Podcast Blog: How to Achieve Nutritional Balance to Support Heart Health

To celebrate heart health month, I joined my good friends at Forever Young Radio for a thoughtful discussion about how to keep your ticker ticking. Read on or listen in to learn how omega-3s, CoQ10, vitamin K2, and balancing inflammation impact your cardiovascular health.

Disclosure: “The information provided on the Forever Young Show by its host or sponsors is for educational and personal alternatives. Statements have not been established by The Food and Drug Administration. They are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.”

Intro: “Be smart and become the healthiest you. Stay tuned for the Forever Young Radio Show with health journalist and fitness enthusiast, Cary Nosler, who is joined by health educator and executive producer, Kelly Cappasola. [music] And now, Forever Young.”

Kelly Cappasola: “So glad you could join us today on the Forever Young Radio Show. If you have by chance just stumbled across our show on the dial for the first time, just to let you know, our mission for the past sixteen years has always been the same: to inform every listener on healthier lifestyle options and good quality science-based information.”

Cary Nosler: “But if you’d like to learn more about the show, we make it easy. You can visit the website, foreveryoungradio.com. And while you’re there, well, listen to past shows. Kelly puts up some good shows. You’ve got great articles and also the Weekly Highlight Page because there, you get the play-by-play of everything we’ll be discussing today. And of course, you’ll look for the little Facebook icon, and if you happen to be on Facebook, just click that and we’re joint together, as they say.”

Kelly: “Yeah, it’s great to be a part of a community and part of that Facebook family. Now, we have a great hour planned for you today, and we’re going to be focusing on the topic of heart health. It is Heart Health Month, and so we have a lot of great information to share. We’re going to be covering topics such as omega-3s, vitamin K2, and CoQ10 with a highlight on the NutriGold line of products. We have a lot of great information to share with a very special guest. You can always feel free to visit our website at foreveryoungradio.com. I’m Kelly Cappasola, and as always, I’m being joined by Cary Nosler. Hey Cary, how are you doing?”

Cary: “Oh I’m doing well, Kelly, thank you so much. It’s actually getting warmer here by a couple degrees. [laugh]”

Kelly: “Alright! [laugh] One or two degrees makes a big difference when it’s pretty chilly out.

Cary: “Yes.”

Kelly: “So, yeah, I’m happy that it’s getting warmer for you, and listen, what I’m more happy about is that you’re going to share a ‘Cary’s Corner’ article for our listeners in this opening segment, so what would you like to share? What do you have?”

Cary: “Welcome to Forever Young. I’m Cary Nosler with Kelly Capassola, and today we’re going to be talking about different aspects of health especially those that are concerning with fish oil and also vitamin K2, things that we’ve mentioned on this program many, many times, and Corinna Bellizzi will be joining us to talk about those things. We also want to talk about heart health because February is Heart Health Month. It actually is the, still, the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, and there is, though, a silver lining when you talk about heart disease, and it’s because it’s one of the most preventable. Lifestyle changes make big, big difference in terms of the risk for heart disease. If you make heart-healthy choices, you’re going to helping not only yourself but your family, all the people that you know, and the risk factors for heart disease will be greatly diminished along with making sure that you have regular checkups and also working with your physician to manage your health. All integral aspects of different kinds of things that can be done to help people avoid the trauma and, unfortunately for many, the death that comes with heart disease. And so, again, we’re going to be talking about this and other issues that affect your health with our special guest, Corinna Bellizzi. She is VP of marketing and education at one of our favorite places, NutriGold. Corinna, welcome to the show.”

Corinna Bellizzi: “Thanks so much for having me, Cary. Happy Heart Health Month! [laugh]”

Kelly: “Happy Heart Health Month! It’s great to have you on, and we love having you back with us. And today what we’re going to be highlighting, as Cary said, Heart Health Month, and that will be the focus of our conversation. So, I think a good place to start, Corinna, because when I think of my heart and my family’s heart, the number one supplement I make sure we’re all taking is omega-3. So, if you don’t mind, give us some background on omega-3s.”

