For Your Healthy Heart

I was thrilled when I heard that Dr. OZ actually admitted publicly that artificial sweeteners are to be avoided. These chemical additives aren't the "natural" products advertising leads you to believe and they do cause heart health concerns in many people.

I was even more alarmed by the report on ABC News about the number of prescription drugs pushed on our aging citizens that are causing serious interaction problems.

I'd doing daily on-line walking program this month.  What's your exercise plan?  And are you getting enough pure water to drink?

And I'm in the process of writing a new report that will be published later this month.  

Remember that cholesterol drugs are really not necessary unless you have extremely high levels, over 252, or if you have elevated triglycerides.

More on heart health

Blood Pressure Care

Heart Helpers

Vitamin E and Vitamin C

So much you can do, because your health is really in your hands.

Selections from first Natural Health News

Natural Health News: Cordless Phones, like WIFI, Boost Heart Risk

Dec 27, 2010

Cordless Phones, like WIFI, Boost Heart Risk. Cordless Phone EMFs Trigger Heart Rhythm Abnormalities. By Erik Goldman / Editor in Chief - Vol. 11, No. 4. Winter, 2010. The controversy continues over the possibility that frequent

Natural Health News: Margarine Not Heart Healthy

Sep 02, 2010

Omega-3 spread maker Unilever says a 40 month study that found omega-3 spreads don't protect elderly heart attack sufferers from further cardiac events, requires further analysis and won't affect approved methods of usage. ...

Natural Health News: Matters of the Heart

Feb 02, 2010

And of course you know that CNN's own Larry King uses a garlic supplement for his heart condition, and has advertised it for years.Garlic is one of the best herbs for blood thinning as well as being an excellent source of magnesium to ...

Natural Health News: Thyroid and Heart Connection: Known for Decades

Jul 03, 2010

September 22, 2008 — A new study has found that older adults with severe subclinical hypothyroidism had almost double the risk of developing heart failure (HF) compared with those with normal thyroid function over a 12-year follow-up ...

Natural Health News: Vitamin C and risk of coronary heart disease

Oct 02, 2008

A 16-year study on the relationship between Vitamin C consumption and heart disease in women shows that Vitamin C supplement users reduce the risk of of non-fatal heart attacks and fatal heart disease by 28%, compared with non-users. ...

Calcium and Bone Health

Jul 30, 2010

Jul 30, 2010

Norwegian vitamin K supplier NattoPharma has backed the role of vitamin K in calcium metabolism following the controversial British Medical Journal meta-analysis linking calcium consumption and increased risk of heart attack. ...

Natural Health News: Again: Statins Not Effective

Nov 21, 2010

Not only are they over-prescribed, they have heart-risky side effects and many more problems like kidney failure secondary to rhabdomyolysis, just to highlight one (of too many). What, from this new report, bothers me is that when do ...

Heart Month Hype

Feb 03, 2010

As part of Diet Coke's annual partnership with The Heart Truth campaign, the company has just introduced limited-edition "heart graphic" cans, each of which feature a large -- and just plain cute -- sketch of a big red heart. ...

Heart Month?

Feb 05, 2009

Side effects are worse with age and the new data clearly demonstrates that the risks for any person over the age of 70 far outweigh the benefits – even for patients with heart disease. This study lends further support to my observation ...

Wear Red for Your Heart

Jan 31, 2010

Jan 31, 2010

It seems as if little has changed in the way mainstream medicine looks at heart health concerns, especially for women, so hopefully our information will be put to good use. I've listed some of the 100+ posts on Natural Health News ...

Diet soda linked to heart risks

Aug 27, 2007

The research comes from a massive, multi-generational heart study following residents of Framingham, Mass., a town about 25 miles west of Boston. The new study of 9000 observations of middle-aged men and women was published Monday ...

The Red Dress, Heart Month and Women's Health

Feb 11, 2009

Another very dear friend of mine, and younger than I am, has been dealing with heart failure for a couple of years. Her doctor is described as rude and demeaning of her choice of more natural care which the doctor disdains. ...

UPDATE - Herbal extract extends heart patients' lives: study

Mar 27, 2007

An extract from the leaves of the crataegus, or hawthorn tree, already available in Europe, extended the lives of patients with congestive heart failure who were already receiving medicinal treatment by an average of four months,

Heart Health Month is soon to be here

Jan 17, 2005

Preventing heart disease requires much more than simply screening for high cholesterol in the blood. "Although this approach has been useful, it fails to identify almost one-half of the 1.3 million individuals who develop MI [myocardial

Is there evidence for heart therapy in mainstream medicine?

Mar 25, 2009

Natural therapy may include vitamin E, nattokinase, cayenne, garlic (see ALLI-C, right column), or the heart health promoting herb - hawthorne. (More information on these natural treatments may be found here. ...

SSRI Drugs in Pregnancy Linked to Heart Abnormalities

Nov 26, 2008

Prozac use has shown that women who took the SSRI (and fluoride based) antidepressant during the first three months of pregnancy gave birth to four times as many babies with heart problems as women who did not. ...

Natural Health News: A Fool is Born

Nov 16, 2010

The data showed that multivitamin-takers are no healthier than those who don't pop the pills, at least when it comes to the big diseases—cancer, heart disease, stroke. "Even women with poor diets weren't helped by taking a multivitamin ...

Heart Healthy Study for Women

Oct 24, 2007

If you read as many medical and nutrition research articles as I do you recognize that most heart research focuses on men's health; it's certainly been this way for decades. From nutrition research from the prestigious Karolinska ...

Heart Health, Heart Risk

Feb 28, 2008

Just this week I have reports from two clients with serious heart problems and other health problems. Neither of these two people are taking aspirin. It has taken some months to see the improvement but here is one with a BNP reduced ...

