Stop inflammation without drugs....

Today's Post, Thursday, 6-4-2009

Talk about a vicious circle. Your body has some problems and irritants, so it makes messenger chemicals that draw in substances to repair things. But if those problems and irritants aren’t easily overcome or overcome in a few days or less, the messenger chemicals themselves begin to harm you. They are NOT supposed to stay high for weeks on end.

That’s exactly what inflammation does to you. And, if you have bad health habits, your chances of having your level of inflammation be high all the time are excellent.

There are several measures of inflammation. But the one that is most often measured, in part because how high or low it is has been found an excellent predictor of your heart attack risk if it is low or high is HSCRP, the high sensitivity C-reactive protein blood test.

In fact, it may be that the small heart protection you get from taking statin drugs may be caused MORE by the fact that they lower CRP somewhat than by their reduction of your LDL cholesterol.

But, as we’ve posted before, you can lower all inflammation AND CRP by eliminating its causes and by several other effective methods that use NO drugs at all.

You do NOT need statin drugs, aspirin, or NSAID’s to do so. In fact, you can lower CRP more with these nondrug methods than you can with drugs. In addition, it’s far safer AND has other health benefits instead of nasty side-effects!

One of the most important articles I’ve read about this was in last Tuesday’s TotalHealthBreakthroughs email. So, first, before I say why, here is that article so you can read it.

"This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise's Total Health Breakthroughs, offering alternative solutions for mind, body and soul. For a complimentary subscription,
visit http://www.totalhealthbreakthroughs.com ."


The Hidden Factor in Killer Diseases:

C-Reactive Protein -- Should You Get it Tested?

By James LaValle, R.Ph, ND, CCN

If you ask your primary care doctor to check your C-reactive protein (CRP), there is a high likelihood you will be told it is not necessary. Even though we know that CRP is a risk factor for heart disease1 and more and more doctors are testing CRP levels in patients who they consider to be at high risk, testing CRP is not yet recommended for routine lab testing.

If you ask me, it's time that changed. At LMI, we do screen routinely for CRP. Let me tell you why.

First of all, we know heart disease doesn't occur just due to high cholesterol. We now know that the biggest contributor to heart disease is inflammation. In fact, some people have heart attacks that didn't even have high cholesterol.

The body produces higher CRP in response to inflammation, so it is called a biomarker of inflammation. For example, when atherosclerosis (plaque build-up inside the walls of arteries) starts to damage blood vessels around the heart, they become inflamed. This triggers CRP production.

Since increased inflammation plays a role in a number of other diseases, CRP is being studied to see if it is tied to any other disease risks, and indeed it is. Research has now tied CRP to:

Cancer. A recent Danish study found that people with levels of CRP higher than 3 mg/L were about 30% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than those whose levels were less than 1 mg/L.3

Macular degeneration. High blood levels of CRP have also been linked to an increased risk for age-related macular degeneration according to a report in the Archives of Ophthalmology.4

Cognitive decline and dementia. Data from the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study (HAAS), a longitudinal community-based study of Japanese American men, found that those with the highest quartile of high-sensitivity CRP had significantly more cognitive decline than those in the lowest quartile.5

To me, the evidence is not only clear, it grows stronger every year. That's why, even though we are sometimes criticized for routinely checking CRP levels, all these studies seem to show that it does correlate with many diseases. And that's why, in my opinion, it should probably be routinely checked.

The only problem with CRP is that it could elevate even in response to say a cold or flu. However, in the absence of this type of illness or other infection, CRP is one way to tell if the body is experiencing chronic inflammation and putting you at greater risk for not just heart disease, but other chronic disease as well.

It's easy and inexpensive to test for CRP. A simple blood test called the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) test does not even require fasting. It measures CRP levels in milligrams per liter of blood. A level of 0 mg/L is the goal. Anything between 0 and 3 is worth improving but is not considered serious. Anything above 3 however, is serious-- it at least doubles your risk for a heart attack.2

So, what if your CRP levels are high? How do you get them down? You need to address all the usual sources of inflammation-- insulin resistance, low thyroid levels, being overweight, etc. In addition, switch to a low glycemic index diet, and increase your intake of antioxidant-rich foods, vegetables, beans and some fruits, such as berries. And by all means, if you smoke, redouble your efforts to quit.

In addition, studies have shown that statin drugs will lower CRP; however a recent study showed that vitamin C was even more effective than statins, and you know from my past articles, that I believe in using statins only when absolutely necessary and keeping dosages as low as possible due to potential side effects, especially on brain health.

A study published in the journal, Free Radical Biology and Medicine found that vitamin C lowered CRP by 0.25 mg/L, while previous studies found that statins lowered levels by about 0.2 mg/L.6 The dosage of vitamin C that lowered the CRP was 1000 mg.

So, to summarize, I believe that CRP is a good indicator of inflammation in the body; just make sure you aren't sick with a cold or flu or any other infection when you have the testing done. If CRP is elevated, it is showing you have hidden sources of inflammation in the body. The best approach for lowering it is to first tackle lifestyle factors like smoking, and metabolic imbalances like insulin resistance, while improving your diet.

And if you don't want to waste any time trying to get it down, 1000 mg of vitamin C may also help. In fact, the lead author of the vitamin C study expressed that she believed vitamin C may be the wiser course of action for those who have elevated CRP but do not happen to have elevated LDL cholesterol.7 I couldn't agree more!