Corinna: “Where to start, Kelly? The fact is that most Americans are largely deficient in consumption of omega-3 in the day-to-day, and it’s no surprise because we eat all sorts of things on-the-go that can’t naturally contain them. The best diet in the world is likely to be one that includes fish or other omegas, your green, leafy vegetables, all the things that are difficult to eat on the run when you’re trying to get from your home to your school or work to your kids’ practices for football or basketball, soccer, etc, and back again. Life is just too busy to really make sure that we have the best nutrition possible. And so much research has been behind omega-3’s overall over the course of the last several decades now, that we can look to a body of research that points time again to the fact that getting enough omega-3’s can improve your long term health and longevity, can reduce your risk for certain huge problems with regard to heart health, cholesterol levels, etc, and ultimately help you be a better and more healthy person in the day-to-day.”

Cary: “You know, it wasn’t helped over the years, Corinna, when there was such a fat phobia. People just, anything that had fat, they were going to resist. I can actually remember a book when the whole ‘low fat’ or ‘no fat’ thing was really going big. Someone had written a book, and they had a chart, it was like, it had the target zones is what I meant to say, that you should eat everything in the middle, and then as it got to the outer edges, you should avoid it. One of those foods on the outer edges was salmon because it was so high in fat [laugh]. You know, we were nuts about that whole thing.”

Corinna: “Right.”

Cary: “It must have had some pretty dire consequences for the general public by going through that phase.”

Corinna: “Well, and we are still trying to correct those challenges. The fact is that even today, people start to think, ‘Oh, well I can get everything I need from my diet. I can get everything I need from my diet. I can get everything I need from my diet,’ well, guess what is not in most standard American diets? It’s omega-3’s. Because they do tend to oxidize a little bit more rapidly, so they tend to be selected out of your other plant-based oils. You know, canola oil would have more omega-3 in it if it wasn’t so processed. So, ultimately our systems get way out of whack, and we have to work to go ahead and correct that through really watching what we eat, intaking less processed foods, and supplementing with healthy things that we know can go ahead and ameliorate our day-to-day. The fact is taking a couple fish oil capsules every day is really easy to do [laugh]. These days, you can find great-quality fish oils for a reasonable price.

You know, at our company, NutriGold, we’re sourcing from the pristine waters of Alaska. We’re only using sustainable pollock. We have non-GMO verification. They’re wildly-sourced. They’re Five Star brand certified by IFOS, and you can get a two-month supply for $45 at pretty much any online venue. So, the Double Strength Omega-3 Fish Oil that we produce is a great solution for the day-to-day for consumers coast to coast. But that’s just one part of the puzzle because, ultimately, if you have a really healthy system overall, you’re going to absorb those omegas better. You’re going to feel better in your day-to-day, and in order to have your best health, it’s really critical that not only you address your diet, but you get your supplementation in order to have just the basic cupboard of like omegas, a multivitamin, some greens if you’re not eating a ton of green, leafy vegetables, and just really a couple other core vitamins to ensure your day-to-day is really healthy. But let’s not forget about being active. I mean, even going for a simple walk on a cold, brisk day. Like today here in California where it’s normally sunny, it’s 33 degrees outside this morning. [laugh]”

Kelly: “Yeah, Cary and I had a show recording before you, and our teeth were chattering. It was a little chilly in our neck of the woods, but I think that is one thing that we’re all trying to do is those suggestions that you made. Exercising, looking at what we’re putting into our body are all very important. This is no longer the Snackwell era that it was a decade ago, and if I see one more pack of candy that says ‘fat-free food’, I probably will lose my mind at the grocery store if I see it again. I see it all the time, and people are like, ‘Oh gosh, well, you know, licorice. It’s fat-free. I’m going to eat it,’ well, it’s not about the fat in that, it’s about the sugar. So, it’s really, you know, getting into the mind of the consumers to really understand that fat is so important and especially these essential fatty acids we’re getting from the omega-3s. And, you know, that’s one of the things that I wanted to follow up and ask you about is, so often people will say, ‘Okay, well I’m just going to eat fish,’ and then they’ll go and eat tilapia. Guess what? Tilapia really doesn’t have any omega-3.”

Kelly: “Oh, for sure, Cary, and I love that you pointed to the fact that inflammation is behind so many of the diseases that people are facing out there. I mean, when we talk about inflammatory factors, people generally think ‘Oh, my joints and my bones,’ but inflammation of the brain is something very serious. Inflammation of the heart. I mean, inflammation is not always our friend. It was built to protect us, but when it runs rampant it can cause a lot of troubles. Now, we talk about all the benefits of omega-3s. You go on Pubmed.gov. There’s over 25,000 research papers on the benefits of omega-3s, but still people are falling short everyday of getting that adequate level, so we always recommend supplementation. We feel it’s the best way to get people to the proper levels they need to be at, and the exciting part is we choose NutriGold’s Omega-3s on this program because of the wide range of pharmaceutical-grade omega-3 products that you guys offer there. I use the liquid Pure Fish Oil. My brother uses the Double Strength Fish Oil. Give us a little background on each of them because I love that you guys have developed these products to be able to help people at different stages of their life because that’s what important. It’s not a cookie cutter type of situation when it comes to our health, Corinna.”