Natural Health News: Great Support for ADVENTURX

Sep 17, 2008

It is not generally recommended that people without heart disease symptoms undergo these cardiac tests. But Mohlenkamp said that when it comes to judging whether it's safe for an older adult to exercise at such levels, it is "prudent" ...

Natural Health News: Kashi, Again

Jan 10, 2011

Recall that, Eskimos eating high satfat & cholesterol diets have the lowest percentage of heart disease on the planet, but a thin Marathon runner who eats textured Soy burgers, Soy Vegetable Oil, Sugar & refined carbs (even with normal ...

The Lovaza Shuffle

Apr 14, 2010

The FDA has approved omega-3 fish oil as a heart-protecting drug. Big PhRMA is spending millions to market omega-3 fish oil. Why?, overwhelming that purified, concentrated omega-3 fish oil protects your heart from the risks of heart

Be Aware of SOY Risks

Mar 02, 2008

Internationally acclaimed heart expert Kilmer McCully, MD, father of the homocysteine theory of heart disease, joined other scientists and consumer advocates in asking the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to drop the heart disease ...

What about Heart Healthy Herbs?

Mar 31, 2009

HAMILTON, Ontario, March 31 (UPI) -- A "polypill" that combines blood pressure drugs, a cholesterol-lowering statin, aspirin and folic acid may minimize heart attacks, Canadian researchers say. Dr. Koon Teo of McMaster University in ...

Planning ahead

Dec 26, 2007

It's great that younger people are focusing on heart health. And it's certainly alarming that health problems related to heart disease are showing up at younger ages than ever before. But statin drugs aren't the answer. ...

Boosting Drug Sales with Studies

Nov 09, 2008

In May of 2005, a study published in the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation, revealed that kidney problems and muscle weakness were two to eight times more frequent among Crestor users than those taking other

And Now for the Rest of the Story

Nov 13, 2008

(1) High C-reactive protein levels are associated with inflammation and heart disease/stroke. The authors concluded that, in apparently healthy persons with elevated C-reactive protein levels, rosuvastatin (Crestor) significantly ...

A reason to consider (and demand) effective natural treatment

Mar 26, 2007

Cayenne, hawthorne berry, white willow bark, natural vitamin E, chelation, IV vitamin c and other scientifically supported natural treatments can and will help you prevent the risk of heart disease without risky (yes! angioplasty can ...

Taking Deatiled Health History Better Than Tests

Nov 15, 2008

I know of many situations where people suffering heart attacks were given post-event stress EKG (ECG), passed with flying colors, returned to work, then died in weeks to a month or three. In the early to mid 1970s I used to teach ...

Vitamin E, Women's Health and Myth Making by Experts

Sep 10, 2007

This is how you get confused, especially if you do to know the history of vitamin E and it's use to prevent are reverse heart disease (the medical studies on this date back to the 1940s and 50s). Natural vitamin E (listed on a label as ...

Risks Potentially Outweigh Benefits with Avandia®

Jan 14, 2009

In 2003 several groups and health professionals made an effort to alert the public to the dangerous link between Avandia® and an increased risk of congestive heart failure. In late 2006 the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)

Tim Russert

Jun 17, 2008

Many of the commonly prescribed drugs in the standards of care for cardiovascular disease actually deplete nutrients essential to heart health. Our office has a specific service that provides this information, which we offer to ...

Read more »

Posted in: first natural health news,heart,heart health

VIOXX Continues to Be Risky

December 13, 2010: Heart risks of Vioxx persist long after drug is stopped

People who thought they were in the clear after they stopped taking the now banned painkiller rofecoxib (Vioxx) might have to think again. The risks of the drug, which was pulled off the market in 2004 after it was linked to heart attacks and strokes, persist even after people stop taking it, according to a study released Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The findings also serve as a reminder to use caution with related painkillers that are still available, notably celecoxib (Celebrex). Some studies suggest it might pose similar, though less severe, risks to the heart. Other related drugs, such as ibuprofen (Advil and generic) and naproxen (Aleve and generic), might as well. And all of those drugs, called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs), can cause dangerous gastrointestinal bleeding and other problems, especially when taken long term. See our advice on when to take an NSAID.

The new study found that seniors with mild cognitive impairment who had taken Vioxx had a higher rate of cardiovascular problems and death up to nearly a year and a half after they stopped taking the drug compared with those who took a placebo. It's unknown whether those risks persist even longer because none of the people in the study were followed past 500 days after they stopped taking Vioxx.
—Steve Mitchell, associate editor, Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs

Selections from Natural Health News

Vioxx maker Merck drew up hit list

Sep 27, 2009
Dr Fries said in the letter that Merck had been systematically playing down the side effects of Vioxx and said the company's behaviour "seriously impinges on academic freedom". The court was also told a rheumatologist on Merck's ...
Natural Health News: Pfizer hedging its bets? UPDATE
Oct 17, 2008
The Vioxx withdrawal, which triggered an avalanche of lawsuits against Merck, also raised concerns about the safety of other medicines in the same class, called Cox-2 inhibitors. They were heavily touted by their makers as superior to ...
Natural Health News: Drugs Contribute to Dementia, Delirium
Apr 01, 2009
For example, Public Citizen warned consumers about the dangers of Vioxx, ephedra, Baycol and Propulsid years before they were pulled from the market. A partial list of drugs is below. I chose Antihistamines because it is the time of ...
WE TOLD YOU SO
Aug 16, 2006
(Merck, the manufacturer of Fosamax, is currently involved in thousands of lawsuits involving its drug Vioxx which is no longer on the market. Vioxx was pulled after a study revealed that people taking the drug had an increased risk of ...

