Blood Pressure Drug Weakens Bones....

Today's post: Tuesday, 4-15-2008

I found the article below in the Yahoo Health News earlier today. (It was posted late Monday.) It has some significant implications I then add below it.

“Blood pressure drug reduces bone density in study Mon Apr 14

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Powerful diuretics used to control blood pressure can also steal calcium from the bones and cause significant bone loss in men who take them, researchers reported on Monday.

Older men who used the drugs the most had triple the bone loss of men who never used them, the researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

They found a direct correlation between use of the drugs and bone loss in men -- putting them at risk of osteoporosis, which can cause broken hips and other broken bones.

Though osteoporosis is more common in women than men, one in five Americans with the bone-weakening condition is a man -- and as many as 2 million American men suffer from it.

Doctors should keep an eye out for this problem in men taking the drugs, said Dr. Lionel Lim of Griffin Hospital, in Derby, Connecticut, who led the study.

One of the most common brand names is Lasix, and these so-called loop diuretics are also sold under the generic name furosemide. Diuretics work to lower blood pressure by removing water from the blood via the kidneys.

With less blood circulating, the blood does not have to pump so hard. The kidneys also filter out more sodium, potassium and, evidently, calcium. The drugs are especially effective in patients with heart failure, relieving the characteristic swollen ankles and breathlessness.

Lim studied nearly 3,300 men aged 65 and older, about 8 percent of whom had taken the drugs either regularly or from time to time.

Lim's team measured the men's hip bone density at the start and again roughly 4-1/2 years later.

Bone loss averaged 0.78 percent annually among the 84 men who used loop diuretics regularly, compared to 0.33 percent among non-users and 0.58 percent among the 181 intermittent users.

Previous studies have associated diuretic use with a patient's risk of breaking a hip or fracturing another bone.

"However, there is uncertainty as to whether this increased fracture risk is attributable to negative effects on bone mineral density, fall-related mechanisms (such as dizziness and low blood pressure when standing up), or associated (illnesses)," Lim wrote in his report.

The men taking diuretics in the study tended to be heavier, more sedentary, and more likely to suffer from other maladies including heart disease than non-users.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)”

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Doctors should prescribe diuretics for people with fluid retention as the article mentioned for heart failure patients.

However, since the diuretics tend to be cheap drugs & reduce blood pressure reliably many doctors tend to prescribe them first before seeing if other drugs are needed.

This article suggests an important reason to do otherwise.

It looks to make much better sense to initially prescribe the ARB’s in low doses or ARB’s in combination with calcium channel blockers with both at low doses AND to prescribe lifestyle upgrades.

And lifestyle upgrades may make even better choices.:

The Dash diet with moderate salt restriction that cuts out junk food & excessive fatty meats in favor of lean meats & poultry in moderation, fish, beans, nuts, & low fat dairy AND includes plentiful vegetables & whole fresh fruit is clearly indicated.

When people who eat badly upgrade to it, they experience blood pressure reduction similar to taking a blood pressure drug AND with NO drug costs or side effects.

And, just recently it was reported that this diet protects against heart attacks & strokes in both people with high blood pressure AND people with normal blood pressure.

Since the whole point of lowering high blood pressure is to prevent heart attacks & strokes & other health problems -- & patients with high blood pressure tend to not eat this way added to the blood pressure lowering effects of eating this way, this is the first prescription I think doctors should give most people they see who have high blood pressure.

In addition, being overfat, “heavy,” has been found to create high blood pressure notably by creating endothelial dysfunction which stiffens blood vessels & impairs their ability to relax.

Eating a Dash diet with moderate salt restriction combined with totally stopping junk foods & soft drinks and getting enough of the right regular exercises has been proven to prevent people from getting fat or to help them lose excess fat.

In addition, exercise lowers blood pressure both overall and on the days people exercise & it tends to improve endothelial dysfunction.

The patients in this study clearly needed both the Dash diet and regular exercise prescribed FIRST since they had high blood pressure, were fat, & were sedentary -- & had higher than average heart attack risks.

This would be more protective than the diuretics alone. And, the calcium in the DASH diet plus weight bearing or strength exercise INCREASES bone density. So even if there was a need for diuretics, they would tend to produce less bone weakening if patients followed this lifestyle prescription.

In addition, when doctors prescribe blood pressure medication a huge number of people simply won’t take them or will stop taking them due to harsh side effects. (Stopping blood pressure drugs suddenly is unsafe but people often do exactly that if they take drugs with heavy side effects.) Things like fainting when you stand up from taking something that is supposed to make you healthier is something many people simply won’t tolerate. For most people, it looks to be unnecessary.

So unless the blood pressure is quite high, it makes the most sense to prescribe the drugs that will produce the most lowering with minimal side effects.

The ARB’s in low doses or ARB’s in combination with calcium channel blockers with both at low doses tend to have that combination.

Even better, there is a new drug out called ExForge that combines them so a patient only needs to take one pill.

But the things to prescribe first & keep up are the Dash diet with moderate salt restriction and regular exercise. Those are protective even more than the drugs. They make people healthier if done right. And, they make people feel healthier instead of sicker.

Diuretics have their place. Some patients need them for other reasons as we’ve discussed; & some people do need them to be used to lower blood pressure when nothing else is working well enough. But they should NOT be the first or main prescription for high blood pressure for most people in my view.

There are also supplements that lower blood pressure directly & supplements that reverse some of the causes of high blood pressure that can be used.

That’s a big subject we plan to do an eBook about soon as well.

Vaccine may treat high blood pressure....

Today's post: Monday, 3-10-2008

High blood pressure is both an indicator of underlying problems, see the next paragraph for some of them, & is a direct cause of problems as well as a risk for heart attack, stroke, & kidney damage & other problems.

(Being way too fat & heavy; sleep apnea, eating too much salt & too few vegetables & fruits; plaque build up in your blood vessels, lack of exercise, exposure to some pollutants, taking over the counter pain drugs, unrelieved stress, blood vessel damage from too high levels of blood sugar, & too much noise at night all are known causes of high blood pressure.)

If you have it, you need to check the potential causes to reverse those you can. And, you need to bring it down as close to the ideal of 115 over 75 as you can to best protect your health regardless of your progress on the causes.

The problems with lowering it with drugs are many however. Having it is mostly unnoticeable to you unless it gets horribly & dangerously high. And, the most commonly prescribed drugs often make you feel worse & less healthy than before; & many cause sexual function problems.

So many people who have high blood pressure refuse to take the drugs or stop taking them. Even worse, taking them irregularly or stopping taking them suddenly is in itself quite dangerous.

And, drugs are expensive. Worse, many of the most commonly prescribed blood pressure drugs actually have health harming side effects.

Not only that, but to protect your health, the most important times of day to have your blood pressure be low enough are at night & early in the morning. And, though some kinds are a bit better, the drugs often don’t do that well.

