With age, inactivity, obesity, and many other common factors, arterial plaque increases and can become problematic. For some patients, following a healthy diet and a physical activity program is only enough to stabilize arterial plaque. Their vulnerable plaque may even continue to increase. Since a healthy endothelium mediates what enters tissues from the bloodstream, vascular protocols can help.
That’s exactly what Dr. Kristine Burke, in northern California, began to experiment with. She took a subset of her patients and began working on supporting the blood vessels themselves – in particular, the micro-thin, gel-like lining of the blood vessels: the endothelial glycocalyx (EGX). A healthy EGX is necessary for overall endothelial health. The EGX both protects and regulates endothelial function, including plaque development, antioxidant activity, coagulation factors, nitric oxide production, and more.
In Dr. Burke’s practice, supporting the EGX led to reductions in plaque and decreases in vascular age, even with patients who had had stubborn, long-term plaque. She reviews a series of patient cases in the video below, showing the results.
These notable reductions in plaque seen in Dr. Burke’s patients align with a growing body of research on the clinical results of EGX restoration.
In a 2018 article, three researchers concluded that the EGX is a potential “novel therapeutic target to treat vascular pathologies.”¹ For many patients with stubborn plaque, supporting the physical structure of the EGX could be the turning point for improving cardiovascular—and systemic—health.
Vascular function is critical for overall health. As Dr. Sam Yanuck states,
“You can design a brilliant plan of nutrition for your patient, food, supplements, a variety of things. But if you’ve got impaired delivery to tissue, because of circulatory compromise, your results are going to be impaired.”