Read more »

Posted in: cardiac arrythmia,heart,VIOXX

Walking Boosts Brain Benefit

The essential fatty acids are important nutrients for everything from brain function to cell function. Of course healthy fat is critical and omega 3 boosts brain health as it promotes cellular integrity.

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2010) — The discovery by UCLA biochemists of a new method for preventing oxidation in the essential fatty acids of cell membranes could lead to a new class of more effective nutritional supplements and potentially help combat neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and perhaps Alzheimer's.

Exercise is proven to benefit health because it is an activity that improves oxygen levels and improves circulation.  Now it is sure that walking makes brain fitness a sure thing.

And as another medical and health writer explains: "Activity, for a start, generally boosts blood circulation. Brain function may be enhanced by enhanced blood supply to this organ through improved delivery of oxygen and key nutrients".

The health benefits of walking are so well known that a fifth-grader could probably recite them. A daily dose of 30 minutes of brisk walking is good for your heart, lungs, muscles, blood pressure and bones.

Now we find out it's also good for your brain.

A study released last month by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh shows that walking a few miles per week can stave off the progress of Alzheimer's disease. According to the BBC, the study proves that "people who walk at least [5 miles] a week have bigger brains, better memories and improved mental ability compared to those who are more sedentary."

This follows an earlier study released in August. Led by Dr. Arthur F. Kramer, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have shown that walking not only builds up your muscles, but also builds up the connectivity between brain circuits. This is important because as we age, the connectivity between those circuits diminishes and affects how well we do every day tasks, such as driving. But aerobic exercise, such as brisk walking, helps revive those flagging brain circuits.

"Almost nothing in the brain gets done by one area -- it's more of a circuit," Kramer explained to ScienceDaily. "These networks can become more or less connected. In general, as we get older, they become less connected, so we were interested in the effects of fitness on connectivity of brain networks that show the most dysfunction with age."

Neuroscientists have identified several distinct brain circuits, and one of the most intriguing is the default mode network (or DMN), which dominates brain activity when a person is least engaged with the outside world -- either passively observing something or simply daydreaming. Previous studies found that a loss of coordination in the DMN is a common symptom of aging and in extreme cases can be a marker of disease.

The study: For one year, Kramer's team followed 70 adults who ranged in age from 60 to over 80 years old. All of them were sedentary before the study began. The participants were divided into two groups. One did aerobic walking, while the others served as a control group that did toning, stretching and strengthening exercises.

Brain function was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine brain networks and determine whether aerobic activity increased connectivity in the DMN or other brain networks. The researchers measured participants' brain connectivity and performance on cognitive tasks at the beginning of the study, at six months and after a year of either walking or toning and stretching. A group of young adults, ages 20 to 30, was also tested for brain function for comparison.

The results: Those who walked briskly reaped the biggest benefits -- and not just physically, Kramer writes in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience. As the older people became more fit, the aerobic exercise actually improved their memory, attention and several other cognitive processes. In fact, the coherence among different regions in the brain networks increased so much, it actually mimicked that of the 20-somethings.

Specifically, at the end of the year, DMN connectivity was significantly improved in the brains of the older walkers, but not in the stretching and toning group. The walkers also had increased connectivity in parts of another brain circuit called the fronto-executive network, which aids in the performance of complex tasks, and they did significantly better on cognitive tests than did their toning and stretching peers.

Kramer says even moderate aerobic exercise will enhance the function of specific brain structures and improve the coordination of important brain networks. But it must be aerobic to work. Toning and stretching aren't enough to reap the benefits.

"The higher the connectivity, the better the performance on some of these cognitive tasks, especially the ones we call executive control tasks -- things like planning, scheduling, dealing with ambiguity, working memory and multitasking," Kramer said. These are the very skills that tend to decline with aging, he said.

The gotcha: It doesn't happen overnight. It took a full year of walking for the results to be seen. Even the six-month test results showed no significant brain changes. The group that did the stretching exercises saw no cognitive benefit.

This isn't the first study to reach this conclusion. Recent research from the Harvard School of Public Health tracked more than 18,000 women ages 70 to 81 and concluded that the more active we are, the better our cognition. Specifically, walking one-and-a-half hours a week at a pace of one mile in 16-20 minutes gives the full cognitive benefits.

Walking may just be the wonder drug of old age.

And for the benefit of your heart Lifting weights strengthens your heart

Read more »

Posted in: aging,brain,fitness,heart,memory,walking,weights

Wear Red for Your Heart

Here's a compilation of articles we've posted on Heart Month and Heart Health and some good links.

It seems as if little has changed in the way mainstream medicine looks at heart health concerns, especially for women, so hopefully our infomration will be put to good use.  I've listed some of the 100+ posts on Natural Health News relating to heart health.  Just use "search" to locate more.

I'm really happy to learn that a friend with congestive heart failure has had major improvement with the use of vitamin C and Hawthorne berry.  See more about Alli-C (our choice for garlic, a natural blood pressure reducer and blood thinner - order from us in the right column ), and consider contacting us for help with your health concerns.

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/01/diet-and-lifestyle-best-cures-for-worst.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/02/heart-month.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/02/red-dress-heart-month-and-womens-health.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2005/01/heart-health-month-is-soon-to-be-here.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-about-heart-healthy-herbs.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/02/heart-health-heart-risk.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2007/03/herbal-extract-extends-heart-patients.html


Heart at risk in mammography
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/02/women-kept-in-dark-when-it-comes-to.html

Selected articles from leaflady.org
http://www.leaflady.org/blood_pressure_care_naturally.htmhttp://www.leaflady.org/heart_health.html
http://www.leaflady.org/somethoughts.htm
http://www.leaflady.org/reiki_BP.htm
http://www.leaflady.org/FEB.htm

http://www.leaflady.org/hypertension.htm

Take good care of your heart, you'll be happy you did...

