Heart Health Report

For a Symptom, Drug & Stress Free Life

First Issue

Dr. Crandalls

By Chauncey Crandall, M.D.

Take the First Step Toward a Life Free of Heart Disease

elcome to my newsletter, Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report! Congratulations on reaching out for information that will enable you to guard your hearts health and live the life God intended. I hope youll find this newsletter an invaluable resource. No doubt you are reading this because you have concerns. Maybe youve already had a heart attack. Or youve been suffering from angina and are wondering about new and improved treatments. You may be overweight, plagued by a smoking habit, or your doctor has just told you that your cholesterol counts are through the roof. Its natural to worry. As a heart patient myself, I know what its like. (Ill tell you more about my own experience later.) Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in America, not only for men but women as well. In fact, heart disease kills more women every year than all cancers combined yes, including breast cancer. Nearly a third of all deaths are from heart disease. Thats why cholesterol counts have become a national obsession. Even cereal boxes now carry banners touting their cholesterol-reducing effects. Most of us doubt that eating oatmeal is going to prove a magic cure. On the other hand, we desperately want to know what will work our life may be depending on it! Its not as if theres not enough information. Theres almost too much: Internet sites, shelves of books on the topic, and advertisements for every treatment imaginable. Understandably, many of you suffer from information overload. Wed like just to trust our

doctor, but he or she has a waiting room crammed full of patients and too often reaches for the prescription pad rather than teaching us and leading us to better health. I love and honor my calling as a doctor and appreciate more than I can say the countless medical professionals whose only concern is their patients welfare. I know, however, that doctors can fail to take proper account of the person before them. Ive experienced this as a patient, and Im a doctor myself. On top of that, medicine as its currently practiced is far more attuned to treating illness than reversing or curing it. Thats the unhappy truth. I take a different approach. I meet my patients where they are and use everything in the medical arsenal conventional medicine, emerging treatments, lifestyle changes, even alternative therapies to get the patient

In This Issue...
Heart Disease Comes from Many Causes................ 2 My Journey From Tribal Life to Modern Doctor..... 3 The Wake-Up Call: My Own Heart Battle. ............. 3 Case Study: A Traders Story.................................... 4 The Tools You Need to Win the Heart Fight. .......... 5 An Important Heart Test; Tobaccos Real Cost........ 6 Changes for the Better, Living a Full Life................. 7 Ask Dr. Crandall. .................................................... 8

well. I want my patients to live symptom-free, drug-free, and as stress-free as possible.

Lets consider more closely what meeting you where you are means. If you were my patient and you were having a heart attack or were about to have one, I would put you in the hospital and use every tool modern medicine possesses to get you on the road to recovery. Thats what doctors do. But I wouldnt stop there. Once you had recovered sufficiently, I would use medications to help you meet my initial targets important indicators of your improving health. Then I would use changes in your diet, exercise regimen (assuming you have one!), and alternative therapies to help you live a long and productive life, disease free. The good news is this: You dont have to die or have your life impaired by heart disease. Most people these days can live well into their 90s. I have more than a few patients in my practice who are older than 100. I want you to live a full and healthy life because I have a profound belief that God has given everyone a role to play on this Earth. Thats why I must get you the help you need! As a committed Christian, I have found that people of faith often are more prepared than others to follow their path to true wellness. They typically have more self-discipline as a result of their powerful belief in having something to live for a purpose larger than themselves. So I talk and even pray with my patients about their relationship with God. I treat hearts, but we have souls, too, and both must be healthy in order to live a full life. Ive found that spiritual disciplines, such as prayer and fasting practices common to many

Heart Disease Comes From Many Causes

I wish I could say that theres one silver bullet that will cure heart disease (as the infomercials claim), but there just isnt. Heart disease often is described as a lifestyle disease because a life with little exercise and a diet high in fat and sugar contribute to the build-up of plaque in the arteries simply put, thats the cause of heart disease. Yet we all know people who live to a ripe old age eating fried everything and doing little more than puttering around the house, while others die in their 30s from massive coronaries. What makes the difference in their health? Chronic stress often plays a major role, as do genetics and inflammatory conditions resulting from viruses and infections. Hormonal imbalances, thyroid conditions, over-production of insulin, and many more factors can trigger heart disease. These triggers help bring on cardiac events heart attacks, embolisms, aneurysms, and stroke. Thats why I assess everything thats going on with my patients and prescribe a course of treatment geared to each. Often this involves thinking outside the box, as my life story, which Ill discuss in a minute, has uniquely equipped me to do. With every new patient, I seek to stop the disease in its tracks and reverse it. Whether immediately or down the road, I know that will entail the kind of re-education, retraining, and constant vigilance this newsletter will provide and promote. Im here to help you help yourself get better for good, for life.

Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report is a publication of Newsmax Media, Inc., and Newsmax.com. It is published monthly at a charge of $54.00 per year and is offered online and in print through Newsmax.com. Our editorial ofces are located at 560 Village Blvd., Ste. 120, West Palm Beach, FL 33409. The owner, publisher, and editor are not responsible for errors and omissions. Rights of reproduction and distribution of this newsletter are reserved. Any unauthorized reproduction or distribution of information contained herein, including storage in retrieval systems or posting on the Internet, is expressly forbidden without the consent of Newsmax Media. For permission, contact the publisher at : PO Box 20989, West Palm Beach, FL 33416. CEO Christopher Ruddy Associate Publisher Travis Davis Author Chauncey Crandall, M.D. Contributing Editor Harold Fickett Production/Art Director Elizabeth Dole To contact Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report send e-mail to: askdrcrandall@newsmax.com. Subscription/Customer Service contact 1-800-485-4350 or customerservice@newsmax.com. Send e-mail address changes to customerservice@newsmax.com. 2010 Newsmax Media, all rights reserved. Please note that this advice is generic and not specic to any individual. You should consult with your doctor before undertaking any medical or nutritional course of action.

First Issue

religions have aided my patients in their recoveries and enriched their lives. Who am I? Im a Yale Medical School-trained, board-certified, interventional cardiologist (F.A.C.C., F.C.C.P.). I practice in Palm Beach, Fla., and many of Americas most powerful and wealthy people, including five billionaires, are among my patients. In fact, people fly in from all over America and from abroad to see me. I take care of people of modest means, too. But this summary hardly tells the story, especially when it comes to why I look at things differently than most doctors. From an early age, I was interested in medicine, but during my college and early graduate years, I also was fascinated by anthropology the study of men and women and their cultures. This interest endures and has enabled me to see things other Western physicians often cannot see.

faculty at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, Va. There I ran the heart-transplant program. This involved assessing every transplant candidates eligibility. This was truly holistic medicine, in the sense that the patients prior behavior, the presence or absence of other health conditions, the ability of his family to support his recovery everything had to be considered before a candidate received the green light for (or was denied) a new heart.

The Wake-Up Call: My Own Heart Battle

Then I had the most enlightening day ever in my lifelong study of heart disease: I became a patient. In 2002, I was returning from a speaking engagement on Long Island where both Dr. Mehmet Oz, a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and I gave talks on heart health. When I arrived at LaGuardia, I pulled my suitcase out of the car and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. I put the suitcase down, popped the handle, and rolled it into the airport. As I walked, the pain intensified. I was only 48, not a diabetic, I dont smoke, and I have no family history of heart disease. It simply didnt occur to me then that it
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My Journey From Tribal Life to Modern Doctor

As an undergraduate, I traveled to the West African nation of Togo to study the Kabre tribe. The Kabre live on a diet of cereals, fruits, and vegetables, consuming meat only on feasting occasions. Heart disease is almost unknown among them. The same is true of many other cultures Ive investigated that live on a diet thats largely plant-based. Long before books such as The China Study, which showed how consuming animal proteins causes disease, I knew that heart disease wasnt a necessary part of the human condition. I became interested in specializing in cardiology during my medical training, so I volunteered to assist in cutting-edge research. This added to the workload, but it was well worth it. I spent many days in the basement laboratories at Yale actually creating heart disease on purpose. We fed our test subjects mostly pigs different diets, exposed them to chronic stress, and manipulated their hormones. I saw how fast heart disease could be produced. I also realized that my research meant that it could be avoided.
From 1989 to 1993, I was on the clinical research
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About Chauncey Crandall

Chauncey W. Crandall, M.D., F.A.C.C., is chief of the cardiac transplant program at the world-renowned Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where he practices interventional, vascular, and transplant cardiology. Dr. Crandall received his post-graduate training at Yale University School of Medicine, where he also completed three years of research in the cardiovascular surgery division. He lectures nationally and internationally on preventive cardiology, cardiological healthcare of the elderly, healing, interventional cardiology, and heart transplants. Known as the Christian physician, Dr. Crandall has been heralded for his values and message of hope to all his heart patients.

