As we reflect on last year and formulate our plans for a healthier new year, consider the health of your vascular system. That is probably something you rarely think about, but recent research is showing it’s time you should. Plans are generally implemented to eat better, exercise more, and improve upon reducing stress when the new year arrives. Maybe it’s time to look at how well you are delivering oxygen and nutrients to your organs and tissues. Just because you may look and even feel healthy on the outside, a completely different situation could be developing on the inside, and you don’t even know it.
How Can We Measure Oxygen and Nutrient Delivery?
When looking at disease, it is important not to simply mask the condition but to go upstream and figure out precisely what the root cause of our problem is. We can do that easily now with a simple microvascular scan called the GlycoCheck. The GlycoCheck is a noninvasive test that uses a video microscope camera placed under the tongue to evaluate your microvascular system down to the smallest capillaries and reflects your entire body’s health. The video microscope shows the live movement of your red blood cells as they travel through your microvessels.
Why Is Your Microvascular Health Important?
Your microvascular system makes up the surface area of 99% of your vascular system as a whole. It is responsible for the delivery of nutrients, oxygen, and hormones and the elimination of waste products to and from all your tissues and organs. If your microvascular system isn’t healthy, you are compromising that delivery capability and the integrity of the glycocalyx, therefore, your health.
What Is the Glycocalyx?
Simply put, the glycocalyx is your micro-thin gel lining that protects your entire vascular system. When that lining is compromised, it can become leaky, and disease and conditions can silently begin. Your organs can begin to slowly starve. The breakdown of the function of your glycocalyx can happen due to aging, stress, lack of exercise, poor nutrition, genetics, and other factors. A healthy glycocalyx protects your capillaries.
Above: Images of the glycocalyx.
Dr. Hayden’s GlycoCheck Scan
This year, we will help you focus on better blood flow for “life” is in the blood, and who better to take us on this journey than our very own publisher, Dr. Diane Hayden? She graciously offered to be completely transparent and share the complete results from her microvascular scan (GlycoCheck).
Dr. Hayden had her GlycoCheck scan in early December, the results of which you can see below. The scan took approximately 15 minutes. GlycoCheck measures blood flow and capillary density of the 4–25-micron size vessels and highlights the following data below in the dials.
• First, second, and third dials: Capillary Density of her smallest vessels is in the red (average normal ranges are in the yellow). This is the number of functioning capillary blood vessels, size of 4–6 microns (200 times smaller than a strand of hair). This lets us know the capacity of her capillaries to get blood and oxygen to the tissues. This also represents the connection of the artery side to the vein side of our vascular system.
• Fourth dial: CBV (Capillary Blood Volume) Recruitment Capacity is in green (average normal in the yellow). This shows us the number of functional capillary blood vessels with blood on reserve that she can engage when blood flow increases (like exercise or walking upstairs).
• Fifth dial: Capillary Blood Volume Dynamic is in the red (average normal in the yellow). This is the maximum blood volume when all available capillary blood vessels are engaged at high blood flow levels and tells us the maximum functional capacity of the capillary network. This illustrates how well your blood is working for you. How effective nutrients and oxygen are being absorbed.
• Sixth dial: PBR (Perfused Boundary Region) Flow Corrected is 2.24 (lower number = healthier glycocalyx). This is her level of damage to the glycocalyx. A lower number implies a thicker, healthier glycocalyx.
• Seventh dial: Microvascular Health Score was 2.9 (scores of most healthy people range between 3.0–7.0). This overall score is based on all the data shown in the previous six dials. It takes over 100 million calculations to determine this score – essentially, how at risk is an individual of complications developing in the vascular system?
We would like to see all seven dials with their arrows pointing straight up or to the right.
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Summary
Although Dr. Hayden has a low number of the smallest microvessels (indicated by the first three dials), she has the availability of additional microvessels with blood on standby to use when she needs increased blood flow for exercise, stair climbing, or exertion activities.
Having such a low number of microvessels compromises her ability to sufficiently deliver oxygen and nutrients to all her tissues, glands, and organs, thus the low number in the fifth dial.
