Empower Your Heart Health Series: How Ultra-Processed Foods and Supplements Can Contribute to Cardiovascular Risk
Hey Heart buddies! Today is part four of our series with cardiac dietitian Michelle Routhenstein. We delve into the dangers of ultra-processed foods, particularly supplements like protein and electrolyte powders. Did you know these products can elevate inflammatory markers, increasing the risk of heart attacks!? Michelle explains the concept of oxidative stress and its impact on heart health, highlighting the importance of pairing good nutrition with exercise. She offers practical advice on switching from processed recovery drinks to real food. The episode underscores the value of comprehensive heart health strategies and announces Michelle's upcoming six-week heart optimization course for more in-depth learning.
How to find Michelle
Michelle Routhenstein, MS, RD, CDCES, CDN
Cardiology Dietitian and Preventive Cardiology Nutritionist
Owner of Entirely Nourished, LLC
Sign up for her next Optimize Group at here. This is an affiliate link and by signing up, you support this podcast. Thank you!
About the program: Optimize is a six-week virtual heart optimization group program designed to teach you how to protect your heart through science-based nutrition. In this live program, Michelle Routhenstein, a cardiovascular dietitian, leads Zoom lectures that delve into arterial health and how to enhance your cardiovascular risk profile. She addresses underlying issues like inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance using evidence-based nutritional strategies. Throughout the six weeks, you'll also have access to a private community for questions, support, and the implementation of science-based heart-healthy changes to safeguard your heart for the long term.
Get in touch...P: (646) 979-0328 E: Michelle@EntirelyNourished.com
http://www.entirelynourished.com
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**I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Be sure to check in with your care team about all the next right steps for you and your heart.**
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Transcript
You know, you think about a protein powder, you think about an
Speaker:electrolyte powder recovery powder, you think it's food. It's not.
Speaker:It's actually a supplement. So it's not as regulated. So consumer
Speaker:labs finds high levels of arsenic lead in a lot of these
Speaker:foods, but they're also ultra processed. There was a
Speaker:study that looked at individuals who are following the mediterranean diet,
Speaker:the vegan diet, all these different diets for heart health, and they were looking
Speaker:at the level of ultra processed foods they were consuming. And this wasn't
Speaker:like your yodels and your junk food. This was actually like anything
Speaker:that was defined by the Nova scale. So the nova scale kind
Speaker:of looks at the degree of processing. So protein powders,
Speaker:electrolyte powders, that all would go into that group. And
Speaker:they found that it elevated a inflammatory marker called
Speaker:cystatin C that causes plaque to rupture.
Speaker:And those individuals had a higher risk of another heart attack
Speaker:within five years from their previous one because of the high
Speaker:levels of ultra processed foods in their diet.
Speaker:Welcome to a special October edition of
Speaker:Open Heart Surgery with Boots. All month
Speaker:long, we're diving into heart healthy eating with
Speaker:none other than my cardiac dietitian,
Speaker:Michelle Rothenstein. Each Tuesday, we are
Speaker:serving up bite sized ten to 15 minutes
Speaker:episodes to give you practical tips to keep your
Speaker:heart in tip top shape. Whether you're recovering
Speaker:from surgery or just looking to show your heart a little extra
Speaker:love, Michelle's got you covered. Don't forget to
Speaker:check out our
Speaker:patreon@www.patreon.com.
Speaker:open heart surgery with boots there we are building
Speaker:a community of fellow heart buddies where we are going
Speaker:to start meeting up on Zoom and being of support to each
Speaker:other. And I'll be curating special
Speaker:playlists to help you get started on your heart
Speaker:journey if you're just starting out. So thank you so
Speaker:much for being here. Thank you for supporting this podcast.
Speaker:I am so excited to bring Michelle to
Speaker:you every Tuesday for the month of October. So let's get
Speaker:right to it. Hey, welcome back to another episode of
Speaker:Open Heart Surgery with boats. I am your host, Boots Knighton. You know
Speaker:that by now, hopefully. And you
Speaker:hopefully have been joining me this month with Michelle,
Speaker:my cardiac dietitian. We are doing a
Speaker:five part series. This is part number four.