Corinna: “Well, that’s absolutely right, and the reality is most people benefit from taking, at minimum, 500 milligrams of EPA and DHA per day. When you start to talk about supporting heart health and some of these other kinds of conditions, many doctors will say at last one gram of EPA and DHA per day, and so that’s not to be confused with one capsule. And that’s what I really want to get to there. So, when you look at the formulas that we produce, what you’ll find is that we've got a wide array of fish oil products. We have one that I take everyday which is our Omega-3 + CoQ10 + D3 Gold. That product, though it has a long product name, does a lot, right?”

Kelly: “I get 700 milligrams of omega-3s, I get 50 milligrams of CoQ10, and 2,500 milligrams of vitamin D3, and all three of those things are fat-soluble nutrients, so they work in collaboration together. So, that’s just in two softgels. I get an amazing dose there. The actual dose is one softgel, but I take two, right? So I’m getting 1,400 milligrams of omega-3s, 100 of CoQ10 and 5,000 IU of vitamin D3. Our Double Strength Omega-3 Fish oils and Triple Strength Omega-3 Fish Oils, however, are much more targeted specifically on the omega-3s, EPA and DHA. They are extracted from Alaska pollock. They are IFOS certified, meaning they have been tested for both their overall potency, the quality, and ensuring that there aren’t latent pesticides or other problems in the product itself so that you can be assured that you are getting the absolute best and what you need. Every softgel of the Triple Strength Omega-3 Fish Oil has 725 milligrams of EPA and 275 milligrams of DHA, so that is over one gram of EPA and DHA in a single softgel, and that meets most doctor recommendations for heart health support. The Double Strength gives you about 600 milligrams of EPA and DHA together, and I believe our most recent formulation is at at 700 milligrams.

So, again, in a single softgel, you’re getting an incredible level of EPA and DHA. And what’s really great about these formulas is that they’re affordable for most consumers. I mean, for a two-month supply you can buy these products at about $45 online. They’re available at NutriGold. And we’ve been really extending these products into natural health retailers coast to coast. One more thing to keep in mind with all our omega-3 products that are, again, produced with that Alaskan pollock, they’re 100% manufactured in the United States, so we’re not shipping them all over the world to be processed and then reprocessed and then packaged. So, you’re really supporting a company that is in full support of commerce here in the United States, so that is something that we have a lot of belief in. We want to go ahead and reduce the logistics around any product. It helps us ensure that you get the freshest product possible, the most safely produced, and the product with the smallest possible carbon footprint. You get that with our Triple Strength, our Double Strength, the Pure Fish Oil liquid, Kelly, that you take, and with the Omega-3 + CoQ10 + D3 Gold Gold that I take [laugh].”

Kelly: “I need to start taking that! Cary and I, we need to get on that D3+CoQ10+Omega-3.”

Cary: “And the one thing that you were talking about, Corinna, that does also impact the way the body uses just about every function, and that’s vitamin K2. I know that you have K2 in your formulations, and the research, as you mentioned at the beginning of the show, is just so dramatic and ongoing as to the value of the vitamin K2 both as MK-4 and MK-7. I mean, it’s pretty dramatic and pretty obvious that people make sure that they either get it in their diet or that they get some supplementation, which is probably the most likely way they’ll be able to get it.”

Corinna: “Right, well unless you’re consuming a lot of really soft cheeses from France like Brie and Camembert or you’re consuming nato, specifically, directly from the Japanese cuisine and sushi format, it’s basically a fermented soy bean taste that has a very strong taste and smell, you aren’t getting vitamin K2. So, vitamin K2 is readily supplemented. We use specifically a vitamin K2 MK-7. It is a fermented food. It is vegan, and completely safe for daily consumption by most people. Some doctors will tell their patients if they are on blood thinners not to take vitamin K2 or any vitamin K for that matter, so always check with your doctor when it comes to that specifically. But for everyone else, we have added that vitamin K2 to all of our multivitamins, even. So, my Prenatal Multi Gold, which I’m still taking being that I’m breastfeeding, delivers for me 100 micrograms of vitamin K2 as MK-7. That is a food source. It’s from soy. It ultimately means that longterm, I’m getting that vitamin K2 in my daily diet along with all the vitamin K1 I get from my green, leafy vegetables. What vitamin K2 does as a fat-soluble nutrient is really incredible.

