Myocarditis Causes and Inflammation Support

This is not to say this is a treatment for any form of myocarditis. I will say though, the good news is you can reduce system-wide inflammation and some of the causes such as obesity and diabetes, which are highly correlated with myocarditis and other heart-related issues.

I'm Dr. Josh Axe, and welcome to another episode of the Growth Lab Podcast, where each and every week I share with you the latest science of how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and in all areas of life. And today's topic is myocarditis and some recent news that has come out on why so many young people, including young male athletes, are having heart issues.

And again, the answer here is myocarditis. We've seen in the past year Damar Hamlin from the Buffalo Bills go into cardiac arrest and almost die. We've seen recently last week Bronny James, the son of LeBron James, go into cardiac arrest. We saw the son of Kirk Herbstreit, the famed ESPN news analyst, his son Zach have heart issues. And then famous singer Tori Kelly.

We're seeing so many people now have heart issues in this condition that we rarely heard about before called myocarditis. You know, Elon Musk just tweeted here the past week. And Elon Musk, he's one of the richest, you know, switches between the first and second richest person in the world. He responded to the Bronny James cardiac arrest by tweeting.

He said, we cannot ascribe everything to the vaccine, but by the same token, we cannot ascribe nothing. He added that myocarditis is a known side effect. The only question is whether it is rare or common. Well, one of the things we're seeing is myocarditis is becoming more and more common. And as I really dug into the research, one of the things I discovered is it's connected to many things.

I'm gonna show you the science behind this. One behind if you've ever in the past had COVID, and if you had, what this viral infection can do to your body. But specifically myocarditis, if you wanna know exactly what it is, it's the inflammation of the heart muscle. And then you can also have something called pericarditis, which is inflammation of the surrounding tissues of the heart.

Now, this inflammation can reduce the heart's ability to pump blood and also cause irregular heartbeats, Also, these can lead to cardiac arrest, heart attack, or stroke.

And what the research is showing is the COVID infection appears to be, basically what that virus does, it's according to one medical researcher, they said it increases the stickiness of the blood, which increases the likelihood of blood clot formation. And that's what we're seeing in a lot of these athletes. In fact, even a coach, Deion Sanders, keeps getting blood clots in his leg.

We've seen this with a lot of people getting blood clots. And so here's what's happening. You get a virus, COVID virus. It then causes a stickiness of your blood, which causes blood clotting formation, which then causes inflammation of the blood vessels, which can also spike your blood pressure or lead to, as we talked about, heart attack or cardiac arrest. Now, I wanna show you a graphic here.

If you're watching this. And basically, this is something posted from a medical site that really goes through all of the different things historically that has been connected to increasing the likelihood of myocarditis. So you see everything here from a viral infection such as AdoV or an adenovirus, a parasitic infection, certain things like even Lyme disease.

Generally, infections are a big cause. Very high alcoholism could be another one. Drug use, so different drugs, medications, heavy metals. So, and then the other thing we see here are certain nutritional deficiencies such as thiamine and selenium, electrolyte deficiencies, specifically magnesium, obesity, right?

A lot of these preexisting conditions, issues associated with your cellular health like your mitochondria, all of these can increase the likelihood of somebody having myocarditis. Now, according to a medical study that was published in the Journal of Medical Virology, they found that people between the ages of 25 and 44 saw the highest increase in heart attack deaths due to myocarditis.

And so again, ages 25 to 44. So we're seeing a lot of people in, you know, 20 to 50 years old who have a greater increase, and the highest increase has been in male athletes, and we're seeing that a 30% increase. Now, and that's just compared to a few years ago. So there is absolutely, think about that number, 30% increase in heart attack deaths. That is a tremendous increase.

And Dr. Susan Chang from the Cedars-Sinai Hospital, she also is the person who co-authored the study I'm citing here. She said, young people are obviously not really supposed to die of a heart attack. They're really not supposed to have heart attacks at all. I think that's obvious to us all. But again, here again, a 30% increase is significant. Now, here's the other thing, though.

Adults between the ages of 45 to 64 saw a 20% increase in heart attack deaths, and those 65 and older, 14%. So I do want to point out, while the highest risk of myocarditis is in young athletes like Bronny James and Damar Hamlin, That's a 30% increase. We are still seeing an increase in people of all ages.

There's a scientist, a physician and scientist, Dr. Ziad Al-Aly, and he estimated that about 4% of people who came down with COVID-19 will develop a heart problem such as an irregular heartbeat, heart failure, inflammation, or heart attack. And he says it's a small— he said that 4% number Well, 4% seems like a small number. It's not a small number.

He said if you multiply that by the number of people living in the United States, and let's say it's close to 350,000 people, that's around 15 million people that weren't before having heart issues that now— again, the point there is it's a really, really large increase when we're looking about 4% of people being affected still from what happened.

And again, there is debate and I wanna just share, there are a lot of theories around if this is due to more getting the infection itself or from getting an injection. And I think what most scientists say is it might be, you know, that there could be an increased risk with one or the other or both when you look at the research.

