NEVER take beta blockers!.....

Today's post:  Tuesday, 6-20-2017

Beta blockers relax the heart.  When they are given your heart beats less forcefully and tends to slow down.

So if someone has really high blood pressure, having them take beta blockers causes their heart to beat less forcefully and lowers their blood pressure.

In injuries, immediate rest to allow some recovery IS often used for most injuries.

So, if someone just had a heart attack, having them take beta blockers seems like a good idea since it gives the heart a rest.

Heart failure is often caused by heart attacks.  Part of the chamber of the heart can be damaged enough by the heart attack that the damaged chamber no longer beats hard enough to move all the blood in it to the next stage as a healthy heart does.  So the idea of giving beta blockers is to reduce the force of the healthy part so you get slower beats but each beat moves a slightly better amount of the blood to the next stage.

The problem is that these effects are to treat acute, short term needs.  But beta blockers work 24 hours a day 7 days a week as long as they are used.  This routinely causes dreadful, horrible problems.

[My Dad took beta blockers for heart failure which then got worse -- which is a typical effect we now know.  After his worsening heart failure severely limited his mobility and when the strong depressive effects of the beta blockers kicked in too, he decided to die of self induced total fasting with zero intake of anything except water and did so. 

The data we now have show that the beta blockers, by these two effects, sharply reduced his quality of life for his last 10 years AND robbed him of another worthwhile 10 years he likely would have lived. 

Now it’s payback time!

We HAVE the data.  Beta blockers are both harmful AND unneeded!]

That is worsened by the fact that stopping beta blockers without doing it very slowly in stages cause rebound increases in blood pressure and stress on the heart AND beta blockers are also addictive and when withdrawn often cause other punishing symptoms to their victim.

These problems are so damaging and harmful and so destructive of the quality of life of the person taking them that a solid case can be made that they should never be given – even if there is no way to provide short term, acute relaxation.

There are now many methods that speed recovery from heart attacks and improve heart failure and lower very high blood pressure.  Ensuring these are all used which is rarely done now, makes beta blockers far less needed. 

(What we now know are low levels of second choice cardiac rehab methods are used, deaths and repeat heart attacks drop much more than just giving beta blockers causes to happen.  If 100 % of people who had a heart attack did all the first choice methods and did all of them well, the deaths and repeat heart attacks would almost vanish.)

AND, there is now an effective way to provide the acute relaxation too!

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/317708.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-us

“Wearing a 'heart' on your sleeve can reduce stress    Wednesday 31 May 2017

New research published in Scientific Reports shows that a heartbeat-like vibration delivered onto the inside of the wrist can make the wearer feel significantly less stressed.

Researchers from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London assessed the calming effects of a new wearable device called doppel - a wristband designed to actively reduce stress by using the intuitive responses that we all have to rhythm, and especially to heartbeats.”

This research found that if you determine the heart rate of someone under no stress and average that with 54 if it's higher, causing a wrist device to pulse against it at that resulting speed tends to avoid having stress raise your heart rate and BP!

So, NOW we have the acute replacement we need to provide the acute heart relief needed.

Between the harms of beta blockers and a way to provide the benefits beta blockers were once thought to provide that works, there is now ZERO justification for ever prescribing beta blockers!

But there is more!

Independent research is showing how harmful beta blocker side effects are AND that even for what they were initially intended they provide no benefit or even CAUSE some of the problems they were once thought to solve!

AND, when drug companies tried to smoke screen these effects, a doctor found that all the independent studies showed the same thing!  I found that paper on Medscape!

This information is why I think you would be wise to refuse point blank to ever take even one dose of beta blockers!

Here’s the first one:

“This recent email from Health Sciences Institute had this information:

“It's called the "standard of care" for anyone with heart disease or who has suffered a heart attack.

Now, however, some new research is reevaluating this knee-jerk approach to dispensing drugs known as beta blockers to all post heart-attack patients.

And this isn't the first time that these meds -- which block the effects of adrenalin, slow down your heart rate and lower blood pressure -- have been called into question.