Speaker:And if you are just now finding me in this
Speaker:podcast, please be sure to go back and at least listen
Speaker:to the previous three installments of
Speaker:Michelle's wisdom because this is all building
Speaker:up on top of each other to culmination. Next
Speaker:week. Of Michelle's ultimate, like,
Speaker:scream from the mountaintop. Advice for all of us heart patients.
Speaker:But there's just so much to take into account when
Speaker:you're thinking about your heart. And we just don't get the information
Speaker:from our cardiologists, from our surgeons.
Speaker:Everyone's kind of in their silos. I don't think anyone's
Speaker:ever intentionally trying to leave out information. Michelle
Speaker:just really seems to shine and glow
Speaker:in her wisdom of what she is bringing to us from her role as
Speaker:cardiac dietitian. And so today we are going to talk
Speaker:about oxidative stress. And it's interesting,
Speaker:because I'm thinking back to one particular incident just even
Speaker:earlier this summer. So Michelle and I, you
Speaker:and I, are recording this towards the end of September, 2024.
Speaker:And I have had this mindset. I had been an
Speaker:athlete prior to my heart journey and then kept trying
Speaker:to get back to my old self. And
Speaker:that has just been its own spiritual journey of
Speaker:letting go and radically accepting where I'm at in my life now.
Speaker:But earlier this summer, I was still a part of a
Speaker:gym that I have now chosen to leave. But
Speaker:there was just such, this atmosphere of pushing
Speaker:ourselves and competition. And I attempted
Speaker:to race in this running race
Speaker:uphill to the top of a mountain, and it
Speaker:caused me extreme chest pain for
Speaker:a week afterwards. And you helped me
Speaker:understand the role of oxidative stress and
Speaker:its impact on the heart. Yeah, that was a tough
Speaker:learning moment for me. I think it's not talks
Speaker:about enough. Right? When you're an athlete, you want to push, you want to push,
Speaker:you want to push. And a lot of times, people also had this
Speaker:notion, well, I am an athlete, so I have a strong heart. You
Speaker:know, I can do all of this. So my heart's strong. And
Speaker:being an athlete and exercising is awesome
Speaker:for heart health. It is really good for strengthening the heart
Speaker:muscle, allowing for good blood flow. I fully support it.
Speaker:But what a lot of times, people are not pairing and understanding
Speaker:is that it is a stressor on the body, and it promotes
Speaker:particularly oxidative stress, which is stress in the
Speaker:cell that can actually make ldl become
Speaker:oxidized and start the atherosclerotic process.
Speaker:In research, we see that athletes have an increased
Speaker:risk of coronary artery calcification. They have an increased
Speaker:risk of having fibrosis, a thickening of the heart
Speaker:muscle. And a lot of it comes to play, where
Speaker:nutrition is not properly paired with exercise. And
Speaker:so I spend a lot of time in all of my work together, whether someone
Speaker:is sedentary or very active to understand the role
Speaker:of physical activity and the importance of pairing
Speaker:proper nutrition with exercise to combat
Speaker:oxidative stress. I want to take a step back, though, for a second.
Speaker:I think oxidative stress sounds like a big science word
Speaker:and people are probably like, what is that? So I want to
Speaker:visualize it for you in a way. So, you know, when you open up, you
Speaker:cut open up an apple, you cut up open an avocado, you leave it on
Speaker:your counter. That causes browning, that
Speaker:causes oxidation. That's what happens in the
Speaker:cells in your artery wall when they're damaged.
