CALCIUM AND VITAMIN D INCREASE DIET-INDUCED WEIGHT LOSS: A study has concluded that greater intakes of dairy calcium and higher blood levels of vitamin D produce a substantially greater weight loss than the loss experienced by those with lower calcium and vitamin D intakes. (Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is found in supplements and in a few foods such as cod liver oil, sockeye salmon, mushrooms, mackerel and tuna fish.) The six-month study used techniques that ruled out the influence of other factors such as age, sex, body mass index, total fat intake and diet type. Blood levels of vitamin D and dairy calcium intake were found to be separate factors affecting increased weight loss; that is, each nutrient had its own specific effect. This study was released September 1, 2010 but will not be published until a future issue of the print version of the journal, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. However, the full-text version is now available online, with subscription or payment of an access fee, at http://bit.ly/coMR3d.

FISH OILS FIGHT INFLAMMATION AND DIABETES: Finally, a study has identified the mechanism by which omega-3 fatty acids appear to effectively fight chronic inflammation, insulin resistance and diabetes. The study found that there is a key receptor in obese body fat and that omega-3 oils – specifically docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) – activate this receptor, which results in broad anti-inflammatory effects and improved systemic insulin sensitivity. (There is a strong connection between obesity and diabetes.) The effect of fish oil was powerful, according to the researchers, and, “The omega-3 fatty acids switch on the receptor, killing the inflammatory response.” The study team warned that more study is required to determine how much fish oil constitutes a safe and effective dose. Researchers suggested that the study could eventually lead to a natural dietary remedy for the more than 23 million Americans who suffer from diabetes. This study was published in the Friday, September 3, 2010 issue of the journal, Cell. The full-text version is now available online without fee at http://bit.ly/9TQ09d.

KIDNEY PROBLEMS LINKED TO VITAMIN C DEFICIENCY: A study has found that kidney dysfunction is associated with a low blood level of vitamin C. Also, low blood levels of vitamin C may cause damage, from greater oxidative stress, among kidney disease patients. It was noted that diabetic patients had consistently reduced levels of vitamin C. Lower blood levels of vitamin C have previously been linked to a greater risk of death from cardiovascular disease. People with higher levels of vitamin C have been found to have a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and to have a greater life expectancy. (Vitamin C is an essential nutrient in humans and acts as an antioxidant, protecting the body against oxidative stress. Most species can synthesize vitamin C but humans cannot.) A brief summary of this study was released September 3, 2010 by the journal, Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation but the study will not be published in the print journal until a future issue. The full-text version is currently available online, for subscribers and those who pay the article access fee, at http://bit.ly/bPgeer.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Most people think you should never kiss a baby if you have a cold. But in fact, a quick kiss on the lips probably won’t spread a cold or the flu, even to a baby. Of course, you should cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze because this brings forth virus-laden fluids from deep in your airways. But the saliva in your mouth harbors very little cold virus material. So it’s very difficult to pass colds and flu through kisses, even extended kisses. The best way to protect your friends and your baby from catching your cold is so simple that most people scoff at it: the best protection is simply washing your hands.

IRON DEFICIENCY LINKED TO CHRONIC HEART FAILURE: A study has found that iron deficiency is a factor among chronic heart failure (CHF) patients, in poor quality of life, intolerance of exercise and diminished heart function. Researchers showed that, although typically associated with anemia, low iron levels negatively even affect a third of CHF patients who are not considered anemic. (Iron is important for growth, survival and a number of bodily processes. An excess of iron is as risky as a deficiency. Iron levels should be closely controlled because too much of this insoluble mineral can be toxic. However, deficiencies are considered to be relatively common.) Cardiologists, suggested the study team, should become aware of the possible importance of iron deficiency in heart patients. Correction of iron deficiency in CHF patients may lead to important clinical benefits. A key message of the study is that iron deficiency is often present without anemia. (Iron in meat is more easily absorbed than iron in vegetables but this mineral is also found in lentils, beans, poultry, fish, leafy vegetables, tofu, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, blackstrap molasses, fortified bread, and fortified breakfast cereals.) This study was presented September 5, 2010 at the European Society of Cardiology’s Congress 2010 in Stockholm. Details have not yet been published.

MORE BABIES SHOULD BE GIVEN IRON SUPPLEMENTS: A study has shown that giving iron supplements to children with marginally low birth weights (2000-2500 grams) dramatically reduces the risk of developing iron deficiency and anemia, and as a result, lowers the risk of poor brain and neurological development in infants. (Birth weight and infant nutrition are important risk factors for death risk in adulthood. Infants with low birth weight are at risk of developing nutrient deficiencies during their first year of life, including iron deficiency. Iron is necessary for the production of hemoglobin for the blood, and also for the development of the brain. Iron deficiency in infants has been shown to be associated with poor neurological development.) The study found no risks from the administration of iron drops to babies but also found that failure to give iron drops often resulted in anemia and iron deficiency. These findings could have a significant effect on nutritional recommendations for children with marginally low birth weights. The research was released September 6, 2010 and will be published in the October 2010 issue of the journal Pediatrics. In the meantime, full details are available, to journal subscribers and those who pay the article access fee, online at: http://bit.ly/9tcCes.