References

1. Circulation. 2008 Nov 25;118(22):2243-51.
2. Cleveland Clinic, http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/news/hot/crp.aspx, accessed May 22, 2009.
3. J Clin Oncol. 2009 Mar 16.
4. Arch Ophthalmol. 2007;125(10):1396-1401.
5. Doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2008.01.008.
6. J.Free Rad Biomed. Jan 2009. 46(1):70-77.
7. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/129322.php .

[Ed. Note: James LaValle is the founding Director of the LaValle Metabolic Institute, one of the largest integrative medicine practices in the country. Dr. LaValle is the author of The Metabolic Code Diet: Unleashing the Power of Your Metabolism for Lasting Weight Loss and Vitality and the Executive Editor of THB’s The Healing Prescription…..]

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You can do a LOT more to keep your CRP down to 1.0 or less than taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C each day. It will help. But if your HSCRP is 2.25 or worse, 3.25, taking the vitamin C will only do the first .25 of the reduction you want.

1. One of the best ways to lower inflammation is to eat wild caught fish and seafood that’s high in omega 3 oils and take algae or purified fish oil based omega 3 supplements. Eating such fish two or three times a week, gives you as much omega 3’s as taking a handful of omega 3 supplements every day. But taking the supplements helps even if you take only two or three capsules a day. You can take supplements high in DHA which has extra benefits for your brain. Your body has omega 3’s every day, not just right after you eat your fish. And you get more omega 3’s since you get both the omega 3’s from the fish and from the week’s intake of the supplements.

Getting that much omega 3’s has been shown to help people with joint pain due to its reduction of inflammation. It also helps prevent or lower high blood pressure. It helps prevent or turn off depression. It makes you less irritable and better able to handle stress.

So it’s well worth doing!

2. In addition, our ancestors ate about as much omega 3’s as they did the omega 6 oils in grains. Today, we eat so much more grain and meat from grain fed animals and some of us use cooking oils high in omega 6’s that our bodies are stressed as we are getting way too much omega 6 oils and far too little omega 3’s. So getting more omega 3’s helps get us back into optimum balance.

But as you can see, to get into optimum balance also requires eating much less omega 6 oils.

Here’s a partial list of things you can do.

Only cook with olive oil or extra virgin olive oil. Its health benefits come from the fact that it contains very little saturated fat AND because it contains very little omega 6’s. (Its monosaturated fats are omega 9’s which apparently are neutral though using only olive oil does tend to lower LDL cholesterol and leave HDL high or increases it slightly.)

Stop using most butter, all margarine, and all vegetable oils. Canola oil has some of the ALA form of omega 3’s but a lot of omega 6. Eating walnuts provides ALA without adding excess omega 6 and has proven health benefits. So doing that instead of using canola oil will work better.

Stop eating refined grains, and flours and foods made from them. Eat only whole grains. And eat those in moderation only.

Either eat only meat from animals and poultry fed only grass or allowed to naturally feed in a pasture &/OR eat only the leanest most fat trimmed versions of meat and poultry that has been grain fed and eat a LOT less of it.

3. Hydrogenated vegetables oils and transfats or trans fats directly cause heart disease by actual test. And eating them sharply increases inflammation. It’s slower than cyanide but about as deadly. To the best of your ability eat NONE at all.

In fact, we now, thanks to James LaValle, everything, including things like eating berries, grapes, and regular exercise that helps increase your HDL, prevent cardiovascular and artery disease, and keep the endothelium, or the inside surface of your arteries clean and healthy, prevents inflammation.

In addition to taking vitamin C and eating foods high in antioxidants, you can also help do this by taking 200 iu a day of natural vitamin E with other tocopherols, 200 mcg of selenium, and 200 mg of alpha lipoic acid each day.

4. Eat virtually no junk food or foods with high fructose corn syrup and eat very little sugar.

These foods tend to make you fat, cause type 2 diabetes, AND increase inflammation too!

For example, if you like French fries, eat them very seldom and make them at home.

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported just this year found that a high intake of fried potato foods such as potato chips and French fries resulted in increased inflammation.

One reason likely is that these fried potato foods are fried in vegetable oils or worse in hydrogenated vegetable oils so they are high in omega 6 oils and often high in transfats. (That’s why to make them at home. You can bake them with no oil or cook them in olive oil instead of these junk oils that produce inflammation.)

In addition, potatoes without the skins are higher in glycemic index than sugar and likely boost inflammation for that reason also.

5. Learn to brush your teeth in a way the focuses on the gumline and make an extra pass that brushes your gums directly each time you brush and floss your teeth at least once every day. And see your dentist at least once a year or better yet every six months to have your teeth cleaned. Then, in addition to taking vitamin C, if you are over 40 take at least 100 mg of CoQ10 each day.

Why? Because gum disease and the excess infective bacteria that cause it trigger huge amounts of inflammation. So if you avoid getting it by doing these things, you prevent gum disease from increasing inflammation and your level of CRP will be far lower.

As extra benefits, you’ll also avoid having to pay for gum disease treatments, tooth extraction, and false teeth. Gum disease causes far more tooth loss than tooth decay!

Similarly, use a fluoride tooth paste and get any cavities from tooth decay fixed while they are still small. That avoids cavities that have turned into abscessed teeth with their inflammation causing infections.

No surprise that studies show people with gum disease are at much higher risk for heart disease than people with healthy gums.

So you have many ways to reduce inflammation. They do it by eliminating its causes.

And, if you do them all, they can reduce a high CRP reading to a low one.

As an extra benefit virtually all of them directly give you other health benefits!