Heart Health Case History of the Month

From Wall Street to Intensive Care and Back: A Traders Story

In each issue, I will share with you the story of one of my patients, detailing how making changes to your life can radically improve your heart health. Names and some details have been changed for privacys sake, but the problems and their resolutions are real. Dr. Chauncey Crandall
Tom, 54, had moved to Palm Beach after making a fortune on the oor of the New York Stock Exchange. He now worked as a day trader and enjoyed it so much that he rarely moved from behind his computer monitors. During the heat of one trading day, though, he started to have left shoulder pain and mild shortness of breath. He had no history of heart disease in his family and had not had problems before, but he didnt exercise and was overweight. Beyond trading, his only real activity was going out to eat with his wife every night. His rst episode of shoulder pain passed but a few days later he went out to collect the mail and his chest felt tight. The symptoms worsened during the next week, and his physician sent him to me for evaluation. I diagnosed him as having unstable angina, meaning that his symptoms were new and appeared to be accelerating. I scheduled him for an elective angiogram (heart catheterization), and when we performed the procedure, we found he had a blockage of 90 percent in the main artery of the heart, the left anterior descending coronary artery. There was disease in his other arteries as well but nothing critical. I put in a large-diameter stent and fully restored the arterys blood ow. His symptoms stopped immediately, and he did beautifully. The Wall Street trader then came to my ofce for a follow-up. He was scared freaked out, in fact. He had seen several of his New York colleagues have heart attacks and die. (The stress of trading on the New York Stock Exchange is so intense that debrillator pads are located everywhere around the oor.) While frightened, he was highly independent and rebellious in temperament. I made a point of asking him to bring his wife to our appointments. I would need her as an ally. Although the trader resisted listening to his wife, she could read him. She told me of symptoms that had preceded his episodes of angina poor color, difculty sleeping, and increased irritability. In the hospital he had been put on a cholesterol4

lowering statin drug, a blood pressure medicine, and had been told to cut out sweets. Forty pounds overweight, he had what we call metabolic syndrome, a combination of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, hyperglycemia (elevated blood sugar), and increased girth or belly fat. Metabolic syndrome is a heart-disease manufacturing machine. I put him on our program of aggressive heart-disease reversal. We gave him targets for cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar, and weight. He was asked to follow our heart-disease reversal diet very strictly for at least six months. I also put him on an exercise program: three days a week in a cardiac rehab facility and an hour of walking on the days he did not go to rehab. Through diet and exercise I wanted him to lose from 5 to 7 pounds per month. I saw the two weeks later and asked him how he was doing. His wife told me he was still eating his ice cream every night and not walking on his days off from cardiac rehab. At that point, I told him how quickly the stent could clog up. He might die from a heart attack and it could occur so quickly there would be no saving him. After that talk, our trader decided to get with the program.

I Feel 25 Years Younger

Two months later, he had lost signicant weight and was excited about the progress he was making. This is working, doc! he told me. He noticed how much more energy he had and how much sharper he was mentally. Instead of resisting his wifes help, he was actually letting her order for him at restaurants, since she did a better job of picking his foods. In another month he was taking his own salad dressing to restaurants to ensure he stayed fat free. He was exercising on his own one to two hours a day, often riding his bike. His sexual function had improved, which particularly delighted him. At the six-month mark, he was near his ideal body weight. His blood work showed that he not only had met but also exceeded our targets, so I was able to reduce his medication, using natural supplements where possible. At cocktail parties people started asking the former Wall Street trader where he had found the fountain of youth. I do feel 25 years younger, hed say. This doctor put me on this amazing program. He was playing tennis every day at his club. He was enjoying life and felt like a new person. Thats what I want for all my patients.