LOW LEVELS OF VITAMIN D LINKED TO DOUBLE THE RISK OF SCHIZOPHRENIA: Babies with low levels of vitamin D have an increased risk – in fact, double the risk – of developing schizophrenia later in life. That’s the conclusion of a new study of 424 individuals that showed a link between vitamin D (25 hydroxyvitamin D3) sufficiency and healthy brain growth. (Vitamin D is produced by the effect of sunshine on the skin and, although linked to bone health, researchers have previously found that people with schizophrenia are more likely to be born in winter, when sunlight is rare.) “Improving vitamin D levels in pregnant women and newborn babies could reduce the risk of later schizophrenia,” said one of the researchers. It’s important to note that a link between schizophrenia was found with both insufficient and excess levels of vitamin D. The team described as “urgent,” the need for further study to assess best levels of vitamin D. This study was published September 7, 2010 in the Archives of General Psychiatry. The full text of the study is available online now at http://bit.ly/aIcjQp for journal subscribers and those who pay the article access fee.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Contrary to common belief, even skim milk is not fat-free: five percent of skim milk’s calories come from fat. A full 34 percent of the calories contained in partly skimmed, or “two percent,” milk come from fat. It’s called two percent because the fat content makes up two percent of the total weight. Whole milk is 48 percent fat by calories – lean hamburger runs about 64 percent.

POOR DENTAL HYGIENE LINKED TO HEART DISEASE: A study suggests that without proper brushing of teeth and regular flossing, bacteria from plaque can escape into the bloodstream, where they can initiate blood clots and generally wreak havoc on the body. Researchers stressed that people need to maintain good dental hygiene to help ward off blood clots and heart disease in general. The study showed that, once in the bloodstream, Streptococcus bacteria make blood platelets bind together and completely encase the bacteria, protecting the bacteria from the body’s immune system and from antibacterial drugs. This creates small clots, growths on the heart valves, or inflammation of the blood vessels. This study was released September 9, 2010 at the autumn meeting of the Society for General Microbiology in Nottingham, UK. However, it has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and is not yet available online.

VITAMIN B SUPPLEMENTS COULD HALT ALZHEIMER’S PROGRESSION: A study has found that supplementing the diet with large doses of vitamin B could cut, by a third to a half, the brain shrinkage that is common in elderly people with early signs of the disease and could slow, or even halt, the memory-robbing disease’s progression. The researchers stressed the need for further study to confirm these results but described the study outcome as “striking” and “dramatic.” Over a two-year period, half of the168 volunteers, all of whom were over the age of 70 and had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), were given high daily doses of the B vitamins folate, B6 and B12, higher doses than normally found in supplements or diet. “Participants were randomly assigned to two groups of equal size, one treated with folic acid (0.8 mg/d), vitamin B12 (0.5 mg/d) and vitamin B6 (20 mg/d), the other with placebo.” On average, compared to the group that received only placebo pills with no active ingredients, B-taking volunteers exhibited an average 30 percent lower degree of brain shrinkage, which is associated with atrophy; but in some cases, the reduced amount of atrophy was lower by as much as fifty percent. The study was released September 8, 2010 by the online journal Public Library of Science ONE and can be accessed free online at: http://bit.ly/btsJCl.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Your body may make better use of supplemental vitamin D if you take it with your largest meal, boosting its uptake over a two- to three-month period, by as much as 56 percent, according to a study at the Cleveland Clinic, detailed in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. Vitamin D is loosely linked with a decreased risk of autoimmune disorders. If you’re considering taking vitamin D supplements, talk to your natural health practitioner about dosages.

SORGHUM FOUND TO BE ANTIOXIDANT-RICH — EVEN RICHER THAN BLUEBERRIES: A study has concluded that sorghum bran contains greater antioxidant content and anti-inflammatory power than known antioxidant-rich superstars, such as blueberries and pomegranates. Researchers tested four varieties of sorghum and found that the two with the highest tannin composition – the black and sumac sorghum varieties – contain a whopping 23 to 62 mg of polyphenolic compounds per gram compared to antioxidant-rich blueberries, which contain 5 mg per gram, or pomegranate juice, which contains 2 to 3.5 mg per gram. Many fruits also contain antioxidants but sorghum bran, suggested the researchers, may prove to be the very richest and cheapest source. High-antioxidant berries and fruits are among the most expensive. Low tannin sorghum is commonly fed to animals or used to make ethanol to fuel cars. Only recently, has high-tannin sorghum bran been added to a few food items; the study team hopes to interest manufacturers in adding the low-cost, high-tannin extract to foods and beverages in order to prevent disease “rather than promote it.” In addition to antioxidants, sorghum also contains fiber. This study was published in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of Medicinal Food. The full-text version of this study is available online at http://bit.ly/cQPqCd with journal subscription or article access fee payment.

