The Story of Cholesterol: A Supplemental on Supplementals

In the last article (which was supposed to be the last article in this series) we covered the miraculous and beneficial effects of CoQ10 on heart health and energy. If you or a loved one ever had a heart attack CoQ10 supplementation is a must. 

As far as supplements go the story is a bit more involved than just CoQ10 as wonderful as it is. There are a few other supplements that can greatly improve cardiovascular health and increase energy in the process. The news gets even better when you consider that, along with CoQ10, anyone can benefit from a boost of energy and vitality when the following supplements are added to a healthy lifestyle. Just as before in the previous article it is necessary to point out that nothing written here should be construed as medical advice and that any supplemental regimen should be discussed with your trusted (and open minded) healthcare professional. With that caveat established let's take a look at some of the other supplements that you may or may not be familiar with.

D Ribose

We are energetic beings and our bodies need plenty of energy. ATP (adenosine triphosphate) is how our body gets things done energetically speaking. One of the main constituents of ATP is D-ribose. No D-ribose means there can be no way to produce ATP. Without ATP there can be no energy. D-ribose is generated by the body mostly on the as-needed basis and there is no way to store it. This is an important factor to consider because when tissues are under stress they cannot produce D-ribose and thus the body is robbed of energy. The combination of poor heart function leading to oxygen deprivation and the inability to produce energy can leave you feeling quite poor in deed.

A prominent German physiologist by the name of Heinz-Gerd Zimmer established a connection between heart function and D-ribose. He found that people who had hearts deprived of nutrients and oxygen sometimes due to blockages fared better when given D-ribose.  Zimmer also found that the administration of D-ribose had restorative powers for energy and helped bring about normal diastolic heart function. In a 1992 clinical study D-ribose was also shown to have increased the ability to do exercise in patients that had severe coronary artery disease.

Magnesium

One of the main culprits of poor cardiovascular health is actually the inability to properly absorb calcium which is found in plentiful amounts in most western diets. When calcium is ill-absorbed it remains in the blood stream longer where it has a greater chance to interact with free radicals increasing the rate of calcification that often occurs in arteries and other blood vessels. At this point blockages are sure to happen given enough time. This is where magnesium comes in to help. Magnesium, along with vitamin D, helps to convert calcium into a more absorbable form before it calcifies keeping blood vessels clear. If that was not important, or impressive, enough magnesium is also great at keeping platelets from aggregating (sticking together) and forming blood clots while it also acts as a vascular dilator reducing blood pressure. It should be noted that people suffering from renal insufficiencies should not supplement with magnesium without medical guidance.

B Vitamin Complex (especially B5)

B vitamins in and of themselves provides the body with massive, sustained energy over a significant amount of time and that is simply awesome. For the sake of this article, however, we will cover vitamin B5 specifically in a slightly different light. Many people are unaware of the vital role B5 (also known as pantothenic acid) plays in limiting inflammation and oxidation of cholesterol. No less than 28 clinical studies have shown that vitamin B5 produced positive results regarding triglyceride levels and LDL cholesterol levels while increasing HDL levels. A literature review was conducted by Dr. Mark Houston and published in Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases helped establish pantothenic acid’s importance in cardiovascular health. The literature demonstrated after only four months of B5 supplementation total cholesterol was reduced by 15%, LDL cholesterol by 20% and triglycerides by 32.9% while increasing HDL by 8.4%. He also noted that studies of longer duration showed continued improvement in participants over the initial four month successes. Reduce inflammation and you reduce cholesterol…period!

We long to live lives enriched by the fragrance of energy and productivity radiating from every pore. Sometimes, however, devastating health conditions such a heart attack can rob us of that ability leaving one disturbed and down trodden. The beauty of nature and life is that even if we find ourselves in this lowered state of affairs we do not have to dwell there. An out is often provided if we look carefully and thoughtfully at our circumstances. There are, of course, many more supplements that could be considered but this is a healthy start (pun intended). Proper supplementation of the right nutrients can be the difference between slumming in the doldrums and soaring with the eagles after an adverse cardiovascular event. This article should serve as a great catalyst for conversation between you and your trusted healthcare provider.