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might be my heart. I boarded the plane, and the pain went away. When I arrived in Palm Beach, I picked up my bag, and the pain in my shoulder came back, now with a little pressure in my chest. But I was fine by the time I arrived home. It was late fall and the kids wanted to go to the beach that night to hunt for sea turtles. That sounded like lots of fun. So we went to the northern end of the island and my two boys, Chad and Christian, went racing around with flashlights. I walked along in the sand, or at least I tried: I could not go a dozen steps without severe pain in my chest. It was as if I had run laps around a track and had that liver ache that makes you stop, only this was far more intense. It was the most unbelievable pain imaginable. I would stop and rest, feel better, try to catch up with the kids, and then immediately feel the onset of pain once more. I didnt want to tell my wife, Deborah. I kept going through possible diagnoses in my head, try to convince myself that it couldnt be heart disease. At the end of the night I managed to make it back to the car. I drove home and the pain went away. I took a bunch of aspirin and went to bed, resolving to forget about the episode. I felt fine the next morning. I thought what I experienced might have been a fluke or brought on by stress. But I decided to test it. Deborah runs in the morning. I thought Id walk along behind her. (If I collapsed, I was sure she would see me on her way back to the house.) But I didnt make it to the end of the driveway without severe pain. I sat on the entryway steps and waited until she returned. It was hard to admit, but I finally said it out loud: Deborah, you have to take me to the hospital. Ive got a heart problem. I dont know why, but I do. By the time the medical team had me on the table, I was screaming in pain. I had whats called a widow-maker lesion. Three major arteries feed the heart, and the main one is called the LAD. It runs down the middle of the heart and feeds the bulk of the muscle. The widow-maker lesion is a blockage in medical terms, a stenosis at the very beginning of the
First Issue

artery. It shuts off the whole arterial bed that feeds most of the heart, and it usually results in death. Thats why the ache was so severe. My whole heart was crying out for blood, and it couldnt get any my LAD was 99 percent blocked! I had an emergency angioplasty and received two stents. I spent the night in the intensive care unit. The next day, I felt fantastic, and in the afternoon I pulled out the IVs, dressed, and prepared to leave. The nurses came running. You cant do this, they cried. But I insisted I was fine and left. (Doctors truly are the worst patients.) I learned from this episode that, if I wanted to continue making a significant contribution to this world, I had to take care of my health. I had to approach the matter like a Green Beret or Navy SEAL someone who is always prepared to go into battle because life often is a battle, as heart patients quickly learn. I had to get serious about exercise, stay on a restricted diet, get a periodic stress test, and pray for the healing of my body, for my and my familys sake. Lord, heal my heart; keep it strong so I can go the distance, I whispered.

The Tools You Need to Win the Heart Fight

Heres what you can expect from this newsletter and how we are going to fight the battle together. In each issue I will explain a major heart health issue. The next newsletter, for example, takes up the question of whether heart disease can be reversed and, for practical purposes, cured. I believe it can, and Ill be detailing the strong evidence in support of this view. This is the right
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Quick Takes: Tips for Better Heart Health Now

Whats the Real Cost of 100 Cigarettes?
Many of us smoked in our younger years, before we realized its devastating effects on our health. Fortunately, the body has the capacity to clean the lungs of tar over time and get rid of other toxins smoking builds up in the body. Some effects may linger, however. The U.S. government just approved ultrasound screening at entry into Medicare for anyone who has smoked 100 cigarettes in his lifetime to ensure that the patient doesnt have an aortic abdominal aneurysm. The more we learn about smokings long-term effects, the worse the picture. lifestyle factors that result in the build-up of plaque in the heart. This build-up can be prevented, but opportunistic infections are much harder to guard against. For this reason heart patients and others ought to have C-reactive protein (CRP) tests run with their blood work. CRP indicates levels of inammation within the body. It cannot identify the source of the inammation, but a high reading should prompt a search for possible triggers of heart attack and stroke. We know that those with chronically elevated CRP readings have a greater incidence of heart attack. The topic of inammation and heart disease is so important that I will explore the subject in detail in a future newsletter. through diet and exercise. Genes dont determine everything. There are epigenetic tags that toggle genes on and off, given different circumstances. This is why identical twins, for instance, whose DNA is exactly alike, can have different characteristics and different cholesterol counts. The same is true, by the way, of adult-onset diabetes. Even if your father and grandfather or mother and grandmother had diabetes later in life and your genetic inheritance mirrors theirs, you can keep from turning on the diabetic switch if you follow the right diet and keep your weight down.