DIET-INDUCED OBESITY ACCELERATES LEUKEMIA: A study has found that obesity resulting from diet accelerates – and theoretically, at least, may even trigger – the progression of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Obesity has long been associated with an increased incidence of many cancers, including leukemia; but it has not been clear whether the higher risk was caused by obesity or by some other risk such as lifestyle or genetics. The researchers suggest that obesity may trigger leukemia and that “some hormone or factor in overweight individuals, perhaps produced by the fat tissue itself, may signal leukemia cells to grow and divide.” Not all obesity is caused by diet; weight gain can also be caused by genetics, aging, pregnancy, lack of sleep, some medicines and certain health conditions. This study is important due to the prevalence of obesity in society. Also, leukemia is the most common type of childhood cancer at a time when childhood obesity is at an all-time high. This just-released study will be published in the October 5, 2010 issue of the journal Cancer Prevention Research. It is now available online at http://bit.ly/cIvDkG with a journal subscription or payment of an article access fee.

SELENIUM SUPPLEMENTS MAY DECREASE RISK OF BLADDER CANCER: A study has found that a higher intake of selenium may lower the risk of bladder cancer. Researchers analyzed several previous studies and examined selenium content in toenails and blood and compared these measurements with the incidence of bladder cancer. Although there was a general protective effect for selenium levels, women benefited most in terms of bladder cancer risk. (Selenium is found in plant foods grown in selenium-rich soils, in the meat of animals that grazed on selenium-rich soils, and in selenium supplements. It is an essential micronutrient that is incorporated into about 25 proteins, called selenoproteins, which prevent cellular damage caused by the by-products of oxygen metabolism.) Further study is required to confirm these results and to determine the optimum dose of selenium to provide a protective effect against bladder cancer. This study was released August 31 and published in the September 2010 issue of the journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. The full-text version is now available online with a journal subscription or payment of an article access fee at http://bit.ly/cImcWJ.

DID YOU KNOW…?
An “abnormal” body weight prior to a cancer diagnosis is linked to a greater risk of later dying from the cancer; and correcting improper weight after diagnosis might not have any effect on risk because, says one researcher, “at that point, it may be too late.” A study of postmenopausal women found that a greater cancer mortality risk was strongly associated with pre-diagnosis weights that were either “underweight,” or “obese.” Underweight patients had an 89 percent greater mortality risk and obese patients, a 45 percent greater mortality risk, relative to normal-weighted individuals. Also, aside from overall weight, women with a high waist-to-hip ratio before diagnosis had a 30-40 percent higher risk of death. The mechanism behind these links is unknown. The study was reported in the September 2010 issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, an American Association for Cancer Research journal.

ANTIBIOTIC USE ALTERS INTESTINAL FLORA: A study has found that repeated use of antibiotics causes increasing and persistent changes in the composition of the gut’s beneficial bacteria colony. A previous study by the same scientist had shown that friendly bacteria in the gut bounce back fairly quickly after a single, short-term round of Cipro, an antibiotic often used for intestinal, urinary and systemic infections. But this longer study found that as few as two rounds of Cipro six months apart is sufficient to produce subtle, long term effects such as the replacement of an entire species of bacteria with a closely related species; or the complete elimination of some species. The problem with this subtle effect is that an eradicated bacteria species may have performing an important function such as fighting a particular pathogen with the toxin it produces; with those particular bacteria missing, the pathogen could multiply unchecked until, years later, it has invaded the patient’s system. The second administration of antibiotics appeared to have a greater impact than the first, although the effect varied between test subjects. This study was released September 13, 2010 and will appear in a future issue of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Details have not yet been made available.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Pregnant women who eat a lot of fish containing significant levels of mercury can cause developmental delays and brain damage in their newborns. Especially high in mercury are shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. Canned light tuna (vs. other tuna), shrimp, salmon, pollock and catfish generally have lower amounts of mercury but still should be eaten only in moderation while pregnancy. Baking, broiling, grilling and poaching are the healthiest ways to cook fish.

WATERCRESS MAY “TURN OFF” BREAST CANCER: A study has found that a compound in watercress may have the power to suppress breast cancer cell development. Normally, as cancer cells develop, they send out signals that cause new blood vessels to grow into the tumor and these nourish the rapidly growing cancer cells with oxygen and nutrients. But a watercress compound – called phenylethyl isothiocyanate – appears to turn off the tumor signal within the body, effectively starving the breast cancer cells. The amount of watercress consumed by test subjects was 80gm, which is about a cereal bowl full. (This leaf vegetable is known for its tangy, peppery flavor and is a member of the Brassica or cruciferous family, which includes cabbage and broccoli. Previously, watercress has been linked to a lower risk of lung cancer and of low thyroid levels.) The study leader suggested more research is needed on the relation between what we eat and cancer. This study was presented at a September 14, 2010 press conference and will be published in the current issue of the British Journal of Nutrition.

MOST COMMON EXERCISE IS…PREPARING A MEAL: A study has found that the most common “moderate” physical activity regularly pursued by Americans is – brace yourself – preparing meals, and eating and drinking. The five-year study of over 80,000 people found that five percent of respondents engaged in vigorous activity such as running; but the study also found that over 95 percent of subjects cited their most active exercise as eating and drinking. Eighty percent of the subjects reported their main activity was watching television or a movie. Other “light exercise” reported was washing and grooming. Recent studies have shown a strong connection between reported trends of sharply reduced levels of physical activity on the one hand and lowered life spans, reduced years of healthy living and greater obesity rates on the other hand. Obesity rates in the U.S. have soared from 14 percent in 1993 to 27 percent in 2008. The relation between sedentary activity and obesity rates is undeniable, according to the researchers. Perhaps, nothing underscores that more than learning that preparing and consuming meals counts as the most common form of exercise, say researchers. This just-released study will be published in the October 2010 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The full-text version is available online at: http://bit.ly/9OlOfn with a journal subscription or payment of an article access fee.

