B vitamins CAN help prevent heart disease....
Today's Post: Monday, 10-19-2009
Last week, on Tues, 10-13-2009, Reuters Health online ran this headline.:
No evidence B vitamins protect the heart
The study actually reported on in this study, as some other studies already have, tested to see if taking folic acid, B-6 and B-12 might help prevent heart complications or fewer heart attack and strokes and strokes.
Researchers have found that high homocysteine levels tend to be strongly predictive of worsening heart disease and increased risks for strokes and heart attacks. But no one has been sure if this means that high homocysteine levels cause heart disease or simply indicate high levels of other risk factors or indicate damage already caused just as smoke does when there is a fire. So, if it’s an indicator instead of a cause, lowering it would be like venting smoke without putting out the fire and not be very effective.
This study did NOT show that no B vitamins can protect the heart. (That’s actually false and easily demonstrated to be so.)
But it did increase the evidence for high homocysteine levels being indicative of other risk factors being high & of indicative of existing damage.
The trials reported on included 24,210 people with either established heart and blood vessel disease -- atherosclerosis or a history of stroke, heart attack or other heart complications -- or major risk factors for it, like diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
In this study, researchers found that having people take folic acid, B-6 and B-12 in addition to standard medical care did nothing to those people’s risks of heart attack, stroke or death over up to seven years of being studied.
It’s hard to say how much reliance to put on this study without knowing a great deal more about how high the homocysteine levels were to start with, whether or not they were brought down to 8.9 or less in all or the vast majority of the people, or what would happen if you lowered homocysteine to 8.9 or less AND managed to lower all the other risk indicators that to levels thought to be safe compared with just lowering all the other risk indicators that to levels thought to be safe.
That said, it does begin to look as if high homocysteine levels may indicate high levels of other risk factors or indicate damage already caused just as smoke does when there is a fire.
That would suggest that undoing damage to the maximum extent possible and lowering all the other risk indicators that to levels thought to be safe should be done when homocysteine levels are well above 10.0 or 12.0. And, that the focus should be on that instead of simply lowering the homocysteine.
I remain personally unconvinced that lowering high homocysteine levels to 8.9 or less has no positive effect.
But I also have absolutely no quarrel with having the primary focus be on undoing damage to the maximum extent possible and lowering all the other risk indicators to levels thought to be safe should be done when homocysteine levels are well above 10.0 or 12.0.
That’s already been proven to lower heart attack and stroke rates after all.
BUT, the headline read, “No evidence B vitamins protect the heart.“ Since there are some B vitamins that HAVE been found to lower LDL cholesterol, lower high triglyceride levels, and increase HDL levels, AND lower death rates, the title is wrong.
It’s dangerously wrong & misleading in fact.
Niacin, nicotinic acid, one of the B complex vitamins, is well known to do exactly those things. (It is possible to harm your liver by taking too much niacin, well over 1,000 mg a day. And if you take much of it on an empty stomach, you often will get a flushing effect that feels like a temporary sunburn.) Even 300 mg a day of niacin helps to lower LDL; and since it both lowers high triglyceride levels and increases HDL and it lowers mortality rates, there is strong reason to believe it directly lowers the amount of the dangerous small particle LDL that causes heart disease directly, just as exercise is known to do.
In addition, taking vitamin B5, pantothenic acid, along with a good balanced B complex vitamin or taking a variant of it called pantethine, in my experience and others tends to lower LDL and is one of the few other ways to safely increase HDL levels.
Lastly, even if B6, B12, & folic acid don’t protect your heart as much as some have believed, each of them has separate health benefits that make them well worth taking.
For example, it was in the health new just this week that any woman who might be become pregnant should be taking 400 mcg a day of folic acid. That’s because if a woman takes that much beginning 3 months BEFORE she gets pregnant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said doing so can reduce the risk of major birth defects affecting the spine and brain by as much as 70 percent in a baby she might conceive.
B12 helps protect your brain and prevent senility.
And, B6 is known to help keep high blood pressure down a bit compared to having low levels of it.
Of course each of these 3 B vitamins has other health benefits besides.
So, the bottom line is that taking niacin and B5 DO protect your heart. And, folic acid, B6, & B12 are well worth taking for other reasons if they do not protect your heart.
Further, I’ve seen no studies well done enough to totally convince me that folic acid, B6, & B12 fail to protect your heart if they are given to people who have high homocysteine levels BEFORE they develop heart disease instead of after the fact as this study did.
Today's Post: Monday, 10-19-2009
Last week, on Tues, 10-13-2009, Reuters Health online ran this headline.:
No evidence B vitamins protect the heart
The study actually reported on in this study, as some other studies already have, tested to see if taking folic acid, B-6 and B-12 might help prevent heart complications or fewer heart attack and strokes and strokes.
Researchers have found that high homocysteine levels tend to be strongly predictive of worsening heart disease and increased risks for strokes and heart attacks. But no one has been sure if this means that high homocysteine levels cause heart disease or simply indicate high levels of other risk factors or indicate damage already caused just as smoke does when there is a fire. So, if it’s an indicator instead of a cause, lowering it would be like venting smoke without putting out the fire and not be very effective.
This study did NOT show that no B vitamins can protect the heart. (That’s actually false and easily demonstrated to be so.)
