Look To Your Gut For Heart Health

Your heart health doesn’t start in your arteries—it starts in your gut! Inthis special 30 min episode of the Ask Dr. Ernst Show, Dr. Ernst uncovers the ground breaking research linking gut health to blood pressure, cholesterol, arrhythmias, and systemic inflammation. Discover how imbalances in the microbiome can quietly sabotage your cardiovascular system—and learn the top three functional strategies to heal your gut soyour heart can thrive for decades to come.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
The Ask Doctor Ernst Show is presented by doctor Aaron Ernst,
a board certified doctor of Natural Medicine, chiropractic physician, and
a functional health coach specializing in root calls, examination using
spinal correction, nutritional coaching, and cellular detoxification, and is for
informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a
substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Seek a qualified

(00:23):
functional healthcare professional before changing your health program or embarking
on a new one. Visit ask doctor Ernst dot com
for credentialing, certifications or more information. It's time to transform
your health with one of the nation's leading and growing
authorities and Total Health. Over the next hour, learn from
countless hours of research and clinical experience on how to
revolutionize your health and the health of those you love most.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Hey, good afternoon. You're listening to the Ask Doctor Show.
My name is doctor Aaron Ernst and today is a
special lifetreame broadcast. We're coming at you on Facebook, YouTube,
Instagram and Twitter because the tar Heels are doing very
well and they prempted my show on the airways of
News Talk lemon To in WBT. But that does not
prevent us from teaching and educating you how to become

(01:09):
your own doctor. In today's show, we're going to uncover
one of the most exciting yet ignored health conditions that
I think you're ever gonna hear, about your gut and
its connection to your heart and your heart health. Listen,
if you've ever sat in a cardiologist office and heard
the old lines of your cholesterol is too high, you

(01:29):
need to take a statin, your blood pressure is creeping up,
you need a water pill. Your ekg's shows and arrhythmia,
so let's consider a procedure. Then you already know the
conventional playbook. You've probably never been told that your gut
and the microbiome, all those trillions of bacteria living inside you,

(01:50):
actually hold the key to your cardiovascular health. So your
gut is your cardiovascular health. And think about this for
a moment. Your heart and your gut two different regions
of the body. One pumps blood, the other digests food.
How on earth could they be related? I can see
how conventional wisdom would make you question that, But it

(02:12):
turns out that recent research shows they communicate intimately through
immune signaling, neurological pathways. The vagual enteric nervous system is
heavily connected, and even metabolic byproducts from your gut directly
affect your heart. So every single bite you take can

(02:35):
either feed or destroy your gut, thus generating heart based
compounds that affect your cardiovascular system and can do things
like stiffening your arteries, narrowing your rhythms, and cause a
cardiovascular effect. Here's the strategy. As I'm sure you're aware,

(02:57):
conventional medicine ignores the gut heart connection, yet it is
profoundly discussed in science, studies and research. When we are
laser being focused on just controlling numbers cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressures,
it's a one step approach, right. If it's too high,

(03:18):
here's a prescription, here's a medication, go make them go down.
But the research is showing that as you lower these numbers,
you don't lower your cardiovascular risks. Functional medicine, of course,
as you guys know, wants to ask the question why
why is your blood pressure going up? Why is your
cholesterol oxidizing and sticky? Why is there inflammation attacking your arteries?

(03:41):
And the evidence is increasingly pointing to the fact that
ground zero for your cardiovascular health is actually in your
digestive system. So over the next thirty minutes on this
special podcast, I want to lay out for you a
way that you can clear vascular health issues by focusing

(04:02):
on your gut. And I want to dive specifically into
the research today that shows you directly the impact that
your gut has on your blood pressure. So if you're
someone with high blood pressure and you're wondering what can
I do to lower it? Nothing seems to be working.
Let's pay attention to your gut. Same thing with cholesterol, arrhythmias,
et cetera. Then in the second half, I'm going to

