THE CURE FOR ALL DISEASES
used for the purpose of smoothing out the heart beat, that is,
making it regular. Often the drug can be changed.
Less than 60 beats per minute will lead to trouble. For a
young person it is a good sign to be as low as 60, provided no
drug is involved. But for the elderly it does not reflect a strong
athletic heart beat.
The heart is made of four separate “chambers” or compart-
ments each pulsing in turn. They are like four horses pulling a
wagon. Unless they pull evenly, the wagon feels jerky, and ir-
regular. The wagon will wear out sooner with jerky pulling. To
smooth them out you simply slow them down. Apparently they
sense each other better and can pull evenly now.
A heart that is beating 100 times per minute, not unusual for a
weak old heart, can be so irregular that it misses every fourth
beat. That creates a terrible deficiency of oxygen. Imagine your
four cylinder car or lawnmower missing one out of four engine
strokes! Beta-blockers have some quite undesirable side effects
but heart regularity has a higher priority. So drugs are the im-
mediate choice. Later, when heart health is improved, the heart
will beat regularly without drug use. In the meantime, watch over
the pulse. When the pulse drops below 60 the new danger is
slowness. Take the pulse daily when a new drug has been added,
or when you are working on heart health, without getting your
loved one anxious about it.
Heart Health.............................................................................
To improve heart health, the first steps of course would be to
go off caffeine and to kill parasites and bacteria. This alone
could drop the pulse from 120 to 80 in a few days. Obviously,
the need for a drug is gone. Cut the drug dosage in half immedi-
ately. Don't wait for a doctor's appointment to O.K. it. If you
waited another day the pulse could be below 60.