Well, my story is kind of unique but in many ways it is probably a lot like yours. I endured years of dead end drugs and therapies until I understood the root cause of my PROBLEM….chronic inflammation! This knowledge changed everything, especially the state of my health…

Losing My Health

My first encounter with “mortality” was at 13 when I came down with a serious case of rheumatic fever. As I’ve looked back to try and piece things together, I see now that this bout with sickness had a profound affect, not only on my body but also my attitude toward life and health.

As a young man I lived life vividly. I was a high producing sales professional, one of the energetic, young, hard-working (probably a little too hard-working) leaders of my industry. I had great friends, still do. I was conscious of my health, I exercised, I was not overweight, I ate relatively well.

I felt absolutely fine…

But, in 1986, at the age of 42 I had a heart attack. For 12 hours, the attending doctors let me lay while trying to determine what to do with me. You see, there wasn’t a surgeon available to get in and clear the obviously clogged arteries.

So, there I lay, pumped full of blood thinners and antibiotics until a surgeon arrived. Needless to say, this experience slowed me down.

Ultimately, I was left with serious heart damage.

I struggled to recuperate only to have another heart attack a year later.

At this time the doc informed me that 3 of my arteries were 75% clogged and one was 90% clogged. He then prescribed me 10 different medications and advised me to “eat right and exercise a little”.

At that point in my life, my prospects and my attitude stunk.

According to the doctor, my only option was bypass surgery and, for a while, I believed him. I felt trapped, without hope of being truly healthy once again.

Until one fine day, not long after, I read an amazing article in a health magazine.

Searching For a Natural Remedy

The article in this health magazine did not recommend a certain diet.

It did not tout a miracle cure or a world famous physician.

The article was actually a story…

A story of a number of individuals who were once in the same position, physically and mentally, that I was in. People who had essentially given up on getting back to the life they had once known before their heart disease and moved to Florida to try and eke out a few years of retirement before having that “last heart attack”.

That doesn’t sound very inspiring, I know, but the real point of the article was that these people had done this 20 years ago.

Yes, they were still living in Florida, feeling healthy and happy, 20 years later.

The consensus of the patients as well as the doctors interviewed was that once these individuals moved to Florida, they left the stress of their work-a-day lives behind, started walking on the beach and began to interact with people in a way they never had. In effect, they had balanced out their lives and their bodies enough to allow for a healing and even a reversing of their heart disease.

This inspired me tremendously. I wasn’t ready or able to retire to Florida but it made me change my attitude and my plans.

I began to educate myself on health with more zeal and purpose. I began to be conscious of my attitude and my actions and genuinely work hard to get healthy, mentally and physically.

In fact, I achieved a measure of success. Although, I had to go in for a few heart stents (small metal tubes surgically placed in the artery) to prop up my arteries between 1988 and 2004, my doctor kept confirming that I had, for all this time, prevented my heart disease from progressing. I still was about 70-75% clogged in the areas the stents were not holding up.

But, you know, I wasn’t satisfied with that.

I could not understand why all of that extra effort did not have the tangible, measurable benefits I was looking for. Of course, I was happy to be alive but, deep down, I really wanted to be healthy again. And for me that meant actually reversing my heart disease.

So I kept looking, kept reading, kept studying and asking questions.

Finally, A Real Natural Health Solution For My Clogged Arteries

In April of 2005 I learned about the role chronic or uncontrolled inflammation plays in heart disease and how it cripples the bodies ability to get healthy.

I learned about the naturally produced “master antioxidant” that fights inflammation called Glutathione (or GSH). And I have to say that at that point about a million light bulbs went off in my head.

All of the other research I’d done supported this information and opened a new door of hope to me.

That is what has lead me to today, sharing this information with you.

In June of 2006 my doctor ran me through my routine artery check and was astonished that the four 70-75% clogged arteries were now all in the 30% range. A drastic, significant, measurable event indeed.

To say the least, that made my day.

I really felt “healthy” that day. Actually, I felt like a kid again. I was so overwhelmed with a sense of accomplishment that I really couldn’t help but want to share it with others.

So that is what I do. All the time. Maybe a little too much; just ask my lovely wife who has to muzzle me on occasion.

That is why I am so passionate about teaching people about the dangers of chronic inflammation and the power of Glutathione or GSH.

Mark Sullivan, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry, at the University of Washington, and principal investigator of the overall study, stated that depression has been shown to worsen patient outcomes in heart failure.

“This study begins to demonstrate some of the pathophysiological mechanisms by which this may occur,” he said. “It suggests that proinflammatory cytokines may be important.”

The test subjects were heart failure patients with higher levels of tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFr1), a marker of inflammation.

The study found that these individuals had up to a 5-fold increased risk for depression, and thus, a significantly bleaker outcome in their battle against heart failure.

In their abstract the authors point out that proinflammatory cytokines (evidence of inflammation in the body) have been implicated in the development and progression of both depression and heart failure.

In fact, a previous study by this group showed that in patients with advanced heart failure, those with a diagnosis of depression had a significantly increased risk of death, transplantation, or heart failure–related hospitalizations and clinic visits.

There was also a significant connection between high levels of inflammation and scores on the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. Interestingly, though, the use of antidepressants in the depressed heart failure patients reduced depression scores but not the level inflammation in the body, which remained significantly elevated in treated patients, at almost 60% higher than the reference group.

D. Levy, MD, from the University of Washington, in Seattle, a heart failure cardiologist stated,

“Antidepressants may improve how you feel but may not lower the mediators, that is, TNFr1 and other factors, so it may require other interventions to reduce the risk associated with depression in these patients.”

Ultimately, these findings provide insight into why it is urgently important to balance out your body’s levels of inflammation. Especially if you are suffering from both heart disease and depression.

Link to the study at Medscape.com