Your heart is the hardest-working organ in your body and requires a constant supply of nutrients. Cardiovascular health is enhanced when the arteries supplying the heart muscle with blood remain undamaged and open.

Conventional treatments for maintaining a healthy heart can be risky and expensive. Natural ways to prevent the need for such treatments in the first place exist. Here are my recommendations for the foods, essential nutrients and general exercise guidelines that support overall cardiovascular health:

Foods that help keep your heart healthy

Eggs: Despite the negative hype, egg yolks are one of the richest sources of choline, which keeps the cholesterol in the egg moving through the bloodstream so it can't build up on arterial walls. Eggs are also rich in minerals, vitamins and essential amino acids.

Onions: If you want to help keep your blood pressure and cholesterol levels in the normal range, start eating half a raw onion every day.

Fish: Studies have shown that simply eating at least 2 ounces of fish a week (salmon and tuna in particular) help promote heart health.

Nuts: They contain essential fatty acids like omega-6 and omega-9 monounsaturated that improve your blood-lipid profiles (cholesterol and triglyceride levels), significantly reduce heart problems, and help you lose weight. (Be sure to take adequate amounts of omega-3 flax each day to counterbalance the omega-6 fats in the nuts you eat.)

Flaxseed and Lecithin: Flaxseed and lecithin promote healthy circulation and maximum energy. For years I've been adding lecithin granules and flaxseed to my morning juice. For a great "pick me up" try my Lecithin Power Shake Recipe, click here.

Clean water: Some of the water that's coming out of taps today may actually shorten life. Chlorinated water can destroy vitamin E stores in the body, leading to mitral valve problems, and other heart problems. To ensure you're getting only clean, pure water, I recommend using a distiller for all of your drinking and cooking water. To learn more about the one I recommend, click here.

Carrots: These nutritional powerhouses contain pectin and lecithin that help keep cholesterol levels in the normal range.

Fresh vegetables: Fresh produce -- preferably organic -- should be the cornerstone of your diet. Vegetables are rich in particular vitamins and minerals needed for overall health.

Tea: Studies indicate that compounds called catechins in tea slow the process of atherosclerosis and strengthen blood vessels, "thin the blood," and help keep blood pressure in the normal range.

Soybeans: Including soybean products like tofu, roasted soy nuts, and tempeh in your diet keep your cholesterol in the normal range and help support a healthy heart.

Oils: If you want to help keep your arteries clean, you should be aware of some beneficial uses of oils:

• Oils for salads and cooking: Use certified organic extra-virgin olive oil.
• Oil for baking: As with olive oil, buy unrefined, organic canola oil.
• Frying oil: I'd suggest that you try getting by without frying at all. Chicken without skin and fish with skin can be dipped in a milk and egg mixture and breaded with crushed bran flakes. Cooking them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 275 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes to an hour gives you the fried flavor and texture without the grease.

Essential nutrients

Certain nutrients are crucial to ensuring that you're getting the proper healthy heart essentials. In addition to the foods listed above, I believe the best chance you have of supporting basic cardiovascular health is by taking a good daily multivitamin that includes the nutrients below.

The dosages given range from the minimum daily amount to the maximum amount I recommend for heart health. Since most multivitamins don't contain these higher "heart health" dosages, I recommend supplementing your existing daily multivitamin with some of these additional nutrients or adding a targeted heart health nutritional supplement.