Read more »

Posted in: heart,heart health,heart month

Heart Month?

I'd like to stick to Cupid and chocolate this month a lot more than spending the remaining days of February listening to PSAs like the one from Women in Government.

Ladies, and gentlemen, it just isn't cholesterol or cholesterol drugs that benefit your heart.

I'm not sure when y'all are going to get this concept but I do hope it's sooner, rather than later.

In my syndicated natural health column this month I gave a list of supplement tips for heart health. Nothing on the list closely simulated a statin.

My colleague of many years, AKA the People's Chemist, and several other colleagues and I have been speaking loudly for years against these drugs.

Here's one of those opinions -

Researchers Document the Dangers of Statins Byron Richards, CCN

A new scientific review of the dangers of statin medications is the first official paper to shed light on what I have been saying for years. It reviews 900 studies on the adverse effects of statins. It shows beyond any doubt that statins are potent disrupters of normal energy production by cells – meaning that the drugs are anti-life. It is technically not possible to have a drug that is anti-energy have any value in long term use. Yet, the statin machine rolls on, killing and injuring countless Americans.

The study is the first to connect the mitochondrial statin dots, a revelation that proves beyond any doubt that statins are too dangerous to consume for almost anyone. Serious side effects include loss of muscle function, cognitive loss, neuropathy, pancreatic and hepatic dysfunction, and sexual dysfunction. These side effects are worse in people with genetic susceptibility, in combination with other drugs, or in the presence of other energy related problems such as thyroid disease.

Side effects are worse with age and the new data clearly demonstrates that the risks for any person over the age of 70 far outweigh the benefits – even for patients with heart disease. This study lends further support to my observation that 450,000 new cases of heart failure per year are likely due to widespread statin use in older Americans.

Of course, you haven’t seen this information on the front page of any Big Pharma sponsored media.

Cardiovascular Health

Read more in an article I wrote in 2004

And please don't eat that plant sterol margarine no matter what they tell you; real butter (unsalted) and high quality olive oil blended together by your hand at home is a much healthier spread.

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/11/low-cholesterol-risks.html

Read more »

Posted in: Byron Richards,heart,heart month,Shane Ellison,statins,the leaflady

Vitamin C Effective in Reducing Inflammation

Inflammation is involved in numerous health issues from allergy to post-op surgical reactions. Life Extension provides this chart -

Allergy: Inflammatory cytokines induce autoimmune reactions

Alzheimer's: Chronic inflammation destroys brain cells

Anemia: Inflammatory cytokines attack erythropoietin production

Aortic valve stenosis: Chronic inflammation damages heart valves

Arthritis: Inflammatory cytokines destroy joint cartilage and synovial fluid

Cancer: Chronic inflammation causes many cancers

Congestive heart failure: Chronic inflammation contributes to heart muscle wasting

Fibromyalgia: Inflammatory cytokines are elevated

Fibrosis: Inflammatory cytokines attack traumatized tissue

Heart attack: Chronic inflammation contributes to coronary atherosclerosis

Kidney failure: Inflammatory cytokines restrict circulation and damage nephrons

Lupus: Inflammatory cytokines induce an autoimmune attack

Pancreatitis: Inflammatory cytokines induce pancreatic cell injury

Psoriasis: Inflammatory cytokines induce dermatitis

Stroke: Chronic inflammation promoted thromboembolic events

Surgical complications: Inflammatory cytokines prevent healing

The more vitamin C you take the less inflammation you will experience.

The important information about anti-oxidant vitamins is certainly something you aren't reading in the mainstream press or hearing on TV or radio.

Certainly vitamin C is much less expensive than a statin drug and isn't replete with serious side effects or death. The important concern is to purchase a mineral bound ascorbate form of the vitamin, or those with food based formulas. The vitamin C blend we have been offering our our clients for the last decade or more contains both food and mineral-ascorbate sources and is organic as well(C5 or C5+).

The USDA-RDA dose of sixty milligrams of vitamin C daily will prevent scurvy but it is not therapeutic enough to prevent or reverse health problems.

Outside the issue of CRP, adequate vitamin C intake daily is one of the best preventive measures against macular degeneration you can use.

Of course the choice is yours, but there is quite enough information I've posted about CRP and related issues here on Natural Health News to get your brain cells itching for relief of inquiring mind syndrome.

An article scheduled to appear in the January 1, 2009 issue of Free Radical Biology and Medicine reports the finding of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley that supplementing with vitamin C reduces C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation linked with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Berkeley professor emeritus of epidemiology and public health nutrition Gladys Block and her associates randomized 396 nonsmokers to receive 1000 milligrams vitamin C, 800 international units vitamin E, or a placebo for two months. Serum C-reactive protein levels were measured before and after the treatment period.

Although no effects for vitamin E were observable, and no effect for vitamin C was noted among those with desirable CRP levels, for participants with elevated C-reactive protein (defined as 1 milligram per liter or higher), vitamin C lowered CRP by 0.25 milligrams per liter compared to the placebo, a reduction similar to that associated with statin drug treatment.

"This is an important distinction; treatment with vitamin C is ineffective in persons whose levels of CRP are less than 1 milligram per liter, but very effective for those with higher levels," stated Dr Block. "Grouping people with elevated CRP levels with those who have lower levels can mask the effects of vitamin C. Common sense suggests, and our study confirms, that biomarkers are only likely to be reduced if they are not already low."