Speaker:Ew. Yeah, but we can stop that. Have you
Speaker:ever taken, like a lemon and squeezed it over the
Speaker:apple or the avocado? Or if you've ever kind of paired it with a
Speaker:sulfur containing food, like an onion, you stop the
Speaker:oxidation. Why is that? Because those nutrients are
Speaker:needed in the glutathione pathway, which helps
Speaker:to combat oxidative stress before it even
Speaker:starts. So my point here is that
Speaker:we can't be looking at lifestyle components in
Speaker:silos. You can be an athlete, but if you don't pair
Speaker:nutrition with it, you're not going to get the best benefit you're going to. You
Speaker:can still have oxidative stress if you eat well, you have
Speaker:a heart healthy diet, you exercise, but your sleep is not
Speaker:good. You have sleep apnea that's not controlled, you're going to have more oxidative
Speaker:stress. Your body is struggling to recover from
Speaker:the. From actual good sleep quality. You know, when you're awake,
Speaker:your body is working, it's creating free radicals. It's
Speaker:in an oxidative stress kind of standpoint, your sleep is
Speaker:restorative. It helps to actually boost your antioxidant
Speaker:defense system. So if we don't have good sleep hygiene, we aren't
Speaker:getting the nutrients in our diet. That helps to promote
Speaker:melatonin production. That's also going to increase oxidative
Speaker:stress. So I want to bring this component
Speaker:up because we can do something about it, but we have to be
Speaker:intentional. If I have many individuals who want
Speaker:to continue their athlete journey, and I support that, it's part of their
Speaker:identity. As long as you're breathing through it, you're not spiking
Speaker:up your blood pressure in the moments of those, and you're not over pushing
Speaker:yourself, you can still do the things that you love to do from an exercise
Speaker:standpoint, but you must pair nutrition with it, and you must be
Speaker:fueling your body pre and post to support your
Speaker:heart health alongside it. So we need specific
Speaker:antioxidants, we need specific proteins, we need specific
Speaker:carbohydrates to help replenish our storage and
Speaker:to help combat oxidative stress. And when you have heart disease
Speaker:alongside of it, oxidative stress can be increased. And
Speaker:so the levels of the antioxidant pathways, like the
Speaker:glutathione pathway, like the sod pathway,
Speaker:the superoxide dismutase pathway, these pathways help
Speaker:to really boost our antioxidant load, and they require
Speaker:nutrients that we can get through our food supply. So that's what we want to
Speaker:focus on. And that's a big part of the puzzle that I think is not
Speaker:talked about enough and really should be. Wow. And
Speaker:we don't need to rely on a trap.
Speaker:As an athlete myself, a trap I have fallen
Speaker:into is all the different recovery
Speaker:drinks. Mm hmm. And the pro. And you and I have talked
Speaker:at length about protein sources, like all these different protein
Speaker:powders and the recovery drinks and the. During athletic,
Speaker:you know, during cycling and prior, like, there's like all
Speaker:this marketing. So marketing. Oh, my gosh, the
Speaker:marketing. So those are considered supplements.
Speaker:You know, you think about a protein powder, you think about an
Speaker:electrolyte powder, recovery powder, you think it's food. It's not.
Speaker:It's actually a supplement. So it's not, as regulated. Consumer
Speaker:labs finds high levels of arsenic lead in a lot of these
Speaker:foods, but they're also ultra processed. There was a
Speaker:study that looked at individuals who are following the mediterranean diet,
Speaker:the vegan diet, all these different diets for heart health, and they were looking
Speaker:at the level of ultra processed foods they were consuming. And this wasn't
Speaker:like your yodels and your junk food. This was actually like anything
Speaker:that was defined by the Nova scale. So the nova scale kind
Speaker:of looks at the degree of processing. So protein powders,
Speaker:electrolyte powders, that all would go into that group. And
Speaker:they found that it elevated a inflammatory marker called
Speaker:cystatin C that causes plaque to rupture.
Speaker:And those individuals had a higher risk of another heart attack
Speaker:within five years from their previous one because of the high
Speaker:levels of ultra processed foods in their diet. Not to say you have to
Speaker:have no ultra processed foods or no convenience items. You can
Speaker:have convenience items, but you can get a good
Speaker:recovery drink, a good recovery drink, a good recovery
Speaker:meal with real food. And that's what you should be really focusing
Speaker:on. Because instead of the recovery drink. Exactly.