Sources for this article include:

The Great Cholesterol Myth (Bowden and Sinatra)

Multivitamin Use Absurd and Dangerous? I Think Not Part II

Another major flaw in the studies cited is what really gives me the greatest concern. With the exception of the chelation study the participants were allowed to use any type of multivitamin they wanted. It mattered not to the researchers if those participating in the studies used natural or synthetic vitamins. The quality of the vitamin nor amount consumed did not matter much either. Participants were not guided on vitamin intake except for the request that the upper limits of vitamin consumption as described by the US Food and Nutrition Board were not exceeded. Even the chelation study failed to control for the quality of the supplements used by the researchers.

A word about "natural" vs. synthetic" vitamins

Since the participants could walk into any store or go online and purchase whatever they wanted there was surely a hodgepodge of vitamins and minerals used. Most people succumb to mainstream advertisements as a major source of supplement information and end up purchasing cheap, synthetic versions of the vitamin they want. The old adage "you get what you pay for" rings very true in this case. Most synthetic vitamins are not bio-available (a fancy word that means your body cannot absorb it) while others are ill absorbed and therefore are just plain trash. How is it possible to receive a meaning outcome in a study where you can shout to the world that multivitamins are useless if you fail to control for (or consider in the case of a meta-analysis) what the participants use? Furthermore, an upper limit of how much to take was established but not a lower limit. What if several of the participants decided to take half doses or less? What reasonable conclusions could one make of a study or analysis that does not account for this? 

It is estimated that a fair majority of all vitamins and minerals on the market today are synthetic with some estimates going as high as 90%! With marketers of all stripes and colors jockeying for our supplemental dollars the truth about the efficacy of their products gets more and more fuzzy. Labels like "all natural" or "food source" can be highly legalistic in definition and therefore deceiving. In order to make sure you are consuming natural vitamins that are high in quality you have to know and trust the manufacturer which can be difficult for sure. Until trust in a product is sure I can give you this one tidbit to take with you on you next supplement shopping trip. Be sure to read the labels and know that any vitamin that begins with "dl" is a synthetic. For example, one of the most widely consumed vitamins in the U.S. is dl-alpha-tocopherol which is a cheap and synthetic form of vitamin E. Notice the "dl" at the head of the name. Also, some manufacturers mix the natural version of a vitamin with the synthetic version. This is how some supplements can be labeled "natural" while containing synthetic product so make sure to read the ingredients if a natural vitamin is what you are looking for.

A holistic approach to health often overlooked

Sadly, many people would like to pigeon hole our health into tidy little compartments mostly to our detriment. Some mean well enough while others are more intentional. Either way we are left in a terrible mess when we or researchers fail to consider the big picture to our health. The interesting point to make here is that multivitamin and mineral use is only one part of the kaleidoscope that makes for great health. If you want to prevent or reverse cardiovascular issues several things must be done. Limiting oxidative stress and inflammation in conjunction with a healthy eating plan, exercise and mental stress mitigation are all keys to better cardiovascular health. I find it extremely disingenuous to conduct any such study of vitamin and mineral use without considering these additional avenues of approach. No one should believe that just taking a multivitamin is going to be helpful while remaining sedentary, over stressed and filled to the gills with fast food especially if the vitamin is synthetic and crappy! But that is just what the researchers want us to believe and what's sad is some of us will.

Multivitamin Use Absurd and Dangerous? I Think Not Part I

Do you remember Christmas as a child with that jolly red nosed Santa who most kids idolized in every sense of the word? Or maybe for you it was the tooth fairy, the great pumpkin or even Peter Cottontail. Any or all of these myths seemed to be real to us and for some the realization that they don't exist was quite the shock. Banished to the realm of make believe our childhood idols went and now some would have us believe another one of our cherished beliefs (that is actually a fact) should be relegated to the same place we put St. Nick and the others.

Recently several studies were analyzed that purport to firmly establish the "fact" that multivitamin supplementation is at best useless and at worst detrimental to your health to the point of causing harm. Harm from vitamins? Let us explore the article and the studies it cites in an effort to keep vitamin supplementation out of the realm of make believe.

The Researchers

Eliseo Guallar and his colleagues recently analyzed three studies and came to a shocking conclusion. They have stated, unequivocally, that multivitamin supplementation has no clear benefit and could prove harmful to your health. The group of researchers went on to say that multivitamins should not be used in the prevention of chronic disease and that "enough is enough" when it comes to the silly people who erroneously use these vitamins (emphasis mine). After you get past the initial shock that vitamin supplementation is harmful or useless and wrestle with the condescending tone of the abstract written by the researchers you are left to ponder things that you have held to be true: that vitamins are good for you. Should vitamins head off to the island of misfit beliefs with the rest of our childhood idols? Intuitively you know the answer but let us spell a few things out for the sake of clarity and sound reasoning.

