Soft drinks & smoking even worse than thought...

Today's post: Thursday, 2-7-2008

Today’s post is a bit shorter than most we do; but it contains some new information.

1. Gout is a VERY uncomfortable condition that creates sharp, stabbing pain in your joints. That’s because it creates uric acid crystals that are quite literally stabbing the inside surface of your joints. Ouch !!

One way to avoid it is to avoid eating excessive amounts of fatty meats -- with hamburger from grain fed cattle being the kind people in the United States now tend to overeat.

Since this kind of meat also is high in omega 6 oils & animal based saturated fat & has excessive calories from that fat that tend to wind up on YOU, it’s a very sound idea to mostly or totally avoid it.

It turns out a second way to avoid gout is to never drink soft drinks. A health news article a week ago on the AFP health news on Yahoo said it’s been found that drinking soft drinks also increases the amount of gout people get.

Since soft drinks also have been implicated in keeping people fat & helping cause type II diabetes, do yourself a favor & drink tea, green tea, or purified water instead.

Why pay money to get fat, sick, & have shooting pains in your joints?

As long as you won’t be driving too soon afterwards, even rum would be better for you.

So would beer for that matter.

So, if you eat at the big chain fast food places, consider water or orange juice & salad to keep you going.

Or go to a Mexican one like Uno Mas. They have decent beer, guacamole, and beans in addition to the standard junk. www.unamas.com will get you to a site local to you if there is one. They also have mild & hot salsa you can put on the beans.

Also, Subway has great sandwich ingredients including many with great flavor. Simply let them keep the cheap refined grain bread & get a sandwich sized serving of a protein food
(they have some lean ones.) – Atkins style. And get water to drink.

2. Regular readers of these posts already know that everyone who smokes is giving themselves heart disease & that lung cancer is the LITTLE risk since, as horrible as it is for those who get it even smokers don’t always get it.

One of the ways that smoking, IN ALL SMOKERS, NOT just some -- creates cardiovascular disease is that it triggers elevated levels of homocysteine.

Homocysteine at those elevated levels helps deposit plaque in your arteries & accelerates your rate of aging.

So the recent news is not surprising but was new to me. It’s now been shown that smokers are far more likely to get senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

The reason that this is not surprising is that homocysteine readings of 9.0 & over, particularly of 12.0 & over are predictive of an increased risk of senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

So, since smoking produces exactly that effect in virtually all smokers, this new finding is one that data would predict you would find.

Still, in complex biological processes, you don’t always find the effects you predicted & have reason to expect to find.

So, it’s still important news that a study confirms that smoking does tend to trigger senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

So, in addition to heart attacks, strokes, peripheral artery disease, kidney disease, & erectile dysfunction, we now can add that smoking helps cause senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease.

If you still smoke, ask yourself this.

Would you prefer a few weeks of undergoing the effort to quit smoking or –

-- would you prefer to not make that effort & look forward to getting heart attacks, strokes, peripheral artery disease, kidney disease, & erectile dysfunction, AND senility & dementia, & possibly Alzheimer’s disease?


Keep in mind that if you need, your doctor can get you Zyban; nicotine replacements are available over the counter, & your HMO or the American Cancer Society can give you a good support group to use -- & that each of these things have been effective in helping people quit smoking.

Update on How to Quit Smoking…..

Today's post: Wednesday, 1-16-2008

Last Thursday, 1-10, I did a post on how dramatically dangerous smoking is for cardiovascular & heart health. The post highlighted that smoking is dangerous even for younger people & so powerful a cause of heart disease that it sometimes even kills people in their 40’s.

I then suggested for people trying to quit that they ask their doctor for a drug called Chantix.

I had gone by the listed side effects that mild nausea was the main problem. So I passed on that reducing the dose of the drug temporarily has been found to help & that taking ginger has been found to increase the level of your body being able to withstand things without giving you nausea symptoms & that might also be a solution.

However, I found some information since that suggests that taking the antidepressant drug Zyban plus a nicotine substitute might be as effective as Chantix in helping people quit.

And, of more importance, an unlisted side effect of Chantix on many people is that it can induce or worsen depression & that this can be severe in some people.

Ouch !!

For many smokers, they smoke in part because their lives have been extra stressful or because nicotine has some antidepressant effects that help them feel a bit better.

To me, this means Chantix is likely NOT a good bet for helping people quit smoking after all.

So I’ve changed my thoughts on this subject.

I now believe that taking the antidepressant drug Zyban plus a nicotine substitute plus some strong support group help is your best & safest way to quit smoking.

Many people do manage to quit cold turkey. So that may be the best thing to try first.

But if you have too many withdrawal side effects or find you have re-started, enlist your doctor’s help & ask for the antidepressant drug Zyban plus a nicotine substitute.

In addition, be sure to get into a support group as that has also been found to help. Your doctor may have a program to refer you to -- or your HMO or insurance company may offer one. If not, the American Cancer Society or the American Lung Association can help you locate one.

The other thing your doctor can do is help you get your HDL & your homocysteine level tested. If you smoke, there is an excellent to very high chance your HDL is under 50, possibly under 35, & a similar chance your homocysteine level is well over 9.0.

You may well find your HDL is something like 27; & your homocysteine level is 13.0 or higher. That indicates damage is happening now that will result in heart disease.

What does that do for you in helping you quit?

If you get a bad reading on either of these tests or a very bad reading like the 27 & over 13.0 example above, it means that smoking is giving you heart disease RIGHT NOW. And, you then do NOT have to guess if you need to quit smoking to protect yourself. These two measures are quite likely to show that you do need to quit or even that it’s imperative that you do.

The great news is that they give you objective proof that you need to quit. And, even better, they tell you BEFORE you die of a heart attack or stroke caused by smoking.

Of course this also suggests that as soon as you quit, you begin doing the things that increase your HDL & lower your homocysteine to help you recover faster from the effects of the smoking you’ve already done & speed up the damage repair & lower the harm to your heart & blood vessels.

Consider taking steps like the following to do that. And, if you do them, you get an extra benefit too. By taking steps to turn down or turn off the damage smoking has caused you, it will significantly increase your motivation to quit.

Here are things that boost HDL. There are many others. But these seem to work well for most people.

Taking at least 300 mg of real niacin after two meals a day for a total of 600 is likely safe & has boosted HDL quite well for some people.

Regular exercise, particularly progressive strength training & interval aerobic exercise, boost HDL.

And, the drink or two a day that has been found to increase longevity likely does so in part because it boosts HDL. (Just drink in locations where smoking is NOT allowed & never smoke at the same time you drink even before you quit.)

Using only extra virgin olive oil instead of oils like corn oil or safflower oil or soy oil also boosts your HDL studies have found. And, it helps reduce your bad LDL if you use it to replace butter when you can.

To lower your homocysteine levels, try these things.:

Try taking 500 to 1000 micrograms of B12; 50 to 75 mg of B6, & 1600 iu or more of folic acid each day. (Note: More than 1000 of B12 & more than 1600 of folic acid is likely OK. More than 100 mg of B6 is NOT as it has caused nerve damage.)

For some people, that may be enough to reduce your homocysteine to below 9.0. If not, try adding 500 mg a day of the supplement NAC. You can also take 500 mg twice a day if your homocysteine is well over 10.0 now or doesn’t drop below 9.0 with the B vitamins & 500.

If your homocysteine is 14.0 or above or still not below 9.0 after the B vitamins & 500 mg of NAC twice a day, try adding the supplement TMG two or three times a day.