Get Grounded Part 2 - The Cardiovascular System

Part 2 - The Cardiovascular System

Heart never stops. It constantly pulsates creating a flow. A flow that runs in a system of vessels - the largest being the aorta and the smallest being the capillaries. The matter of the flow is the blood. It delivers oxygen, nutrients and messages to the cell and takes away the garbage. The elasticity of the vessels, their number and bandwidth together with the volume of the blood and its thickness define how well this cardiovascular system communicates.
Grounding improves it all.

Grounding, Blood Viscosity and Zeta Potential

Blood viscosity is a term describing the thickness of the blood. The thicker your blood, the slower it flows, the greater the possibility of clumping. Visualize it as ketchup versus red wine.

Zeta potential is related to blood viscosity. It is the negative charge on the surface of the red blood cells. The higher the amount of free electrons, the more negative charge, the more red blood cells repel each other. No coagulation and no traffic jams.

Grounding provides free electrons to negatively charge the red blood cells and thin the blood. Linus Pauling (the only person awarded two unshared Nobel Prize Awards) knew about zeta potential a great deal. This was one of the reasons why he promoted the supplementation of high doses vitamin c (a governor of the electron flow). Other popular blood thinners are the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) - aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen. Also natural remedies such as fish oil, turmeric (curcumin extract), ginger etc.
You need to be careful with grounding if you are taking a prescription blood thinner like Coumadin (often prescribed by physicians to heart patients). The combination between the two can thin the blood too much and become a health risk (not to be able to stop any kind of bleeding for instance). A good strategy is to start grounding gradually and lower the prescribed drug after you and your doctor have monitored and agreed upon all the changes.

Grounding, Heart Rate Variability and Sympathetic Nervous System

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the variation in the time interval between heartbeats. HRV is an important indicator for both acute and chronic stress caused by mental overdrive, anxiety, and emotional trauma. In other words people with low variability are less able to handle stress and more prone to stress-related disorders.
The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is also an important indicator of how stress has been handled. It represents the flight-or-fight response. It constricts the cardiovascular system, rises blood pressure, rushes adrenalin and cortisol to keep us on our toes. In today’s informational chaos we are surrounded by chronic uncertainty and frustration that leaves us in a state of defense and fear. This often causes panic attacks and arrhythmia which disrupts the stability of the heart rhythm. The parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS),  which takes care of relaxation, rest,and recharge, can not cover for the over excitement. Neither can the enteric nervous system which controls the gastrointestinal system.

So what are we to do since things don’t seem to be getting any less shaky?

Take it Easy. Realize that life is not that serious.Throw in some humor. Exercise, dance, listen to music, meditate, talk, be creative, laugh, reconnect to “Earth”.
Grounding acts as a calming regulator allowing the body to adapt, to lower cortisol, to balance the autonomic nervous system and to improve the Heart Rate Variability. The electrophysiologist Gaetan Chevalier, Ph. D. and Dr. Stephen T. Sinatra, offer an extensive experimental research on the matter clearly showing the relationship between grounding and the reduction in overall stress and tension.

Grounding and High Blood Pressure

Ok, let’s picture the cardiovascular system as a network of elastic pipes. It is logical to say that the blood pressure will be dependent on the strength and the rhythm of the heart, the volume and the thickness of the blood, the elasticity and the bandwidth of the pipes.

Although all parameters are important, the hardest to correct are the elasticity and the bandwidth.

Losing elasticity and narrowing the bandwidth is known as a disease called atherosclerosis. It is a chronic inflammatory response in the wall of the arteries leading to their hardening and narrowing because of a plaque formation. The response could be triggered by anything producing an excess of free radicals: smoking, chemical irritants, chronic cardiovascular overtraining (often invoked in long and intense marathon training programs), but the biggest reason is the diet itself. What we eat and how much we eat holds the key to inflammation and healing. As described in Part 1- Inflammation, the problem lies not in the first inflammatory response but in the inability to transform into the second rejuvenation phase. Let me summarize chronic inflammation with one word - miscommunication. An ongoing  inflammatory battle causes a constant free radical shower. The body compensates by pulling all of its antioxidants and eventually exhausting them. One such powerful antioxidant is co-enzyme Q10. It plays an important role in ATP formation (the primary energy molecule in the cell). Once CoQ10 gets depleted the cell starts leaking energy, oxygen, and free electrons. The mitochondria can’t keep up with the energy requirements. So the body switches to an alternative anaerobic way to produce ATP which surpasses the mitochondria (glycolysis producing lactic acid through fermentation). Highly inefficient and damaging, this anaerobic respiration produces only 2 ATPs from one glucose while the aerobic respiration delivers 38 ATPs. The muscle cells (the heart is a muscle) start to lose energy in a cascading pattern which leads to an extensive glycation (bonding of protein or lipid with glucose or fructose). As a result of all this the cell membrane gets depleted from cholesterol sulfate which creates further oxidation and leakage of ions ( cholesterol serves a crucial role in preventing small charged ions, mainly sodium Na+ and potassium K+, from leaking across membranes).

Cholesterol is a long conversation which will be addressed in a future article. I will say however that it is not the bad guy. Although it is always found at the crime scene it is not the killer, in fact its intentions are quite the opposite, it is there to protect. If you believe in Nature’s intellect then it would be naive to assume that it concentrates cholesterol in the two most vital parts of the human body (the heart and the brain) just so it can get us killed.

"I always have believed that cholesterol is a very, very important nutrient,... Cholesterol is to animals as chlorophyll is to plants. It basically gives us mobility – the ability to move and it gives the nervous system the ability to think."

Dr.Stephanie Seneff

In a fascinating interview between Dr. Mercola and Dr. Seneff you can learn further about the role that cholesterol, sulfate metabolism, and sun exposure play in restoring health:

“My research has uncovered compelling evidence that the nutrient that is most crucially needed to protect the heart from atherosclerosis is cholesterol sulfate. The extensive literature review my colleagues and I have conducted to produce these two papers shows compellingly that the fatty deposits that build-up in the artery walls leading to the heart exist mainly for the purpose of extracting cholesterol from glycated small dense LDL particles and synthesizing cholesterol sulfate from it, providing the cholesterol sulfate directly to the heart muscle. The reason the plaque build-up occurs preferentially in the arteries leading to the heart is so that the heart muscle can be assured an adequate supply of cholesterol sulfate. In our papers, we develop the argument that the cholesterol sulfate plays an essential role in the caveolae in the lipid rafts, in mediating oxygen and glucose transport...

The skin produces cholesterol sulfate in large quantities when it is exposed to sunlight. Our theory suggests that the skin actually synthesizes sulfate from sulfide, capturing energy from sunlight in the form of the sulfate molecule, thus acting as a solar-powered battery. The sulfate is then shipped to all the cells of the body, carried on the back of the cholesterol molecule.”

The primary reason for cholesterol oxidation is inflammation and energy leaking. It is the sugars that cause the inflammation and which we need to fear and not the cholesterol. Cholesterol is there to help, to deliver energy, to improve communication, and to keep negative charge to fight bacteria and other invaders. Unfortunately if inflammation continues long enough cholesterol will fall oxidized on the battlefield. The free radicals do not pick the good from the bad and everybody suffers sooner or later.

Grounding is the best way to get free electrons needed as antioxidants, it is also the best way to increase the ATP production until you figure out the primary cause for the silent inflammation.