(04:23):
break through the top three functional strategies that you can
use right now to start healing your intestines. Create the
repair and the regeneration you need so that your heart
can thank you as the effect. And don't forget. I
have a masterclass coming up not too far away, right,
it's about two weekends from today. It's on October eighteenth.
Use the link above or below this video. It'll register

(04:46):
you automatically and you'll get a copy of My Heart
Disease Heal Ay Self ebook, a functional approach to reversing
cardiovascar disease. There's an entire chapter in this ebook dedicated
to our show topic, the gut heart connection and what
does the research say about this? So I'm gonna start
with blood pressure just to show you something. A study
published in Nature Reviews Cardiology back in twenty fourteen. It's

(05:11):
a while ago, but it's still relevant and it's accurate.
They showed that the bacteria in your gut ferment dietary
fibers and they'll turn them into short chain fatty acids.
These are things like acetate and propionate and buterate, and
these compounds don't just stay in your intestines. They can

(05:32):
travel into your bloodstream. And what they do is they
directly act on the receptors of your blood vessels, causing
them to dilate and have really good tone. So when
you have a really healthy microbiome, these fatty acids physically
keep your blood pressure in check. But when you're in

(05:53):
a dysbiotic state like most people, harmful bacteria dominate and
the production of these common pounds falls way down. So
we see lower levels of acetate and buterate and proprienate,
so the protective nature disappears. And guess what the study
shows hypertension starts a skyrocket. That's why people on certain

(06:18):
diets struggle to lower their blood pressure, because we need
to have the healthy fibers and the healthy short chain
fatty acids be in our diet. So your standard American
diet is very deficient in short chain fatty acids. If
we look at cholesterol, here's another unique one. More recently,
in twenty twenty, the Circulation Research Journal found that gut

(06:42):
bacteria play a role in metabolizing bio acids. And this
is important because bio acids regulate cholesterol and help you
to recycle and clear cholesterol. So with a balanced microbiome,
LDL is actually cleared, HDL is reabsorbed, and cholesterol particles

(07:03):
remain large and fluffy, if you know about this. But
in a dysbiotic state, because we're not metabolizing biole acids,
the LDL levels rise, the HDL levels fall, and unfortunately,
the LDL particles shrink and they become oxidized, and this
creates a sticky membrane that allows for the cholesterol particle

(07:25):
to then wedge itself in the artery. So what the
Journal of Circulation Research found in twenty twenty is that
the preceding plaque in the vessels of your arteries is
a dys biosis in the intestines, and you can't metabolize
biol acids and thus excrete LDL cholesterol. That's profound. Then

(07:48):
in twenty twenty again the Journal of American College of
Cardiology found out that an arrhythmia is also technically connected
to your gut. They published a study showing that a
molecule called tm AO or tri methyl amine nitric oxide,
which is technically a toxic metabolite produced by the bacteria

(08:08):
of your intestines. It increases in states of dysbiosis and
it directly disrupts the electrical conductivity of the heart. So
elevated TMO levels are strongly linked to atrifibrillation. And where
does TMO come from. It comes from the metabolism of
carnatine and coaline in the intestines by the bacteria. And

(08:33):
so if you have a dysbiotic nature, you get high
levels of conversion of carnatine and coalin to TMO. And
if your TMO levels are high in your blood, that's
the reason for the arrhythmia. But where's the TMO coming from? From?
The fermentation in the gut. So think about it. It's
not your genes or bad luck causing heart rhythm issues,

(08:56):
it's the gut microbes. It could literally be generating toxins
and throwing that out into your blood, making you have
an irregular heartbeat. And what about just global inflammation. In
twenty seventeen, the Frontiers in Immunetology Immunology sorry Frontiers in Immunology,
showed that when your gut is leaking endotoxins from bacteria

(09:17):
called lipopolysaccharides, it's going to be abbreviated LPs. If you
google this, they escape and get into your blood stream,
and your immune system looks at them as if they're
like foreign invaders, and it builds a systemic response to this.
Inflammation doesn't just stay in your gut. It can damage
the lining of the arteries, stiff in blood vessels. It

