Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. CIRCULATION SOLUTIONS & TIPS FOR HEALTHY VESSELS, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 646 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our …
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. POWER UP YOUR HEART WITH GRAPE SEED EXTRACT, INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 641 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH *Intro Music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where …
Written by Melissa Bistricer, RDN Circulation
For further questions or concerns email me at melissa@whiskingnutrition.com
Did you know that everyday our hearts are pumping about 1,800 gallons of blood through our blood vessels? Over a lifetime, our circulatory system carries about a million barrels of blood throughout the body.
What is Circulation?
Circulation is a process by which the heart pumps a person’s blood throughout the body. Having proper circulation is key to maintaining optimal health. Circulation in the body ensures that blood and oxygen continuously flow throughout the body. Circulation helps to heal wounds faster, allows organs to function properly, keeps the brain sharp, keeps the heart healthy, and gives your complexion a natural flush.
Risk Factors of Circulation
Risk factors of circulation can result in peripheral vascular disease in which circulation of blood to the body is reduced due to the narrowing or blocked blood vessels. Specific risk factors that are associated with poor circulation are diabetes, obesity, smoking, specifically prescribed medications like statins, or a sedentary lifestyle. If you feel like you’re experiencing poor circulation, pay attention to signs of pain, cramping, swelling, restlessness, and fatigue.
Ways to Improve Circulation
The best two ways to improve circulation throughout the body is to have a balanced diet and incorporate exercise. Staying hydrated, and avoiding smoking are also beneficial ways to help improve circulation.
Circulation Nutrition Therapy
Diet and exercise are big components of helping circulation. Diet-wise, we want to incorporate more sources of omega-3 fatty acids with foods such as fatty fish (salmon, sardines), walnuts, or flaxseeds. Specific foods that research has found to help increase blood circulation and blood flow are garlic, capsaicin, turmeric, ginger, nuts, citrus, and berries. Trans fats, saturated fats, excess salt, and added sugars are all sources of foods that should be avoided to improve circulation and blood flow in the body.
Exercising regularly, aerobic exercise specifically, can help to improve circulation. Aerobic exercises are those that make a person out of breath such as jogging, swimming, dancing, boxing, or brisk walking.
Vitamins, Minerals, & Herbs
In conjunction with diet, we can always benefit from a natural nutritional supplement to help us improve circulation. In our circulation health program, we have two supplements that are recommended: Grape seed extract and Veins Hx. Looking into research studies, they have both been shown to have positive outcomes in supporting healthy circulation.
Grape Seed Extract (GSE) has natural nutritional components such as flavonoids, linoleic acid, and polyphenols. Polyphenols have a specific component called proanthocyanins which have been associated with various health issues to enhance the bio-process of the body. Grape Seed Extract has been studied to provide benefits against numerous diseases such as inflammation, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, peptic ulcers, cancer, and microbial infections.1
In a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study Grape Seed Extract has a positive correlation with blood pressure to avoid diseases involving the heart and blood vessels.2 The Grape Seed Extract helped blood pressure as well as relieving stress and enhanced mood disorders.2
Veins Hx at InVite Health has a blend of herbs in order to support the blood flow and circulation through the aging process. The blend of Veins Hx has vitamin C, Citrus Bioflavonoids, Horse Chestnut, Gotu Kola Herb, and Bilberry Fruit.
A double-blind, randomized controlled trial was completed on patients with chronic venous insufficiency (CVI). According to John Hopkins, CVI occurs mostly in the veins of your legs that do not allow the blood to flow back to the heart. This can cause the valves not to work, causing the blood to flow backward causing blood to pool in the legs. A natural supplement that can be beneficial to helping with blood flow and circulation can be Horse Chestnut. The Horse Chestnut is superior to the placebo and is effective as a reference medication in alleviating the objective signs and subjective symptoms of CVI. Thus, Horse Chestnut is a presented treatment and worth considering for CVI.
Gotu Kola Herb is derived from Centella Asocatoca L. is nutritionally important to plants and valued in traditional medicine in South East Asia.4 Mount Sinai has shown that Gotu Kola has been shown to help venous insufficiency and varicose veins. The blood vessels lose their elasticity and start to cause pooling in the legs; causing fluid to leak out to the blood vessels. Several small studies have shown that individuals with venous insufficiency have taken Gotu Kola and have seen improvements compared to the placebo group.6
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SWOLLEN LEGS – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 560 >> LISTEN NOW!
Circulation Health Program
Grape Seed Extract supports circulatory health and blood pressure already within normal range, skin, and vision health
Veins Hx supports healthy veins and circulatory health
Sources
Join our 6 weeks of weeks of crazy colorful smoothies! The first one being the amazing Red smoothie. made with Melissa Bistricer, trained Chef and Dietitian.
