The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Myocarditis Causes and Inflammation Support

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is not to say this is a treatment for any form of myocarditis. I will say, though, the good news is you can reduce system-wide inflammation and some of the causes such as obesity and diabetes, which are highly correlated with myocarditis and other heart-related issues. I'm Dr. Josh Axe, and welcome to another episode of the Growth Lab podcast where each and every week I share with you the latest science of how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and in all, areas of life. And today's topic is myocarditis and some recent news that has come out on why so many young people, including young male athletes, are having heart issues. And again, the answer here is myocarditis. We've seen in the past year, Damar Hanlon from the Buffalo Bills, going to cardiac arrest and almost die. We've seen recently last week, Brony James, the son of LeBron James, going to cardiac arrest. We saw the son of Kirk Herbstre.

Starting point is 00:01:02 the famed ESPN news analyst, his son, Zach, have heart issues, and then a famous singer, Tori Kelly. We're seeing so many people now have heart issues in this condition that we rarely heard about before called myocarditis. You know, Elon Musk just tweeted here the past week, and Elon Musk, he's one of the rich, you know, switches between the first and second richest person in the world. He responded to the Brony James cardiac arrest by tweeting, he said, we cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing. He added that myocarditis is a known side effect. The only question is whether it is rare or common. Well, one of the things we're seeing is myocarditis is becoming more and more common.

Starting point is 00:01:55 And as I really dug into the research, one of the things I discovered is, it's connected to many things. I'm going to show you the science behind this. One behind, if you've ever in the past, had COVID. And if you had what this viral infection can do to your body. But specifically, biocarditis, if you want to know exactly what it is, it's the inflammation of the heart muscle. And then you can also have something called pericarditis,

Starting point is 00:02:19 which is inflammation of the surrounding tissues of the heart. Now, this inflammation can reduce the heart's ability to pump blood and also cause a regular heart. heartbeats. Also, these can lead to cardiac arrest, heart attack, or stroke. And what the research is showing is the COVID infection appears to be, what that virus does, it's, it's according to one medical researcher, they said it increases the stickiness of the blood, which increases the likelihood of blood clot formation. And that's what we're seeing in a lot of these athletes. In fact, even a coach, Dion Sanders keeps getting blood clots in his leg. We've seen this with a lot of people getting

Starting point is 00:03:02 blood clots. And so here's what's happening. You get a virus, a virus, COVID virus. It then causes a stickiness of your blood, which causes blood clotting formation, which then causes inflammation of the blood vessels, which can also spike your blood pressure or lead to, as we talked about, heart attack or cardiac arrest. Now, I want to show you a graphic here if you're watching this. And basically, This is something posted from a medical site that really goes through all of the different things historically that has been connected to increasing the likelihood of myocarditis. So you see everything here from a viral infection such as 80V or an adenovirus, a parasitic infection, certain things like even Lyme disease. Generally, infections or a big cause, very high alcoholism could be another one drug use, so different, drugs, medications, heavy metals. And then the other thing we see here are certain nutritional deficiencies

Starting point is 00:04:04 such as thiamineine and selenium, electrolyte deficiencies, specifically magnesium, obesity, right? A lot of these pre-existing conditions, issues associated with your cellular health, like mitochondria, all of these can increase the likelihood of somebody having myocarditis. Now, according to a medical study that was published in the Journal of Medical Virology, they found that people between the ages of 25 and 44 saw the highest increase in heart attack deaths due to myocarditis. And so, again, ages 25 to 44, so we're seeing a lot of people in, you know, 20 to 50 years old who have a greater increase. And the highest increase has been in male athletes, and we're seeing that a 30% increase. Now, and that's just compared to a few years ago. So there is absolutely, think about that number, 30% increase in heart attack deaths, that is a tremendous increase.

Starting point is 00:05:07 And Dr. Susan Chang from the Cedars of Sinai Hospital, she also is the person who co-authored the study I'm citing here, she said young people are obviously not really supposed to die of a heart attack. They're really not supposed to have heart attacks at all. I think that's obvious to us all. But again, here, again, a 30% increase is significant. Now, here's the other thing, though. Adults between the ages of 45 to 64 saw a 20% increase in heart attack deaths, and those 65 in order of 14%. So I do want to point out while the highest risk of myocarditis is in young athletes like

Starting point is 00:05:48 Brony James and DeMar Hamlin, that's a 30% increase, we are still seeing an increase in people of all ages. There's a scientist, a physician and scientist, Dr. Zihad Al-Ali, and he estimated that about 4% of people who came down with COVID-19 will develop a heart problem, such as in a regular heartbeat, heart failure, inflammation, or heart attack. And he says, it's a small, he said, that 4% number will 4%

Starting point is 00:06:20 seems like a small number, it's not a small number. He said, if you multiply that by the number of people living in the United States, and let's say it's close to 350,000 people, that's around 15 million people that weren't before having heart issues that now, again, the point there is, it's a really, really large increase when we're looking about 4% of people being affected still from what happened. And again, there is debate and, and, and, and, I want to just share, there are a lot of theories around if this is due to more getting the infection itself or from getting an injection. And I think what most scientists say is it might be, you know, there could be an increased risk with one or the other or both when you look at the research.