(09:39):
accelerates coronary arter disease. So, in other words, a leaky
gut is a leaky heart. So when we step back,
there's a rather clear message looking at the research, your
gut isn't just about digestion, it's about your entire cardiovascular system.
If your gut is balanced and sealed and diverse, then

(10:01):
your heart thrives, Whereas if your gut is inflamed and imbalanced,
your heart suffers. And we see it as the downstream
effects of blood pressure, cholesterol, palpitations, arrhythma, as an inflammation.
So why don't we start repairing our gut so we
can get our heart healthy again. You can do that
by getting the free ebook by clicking the link above

(10:23):
or below this video. Type in your information, Boom will
send it straight to you and you get access to
the masterclass that I'm hosting on Saturday August August, my goodness,
Saturday October eighteenth, where I will teach you a three
step system to resetting your cardiovascular health. One of those
steps is with your gut. The other two, just you know,

(10:45):
is with the neurological pathways, making sure your brain is
physically communicating to your heart and clearing toxins from your
system heavy metals, pesticides, fungus, sides. Because those three profoundly
are the legs of your cardiovascular health. It's like the
stool analogy. If you think of a stool with three legs,
it's very firm, it's stable. Those three things nerve, gut,

(11:08):
toxins has to do more of your gut your heart
health than anything else. So how do we start to
now fix the intestines. Well, let's talk about number one.
You have to acknowledge that today most people have destroyed
their microbiome. And microbiome is the healthy bacterial lining and

(11:28):
the mucosal lining of the intestine. So the first strategy,
if you will, is just simply we need to restore
your microbiome. So picture your gut is a rainforest, and
in a healthy rainforest, there's diversity. There's lots of different
plants and animals and even insects coexisting to keep everything connected.
That diversity is what makes the ecosystem stable. So your

(11:50):
gut is the same way. Trillions of bacteria, hundreds of
different species, all working synergistically together. Some of them help
you to digest fiber and produce short chain fatty acids
that decrease your blood pressure. Some of them actually produce
vitamins themselves, Some protect you from pathogens. Many of them

(12:11):
even regulate your immunity. So when the diversity is intact,
your health, specifically cardiovascular is resilient. And the challenge is
if you've ever been prescribed at antibiotic, or you've eaten
processed foods, or you've had some sort of stress in
your life, strip away the diversity. Now what we have

(12:33):
is things like weeds and pests and toxins. So how
do we restore this will? The journal Cell in twenty
twenty one said, the first and most important thing to
do is to begin consuming more fermented foods. And I
know what you were thinking, like, should I be taking
a probiotic? But we need to have the diversity. Fermentation

(12:54):
ensures that thousands of different strains of bacteria naturally help
to encourage regrowth to the intestines because you're eating them.
The study showed that people who ate fermented foods every
single day sauer kraut, kimchi key, for et cetera, they
had massively increased intestinal diversity and way low levels of

(13:16):
inflammatory markers. This is the exact environment that helps to
protect your heart. Fermented foods are not just condiments to
put on top of things. They should be a mainstream
side dish in every meal you have. Next, the Journal
of hypertens and Research showed that yes, if you supplement
with a probiotic, it can help to lower your blood

(13:36):
pressure and improve your cardiovascular metabolism by enhancing your cholesterols.
What you want to do is look for strains or
look for probiotics that have more than just one type.
It's not all acidophless. You need to make sure that,
for example, it's Biffotobacterium or soil based organisms. Think of

(13:56):
probiotics as like you're replanting the forest that was now
destroyed and we have to let it grow back. But
the seeds themselves won't grow without soil and fertilizer, right,
So this is where prebiotics come in. See a lot
of people take probiotics, but they're not doing anything prebiotically. Yes,
it comes from the fibers and the starches you eat

(14:16):
in your diet, but it's also certain components that we
get from nutrients, humoric acid and terohydrites. We use these
through a product called ion, which helps to actually anchor
and encourage good, healthy bacterial growth. You can use things
like chicory root, onions, asparagus, garlic. These are all prebiotic

