Understanding the Heart: Surprising Insights into the Evolutionary Origins of Heart Disease-and Why It Matters

by Stephen Hussey

Overview

*2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Finalist for Health

“The most mind-blowing information on heart disease. . . . I consider this to be one of the best books I’ve ever read on cardiovascular health.”—Ben Greenfield, New York Times bestselling author

Heart disease is the number-one killer in the world. Despite ever-advancing medical procedures and more and more powerful pharmaceutical drugs, the rate of heart disease continues to rise.

According to Dr. Stephen Hussey, this is due in part to misunderstandings about how the heart really functions and how to keep it healthy. These misunderstandings result in improper medical approaches and off-target intervention therapies.

As a type 1 diabetic, Dr. Hussey has always known that he was at two to four times greater risk of developing heart disease. As a result, he has dedicated his entire adult life to understanding the heart, to prevent himself from becoming a statistic.

And then his worst nightmare came true. Dr. Hussey suffered a “STEMI,” a blockage in the left anterior descending artery of his heart. STEMIs are typically so fatal that they are known as “widowmakers.” Only 12 percent of those who experience them outside of a hospital setting survive.

Dr. Hussey was among the lucky 12 percent, but faced a difficult decision during his recovery: follow the standard of care laid out for him by the attending cardiologist, or politely decline and apply everything he’d learned about the heart to a recovery protocol that would look massively different than what the doctors were recommending.

In Understanding the Heart, Dr. Hussey shares the information that guided him through the highest-stakes decision of his life, including:

• A large body of research suggesting that the heart is not the main mover of blood in the body, and what that means for your overall health
• The evolutionary origins of the nervous system, and how these manifest today in rampant rates of heart disease
• Deep analysis of the widely accepted idea that saturated fat and cholesterol will clog your arteries
• The importance of reducing oxidative stress for a heart healthy lifestyle

In Understanding the Heart, Dr. Stephen Hussey lays bare everything he has learned in his deep investigation into the heart, and guides you on a path to prevent disease in the context of a highly diseased modern world in order to enjoy lifelong good health.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781645021308
Publisher:	Chelsea Green Publishing
Publication date:	04/07/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	373,165
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Dr. Stephen Hussey is a board-certified chiropractor and functional medicine practitioner. He has a bachelor’s degree in health and wellness promotion from the University of North Carolina Asheville as well as a doctorate of chiropractic and master’s in human nutrition and functional medicine from the University of Western States. In addition to working as a chiropractor in clinical practice, Dr. Hussey has worked with people all over the world, coaching them back to health; he sees the power of food, lifestyle change, and personal environment modification change lives every day. He can be found on his website, www.resourceyourhealth.com, or on social media @drstephenhussey and is also the author of The Health Evolution: Why Understanding Evolution is the Key to Vibrant Health.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Heart Disease: Billions of Years in the Making

1 Order and Energy: The Purpose of Life 15

2 The Stress of Becoming Mammals 23

3 Becoming Human 31

4 The Consequences of Defying Evolution 37

5 The Infamous Diet-Heart Hypothesis 44

Part II The Heart and its Malfunctions

6 The True Function of the Heart 53

7 Cholesterol and Atherosclerosis 71

8 The Three Imbalances of a Heart Attack 95

9 How the Heart Evades Cancer 111

10 The Ceaseless Signals of High Blood Pressure 123

Part III A Heart Healthy Lifestyle

11 The Real Heart Healthy Diet 135

12 Reducing Oxidative Stress 173

13 Achieving Autonomic Balance 183

14 Heart Healthy Exercise 205

15 The Dental Health-Heart Health Connection 213

16 Chiropractic and Heart Health 220

17 Aspirin and Ouabain 228

18 Biometrics: Tracking Your Risk 236

Conclusion 247

Acknowledgments 255

Appendix A Resources for a Heart Healthy Lifestyle 257

Recommended Reading 260

Notes 261

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

The most mind-blowing information on heart disease. . . . I consider this to be one of the best books I’ve ever read on cardiovascular health.”―Ben Greenfield, New York Times best-selling author

“Finally, a holistic, evolutionary-rich, and practical approach to understanding heart disease. This book is powerful, informative, and approachable.”—Dr. Bill Schindler, author of Eat Like a Human

“With simple prose, and sprinkled with many entertaining personal stories, Dr. Stephen Hussey reveals the magic in biology and dispels a number of myths about heart disease. You will learn that the heart is a vortex, not a pump, that its preferred fuels are fats and ketone bodies, that the blood flows through the vessels via electromagnetic energy driven by exclusion zone water, and much else. This book will make you think of your heart in a totally new way.”—Stephanie Seneff, PhD, author, Toxic Legacy

"Exceptionally 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, making this an ideal and highly recommended addition to community, college, and university library Health/Medicine collections. Informative and iconoclastic."—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher