DISEASES of the heart and blood vessels (particularly the arteries) are not only the single biggest cause of death in the modern world, particularly the Western world, but the most preventable. Together they kill almost as many people as all other diseases together, including cancer, particularly in northern Europe and North America.
Most heart and arterial disease is caused by poor eating and living habits (including smoking), stress, lack of exercise and excess weight. More than half the people who are overweight die of heart disease or related problems such as stroke, for example, while in most Western countries an increasing number of quite young people, even teenagers, are suffering from advanced arterial disease.
Yet both conditions seem to be almost unknown among primitive societies - which are why they are often called “the classic diseases of civilization” and why they are variously estimated to be about 95 percent preventable. Recent research, particularly in the United States, has shown that the same factors that can cause disease can also reverse it if turned around.
Balanced diet, exercise, relaxation, and healthy living generally have now been shown to be capable of unclogging arteries and reenergizing the heart. For this reason, alternative medicine has moved to the forefront in many countries in the treatment of heart and arterial disease, and could become more important than conventional management drugs in the years ahead. Heart, blood vessels, and blood make up the circulatory system, which circulates blood around your body.
Blood carries oxygen from the air to “fuel” the cells, nutrients to feed the body, and other chemicals, such as hormones, essential for the body’s function, repair, and maintenance as well as protection against disease.