Looking at the sixth dial (health of the glycocalyx), we see that it is in the average range in the available but inadequate number of microvessels she has. This is the most crucial score in determining the level of vascular health. Damaged glycocalyx is the root of all vascular disease.
What Dr. Hayden Had to Say About Her Scan
“For most people who know me, I’m betting these results are shocking. Especially if you know the kind of lifestyle I live. I lift weights three to four times per week, walk at least 10,000 steps per day, have been an avid runner most of my life, eat healthy (no processed or fried foods, lean proteins, lots of veggies, healthy fats), have never smoked, have pretty low alcohol intake (a couple of drinks on the weekend), have maintained a healthy weight all my life, meditate most days, and up to this past year my stress level was pretty low most of the time. But to be completely honest, I wasn’t surprised at all by these results. This is what one year of major stress can do to your body – even if you eat healthy, exercise, and meditate. If that’s not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is.
“Over the past year, my mom has fallen twice, had two major hip surgeries, been in rehab for a month both times and then had a long recovery at home. As an only child, her caretaking and all the associated responsibilities fell on me. This included coordinating getting her through surgery, into a safe and reliable rehab center (that’s a full-time job navigating the system in and of itself), all of the details once she came home (putting up grab bars, getting walkers and canes and a shower bench, making sure the house was safe for her to navigate around, converting the downstairs living room to a bedroom, organizing her clothes, doing her laundry and grocery shopping, helping her with dressing at times, and trying to manage her stress and emotional response as she’s super independent and not too happy about all of it). Not to mention the emotional aspect of dealing with all of this happening to your parent. Oh, and did I forget to include running my own business and life, too? When is there time for that?
“As if all that wasn’t enough, I had other stressful events in my business and personal life. As many of you know, my editor was diagnosed with unexplained lesions in her brain and has been suffering from debilitating headaches – so much so she has had to take some time off, and I have had to pick up some of the editing and go through the process of finding additional help. One of my close friends was diagnosed with an aggressive ovarian cancer and is going through chemo now. My partner and I moved in with my mom to care for her and lived with her for about seven months – I won’t go into more detail, but you can imagine that wasn’t the easiest thing for our relationship! So, yes, the last year was extremely stressful. I knew it was affecting me physically because after three to four months, I started having heart palpitations and, at times, a racing heart rate. Even though I was still exercising, eating healthy (although that included more protein bars and shakes as I was on the run a lot), and meditating, it was extremely hard to control my stress level.
“I’m eternally grateful to Lisa and the ability to have this scan so I could see the level of what stress was doing to my body. Even if you don’t have any symptoms, the microvasculature is where disease starts. The events of the past year have allowed me to realize that I need a different way to manage my stress. Living with my mother has brought up a lot of unhealed trauma from the past, but now I’m able to see when and why I react to certain triggers and how that causes me more stress. With this knowledge, I’m better able to support my body with critical nutrients to help reduce stress, including the supplement specifically designed to support vascular health. You can bet those are my top priorities as we start a new year!”
Dr. Hayden’s Support Recommendations
Recommendations based on the results of this scan are to look at all lifestyle components to improve upon, begin Endocalyx Pro to support vascular health, and rescan in three months. Endocalyx Pro is a nutraceutical clinically shown to repair damage in the arteries and veins and, most importantly, your body’s microscopic capillaries.
If you are committed to health and longevity, the GlycoCheck is a way to objectively track and measure vascular health, and Endocalyx Pro is an amazing nutraceutical that is going to help your body regrow small vessels, help your body heal the damage inside the vessels, and restore your health to a new level of living. To follow Dr. Hayden’s journey, please see the Spring issue!
We encourage all of you to try the same thing. As they say, “knowledge is power”! We are offering GlycoCheck scans here in Naples at MV Solutions and onsite in your office for you to get the most out of your vascular system and learn when it’s working and how successful it is.
Lisa Sprague, MSS, PTA, LMT, is a licensed healthcare practitioner with over 35 years of experience. She has been in private practice since 1999 and specializes in frequency-based medicine and advanced wellness technologies. Lisa believes in treating the whole to heal the part, empowering you to optimize your health and well-being, and bringing self-care back into your healthcare.