Speaker:Okay. You know, there are some ones that are better than others, but from a
Speaker:convenience component of it, we really want to avoid the high
Speaker:machinery foods that add a lot of extra things that our body
Speaker:does not need, and we need to really take a step back. I always
Speaker:say, you also have to understand that if you're on any heart
Speaker:medications, a lot of those can actually interfere with the heart
Speaker:medications, too. So you should bring all of these to the attention
Speaker:of your cardiac dietitian, to the attention of your doctor, so that
Speaker:they can do a thorough evaluation to make sure it's not causing any
Speaker:harm. But potential benefit supplements are one of those topics where
Speaker:everyone wants that magic pill. They want the marketing to actually be
Speaker:true. It's hard not to trust it. And so I'm not saying that it's
Speaker:easy, but I do believe that you should get a third look on it.
Speaker:So in my group program, in my one on one program, I say, hey, show
Speaker:me everything. And usually I'll give you a whole explanation of why I
Speaker:like it, why I don't like it, who it's good for, who it's not good
Speaker:for. If you're on this medication, don't take it. So you understand
Speaker:why. Why would I? I'm not just gonna say no. I'm not just
Speaker:gonna say yes. I'm gonna give you an explanation because that puts an
Speaker:empowered approach to what you're eating into your diet that's gonna help your
Speaker:heart versus cause any potential harm. And you've been great
Speaker:with that for me. Cause I'll show you something that I've taken in the
Speaker:past or currently taking. And what you do is you just immediately go to the
Speaker:website and you can just tell me right then and there, this is good. This
Speaker:is not good. This is why. And, yeah, it just helps. It
Speaker:helps it stick. If we humans, we need to
Speaker:know the why behind things. Our nervous system needs to know.
Speaker:I'd also just like to. I'd love how you just said, like, it's hard.
Speaker:Like, when there's. We're. When we're. When we are wanting just to feel
Speaker:better, when we want to lose the weight, when we want to get back to,
Speaker:like, who we were before our heart event. It
Speaker:is so easy to fall victim
Speaker:to marketing that promises you
Speaker:the world, like, that you can get back to that weight,
Speaker:that performance metric. I've fallen for it.
Speaker:And I give myself grace for that. Because when you go through
Speaker:heart surgery, it's so epic, it is so traumatic
Speaker:and so life impacting. I
Speaker:know I have had days where I'm just so forlorn
Speaker:and feeling out of hope, like, no hope.
Speaker:And, oh, but if I just take this supplement. If I, you know,
Speaker:I just get it. And I just want to, like, normalize that for people. It's,
Speaker:and it's a shame that, like, the marketing industry, I don't want to
Speaker:be so accusatory, but I mean, I know I have felt victim of
Speaker:the. Marketing industry, so not to, it's hard not
Speaker:to. And you know what? I like to also say that it's
Speaker:good to have a plan. So a lot of my clients first come to me
Speaker:and they're like, I'm scared to take my blood pressure. If it's high, what's going
Speaker:to happen? And I go, but we're going to have a plan together. So when
Speaker:you're ready, you'll take your blood pressure because it's an important metric to follow.
Speaker:And if it's high, then we'll add this to your diet. If
Speaker:we know every day at 02:00 p.m. you have a stressful meeting, we can add
Speaker:this to your diet half an hour before, and we can find things within what
Speaker:you like to eat to help with opening up the arteries and allowing for better
Speaker:blood flow. We have an action plan. So I think that idea of,
Speaker:okay, I need to take something to know that I'm doing better for my heart
Speaker:can be applied to how you nourish your body, can be applied to how you
Speaker:talk to yourself. It can be applied to how you move your body,
Speaker:how you present yourself and prioritize your health.