Dr Block noted that a trial reported earlier this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found no association between supplementation with vitamins C and E and the risk of stroke or heart attack, failed to screen participants for CRP elevation, which is important in the determination of who might benefit from vitamin C.

In another recently reported study ( the Jupiter trial), Harvard Medical School researchers showed that statin drugs reduced cardiovascular disease and cardiovascular mortality in individuals with normal lipids and elevated CRP. The trial found a 37 percent reduction in CRP associated with statins compared to treatment with a placebo. "One of the strengths of the Jupiter trial is that only persons with CRP levels greater than 2 milligrams per liter were enrolled," Dr Block remarked. "Researchers found very important effects of lowering CRP in people who had high levels to begin with."

"Major studies have found that the level of CRP in the body predicts future risk of cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction, stroke and peripheral artery disease, as well as diabetes," Dr Block stated. "Some believe CRP to be as important a predictor of future heart problems as high levels of LDL and low levels of HDL cholesterol."

"This is clearly a line of research worth pursuing," she added. "It has recently been suggested by some researchers that people with elevated CRP should be put on statins as a preventive measure. For people who have elevated CRP but not elevated LDL cholesterol, our data suggest that vitamin C should be investigated as an alternative to statins, or as something to be used to delay the time when statin use becomes necessary."

Read more »

Posted in: cardiovascular disease,CRP,health news,heart,inflammation,natural health news,natural news,vitamin C

MSM Pushing Supplements Out of Consideration

I'm really pleased I sought advanced education away from the MPH or MPA degrees as I was being encouraged by some doctors who were friends of mine back in the 60s and
70s. Knowing what I know now, how, even more so, these degrees are designed to encourage you to become a keeper of the status quo, I know it surely doesn't fit my style.

Had I followed this track I guess I had a twenty years stint in the USPHS and be long gone on a fat retirement having been a GS 15-16. Also I probably would have been bucking the 'system' on a daily basis.

I'm what is called a giraffe or turtle, depending on who you talk with. You know, someone who gets ahead by sticking out its neck.

Mainstream Medicine, and medical education, is really very controlled by the CDC, and in turn, the FDA, and in turn, Big Pharma, and in turn, Big Insurance...

And round and round we go in the circle game...

Of course right now in the tenuous situation the US health system finds itself these kind of reports do little to compare their design to earlier studies that conclusively show that both vitamins do, in fact, prevent and reverse heart disease.

Of course we also have no report from the AP writer on what type of E and C vitamins were used, the dose, and other important factors.

And, yes, vitamin E in high doses does have a very beneficial action of "thinning" your blood. If more doctors used vitamin E first, rather than heparin or coumadin, we would have less trouble with side effects, healthier patients and less in the way of long term problems. The science proves it.

Doctors, especially the ones doing this study, need to read that science before they do another study, then replicate it. This is science and real research based on the Scientific Method.

Another study with women not too long ago (and reported here and Natural Health News) showed poor results with supplements. I was able to locate the data showing synthetic vitamins were used with exceptionally low dose rates, well below therapeutic level.

Hope they can do better next time.

And, make sure you do write your members of Congress and demand health parity for supplements.

Drugs kill, vitamins don't!

Health News
Studies: Vitamin pills don't prevent heart disease AP - Sun Nov 9, 2008
NEW ORLEANS - Vitamins C and E — pills taken by millions of Americans — do nothing to prevent heart disease in men, one of the largest and longest studies of these supplements has found.

Read more »

Posted in: health news,heart,heart disease,natural health news,natural news,promoting drugs,studies,supplements,vitamin C,vitamin E,vitamins

Boosting Drug Sales with Studies

For quite a number of years many health professionals have been speaking out against the statin class of drugs.

Much of the concern is associated kidney failure secondary to muscle wasting. Other serious effects have been noted, yet the drug giants keep coming up with ways to try to convince absolutely everyone they need to be taking these drugs.

Now even the "healthy".

One of the key investigators busting this myth has been Uffe Ravnskov, MD

And what ever happened to improving health with foods and supplements to reduce or eliminate this problem.

Recall that the homogenization of milk (and lack of access to raw milk) really kicked off the march to atherosclerosis back in the 1950s.

And remember that lecithin or eating plain applesauce mixed in plain yoghurt aids healthy, clean and flexible arteries. And with major cost savings over these drugs.

Other issues are the fact that many of the statin drugs are fluoride based, such as Baychol - now off the market.

Even Red Rice Yeast can have the same side effects of the drugs.

Statins and the problems associated with their use is the result of marketing a class of drugs before it was fully investigated.

The imprecise use of statin medications is one big reason why side effects occur in more than 40 percent of patients and why 60-75 percent of statin users discontinue treatment.

Crestor averages about $2 a pill, with a range from $1.41 to $3.41 at a variety of pharmacies. The drug company profit for these drugs is in the 4000 percent range. If you get 10 mg of Crestor when you only need 1 mg, risks increase drastically. With each doubling of a statin dosage, the risk of liver injury also doubles.

Concerned about the renal effects of Crestor, some people have been openly weighing the options between taking a statin or accepting a higher cholesterol number. (For instance, is high cholesterol "normal"? Have we fallen victim to high-end marketing tactics?)

All the statin drugs can cause rhabdomyolysis and kidney failure. In most cases the kidney failure is secondary to blocking of the tiny kidney tubules by the breakdown fragments of muscle cells. The mechanism of action here is loss of cell wall integrity of the muscle cells due to interference of the statin drugs with the vital role of ubiquinone in our bodies.