But it did increase the evidence for high homocysteine levels being indicative of other risk factors being high & of indicative of existing damage.
The trials reported on included 24,210 people with either established heart and blood vessel disease -- atherosclerosis or a history of stroke, heart attack or other heart complications -- or major risk factors for it, like diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
In this study, researchers found that having people take folic acid, B-6 and B-12 in addition to standard medical care did nothing to those people’s risks of heart attack, stroke or death over up to seven years of being studied.
It’s hard to say how much reliance to put on this study without knowing a great deal more about how high the homocysteine levels were to start with, whether or not they were brought down to 8.9 or less in all or the vast majority of the people, or what would happen if you lowered homocysteine to 8.9 or less AND managed to lower all the other risk indicators that to levels thought to be safe compared with just lowering all the other risk indicators that to levels thought to be safe.
That said, it does begin to look as if high homocysteine levels may indicate high levels of other risk factors or indicate damage already caused just as smoke does when there is a fire.
That would suggest that undoing damage to the maximum extent possible and lowering all the other risk indicators that to levels thought to be safe should be done when homocysteine levels are well above 10.0 or 12.0. And, that the focus should be on that instead of simply lowering the homocysteine.
I remain personally unconvinced that lowering high homocysteine levels to 8.9 or less has no positive effect.
But I also have absolutely no quarrel with having the primary focus be on undoing damage to the maximum extent possible and lowering all the other risk indicators to levels thought to be safe should be done when homocysteine levels are well above 10.0 or 12.0.
That’s already been proven to lower heart attack and stroke rates after all.
BUT, the headline read, “No evidence B vitamins protect the heart.“ Since there are some B vitamins that HAVE been found to lower LDL cholesterol, lower high triglyceride levels, and increase HDL levels, AND lower death rates, the title is wrong.
It’s dangerously wrong & misleading in fact.
Niacin, nicotinic acid, one of the B complex vitamins, is well known to do exactly those things. (It is possible to harm your liver by taking too much niacin, well over 1,000 mg a day. And if you take much of it on an empty stomach, you often will get a flushing effect that feels like a temporary sunburn.) Even 300 mg a day of niacin helps to lower LDL; and since it both lowers high triglyceride levels and increases HDL and it lowers mortality rates, there is strong reason to believe it directly lowers the amount of the dangerous small particle LDL that causes heart disease directly, just as exercise is known to do.
In addition, taking vitamin B5, pantothenic acid, along with a good balanced B complex vitamin or taking a variant of it called pantethine, in my experience and others tends to lower LDL and is one of the few other ways to safely increase HDL levels.
Lastly, even if B6, B12, & folic acid don’t protect your heart as much as some have believed, each of them has separate health benefits that make them well worth taking.
For example, it was in the health new just this week that any woman who might be become pregnant should be taking 400 mcg a day of folic acid. That’s because if a woman takes that much beginning 3 months BEFORE she gets pregnant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said doing so can reduce the risk of major birth defects affecting the spine and brain by as much as 70 percent in a baby she might conceive.
B12 helps protect your brain and prevent senility.
And, B6 is known to help keep high blood pressure down a bit compared to having low levels of it.
Of course each of these 3 B vitamins has other health benefits besides.
So, the bottom line is that taking niacin and B5 DO protect your heart. And, folic acid, B6, & B12 are well worth taking for other reasons if they do not protect your heart.
Further, I’ve seen no studies well done enough to totally convince me that folic acid, B6, & B12 fail to protect your heart if they are given to people who have high homocysteine levels BEFORE they develop heart disease instead of after the fact as this study did.
Labels: B vitamins CAN help prevent heart disease, Does lowering high homocystein help?, niacin and vitamin B5 help prevent heart disease, prevent heart attacks, protect your heart
posted by David at 3:00 PM
2 Comments:
I completely agree. I have very high homocysteine which we control with folic acid B 6 and B 12. I also take niacin and pravastatin. I've been on this regimen for 10+ years. Still no sign of heart disease. I have my carotid artery examined via ultrasound every couple of years and a regular yearly stress test. Of course I keep my weight in check and exercise like a demon. I found out about my methylation disorder at a young enough age to take preventative measures (hopefully) We'll see.
Here's a quick reply now. I decided to do a follow up post with similar information but more developed for next Thursday's post.
Here are three other things that lower high homocysteine.
You can take 500 to 1,000 mg a day of TMG, tri-methyl glycine.
You can take 500 to 1,000 mg a day of NAC that also raises your levels of glutathione which may prevent or reverse damage from homocysteine or other causes.
And, you can come as close as you can to completely avoiding tobacco smoke. Not only does tobacco smoke work to increase homocysteine levels, it directly causes cardiovascular disease including building up plaque in your carotid artery that you are getting examined, and it also triggers heart attacks in people who have cardiovascular diease but might not otherwise have heart attacks.
Since you are taking both niacin and pravastatin, I presume your doctor also checks your liver function indicators every so often with blood tests.
And, I hope he or she has recommended taking 200 mg a day or more of CoQ10 or 25 to 50 mg a day of ubiquinone. (Statin drugs lower your blood levels of CoQ10; & your heart's health and pumping ability and energy levels and perhaps the physical integrity of your muscles depend on having enough C0Q10.
In my post on Thursday, I'll add some review of some of the other heart protective things you can do that you may do already but which you don't mention in your comment.
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