That means that a vaccine that lowers high blood pressure; has few side effects; & lowers blood pressure best at night & early mornings would be extremely valuable indeed.

It may now exist & might be available soon.

I found this news on Yahoo online Health News from Health Day, dated, 3-6-2008.:

“We found the vaccine was well-tolerated, and it did lower blood pressure in hypertensive people," said vaccine inventor Martin Bachmann, of Cytos Biotechnology in Schlieren, Switzerland.

Currently, there are two problems with high blood pressure drugs, Bachmann said. "On the one hand, people just don't take them, and, on other hand, the drugs don't work very well early in the morning," he said.

In the United States, only about one-third of people with high blood pressure (also known as hypertension) have their blood pressure under control, according to background information for the study. Many people don't take their blood pressure medications because of side effects, concerns about the long-term effects of the drugs, and their lack of perceptible symptoms, Bachmann noted.

"Our vaccine would only have to be taken maybe twice or three times a year, not every day. In addition, it works best early in the morning," Bachmann said.

In the new study, Bachmann's team presented the results of an early trial of 72 patients with mild to moderate high blood pressure who were randomly assigned to receive the vaccine at two different doses or a placebo.

The patients' blood pressure was measured before the trial and 14 weeks after the trial began. The outcome the researchers were looking for was whether the vaccine was safe and well-tolerated.

Bachmann's team found that patients who received the higher dose of vaccine had a drop in their systolic blood pressure of 9 mm Hg and a 4 mm Hg drop in their diastolic blood pressure. The blood pressure drop was particularly significant in the early morning, where patients showed a 25 mm Hg drop in systolic blood pressure and a 13 mm Hg drop in diastolic blood pressure, compared with patients receiving a placebo.

Overall, the vaccine was well tolerated, with only 10 patients reporting flu-like symptoms after the injection. Such reactions are common with several vaccines, the researchers noted. In addition, some patients experienced mild irritation at the injection site.

The study results are published in the March 8 issue of The Lancet.

More extensive testing is needed before the vaccine could be made available to the public, Bachmann said. "We are moving on to eventually large trials," he said.

One expert thinks this finding could be a breakthrough in helping patients control their blood pressure.

"Poorly controlled blood pressure remains a worldwide health-care problem and contributes greatly to heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular deaths," said Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Although there are lifestyle modifications and a number of effective and reasonably well-tolerated medications that can help control blood pressure, many patients don't adhere to their regimens in a way that works effectively, Fonarow said. "A (vaccination) for controlling blood pressure, if proven to be safe and effective, could represent an important therapeutic advance," he said.

This study is the first to show promising data with a vaccine against angiotensin II, a potent constrictor of blood vessels, in patients with mild to moderate hypertension….”

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Drugs called ARB’s, that have this effect, are one of the best kinds drugs to control high blood pressure as they seem to work & tend to have the fewest side effects for your quality of life & your health.

However, the doses needed, even of ARB’s, to get the kind of early morning improvement of this vaccine are high enough to literally make you feel sick & depleted.

Only about one seventh of these people who were given this vaccine had any side effects. And the people who did had temporary side effects only.

If this passes safety screens & becomes available, it will be one the very first good treatments for high blood pressure available.

1. Keep watching to see if it gets approved. I will & will do a post here if it does.

2. I’m also working on an eBook listing the nondrug methods that lower high blood pressure, many of which turn off the causes of high blood pressure & almost all of which have other health benefits & virtually no side effects.

If you’d like me to email you when it’s ready, email me at: iehealth @ aol.com .

(I’ve listed my email so you have to delete the added spaces to use it. I understand that protects me from “spam robots.”)

Dangerously bad advice on trans fats...

Today's post: Tuesday, 2-19-2008

Recently I read some dangerously bad advice on trans fats, or as I like to call them transfats.

First & foremost, here are the facts.:

Like heavy smoking, transfats, also listed on labels as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, are deadly poison to the health of your heart & cardiovascular system.

They lower the protective HDL cholesterol in your blood & make the LDL you already have into the most dangerous small particle kind that is literally so small it fits into the chinks in your blood vessel walls. Both these factors help transfats increase the plaque on the surface of your arteries & act as heart attack fertilizer.

(Fully hydrogenated or “interesterified” fats are even worse. They do everything transfats do & ALSO help cause type II diabetes. They are like transfats on steroids as far as damaging your heart & blood vessels.)

Guess what? That puts these fats in a class with radioactive foods. How much is a safe amount to eat? Zero. These fats simply are too harmful to ingest – ever.

To be sure, if you are otherwise healthy & ingest them an average of once a month or so, you may well get away with it.

But eating them each week is clearly a serious health hazard to you.

And, they are still in most commercial baked goods & much of the snack foods in your grocery store. They have even been found in microwave popcorn, candy bars, bread, & ice cream !!

That means you must always read labels & simply boycott buying or eating these fats if you value your health & want to live a long & healthy life.

They are so bad for you doing this is in a class with quitting smoking in its importance to your future health.

So, given that, would advice that suggests simply eating a bit less of these fats might help, be good to follow??

Not really. And, it is definitely dangerous disinformation for someone to give such advice.

Sure, smoking one pack a day of cigarettes is not as bad for you as four; but even half a pack a day is so bad for your heart, no informed doctor today will say that it’s OK to continue smoking if you value your health & heart health.

So, it was with a great deal of shock that I read advice recently to count grams of transfats as being of equal risk with grams of saturated fat.

THAT is dangerously bad advice !!

Transfats are something like TEN times as bad for you. You cannot safely eat them regularly, period.

You not only can eat some saturated fat, it may boost your HDL more than your LDL if you don’t eat too much & eat it with fiber and antioxidant containing foods.

If you eat a diet that is 5 to 10 % saturated fat by calories; never overcook or use too high a temperature to cook food containing saturated fats; & you eat plentiful fruits & vegetables to carry some of the saturated fat away & prevent it from oxidizing, you can easily eat saturated fat with virtually no health penalty at all.

So, to count grams of transfat as of equal harm to saturated fat is like saying slightly spoiled pineapple is about as unsafe as hand grenades that have had their fuses pulled.

To quote a line from the early Arnold Schwarzenegger film Pumping Iron,

‘That is BAD advices.”

Don’t be fooled.

Hydrogenated vegetable oils are like heart attack starters. Don’t buy or eat them if you value your health.

Don’t believe people who say different. Their information is incomplete & dangerously wrong.

New info on fighting type II diabetes…..

Today's post: Thursday, 1-17-2008

(We start with the most important info. But to many of you, it’s old news. The new info is in the article I include at the end of this post.)

Many people today get no exercise. Even more unfortunately, many still drink soft drinks even though there is solid evidence that doing so helps make you fat & sick. Add sedentary jobs &, for most people, getting to & from work with no walking needed.

What does that give you?

This recipe is perfect for creating what is called insulin resistance & unhealthily high levels of blood sugar. So, it’s no surprise that many people are arriving there. And, for most people, as they get older, if that process once starts & gets through the undesirable level to the early stages of type II diabetes, they will often damage their health before they find out what the cause is.

