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August 2005
Your
Heart: A Very Demanding Organ
When you think about it, your heart is a very demanding organ.
It’s also a very essential organ. Your heart beats 60 to
100 times per minute, day after day, decade after decade.
It’s incredibly strong and it needs a massive supply of blood
on a continuous basis, delivering nutrients including oxygen.
When it doesn’t get what it needs, you might experience a form
of chest pain called angina. However, while angina is certainly
a common symptom of heart disease, it is not the most common
first indication that a person has heart trouble.
The most common first indication of heart disease is,
well…sudden death.
Many people who develop heart disease never get a chance to
complain to their doctor about symptoms like angina.
Instead, they present their condition to the coroner. You
probably know at least one family that lost a member to a
sudden, massive heart attack, sometimes referred to as a
“widow maker”. Losing a loved one is tragic enough,
but somehow the shock of a sudden and unexpected death is often
even more difficult for a family to endure.
The
Clogging of an Artery
Each year, twelve million people die from vascular disease.
That includes vascular blockages to their hearts, their brains,
their kidneys, and other vital organs, but it’s all basically
the same disease – clogging of the arteries. It’s a common
problem and the leading cause of death in America.
Arteries get clogged by a process called atherosclerosis, in
which cholesterol plaques build up on the inside linings of the
arteries. As the cholesterol plaques grow, the blood flow
thru an artery gets restricted. The gradual restriction of
blood flow to the heart leads to angina. However, it’s
interesting that gradually decreasing blood flow to an area is
not what causes the acute event of a heart attack or a stroke.
In fact, I’ve seen many patients with a complete blockage of a
coronary artery in the heart or a carotid artery in the neck
that still had normal function because the body developed
alternative pathways for delivering blood flow, called
“collateral circulation”.
Therefore, the gradual clogging of the arteries certainly causes
problems like angina and claudication (pain in the legs with
walking), but it does not cause sudden death or acute heart
attacks and strokes. Instead, these are from a sudden loss
of blood flow caused by a blood clot called a “thrombus”,
which is usually created at the site of a ruptured cholesterol
plaque.
A
cholesterol plaque is somewhat like a scab on your skin. Some of
them are dry and scaly, while others get a soft tender center
that will release gooey stuff if you pick at it. Many
cholesterol plaques also have a soft center, so they are now
referred to as “vulnerable plaques”. When the crusty
top of a vulnerable plaque ruptures, it exposes the gooey
center, which contains inflammatory compounds which cause the
blood to clot, so a thrombus forms. If the thrombus is
large enough to block the artery, the tissue supplied by that
artery goes into shock. If that artery is feeding a section of
heart muscle or brain tissue that does not have collateral flow,
the result is a heart attack or stroke.
Because
plaques are made of cholesterol, the medical establishment has
spent decades blaming cholesterol for vascular disease. However,
many victims of vascular disease actually have normal
cholesterol. Although high cholesterol certainly is one
cause of atherosclerosis, many other factors also contribute to
plaque formation, including vulnerable plaque rupture and
thrombus formation.
Risk
Factors for Vascular Disease
If
you want to bring on a heart attack in the most efficient way,
you should smoke tobacco. Smoking is far and away the
biggest risk factor in heart disease. Number two is
probably heredity. If you picked the wrong parents and
they both had heart disease, it might be wise to track down that
inherited trait and define exactly what it is.
Other
well-known risk factors include high cholesterol, diabetes,
obesity, high blood pressure, a sedentary lifestyle (i.e. lack
of exercise), and stress. However important these are, my
goal is to inform you about other risk factors that you may not
learn about from mainstream physicians.
Most
interesting to me is happiness. I’m serious.
Happiness is a major factor in all sorts of health issues.
Two of the strongest predictive questions you can ask somebody
are: “Are you happy?” and “Do you like your job?”
For example, there are more heart attacks at 9 a.m. on Monday
morning than at any other time of the week. Does that mean
that the human heart has a little internal clock that tells you
when it’s time to have a heart attack? No, of course
not. It means that your brain and your thought patterns
will resist good health if your life is not arranged in a way
that makes you look forward to living. Happiness is extremely
important.