The conclusion of these researchers has been published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and is chock full of assumptions. One of these assumptions provided by Guallar et al is that the average western style diet provides adequate nourishment to the masses to the point that vitamin and mineral supplementation is unnecessary. Surely, there are a percentage of westerners who eat pretty healthy by consuming clean, pure water and either natural or organic foods while limiting processed foods but this does not pertain to the vast majority especially in America. In addition, due to soil depletion and over-farming mineral and vitamin levels in fruits, vegetables and grains have been on a decline for decades.

Aside from the assumption let us to take a look at what really lies at the heart of the matter for the people who take great interest in their health. An analysis of the three studies is appropriate and fundamental so we can understand what the researchers saw and what the newspapers, online publishers and television programs failed to report.

The Studies

Three studies were cited by the researchers and here is where we really have to pay attention which is unfortunate. It is unfortunate because there is a sense among most people in the general public that studies are impartial, truthful and therefore should be taken as gospel. Since the word gospel literally means "good news" some of these studies should be taken as the anti-gospel. Let us review

Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer Study

The first study mentioned in the article is the "Vitamin and Mineral Supplements in the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and Cancer". I know it's a mouthful but bear with me. Researchers in this study wanted to establish whether cardiovascular issues and cancer was actually preventable through supplementation. It appears to be a noble endeavor on the surface even with flawed results (an explanation on why it is not noble will present itself a little later). It was acknowledged that the results of this study did not pertain to individuals with nutrient deficiencies or others that would be considered high risk. The article cited above would have you believe the results of this trial pertained to everyone. When you consider that most people are nutrient deficient the article becomes just plain misleading.

At one point in the analysis of the trial the researchers had to admit that the study was actually set up to measure results in a drug trial not a nutrient trial which may skew the data. In addition, it was noted that the difference between examining optimal levels of a nutrient intake and "normal" levels may have established a different result. In other words studying minimum nutrient supplementation may not be in the best interest of the general public. Then the question becomes "Why do the study in this way if the results do not apply to most people"? Great question!

Cognitive Function in Men

This study was a misnomer from the very start. Called "Long Term Multivitamin Supplementation and Cognitive Function in Men: A Randomized Trial"  it looked at a very particular group of men: doctors. The importance of this will become clear in a moment. The intent of this study was to assess cognitive function in men and whether multivitamin supplementation would improve it. The conclusion was that multivitamin supplementation does not improve cognitive function or prevent dementia.

There are three interesting points to consider regarding this study. The first is that physicians were studied and this poses a problem. It has been long established that people who pursue academics have a lowered risk of developing dementia. Secondly, most older physicians generally eat very healthy and are able to afford the best, most nutritious foods. Proper nourishment combined with a high level of education diminishes the likelihood of developing dementia which is a great thing but it makes you wonder why this study was used to attack multivitamin use. There was not much of any chance to see any improvements from multivitamin use because of the group of men that were studied. The third, and perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this study was the fact that actual dementia or any cognitive dysfunction was never tested for. None of the participants were assessed for any level of dementia either before, during or after. How do you purport that something does not work (multivitamins) if you never test for the dysfunction you are looking to improve (cognition)?

Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy

This study set out to assess whether or not high doses of vitamins and minerals help prevent a another occurrence of a second myocardial infarction (heart attack). Two things of import to note for this one.

The first is that the people studied had a high incidence non-adherence. This is a fancy way of saying more than enough people failed to do what was requested of them ultimately affecting the data collected. In addition, the participant dropout rate was also high. It becomes a difficult task to honestly document and extract accurate information to convey to the public when so many people involved in the study fail to comply with the instructions or complete the program. It puzzles me that Eliseo Guallar and his colleagues used this study or any of the previously mentioned ones to attack vitamins and minerals.

Green Tea, Pharmaceuticals and Your Hypertension

Recently an article was published on various online news outlets about green tea and its effects on a certain medication for hypertension. This same study is slated to be published in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics which will lend it much credibility in the eyes of many in the medical establishment. The study says, in part, that if a person is being treated for hypertension with a drug called nadolol (market name Corgard) they should not drink green tea. After careful consideration of the study findings I believe some of the issues associated with the study itself and the effects of green tea should be discussed.

