It’s the help your heart needs when your heart needs help the most: A new study finds that the curry spice turmeric can help you survive bypass surgery and avoid a heart attack during your recovery.

Researchers from Thailand randomly assigned 121 bypass patients to either a gram of curcumin — the main compound in turmeric — taken four times a day, or a placebo for three days before and five days after the procedure.

Those who got the curcumin were 65 percent less likely to have a heart attack in that time than those who got the placebo, even after adjusting for other possible risk factors.

Those who got the real deal also had lower levels of the inflammation marker C-reactive protein as well as malondialdehyde, a marker of oxidative stress — and I’m sure that’s because curcumin is both a powerful anti-inflammatory and a terrific antioxidant.

And you don’t have to be a heart patient to enjoy those benefits.

Get some now, and you can lower your risk of even getting those cardiovascular problems in the first place, since studies on mice have shown that curcumin can help clear fatty deposits from the arteries.

Other studies have shown it may help prevent arrhythmias, while still other research has found that curcumin can fight everything from inflammatory bowel disease to cancer to arthritis.

One study I just told you about found it might even help reverse the damage of Parkinson’s disease.

Indian foods might be the most delicious way to get curcumin, but it’s not the most efficient — especially here in the United States, where most people simply don’t eat it all that often.

Fortunately, curcumin supplements are inexpensive and easy to find — just make sure yours comes from a company you trust and not the local dollar store.

So you’ve followed your mainstream doctor’s advice and brought your LDL cholesterol levels crashing down to meet the latest guidelines, probably with the help of drugs such as statins.

And now, instead of good health, you’re sicker than ever. You might even find yourself locked in a life-or-death battle with a disease such as cancer.

What went wrong?

It’s not bad luck. If it’s not a side effect of those cholesterol meds, it’s the low cholesterol itself — because low levels of LDL can be every bit as dangerous as too-high levels, and a new study confirms just one of the risks.

Researchers went into the medical histories of 201 cancer patients and 402 patients without the disease, digging through nearly 20 years of LDL data on each.

And, wouldn’t you know it, they found that the cancer patients all had consistently lower levels of cholesterol in the years and even decades before they were diagnosed with the disease.

The study isn’t proof that low LDL causes cancer, but I’ve seen similar research in the past — and I think the link is pretty real. And it’s not the only risk of bringing your levels down too far.

Your body actually needs a certain amount of cholesterol. Your heart and brain both need it… and it’s needed to manufacture key hormones. That’s why low levels have been linked to depression, anxiety, memory problems and more.

And besides, the actual level is only part of the picture here.

What many doctors don’t realize is that cholesterol is about more than just hitting a certain number on a chart. The oxidation of that cholesterol plays a much bigger role in arterial health, and I predict that in a few years you’ll be hearing a lot more about it — probably once they have a drug to sell for it.

But you don’t need to wait for that med or take any other drug — because there are safe and natural ways to control your cholesterol and its oxidation. I’ll have much more on this in the June issue of my printed newsletter, Health Revelations. If you subscribe now, I’ll make sure you’re one of the first to get it.

Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of taurine. Most people haven’t, and that apparently includes Microsoft since it’s not even in my spellchecker.

It’s an amino acid found in the tastiest part of the chicken, aka the dark meat you’ve been told not to eat.

Well, go ahead and eat up — because a new study finds that some women with high dietary levels of taurine have a lower risk of a heart attack.

Researchers from the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York checked the records on more than 14,000 women between the ages of 34 and 65, and found…almost nothing.

Not at first, anyway.

But once they started to break the numbers down, they found that high blood levels of taurine slashed the risk of heart disease by 60 percent in women with total cholesterol levels of more than 250 mg/dL.

The study doesn’t prove that taurine lowers heart risk, nor does it indicate why that connection would even exist. But let’s take a stab at it here and guess that women with higher cholesterol AND high taurine came by their cholesterol levels honestly.

They’re eating natural meats and dairy — all great sources of taurine — and if their cholesterol levels happen to be a little elevated by mainstream standards, they’ve really got nothing to worry about.

And thanks to that healthier diet, they’re probably going to have a lower risk of a heart attack anyway.

Women with high cholesterol and low taurine, on the other hand, might be getting their chicken from a greasy paper bucket and other nutritionally empty sources — and that’s the best way to ensure you’ll experience heart problems eventually.

Again, that’s just a guess. And since this is just one study, I wouldn’t rush out to stock up on taurine in any case (but feel free to grill up some chicken thighs).

When it comes to protecting your ticker, stick with the tried-and-true. And for some tips on the best tried-and-true nutrients out there, I turned to one of the nation’s leading experts on natural health.

Dr. Mark Stengler, a California naturopath and author of multiple best-selling books on natural cures, says there are four supplements everyone interested in cardiovascular health should be taking: fish oil, coenzyme Q10, L-Carnitine and magnesium.

If you’re missing out on any of these, do your heart a favor and add them to your supplement regimen today. They’re inexpensive, easy to find and they could save your life.

I can think of about a million reasons to get outside and bask in the sunlight every day — but if you’re looking for one of your own, how about this: It can slash your risk of a stroke.

The latest research shines some light on stroke risk, with one new study finding that people who live in the nation’s sunniest climates have a 60 percent lower risk of stroke than those who live up north.

The one exception to the rule: The so-called “stroke belt” of the south, where obesity and diabetes — both big-time stroke risks factors of their own — are higher than they are in the rest of the country.

In other words, all the sun in Georgia won’t undo the ravages of a double-extra-large waistline.

But if you’re slim, trim and living in Minnesota or Maine, you don’t have to lower your latitude to lower your stroke risk — because you can harness the real power of sunlight anywhere on earth.

All you need is some vitamin D, as another new study shows again how the sunshine vitamin is the real reason for that lower stroke risk.

In this one, researchers found that people who had the highest intake of D were 11 percent less likely to suffer a stroke than those with the lowest.

If that sounds a little… well… unimpressive, that’s because the new study didn’t offer a real look at D levels. Instead, the researchers used food frequency questionnaires.

Most people don’t get the bulk of their D from food anyway.

Once you look at real levels of D, you see real benefits — with other studies showing that low D can boost your stroke risk by up to 50 percent.

If that’s not enough of a benefit, other studies have shown that vitamin D can help protect your heart, bones and brain and slash your risk of colds, the flu, diabetes, allergies and even cancer.

You can let your body make its own D by stepping out into the sunlight, but unless you live in a warmer clime don’t count on that alone. Everything from your clothing to the seasonal angle of the earth can impede D production — so take a supplement to make sure you get what you need.