Popularity of C-Reactive Protein Tests

Cardiologists are seeing heart disease more and more as an inammatory condition. Cholesterol that builds up in the arteries creates inammation. Hypertension distorts the arteries in such a way that it allows cholesterol to embed itself, forming inammatory irregularities in the arterial lining thats especially dangerous. Then there are inammatory mediators of heart disease such as rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune diseases like scleroderma, pneumonia, systemic sepsis and even common infections. Infection anywhere causes a cascading effect throughout the body. A serious infection can then cause the build-up of plaque within the arteries to rupture, causing a thrombosis the creation of a blood clot. Blood clots traveling through the circulatory system cause heart attacks and strokes. It might be the case, then, that someones heart attack might be triggered indirectly by a badly infected tooth. Thats right, a tooth! Its so important to address the
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The Connection Between Diabetes and Heart Disease

Diabetes and heart disease often occur together. The two conditions may actually derive from the same cause: chronic inammation. Developing late-onset Type 2 diabetes puts someone at a high level of risk for developing heart disease. In fact, 80 percent of Type 2 diabetes patients develop cardiovascular disease. If you have diabetes, its particularly important that you hit the following targets in order to avoid heart disease: Walk an hour per day; target cholesterol levels of LDL under 100 mg/dL, HDL above 40 mg/dL, and triglycerides under 150 mg/dL; and keep your weight in the healthy range. Your body fat (BMI) should be between 18.5 percent and 24.9 percent. If you are overweight, try to lose 5 to 7 pounds per month until you reach a healthy BMI. There are online calculators for BMI and also simple handheld BMI test instruments. As for blood pressure, aim for 120/80; strictly regulate your blood sugar; and talk with your doctor about taking a low-dose aspirin.
First Issue

Why You Cant Eat What Grandma Ate

Genetics plays a role in heart disease. For example, specic genetic conditions, such as familial hypercholesterolemia, result in very high counts of LDL, the bad cholesterol. Two scientists, Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein, were given the Nobel Prize for discovering the cholesterol receptor. The number of cholesterol receptors a person has can vary, which is why your grandmother might have lived to 103 on fried chicken and chocolate pie, but the same diet could be lethal for you. The good news is that almost everyone has an adequate number of cholesterol receptors, and if you give your body a chance through diet and exercise, they will start to eliminate the excess cholesterol in your blood. Even those with an underlying genetic defect that causes their cholesterol counts to soar often can turn that genetic switch off

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topic for the next newsletter because all of the newsletters that follow will be looking at this central concern from various angles. After all, I dont want merely to help in your treatment for heart disease I want you to get well! In writing about these major topics I will draw on the latest studies and most advanced thinking. Ill detail enough of the science so that you can understand the concepts, but Ill do so in thoroughly understandable terms. The point of the discussion is for you to have information that you can incorporate into your own health discipline. Its for you to have information you can use every day to get well and to stay well. Every issue of the newsletter includes a fascinating case history. These case studies will go beyond the patients medical history to include that persons activities after becoming well. Many of my patients have led lives of greater significance after diagnosis than before. Heart disease can be not only debilitating but dispiriting. I want you to see that there is hope. You have much to live for. In each issue, Ill also have a section of quick takes, short items about promising treatments, new drugs, supplements, dietary considerations, and exercise. These will provide you with two or three things youll want to do right away to support your health. Each month, too, Ill field your letters and give direct responses to your questions. In this way I can address very specific concerns. So please write. I look forward to your letters. Send your questions to askdrcrandall@newsmax.com and be sure to include your name and your hometown. When I first began practicing cardiology at Beth Israel Hospital in New York, I saw heartattack patient after heart-attack patient come through the doors. We could help stabilize these patients and prescribe a few drugs, but there wasnt much else we could do. Many people in that era had multiple heart attacks; if they didnt die from the first one they were left debilitated. Thats just not true anymore. We have learned so much and are learning more every day. New therapies not only are on the horizon but also are being used today. The best of medicine from
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conventional medicine to alternative therapies that work can help you get well. Its really true! You have to do your part, too, of course. A doctor often will remind a patient of that fact as the patient leaves the office. The patient usually nods and makes promises. But both doubt that its actually going to happen, and with good reason. Habits are hard to change, and many of the habits that contribute to heart disease have been developed throughout a persons life. These habits often are associated, as well, with the best things in life such as sitting with the family around a table thats groaning with comfort food.