"The Study"

Let us begin with the fact that this study was conducted with ten (10) people. Yes, you read that correctly and it is not a typo. Only ten people were used for this "study" and they were consuming the drug nadolol for only for two weeks. In addition, the ten individuals used in the study were between the ages of 20 and 30 with no known health issues including hypertension. None of them had high blood pressure so the effect of the green tea's interaction with the drug and its supposed effect on preventing the treatment of hypertension could not be established since it was not (and could not be) studied.

Also, no evidence of a cause and effect relationship between the drug nadolol and green tea was established. The researchers do not know why or how green tea is affecting the absorption of the drug or if it is affecting it at all. The scientist involved in the study "believe" that the antioxidant ECGC found in the tea is the culprit. As far I as can tell belief is a matter of faith and faith belongs firmly within the realm of religion and spirituality not science. If scientist wish to tell people that green tea is hazardous to their health they should diligently provide proof using the very scientific method we were all taught in grade school.

To add insult to injury the "test" subjects drank 3-4 cups of green tea per day. This represents an amount of tea that is double the average amount of green tea consumed by average tea drinking Americans. This fact makes the study dubious and misleading on its own.

Benefits of Green Tea

The sad irony of this study is that one of the many benefits of green tea is its ability to lower blood pressure. Angiotensin-converting enzymes (ACE) contributes to high blood pressure under certain situations and green tea helps to inhibit its production. Many people are on blood pressure lowering medications known as ACE inhibitors that have harmful side effects. Green tea is a natural ACE inhibitor with no known side effects. It should be noted the nadolol is not an ACE inhibitor but a beta blocker, however, the point of this message is the blood pressure relieving powers of green tea. 

Also, green tea helps to do many things like stimulate brain activity for increased clarity, reduce the chances of bacterial food poisoning by preventing the growth of E. coli and other harmful pathogens and helps to maintain proper blood glucose levels for those wishing to prevent or control diabetes. 

There are many more benefits offered by consuming green tea that are therapeutic and pleasing to the body without harmful side effects. It should, in no way, be demonized especially by such a crudely crafted study.

Conclusion

The unfortunate truth these days is that we live in a sound bite world where most people get their news from headlines. Even television news stories have taken on the cloak of superficiality and seldom report the details of anything. Not only is this practice costly but potentially devastating especially to our health. It is important more and more that we move beyond the headlines and peek behind the veil for the full story especially when it pertains to our health!

The Story of Cholesterol: The Statin Drug Nightmare Part I

We have steadily climbed to the point of discussing a class of drugs known as statins. These very powerful and costly medications has reached the height of pharmaceutical popularity. Essentially a sub-industry within an industry statin drugs account for $31 billion of annual sales alone. It is estimated from sales that a staggering 15 million Americans are currently on these cholesterol lowering drugs. All the while the majority of them are suffering from side effects that range from slightly annoying to absolutely debilitating. These side effects include impaired cognitive function, sexual dysfunction, increased risk of diabetes and heart disease, lethargy and low vitamin D levels (with its associated adverse health effects when vitamin D deficiencies occur).

The history of mankind has been filled with many medical oddities that now look completely absurd to us. As far back as 1500 BC mercury was used for whatever ailed you. During the 19^th century the chief ingredient in cough syrup was heroin. And who can forget bloodletting used by the Greeks and the rest of the world right up to the 19^th century. While all of this might elicit a chuckle or two as we think of how silly “those people” were for believing in that stuff history will chuckle at us when statin drug use is reviewed for the amusement of our more enlightened descendants.

One of the many issues that surrounds the use of statin drugs is the yet unproven hypothesis that blood cholesterol is a key contributor to heart disease. You read that correctly: Cholesterol being the chief contributor to heart disease is a yet unproven hypothesis. In fact almost all studies concerning the relationship between heart disease and cholesterol either points to another culprit (e.g. inflammation), exonerates cholesterol or both. During the late ‘80’s a Dr. Russell Smith wrote a two volume review of literature associated with heart disease and diet called Diet, Blood Cholesterol and Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review of the Literature. It took over 600 pages of research for him to state that in the vast majority of studies reviewed there was no difference in the number of deaths between people who reduced their cholesterol and those that did not. This point will become more important as we move along.