Ubiquinone, known also as Co-enzyme Q10, is collaterally damaged during the statin drug effect on the so- called mevalonate pathway of cholesterol biosynthesis. Ubiquinone metabolism is a branch on the mevalonate "tree" inevitably damaged by these statin drug "reductase inhibitor" action and the stronger the statin, the more severe this effect.

Public Citizen filed a Citizen's Petition with the FDA suggesting that Crestor be removed from the market. Though the courts did not pass a judgement in favor of Public Citizen (thus allowing Crestor to remain a legally prescribed medication), the case brought to light the fact that statins like Crestor can and do cause serious problems in many patients who take them.

In May of 2005, a study published in the American Heart Association's journal, Circulation, revealed that kidney problems and muscle weakness were two to eight times more frequent among Crestor users than those taking other cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Read more

more

and more

Study: Wider cholesterol drug use may save lives
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione, Ap Medical Writer
Sun Nov 9, 9:44 am ET

NEW ORLEANS – People with low cholesterol and no big risk for heart disease dramatically lowered their chances of dying or having a heart attack if they took the cholesterol pill Crestor, a large study found.

The results, reported Sunday at an American Heart Association conference, were hailed as a watershed event in heart disease prevention. Doctors said the study might lead as many as 7 million more Americans to consider taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, sold as Crestor, Lipitor, Zocor or in generic form.

"This takes prevention to a whole new level, because it applies to patients who we now wouldn't have any evidence to treat," said Dr. W. Douglas Weaver, a Detroit cardiologist and president of the American College of Cardiology.

The study also gives the best evidence yet for using a new test to identify people who may need treatment, according to a statement from Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The new research will be considered by experts reviewing current guidelines.

However, some doctors urged caution. Crestor gave clear benefit in the study, but so few heart attacks and deaths occurred among these low-risk people that treating everyone like them in the United States could cost up to $9 billion a year — "a difficult sell," one expert said.

About 120 people would have to take Crestor for two years to prevent a single heart attack, stroke or death, said Stanford University cardiologist Dr. Mark Hlatky. He wrote an editorial accompanying the study published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Everybody likes the idea of prevention. We need to slow down and ask how many people are we going to be treating with drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent heart disease, versus a lot of other things we're not doing" to improve health, Hlatky said.

Statins are the world's top-selling drugs. Until this study, all but Crestor have already been shown to cut the risk of heart attacks and death in people with high LDL, or bad cholesterol.

But half of all heart attacks occur in people with normal or low cholesterol, so doctors have been testing other ways to predict who is at risk.

One is high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, or CRP for short. It is a measure of inflammation, which can mean clogged arteries as well as less serious problems, such as an infection or injury. Doctors check CRP with a blood test that costs about $80 to have done.

A co-inventor on a patent of the test, Dr. Paul Ridker of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, led the new study. It involved 17,802 people with high CRP and low LDL cholesterol (below 130) in the U.S. and 25 other countries.

One-fourth were black or Hispanic, and 40 percent were women — important because previous statin studies have included few women. Men had to be 50 or older; women, 60 or older. None had a history of heart problems or diabetes.

They were randomly assigned to take dummy pills or Crestor, the strongest statin on the market, made by British-based AstraZeneca PLC. Neither participants nor their doctors knew who was taking what.

The study was supposed to last five years but was stopped in March, after about two years, when independent monitors saw that those taking Crestor were faring better than the others.

Full results were announced Sunday. Crestor reduced a combined measure — heart attacks, strokes, heart-related deaths or hospitalizations, or the need for an artery-opening procedure — by 44 percent.

"We reduced the risk of a heart attack by 54 percent, the risk of a stroke by 48 percent and the chance of needing bypass surgery or angioplasty by 46 percent," Ridker said.

Looked at another way, there were 136 heart-related problems per year for every 10,000 people taking dummy pills versus 77 for those on Crestor.

Remarkably, every single subgroup benefited from the drug.

"If you're skinny it worked, if you're heavy it worked. If you lived here or there, if you smoked, it worked," Ridker said.

AstraZeneca paid for the study, and Ridker and other authors have consulted for the company and other statin makers.

One concern: More people in the Crestor group saw blood-sugar levels rise or were newly diagnosed with diabetes.

Crestor also has the highest rate among statins of a rare but serious muscle problem, so there are probably safer and cheaper ways to get the same benefits, said Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the consumer group Public Citizen.

"It is highly unlikely that (the benefits are) specific to Crestor," said Wolfe, who has campaigned against the drug in the past.

Crestor costs $3.45 a day versus less than a dollar for generic drugs.

Drs. James Stein and Jon Keevil of the University of Wisconsin-Madison used federal health statistics to project that 7.4 million Americans, or more than 4 percent of the adult population, are like the people in this study.

Treating them all with Crestor would cost $9 billion a year and prevent about 30,000 heart attacks, strokes or deaths, they calculate.

"That's pretty costly. This would be a very difficult sell" unless a person also had family history or other heart disease risk factors, said Dr. Thomas Pearson of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Pearson was co-chairman of a joint government-heart association panel that wrote current guidelines for using CRP tests to guide treatment.

Researchers do not know whether the benefits seen in the study were due to reducing CRP or cholesterol, since Crestor did both.

This study and two other government-sponsored ones reported on Sunday "provide the strongest evidence to date" for testing C-reactive protein, and adding it to traditional risk measures could identify millions more people who would benefit from treatment, Nabel's statement says.

U.S. Crestor prescriptions totaled $420 million in the third quarter of this year, up 23 percent from a year earlier. In the rest of the world, third quarter sales were $520 million, up 33 percent.

Sales have been rising even though two statins — Zocor and Pravachol — are now available in generic form.