(14:39):
fibers that help to fuel your microbiome. In fact, in
twenty twenty, the journal Nutrients confirmed that prebiotics improve lipid
metabolism and reduce systemic inflammation. So when you combine fermented
foods and probiotics and prebiotics, now you're creating an environment,
if you will, to allow for reprogramming of the bacteria

(15:03):
of your intestines. It can help you to lower your
blood pressure, improve your cholesterol, reduce inflammation, and lead to
a stronger heart according to those journal articles that I
mentioned before. Now we have step number two. We've reestablished
a good healthy microbiome. You're eating probiotics foods daily, you're
taking probiotics and prebiotics. Now we need to actually physically

(15:25):
seal the lining. This is where a lot of people
make a major mistake. If the microbiome is the rainforest,
then the gut lining is the fence, if you will,
that keeps the jungle contained. And so when the fence
is intact, everything stays where it should. But when it's leaking,
then what we start to get is toxins, bacteria and

(15:48):
other things can escape into your bloodstream, triggers an immune reaction,
and it can cause systemic inflammation and even autoimmunity where
the body starts to attack itself. One of the most
seeling nutrients is bone broth. It is honestly one of
the most time tested remedies for helping to repair a
leaky gut. Why well, it contains collagen and amino acids

(16:11):
like glycine and proline that literally patch the holes of
your gut lining. Listen to the paper published in the
journal Nutrients in twenty twenty that confirmed that collagen peptides
found in bone broth improve gut barrier integrity and reduced
systemic inflammation BAM. Colostrum is another powerful tool. The Frontiers

(16:33):
in Nutrition showed that colostrum supplementation can actually help restore
the barrier and calm down over inflammation within the gut.
We even have things like glutamine, which is a very
powerful amino acid. The Clinical Nutrition Journal published a study
in twenty seventeen showing that if you consume three to

(16:55):
five grams of glutamine as a supplemental powder on a
daily basis, it significantly improves the tightness of your intestinal cells.
Zinc carnosine can also do the same thing, so can
omega three fatty acids because they reduce inflammation. So here's
the real impact. If you will when you repair your

(17:17):
gut lining, you should see inflammation markers like CRP, blood pressure,
cholesterol start to stabilize, and of course that directly affects
cardiovascular health. And none of this requires a pharmaceutical medication.
So if you've ever been told that inflammation is genetic
or cardiovascular disease genetic, don't buy it. Seal your gut

(17:39):
and watch as your systemic inflammation disappears and as your
cholesterols and triglycerize and blood pressure improves. So we've repaired
the microbiome. We've sealed the gut, and you can do
it with taking some time. Broth fasting for day two three,
Incorporating those nutrients in your daily regimen. L glutamine as

(18:01):
a supplement in a glass of water three grams on
a daily basis, drink it. Use bone broths as part
of your daily routine for morning, so instead of drinking
coffee your tea, have a warm cup of bone broth
to start your day. It's amazing how simple this is,
yet is very profound. Okay, approach number three, we need
to reduce the gut derived toxins. Remember the study I

(18:25):
talked about earlier that said trimethylamine nitric oxide or TMAO
if elevated leads to cardiovascular inflammation arrhythmias. They've even got
studies connecting it with athloscorotic plaquing. A landmark study the
European Heart Journal found high levels of TMO are a

(18:45):
stronger predictor listen to this of cardiovascular disease, van cholesterol,
blood pressure, and triglycerites. I mean, think about this. The
research is saying that you should have your blood tested
for TMO, and yet your cardiologists has probably never even
discussed this toxin with you. And here's a nuance in

(19:07):
this TMAO is directly affected by the kind of dietary
sources you eat for things like coalin and carnatine, which
is why typically for years, eggs got such a bad
rap and red meats got such a bad wrap because
they're high in carnatine and coaling. So the thought was