Starting point is 00:07:11 Now, what I want to do right now is I want to take some time and say, listen, everybody has a higher increase in especially young male athletes. But there are things we can do to care for ourselves. And by the way, what I'm sharing about to share right now, this is not to say this is a, you know, this is a treatment for any form of myocarditis. I will say, though, the good news is you can reduce system-wide inflammation and some of the causes such as obesity and diabetes, which are highly correlated with myocarditis and other heart-related issues. And so I want to share with you now some things you want to stay. away from food-wise, some foods you may consider consuming and some supplements that can generally help reduce inflammation of the cardiovascular system according to scientific studies. The first things you want to eliminate that science has shown causes inflammation of the cardiovascular system are sugar.

Starting point is 00:08:08 Okay, so we know sugar. Now, if you're eating blueberries or raspberries, it's not the same thing, but if you're doing any sort of added or processed sugar, that increases. inflammation of your cardiovascular system. So do refined grains such as white and wheat flour products. You know, pasta, potato chips. These foods, they turn into sugar very quickly. Also, hydrogenated oils. Also processed foods and fast foods that have additives. We know these all cause inflammation of the heart, but especially it's this. To put in simple layman's terms, sugar and bad fats. Okay, that's what will increase your likelihood of having inflammation in your body, which may contribute to inflammation in the heart.

Starting point is 00:08:56 Let's talk about anti-inflammatory foods, the ones that the research have shown that have the greatest benefits. The first is foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids such as wild-caught salmon. It's very, very healthy for supporting healthy blood. And I want to mention this as well, as you saw in that research study that virus, Can cause, specifically, a COVID-like virus can cause stickiness of the blood, which can cause blood clotting. So one of the things you can do is consume foods that naturally help with clotting and thinning the blood. And that's why omega-3 fatty acids are so beneficial.

Starting point is 00:09:33 They're anti-inflammatory, but they also help with what's known as blood viscosity, that viscosity and clotting of the blood. Another one would be vegetables. This could be cruciferous vegetables or green leafy vegetables. doing a lot of vegetables, they have unique compounds that help with reducing inflammation. Berries are another category. Other fruits are not going to have the same benefits as berries. Certain berries like blueberries are high in resveritral, which in clinical studies have been shown to reduce inflammation.

Starting point is 00:10:03 Also, goji berries, blackberries, asailles, berry, but doing a lot of berries, they're going to be higher in antioxidants, which have been shown to protect the heart. The next would be wild organic meat, like grass-fed beef, for pastured chicken or free range or pastured eggs, but organic products, these are going to have some omega-3s. They also might have collagen. That's another big food that you should consider, is bone broth or products with collagen in them,

Starting point is 00:10:30 are also going to be good. And then healthy fats, olives, avocados, coconut, almonds, getting some healthy fats can reduce inflammation. Then lots of herbs and spices. In fact, of everything that I just shared with you, herbs and spices are the most anti-inflammatory. So if you're cooking food at home, use lots of rosemary, cinnamon, and garlic are some of the most heart-healthy of herbs and spices. In terms of supplements, the clinical literature has shown that omega-3 fish oil is one of the most anti-inflammatory of all supplements,

Starting point is 00:11:04 doing around 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams a day. In addition, co-enzyme Q10. I mentioned earlier that clinical research found that it can weakly. weaken the heart. Coenzyme Q10 is strengthening of the heart as a muscle and you can do oftentimes 200 milligrams a day of coenzyme Q10. Tumerc as an herb around 1,000 to 3 to 1,000 milligrams. Tumric really is good for the blood and for reducing inflammation levels. Hawthorne has been used for thousands of years in natural medicine for heart health, for inflammation, and for blood, and then astragalus. Estragalus is a really unique herb that's often used in Asian

Starting point is 00:11:42 medicine for viral infections, but it helps with the immune response. And so one of the things that the literature is also shown is your body's immune system might be overreacting. And so it's your immune response that's causing inflammation of the heart. So Estraglis is known to help with the immune response and balancing out inflammation in that way. And again, these supplements and these foods I've talked about, these are not for treating as a medical condition, myocarditis. They are, however, to help generally get the whole body healthy, reduce inflammation, and may support some of those comorbidities or co-factors that then in turn may increase the likelihood of any type of issues related to myocarditis. Well, I want to encourage you again to, again,

Starting point is 00:12:30 we went through a lot today, but looking at 4% of people having heart issues from COVID as a result afterwards. 30% increase in young men having heart issues post this issue as well. And I would love to hear from you in the comments. What do you believe or think some of the root causes are of all of these heart issues happening in the general public, but also in young male athletes? I would love to hear your opinion perspective on what you think. Also, hey, if you have any recommendations, anything I missed, I'd love to hear from you as well. And remember every week here as part of the Growth Lab podcast, I'm going to be bringing you the latest breaking news and recommendations of things you can do. So make sure to subscribe here if you haven't subscribed.

Starting point is 00:13:16 By the way, if you know somebody that's at risk or somebody who needs to know more about this information related to myocarditis, hey, please share this video with them. You can cut it, paste it, you can text message it. You can share this on social media as well. And we need to get the word out on what's going on and how we can help. I want to say, hey, thanks so much for watching another episode of the Growth Lab podcast.

The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Myocarditis Causes and Inflammation Support

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.