February was American Heart Health Month, so I thought I would share with you how I examine heart health through a big picture lens. Our main focuses here at Sparrow Medicine – hormone health, thyroid health, and gut health – can all impact cardiovascular (heart) health in both men and women.
When it comes to hormones, both estrogen and testosterone play a role in cardiovascular health. Estrogen is anti-inflammatory and helps to maintain healthy arteries. Therefore, as women’s estrogen levels decline in perimenopause and menopause, cardiovascular risk increases. As men’s testosterone levels decline in andropause, they similarly have increased cardiovascular risk. In men, this risk is driven by metabolic changes associated with the decline in testosterone in the body. Here at Sparrow we use both blood and urine testing to assess hormone levels. And depending on what we find on testing, we use a variety of treatments including herbs, nutrients, and bio-identical hormone therapy.
A lipid panel, which measures cholesterol levels, is one of our most accessible tools for assessing cardiovascular health. When we see high cholesterol levels on labs, one of the first things we check is thyroid function. Thyroid hormone sets the metabolic rate for all the tissues in our body, including the liver and gut cells that metabolize and modulate our cholesterol. High, inflamed, and imbalanced cholesterol is associated with cardiovascular disease risk, and the adequate metabolism/clearance of cholesterol from the body relies on having adequate amounts of thyroid hormone. We assess thyroid hormones with blood testing, and treat our findings with herbs, nutrients, nutrition, lifestyle, and/or prescription thyroid hormone when indicated.
Another factor we always consider when we see high cholesterol on lab testing is the patient’s digestive health. Our body eliminates excess cholesterol in our stool. If a patient is constipated (meaning they do not have a daily bowel movement), stool sits in the gut and our body will actually reabsorb some of the cholesterol from the stool that our body is trying to eliminate! Why does this happen? Our bodies are wise, and they want to conserve resources, so we have built-in mechanisms to reabsorb certain things from our stool back into circulation. Other examples of things we reabsorb from the stool in order to conserve resources are bile (originally made in the liver/gallbladder to help digest fats and carry toxins out of the body), and estrogen (extra estrogen is eliminated in the stool too!). At Sparrow Medicine we assess gut health in a variety of ways including dietary recalls, review of symptoms, and sometimes functional stool testing or food intolerance assessment. We then treat to optimize digestive health with nutritious food, herbs, nutrients, homeopathy, and/or pharmaceuticals when indicated.
Sometimes, a patient has a strong family or personal history of cardiovascular disease. In these cases, we use advanced cardio-metabolic blood testing. This gives us a detailed look at cholesterol numbers, cholesterol size, inflammation levels, and metabolic markers that can drive cardiovascular inflammation. When we have this kind of detailed information, we can make more targeted recommendations that directly address the cardiovascular system. It can also help us to prioritize care, because we have a deeper understanding of a patient’s health risks. All in all, I hope you understand that when we treat your hormones, your thyroid, and/or your digestive health we are inherently treating your cardiovascular/heart health, too.