Changes for the Better, Living a Full Life

Aristotle believed that virtue is a habit. Unfortunately, vice is a habit, too, and those unhealthy habits contribute so much to heart disease. Making the transition from a lifetime of bad habits to good ones is a gradual process. Coaching is important. Its the key to your success. Thats why Im not content with simply prescribing a course of treatment for my patients, hearing their promises, and sending them on their way. I want to see them in my office on a regular basis. Their progress should be monitored, and they need to be encouraged and to remain accountable. Patients must re-educate themselves and retool to learn to live in a healthier way. Changing habits is undoubtedly the most important part of any recovery process. Thats why Im so glad you are reading this newsletter. Consider it a virtual visit with one of your doctors. (It should not, however, be considered a substitute for consulting with your personal physician. I would never advise that.) I believe strongly that, if you read this newsletter every month, you will concentrate on the changes you need to make. Youll be able to take advantage of the latest therapies that can make the battle easier. Youll be assured that you are up-to-date in the re-education and retooling process. Most of all, youll know that Im in the battle with you as we fight together for your health.
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Ask Dr. Crandall

Dear Readers, I will try to answer as many questions as I can. However, because of the volume of questions, I cannot answer each letter personally. Please include your full name, city, and state when submitting. If you have a question for me, please e-mail it to: askdrcrandall@newsmax.com. Someone told me that a large percentage of heartattack victims have none of the classic risk factors for heart disease. Is it true that people have heart attacks without high cholesterol or other risk factors? Linda J., Omaha, Neb.
Im glad you asked this question. Its one I often get, especially when a patient or someone making healthy changes finds the going is getting tough. It would be better to say that people with no known risk factors sometimes have heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems. Ive never done an autopsy on someone who has died of heart disease without seeing a significant build-up of plaque in the arteries. The thousands upon thousands of catheterizations Ive performed on heart patients with no previous risk factors tell the same story in 99 percent of the cases, theres significant underlying disease. The statistics your friend cites are off, too, because of changing standards for risk factors, which keep being revised as the result of greater understanding. The classic one is cholesterol. Doctors used to tell us we were fine if we had a combined cholesterol count that was no greater than 280. Now the standard is 200, and for people who have had heart problems most doctors advise a cholesterol level of 170 or below. The full truth is that populations in which heart disease is virtually absent, such as Chinese workers, have a combined cholesterol count of between 118 and 124. That compares with what we all had
Please note: All information presented in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report is for informational purposes only. It is not specic medical advice for any individual. All answers to reader questions are provided for informational purposes only. All information presented in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report should not be construed as medical consultation or instruction. You should take no action solely on the basis of this publications contents. Readers are advised to consult a health professional about any issue regarding their health and well-being. While the information found in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report is believed to be sensible and accurate based on the authors best judgment, readers who fail to seek counsel from appropriate health professionals assume risk of any potential ill effects. The opinions expressed in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report do not necessarily reect those of Newsmax Media. 8
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as healthy children. Likewise, our targets for high blood pressure (hypertension) and glucose have been revised downward. Western medicine has tried to be as forgiving as possible when counseling people about heart disease. Weve wanted to ask of our patients the minimum in terms of lifestyle changes since we know such changes are hard to make. But we havent really done anyone any favors. Its the truth the full truth that sets us free. I now aim for target counts for cholesterol and other risk factors that ensure, as much as humanly possible, that those I counsel will not suffer from heart disease.

How seriously should I take new health foods such as acai berries and pomegranate juice? Are these super antioxidant foods as helpful as some claim? Tanya L., New Orleans, La.
Acai berries and pomegranates are great sources of antioxidants. But so are blueberries and blackberries and other familiar fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants protect the body from the harmful molecules called free radicals. Free radicals may play a role in the development of coronary artery disease. A diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables ones with which everyone is familiar will supply all the antioxidants anyone needs. Although acai berries and other exotic fruits may contain more antioxidants than more common berries and fruits, they are in no way so superior as to justify the prices charged for them. Just eat a small bowl of blueberries every day and youll be set on your antioxidants. To your heart health,