POOR DIET AND INADEQUATE EXERCISE MAY UNDERLIE CHILDHOOD ASTHMA: A study of 18,000 children aged four to 12 suggests that unbalanced nutrition and lack of exercise may be the major risks of developing childhood asthma, even in those of a healthy weight. These findings challenge the long-held idea that obesity itself is a risk factor for asthma. Instead, despite the fact that obese individuals showed a greater risk of asthma, the study implicated these patients’ metabolic dysfunction in the risk of asthma, such as triglyceride levels and glucose metabolism – and not their obesity itself. The conditions known as dyslipidemia (high triglyceride levels) and hyperinsulinemia (acanthosis nigricans or AN) are very common in both obesity and metabolic syndrome and as a result, suggests the study, obesity has been linked with asthma risk when in fact, these conditions themselves are the most likely risk factor. Metabolic factors, suggests the study, may be the actual cause of the airway inflammation and hyper-reactivity that leads to asthma. In fact, it is the childhood experience of poor nutrition and lack of exercise that may lead to later asthma, according to the research. This study was released September 16, 2010 and will be published in a future issue of the journal, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Details are not yet available to the public.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Floating an egg in plain – not salted – water will let you judge the size of the air-cell at the large end of the egg, which indicates the egg’s age. A fresh egg will settle to the bottom of the container of water and rest horizontally because the air cell is still small. But the larger air cell of a one-week-old egg will cause the large end of the egg to rise up slightly. Eggs that are two to three weeks old will settle to the bottom of the container vertically, large end up. And a very old egg will just float right on the surface. Don’t ever eat eggs that float.

ANXIETY MEDS RAISE MORTALITY RISK: A 12-year study of 14,000 patients has found that patients who take medications to treat insomnia and anxiety, even on an irregular schedule, have a 36 percent greater risk of dying than those who do not. This is considered a small but significant increase in risk. What causes this higher risk of mortality among those taking drugs to treat insomnia and anxiety is not clear but researchers pointed out that these prescriptions affect reaction time, alertness and coordination, making patients subject to falls and accidents. Also, patients on these meds are more prone to breathing problems during sleep; and some drugs of this type increase the risk of suicidal behaviors. The team leader suggested that non-drug cognitive behavioral therapies have been shown to be effective against both insomnia and anxiety and that this type of therapy should be suggested to patients. Also, according to the head researcher, “These medications aren’t candy, and taking them is far from harmless.” This study was published in the September 2010 issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry and is available online now in its full-text format at: http://bit.ly/964IPZ.

SPECIAL DIET PREVENTS KIDNEY STONES: A study has found that the DASH diet, a diet designed to combat high blood pressure and also known as Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, also helps prevent kidney stones. This diet is high in fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes, dairy products, and whole grains, and low in sweetened beverages and red and processed meats. Despite similar fluid intakes, the study observed a greater output of urine among those on the DASH diet, which may stem partly from the fact that DASH foods have higher water content. More important, DASH subjects’ urine held higher concentrations of citrate, an important inhibitor of calcium kidney stones. Researchers suggested that two foods prominent in the DASH diet have potent kidney stone-fighting properties: low-fat dairy products and plant foods. This just-released study will be published in the October 2010 issue of the journal, Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. It is now available online at http://bit.ly/aZu1yY with subscription to the journal or payment of an article access fee.

VIRUS MAY BE BEHIND OBESITY EPIDEMIC: A study has found that a gene in a specific virus can turn adult stem cells into fat cells. The study shows that many cases of obesity can be blamed on a specific virus named “human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36)”. This does not mean that obesity is always the result of a particular virus; but it does suggest that many cases of obesity may stem from infection by this virus. Another aspect of the study suggests that the weight gain effect can continue up to six months after the virus has left the body. The researchers stated that it is possible that other viruses may have a similar effect. Obesity may even be considered, suggests the study team, a complex disease involving many different viruses. Research is needed, says the study team, to determine why some people with the virus develop obesity while others with the same virus do not. Ninety-seven million adult Americans are obese. Obesity increases the risk of many illnesses, including type-2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and osteoarthritis. This study was presented today at the 234th annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. It has not yet been published in a peer reviewed journal.