• Magnesium (as oxide, aspartate, ascorbate): 500-800 mg. Magnesium supports the heart's ability to expand and contract and to pump blood efficiently.
• Folic acid: 400-800 mcg. Folic acid helps maintain normal homocysteine levels. Among other things, homocysteine accelerates the oxidation of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and damages arteries.
• Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid, buffered ascorbates): 2,000-2,500 mg. Vitamin C helps promote proper HDL ("good") cholesterol levels and the production of collagen and glycosaminoglycans, which provide structural strength to arterial walls.
• Vitamin E (as d-alpha tocopherol, mixed tocopherols): 400-600 IU. Vitamin E acts as an antioxidant that helps to lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels. It also helps prevent blood platelets from clumping together. It is most effective when taken with selenium.
• CoQ10: 50 mg. One of the most important functions CoQ10 performs is facilitate the production of cellular energy. In every cell of your body there are small "stations" called mitochondria. Ninety-five percent of the total energy created within your body comes from these mitochondria, which cannot take place without CoQ10.
• Tocotrienols: 10 mg. Preliminary research suggests this antioxidant may decrease LDL-cholesterol oxidation and maintain arterial health.
• Gynostemma pentaphyll: 150 mg. This herb from China has been used for years in traditional Chinese medicine. It has been shown to support blood pressure levels that are in the normal range, helps to relax blood vessels, reduce free radicals, and increase blood flow.
• Vitamin B12: 100-200 mcg. Vitamin B12 works along with folic acid and vitamin B6 to convert homocysteine into a harmless compound that the body can eliminate through the urinary tract.
• L-carnitine: 100-150 mg. Increased levels of the amino acid-like compound L-carnitine promotes more efficient heart function.
• L-taurine: 200-400 mg. L-taurine helps support proper heart function by normalizing potassium flow in and out of the heart muscle and aiding in free radical elimination.
• Green Tea: 50-100 mg. Green tea contains several active bioflavonoids, which promote capillary and small vessel strength.
• Quercetin (a bioflavonoid): 50-100 mg. The bioflavonoid quercetin helps to stop oxidization of LDL cholesterol and reduce the stickiness of platelets in the bloodstream.
• Cayenne: 50 mg. Like other chili peppers, cayenne contains the compound capsaicin, which helps maintain healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
• Garlic: 600 mg. Garlic supports the heart's healthy fat metabolism and helps maintain proper cholesterol and triglyceride levels. It also helps raise good HDL cholesterol blood levels.
• Vitamin B6: 110-120 mg. In addition to helping to keep homocysteine levels in check, Vitamin B6 helps promote healthy adrenal function and maintains proper potassium balance. Potassium helps support normal heart rhythms and regulate blood pressure levels.
• Hawthorn Standard Extract: 160 mg. The active compounds in hawthorn have been shown to help promote healthy endotheliel lining of the heart cavities and blood vessels, and the smoothness of artery walls.
• Bromelain: 100 mg. Bromelain supports the conversion of plasminogen to plasmin, which in turn helps break down fibrin clots.
• Alfalfa Leaf Powder: 100 mg. Alfalfa helps support healthy fat metabolism and normal cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

In addition, increase your intake of amino acids like L-arginine (3 grams twice daily). Substances like L-arginine will allow the smaller arteries to open up and flush more life-sustaining blood through an area. Opening up an artery just a small amount can make a huge difference in the amount of blood flow. Note: Toxicity to L-arginine is around 40 grams or more a day.

Taking Siberian ginseng (180 to 300 milligrams) to increase the conversion of L-arginine to nitric oxide can also help the heart in two ways: First, it improves blood flow to the muscle in times of low oxygen. Second, the Chinese have found that nitric oxide is a potent antioxidant that combats free radical injury to the heart muscle.

Exercise

Every single day of our lives, we need to do something that specifically makes our heart work harder and beat faster. Not only does exercise strengthen the heart muscle itself, it causes the blood vessels to dilate and expand. If you can expand these blood vessels every day, they'll retain their elasticity.

If you're sedentary, they'll become rigid and hard. Then, when you need to call upon them (like during a stressful situation), they won't be able to do their job.

And that's when heart attacks strike.

The golden rule of exercise

The only "rule" regarding effective exercise is that you must get your heart pumping. For real cardiovascular benefits, you have to increase your pulse rate up from its normal working rate and keep it up for long enough for the blood vessels to dilate.

Almost any exercise can be used -- walking, swimming, riding a bike, jogging in place. It doesn't have to be for a long or intense period of time, but it should be on a regular basis.

Concentrate on activities that are simple and inexpensive, and don't require excessive travel. If you're able, take the stairs instead of an elevator. Taking a vigorous walk is a good, if not the best, form of exercise for you. Above all, turn off the computer and TV set and get out there and do something!