On the Net:
New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org
Heart conference: http://www.americanheart.org
Government: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Cad/CAD_WhatIs.html

Read more »

Posted in: applesauce,CoQ10,Crestor,health,health news,heart,lecithin,natural care,natural health news,natural news,nutrition,statins,yoghurt

Its the Potassium

Have you eaten your kale today?

I haven't yet but I'll be having a pear-kale-kiwi-lime smoothie later in my day with a scoop of Leaflady's Great Green Powder Blend added in (order from us, it is organic too!).

Potassium is one of the key nutrients for heart health, although it needs to be in balance with other vitamins and minerals.

Vegetables are the real powerhouse for minerals and vitamins along with protein when it comes to boosting your intake of these health promoting nutrients.

Fruit is good but more in moderation because of the sugar content, especially bananas. Fruit is great for fiber and it promotes cleansing. Its also best to keep from mixing fruit with vegetables, especially as found in a lot of green powder products.

Another one of my favorite things is kale salad with avocado, nori seaweed, raisins, lime juice and hemp seed oil.

Greens, greens, they're good for your heart: study
by Karin Zeitvogel

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Diets worldwide that are rich in fried and salty foods increase heart attack risk, while eating lots of fruit, leafy greens and other vegetables reduces that risk, a groundbreaking study showed.

The study, called INTERHEART, looked at 16,000 heart attack patients and controls between 1999 and 2003 in countries on every continent, marking a shift from previous studies which have focussed on the developed world.

The patients and controls filled in a "dietary risk score" questionnaire based on 19 food groups, which contained healthy and unhealthy items and were tweaked to include dietary preferences of each country taking part in the study.

The researchers found that people who eat a diet high in fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat -- the "Western Diet" -- had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack than people who consumed little or no fried foods or meat, regardless of where they live.

People who ate a "Prudent Diet" -- high in leafy green vegetables, other raw and cooked vegetables, and fruits -- had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack than those who ate little or no fruit and veg, the study showed.

The third dietary pattern, called the "Oriental Diet" because it contained foods such as tofu and soy sauce which are typically consumed in Asian societies, was found to have little impact on heart attack risk.

Although some items in the Oriental diet might have protective properties such as vitamins and anti-oxidants, others such as soy sauce have a high salt content which would negate the benefits, the study said.

The study was groundbreaking in its scope and because previous research had focussed mainly on developed countries, according to Salim Yusuf, a senior author of the study.

"We had focussed research on the West because heart disease was mainly predominant in western countries 25-30 years ago," Yusuf, who is a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada, told AFP.

"But heart disease is now increasingly striking people in developing countries. Eighty percent of heart disease today is in low- to middle-income countries" partly because more people around the world are eating western diets, he said.

"This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in western countries exist in different regions of the world," said Yusuf, who is also head of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario.

Patients who had been admitted to coronary care units in 262 centers around the world, and at least one control subject per patient, took part in the study.

The INTERHEART results were published Monday in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.

The main countries in the study were Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia in South America; Canada and the United States in North America; Sweden in western Europe; Croatia, Poland and Russia for eastern Europe; and Dubai, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar for the Middle East.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the main countries were Cameroon, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe; while nearly all the South Asian countries -- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- took part, as did Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Singapore, Yusuf told AFP.

Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse

Read more »

Posted in: greens,health,health news,heart,heart disease,Leaflady's Great Green Powder Blend,natural,natural health news,natural news,News,potassium,vegetables

Pfizer hedging its bets? UPDATE

Today Pfizer agrees to pay out $894 million to settle lawsuits over Celebrex and Bextra. Other NSAIDS still show a link to heart disease but this is one of the most readily preventable health conditions we know of and other posts on this blog give you some of that data. For pain and inflammation there are many excellent natural remedies as well as one of the natural products I use from time to time that has been tested at Dana Farber.

$894 million deal ends pain of Pfizer's lawsuitsBy Linda A. Johnson, Ap Business Writer
17 October, 2008
TRENTON, N.J. – Drug giant Pfizer Inc. has reached an $894 million deal to end most of the lawsuits over its two prescription pain relievers, the popular Celebrex and a similar drug, Bextra, no longer on the market.

The world's biggest drugmaker said Friday it has agreements in principle to end more than 90 percent of personal injury lawsuits brought by people claiming the pills caused heart attacks, strokes or other harm.

The settlement includes roughly 7,000 personal injury cases, mainly plaintiffs who took since-withdrawn Bextra, said plaintiff attorney Perry Weitz. He represents nearly 2,000 claimants, about 10 percent of them relatives of people who died.

"It gives Pfizer closure and the claimants their money sooner, rather than later or never at all," Weitz said.

Pfizer hopes to finalize claims covered by the settlement, which now includes up to 92 percent of plaintiffs, by year's end. It also hopes to include many of the remaining claimants in the settlement and will fight any remaining personal injury suits with court motions or at trial, General Counsel Amy Schulman told The Associated Press.

"I don't think either side has an interest in protracting this," Schulman said in an interview.

Weitz said plaintiff lawyers will "have issues" with Pfizer "if their claimants aren't paid before the end of the year."

In early trading, Pfizer shares were down 47 cents, or 2.8 percent, at $16.50.

Schulman said the deal comes after two important court rulings — one by a New York state judge overseeing many of the state-level personal injury cases and the other by a federal judge in San Francisco coordinating pretrial steps in federal lawsuits over the drugs.

"We teed up some pretrial motions for a court ruling on whether there was significantly reliable evidence that would allow an expert to testify as to whether there was an increased risk of heart attack and stroke at the most common dose," 200 milligrams, Schulman said. Both judges ruled that was not the case, she said.