STRESS BEFORE CANCER THERAPY LEADS TO RECURRENCE: A study has concluded that any form of stress during the one or two days prior to treatment for cancer – even the physical stress caused by intense exercise – activates a stress-sensitive protein known as the Hsp27 protein. This protein in turn protects cancer cells, allowing them to survive the treatment, thus sabotaging therapy and leading to a recurrence of the cancer. Although breast cancer cells were the subject of the study, the researchers said this proves that all types of adenocarcinoma cells – cancer cells that originate in a gland – appear to have found a way to adapt and resist treatment by using this stress-related protein. In the face of stress, the protein is activated by the presence of what is called “heat shock factor-1” and blocks the process that kills cancer cells even after their DNA has been damaged by radiation or chemotherapy. Stress includes physical exercise and even UV radiation from sunlight. This study was released September 21, 2010 by the journal Molecular Cancer Research. Full details are now available online at http://bit.ly/ctzTPU with journal subscription or payment of an article access fee.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Environmental pollutants trapped in fat cells could be released back into circulation when people shed a lot of weight. A study found strong correlation between weight loss and blood levels of six persistent organic pollutants. There is no proof that weight loss leads directly to the release of pollutants from fat cells into the blood but the evidence of the study is consistent with that mechanism, reported the researchers. The study was published in the September 7, 2010 issue of the Journal of Obesity.

MULTIVITAMIN USE MAY PREVENT HEART ATTACKS IN WOMEN: A study of 31,671 women has found that, compared to taking no supplements at all, regular daily use of multivitamins over a minimum ten-year period reduced the incidence of myocardial infarction (heart attack), at least among those women who had no history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) at the start of the study. There was no similar benefit for women who had a history of CVD. But among those with no CVD history, supplements other than multivitamins had little effect on heart attack risk; multivitamins alone reduced heart attack risk by 27 percent; and multivitamins taken with other supplements lowered heart attack risk by 30 percent. Multivitamins were estimated generally to contain close to the recommended allowances for vitamins A, C, D, and E, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and folic acid. The relationship is not necessarily one of cause-and-effect and further study is needed on the exact contents of multivitamins, the required duration of use, and the reason that supplements had no heart benefit for women with CVD. This study was released September 22, 2010 and will be published in a future issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It can be read online in the meantime at http://bit.ly/a1wmNr with journal subscription or payment of an article access fee.

HIGHER CALCIUM AND VITAMIN D LEVELS INCREASE WEIGHT LOST THROUGH DIETING: A study has determined that the weight lost on identical weight-loss diets is greater among those with higher intakes of dairy calcium; and separately, among those with higher blood levels of vitamin D. Regardless of the specific diet, those with the highest calcium intake dropped an average of 12 pounds in two years. However, those with the lowest intake of dairy calcium lost only seven pounds on average in the same period. Aside from calcium, individuals who had the highest levels of vitamin D lost the most weight when dieting; and vitamin D levels increased as weight dropped. It did not matter whether the diet was low-fat, low-carb or Mediterranean. This confirms previous research finding that obese people have lower levels of vitamin D. Although the study assessed dairy calcium only, calcium is also available from supplements and other foods. Vitamin D increases calcium absorption and is found in supplements, fatty fish and eggs. It is also manufactured by the body from direct sun exposure. This study was published in the September 2010 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is now available online at http://bit.ly/aC1RNA for journal subscribers and those who pay an article access fee.

MONTHLY HORMONAL CYCLES LINKED TO ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE: A new study on rats has confirmed a previously suspected, biological link between an individual’s current estrogen level and her ability to pay attention, focus and learn. Women have high estrogen levels when they are ovulating and prior research has shown that these are the times when they have trouble focusing and learning. Until now, it was not known whether the increase in fogginess and the increase in the level of this hormone constituted a cause-and-effect link. But researchers used rats to study how estrogen affects their “latent inhibition,” which is a form of memory formation, which is essential learning. They found that rodents with low estrogen levels learned to associate a stimulus with a specific sound tone far faster than those with high estrogen levels, showing that, even in a different species, estrogen itself has a direct effect on the brain by inhibiting cognitive ability. Further study may explain how it does this. This study was released ahead of print publication in a future issue of the journal Brain and Cognition. It is available at the journal’s site with the payment of a fee.

U.S. CHILDREN DRINK TOO LITTLE WATER, STUDY: A study of 3,978 children aged 2 to 19 years of age has found that a large proportion of American kids drink less water than is recommended as the minimum daily amount. Sugar-sweetened beverages accounted for much of their fluid intake. Also, the researchers concluded that children who do consume the most water each day are less likely to consume sugary drinks and high-calorie foods. Only 15 to 60 percent of boys, and 10 to 54 percent of girls, depending on age, drink the minimum amount of water recommended by the U.S. Institute of Medicine. Dehydration can cause fatigue, muscle weakness, headaches, dry mouth and even impaired cognition and mental performance. The study looked at water intake from all sources, including water itself, water in moist foods, moisture in all beverages, such as milk and juice. As children aged, their water consumption increased while their intake of nutritive beverages such as milk and fruit juice decreased. This just-released study will be published in the October 2010 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It is available at http://bit.ly/cIOrCT with journal subscription or access fee.

MS SYMPTOMS EASED BY ‘MINDFULNESS MEDITATION’: A study has determined that learning mindfulness meditation can help Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients with the fatigue, depression and other life challenges that usually accompany the disease. The effect lasted for six months. For the study, 150 MS patients were assigned either to regular medical care alone or to medical care plus weekly classes lasting two and a half hours; the classes included mental and physical exercises aimed at developing nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment, or “mindfulness.” Those who went through the mindfulness training were far better able to cope with fatigue and depression; in fact, mindfulness helped reduce depressive symptoms by over 30 percent. Mindfulness is a concept that might be described as “calm awareness of one’s body functions, feelings, content of consciousness, or consciousness itself.” This study was the largest of its type and is considered to have been well-conducted. The study was published in the September 28, 2010 issue of the journal, Neurology, and is now available online at http://bit.ly/dgV6cb with journal subscription or payment of an article access fee.