It essentially resides in a lot of your soft tissues and tells calcium, ‘don’t go here, go to where you belong in your bones and teeth,’ and so what that ultimately means is that you build stronger bones. So, what vitamin K2 has been known for is building strong bones. But what it also does, because it resides in your soft tissues and says to calcium, ‘no don’t land here, you belong in your bones and teeth,’ is it protects our soft tissues and ultimately keeps them soft and supple, and what they need to do is, ultimately, let fluids in and luids out and ensure that we have healthy blood flow and that we don’t have carotid arteries and things like that, and vitamin K2 is just integral in that sphere. This may also be another one of the reasons that eating that more mediterranean diet with lots of green, leafy vegetables, omega-3s from your fish and things along those lines, helps to improve your overall cardiovascular health as well. So, just thinking about the omega-3 connection with vitamin K2, I mean, it would come part and parcel to a healthy diet with some nice fatty cheese as your desert, but not too many of us do that in the day-to-day, so I just think it’s a great nutrient. It makes sense to have it in your multivitamin, and I also take it as a standalone with my other fat-soluble nutrients.”

Kelly: “I remember reading a research paper last year, and in a study, scientists presented powerful evidence that K2 can reduce the progression of atherosclerosis, and that’s the blockage of the arteries that can lead to heart attacks and strokes, which, you know, are affecting so many people out there, and this is tremendous news for the millions of Americans, Corinna, who are at risk for cardiovascular disease, don’t you think?”

Corinna: “Well, not only that, but if you think about calcification in areas that you shouldn’t have it, like often people in their older years get bone spurs in their joints that degrade their tendons and actually mean that they need surgeries that are somewhat complicated later in life. You know, if you have healthy levels of calcium in your daily diet but you also have enough vitamin K2 in your system, you’re going to essentially be protected. You won’t have a lot of those same problems of, you know, having osteoporosis or having calcification in areas where you shouldn’t because your system’s in balance. And time and again, what we come back to is that a system in balance is the most healthy. With fat-soluble vitamins, there’s a connection between how vitamins A, B, and K2 work together, so it’s no mystery in my mind why those nutrients tend to exist together in nature. They’re in cod liver oil. They’re in a lot of those beautiful, fatty cheeses I talked about earlier [laugh], and ultimately, if you have a good, balanced diet, you’re typically going to have those nutrients in balance. But most of us are on the run, and it’s protective to have it. It’s very difficult to get too much.”

Cary: “It’s amazing how little of the substance can still have a great benefit, because you mentioned, like, it’s 100 micrograms in your formula. You know, it takes a thousand micrograms to have one milligram, so a very, very tiny amount of K2 can make a big difference.”

Corinna: “Right, and that’s similar though to the world of vitamin D3 and vitamin A. If you look at what the actual level of vitamin A and vitamin D3 are in supplements, they’re really micro levels.”

Kelly: “We’re going to run out to a break, so when we come back from break we’ll talk more about this. But you can find the NutriGold products. They’re available at independent health food stores or online. I want you to learn about this company and why Cary and I love it so much and why we wanted to partner with them for a while. The website is nutrigoldinc.com. You can learn more, and you can also follow them on social media @NutriGoldUSA. We’ll be right back after the break to talk more about K2, omega-3s, heart health and perhaps sprinkle in a little bit of your old friend, CoQ10. So, make sure you stick around with us. Always learn more at our weekly highlight page at foreveryoungradio.com.”

(Music and Commercial Break)

Cary: “Howdy! Cary Nosler here with Kelly Cappasola on Forever Young, and we’re talking with our special guest Corinna Bellizzi today. Been focusing on the omega-3s, on vitamin D3 and also quite a bit on vitamin K2. And, Kelly, I must tell you, though, I won’t say that I’m a big fan of it, but I do eat nato. [laugh]”

Cary: “I’d like some clarification on the vitamin A. You’re not talking about beta-carotene, are you? You are talking about the pre-formed A, the fat-soluble vitamin A?”