(Since diabetes harms the capillaries that are the part of the blood delivery system where the blood actually delivers food & oxygen to your cells & removes CO2 & wastes, it causes serious harm. Diabetes also apparently makes cardiovascular disease develop faster & become more deadly.

If left undetected &/or if left untreated, it produces effects like fatal heart attacks, blindness, & cuts off circulation to your feet enough to cause the need for amputation. It also ruins your kidneys forcing you to be on dialysis or die.)

The best news is that all this is quite preventable.

The first line of defense is to get your blood sugar levels tested every year or two or twice that often if you are more than a bit too fat.

There are two tests to get each time, which are your fasting glucose level & your HBA1C.

Ideally, you want your fasting glucose level to be 99 or less.

Levels between about 100 & 119 are a warning light & suggest you take action to bring the level down. And, the higher the number in that range, the more undesirable it is. 120 & over may be type II diabetes. Somewhere slightly above that over 126 or so, most doctors will diagnose you as having type II diabetes.

However, since the fasting glucose is a snapshot of a particular time, it may read as much as 10 or 15 points above what is typical for you, so unless you are well over 126, most of the better doctors will look at your HBA1C reading before deciding.

The HBA1C reading is so valuable precisely because it DOES reveal what your typical blood sugar readings have been over the last 60 to 90 days.

If it’s 6.0 or higher (about 5.0 to 5.8 is desirable), your blood sugar level has been too high, & most doctors will diagnose you as having type II diabetes.

(HBA1C measures the blood that is stuck on the surface of your red blood cells. The reason it gives you the moving average of the last 60 to 90 days, is that’s because that’s about how long your red blood cells live.)

In today’s world NOT getting these two tests with reasonable frequency is about as safe as driving on the freeway without being able to see out of your windshield.

It tends to result in avoidable injury or death.

So the first way to fight back is to get both of these tests at least every two years.

And, if you are fat, don’t exercise yet, &/or drink soft drinks more often than two or three times a week, every 6 months to a year is safer.

The second line of defense is even more important as it prevents the problem to begin with.

The bad news is given our current economy & lifestyles, it’s a bit more of a challenge to do.

At least it has extra benefits such as becoming much less fat; having more energy, & improving your sex life.

The two biggest parts of it are to:

1. Get a minimum of regular exercise each week.:

a. Do progressive strength training at least two days a week with at least one day off in between for at least 20 minutes. More is better; but you may find that level a lot easier to fit into your life, particularly at first.

b. Do some aerobic exercise at least three days a week. Vigorous interval training seems to work the best; but even walking for 20 minutes each time is enormously better than no exercise at all.

c. Limiting watching TV also helps as you burn less energy watching TV than you do sleeping !! And, it’s a great way to find the time to exercise if you watch a lot of TV now.

2. Cut out & sharply reduce eating sugars that come with no nutrition & fiber in the same food.

Doing otherwise not only produces type II diabetes, it makes you fat & has been implicated as a likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

a. Soft drinks are so bad in this regard, the most it’s likely safe to drink is two or three a week. None ever is far safer. Oddly, the evidence of the studies is that diet soft drinks have the same effect. Water, tea, & coffee without sugar are far better substitutes,

b. Candy & desserts do taste really good. But eating two or three a week or less is far safer than eating two or three a day as many Americans do now.

c. People did NOT evolve eating grains. Early on when most people ate food made from whole grains & everyone got LOTS of exercise, grains seemed an OK food to eat.

Eating refined grain foods with little or no exercise in your life, however, is NOT safe.

The safest strategy is to eat very little in the way of grain foods; &, except for quite rare treats, NEVER eat refined grain foods.

(Since, so far, well over 90 percent of fast food & restaurant sandwiches are made with refined grain bread, this means ordering your sandwiches “Atkins style” with no bread. This saves the food place money, so only the stupidest with give you a hard time about serving you that way. You may need to be careful they really believe you & serve you as requested though as many are not used to the request as yet.)

c. Eat a LOT more vegetables. Many people eat none if you don’t count potatoes & potato based French fries. Eat at least two servings a day; & 5 or more is better.

d. Eat well from health OK protein foods & moderately from health OK fats & oils.

Wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils has both. So do nuts, which have strong health benefits if you aren’t allergic. Grass fed only beef has both. Beans & lentils are excellent as they have both protein & fiber. Avocados & extra virgin olive oil are excellent. Some lean poultry & eggs are good in moderation.

The bad news is that you may like to eat the kind of “semi-foods” that were popular & which you may be used to & feel deprived that the blood tests show you should stop eating them.

The best way to look at it is that these foods never were safe for people who get little or no exercise to eat. The good news is that you now know this is so; & the tests prove it’s happening to you. This actually gives you a considerable advantage over the unfortunates who don’t yet know any better.

What about drugs & supplements?

There is a safe diabetes drug when taken in small doses called Metformin. But many people cannot abide the side effects of large doses. And, some of other drugs have worse side effects. To be fair, the damage of really high levels of blood sugar is even worse.

Cinnamon spice & the supplements alpha lipoic acid & chromium polynicotinate do seem to help.

For some new info on two drugs it may be best to avoid & an even more powerful supplement, check out this article that came out last Friday.

"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"

“Friday, January 11, 2008

Diabetes and the Drugs to Control It Could Shorten Your Life

By Shane Ellison

I'm often asked, "How can I live to be 100 years old?" My answer is simple, "Just say no to prescription drugs and learn how to control insulin and blood sugar."

Why? Because the populations that live the longest are naturally highly sensitive to insulin.

Conversely, those who die the youngest from conditions such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and even cancer are grossly insensitive to insulin or are taking a prescription drug.

In the US, the biggest threat to longevity is type II diabetes caused by high levels of blood sugar and insulin resistance. It has become a nationwide epidemic that can steal 11 to 20 years from a person's lifespan.

To curb the threat, physicians are madly prescribing anti-diabetic drugs like Avandia and Actos. With so many people using them, scientists have learned two valuable lessons about longevity.

First lesson: You cannot use these drugs to increase lifespan.

In addition to eliciting a moderate drop in blood sugar, anti-diabetic meds damage the cardiovascular system.

According to a recent study, Avandia users had a whopping 30-40% increased risk of heart attack and other heart-related adverse events (heart failure) compared to patients treated with placebo.(1) This risk is due to the drug's effect of lowering vital hemoglobin levels.
Hemoglobin is used by the body to transport oxygen throughout the entire 100,000 miles of veins, arteries, and capillaries in the adult body. Without hemoglobin, a condition known as ischemia sets in. This is a fancy term for "suffocation." Clinically, heart attack or heart failure can be the result.

The prescription drug Actos has the same mechanism of action as Avandia -- they both work to reduce insulin resistance. Not surprisingly, it also carries the same risks. Health Canada sounded the alarm about this class of drugs as early as 2001! But unfortunately, the warning has not yet reached the American public.