STRONG LINK BETWEEN AIR POLLUTION AND DIABETES: A study has found a strong link between particulate air pollution and adult diabetes; and between pollution and inflammation, which may contribute to insulin resistance, which in turn is linked to diabetes. The study focused on a particular size of fine particulates in air pollution (0.1 to 2.5 nanometers in size), the same size associated with a key component of haze, smoke and motor vehicle exhaust. Researchers adjusted the data to rule out the effects of known diabetes risk factors, including obesity, exercise, geographic latitude, ethnicity and population density. But there was still a very strong correlation between air pollution and the incidence of diabetes. The study team did not point to air pollution as necessarily being a cause of diabetes but it came across as a valid predictor of the disease. Even within counties falling within the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) limits for air pollution exposure, those with the highest levels of exposure were 20 percent more likely to develop diabetes. The team suggested EPA standards may not be adequate to protect people from pollution. Released September 29, this study will be published in the October 2010 issue of Diabetes Care. It is online now at http://bit.ly/dqTEPB without charge.

DID YOU KNOW…?
Tea lovers’ beverage of choice lowers blood pressure. Drinking just a half-cup of green or oolong tea per day reduces a person’s risk of high blood pressure by almost 50 per cent. People who drink at least two and a half cups per day reduce their risk even more. Risk is reduced even if tea drinkers have known risk factors for high blood pressure, such as high sodium intake.

What could they do with this white substance with no food appeal? Those ingenious marketeers added yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter.

Let’s compare margarine and butter.

Both have the same amount of calories.

Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.

Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical School study.

Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.

Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added.

Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.

Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

There’s more bad news about margarine:
Very high in trans fatty acids.
Triples risk of coronary heart disease when used daily.
Increases total and LDL cholesterol and lowers HDL cholesterol.
Increases the risk of cancers up to five times if eaten daily.
Lowers the quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.

Why is margarine such a problematic fat?
Mostly because it is only one molecule away from being a PLASTIC compound.

Margarine is molecularly similar to paint.

These facts alone should be enough to have us avoiding margarine (and all hydrogenated foods) for life. Hydrogenation is a process in which hydrogen molecules are jammed onto an otherwise “good” fat (all good fats are based on energy-rich carbon chains), breaking apart the carbon chains and depleting the life-giving properties of the oil or fat, while extending its “shelf-life” almost indefinitely.

Which is why, if you were to purchase a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage you will notice a couple of things within a few days:
* no bugs, roaches or flies, not even those pesky fruit flies, will go near it.
* It does not rot or start to smell funny, because it has no nutritional value; nothing will grow on it. Why not? Because it is nearly plastic.

Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on toast?

I now recall some wise words from a favorite nutrition mentor:
“Don’t eat any food that wouldn’t rot; but eat it before it does.”

When I see patients who have been told they “need” a statin drug, I will help to break this down for them. The only reason to “need” a statin if is there is evidence of atherosclerotic plaque in the arteries that cannot be reduced any other way. Cholesterol level is a very soft indicator for cardiovascular risk. It is well known that at least 60% of folks coming to a hospital with their first heart attack have cholesterol levels under 200. I review the major parameters of cardiovascular risk with all of my patients: blood pressure, diet, exercise habit, smoking habit, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels, family history, co-morbidities such as diabetes or metabolic syndrome and current levels of plaque. A handy, non-invasive and relatively inexpensive way to check for plaque is an ultrasound of the carotid artery (in the side of the neck). The lining of the carotid wall (the intima) can be measured, and a thickness of over 1 mm is considered suggestive of plaque. You can google “intima media thickness” for lots more information on this topic. Here’s a good article published over a decade ago in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

Is your conventionally trained physician just telling you to take drugs?

Yikes! High triglycerides can usually be spotted even without lab tests because they look like belly fat, or the classic apple shape body. Ladies, if your waist is more than 34 inches, and gentlemen more than 40 inches, you almost certainly have high triglycerides.

The problem with high trigs is it means not only do you have subcutaneous fat around your torso, but you also have unhealthy fat packed around your heart, liver and lungs.  That reduces circulation to these organs and make them work harder.

If you have lab results handy, look at the ratio between the triglycerides and the so-called “good” cholesterol – HDL (high density lipoprotein).  A good ratio would be 4 or less.  For exampe if your triglycerides are 80 and your HDL is 40, then that’s good!  The ratio is 2. On the other hand, if your triglycerides are 300 and your HDL is 30 — that is not good at all: ratio 10.

There are 2 fairly reliable, non-drug, methods for raising the good cholesterol, HDL, which “travels” around the body gathering up cholesterol, bringing it back to the liver for re-use.  These methods are:

1) Avoid all white sugar, which is especially noxious in liquid form.   Don’t consume ANY high fructose corn syrup, Karo syrup, brown sugar (just white sugar stained with molasses) or maltodextrin.

