at least three times a week…and find what you enjoy doing and focus on that. Then add activities that de-stress you, whether that is socializing, church, meditation, prayer, yoga, etc. Overall, shift your attention to giving love to things that love you back. Sugar, drive-thru and processed food like thingies do not love you back but apples or kiwis or berries or veggies do. Sitting around does not love you back but going for a short walk after a meal does love you back. Hang out and give love to the people you really like to be with, they will most always love you back. Create a love you back lifestyle and see how you feel.

Health News Update: Blocking Internet on Smartphones Improves Mental Health

By Mark Smith • August 18, 2025
Hello everyone: I frequently hear about mental health issues with the people in our practice. They could be experiencing depression, or anxiety, feel flat, can’t focus or sustain attention, or may not feel well in general. These comments can come from anyone of any age…I can hear from parents about their kids, or it may be themselves experiencing these feeling. So, when I read this paper, it felt important to share it because we all seem to have mobile phones. Here is how the paper is summarized: “Concern about how smartphones affect users is widespread: half of American smartphone users—and 80% of those under age 30—worry that they use their device too much, and correlational research suggests that smartphone use is negatively related to mental health and cognitive functioning. However, few large-scale experiments have tested for causal effects. We report such an experiment, finding that blocking mobile internet for 2 weeks reduces smartphone use and improves subjective well-being (SWB) (including life satisfaction and positive affect), mental health (more than antidepressants), and sustained attention (as much as being 10 years younger). Despite the many benefits mobile internet offers, reducing the constant connection to the digital world can have large positive effects.” https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/4/2/pgaf017/8016017?utm_source=klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%28Email%20-%20Chris%20Kresser%20General%20News%29%20Chris%27s%20Friday%20Favorites&utm_term=randomized%20controlled%20trial&utm_content=randomized%20controlled%20trial&_kx=fARhTo_gi8X3B_2-MaeO_RyzUl9tvT3tr4re-Dy7cNQ.my75y6 Bottom Line: It seems like a smartphone ‘timeout’ can be very beneficial for mental, emotional, physical health and can be an important part of stress reduction. The world today, with nearly instant communications, the almost constant bad and anxiety promoting news, and the fast pace of data consumption can add up to significantly stress us out and pull us down…or just simple keep us distracted. From what I can see, a ‘timeout’ may be just what the doctor ordered.

Health News Update: Diet can Alter Your Disease Trajectory

By Mark Smith • August 11, 2025
Hey there everyone: As you know, inflammation causes, perpetuates, and/or aggravates every known human condition, including aging. As we age, we become more vulnerable to non-communicable diseases such as heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, dementia, arthritis and more. How we eat can massively reduce our inflammatory burden and promote health as we age. It is your choice. One reason that I keep writing on this is that I keep running into the mindset that these diseases are inevitable and that there is nothing we can do about it. Plus, because there are so many different diets for sale out there, it becomes hard to know what to eat. What is important for you to know is that there is a growing scientific consensus about what to eat, but the media rarely mention it and our public health authorities don’t either. It definitely seems like money is more important than our health. So…consuming an overall low-inflammatory diet is what the science is adding up to show it is the healthiest way to go, plus it actually gives you power over your future. This is a great article worth the time it takes to read it as it is pretty comprehensive. Bottom Line: “To adopt an anti-inflammatory dietary pattern, it is recommended to replace refined grains with whole grains, substitute healthy fats (such as nuts, seeds and fatty fish) for saturated and trans fats and increase the consumption of colorful fruits and vegetables while reducing the intake of sugary and processed foods. Additionally, choosing lean protein sources like fish and legumes over red and processed meats, using herbs and spices (such as turmeric, ginger, garlic and cinnamon) in place of excessive salt and sugar and consuming probiotic-rich foods (such as yogurt and kefir) instead of processed and sugary snacks are advised. These dietary adjustments can help mitigate inflammation and promote overall health.” https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/overview-of-antiinflammatory-diets-and-their-promising-effects-on-noncommunicable-diseases/AA3166846841DCC1B219C063F52E2A7F (anti-inflammatory diet)

Health News Update: When We Eat is as Critical as What We Eat

By Mark Smith • August 4, 2025
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: Dietary Inflammation Drives Diseases and Death

By Mark Smith • July 28, 2025
Health News Update: Dietary Inflammation Drives Diseases and Death 7.28.25 Hello again everyone: Here are two papers of tremendous interest because they reveal the link between dietary inflammation and health. Bear in mind that the two leading causes of death in our country are cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cancer…directly caused by chronic inflammation. Conclusion Chronic inflammation appears to play a key role in the development of CVD and certain cancers. The results from the present study suggest that eating a diet high in sugar, saturated fat and other pro-inflammatory foods promote inflammation, which may increase the risk of a variety of chronic diseases. The next logical step would be to use the DII (the Dietary Inflammatory Index) to predict CVD outcomes, such as atherosclerosis, and indicators of CVD including intimal thickening, plaque formation and cardiac output in the Asklepios Study. https://www.academia.edu/29422691/Associations_between_dietary_inflammatory_index_and_inflammatory_markers_in_the_Asklepios_Study?email_work_card=view-paper And here is the follow up study they suggested: Conclusions To conclude, an anti-inflammatory diet may diminish the risk of CVD in healthy individuals but may be impossible to reverse the results of several years of exposure to oxidative stress among participants with established MetS (Metabolic Syndrome). Thus, the presented findings suggest that favoring anti-inflammatory diet at early stages of life could be found to act preventively as regards to the development of CVD and challenge us to evaluate potential antioxidant therapies that could be applied on public health action plans. https://www.academia.edu/80264311/Anti_inflammatory_diet_and_10_year_2002_2012_cardiovascular_disease_incidence_The_ATTICA_study?email_work_card=view-paper Bottom Line: Consuming a diet with low inflammatory potential and high anti-inflammatory ingredients shows real and significant protection against the two leading causes of death. Furthermore, other more recent studies with different interventional designs do show the possibility of overcoming the cumulative damage from Metabolic Syndrome, which is an inflammatory condition associated with high cardiovascular risk. The following links show how the whole-foods, unprocessed plant-based Mediterranean diet reduces Metabolic Syndrome and inflammation. It is never too late to eat right to beat disease!! https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4540/6/1/4 https://dmsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13098-023-01052-7 “In this study, participants with MetS with adherence to high-quality and moderate-quality Mediterranean diet were significantly associated with lower all-cause mortality as well as cardiovascular mortality during the follow-up period. Furthermore, in joint analysis of the Mediterranean diet and sedentary behavior or depression, we found that high-quality or moderate-quality Mediterranean diet could attenuate, even reverse the adverse effects of sedentary behavior and depression on all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in participants with MetS. Among the components of the MED diet, greater intakes of vegetables, legumes, nuts and high MUFA/SFA (Mono-unsaturated fats like olive oil/Saturated Fats mostly animal based foods) ratio were significantly associated with lower all-cause mortality and greater vegetables intake was significantly associated with lower cardiovascular mortality, while more red/processed meat intake was significantly associated with higher cardiovascular mortality in participants with MetS.”
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