Heart Health: Saving Lives Is Not the Same as Preventing Disease
Over the past several decades, modern medicine has achieved something remarkable: far fewer people die during an acute heart attack than they once did. Faster emergency response times, improved diagnostic tools, better medications, and advanced interventional procedures have dramatically reduced mortality from acute myocardial infarction.
That is real progress — and it deserves recognition.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth that rarely gets discussed: The number of heart attacks occurring each year has not declined nearly as much as the death rate, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the #1 cause of death in the United States.
In other words, we’ve become very good at saving lives during a cardiac event —
but we are far less successful at preventing the event from happening in the first place or managing the chronic conditions that lead up to it.
Surviving the Event Creates a Chronic Problem
When someone survives a heart attack, they don’t return to “normal” cardiovascular health. They become a chronic cardiovascular patient — often for life.
This means:
ongoing risk of another event
increased likelihood of heart failure or rhythm disturbances
long-term dependence on monitoring and intervention
So while survival rates are improving, the overall burden of cardiovascular disease remains enormous. We are accumulating survivors without adequately addressing the underlying causes that brought them there.
Prevention Is Where the Real Work Is
As a natural healthcare practitioner, my primary focus is not on managing crisis — it’s on preventing the crisis altogether. True heart health begins long before chest pain, stents, or emergency rooms.
Prevention requires:
reducing known risk factors such as smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure
addressing metabolic dysfunction and chronic inflammation
supporting the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar, lipids, and vascular tone
And this brings us to a fundamental principle that is often overlooked:
There Is No Heart Health Without Body Health
The heart does not become sick in isolation. You cannot separate heart health from:
liver function
blood sugar regulation
nervous system balance
nutrient status
gut health and inflammation
If the body is undernourished, inflamed, overloaded with sugar, or metabolically stressed, the heart will reflect that stress. If you want a healthy heart, it helps — tremendously — to have a healthy body.
The Sugar Problem We Don’t Want to Talk About
One major factor in the ongoing prevalence of heart disease is the dramatic increase in sugar consumption over the past 100 years.
Excess sugar does far more than affect weight:
it disrupts blood sugar regulation
it increases oxidative stress
it drives inflammation
and critically, it depletes key B-vitamins needed for normal cardiovascular function
High sugar intake increases the demand for:
Niacin (vitamin B3)
Riboflavin (vitamin B2)
Vitamin B6
These nutrients are essential for:
energy production in heart muscle
healthy circulation
proper nerve signaling and vascular tone
When sugar consumption rises and nutrient intake falls — a hallmark of the modern diet — the heart is asked to work harder with less nutritional support.
Saving Lives vs. Building Health
It’s good news that fewer people are dying during heart attacks. But reducing mortality during an event does not solve the larger problem of why so many events are happening in the first place.
Heart disease is not merely a mechanical failure — it is the end result of long-standing metabolic, nutritional, and lifestyle imbalances. If we truly want to change the heart-health story in this country, we must shift our focus:
from crisis care to prevention
from isolated organs to whole-body health
from symptom management to nutritional and lifestyle foundations
The Takeaway
If you want a healthy heart, build a healthy body. That means:
eating in a way that supports metabolic health
reducing excess sugar and refined carbohydrates
supplying the body with the nutrients it needs to function properly
and addressing risk factors before they turn into diagnoses
In the next article, I’ll explore specific nutritional support for heart health and how targeted whole-food supplementation can play a role in supporting cardiovascular function as part of a comprehensive prevention strategy.