Corinna: “Well, in a really healthy system, your body can make vitamin A out of beta-carotene, but yeah, specifically I’m talking about vitamin A in the body. And these days, you know, the FDA has really tightened the loop with regard to beta-carotene and how you can list for it on labels, so we’re actually speaking of retinol equivalence. Retinol is vitamin A, so when you look at your new labels that are compliant with 2018 regulations, you’ll see that there is sometimes a dramatically reduced level of vitamin A being shown on plant-based products. Because our products are plant-based, you’ll see that we do list as vitamin A, and it’s in retinol equivalence now, so it’s not necessarily showing 5,000 IU anymore. We’re showing a retinol equivalency which is brings it down quite considerably.”

Kelly: “You can’t talk about heart health without talking about CoQ10 because it’s just one of those things that has been, like, researched and talked about and talked about for over, you know, what, thirty years? CoQ10 has been touted as helping people better maintain cardiovascular function. So, tell us a little bit of what you have going on with a CoQ10 product. I know you have a CoQ10 Gold over there at NutriGold. What makes that special compared to all the other CoQ10 products in mass market?”

Corinna: “You know, really, this gets back to what NutriGold just does differently as an organization. We screen every ingredient that goes into our products multiple times. We test them for pesticides. We test them to ensure that they’ve got the proper level of nutrients, before manufacturing and post-manufacturing, and then run stability throughout the process, as well. But we’re also using state-of-the-art CoQ10. We use specifically Kaneka’s CoQ10 in these products, which is the most researched CoQ10 on the planet. And we are, again, producing products that are vegan, kosher, non-GMO, along those lines, and gluten-free, so you’re assured that when you’re taking our products you’re taking the highest possible quality in that arena. Our CoQ10 in the Omega-3+CoQ10+D3 Gold is also that Kaneka CoQ10, and so that’s something that isn’t common for companies to make that investment in a product where it’s only one component of the overall product. So, again, you can trust that we’re using the most researched form. We’re providing it at an affordable rate so you can continue to take the product on a monthly basis. We also have a Ubiquinol Gold, and that one features the bioidentical CoQ10 source and processed products. These are processed and sourced in the United States so that you are, again, seeing that it’s the most bioavailable form, that it’s the most researched, and that it is also a product of Kaneka, so you’ll see that specifically on the label.”

Cary: “Yeah, I’m glad you mention that because I personally look for the Ubiquinol when I’m getting vitamin CoQ10 because that’s the reduced form, and it’s the most economical way for the body to use CoQ10, so the fact that you’ve gone to those great lengths with a company of the reputation that you mentioned with Kaneka and also the Ubiquinol. That makes for a good team.”

Corinna: “Right, well and in this case too, you know, if you are going to invest in Ubiquinol, many companies just deliver a 50 milligram. We’re delivering 100 milligrams still as well, so you are, in fact, getting something that is at a really highly researched level. It’s going to produce the results that you need, and if you have any inbourn insufficiencies or happen to be on statin drugs that can impact your CoQ10 levels, I think it’s always smarter to be on that bioidentical form of CoQ10 like the Ubiquinol. I think you’d agree with me there, Cary.”

Kelly: “Yeah, absolutely, well that is one thing that we’ve researched, and boy I’ll tell ya, that’s where CoQ10 really comes to benefit people especially with those statins. So, again, you can find the NutriGold products at independent health food stores or online. You can also visit the NutriGold website to learn more, and you can also visit them on social media @NutriGoldUSA. Corinna mentioned you can also get these products on the NutriGold website, and again keep your eye out at local retail stores for these products we’re speaking about. Corinna, thanks for joining us today. Excellent information. We know that we’ve armed our listeners with better ways to manage heart-related issues that they may be facing, or even preventative measures they may want to take. So, again, thank you for joining us, and we hope that you’ll come back.”

Corinna: “Alright, thank you so much, Kelly. Thank you, Cary. It’s been a lovely experience.”

Kelly: “Thank you so much. It’s always so fun to have you on. And listeners, all of this great information has been posted on our Weekly Highlight page at foreveryoungradio.com. Again, you can find the NutriGold products at independent health food stores or online. You can also visit the NutriGold website to learn more, and you can also follow them on social media @NutriGoldUSA. We have to go, but thanks for tuning in, and we’ll catch you next time. Be well out there.”