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.

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.

Book on preventing or reversing heart disease

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: Wednesday, 5-30-2007

Very valuable book on preventing or reversing heart disease….

Reverse Heart Disease Now:
Stop Deadly Cardiovascular Plaque Before It's Too Late

By Stephen Sinatra, MD & James Porter, MD

It’s available on Amazon in hardcover. I was able to buy it at my local bookstore.

Why this book is extremely valuable & important:

Knowledgeable use of supplements can largely prevent heart disease &, in some cases, help to reverse it.

These two doctors began to research ways they could stop seeing the patients they treated for life-threatening heart disease continually return again or die instead of getting better.

Now, it’s very rare that either of them see a patient who returns in such bad shape.

Between them they cover most of the known supplements & alternative treatments that are effective.

But the exciting thing is that, in addition, they describe some newer & less known supplements that they have found extremely effective.

Two of them show promise for reversing heart disease & increasing blood flow by causing plaque deposits to gradually shrink. They even have gotten excellent results in reversing the blockages that cause strokes with these supplements.

I’m a good deal more knowledgeable than most in this area. There is a family history on my Dad’s side for heart attacks & high cholesterol on my Mom’s side. So I’ve been making a special effort to learn & take the effective supplements.

This book is so complete they have virtually every supplement I’ve ever heard of that helps prevent or potentially reverse cardiovascular disease. And, then there are the newer, & possibly very effective supplements, they discuss that I had not yet read or heard about.

They also explain that they do use statin drugs but find they get better results for the health of their patients if they reserve those for their sickest patients.

I think every doctor who treats heart disease or strokes or peripheral artery disease should read this book & seriously consider using these methods.

And, anyone who has these things or who has any risk factors for them & who is willing to read, should read this book also.

What its legitimate drawbacks are:

A review on Amazon points out that the two doctors who are the main authors mention the importance of eating right; stress relief; & exercise; but do not cover them as well or in as much depth as they do supplements.

That’s true. But those things tend to be best used for prevention in people who are still well. Their experience is with treating patients who are already afflicted with cardiovascular disease.

And, this comment also ignores the fact that people who have cardiovascular disease or who have more of it than they yet know have died by overdoing exercise before they have reversed some of the underlying causes enough to exercise that hard safely.

Further, there are many good resources for information on exercise & healthy eating. And, there are some pretty good resources for information on stress relief.

This book’s strength is on using supplements in a way that gets much better results than conventional medical methods alone.

The reviewer also points out that there are virtually no studies cited for the various supplements. The two authors are reporting their success in using supplements & methods researched elsewhere.

The good news is that we get the information now instead of later. The bad news is that some doctors will not use the information without checking out such studies & references. This may mean they won’t try the things in the book or will be hard to work with for patients who want to do so.

That’s unfortunate. And, perhaps that kind of book will one day exist as there are studies already done that support many if not all of the things these two doctors recommend.

However, this criticism overlooks the fact that these two doctors have patients who got better instead of worse using these methods. And, it overlooks the fact that when they put patients on supplements designed to improve their lipid profiles or lower their homocysteine levels they were able to get the results from blood tests showing the expected results.

The last two points criticized were that:

1. The supplements the authors recommend can cost $100 to $500 per month.

2. And, that the doctors do NOT present the kind of strategic plan for using them that they likely use with their own patients.

The dollar costs are a consideration.

But keep in mind that having cardiovascular disease continue & get worse costs even more. People today who take more than one medicine for high blood pressure, type II diabetes, & take statins as well can easily pay that much or more. And, this is increasingly common.

And, that’s before the costs of doctor & emergency room visits or procedures like angioplasty or bypass surgery are added.

I personally am happy to pay to NOT have myself or my health plan to have to pay THOSE higher costs.

I do agree it would have been very useful to have a strategic guide. But this is more a book on what the doctors have found to work successfully than a mini-course on using the information.

My conclusion:

The information in this book can save your life or prevent you from having disabilities as an older person that trash your quality of life.

So, it gets my highest recommendation.