Commenting on this unannounced danger, the U.S. Congress stated that, "the FDA's apparently callous disregard for the safety of diabetics taking Avandia is very reminiscent of the Agency's failure to move on Vioxx when substantial safety signals first became known. Like Vioxx, Avandia may have unnecessarily risked the lives of tens of thousands of Americans."(2)

Second lesson: You can fix insulin receptors naturally to increase lifespan.
This simply means that insulin receptors found on individual cells have the ability to be "re-tuned" to the insulin message. We learned this from anti-diabetic drugs that can increase insulin sensitivity by jump starting inactive or dying cells. But this benefit from drugs doesn't outweigh the risk of heart attack. Fortunately, if a drug can do it, so can Mother Nature. This is a little-known fact in medicinal chemistry.

Mother Nature always provides the "lead" in the meticulous process of drug discovery. Meaning, before there is a man-made drug for a given ailment, there is a natural substance that will do the same thing.

In the process of designing anti-diabetic drugs, Big Pharma surveyed a myriad of natural products to find a lead compound that re-tuned the insulin receptor. Among them was a substance called corosolic acid, derived from the banaba plant(3) grown in Southeast Asia.

Corosolic acid has proven safe and effective for increasing insulin sensitivity. Remarkably, users have been shown to not only lower blood sugar and insulin levels but also melt fat and build muscle in the process.

But what's really important is that by taking corosolic acid instead of anti-diabetic drugs you will lower the risk of heart attack and naturally improve insulin sensitivity. That means years may be added to your life!

Of course, lifestyle habits such as regular exercise and minimizing sugar intake are pre-requisites to the success of increasing insulin sensitivity and significantly extending your lifespan.

(You can find corosolic acid as an ingredient in several natural products sold in health food stores for glucose control and weight management.)

1. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01636.html
2. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/05/21/congress-steps-up-scrutiny-of-fda/
3. Katsuji H, et al. Journal of Pharmacological Sciences Vol. 93 (2003), No.1, pp. 69-73.
[Ed. Note: Shane Ellison is known as "The People's Chemist." He holds a Master's degree in organic chemistry and has first-hand industry experience with drug research, design and synthesis. He is the author of Health Myths Exposed and The Hidden Truth about Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs.”

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Note that most of the supplements at the health food store are NOT labeled as “corosolic acid” but as banaba extract or banaba leaf extract.

The info I found suggests that it is so effective, you may be wise to start with a minimum amount unless your blood sugar readings are dangerously high.

Here’s why. If in your body it cuts your blood sugar level by 20 percent, that’s good if you were at 120 fasting glucose since you will now be at about 96 which is far safer.

However, if you were at 104 &, in your body, it cuts your blood sugar level by 25 percent, you would be at 78 & possibly feel dizzy and spacey from too low blood sugar.

So, try a little to see how you do before you try larger amounts unless your levels are really high.

And, be sure to follow the steps in the most important section anyway as they both give you the most effective health protection & have other health benefits besides – even if the banaba extract is effective for you.

Low HDL found risky even if LDL is also low ….

Today's post: Friday, 9-28-2007

On Wednesday, a story came out that I found in the Yahoo online health news Thursday that said research was apparently done by Dr. Philip Barter of the Heart Research Institute in Sydney on 9700 people & reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It was thought by many doctors that reducing LDL levels well below 100 would be protective even if the levels of HDL that help clean your arteries is low.

(This is somewhat understandable since those lower levels of LDL do seem protective in the studies done on just LDL.)

Dr Barter was among them.

His data found otherwise.

Low levels of HDL increased heart attack & other cardiovascular risks & did so even in the people he studied with low LDL levels.

Most of the doctors & health experts I’ve read recently have consistently said that their information is that high HDL levels are protective; low levels are quite dangerous; & that your HDL level is much more predictive of heart attack & other cardiovascular risks & your likely longevity than your LDL level.

(For example, high HDL has been found to be predictive of longevity while low LDL has not. And, many doctors already know about the data showing that when a third or more of total cholesterol is HDL the heart attack rate is low, while if it’s a sixth or less, the heart attack rate is high.)

So, it’s nice that the mainstream doctors who tend to not use exercise & supplements in their treatment plans will now see this research.

(FYI: If you haven’t read our previous posts, HDL of 49 or less is low for men & for women before menopause. 39 or less is low for anyone. 60 & above is high.)

Strength training & abundant, vigorous aerobic or cardio exercise raise HDL levels.

Eating junk food including refined grains & a lot of sugar seems to lower HDL. By contrast, eating lots of vegetables & quality protein foods & very little else tends to increase HDL -- & it tends to prevent or reverse being too fat & type II diabetes.

Niacin increases HDL also; but not all doctors know how to use it well. (And, doses of more than 1,000 mg a day of niacin or of 500 mg a day of time-release niacin, can cause liver problems, so they must be monitored with regular blood tests of key liver health indicators by your doctor.)

Quite a large number of supplements raise HDL. (Examples include zinc up to about 50 mg a day though 100 mg or more can lower it; abundant magnesium up to about 600 mg a day from supplements, 200 to 600 micrograms a day of chromium, & the flavonoid containing foods & supplements also do.)

Foods containing high levels of choline raise HDL levels as does the supplement lecithin that contains it. These include wheat germ, liver, & egg yolks. (Since liver from grain fed animals today tends to have high levels of pollutants, it’s not the best source now.)

Extra virgin olive oil helps lower LDL compared with lard, cream, butter, & fatty, grain feed animals. But it leaves your HDL level intact or raises it slightly. By contrast, oils like corn, soy, & safflower oil lower LDL compared with lard, cream, butter, & fatty, grain feed animals but they also LOWER your HDL & tend to increase inflammation which is also a heart risk.

And, one of the most effective ways to raise HDL other than exercise & niacin is by drinking 1 or two drinks a day for men & about half that for most women.

(Drinking more than that actually increases your HDL level more. But it sharply increases the risk of fatal accidents, cancer, & other health problems so much it reliably REDUCES longevity. So stick with the lower amounts !!)

Lastly, smoking & second hand smoke LOWER HDL; & I’ve read they also keep what’s left from being protective. So they lower your effective level of HDL even more than the readings indicate. Ouch !!

How to cut high homocysteine before it kills you….

Today's post: Friday, 9-14-2007

Dr Al Sears, in one of his health information emails, said that high homocysteine blood levels are more predictive of a greater chance of dying than the other blood tests doctors now tend to rely on such as total cholesterol. In fact, he says it’s the most accurate predictor.

Why is a too high blood level of homocysteine so deadly?

If it’s 9.0 or over it causes or helps cause all cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, peripheral artery disease, erectile dysfunction, & kidney failure; makes it more likely you’ll get age related mental decline, apparently including Alzheimers; & INCREASES your rate of aging.