(19:27):
if you eat a lot of red meats, you would
end up with heart disease. But what we now know
is if you're eating corn fed red meat which is
high in a toxic version of carnatine and coaling, and
you have dysbiosis, then the carnatine and colin is hyper
converted into TMO. That leaks into your bloodstream, affects cardiovascular function,

(19:50):
disrupts the electrical conductivity, and there's the arrhythmia. It creates
inflammation of the cardiovascular system. So your livers responding to
elevate the cholesterol to act as an anti inflammatory. We
talked about this on the last show about how cholesterol
is actually a good thing. So the microbial imbalance in

(20:11):
your gut is what creates the toxic effect. However, watch this,
clean grass finished animal products don't drive TMAO spikes the
same way that classic factory farmed meats do. Here's another shocker.
Artificial sweeteners are another huge problem for cardiovascular health. In

(20:34):
twenty twenty two, the journal the Journal Nature showed that
aspartan and sucralose alter your microbiome and directly elevate cardiovascular risks.
Combine that with what sugar and process carbohydrates doing, and
you're seeing how those yellow and blue and pink packets
are actually cardiovascular toxins because they destroy your microbiome and

(20:58):
your gut is relating to your heart health. So the solution,
in my opinion, is straightforward, eat a whole food diet
that's free of processed junk. If you will, layer in
detox strategies like interprinted fasting, which gives your gut time
to repair and heal. Use bone broths and fast for

(21:20):
a day or two to calm the inflammation down. Support
your liver with detoxificational herbs, milk, thistle, dandelion root glued
to thione supplementation. Make sure you're hydrated, that you're eating
good healthy fibers to help your body clean out the
toxins that are found in your gut. And when you
do this, you reduce toxic burden at the gut level.

(21:41):
Your entire cardiovascular system can start to be healthier. Blood
vessels relax, heart rhythms stabilize, energy improves, and best of all,
you've addressed the root functionality of your cardiovascular health rather
than focusing just on the numbers. Hey, if you want
more information about how with functional medicine, we approach cardiovascular

(22:02):
disease not by looking at your heart, but by looking
at the systems that affect your heart, your gut, your
nervous system, your toxins. Download the Heart Disease Heal Thyself ebook.
It's yours free. Just simply click the link above or
below this description and it's there for you. So to
wrap up our special edition thirty minutes of the ass

(22:23):
Doctor Oren't Show, so we can help you heal, become
your own doctor, and solve your cardiovascular system. Today we
uncovered that your gut and your heart are not two
separate systems. They are intimately connected. Think of it as
like their partners in your health. Your microbiome directly regulates
your blood pressure, your cholesterol, your inflammation, and even the

(22:43):
rhythm of your heart. So if you're watching our show today,
going I've been taking blood pressure medications for ten years,
I wonder if there's a way out look to your gut,
not your heart. Same thing with cholesterols, And the challenge
of today is most physicians are just stuck in that
old mantra of drive cholesterols down so low that the

(23:04):
lower the better. Yet unfortunately today the research is quite profound.
If you go too low, you actually bring yourself back
to the same cardiovascular risks as if it was high.
Because it's not about cholesterol. Cholesterol is a response, not
the cause. Same thing with arrhythmias, same thing with inflammation,

(23:26):
same thing with blood pressure. So when your gut is
thriving and it's diverse and it's healing, then your heart
will do the same. But if your gut is leaking,
intoxic and inflamed, then your heart pays the price. The
great news is this, you have the power to change
your heart health by focusing on your gut health. Restore

(23:47):
your microbiome by consuming fermented foods more regularly by taking
a well blended soil based probiotic and consuming probiotic fibers.
Seal your gut by using collagen peptides. Put them in
your coffee or your tea or your smoothies. Drink bone
broth on a regular basis to increase glycine and proline.

