category : Dr. Mixon's Longevity Journal

I recently read some exciting news in a study published in the authoritative British medical journal Lancet. This study gives us further hope that the goal of repairing heart muscle damaged in a heart attack is becoming ever more realistic.

We have known for some time that stem cells (biological cells that divide, diversify and self-renew) are important to helping patients recover from muscle injury resulting from heart attacks. If we can improve the conditions that increase stem cell production in these patients, we can improve their recovery. There are several ways to boost stem cell production. For example, there are tiny, specialized protein molecules called “myokines” which are produced by muscle; these molecules increase the body’s production of stem cells and promote healing from virtually every injury. The more muscle you have, and the more that muscle is exercised, the more myokines you produce and the better you heal. (Increased myokine

Is their higher level of testosterone the reason men have an increased risk of heart disease compared to women? For many years doctors have thought so. This belief seems to have grown largely out of the fact that women generally tend to have lower risk of cardiovascular disease than men (at least until after menopause). Because estrogen has a significant anti-inflammatory effect in the blood vessels, and because we think of testosterone as the opposite of estrogen, for a long time the medical community presumed that testosterone must increase the inflammation that can lead to heart disease.

We now know that, like estrogen, testosterone also has a potent anti-inflammatory effect in the arteries. Testosterone isn’t part of the problem – but it can be part of the solution.

In our last blog we talked about Cholesterol and Heart Disease. We discussed how the dangerous build-up of plaque is a result of low-density lipoprotein, or LDL cholesterol, becoming damaged or oxidized in the bloodstream. The body treats this oxidized LDL as a threat, and sends white blood cells to attack the cholesterol. In order to reduce the threat of heart disease, we have to prevent plaque from forming. There are three major ways to accomplish this.

The first way to reduce plaque build-up is to reduce the amount of LDL cholesterol available to be oxidized in the first place. Reducing cholesterol is the focus of most of our traditional efforts at preventing heart disease.  Cholesterol reduction is the primary reason so many millions are on statin drugs like Lipitor.

We all want to live long, happy and healthy lives – and taking care of our hearts is an essential part of good health and longevity. In this blog I want to tell you a bit about cholesterol and how this complex substance relates to heart disease. In an upcoming blog we’ll look at how to prevent the build-up of the wrong kinds of cholesterol so that we can maintain or restore good heart health.

There was a time when doctors thought of cholesterol as a single compound. We now know that cholesterol actually comes in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, and the names we give to these types are based on their density. The lightest and most buoyant cholesterol is now classed as “very low density lipoprotein” or VLDL. For a variety of reasons, VLDL is the most problematic form of cholesterol you can have in your bloodstream. The second common form of cholesterol is abbreviated “LDL,” which stands for low-density lipoprotein. This form of cholesterol is the most

When it comes to health, people often say, “Genetics is destiny.” In other words, you were born pre-wired for the condition of your health today. Is that true? Well – yes and no.

When I was a lad in medicine, the great debate was over "Nature vs. Nurture."  We were taught the prevailing wisdom that there were aspects of our lives that were determined by our genetic code and others that were a function of our environment.  The debate concerned which factors fell into which category.  Based on the medical knowledge we have today, it turns out that much of the intellectual and emotional energy of that debate was wasted.  Now we know that a great deal of what we call “our genetic predisposition” is dramatically influenced by our environment. In other words, Nature is significantly affected by Nurture.

Of course, this doesn’t mean your genes actually change.  They were fixed when the egg and sperm provided by your parents first came together