The bad news is that many doctors do not yet know to test for it every time or at all in some cases. They don’t know that 9.0 to 12.0 readings are dangerous because they have been typical of people in seeming good health. And, very few know how to lower the levels of homocysteine since the agents involved are vitamins & supplements & health enhancing lifestyle changes – NOT drugs. And, some of the research some of them have seen did NOT measure effective methods; started with people too sick to help; & did not continue until the homocysteine was low enough to be protective & were low long enough to show an effect. NOT good science.

15 on Homocysteine is like over 400 cholesterol or blood pressure high enough to send you to the ER. Double Ouch !! And, even readings of 9.0 to 12.0 that have been typical & which you may well have now yourself are NOT safe.The good news is that there are effective ways to lower homocysteine levels that may well put you into the safe zone of 8.9 or less even if you start a good bit higher than that.

And, each of the methods have separate & worthwhile health benefits.

1. Take the right B vitamins; eat foods that contain folate; & discontinue excess meat consumption by eating less overall & substituting plant proteins like beans & nuts for part of your protein intake.

There are 3 of the B vitamins that lower homocysteine; but you will get more of them; get added health benefits; & give your body a more balanced supply of B & other vitamins your body needs to make the most effective use of the 3 that do the job, if you ALSO take a good multivitamin & mineral supplement AND a good B balanced Complex like Solgar’s B Complex with C Stress formula.

One supplement knowledgeable doctor I know said, if you wish to lower your homocysteine levels that it's really important to get 1,000 units of B12 & 2,000 or more each day of folic acid.

B6 is also very important; but 100 mg or more can cause problems so a total of 50 to 90 mg a day is best. I take 70 mg a day. I get 10 each from my multi & my B complex & then add 50 mg.

The wonderful news is that folic acid & B6 are really cheap.

If your reading is above 12 consider taking 3,000 or more of the folic acid. It seems to lower homocysteine best & is also the cheapest one.

(These vitamins in the multi & the B complex vitamins also have a LONG list of other health benefits.)

Also, organic salad greens like romaine lettuce, spinach, & kale are high in folic acid AND also have the more natural & potentially effective version, folate. Orange juice & beans are also high in folate. (So are most fruits at vegetables at least to some degree.) Be sure to eat two or three or more of these foods every day. And, larger servings are a good idea.

I realize you may need or want to not overdo beans. And, too much OJ has too much sugar. But the greens are all OK. In fact, any green & nonstarchy vegetable tends to be high in folate. And, organic produce has more folate than pesticide raised produce.

Eating beans in salads or bean only chili with extra virgin olive oil instead of meat dishes for part of your protein will help.

Beans don't have the amino acid methionine that turns into homocysteine that meat does. So eating beans instead of meat works two ways, you generate less homocysteine & the folate in the beans helps process the homocysteine you do have. Similarly, cutting back on meat intake overall is a good idea.

For example, get organic beef fed only grass once a week instead of grain fed hamburger with pesticide residues in its fat five or more times a week. Then eat all bean chili or hummus or refried beans with guacamole three times a week; & wild caught salmon once for the other four days. The cost is close the same. The health effects are NOT.

2. For homocysteine levels of 12.0 or higher or if the B vitamins alone don’t lower you into the safe zone, I think it's also very important to take one or two 500 mg capsules of NAC, n-aceytl Cysteine, daily. (One a day helped me lower my homocysteine; but mine started out much lower than 12.)

Two of the best & most supplement knowledgeable doctors I read suggest that much NAC for homocysteine levels of 12.0 or high or if the B vitamins don’t quite get you to safe level. If you do take two a day, I think it's likely best to take one in the am & one about lunch time.

NAC also sharply increases your body’s supply of the powerful antioxidant glutathione. And, that antioxidant not only protects you from harm, one doctor reports effectively reversing harm by using large amounts of glutathione.

3. Do NOT smoke. Ever. And, if you do smoke quit ASAP. (Doctors now have a new drug, Varenicline, that makes it dramatically easier to do. So much so, it something like triples the percentage of people who quit & stay off cigarettes.)

And, be sure to be very consistent in staying away from second hand smoke !! THE most powerful way smoking kills smokers is by raising their homocysteine enough to reliably produce heart disease. (And very few of the poor bastards know it.)

And, second hand smoke has exactly the same effect.

4. And, you can do more !! These first few steps are not all you can do.

TMG also works. And, it breaks down into DMG which has a body building & strengthening effect.

Wikipedia says this: "Trimethylglycine...(TMG)... donates a methyl group to convert homocysteine to methionine in a reaction catalysed by BHMT (Betaine Homocysteine Methyltransferase, E.C. 2.1.1.5, a zinc metalloenzyme). Methionine is then converted to SAMe by Methionine Adenosyl Transferase (MAT) using magnesium and adenosine triphosphate as co-factors."

So, TMG directly changes homocysteine back into the amino acid methionine that your body uses. And, SAMe has an antidepressant effect.

& I found this online:

"Dosage and Use: (for TMG)Take two tablets (500 mg) in the morning with or without food, or as recommended by a healthcare practitioner.

TMG should be taken with co-factors vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid."

That source also said TMG gives some people headaches; but I've not heard that before elsewhere.I have also read that TMG works better than Betaine HCL & for sure the Hydrochloric acid, HCL, part makes that version of TMG harder on your digestive tract.Jarrow makes a reasonably priced TMG available in health food stores.

If you take all these steps, your homocysteine WILL be lower. My hope is that it is closer to the 8.6 my supplements got me to – or even less, 7.0 is ideal -- instead of the well over 9.0 reading it likely is now.

At the very least, get tested soon so you know what your current reading is.

Lung cancer kills some smokers; but this harms ALL smokers….

Today's post: Monday, 8-27-2007

Do you smoke or does someone you care about smoke?

Most doctors know the most important reason that not smoking or quitting smoking protects your health. They do know the most important reason to NOT smoke or be around second hand smoke.

Here’s the horrible bad news: Most smokers DON’T know.

The 1964 report that smoking does tend to cause lung cancer is well known. So most smokers have heard that cigarettes are thought to cause lung cancer.

But most people who develop lung cancer are older people. And, the majority of smokers don’t get or die of lung cancer.

Most smokers know that they don’t seem to have lung cancer. The people they know who smoke don’t either. And, they know or have heard of smokers who never got lung cancer even by the time they are older.

So, since that tends to be ALL they know, they just expect to be in the lucky majority who avoid lung cancer & don’t take the health warnings seriously.

Unfortunately, when they do find out the much more important dangers of smoking and that they hurt ALL smokers – for sure including them, they find out when the damage is already done.

Sometimes they find out before the damage is irreversible. Too often they find out when they are irreversibly impaired or even dying.

So, what is it that they don’t know?

Earlier today we went online with our new website, http://www.iehealth.com/ which is centered around the health guidelines to follow to ensure you keep good health or which can help you restore your health.

One of the guidelines we discuss there is the recommendation that people NOT smoke as a health guideline.