2) Lift weights.   Go to the gymn, or buy some hand weights at a garage sale.   Start with 20 minutes once weekly for the lower body (squats, lunges, leg presses) plus 20 minutes once weekly for the upper body (push-ups, triceps dips, biceps curls, overhead flies lying on back).  When stronger move up to twice weekly for upper and lower musculature.

The other part of the equation is to lower triglycerides.   This type of “fat” is actually a storage form of sugar. Whenever you eat sugar, or highly glycemic food which turns into glucose quickly in the bloodstream, it becomes available for quick energy.  However, if you are sitting around watching TV, or about to go to sleep, this energy is not needed, and will be converted to the storage form, triglycerides, which literally means three (3) glycerine molecules.  With very few exceptions, when a patient has high triglycerides (or a ratio of Trigs:HDL more than 4) I know they are not active enough and eating too many sweets.  This is also called “metabolic syndrome,” which is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease.

So, your diet needs adjusting.  Here are some dietary ideas to reduce triglycerides:

Eat less of/ Replace with
Red meat / fish or turkey
Hamburgersand hot dogs/ fish or turkey
Eggs/ egg substitute
High fat dairy products/ low fat dairy
butter/ olive oil
Ice cream, cake, cookies/ fruits
Refined cereals/ whole grains
Fried foods/ fresh veggies; steamed or raw
Coffee and soft drinks/ herbal teas, dilute fruit juice

Plus, do add 2-3 tablespoons of fish oil (or 2000-3000 mg mixed EPA and DHA Omega 3 oils, from fish) to your daily diet.  New research shows that fish oil definitively helps to lower triglycerides.

To help reduce sugar cravings take 200 mcg of chromium picolinate (insulin’s little helper) 3 times daily. You can take all 600 mcg at once if that’s more convenient.  Insulin is the molecule produced in the pancreas that accompanies glucose (sugar) INTO the cell, where it is useful for energy.  Sugar is NOT helpful floating around the bloodstream, where it literally rots out blood vessels, causing all sorts of damage including kidney failure and blindness.

Use SPICES to replace sugar — anise seed, fennel seed and cinnamon are all delicious and naturally sweet.  Use STEVIA as a substitute sweetener.  Avoid Nutrasweet, Splenda, Equal and all those fake sugars — they disrupt brain chemistry and have been linked with seizures and attention deficit.

Let’s break this down a bit.  Consider this: Well over 50% of people going to emergency departments with their first heart attack have total cholesterol under 200.  This will be a shock to some readers.  Also, new information is emerging correlating low cholesterol with increased risk of various cancers. 

The number 200 is NOT the “end all and be all” of cardiovascular risk, particularly not for women.  In fact, in my opinion, there is way too much emphasis on cholesterol reduction — just because there are drugs out there to “improve” the numbers. 

The more northern your ancestry, the more likely you are to have higher cholesterol, because your genes evolved in a climate where food might be scarcer in the winter, so you hang onto fat more aggressively. 

More important risk factors for cardiovascular disease are high blood pressure, a big waist, and high C-reactive protein (CRP).  CRP is a readily available blood test that is much more strongly correlated than cholesterol with heart disease risk.  It measures inflammation, and you want your number under 2.5. 

Men’s waist size (the tape measure should go around your body just above the belly button) should not exceed 38″ and women’s should not exceed 34″.  This is a quick and easy test I use in my office to evaluate whether or not folks have fat around their abdominal organs: namely the heart, the lungs, the liver and the kidneys.  This deep fat, padding the vital internal organs, will impede optimal blood flow (oxygen delivery) and toxin removal.  Crunches won’t touch this deep fat.  You need to eat less and get more, and regular, cardiovascular exercise. 

Blood pressure control is more complicated, but you must explore why the “tubes” (your blood vessels) are constricting, which is why the pressure of the blood flowing through the vascular system increases.  Sometimes caffeine is the vasoconstrictor.  Sometimes it’s stress (adrenaline is an extremely potent vasoconstrictor). 

My point is that cholesterol isn’t all bad.  In fact, cholesterol is critical for health.  Cholesterol is the “mother” hormone: estrogens, progesterone, cortisol, aldosterone and testosterone all derive directly from cholesterol.  That’s why total cholesterol goes up in menopausal women: the ovaries are no longer secreting high levels of the female hormones, so the feedback to the brain is “hey, I need more hormones”, so the brain directs the liver to produce more cholesterol — at least until the brain “gets” that the ovaries are on permanent vacation.  It is perfectly fine — NORMAL — for cholesterol to go up to 250 or so around menopause.  Often it will drift down to around 220 or 230 eventually.  No problem. 

What IS a problem is obesity and hypertension.  Please don’t be bamboozled into thinking taking a statin is going to reverse your health risks posed by obesity and hypertension.  Statins are not effective for either problem.

Cholesterol is the main ingredient in the cell membrane surrounding each and every one of the trillions of cells in your body.  Cholesterol-rich cell walls allow for appropriate and selective uptake of nutrients which will direct the nucleus of the cell (where the genetic information, or DNA, is stored) to produce energy and proteins and repair enzymes. 

Low cholesterol puts people at risk of cancer because the nucleus of the cell may no longer have adequate protection.  Further, cholesterol is a critical component of the nervous system, including the brain and the protective myelin sheath around the nerve. 