In 1991 Dr. Smith teamed up with Dr. Edward Pinckney, the editor of four medical journals, to publish a book called The Cholesterol Conspiracy. In the book they summarized studies conducted with cholesterol lowering drugs and concluded that these drug were effective at lowering cholesterol but not deaths. Of the eight randomized and blinded trials that met their standard for study six had participants where the rate of death among the group being treated with cholesterol lowering drugs was the same or higher than the control group. That’s not very promising but it gets worse. They also looked at sixteen studies looking at reducing cholesterol using a drug and diet approach. What they found was that the death rate from all-causes in the treatment group and control was the same. In addition, the rate of death from coronary heart disease was the same or greater among the treatment group in fifteen of the sixteen trials. Yes, you read that correctly. What the good doctors demonstrated, essentially, is that there was zero benefit to lowering cholesterol when it comes to preventing adverse coronary events including death. Outside of a very narrow group of people (white males at least 48 years old who have already had one heart attack) statins have proven to have no benefit but they have proven to be extremely toxic. Part II of the statin nightmare will address specific issues that statins cause in the body.

Sources include:

The Great Cholesterol Myth

The Cholesterol Conspiracy

The Story of Cholesterol: The Good and Bad About "Clinical Studies"

We all have heard at one time or another some announcer on television or radio say "clinical studies have shown..." and what follows is thought or assumed to be credible information. Rightfully so when it is considered that all clinical studies follow the scientific method, right? For the most part yes but there is more to the story and studies involving cholesterol aren't always what they seem to be.

The Bad

Scientist pride themselves on the scientific method and why not. Surely if you want to propose that a thing or an outcome is "true" you have to observe it over and over again and let the data tell you what is real and what is not. The problem, from time to time, is that scientist are human and are subject to the frailties associated with being such. Pride, arrogance, and greed, especially greed, has steered many doctors and scientist astray while conducting clinical studies. We, the non-clinical study conducting types, have our part to play as well by allowing people with profit driven agendas to run these drug studies without demanding a neutral third party either run a concurrent study or run the entire study outright. After all its only our health at stake. At this point I would like to be clear about one thing: I do not mind people making a profit. I just don't like it when it is at the expense of others as opposed to the benefit of others (and this is where I digress).

Cholesterol studies have long been plagued by biased research. One of the largest and most damaging of these studies was the Framingham Heart Study (FHS). The FHS began in 1948 in Framingham, Massachusetts involving 5,000 residents of the town. Follow up was conducted with the residents for 16 years. In the end it was claimed that a direct link between cholesterol and heart disease had been firmly established. This study has been heavily cited in order to defend the "cholesterol-causes-heart disease" hypothesis and helped form a $30 billion per year cholesterol drug industry. There are several key points to consider with this study that some would find alarming and the main ones are these:

• During the study it was found that cardiovascular disease struck people with both high and low cholesterol (some levels as low as 150 mg/dl)
• Thirty years after the study it was found that people with higher cholesterol levels lived just as long or longer, on average, as those with low cholesterol

According to this study cholesterol levels seemed to imply adverse cardiovascular health only for white men who had a heart attack before the age of 48. There was very little, if any, information garnered by this study that had any broad cholesterol "doom and gloom" appeal for the general population. In fact, the study director, Dr. William Castelli acknowledged in an article written in 1992 in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine that those people who participated in the study who consumed the most saturated fat, calories and cholesterol tended to have lower blood serum cholesterol levels, were the most active and weighed the least all while not experiencing any statistically significant increase in poor cardiovascular health outcomes.

The Good

One of the longest and most comprehensive studies ever undertaken was called the Nurses' Health Study conducted by Harvard University. The goal was to determine the risk factors for cancer and heart disease. Researchers conducted an extensive analysis of over 84,000 women and made a startling discovery. They determined that there were five essential contributing factors regarding cancer and heart disease in 82 percent of the women and they are as follows:

• Smoking
• Sedentary lifestyle (little to no daily exercise)
• Excessive alcohol consumption
• Poor weight maintenance
• Diet that did not consist of whole foods, whole grains (fiber intake) and was high in sugar.

Did you notice cholesterol didn't make the list? You can believe the drug companies did not want to hear any part of this because this study definitely had the potential to interfere with profits! In the end, however,  it is a lot easier for patients and lucrative for the drug pushers to take a pill than it is to lead a healthy lifestyle so the study fell mostly on deaf ears and those who did hear and believe were ridiculed or ostracized by "scientist" backed by big money from pharmaceutical companies. 

In the next installment we will discuss the true villain when it comes to heart disease: inflammation!

If you would like to read about more studies and the cholesterol myth (in case you just can't wait for the next article) I recommend reading "The Great Cholesterol Myth" written by Dr. Jonny Bowden and Dr. Stephen Sinatra.