Our take is that is a good guideline & is an accurate one. But that it is weak & ineffective for helping people keep good health.

Here’s what we recommend instead
-- & the HUGE reason NOT to smoke most smokers don’t know.:

“No smoking” in some ways is the single most important item on their list.

But it’s incomplete. Breathing second hand smoke is very nearly as bad for you. And, for the unlucky few, it can even be worse because the exposure is greater. (A bartender in a bar where all the patrons smoke can be exposed to 3 packs a day of cigarette smoke without ever smoking himself or herself.)

No smoking or exposure to second hand smoke – is a MUCH better guideline.

Secondly, most smokers have no clue WHY smoking is bad for you or how HORRIBLY bad for you it actually is.

So, I think many smokers will only follow that guideline if they do know this information.

Most smokers today only know that some smokers get lung cancer. And, particularly if they are younger, they may know no one in their circle of friends & acquaintances who smokes who has lung cancer. So, since that’s all they know, they just count on continuing to be one of the lucky smokers who don’t get lung cancer & continue to smoke.

Here’s what they don’t know.:

1. Smoking helps cause virtually EVERY KIND of cancer. Not just lung cancer. By one estimate, sixty percent of all people who have cancer now are smokers who would not have gotten cancer if they hadn’t smoked.

2. But that’s NOT the most important harm smoking does. Believe it or not, all the cancers smoking causes are the little problem !!

The big problem with smoking is that it directly causes heart & cardiovascular disease & speeds up the aging process.

Smoking INCREASES your homocysteine level; reduces your HDL level; & makes the HDL you still have less effective at clearing out excess LDL from your blood vessels.

The only good news is that instead of waiting many years to find out too late that smoking has caused cancer or a massive fatal heart attack, smokers today can have their HDL & homocysteine levels checked. Then they can see for themselves that smoking is beginning to harm them RIGHT NOW. And, it’s NOT guesswork. Their high homocysteine level will show them the proof NOW.

By the way, the cardiovascular diseases that cigarettes cause include erectile dysfunction, strokes, peripheral artery disease, foot amputations from peripheral artery disease, & kidney disease – NOT just heart attacks. And, smoking causes plenty of heart attacks.

Most smokers would decline to get on a jumbo jet they knew was going to fall out of the sky and crash.

But hardly any know that as smokers they are already following a path as deadly & over 100 times more likely to happen every year just from the cardiovascular diseases smoking causes.

So the third missing part of this guideline is to see to it that:

everyone knows ALL of why smoking is bad for you & has their homocysteine & HDL levels checked at least once a year.”

What should those numbers be to ensure good health?

Here’s what we posted on http://www.iehealth.com/ :

“These guidelines leave out homocysteine of 8.9 or less & HDL of over 40.

(Ideal homocysteine readings range from about 6.0 to 7.9; & HDL readings of over 60 are highly desirable with over 80 close to ideal.)

For many if not most people these two measures are much more important in assessing heart attack risk, death risks, & longevity than the LDL they did include. And, homocysteine of 9.0 & up is predictive of age related mental decline also. In addition, there are effective ways to improve your results on both measures.)“

*************

Doctors used to think that homocysteine readings of equal to or somewhat over 10.0 & was normal because so many people tested that way.

Unfortunately some still do. Mercifully, research shows that readings of over 9.0 are harmful. And, many doctors who know this work hard with their patients to bring these readings down to 8.9 or lower.

For people who don’t smoke & avoid second hand smoke, that’s doable.

Smokers tend to have much higher homocysteine readings. And, it’s unlikely that they can lower their homocysteine levels this much if they don’t quit & stay away from second hand smoke.


So, if you smoke, get your homocysteine & HDL checked.

And, talk to your doctor about quitting or a referral to a doctor who specializes in quitting.

Doctors now have several ways to make quitting easier & much more likely to work permanently. You can more than triple your odds with your doctor's help.

Or go to the American Cancer Society for information & support in quitting. They care & have helped thousands of people to quit.

Better heart health & blood tests without drugs….

Today's post: Monday, 8-20-2007

A friend’s wife is about to see a cardiologist. Her most recent blood test had fasting glucose of just over 115; HDL just under 40; & LDL of somewhat over 160.

Many doctors, even some cardiologists, would simply write a statin drug prescription to lower her high LDL.

LDL of over 160 IS a risk factor for worsening vascular (blood vessel) health & heart attacks & strokes. (LDL of under 130 or even under 100 would be far safer for her.)

However, good doctors & cardiologists would also prefer she have:

fasting glucose of 110 or less; & order a test of HBA1C to be sure that’s 5.9 or less;

& HDL of over 45 or even more than 55 if it can be achieved.

And, increasingly, some of these doctors also know that statin drugs may be unnecessary.

If she immediately uses effective nondrug ways to improve these readings, it’s quite likely she can improve them enough as measured by a post test to make taking statins unnecessary.

If the post test shows little or no improvement, of course, most doctors will insist on the statin drugs to at least bring her LDL down to below 130.

Here are some key ways she can achieve all these goals enough to stay off drugs.

I. These steps lower LDL cholesterol.:

a. Recent studies have found that up to 2,000 mg a day of sterols, a food component found in vegetables & nuts, will produce strong drops in LDL cholesterol.

Products like Benecol margarine lower LDL because they have sterols added. But margarine is not that good for you. The wonderful news is you can simply buy & take sterol supplements instead. (And, eating more vegetables, & nuts if you aren’t allergic to them, also helps & has many other health benefits. They contain sterols & fiber that lower LDL cholesterol.)

One of the best & least expensive sterol supplements that produced at least 15 points of the 30 points I dropped my own LDL cholesterol is a beta sitosterol supplement called “Cholesterol Balance” by Natrol. Each tablet has 300 mg of sterols. I only took 3 a day. If his wife takes 3 a day just before lunch & 3 a day just before dinner, she may well lower her LDL cholesterol 30 points or more just from that one step.

b) If she also stays away from transfats (aka known as trans fats) totally & eats less butterfat & fatty meats, she may well do even better.

1) Extra virgin olive oil; wild caught fatty fish like & sardines Alaskan salmon; beef fed only grass, avocados, & nuts are all much better for you as sources of fats & oils than fatty meats like ham & beef from grain fed animals, butter, cream, full fat milk & full fat cheeses.

And wild caught fatty fish like & sardines Alaskan salmon; beef fed only grass, beans, oatmeal, nonfat & very lowfat dairy products, lean poultry, & nuts are all much better for you as sources of protein than fatty meats like ham & beef from grain fed animals, full fat milk & full fat cheeses.

Even better, most of the health OK sources of oils & of protein we list here have other health benefits.

Switching more completely to the health OK choices may well drop her LDL by another 5 or 10 points. (If she hadn’t already largely made that switch it would do even more.)