The proposed deal also would end suits by insurers and patients seeking to recover what they spent on Bextra and Celebrex, as well as claims by 33 states and the District of Columbia that Pfizer improperly promoted Bextra.

Out of the total settlement, $745 million will go to settle personal injury cases, $60 million will cover settlements with attorneys general in the 33 states and the District of Columbia, and $89 million will cover consumer fraud class action cases over reimbursement for money spent on the two drugs. Two additional states, Louisiana and Mississippi, still have pending cases regarding Pfizer's promotion of the drugs.

New York-based Pfizer withdrew Bextra from the market in 2005, a year after Merck & Co. withdrew its Vioxx, a similar drug.

The Vioxx withdrawal, which triggered an avalanche of lawsuits against Merck, also raised concerns about the safety of other medicines in the same class, called Cox-2 inhibitors. They were heavily touted by their makers as superior to traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, because they block an enzyme involved in promoting inflammation but — unlike NSAIDs — don't block an enzyme that protects the stomach from bleeding and other side effects.

Other NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen and naproxen, have also been linked to increased heart risks.

Celebrex is the only Cox-2 inhibitor that the Food and Drug Administration has allowed to remain on the U.S. market.

Attorney Christopher Seeger, a member of the plaintiffs steering committee, said he'll "have no problem recommending" the settlement to the roughly 400 clients he represents.

"We're very satisfied with the deal," Seeger said.

Schulman said the company's negotiations with opposing lawyers had been under way for some time but picked up in the late summer.

"Litigation can be distracting, and putting these matters behind us helps our shareholders and, most importantly, patients and doctors," Schulman said.

Weitz noted that it took four or five years to get through trials for less than 20 cases in the massive Vioxx litigation, because the court system can only handle a limited number of cases at a time.

Pfizer will take a pretax charge of $894 million to its third-quarter earnings, which it is scheduled to report on Tuesday.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., has begun paying a $4.85 billion settlement to end about 50,000 lawsuits brought by people claiming Vioxx cause heart attacks, ischemic strokes or death. It still faces other litigation over the former blockbuster arthritis treatment.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

Pfizer to Drop Development of Certain Drugs
by Shelley Wood, Heartwire 2008. © 2008 Medscape

October 3, 2008 (New York, NY) — Pfizer is getting out of the cholesterol-lowering game to focus on what it perceives to be more lucrative diseases, according to an internal memo obtained by Forbes [1]. And for the most part, the chosen "disease areas" don't include the heart.

In the memo, Martin Mackay, president of Pfizer Global Research & Development (R&D), informed his staff that the company plans to "exit" the fields of atherosclerosis/hyperlipidemia, heart failure, obesity, and peripheral arterial disease.

Instead, the company, whose cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin (Lipitor) is the world's top-selling drug, says it is turning its attention and R&D dollars to cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, pain remedies, and mental health as its "higher-priority areas."

The news comes in the wake of the flop of Pfizer's hoped-for new flagship, torcetrapib, a CETP inhibitor that was widely predicted to be the company's next blockbuster drug. While CV drugs have been the major moneymakers for Pfizer in recent years, those days are drawing to a close. In addition to Lipitor, which will lose patent protection in 2011, Pfizer's other major player in the CV drug arena is Norvasc (amlodipine), which came off patent in 2007.

Among the lower-priority "disease areas" where the company says it will continue working are thrombosis and transplant, the memo notes.

Contacted by heartwire, a handful of leaders for some of the major Pfizer-sponsored trials in cardiovascular disease over the past decade declined to comment on the company's announcement or speculate on what it might mean to the field of CV drug development--with one exception. Dr John Kastelein (Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), who was an investigator in the Pfizer-sponsored ASAP, TNT, and IDEAL trials, called Pfizer "a real powerhouse" in the CV drug arena.

"I kind of knew this was coming, but when you see it in print, it still hits hard," he told heartwire. "I think this is very, very significant both for the company itself and for the whole field of CV drug development. Pfizer had truly excellent people in the development arm of their company for CV and metabolic drugs, and they've contributed to this whole notion that you need more robust LDL lowering and that that's better than mild LDL lowering, which has become one of the axioms of CV prevention. And if they're stepping out now, that not only signifies their own problems, but it also signifies the problems in CV drug development, and how incredibly difficult and costly it has become to bring new drugs forward. And that's not good for patients."

Kastelein predicts that drug companies, having "lost faith" somewhat in HDL-raising therapies, will need to look more closely at anti-inflammatory drugs in the setting of coronary artery disease. "But there, the problem is, if you have no biomarkers whatsoever to do even dose-finding studies, you need to move from relatively small phase 2 trials to incredibly large, hard-outcome studies, which is taking quite a risk," he said. And that, at least for Pfizer, is too much risk.

"Everyone, not just Pfizer, is realizing that the days of the really big blockbuster drugs are over. And what is going to replace that are drugs in a class that are 10 times or 100 times more difficult to develop, so the risks are much higher. And these days, after Avandia and ezetimibe, everything is about safety. This means the FDA is forced, by public and colleague pressure, to demand even larger databases before drugs are going to market, which is of course making it more expensive. It's a cycle that's very hard to break."

Calls to Pfizer were not returned before this story was published.

Herper M. The Pfizer memo. Forbes, September 30, 2008. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/09/30/pfizer-drug-agenda-biz-bizhealth-cx_mh_0930pfizermemo.html.

The complete contents of Heartwire, a professional news service of WebMD, can be found at www.theheart.org, a Web site for cardiovascular healthcare professionals.

Read more »

Posted in: health,health news,heart,heart disease,inflammation,natural,natural health news,natural news,News,NSAIDS,pain,Pfizer