Avoid
Rust in Your Pipes
I think the most under-tested risk factor for vascular disease
iron overload. Unless you are a menstruating female, one of the
worst things you can do is take extra iron. No
postmenopausal woman - and no men at all - should take iron
unless there is clear proof of a deficiency. In fact, if
your blood tests show low levels of iron and you’re over 50,
you probably should have a colonoscopy to make sure you are not
losing blood through your digestive tract.
It is widely recognized that pre-menopausal, menstruating women
have a lower risk of heart disease than either men or
postmenopausal women. Many people assume that this is
because they are protected by estrogen, but a series of 3
studies from Finland refute this assumption. The first simply
showed correlation between ferritin levels (a measure of iron
status) and heart disease. Those with the highest
ferritins had the most heart disease. The next tracked
women who had a partial hysterectomy, which removes the uterus
but leaves the ovaries, so these patients should still have
estrogen but they no longer dispose of excess iron by bleeding
each month, and their risk of heart attack goes up to that of
men. The third study showed that if men donate blood three
times a year, their risk drops to the level of menstruating
females. The fact is, getting rid of excess iron by losing
blood every month, not estrogen, is why women have less heart
disease than men.
Here’s the ironic (yes, pun intended) part of the whole
scenario: A ferritin level screening costs less than $20 and it
costs nothing to treat a mild high-iron condition. Just
donate blood. You’ll lose the iron, some trauma patient
will be able to live thanks to your donation, and they might
even give you cookies and a glass of orange juice. The
problem is that few physicians test for high iron levels.
I’ve had patients come into my office who have been to several
cardiologists, even at famous heart centers, and had untested
ferritin levels 3 times the level shown to increase heart risk.
A
Classic Case of Resistance
Another
cardiac villain is called homocysteine. This is an amino
acid that is normal to have in low levels, but can cause heart
disease at higher levels. Basically, I think of
homocysteine as a little scrub brush that roughs up the inside
of the artery, causing plaque to stick there. Dr. Kilmer
McCully discovered the damaging potential of homocysteine while
investigating the cases of rare children who had died of
atherosclerosis before puberty. He discovered a genetic
disorder that allowed extremely high levels of homocysteine to
accumulate in their blood, and was associated with massive
plaque build up.
When
Dr. McCully published his findings in 1969, he received a
typical reaction from the establishment…he lost his job for
refusing to jump on “the cholesterol bandwagon”. Mind
you, he wasn’t saying that homocysteine was the only cause of
heart disease. He was merely saying (and has continued
saying for 30 years) that cholesterol by itself is not the only
cause of heart problems. His information was finally
published in JAMA in 1998 and now he has a best-selling book,
but only after 3 decades of toiling away in obscurity due to
irrational resistance to his new concept. As with most
breakthrough medical discoveries, Dr. McCully’s findings were
first ignored, then ridiculed, then persecuted, and finally
accepted as the establishment’s own. Think of the amount
of medical knowledge that has been smothered over the years by
this “status quo” approach. More to the point, think
of the people who died needlessly from heart disease simply
because physicians did not have the latest information on
homocysteine and other risk factors.
One last thing about excess homocysteine: You can either inherit
it or you can develop the condition from a deficiency of folate,
B6, and B12. One theory is that increased use of
multivitamins that contain these B vitamins is one of the main
reasons that heart disease has been decreasing in this country
for the last 20 years.
A
Stealth Bomb in Your Arteries
The next risk factor is an evil cousin of the LDL “bad”
cholesterol. It goes by the name of Lipoprotein-a or Lp(a).
It seems to have a bad influence on LDL cholesterol, sticking to
it and causing it to create plaques more easily. When you
hear of a person who has a strong family history of heart
disease, even though their cholesterol is normal, Lp(a) is often
the culprit.
The are several problems in dealing with Lp(a). The first
is that the lab testing has not been completely standardized
yet, so many physicians are reluctant to even test for it.
The next problem is that there are no prescription drugs out
there that can treat Lp(a), so the pharmaceutical companies are
not interested in educating physicians about it. The last
problem is that the only proven remedies are all natural
compounds, including CoQ-10, Niacin, Vitamin C, and two amino
acids called L-Lysine and L-Proline, but all of these combined
will usually only drop the levels of Lp(a) by 25-40%.
Unfortunately, there is a lack of well-funded research on this
particular risk factor.