In addition, nuts, beans & oatmeal have both insoluble & soluble fiber that tends to lower LDL cholesterol; & beans and oatmeal are inexpensive. So, specifically increasing those from once or twice a week to closer to once or twice a day, can lower her LDL even more.

2) Staying completely away from transfats (aka known as trans fats) may be even more important. They will gradually disappear now that how horribly bad for your health they are is becoming better known.

But they are NOW in virtually all commercial baked goods, some & even possibly most fast food frying oils, some brands of commercial pizza, chili, oil roasted nuts, bread, peanut butter, candy bars, ice cream, mayo, & microwave popcorn.

If it isn’t a whole single food, like broccoli or wild caught salmon &/or it’s in a package, check the label for transfats of more than zero AND look for partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils.

(0.49 grams per serving, which can legally be listed as zero transfats, is too much transfats for good health. And, you may well eat three servings in normal use besides. So, if it lists ANY partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils as ingredients, it has too many transfats to be OK for your health to eat.)

My friend’s wife already eats far less of these foods with transfats than the average American; but if she stops eating ANY, transfats well enough, she may well drop her LDL by another 10 or 20 points. (Even better transfats, increase the most harmful kind of LDL, so this step will protect her health the most of any we list here.)

II. This step lowers LDL cholesterol AND boosts HDL.:

Taking real niacin, NOT niacinimide which has separate health benefits but doesn’t affect HDL & LDL, boosts HDL lowers LDL; AND it makes the LDL you do have change into a less harmful kind. (This is virtually the reverse of what transfats do.)

Some studies even suggest it protects your health & reduces your risk of death BETTER than statin drugs. It definitely does more for you.

However, it does have some side effects in larger doses.

I took one 300 mg niacin tablet after breakfast & only rarely experienced any niacin flush symptoms. And, I took one 200 microgram capsule of chromium polynicotinate a day. And despite a family history of high LDL cholesterol was only at 130 while my HDL was consistently over 60.

I’ve heard some people say that inositol hexaniacinate, marketed as no flush niacin, is ineffective. But I found a publication on PubMed that suggested it was effective. When I added a 300 mg capsule of inositol hexaniacinate at lunch & one at dinner, my HDL went up about 15 points & my LDL went down 15 points. To be fair, this may have been due to other things I did right. But that was the change that seemed to make the difference. And, I made little or no others then.

The other way to avoid the niacin flush & get the heart protection is to take 500 mg of time release niacin three times a day with meals.

But that can cause liver problems in some people. So you have to do that in cooperation with your doctor so you can have the liver function blood tests regularly to be sure your liver stays OK.

III. Boosting HDL

Here’s a list of things that seem to boost HDL besides the things in the other two lists above.

1. Do strength training at least two days a week for half an hour.

2. Get a total of 1500 calories a week or more of exercise.

3. Be sure you get a good intake of choline every day. Lecithin & choline supplements work. And, wheat germ, liver, & egg yolks are high in it.

If she does the other things listed here, eating two to four eggs a week for the choline in their yolks & their high quality protein looks like it boosts HDL cholesterol much more than it boosts LDL cholesterol.

And, lecithin supplements are inexpensive.

4. Taking 400 to 600 mg a day of magnesium (if you aren’t already taking Milk of Magnesia every day) increases HDL; tends to reduce or prevent high blood pressure; & tends to prevent constipation.

5. Using extra virgin olive oil raises HDL & lowers LDL. Unfortunately oils like soy, corn, safflower, & to some extent canola, lower BOTH HDL & LDL. So if she uses only extra virgin olive oil & virtually eliminates taking in corn oil, soy oil, & safflower oil, she may find that boosts her HDL as well.

6. You have to be careful with drinking red wine as a health aid. But it does boost HDL cholesterol; & tends to reduce blood clotting & benefit heart health.

For women, drinking more than one a day can do more harm than good. (Men can get away with up to two a day.)

Also, if she winds up taking larger amounts of niacin, she needs to be extra careful to avoid drinking more wine than that to protect her liver.

But, if she does it safely & takes no medicines that mix badly with alcohol, if she drinks one glass of red wine each evening rather than just a few times a week, it will raise her HDL, possibly from 5 to 12 points.

IV. lowering fasting glucose:

These things tend do that:

1. Taking 200 to 600 micrograms of chromium polynicotinate a day.

2. Taking 200 to 600 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid.

3. Cutting back or eliminating added sugar in her food. And, making sure to switch to a non sugar added version of foods that come with sugar added.

4. Getting enough regular exercise.

5. Eat very little bread, even whole grain, & eat NO refined grain foods. And, eat no packaged cereals besides oatmeal, shredded wheat, & wheat germ.

6. Drink NO soft drinks & eat NO foods with high fructose corn syrup added.

(Despite doing # 1. & #4 & # 5 & 6 above, my fasting glucose was 115; & my doctor told me I would be wise to lower it. Bless him for that.

I switched from sugar added applesauce to no sugar added; I cut my intake of sugar in almost exactly half; continued to take chromium & exercise regularly; & added 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid. I was lucky that so little worked. But I was doing enough things right already that making these small changes dropped my fasting glucose from 115 to 87.

If she does what I was already doing & adds what I added, she may not lower her fasting glucose to less than 90; but it’s virtually certain she will drop to below 110.

Then if her post test shows HDL of 48; LDL of 128; & fasting glucose of 102, her health protection will be far better; & her doctor may well hold of on prescribing statins.

And, that kind of change IS doable with these nondrug steps.

Protect your heart better than aspirin in 2 ways….

Today's post: Monday, 7-9-2007

1. Taking aspirin to protect your heart has three big disadvantages. First, it tends to erode your stomach lining. And, that causes bad breath & has helped cause ulcers or serious bleeding in some people. (It makes heartburn or acid reflux worse.)

Second, you most need protection when you are under stress while the protective effect of aspirin tends to stop when you are under stress.

(And, if you take ibuprofen as Advil or Motrin or Aleve for example, it also stops the protection from the aspirin.)

Supplements like bilberry extract & grape seed extract are heart protective also. So is eating berries several times a week, particularly blueberries & blackberries.

These foods & supplements DO continue their protection while you are under stress -- or if you take ibuprofen for muscle soreness or other reasons. They do NOT cause stomach lining problems or bad breath. They have several other health benefits. And, berries taste wonderful.

Note: Stopping regular aspirin abruptly apparently can cause a rebound effect of increased blood clotting. So if you have been taking it regularly, be sure to add the supplements for a week or so first before discontinuing it. And, even then, it might be wise to take it every other day for a week or so to allow your body to adjust gradually.

Drinking extra water can also help. And, if you haven’t been taking it already, also adding 200 mg a day of natural vitamin E, alpha tocopherol, a week or so before stopping the aspirin also would help since it also reduces excess blood clotting.

Also, save some of the aspirin so that you always have it with you if you can. If you do have a heart attack, studies show that taking aspirin immediately & chewing it before swallowing to get it to work faster sharply increases your survival odds.

