• When Heartburn Means Trouble
• Meditation Good for the Heart and Soul
• 10 Exercise and Eating Goals
• Electrolytes and acidosis

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Dear Health Conscious Individual,

Welcome to House Calls with Dr. Cutler™!

We all know the feeling you eat something a little too spicy, and you experience a bout of heartburn. But do you know the difference between the occasional burning sensation and heart trouble? You will after reading today’s article!

Let’s face it stress happens, even to the best of us. But with these calming exercises, you can erase everyday burdens and enlighten your mood and new research suggests they can even lower your blood pressure!

PLUS, I’ll make it easy for you to set exercise and eating goals. Be sure to read our checklist in this issue.

Yours for healthy living,

Michael Cutler, M.D.
Medical Advisor, True Health™

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When Heartburn Means Trouble

As many as 60 million Americans suffer from heartburn at least once a month, and 25 million suffer from it on a daily basis. The vast majority of these people can find relief in natural supplements and by making adjustments to when and what they eat. But for some, the burning pain is actually a symptom pointing to a more serious problem.

Symptoms for heartburn and heart attack are sometimes confused. What are the differences?

Heartburn is a burning sensation that’s usually located in the chest. A lot of patients will say they feel it behind the breastbone. Some people call it a discomfort and don’t even call it a pain, but rather a sensation or an uncomfortable feeling. Heartburn pain usually has a distinction from angina. A person having a heart attack would say “They feel a squeezing sensation,” and will often clench their fist over their chest.

Another good clue that a person is suffering from heartburn and not heart attack is if it occurs after meals. People sometimes get heartburn if they eat a fatty or spicy meal, for example.

What are the alarm symptoms that accompany heartburn that should be evaluated?
There are a number of symptoms that, when experienced together with heartburn, warrant a trip to a physician for evaluation. If heartburn is accompanied by weight loss or if food gets stuck in your chest on the way down, it could be indicating something more than just simple heartburn, and I would be concerned about it.

If you have heartburn and you have also thrown up blood, or if you notice that your stools have become black, that’s a sign of bleeding in the stomach where acid mixes with blood to turn it black. If it hurts when you swallow or if you’re having fevers in association with any of these symptoms, you should be evaluated by a physician.

Is frequent heartburn also a warning sign that something more serious could be happening?
I often see patients who complain of frequent heartburn, but there is no evidence that more frequent heartburn is more worrisome than occasional heartburn. If you’re getting frequent heartburn, get yourself evaluated. Changing your eating habits to include less spicy whole foods should also help. No one has ever proven that the person who has frequent heartburn is more at risk than the person who has intermittent heartburn.

How does the acid of heartburn pose a threat?
Heartburn is a warning that acid is getting into the esophagus. The reason we worry about it is because acid makes contact with the lining of the esophagus and it can damage the normal lining. When it heals back it is a different type of lining, a lining that looks more like the lining of the stomach and intestine. That’s a condition we call Barrett’s esophagus.

The esophagus has changed to an intestinal type of lining. You could look at it as the body’s way of trying to protect itself. The small intestine and the stomach are normally exposed to acid every day, and so it tends to be a more resistant type of lining. However, tissue cell types are prone to changes to cancer of the esophagus and that’s what we really worry about.

How many people with heartburn develop cancer of the esophagus?
The odds are definitely in your favor not to develop any of those complications. Barrett’s esophagus is found in five to 10 percent of people who have frequent heartburn symptoms meaning at least once a week and only five to 10 percent of people with Barrett’s esophagus will develop a cancer of the esophagus. So it’s a fairly small percentage of people with heartburn who are ever going to get a serious complication.

However, I recommend everybody with this condition have regular endoscopies every three to five years, to look and see whether they’re developing changes that are suggestive of cancer.

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Meditation Good for the Heart and Soul

Meditation is much like a form of prayer. Start by finding a quiet place in your home or out in nature, and allow yourself approximately 30 minutes of uninterrupted time. It also helps to find a peaceful musical sound or song without words for the background. You’ll want to be 100 percent attentive for this short activity.

Are you ready? Do you have your soft background music available? And remember, this is not something to be rushed through. Now follow these steps:

