Ray Peat on the heart

"When metabolic energy is failing, as in hypothyroidism, muscles become easily fatigued, and take up excess water, and the barrier structure is loosened, allowing macromolecules and ATP and other metabolites to leak out, while extraneous substances enter. Typical muscle enzymes such as lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase appear in the bloodstream in typical hypothyroid myopathy, and heart proteins, including a particular form of lactic dehydrogenase and a muscle protein, troponin, appear in the blood after a heart stress or fatigue combined with hypothyroidism or systemic inflammation."

- September 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Phosphate, which predominates in grains, beans, nuts, meats, and fish, increases our production of parathyroid hormone, while calcium and magnesium inhibit its production. This hormone, which increases with age, suppresses immunity, and in excess it causes insomnia, seizures, dementia, psychosis, cancer, heart disease, respiratory distress and pulmonary hypertension, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, histamine release, inflammation and soft tissue calcification, and many other problems."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reduction of parathyroid hormone by increased calcium and vitamin D is closely related to reduced obesity, and to the health problems associated with obesity—hypertension, insulin resistance, heart arrhythmias, depression, and various inflammatory conditions."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The easily oxidized short and medium-chain saturated fatty acids of coconut oil provide a source of energy that protects our tissues against the toxic inhibitory effects of the unsaturated fatty acids, and reduces their anti-thyroid effects. The animal studies of the last 60 years suggest that these effects also provide protection against cancer, heart disease, and premature aging. Other effects that can be expected inclu de protection against excessive blood clotting, protection of the fetal brain, protection against various stress-induced problems including epilepsy, and some degree of protection against sun-damage of the skin."

- Nutrition For Women

"The first time I took enough desiccated thyroid to make my heart speed noticeably, there was a pleasure pushing up from my abdomen through my chest, making me want to smile and laugh. When I have watched suicidal women using thyroid or progesterone, there is a transformation (under an hour with progesterone, a few hours or longer with thyroid) from weeping to smiling and laughing; they speak of unbearable pain being replaced by pleasure."

- Nutrition For Women

"Thyroid hormone is necessary for respiration on the cellular level, and makes possible all higher biological functions. Without the metabolic efficiency which is promoted by thyroid hormone, life couldnt get much beyond the single-cell stage. Without adequate thyroid, we become sluggish, clumsy, cold, anemic, and subject to infections, heart disease, headaches, cancer, and many other diseases, and seem to be prematurely aged, because none of our tissues can function normally."

- Nutrition For Women

"Cortisone also inhibits the thyroid. Any stress, including heavy exercise, will cause this protective slowing of metabolism. The slow heart beat of runners is largely the result of this adaptive hypothyroidism."

- Nutrition For Women

"Digitalis and progesterone have very similar effects on the heart (Szent-Gyorgyi, Muscle Contraction). Digitalis is able to raise blood pressure and increase urine production, apparently by increasing the tone of the arterioles (Abram, 1910). If progesterones effect on muscle includes such an effect on arterioles, then the puzzle of menopausal — and premenopausal — flushing is no puzzle, but is merely one symptom of a progesterone deficiency relative to estrogen."

- Nutrition For Women

"High cholesterol usually indicates low thyroid function. When thyroid is low, cholesterol isnt converted efficiently into progesterone. The real cause of heart attacks seems to be hypothyroidism and its effects, including loss of magnesium."

- Nutrition For Women

"estrogen causes, rather than cures, heart attacks. It causes a magnesium deficiency, which promotes clotting"

- Nutrition For Women

"magnesium deficiency also promotes abnormal fat metabolism, contributing to heart disease."

- Nutrition For Women

"The argument for using estrogen to cure or prevent osteoporosis is based on the fact that estrogen causes diminished urinary excretion of calcium. A vitamin E deficiency (and estrogen is known to increase the need for vitamin E) causes calcium to be retained by muscles. Any toxin, in fact, causes calcium retention in the soft tissues for example, when the heart is deprived of oxygen, it absorbs calcium. Since no skeletal improvement can be demonstrated by x-rays, I suspect that the improved calcium retention is merely a toxic effect of estrogen"

- Nutrition For Women

"There are several reasons to suspect that a magnesium deficiency is often involved in heart disease; in a clinical study, for example, injected magnesium sulphate helped in angina pectoris and coronary thrombosis, and tended to lower blood lipids."

- Nutrition For Women

"The Shutes have done extensive research on the use of vitamin E in heart disease, and found that pharmacological doses of 400 mg/day or more are beneficial. They have also recommended it for preventing thrombosis elsewhere in the vascular system."

- Nutrition For Women

"Using a large amount of milk improves the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, but doesnt supply enough magnesium to prevent tooth decay, heart trouble, and cramps."

