What about an aneurysm?

An aneurysm can cause a stroke and it can definitely cause you to die.

So today I'm going to teach you a little bit about aneurysms, what's involved and what you need to do to prevent aneurysms.

The first symptom or early signs of an aneurysm is there is no symptom.

Why?

Because an aneurysm is just like this bulging dilation of your vascular system.

And unless it presses on something, you're not going to feel really any major symptoms at all until it ruptures.

And when it ruptures, you have a hole in your artery.

So the blood's going to come out.

And if this happens in your brain, you get a stroke.

And potentially you might have a limited time to get to the emergency room to do something about it, but not always.

So I think it's important to talk about aneurysms and what it is and what you can do to prevent it.

You can have an aneurysm in the brain, around the heart, in the aorta, or in the kidneys, many different places.

And there's also a simple test that's highly correlated to if a person has an aneurysm.

And that is called the thumb to palm test.

So if you just take your hand right now, and you take your thumb across your hand like this, and if your thumb can extend to the outer part of your hand, that can mean that you have extra loose collagen.

And there's a high correlation between people that have this loose collagen and aneurysms.

Now, it doesn't mean that you have an aneurysm.

And if you can't move this over here, that doesn't mean you don't have an aneurysm.

It's just something to look at.

In fact, do this test right now and comment down below if you can extend your thumb past your hand right here.

I'm really curious to know.

So let's say, for example, you don't have loose ligament structure, and that's not the cause.

What are some of the causes?

Well, we have smoking.

Now you're probably wondering, like, wait a second.

Smoking goes into the lungs, not the blood, right?

Well, where do you think the oxygen and CO2 is being exchanged when you breathe?

Your lungs directly connect with your capillaries, which go right into your blood.

And if that thing is smoke, you're going to get carbon dioxide.

You're going to get a lot of different chemicals that can start to irritate the lining of the artery.

In fact, smokers have a 4x greater risk of getting an aneurysm than those non-smokers.

And then, of course, we have alcohol because there's certain byproducts and chemicals that can irritate the lining of the arteries.

And I'm talking about like a chronic drinker, not occasionally.

And then, of course, we have diabetics and people who consume a lot of sugar.

So if we expose this layer of the inside of the artery to sugar and hidden sugars like in starches, right?

Modified food starch, maltodextrin, which is in a lot of different foods.

That can create oxidation and damage to the inside of the arteries if you're consuming it on a regular basis.

And then you have seed oils.

And that's another thing that can create chronic inflammation.

And this next one is very interesting.

Dental bacteria, like bacteria in an abscess in your gums.

They found that in the aneurysm.

And they also find it in plaque.

So apparently that can leak out into your vascular system and end up creating inflammation because there's an infection going on.

So that's another cause of inflammation in this layer in the heart.

Anything that creates chronic oxidation or inflammation can start to weaken this arterial system.

And then on top of that, if you have high blood pressure, now we get all this pressure with all this inflammation.

Now it starts to break down the arteries to the point where it's starting to bulge out.

And so you really have to kind of just look at potentially what it could be for you.

If you have high blood pressure, for example, you want to take more potassium, magnesium, vitamin D.

Those are the three things that will help bring the pressure down, including going on a low-carb diet.

There's something else that can cause an aneurysm.

It's not as common, but it's a copper deficiency.

Copper is necessary in helping you build collagen.

If you're deficient in copper, you can't make the connective tissue to make everything nice and strong and firm.

Copper does a lot of other things too.

It actually acts as an antifungal, antibacterial.

And one way to create a copper deficiency is to take a lot of zinc for a long period of time without the copper.

So you need that ratio of zinc to copper.

So what are all the things that you can do to prevent an aneurysm?

Well, of course, avoiding those things that create inflammation.

Start to consume antioxidants, okay?

That can be in the form of herbs or vitamin D or vitamin B, vitamin C, or foods with those nutrients, vegetables.

And then to counteract a lot of the seed oils, we need the omega-3 fatty acids.

And out of all the foods that are very high in omega-3, you have the cod liver oil, you also have fish, as in salmon.

Vitamin D is also very, very important.

Vitamin D helps to prevent leaky arteries.

You can also have a leaky blood-brain barrier, and vitamin D prevents that, which is interesting.

It's a very powerful anti-inflammatory.

So getting a lot of sun is very important without getting burned.

And in the wintertime, you take your vitamin D3, minimally 10,000 IUs.

And probably one of the most important things to do regular exercise, because this way you can keep strengthening the arterial system over time so it lasts a long time, so it becomes elastic, so it doesn't become weak.

And exercise in general increases antioxidants that you make yourself.