I
tested a patient not long ago who had an extremely high level of
Lp(a)…about four times the normal level. She had some
vague chest pains, so I sent her (with her lab value) to a local
cardiologist to be evaluated. He sent me back a letter
saying that this patient had “no known risk factors for heart
disease”…even though Lp(a) has been widely recognized for 10
years as a major risk factor and has been on the front page of 4
medical journals in the last year. I sent the good doctor
copies of the journal articles and never heard back from him.
A
Commonly Overlooked, but Deadly Risk Factor
There is another sneaky risk factor that is commonly overlooked:
Chronic infection and inflammation. It has been well
documented that the inflammation that often accompanies chronic
infection is a contributing factor in causing heart attacks.
You see, when the inflammatory proteins in your bloodstream
increase, so does the stickiness of the cholesterol that is
trying to attach itself to your arterial walls, increasing the
tendency to form a thrombus.
A couple of chronic infections have been definitely linked to
this, including gingivitis (gum infection), H. pylori
infection in the stomach, and Mycoplasma infection, which
causes “walking pneumonia”, chronic bronchitis, and chronic
sinusitis.
To
understand how this works, we must first ask why cholesterol
sticks to the walls of blood vessels in the first place.
The cholesterol plaque may be initiated by a small spot of
inflammation, by infection, by turbulence, by homocysteine, or
by other factors not yet known. It’s not just the
cholesterol causing the heart disease. Cholesterol may be
more like a rescue squad that comes in and tries to patch up the
problem. One initiating factor is inflammation, which
attracts the cholesterol to stick to the blood vessel wall, much
like a “band aid” covers a wound.
We
measure the degree of inflammation in the bloodstream with a
simple blood test called a “C-Reactive Protein”. If
the CRP is elevated, we then investigate the possible sources of
inflammation.
How
to Create a Diabetic
Insulin resistance is one risk factor that is near and dear to
my heart, because it’s one that you can do something about
yourself. Basically, if you look at somebody and their
waist is bigger than their hips, it’s very likely that they
have insulin resistance. This condition, which is a
precursor for type-II or adult-onset diabetes, is appallingly
common in the United States. Let me explain how to create
an adult-onset diabetic. For our purposes here, we’ll
call this person “Johnny.” Unless Johnny has a very
obese or sugar-addicted mother, he will probably be born normal
in terms of insulin function. Over the years, though,
Johnny and his family eat cereal for breakfast every morning and
pack a sandwich, chips, and cupcake for lunch. For dinner
they may get a cheeseburger, fries, and a fried apple pie.
On some days they’ll make that pizza with a big dish of ice
cream for dessert.
All of those foods, in addition to containing very unhealthy
fats, have a lot of sugar and starch. Starch turns into
sugar in the belly. All that sugar causes the blood sugar
to rise dramatically. This is dangerous because sugar
hooks onto proteins
throughout the body and gums them up, similar to the way we make
caramel. This eventually kills small capillaries and
nerves, which affects just about everything. Untreated
diabetics often have eye problems, impotency, amputations, and
kidney problems, as well as increased rates of heart attacks and
strokes.
So, if Johnny is healthy, his body will control blood sugar
levels very strictly. How does it do that? By
releasing insulin. Insulin is a hormone released from the
pancreas into the bloodstream to bring sugar levels down.
But what happens to the sugar? Well, if Johnny is an
active lad and spends his time running around and playing hard,
he can burn the sugar up as energy. If he is
idle—perhaps he prefers to sit in front of his video game for
a few hours after eating—that sugar is going to be stored as
fat, because one of insulin’s jobs is to convert sugar into
fat. Changing sugar into fat is how insulin controls our
sugar levels.
What
do you suppose is going to happen to Johnny if he keeps eating
in a manner that causes huge insulin surges, three to five times
a day, day after day, decade after decade? In addition to
storing lots of fat, his cells will become desensitized and then
resistant to the message of insulin, just as your nose does to a
strong scent if you stay in a room long enough. Then, his
insulin level will have to go up in order to continue to control
his blood sugar level. That’s the essence of insulin
resistance. Eventually, his pancreas will fatigue, his
blood sugar will rise, and he will get labeled a diabetic.
Would
You Believe a 100% Cure?
How fast this happens to one’s cells is somewhat dependent
upon family history, but is much more influenced by diet and
exercise habits. Diabetes in this country has risen 300%
in just fifteen years, but our genetics haven’t changed…at
least not nearly to that degree. Diabetes is definitely a
dietary disease. Native people—Southwestern Native
Americans, Australian Aborigines, and Eskimos—who are put on
So, if Johnny is healthy, his body will control blood sugar
levels very strictly. How does it do that? By
releasing insulin. Insulin is a hormone released from the
pancreas into the bloodstream to bring sugar levels down.