Now, what I wanna do right now is I wanna take some time and say, listen, Everybody has a higher increase and especially young male athletes. But there are things we can do to care for ourselves. And by the way, what I'm sharing right— about to share right now, this is not to say this is a treatment for any form of myocarditis.

I will say though, the good news is you can reduce system-wide inflammation and some of the causes such as obesity and diabetes, which are highly correlated with myocarditis and other heart-related issues.

And so I wanna share with you now some things you wanna stay away from food-wise, some foods you may consider consuming, and some supplements that can generally help reduce inflammation of the cardiovascular system according to scientific studies. The first things you want to eliminate that science has shown causes inflammation of the cardiovascular system are sugar. Okay, so we know sugar.

Now, if you're eating blueberries or raspberries, it's not the same thing, but if you're doing any sort of added or processed sugar, that increases inflammation of your cardiovascular system. So do refined grains such as white and wheat flour products, pasta, potato chips. These foods, they turn into sugar very quickly. Also hydrogenated oils.

Also processed foods and fast foods that have additives. We know these all cause inflammation of the heart, but especially it's this, to put in simple layman's terms, sugar and bad fats. Okay, that's what will increase your likelihood of having inflammation in your body, which may contribute to inflammation in the heart.

Let's talk about anti-inflammatory foods, the ones that the research have shown that have the greatest benefits. The first is foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as wild-caught salmon. It's very, very healthy for supporting healthy blood.

And I want to mention this as well, as you saw in that, in that research study, that viruses can cause— specifically a COVID-like virus can cause stickiness of the blood, which can cause blood clotting. So one of the things you can do is consume foods that naturally help with clotting and thinning the blood. And that's why omega-3 fatty acids are so beneficial.

They're anti-inflammatory, but they also help with what's known as blood viscosity, that viscosity and clotting of the blood. Another one would be vegetables. This could be cruciferous vegetables or green leafy vegetables, doing a lot of vegetables. They have unique compounds that help with reducing inflammation. Berries are another category.

Other fruits are not going to have the same benefits as berries. Certain berries like blueberries are high in resveratrol, which in clinical studies have been shown to reduce inflammation. Also goji berries, blackberries, acai berry, but doing a lot of berries, they're going to be higher in antioxidants, which have been shown to protect the heart.

The next would be wild organic meat like grass-fed beef or pastured chicken or free-range or pastured eggs, but organic products. These are going to have some omega-3s. They also might have collagen. That's another big food that you should consider is bone broth, or products with collagen in them are also going to be good. And then healthy fats— olives, avocados, coconut, almonds.

Getting some healthy fats can reduce inflammation. Then lots of herbs and spices. In fact, of everything that I just shared with you, herbs and spices are the most anti-inflammatory. So if you're cooking food at home, use lots of rosemary, cinnamon, and garlic. Are some of the most heart-healthy of herbs and spices.

In terms of supplements, the clinical literature has shown that omega-3 fish oil is one of the most anti-inflammatory of all supplements, doing around 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams a day. In addition, coenzyme Q10. I mentioned earlier that clinical research found that it can weaken the heart.

Coenzyme Q10 is strengthening of the heart as a muscle, and you can do oftentimes 200 milligrams a day of coenzyme Q10. Turmeric as an herb, around 1,000 to 3,000 milligrams. Turmeric really is good for the blood and for reducing inflammation levels. Hawthorn has been used for thousands of years in natural medicine for heart health, for inflammation, and for blood. And then astragalus.

Astragalus is a really unique herb that's often used in Asian medicine for viral infections, but it helps with the immune response. One of the things that the literature has also shown is your body's immune system might be overreacting. And so it's your immune response that's causing inflammation of the heart.

So astragalus is known to help with the immune response and balancing out inflammation in that way. And again, these supplements and these foods I've talked about, these are not for treating as a medical condition myocarditis.

They are, however, to help generally get the whole body healthy, reduce inflammation and may support some of those comorbidities or cofactors that then in turn may increase the likelihood of any type of issues related to myocarditis.

Well, I want to encourage you again to— again, we went through a lot today, but looking at 4% of people having heart issues from COVID as a result afterwards, 30% increase in young men having heart issues post this issue as well. And I would love to hear from you in the comments.

What do you believe or think some of the root causes are of all of these heart issues happening in the general public, but also in young male athletes? I would love to hear your opinion, perspective on what you think. Also, hey, if you have any recommendations, anything I missed, I'd love to hear from you as well.

And remember, every week here as part of the Growth Lab podcast, I'm going to bring— be bringing you the latest breaking news and recommendations of things you can do. So make sure to subscribe here if you haven't subscribed. By the way, if you know somebody that's at risk or somebody who needs to know more about this information related to myocarditis, hey, please share this video with them.

You can cut it, paste it, you can text message it, you can share this on social media as well. And we need to get the word out on what's going on and how we can help. I wanna say, hey, thanks so much for watching another episode of the Growth Lab Podcast.