- Nutrition For Women

"I think there are clear cultural reasons for the lack of interest in lower body temperatures. The old saying, the brighter the candle burns, the sooner it goes out, is often quoted to people who seem excessively energetic and enthusiastic. A variation of that idea is still common, and taken very seriously—the idea that everyone has only a certain number of heart beats, and that they will live longer if their heart beats slowly."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reaction against Broda Barnes’ use of temperature to diagnose hypothyroidism was partly motivated by the belief that a subnormal temperature is protective. This deep belief has probably contributed to the official preference for use of the relatively inactive thyroxin rather than the thermogenically active thyroid, USP, and T3, and to the lack of interest in the association between hypothermia and chronic infections, heart and circulatory problems, kidney disease, chronic inflammatory disease and other problems that increase with aging."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The standard treatment for atrial fibrillation is destruction of part of the conduction system of the heart, called ablation, which costs more than $25,000 in the U.S., and results in a very high percentage of heart failure. Correction of the problematic prolonged QT interval with thermogenic agents such as progesterone, thyroid, and aspirin (Korkmaz-Icéz, et al., 2016) isn’t of interest to the profession."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"There is renewed interest in the primary cilium, a little projection that nearly all our cells have, which is derived from the centriole after cell division is completed, and the cell settles into its differentiated functions. This cilium is a sense organ, keeping the cell aware of its orientation and location in the body. For example, the primary cilia of the cells lining blood vessels all point toward the heart, whether they are in veins or arteries; they are oriented in relation to the big picture."

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cholesterol is involved in the maintenance of stem cells and the control of their maturation into functioning cells. A cholesterol chelator, cyclodextrin, which interferes with cellular cholesterol, causes cardiac stem cells to mature into functioning heart muscle cells: B-CD performed its function by increasing the free intracellular cholesterol"

- November 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The brains background activity: might have what in the heart is called the staircase effect, in which structural readiness seems to leak away if the tissue doesnt become active often enough--function builds structure, and structure produces function"

- Mind And Tissue Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

"The diastolic, relaxed phase of the heart contraction cycle commonly fails under stress or old age—even in fruit flies. The heart stiffens, and fails to fill completely, so it pumps less with each stroke."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Nitric oxide has an action on the heart that isnt directly related to the blood vessels. When the parasympathetic nerves act on the heart, slowing and weakening its contractions, they are releasing nitric oxide, which reduces the hearts oxygen consumption as well as its energy production."

- January 2016 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"According to Meerson, heart attacks are provoked and aggravated by the cortisone produced during stress. (Meerson and his colleagues have demonstrated that the progress of a heart attack can be halted by a treatment including natural substances such as vitamin E and magnesium.)"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Szent-Gyorgyi, in discussing some of his experiments with heart muscle, said function builds structure, which increases the capacity for further function. The flow of energy through substance increases the order in that substance. More life and more energy can solve many of the basic problems of life."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Thinking of several kinds of biological facts, including the intrinsic motility or irritability of the intestine and heart, and the regeneration of the hydra from small fragments, Julien de la Mettrie proposed a new kind of physiology, based on the idea of organization. He suggested that thought was as natural for an organ with the structure of the brain, as beating was for the heart. He considered thought to be perfectly compatible with organized matter,"

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Soddys, Dudleys, and Kozyrevs intuitions about the ways in which new energy and matter appear in the universe try to combine nearly imperceptible phenomena (time, neutrinos, background radiation) with very important processes (stellar energy, nuclear energy, cosmic rays, the creation of matter). Creation is at the heart of existence, they might say, but is too often overlooked."

- Generative Energy Restoring The Wholeness Of Life

"Calcium and iron tend to be deposited together, and the mitochondria are usually the starting points for their deposition. Iron overload has been implicated in heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other degenerative diseases, including the brain diseases."

- 2001 - February

"Carbon dioxide limits the electrical depolarization of nerves and muscles, a phenomenon first discovered by Gilbert Ling. This prevents the over-excitation and exhaustion of brain cells and muscle cells, including the heart. The presence of carbon dioxide limits the formation of lactic acid. This explains the lactate paradox of high altitude exertion"

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Vascular spasm, increased viscosity of the concentrated blood, and disturbed coagulation processes undoubtedly contribute to a wide range of health problems, including stroke, heart attack, and multiple sclerosis."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Simply increasing blood volume increases the effectiveness of the heart contraction. Szent-Gyorgyi described a related process (the staircase phenomenon) as function building structure, structure producing function."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"The inappropriateness of the mental image of a cell with pumps and motors leads to the treatment of shock with things that produce shock, of heart failure with things that produce heart failure, and of aging with things that accelerate aging."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"digitalis and ouabain are plant steroid-derivatives that are poisonous to animal cells--especially the heart cells--by acting at a site which is normally regulated by substances such as DHEA and progesterone."

