Brenda Watson - The Heart of Perfect Health Audio Series

In The Heart of Perfect Health, my recent Public Television special, I discuss the three main risk factors for heart disease – high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar. These are also indicators of Silent Inflammation, the main underlying feature of most, if not all, chronic disease, including heart disease.

Silent Inflammation is also known as chronic, low-grade inflammation. This Silent Inflammation can be present in such a way that you might not even know it’s there. Inflammation is sometimes described as a fire—an apt analogy due to the many different fuels that can feed the fire of inflammation. Think of the inflammation of heart disease as a big fire, like a forest fire, damaging the arteries and leading to heart attack and stroke. Think of silent inflammation as a small fire, like a campfire, found throughout the body in many different forms, silently fueling the larger fire of many chronic diseases.

In the show I outlined those three warning signs, and then uncovered the root cause of silent inflammation—you guessed it, the gut! Poor digestive health is one of the main sources of silent inflammation. Bottom line – digestive health is the true foundation of total-body health. And a healthy gut helps to maintain proper inflammatory response, the cornerstone of heart health.