But what happens to the sugar? Well, if Johnny is an
active lad and spends his time running around and playing hard,
he can burn the sugar up as energy. If he is
idle—perhaps he prefers to sit in front of his video game for
a few hours after eating—that sugar is going to be stored as
fat, because one of insulin’s jobs is to convert sugar into
fat. Changing sugar into fat is how insulin controls our
sugar levels.
What
do you suppose is going to happen to Johnny if he keeps eating
in a manner that causes huge insulin surges, three to five times
a day, day after day, decade after decade? In addition to
storing lots of fat, his cells will become desensitized and then
resistant to the message of insulin, just as your nose does to a
strong scent if you stay in a room long enough. Then, his
insulin level will have to go up in order to continue to control
his blood sugar level. That’s the essence of insulin
resistance. Eventually, his pancreas will fatigue, his
blood sugar will rise, and he will get labeled a diabetic.
Would
You Believe a 100% Cure?
How fast this happens to one’s cells is somewhat dependent
upon family history, but is much more influenced by diet and
exercise habits. Diabetes in this country has risen 300%
in just fifteen years, but our genetics haven’t changed…at
least not nearly to that degree. Diabetes is definitely a
dietary disease. Native people—Southwestern Native
Americans, Australian Aborigines, and Eskimos—who are put on a
typical American high-carbohydrate diet develop diabetes at the
rate of up to 80%. However, when put back on their native
diet, they have had up to a 100% cure rate. That alone should
tell us something important about the way to treat adult onset
diabetes.
To check for insulin resistance, we measure a simple fasting
insulin level. Treatment is based upon an exercise program
combined with an adequate-protein, high-fiber, low-sugar, and
healthy-fat nutritional program. I’ve seen at least 50%
of Type-I diabetics get off of either their insulin shots or
their diabetic medications if they’re willing to do the
program.
Conclusion
Vascular disease does not always give us the luxury of a
warning. The first hint can often be a disaster.
Many risk factors are not only identifiable, but also treatable.
Please don’t wait for symptoms. Instead, consider having
your risk factors measured and then take preventative steps to
modify them, including a rational and appropriate nutritional
and exercise program. And perhaps most importantly, be
sure to enjoy the life you choose.
How
To Have Better Blood Draw Experiences
For
most people, the most dreaded part of a visit to the doctor is
usually the part involving needles. Young or old, a patient
coming in for IV therapy or laboratory blood work can make the
experience less traumatic by following a few simple suggestions.
First, drink lots of water. Even if scheduled for “fasting”
lab work, the fast refers only to food, never to water. Good
fluid hydration is important all day long, every day, but even
more so on days when veins must be accessed. Each and every
morning should ideally begin with two full glasses of pure
(filtered) water upon rising. This will stimulate the bowels to
move and will also flush the kidneys, preparing them for the day
ahead. Beverages such as coffee and tea should be avoided on
IV/lab days as they dehydrate the body, and should never be
figured in to fluid consumption totals for this reason. The more
fluid taken in, the larger the volume of blood traveling through
the veins which helps to keep the blood vessels full and round
with sufficient blood pressure. This increased hydration will
result in veins being easier to locate and access.
Another factor involved in creating a nearly painless
venipuncture procedure is stress reduction. No doubt about it,
needle sticks can be stressful and just the anticipation of
being stuck can create conditions in the body blood vessels.
During stressful times blood is often routed away from
peripheral locations and sent to organs vital for survival.
Constriction of the blood vessels makes their diameter smaller,
and therefore smoking cigarettes is definitely contraindicated
prior to venous access.
Deep breathing exercises can help combat this stress-related
vasoconstriction and can aid in achieving a more pleasant
overall experience. Breathing deeply into the “belly” area
expands the lungs into their lowest lobes where 80% of air
exchange occurs. Additionally, following each deep inhale with a
long, slow and smooth exhale can create a “Relaxation
Response” to help combat even unconscious stress. Tension
about or aversion to a venous access procedure affects all our
tissues, making them more resistant to puncture, which
inevitably results in more difficulty and/or pain. Keeping t6he
mind pleasantly distracted elsewhere, perhaps on the deepening
breath, can create a much more pleasant experience.