Cardiologist Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. Informative Session With Cardiologist Dr. Davis – InViteⓇ Health Podcast, Episode 564 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH. *Intro music* InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our …
Anti-aging
Written by Melissa Bistricer, RDN
For further questions or concerns email me at mbistricer@invitehealth.com
Aging can be difficult, but there are things you can learn to help you through the anti-aging process. With a balanced diet and clinically-studied nutrients, you can enhance your body’s overall aging health.†
As we age, the body starts to deteriorate through the cardiovascular system, bones, joints, muscles, bladder, urinary tract, memory, ears, eyes, teeth, skin and more. Your 40s and 50s are a concern as we start to age around then. However, you can be as early as mid-30s and continue to age.†
In the cardiovascular system, when we age the blood vessels and arteries stiffen, causing the heart to work harder to pump blood. The heart will compensate and start to increase the workload, pumping more blood. These changes can cause high blood pressure (hypertension) and possibly other cardiovascular conditions.†
The bones in the body start to shrink as size and density decrease. The muscles begin to weaken, making older individuals more susceptible to fractures. As we age, our muscles start to lose strength, endurance and flexibility which can affect coordination, stability and balance.†
In older age, the digestive system starts to slow down metabolism; which can cause constipation. This can be due to lack of exercise, not drinking enough fluids and a low-fiber diet. The weakening of bladder muscles and pelvic floor muscles can cause frequent urination or complete loss of bladder control.†
Our brain starts to change as we experience memory and thinking issues. This can be simply as older individuals forgetting names of words, and other simple tasks. There are recommendations to help slow the aging process through diet, exercise, and clinically studied nutrients.†
With aging, we want to ensure that you are eating a well-balanced diet that includes eating more powerful antioxidant foods. Antioxidants can help the anti-aging process and increase one’s longevity, but we need to focus on also providing beneficial nutrients.†
Beneficial nutrients include protein, calcium, Vitamin D, eliminating the intake of saturated fats and trans fats. Saturated and trans fats can cause inflammation and raise your LDL known as the “bad” cholesterol and lower the HDL the “good” cholesterol, which may increase the risk of heart disease.†
The best diet to follow as we age is a Mediterranean-style diet. This is a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy, antioxidants, vitamin C, lean protein, fatty fish, and colorful produce. The Mediterranean diet helps to fight off inflammation and keep you younger longer!†
Foods to consider adding to your diet can be: tomatoes, walnuts, artichokes, pomegranates, avocados, olive oil, salmon, lentils, beans, oatmeal, and Medjool dates.†
You should consider excluding these from your diet: processed red meats, heavily processed foods, frozen meals with lots of sodium, refined grains, alcohol, butter, refined, and processed or hydrogenated oils†
After the diet is under control, exercise is extremely important for anti-aging and staying young. A study published by the European Heart Journal, done over a 6 month time frame with 124 people; participants were instructed to perform endurance, resistance training, or high intensity interval training (HIIT). After the 6 months, researchers established that HIIT and endurance training was beneficial for cell growth and replication. New research determined that two types of exercise to slow the aging process are high intensity interval training (HIIT) and endurance training.†
EXERCISE-ENHANCING NUTRIENTS – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 438 >> Listen Now!
Lastly, we can look at clinically-studied nutrients that can be beneficial for the healthy aging process in conjunction with nutrition and exercise recommendations.†
Resveratrol HxⓇ is a formulation complex with active trans-resveratrol, quercetin and grape seed extract. Resveratrol is a polyphenolic flavonoid found in the seeds and skin of red grapes; which is included in red wine, grapes, some berries and peanuts. Studies in the past have shown that resveratrol, a natural phytoestrogen can be beneficial for anti-aging therapy.†
Resveratrol has been studied to have beneficial actions in intracellular pathways; activated by anti-oxidant defense, regulation of cell cycle, mitochondrial energy protection, and vascular tone.1 The results suggest that polyphenol resveratrol has diverse biological effects. Evidence finds that resveratrol has protected against cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurological disorders.†
Quercetin is a polyphenol known as an antioxidant to protect against oxidative stress. Quercetin is naturally found in plant products, specifically onions, which has the highest quantity of quercetin. Quercetin is beneficial in anti-aging; it has anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-proliferative, anti-carcinogenic, anti-diabetic, and anti-viral properties.†2
Grape seed contains flavonoids and non-flavonoids that have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Grape seed extract is beneficial in helping with neurological disorders, including stroke, autism and psychiatric disorders.3 In the formulation of Resveratrol Hx, the active trans-resveratrol, quercetin, and grape seed extract can help to support heart health and brain health.†
As individuals age, its normal process to reduce the production of ATP, which decreases the production of skeletal muscles. The mitochondria is the powerhouse for energy; this produces adenosine triphosphate otherwise known as our ATP. Aging is correlated with the functional decline in mitochondria. In advanced age, mitochondrial DNA, integrity, and functionality will reduce due to the oxidative damage in the reactive oxygen species (ROS).4 This is the major energy source for our bodies as we age. When this is declining then energy sources will decline as well. This is where our ATP HxⓇ comes into play to support energy, endurance, and strength for aging individuals.†
ATP: THE ENERGY ATM MACHINE OF THE BODY – INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 255 >> Listen Now!
Resveratrol Hx Ⓡ supports cardiovascular, pulmonary and metabolic health†
ATP HxⓇ supports your energy needs†
For further questions or concerns related to dietary and nutritional supplement recommendations email me at mbistricer@invitehealth.com
1. Markus MA, Morris BJ. Resveratrol in prevention and treatment of common clinical conditions of aging. Clin Interv Aging. 2008;3(2):331-339.
2. Deepika, Maurya PK. Health Benefits of Quercetin in Age-Related Diseases. Molecules. 2022 Apr 13;27(8):2498. doi: 10.3390/molecules27082498. PMID: 35458696; PMCID: PMC9032170.
3. Mehdipour R, Ebrahimzadeh-Bideskan A, Hosseini M, et al. The benefits of grape seed extract in neurological disorders and brain aging [published online ahead of print, 2022 Mar 28]. Nutr Neurosci. 2022;1-15. doi:10.1080/1028415X.2022.2051954
4. Chistiakov DA, Sobenin IA, Revin VV, Orekhov AN, Bobryshev YV. Mitochondrial aging and age-related dysfunction of mitochondria. Biomed Res Int. 2014;2014:238463. doi:10.1155/2014/238463