I’ve known this information & done posts on it before. But here is an article by Dr Al Sears with a third & quite serious drawback to taking daily aspirin to protect your heart.

This information is new to me.

He also includes another way to prevent both heart attack AND stroke that you can substitute for aspirin that works even better than aspirin does. (Separate information shows that his method also slows aging & protects you from mental decline.)

“Aspirin Can Boost Your Risk of Stroke

By Al Sears, MD

Yesterday, my neighbor asked me if it was a good idea to take aspirin to avoid heart attacks and stroke. I responded with a question of my own: "Would you take a painkiller if you weren’t in pain?"

TV commercials make it sound logical… but taking aspirin regularly just causes a new set of problems. What I call "the law of unintended consequences."

A new study published in Lancet Neurology found that older people who are taking aspirin "preventively" may be seven times more likely to have a stroke.

The same researchers estimated that if the misuse of drugs like aspirin continues to increase, it may soon overtake high blood pressure as the leading cause of stroke in those over 75.

Instead of taking aspirin, take steps to lower your homocysteine levels. Your cells dump this "toxic waste" product into your bloodstream as they burn energy.

Too much homocysteine is a serious health risk. In fact, homocysteine levels are a better predictor of heart disease - and stroke, by the way - than anything else, including cholesterol.

You can lower your homocysteine levels simply by supplementing with B vitamin. No harsh drugs are necessary. Here’s what I recommend:

Vitamin B6 - 75 mg daily
Vitamin B12 - 400 mcg daily
Folic Acid - 800 mcg daily “

This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

***************

My note:

Some people may need more B12 or more folic acid or to add N-acetyl Cysteine, NAC, or TMG to this to get their homocysteine levels to below 9.0 or lower. Dr Sears likes to see his patients get below 8.0 he has said separately.

More B6, however is not desirable since more than 100 mg a day seems to cause nerve problems.

2 people eat same breakfast. One dies & one lives.

Welcome to our health & self help blog.

Focus on Your Health:

In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.

Today's post: Friday, 6-15-2007

2 people eat same breakfast. One dies & one lives ….

It really can happen. Here’s why & how to be the one that lives & stays healthy.

(My original title was 2 men eat the same breakfast. And, I do write it that way. But it’s now beginning to be known that women are as at risk of heart attack & related diseases as men are. In fact, their risk may be higher in some ways once they pass menopause.

Whole Foods Market has an excellent free handout on Women & Heart Disease that I recommend you read if you are a woman or have women in you life you care about.)

The common breakfast foods in this post are steak & eggs.

Let’s say each person eats a six ounce steak & two fried eggs for breakfast or brunch.

Here’s why the results can be so different.:

1. Their health status is different.

2. The quality of their food is different.

3. They eat different things with their food.



1. Their health status is different.:

The man who dies could be someone who smokes & believes that he will succeed in not getting lung cancer from it. He even could be right. Many people who smoke don’t get lung cancer. But what he doesn’t know is that everyone who smokes damages their cardiovascular system & disables their natural defenses against heart attack, stroke, & more. So, he hasn’t quit. And, his homocysteine is over 16.0 & his blood vessels are so choked with plaque that a small clot will cause a heart attack or stroke. He doesn't know what it is & has never had it tested. Smoking has also given him high blood pressure he doesn’t know he has because he has never had it checked. It’s 178 over 105.

He also eats too much fatty meat from animals penned up & fed grains, including his steak today. So he’s eaten too much omega 6 oils, too little omega 3 oils. His HDL cholesterol is quite low, 36, as he’s also not gotten that tested; he doesn’t take any supplements that raise it; & he never exercises. His LDL cholesterol is over 180; he also doesn’t know that as he has never had it tested; & he takes no supplements to lower it.

Even worse, because he eats so many refined grains & no vegetables to speak of & never exercises, his HBA1C reading is 9.3; he has type II diabetes; & he doesn’t know it as he’s never had his blood glucose or HBA1C tested -- & he hasn’t yet had symptoms that he saw a doctor about. He also doesn’t know that this increases his risk of heart attack by more than double or that it’s one of the causes of his high blood pressure.

The man who lives got lucky & never started smoking or he did & found out what its real risks are to his cardiovascular system & quit.

He knows he has desirable blood pressure because he has it measured every so often. It tends to average about 116 over 65. When it’s taken at his doctor’s appointments, he always asks what the reading was. He exercises regularly, eats a lot of vegetables every day & some whole fruit or real fruit juice every day; & he has found & uses a way to physically relieve stress & uses it almost every day. He also takes several supplements that keep blood pressure down, notably including 200 mg a day of CoQ10.

He knows his homocysteine level as he has that tested every so often. And, because he doesn’t smoke & takes several supplements that lower it, it’s tended to be about 8.0.

He has high LDL readings of over 70 as he exercises regularly, including strength training; takes supplements that increase it; & drinks one or two glasses of red wine most days. His LDL is around 100 as he takes sterol supplements & eats many foods with sterols or soluble fiber every day. And, he gets both tested every time he gets his homocysteine level tested.

But there’s more:

2. The quality of their food is different.

The man who dies eats meat several times a day. So, to be able to afford it, he buys his meat from stores & restaurants that serve only meat from animals penned up & fed grains. That’s the cheapest kind to get. But eating it often harms your health.

And, that’s the kind of steak he has today. It’s loaded with omega 6 oils from the grain; it’s quite fatty from the cow that it’s from getting stuffed with grain while it was penned up; & it’s also high in saturated fats.

The man who lives eats beans & nuts & nonfat dairy & wild caught fish & seafood for most of his protein intake. He only has beef a few times a month. So he only eats beef that is grass fed only & never penned up to be fattened.

That’s the kind of steak he is eating today as he’s found & patronizes an upscale restaurant that serves it. It isn’t cheap. But he only eats it a few times a month so he finds it affordable. It’s a bit chewier & more strongly flavored than the grain fed beef. It’s more like wild game. But it has some omega 3 oils & very little omega 6 oils. It’s quite lean. And the fat it does have is low in saturated fats.

3. They eat different things with their food.

That also makes a surprising difference.

The man who dies has his steak & eggs with French fries that were fried in an oil high in omega 6 oils. He has his eggs fried in butter. And, he has a piece of white bread, refined grain, toast with jam that has high fructose corn syrup as its sweetener. Then he has a large caffeinated soft drink with it.

The man who lives has onions sautéed in extra virgin olive oil on his steak. And he has his eggs fried in extra virgin olive oil also.

He has a small bowl of strawberries & one of peeled & sliced kiwifruit. And, this being a brunch, he has a glass of a sparkling red wine.

The result is the man who dies has extra saturated fat that acts like sludge in his blood vessels which aren’t up to the job & dies of a massive heart attack within hours of eating his brunch.

The man who lives has very little sludging in his blood vessels. But they can handle it. And his body disposes of it efficiently. And he lives several decades more in good health.


Ask yourself:

What kind of message are your food & health practices sending your heart?