Dawn
Crowley R.N.
The
following micronutrients available at Nutrients Etc. are
recommended by Dr. Biddle in the treatment of Coronary Artery
Disease (CAD):
Vitamin
C, 1000 mg x 3 per day.
C-1000 (Vitamin C), Now Foods=
1000mg/ 90 Tablets- $9.00
C-1000 Complex is a sustained release formula which is gradually
released over a 2-hour period. This product is buffered
with 110 mg of Calcium Ascorbate. Calcium Ascorbate is not
acidic and will not contribute to excess stomach acidity or
irritation in sensitive persons.*
Vitamin
E,
400-1200 IU daily.
Vitamin E complex, Douglas Labs=
400IU/100 softgels- $16.00
Vitamin
E is an important antioxidant, which assists the body’s
defense against cell damage by neutralizing free radicals and
inhibits high levels of LDL (the “bad” cholesterol).
Vitamin E has been shown in studies to help prevent lipid
peroxidation of blood lipoproteins. Gamma Tocopherol, in
addition to its antioxidant attributes, has been shown to
possess anti-inflammatory properties and can inhibit the
activity of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and the production of
prostaglandin E2.*Contains: d-alpha Tocopherol, with mixed
Tocopherols [including alpha, beta, delta and gamma Tocopherols].
Fish
oil, 5-10 grams daily.
Fish Oil Liquid (lemon flavor),
Carlson’s= 6.7oz- $19.95
Natural source of the important omega-3 fatty acids, EPA &
DHA. Provides 800 mg of EPA and 500 mg of DHA per teaspoon!!
Naturally free of vitamins A & D. Carlson’s liquid
fish oil is bottled in Norway in amber glass bottle and sealed
in nitrogen for maximum freshness. To further preserve
maximum freshness of the oil, each bottle contains rosemary
extract, vitamin C and a natural source of vitamin E.
Tastes Great...truly the best-tasting fish oil available.* This
product is regularly tested for potency and purity by an
independent FDA registered laboratory and found to be free of
any detectable levels of mercury, cadmium, lead, PCB’s and 28
other contaminants.
Magnesium,500-1000
mg/day. Magnesium-Potassium
Chelates, Enzymatic Therapy= 250mg/60 Tablets- $8.00
Enzymatic Therapy’s bio-active minerals (like Mg-K) are
chelated (attached) to the Kreb’s cycle intermediates
(citrate, fumarate, malate, succinate and alpha keto-glutarate).
These organic acids are responsible for energy production within
every cell of the body. Minerals chelated to the Krebs
cycle intermediates are better absorbed and utilized.*
CoQ10,
100 mg twice daily. Co-Q10,
Jarrow= 100mg/60 capsules- $36.99
Co-Q10, an important antioxidant found in high concentration in
human heart and liver, is part of the cells’ electron
transport system. Jarrow Formulas Co-Q10 is derived from
fermentation and consists only of the natural trans
configuration, the same as is synthesized by humans.*
Hawthorne,
500-2000 mg twice daily.
Hawthorn, Nature’s Way= 500mg/90
capsules- $13.99
Nature’s
Way Hawthorn extract is standardized to 1.8-2.2% Vitexin, a
bioflavonoid. Hawthorn helps promote cardiovascular health by
improving blood and nutrient flow to the heart muscle. This
extract is a technically advanced herbal product.
Standardization assures specific, measurable levels of important
compounds that provide beneficial activity in the body. *
L-Taurine,
500-1000 mg daily on an empty stomach. L-Taurine,
Now Foods= 500mg/100 capsules- $7.99
Now® Taurine is a free-form amino acid that participates in a
variety of metabolic processes. Taurine is a
neurotransmitter, a neuromodulator and is involved in glucose
uptake. It is found in meats, fish, milk and eggs, but not
in vegetable proteins, so supplementation is especially
important for vegetarians.*
L-Arginine,
3 grams twice daily. L-Arginine,
Now Foods= 500mg/100 capsules- $8.99
L-Arginine is a conditionally essential basic amino acid
involved primarily in urea metabolism and excretion as well as
DNA synthesis.*
*Statement
of manufacturer. This statement has not been evaluated by the
Food & Drug Administration. This product is not
intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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