• Place your hands with palms down on your lower abdomen. Women use the right hand on the abdomen; men use the left hand.
• As you inhale, the abdomen expands, and as you exhale, the abdomen contracts. Regulate your breath to be deep, slow and even. Make your inhaled breath equal in length to your exhaled breath. Continue this pattern, allowing your entire body to relax, yet feel energized.
• Now allow yourself to release all distractions, deadlines and stresses. Continue to calm your autonomic nervous system through this type of breathing for the next three to five minutes while you play your soft background sounds. While you do so, create a mental picture of the life force energy as a bright light beginning to appear in your lower abdomen. At first, imagine it as an extremely small light bulb, but as you breathe and relax, imagine it gradually getting brighter and brighter. Soon it is so bright you cannot look directly at it, rather only at its radiance.
• As you inhale, see that the light radiates toward your lower back. As you exhale, this light of the life force energy moves back to where your hands are on your lower abdomen again. Allow each in-breath to pulse that bright light of life force energy to another point of your body. And on the out-breath the light pulses back to your abdomen again.
• Practice your deep, slow, gentle and even breathing, visualizing the light energy literally filling every part of your body. As it moves into each body space it leaves a residual of light behind, which also gradually gets brighter.
• See any part of your body that is unhealthy or painful receiving this light so that it calms, rejuvenates and heals. Within just a minute you can see your whole body filled with light.
• Continue the process of expanding the life force energy throughout your body for the duration of the meditation (from five to 20 minutes). Let go of any expectations. Feel the feelings of peace… love… confidence… and of healing from within.

As you reach the end of your meditation session, I invite you to journal your experience. Take a few minutes to write down your feelings during the session in a notebook for future reflection.

Not only will you feel more relaxed, a recent study in the American Journal of Hypertension said that certain types of meditation, performed twice a day, can significantly lower your blood pressure! Talk about a stress reliever!

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10 Exercise and Eating Goals

If you follow these simple goals, you could be on the path to a healthier, better you in no time.

1. Use soothing and soft music for your exercise or no music at all. Part of the healing effect of exercise comes from the emotions we carry during the exercises. The chemicals and cell structures respond physically to the feelings of peace or unrest they detect, almost as if they have an intelligence of their own.
2. Take a friend. Before, after or during exercise, let there be some social aspect of your exercise. Planning this will ensure your success in consistency and desire to exercise.
3. Reward yourself every time you exercise. Be it a whole-food smoothie, a hot tub soak before or afterward, or dedicated time for reading something fun (not a “have to” reading assignment), let there be enjoyment associated to your exercise at the subconscious mind level.
4. Stretch and go slow. Treat your muscles and joints with kindness and wisdom. Like warming up a cold engine or machinery, when the enzymes, blood flow and temperature are ready, the connective tissues and heart work much better. You will keep your exercise goals longer. You should warm up for 15 minutes or longer.
5. For cardio workouts, set your target heart rate, which is calculated at 75 percent of maximal heart rate. Maximal heart rate is 220 minus your age. For example, a 50-year-old man has a max heart rate of 170 and a target heart rate (at which exercise can be sustained for optimum exercise) of 127 beats per minute.
6. Pick a healthy snack and carry wherever you go. Put it where you can get to it throughout the day. Almonds, plain cashews or other unsalted nuts; vegetable chunks (carrot or celery sticks for example), pumpkin seeds, pistachios, orange segments, grapes, snap peas, granola, dried fruit, etc., all work well to keep you from eating unhealthy foods impulsively at mealtime!
7. Buy a dehydrator. You will be amazed at the taste of dehydrated fruit. Some brands cost less than $200.
8. Become a smoothie expert. Smoothies dramatically decrease the digestion requirements as the whole food products are already broken down. Here’s a quick suggestion: Add one scoop of whey or soy-based protein powder; a large squirt of flax or cod liver oil; two fresh fruits or frozen fruit if you like; crushed ice; 1 cup of almonds; 2,000 to 4,000 mg vitamin C tablets (and/or any other supplements you take with food); water or almond milk depending on your flavor preference; and one egg if you want extra lecithin for cell membranes. Throw all the ingredients in a blender and enjoy!
9. Learn to eat one entire meal comprised of whole foods daily. This means nothing refined, processed, hydrogenated, colored, etc. This can actually be done, even if you have young children to feed!
10. Learn to eat no animal meat for five of the seven days per week. Amazing studies show that cancer and other diseases are directly stimulated by animal meat consumption. In one study, where meat-eating was beyond 10 percent of the diet, cancer inhibition decreased (the tumors GREW) as the percentage of meat consumption increased.

To learn more about a healthy whole foods lifestyle click here!

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Q & A

Each week in the Q & A section of House Calls with Dr. Cutler™, I will share with you some of the many questions I get every week from subscribers to my monthly advisory newsletter, Easy Health Options™”. For more information on Easy Health Options™”, visit www.easyhealthoptions.com.

Electrolytes and acidosis

Dear Dr. Cutler,

I have been reading your articles on acid-alkaline foods. This is very interesting to me and I enjoy your thoughts on health and nutrition. Is the reason why someone is out of pH balance due to a potassium deficiency? Can you elaborate on that? —Denise F.

Dear Denise,

Potassium deficiency doesn’t necessarily mean acidosis. Potassium plays many other roles in health. Yet having minerals allows your body to buffer the acidosis that occurs so mineral electrolytes such as potassium, calcium, magnesium and zinc are critical for optimal health.

All the best!,
Michael Cutler, M.D.