- 1995 - September Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Copper deficient cells, for example in the heart, become overloaded with iron."

- 1994 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The heart gives us some clues to our general resistance to stress, aging, disease, and death. The heart and the brain are the most stress-resistant organs, and while moderate stress and malnutrition can cause the skin and thymus gland to lose more than 90% of their substance, only the most prolonged and intense stress can cause the heart and brain to lose more than a fourth of their substance."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In fact, a moderate stress that causes the thymus to shrink by more than 90% can cause the heart to increase its mass by 80%."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When we are able to respond adequately and adaptively to stress, there is a transfer of substance from the lower-functioning organs (usually the skin and thymus) to the organs that are bearing the greatest burden, usually the heart and the brain."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The many ways in which the heart is able to resist stress, and even to thrive on it can be generalized to develop ways to protect other organs, and the whole body, from the chronic and cumulative stresses that lead to generalized atrophy, declining function, and aging. During stress, the heart and other working organs become resistant to the glucocorticoid hormones. When a person is given radioactive testosterone, it can be seen to reach the highest concentration in the heart. It is testosterone’s antiglucocorticoid effect which causes it to enlarge skeletal muscles, when exercise is moderate."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Albert Szent-Gyorgyi showed that the heart responds to progesterone, and more recently other researchers have presented evidence that DHEA is our endogenous digitalis."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Blue-collar workers have more heart attacks than do sedentary workers, and the biosocial stress of low status can be seen as a powerful factor in mortality from heart attacks. The helpless feeling of low status is analogous to capitulation stress."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When stress is strong enough and long enough to overcome the multiple protective systems of the heart, the heart fails in certain well-defined ways, both functionally and structurally. But before injury occurs, the stress-limiting self restraint systems of the heart, of the endocrine system, and of the brain, will have to fail."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The electrical instability of the heart produced by excessive adrenergic stimulation can also make the sinus pacemaker more susceptible to vagal inhibition. (I think this effect can be observed in the skipped beats often experienced by hypothyroid people during stress or fatigue. In other situations, of long and intense stress, vagal! stimulation protects against fibrilJation.)"

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Considering the clear and well defined toxicity of adrenalin and free fatty acids, the role of cholesterol in heart disease begins to look sort of epiphenomenal."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Excessive adrenalin and calcium also promote clotting, and ~ as the beta adrenergic receptors become desensitized - spasms in the coronary arteries. Altered blood vessel tone, which can be produced by serious stress, can cause venous pooling of blood, which synergizes with the impaired relaxation of the heart to cause cardiogenic shock."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Selye’s demonstration of corn oil’s toxicity to the heart is an important link | in the general picture of stress injury and adrenalin toxicity. The protective effects of saturated fats are not surprising when seen against the background of the toxic effects of adrenalin, causing the mobilization of fatty acids and the resulting lipid peroxdation."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In thinking about Meerson’s achievements in protecting the heart against stress, it is important to remember that the heart ts our most stress-resistant organ, and that the things that protect the heart from deadly stress will also protect the other organs from the everyday stresses, which accumulate to cause the problems of general aging. Liver, lungs, pancreas and other essential organs are susceptible to the same kinds of damage as the heart, but under conditions that are relatively mild and ordinary."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The resistance of the heart and liver can be compared in several ways. For example, DNA replication is more easily suppressed by stress in the liver, than in the heart, but DNA repair is not affected in the same way by stress. Hyperfunction of the heart stabilizes DNA against injury, so DNA repair is greater in the liver than in the heart, and is least in the brain."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Meerson’s laboratory has studied the anti-stress and anti-adrenalin effects of GABA and its metabolite, gamma-hydroxy butyrate, especially in the form of the lithium salt. (Lithium seems to have its own antj-stress effect, probably partly as a sodium agonist, and partly through its ability to complex with the ammonium which is produced in the brain in fatigue, which is exactly when the GABA system becomes active.) GHB is protective against stress damage to many tissues. It prevents stress-induced enzyme leakage from tissues, ulceration of the gastric mucosa, lipid peroxidation, epileptic seizure, damaged contractile function of the heart, and cardiac arrhythmias produced by stress or ischemia."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"A low level of the hormone DHEA is associated with premature death from various causes, including cancer, heart disease,"

- 1992 - December - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Decades ago, unsaturated oils were found to lower cholesterol. However, studies showed that adding the polyunsaturated oils to the diet didnt prevent death from heart disease, but that it did increase cancer deaths."

- 1991 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When evidence of an association between blood lipids and heart disease was found, the blood tests, rather than actual health, became the focus of publicity. A high ratio of HDL (high density lipoprotein) to LDL (low density lipoprotein) came to be identified with health, because of its association with lower risk of heart disease, although it was also an indicator of a risk of death from cancer."

- 1991 - April - Ray Peat's Newsletter