The Heart/Brain Connection

Your heart is actually a pump.  The heart is about the size of your fists and the strongest muscle in your body.  If you live to be seventy, your heart will beat about two and a half billion times.
Every cell in your body needs oxygen and nutrients to survive and keep you alive.  Your heart pumps blood through the body picking up oxygen from the lungs and nutrients from your digestive tract to send to every cell.  The heart also works to remove waste products no longer needed by the body.
The heart has four chambers with the two upper chambers called the right and left atria.  The two lower chambers are called right and left ventricles.  The right atrium opens into the right ventricle allowing the blood to flow from the atria into the ventricle, but only in one direction.  This procedure pumps the blood to the lungs to be re-oxygenated.  The left atrium receives blood from the lungs.  The valve between the left atrium and the left ventricle is also a one way valve.  The left ventricle pumps the blood through the whole body.
Diabetes affects the circulation in the body making it one of the most serious complications of the disease.  People with diabetes are far more likely to have a heart attack.  Diabetics who have a heart attack are more likely to die than the non-diabetic.
Thee are many factors that lead to macro-vascular problems in diabetics.  These problems are not only related to the diabetes but also the lifestyle they lead.  High blood sugar roughens up and damages the artery walls making it easier for plaque to stick to the walls depleting the flow of blood to all organs.  Diabetics are more likely to have atherosclerosis, which is a disease where plaque builds up inside your arteries.  Plaque consists of cholesterol, calcium, and other substances in the blood.  Over time plaque hardens and narrows your arteries.  Having abnormal blood lipids like high cholesterol and and high triglycerides is dangerous.  This limits the flow of oxygen-rich blood to different parts of the body.  You will have problems with high blood pressure, heart attack or stroke, and/or peripheral arterial disease (Damaged blood vessels equal a risk of amputations). 
TIA"s are called "the silent heart attack".  Diabetes will eventually cause nerve damage and/or neuropathy.  Because nerve endings of the body are damaged, diabetics often do not feel pain like the non-diabetic.  The diabetic may think they are having indigestion or an upset stomach when it is actually signs of a heart attack.  TIA"s often come without any warning and leave rather quickly.  Sometimes they will leave notable affects and sometimes they do not leave any.
Recant research has discovered a new understanding of how the heart and brain interact with each other in a relationship that regulates many aspects of knowledge and emotion.  The heart contains a complex nervous system of its own enabling it to sense, regulate and remember.  The heart/brain can process information and make decisions about its control independent of the central nervous system.
Neurological signals originating in the heart directly influences many brain activities.  The neurons of the heart are localized around the main vessels, all interconnected.  Some neurons have to do with processing information like pressure while others are sensitive to chemical substances like hormones, etc.  This information in the little heart-brain is integrated and used for local decision making.
There is definitely a connection between the heart and brain.  Actually the heart sends as much or more information to the brain than the other way around.  This information influences regions in the brain that affect decision making, creativity and especially emotion.  Basically the heart has a two way dialog with the brain as well as the rest of the body.
The finding of the heart/brain theory causes you to question what you thought you knew about thinking and feeling.  We have all experienced times when we not sure what we thought or felt about something.  As the heart communicates with the brain it influences information processing perceptions, emotion and health.
You must take care of your health to prevent a heart attack as well as many other complications.  Keep your blood pressure low as well as your cholesterol and triglycerides, loose weight if you need to, eat a balanced diet (a diet high in saturated fat is very dangerous), do some form of exercise daily, always keep a close check of your sugar level by using the blood glucose meter, and visit the doctor when you are supposed to.
Research has proved we are energy.  Once energy is created it cannot be destroyed.  When a person dies all cells, including the heart and brain, die.  What then?  What happens to that energy?  Read the lesson to the right of this letter and find out.