As you've read right here in eAlerts, the well-known side effects of beta blockers include dizziness, lightheadedness and a very slow heart rate -- all of which can increase the likelihood of taking a serious fall.

But this new study piles another layer of uncertainty and risk on the routine use of this very old class of drugs that are often given out "just because."

As drugs go, beta blockers have been around for a long time -- over 50 years!

They were considered so important that the scientist who invented the very first one, which was used for angina, won the Nobel Prize in medicine!

But like a lot of things in health care, dispensing these meds -- dozens of which are currently available -- has become so routine, doctors probably haven't given it a second thought for decades.

Now, a study out of the University of Leeds has taken a close look at the data involving nearly 180,000 UK patients who suffered a heart attack and were prescribed the usual beta-blocker meds. And for those patients, none of whom had heart failure, the researchers found no advantage at all in prescribing these drugs.

But for anyone who has been following the research, that shouldn't have been a big surprise.

Almost five years ago, another study on beta blockers was expected to "shake up the conventional wisdom" that these drugs are a vital staple in heart care, a top doctor at the Mayo Clinic noted at the time. Yet even that study didn't seem to slow down the rush to hand these meds out like candy one iota!

That research, which was published in JAMA, looked not only at patients who had suffered a heart attack, but also at those who had both heart disease and even risk factors for cardiac problems.

And after crunching the data on almost 45,000 heart patients, the conclusion was that beta blockers didn't prevent heart attacks or stroke or even lower the numbers of those who died from heart disease.

Then there was the research that came out just last year linking these drugs to episodes of major depression.

Now, depression is a serious problem for those who have had a heart attack for some very good reasons. Certainly seeing your life flash before your eyes can do that to you! But to make it a vicious cycle, many experts believe depression is also a big risk factor in suffering a second heart attack.

So, when Scottish researchers discovered that beta blockers (and another class of heart meds called calcium channel antagonists) could double the risk of suffering from major depression, you would think that would be the final straw to really "shake up the conventional wisdom" on the subject!

But apparently, that didn't happen, either. Because not only are these drugs still routinely prescribed after a heart attack, they are also widely used to treat hypertension.

And if you've been prescribed one to lower your blood pressure, there's something else you need to know.

Nearly a decade ago, after examining nine "major" clinical trials in the U.S. about hypertension, researchers found that beta blockers are actually dangerous when used for that purpose.

Besides exhibiting lower heart rates and lower blood pressure, patients taking them also had a higher risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke, developing heart failure and dying.

Many doctors who are familiar with the evidence against beta blockers, but afraid to go against the norm entirely, are still prescribing these meds after a heart attack -- but only for a limited period afterwards. So, if you're taking them for that reason, it may be time to schedule a visit with your cardiologist and find out if you can discontinue using them.

And if you're taking them to lower your blood pressure, you also need to talk to your doctor about getting off them ASAP.

If your blood pressure is truly high (which for those 60 and older is said to be a reading of over 150/90 -- not that absurd 120/80) there are many nutritional approaches as well as supplements that can help you get it down without drugs.

But a note of caution: Despite all we now know about the dark side of beta blockers, to stop taking these drugs suddenly or without first consulting your doctor is definitely not a good idea as it can trigger heart palpitations and a sudden sharp rise in blood pressure.”

Note that if you never take even one dose of beta blockers, you don’t have deal with this dangerous situation to stop taking them!

Here’s the well done article that was on Medscape:

Evidence based slam on using beta blockers! 

Provide no harmful event protection AND cause depression!

AND if THIS is still live from Medscape, it is a direct and totally convincing data driven set of studies of exactly this information.:

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/881211?nlid=115668_3802&src=WNL_mdplsnews_170609_mscpedit_card&uac=17693FN&spon=2&impID=1364883&faf=1

“Beta-Blocker Side Effects and Brain Trickery Reconsidered by Franz H. Messerli, MD; & Sripal Bangalore, MD    June 08, 2017”

If you run into a doctor who wants to give you beta blockers because he or she believes in “evidence based” medicine, have them read THIS!