Speaker:Those are ways that we can take that. Okay, I am a
Speaker:heart patient, but it doesn't mean I don't have the power to control my day
Speaker:to day. And I want to really push that idea of,
Speaker:hey, you can control more than you
Speaker:think, but you need to have that mindset to say, I'm going to
Speaker:do something positive for myself today. I'm going to nourish my
Speaker:body and then also connect. Wow. When I nourished my body,
Speaker:when I prioritized my health, I had more energy, I felt
Speaker:better. I was not short of breath. I felt all of these
Speaker:amazing things because when you recognize the link, you're
Speaker:going to do it more and more. And so that leads to the longevity
Speaker:plan of a heart healthy lifestyle. Because you feel
Speaker:good when you nourish your body, you feel good when you give
Speaker:and prioritize your health because you need it in order to
Speaker:do the other things that you love to do. I love that. And
Speaker:a nugget I'd like to leave everyone with today that Michelle
Speaker:taught me a few weeks ago is make it a good
Speaker:day? Like, don't just say, oh, have a good day. No,
Speaker:like, we. We have a choice on for
Speaker:the most part. I mean, unless, like, there's a planet in retrograde or
Speaker:whatever. But, like, like, we have the choice
Speaker:of making it a great day. We choose our attitudes,
Speaker:we choose what we put into our bodies on a day to day basis
Speaker:and just start with one meal a day. Just take those
Speaker:smaller steps. Cause you are so worthy
Speaker:of good health. You are worth it. All
Speaker:right, so come back for our last
Speaker:installment of this incredible series with Michelle
Speaker:next week. Thank you for being along on this ride. Be
Speaker:sure to find her. I will have all the ways to get in touch with
Speaker:her in the show notes she is offering. Michelle, real quickly, you
Speaker:want to just talk about your course that you are offering
Speaker:up in November? Sure. Yeah. So I do a six
Speaker:week heart optimization group program. I call it optimize. And it
Speaker:is a six week live cohort where I do it
Speaker:live. And this is going to be my 18th time that I'm doing it live
Speaker:because of the sense of community. It gives you access to
Speaker:ask me questions. It gives you access to really understand
Speaker:what's going on in your blood vessels and what can we do about it.
Speaker:So every week, for six consecutive weeks in this lecture
Speaker:series, it's actually seven weeks. Cause we skip over the American
Speaker:Thanksgiving holiday in terms of a lecture. But you still have access to
Speaker:me. And we really dive deep into these understandings
Speaker:of inflammation, endothelial dysfunction,
Speaker:oxidative stress, lipid optimization,
Speaker:micronutrient deficiencies, really focusing
Speaker:in on the underlying root causes of heart disease and what can we
Speaker:do about it? Right, so you have to understand what's going on.
Speaker:Then you have to take an understanding of, okay, how do I know if that's
Speaker:happening in my body? What are the signs, what are the labs? And then
Speaker:what can I do about it? Through science based nutrition and lifestyle medicine, what's
Speaker:the why? So it really gives you all that knowledge,
Speaker:but I also want you to implement it. So I give you easy
Speaker:ways to implement this into your diethyde. And then we
Speaker:keep building on each week. And so you have access to ask me
Speaker:questions. You are starting your knowledge journey, but
Speaker:also really implementing it, so you're getting good results. So
Speaker:I just. It's such a great community that comes together. Everyone has heart
Speaker:like related goals, everyone screened before they join.
Speaker:And it's just a lovely cohort. I love doing it. They're also recorded.
Speaker:So if you can't meet the live lectures that are scheduled on Fridays at
:00 p.m. eastern Standard Time. Don't worry, you can always watch
:the recording. You can ask questions anonymously to the Google form,
:or you can ask in the open community forum where I'm always
:accessible to you. So everyone is really great in past
:cohorts of sharing what they're doing, sharing supplements, sharing just questions
:that they want to know, sharing anything that's helpful to
:them. And everyone's learning together. So you're learning from other people's
:questions and you have your own questions that are piggybacking off other people's
:questions. So the cohort is just a really supportive place to
:be and it helps you take action and take
:an empowered approach in your heart health to really understand and build
:your confidence on what's a truly heart healthy diet so that you can live a
:long and thriving life. I love the cohort. If you want more information,
:you'll put it down in the show notes as well. Yep. Awesome. Thanks for
:that. All right, one more Tuesday to go, so
:be sure to come back for one last nugget from
:Michelle next week. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks so much.
