Put Your Heart in Your Mouth: Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride

A few months ago, I had the good fortune to see Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride talk at a Weston A Price Foundation conference in London. I had already heard of one of her books: Gut and Psychology Syndrome, in which she explains the causal link between imbalances in intestinal flora and various mental disorders such as autism, depression and schizophrenia. While I’d always thought the book sounded very interesting, I hadn’t tried to buy it because I wasn’t personally affected by any of the conditions it focused on.

Hearing her talk, however, made me change my tune. Hers is a very holistic approach, based on her professional and educational background in medicine, neurology and nutrition, and the personal experience of having an autistic child within her family. Campbell-McBride’s research and books may be most specifically aimed at those already suffering from health problems, but they are relevant and useful for anyone interesting in attaining or maintaining good health. I bought both of her books before leaving the conference.

I dived straight into Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and promptly passed it on to a needing friend; this thin book is a veritable bible of good eating advice and nutritional wisdom. I have now just finished reading her second book Put Your Heart in Your Mouth, in which Campbell-McBride focuses on the causes of and suitable, natural treatment for heart disease.

This book is another treasure-chest of hard fact and scientific teaching, all delivered in Campbell-McBride’s all-knowing, kind-but-firm Russian mother way. She passionately breaks down that pervasive myth that most have us spent our whole lives believing; that cholesterol and dietary fat are the causes of heart disease, showing it to be absolutely fallacy, permitted by erroneous or lax studies often funded by someone likely to gain by perpetuating this lie (ie the food industry or the pharmaceutical industry). She explains how atherosclerosis, the inflammation of the arteries that can eventually lead to heart disease, is caused. She also explains how to protect your body from environmental toxins that cause it, and how to provide it with optimal nutrition to keep it healthy at the cellular level.

I don’t want to summarise here Campbell-McBride’s words. Her books ought to be read in their own right. I do, however, want to leave you with a few quotes that might hopefully get those cogs moving and the machine whirring; that might help you distrust the nutritional baloney printed on the side of the packet of extruded cereal, and might help you help your body to stay healthy, or, even better; to become just a little healthier.

“The human brain is particularly rich in cholesterol: around 25% of all body cholesterol is taken by the brain. Every cell and every structure in the brain and the rest of our nervous system needs cholesterol, not only to build itself but also to accomplish its many functions” (pg 23)

“Atherosclerosis and heart disease were virtually unknown until we invented processed carbohydrates” (pg 55).

“Dietary cholesterol in fresh eggs and other cholesterol-rich foods has been shown in scientific trials to improve memory in the elderly” (pg 24).
“Cholesterol is essential for our immune system to function properly” (pg 29).

“Without cholesterol we would not be able to have children because every sex hormone in our bodies is made from cholesterol. A fair percentage of our infertility epidemic can be laid at the doorstep of the “diet-heart hypothesis” ” (pg 27)

“Statins [cholesterol-lowering drugs] are the number one profit-makers for the pharmaceutical industry; they are rapidly becoming the most prescribed drugs in the Western world” (pg 16).

“If you have come to believe that you can ward off death from heart disease by altering the amount of cholesterol in your blood, whether by diet of by drugs, you are following a regime that still has no basis in fact. Rather, you as a consumer have been taken in by certain commercial interests and health groups who are more interested in your money than your life” (Edward Pinckney, author of The Cholesterol Controversy, quoted on pg 9).

“The simplistic idea that eating fat makes you fat is completely wrong. Consuming processed carbohydrates causes obesity” (pg 80).

“Animal fats have nothing to do with heart disease, atherosclerosis and cancer. Our human physiology needs these fats; they are important for us to eat on a daily basis” (pg 79).

“A thin slice of typical white bread will give you the equivalent of about 5 teaspoons of sugar going into your bloodstream very fast, leading to hyperinsulinemia and metabolic syndrome” (pg 62).

“Cholesterol is a healing agent in the body. When the body has some healing jobs to do, it produces cholesterol and sends it to the site of the damage” (pg 31).