Aged garlic on a bowl with oil and raw garlic on the wooden table with striped table cloth

Last time, we talked about how important cholesterol is (and how misunderstood).

The major reason medical doctor’s hunt after cholesterol is because of the myth that cholesterol is the bad guy causing atherosclerotic plaque.

But looking at autopsy studies and coronary calcium score studies, Dr. Ware found there is no correlation between serum cholesterol and amount of atherosclerotic plaque.

Has anyone ever mentioned to you what comes before the plaque happens?

Coronary artery calcification comes first, and that can lead to atherosclerosis (that’s the plaque buildup in the arteries).

This is an important distinction, because studies have shown that statins don’t change coronary artery calcification.

Even when the statins forced down the LDL levels, that calcification stayed the same or continued to get worse.

Since the plaque comes after the calcification, one might want to consider looking at why there is calcification happening in the coronary arteries…

A few things to consider around calcification of inappropriate areas of the body:

  • Taking a lot of calcium as a supplement can push that
  • The above is made worse by the very prevalent nutrient deficiencies of vitamin C, vitamin D3, vitamin K2, and magnesium
  • Using supplementation of the incorrect types, or too little of the right types, of any of the above won’t get anyone closer to healing and health

I’ve even seen patients who were told to have their parathyroids removed (they are supposed to direct where calcium should go)…

… and they actually just had the above named nutrient deficiencies, not problematic parathyroids.

Especially what all the above nutrients do in terms of body function and health, it makes sense why the have such far reaching health effects.

Now, coronary artery calcification can be assessed with a test called Calcium Score.

If the Calcium Score comes back high, there are further steps to help heal this issue.

A big option is garlic!

Some of garlic’s health benefits include:

  • Aged garlic extract can help lower blood pressure in hypertensive people
  • Raw garlic can help prevent LDL from oxidizing
  • Garlic is healthy for the heart / cardiovascular system
  • Raw garlic has properties that are preventative against neurodegenerative diseases
  • Garlic supports the absorption of iron and zinc in the blood
  • Garlic may be effective in getting lead out of body tissues
  • Raw garlic can aid digestion and lower blood sugar levels
  • Garlic may help weight loss
  • Garlic supports immune function

Ok, you get it, lots of benefits to garlic (it can depend on what form it is: raw, aged, etc to determine what it will affect best.)

In terms of the atherosclerotic plaque, there are recent revelations showing that it can be an infected biofilm, associated with leaky gut.

That is one of the reasons why garlic (aged garlic extract in this case) can be so helpful, given it’s anti-microbial function.

Garlic isn’t like an antibiotic though! It isn’t going to kill off your good bacteria, it actually inhibits potentially harmful enterobacteria, but not the good ones.

So garlic can help improve that Calcium Score thanks to how healing it is.

Beyond garlic, there are a few things I can recommend to support the body’s healing in terms of calcium score and cholesterol.

(Just a reminder: cholesterol is important and healthy, but if it gets wonky, that is an indicator of healing needing to take place.)

Aside from the above mentioned nutrients, further considerations are:

  • CoQ10
  • Krill oil (usually my preference to fish oil because krill often is more absorbable for people)
  • Extra antioxidants like resveratrol

To make that simple, CVO and ROX (both from Systemic Formulas) cover those in really great formulations.

Now, individuality comes into this as well, in terms of if any organs need more support, other nutrient issues that may be going on, and especially:

  • Ongoing toxicities cause major inflammation and wreak havoc! Inflammation is one of the reasons why cholesterol goes up. Inflammation sets the ground work for all sorts of other health issues to come into play. Those toxicities have to be handled.
  • Eating foods that aren’t right for you is also a potential ongoing stressor that needs to be addressed.

So, as usual, I’m solidly on the side of: if the body created it, the body can uncreate it, we just have to provide a healthy, healing environment.

 

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