(24:09):
Use glutamine powder. It's very simple, Just into a glass
of water and drink it on a daily basis. Omega
three fatty acids found in supplements of your megal oils,
are just by eating really healthy wild caught fish. Reduce
your toxic load by eating a cleaner diet, fasting strategically
and supporting your detox pathways. And if you do this consistently,

(24:31):
your heart is gonna thank you. And I'm telling you
I have seen this clinically, blood pressure reset, cholesterol bound bag,
even arrhythmias restore. Don't wait for the i'll call it
attack or the shock, or that visit where your doctor
says and it looks now you've got to take these meds.
Don't accept the lie that heart disease is a genetic

(24:52):
or inevitable issue that most Americans still deal with today.
You have more control than you realize, and it starts
in your gut. So remember, as we close out today's show,
true health is not about managing numbers. It's about understanding
the function of the human body. What is it that
makes your heart beat? Number one, We know there's a

(25:14):
signal from your brain going down your spinal cord physically
telling your heart go at this speed. The parasympathetic system,
vagual nerves, they all slow the heart down. So if
those systems are disrupted, you don't get the slowing signal.
Blood pressure goes up, palpitations go up, arrhythmias, higher heart rates, tachycardia.

(25:35):
This is what almost everyone's dealing with. Then you have
the sympathetic system, which is supposed to speed it up.
Many of us are stuck in sympathetic fight or flight dominance.
We're stressed out chemically, physically, emotionally, even spiritually, and if
you use chiropractic care properly to realign the thoracic spine,
decompress the nerves that control the sympathetics, you can calm

(25:58):
down the sympathetic response. You can enhance the parasympathetics. And
here's what it would be like. If you've been pushing
on the gas twenty four to seven and you have
elevations in everything, why don't we let off on the
gas and push on the brake. The break is your parasympathetics.
Getting your vagel nerves assessed, adjusted, realigned one of the

(26:19):
greatest things you can do. We discussed weeks ago how
the University of Chicago showed proper structural chiropractic care to
your upper cervical vertebras C one C two can lower
your blood pressure as much as ten to fifteen points
systolic chiropractic care boom blood pressure going down. We just
read you today multiple studies that show your gut is

(26:40):
intimately connected with your heart. In fact, we know this.
If your gut is leaking, your heart will be inflamed
and irritated. And it's not your heart that's the problem.
It's the fact that there's toxins, and there's other inflammatory
components leaking into your bloodstream. So how do we solve that.
We have to seal and heal the gut. Then you're
going to see on the masterclass that there are toxins

(27:02):
that we know directly affect cardiovascular function. Lead for example,
arrhythmias and palpitations, glyph of sate, blood pressure issues, cholesterol problems.
It creates challenges because it affects the way your heart works.
As the toxins start to elevate, heavy metals, pesticides, fungicides,
TMAO one of the most non discussed cardiovascular toxins that

(27:27):
comes from a breakdown of carnatine and coaling in your gut.
Why is it important to make sure we regulate that
because we want to get the microbiomebalanced. Eat clean, healthy proteins, grass,
finished beef, wild caught fish, free range, organic, non corn
fed chickens because the others are loaded with carnatine coaling

(27:49):
that affect that molecule. It's about restoring function to your body.
When you correct root causes, your body always knows how
to heal itself, and that's the goal of today teaching
you the concept again. If you didn't know your gut
has to do with your heart health. That could be
why you haven't solved your heart health issues. So do

(28:11):
me a favor. As we wrap up today above or
below in the comments, click the link that takes you
to the page that will register you for my Cardiovascular
Hard to Heal thy Self Summit. It's an online masterclass.
I'm gonna teach you the three steps that you need
to do to lower blood pressure, cholesterol, reset a palpitation, arrhythmia.
It will help your heart to heal, and there's no

(28:32):
prescriptions required. It's one hundred percent free. We just need
you to register. There's already hundreds that are online registering.
Join them and let's get you cardiovascularly healthy. Thanks for
much for tuning in today. I hope that next week
the tar heel game is not during our show, we
come back to being live. But until then, be blessed,
be happy, be healthy. This is doctor Ernest, and if

(28:54):
this has been a great show for you, take a
moment to subscribe, like and follow the channel you're watching
on as we constantly pose information for you to be
your own physician and heal yourself. Until next time, take charge,
Live well, and heal yourself