The only reason to lower cholesterol is if you have proven atherosclerosis (plaque build up inside the arteries, which can inhibit blood and oxygen flow to vital organs including heart and brain).  You are better off lowering cholesterol with niacin or Red Yeast rice than with statin drugs because of the dangerous muscle-wasting side effects of statins.  While niacin can lower total cholesterol levels, generally high doses (2000 – 2500 mg daily, in 3 or 4 divided doses) are needed.  I would go for the inositol hexaniacate “flush-free” variety because otherwise the vasodilation flush is too intense.  However, high dose niacin has been associated with liver damage, so please don’t use this therapy if you already have liver problems. 

If you have demonstrable plaque, please consider chelation therapy to pull the plaque off the vessel walls.  If you have heart disease because of arterial plaque (arterio or athero-sclerosis) learn more about clinical trials of chelation therapy here: http://nccam.nih.gov/chelation/chelationstudy.htm

Heart disease kills six times more women than breast cancer (Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics 2006 Update. Dallas, Texas: American Heart Association; 2005) but only 30% of women (from a 1997 national survey) recognized CVD as a leading cause of death.  The Red Dress Campaign, kicked off in 2005, raised this awareness to 55% although disproportionately more of this increased awareness was in white or well educated folks.  Help spread the word.  Focus on cardiac health.

Until Bernadette Healy, M.D., became medical director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1990, most clinical trials studying heart disease did not include women subjects.  Thanks to her, we are now approaching nearly 20 years of clinical trials with women.  Patterns are emerging, such as:

1) Women tend to develop cardiovascular disease 10-15 years later than men; possibly estrogen is protective, although this is controversial.  By age 60, a woman’s risk for CVD equals a man’s risk.  Certainly ingesting hormones increases clotting risk for some women.  On the other hand, smoking lowers estrogen levels and this is thought by some to play a role in why women smokers are more at risk for CVD than comparable male smoking cohorts.

2) In general women are more vulnerable to toxins. Our lungs, livers, and hearts are smaller.

3) Women’s smaller hearts beat faster, even when asleep.  Women have different cardiovascular disease risk factors and manifestation patterns than men.  For example, women are more likely to have MIs not preceded by angina.  (Canto JG, Shlipak MG, Rogers JF, et al. “Prevalence, Clinical Infarction Presenting Without Chest Pain.” JAMA. 2000;283:3223-3229) Women are more likely than men to die from their first heart attack.  Prevention is therefore particularly urgent for women.

4) Women are less likely to develop atherosclerosis, and are likely to have lower blood pressure.  Thus the cholesterol issue is less pertinent for women and the number 200 probably should not be applied to women.  Over half of women presenting with their first heart attack have so-called normal cholesterol levels.  (Burke AP, Farb A, Malcom GT, et al. “Effect of risk factors on the mechanism of acute thrombosis and sudden coronary death in women.” Circulation. 1998;97:2110-2116) A younger woman with high cholesterol may be more at risk for CVD.  However, after age 65, low cholesterol confers increased mortality risk for all diseases, including cardiovascular disease.

5) Daily aspirin has been definitively proven to not prevent the first MI in women, which it may it men, though it can also kill men from provoking bleeding gastric ulcers.  So, ladies, unless you’ve already had a stroke, clot or MI, aspirin is unlikely to help prevent these killer diseases. Watch for women patients unnecessarily taking a baby aspirin a day because some docs are still not up to speed with this concept. (Ridker PM, Cook NR, Lee IM, et al. “A Randomized Trial of Low-Dose Aspirin in the Primary Care Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women.” N Engl J Med. 2005:352:1293-1304)

6) Conventional risk factors affect men and women differently.  For example, high total cholesterol to HDL ratio is more likely to mean atherosclerosis in men.  Women are less likely to build up plaque; they are more likely to have peripheral artery, as opposed to coronary artery, disease.

7) Also, the impact of alcohol consumption worse in women: Alcohol is metabolized more quickly by women, making the immediate impact on heart, brain and liver more severe.  Men have a higher water to fat ratio in their body composition, and this extra water helps men to dilute the effect of alcohol.  Further, women are more likely than men to binge drink, which is the most dangerous way to consume this pickling poison.

From a whole body, naturopathic perspective, we can think of cardiovascular wellness as having both the plumbing and the electricity working well.  In women, the vasculature is less likely to get jammed up with plaque in the coronary vessels, although certainly this happens to women too.  More often, women suffer from peripheral artery disease due to vasospasm and low mineral status.  Not infrequently, patients are chronically dehydrated, and this contributes to preferential distribution of available fluids to the major vessels, at the expense of the periphery.  Plaque (comprised of cholesterol, calcium and bacteria) only adheres to damaged intima, which is why bioflavonoids and avoiding lipid peroxidation are keys to maintaining healthy arterial walls.  We have all seen patients with marginally elevated cholesterol on a statin drug.  Suspect statin side effects with any complaints of muscle fatigue, muscle weakness or muscle cramping.  Statins may also adversely affect the electrical system of the heart.

Women are more likely to have mitral valve prolapse than their male counterparts.  Sometimes this problem is readily fixed with adequate magnesium intake; rarely surgical repair or replacement of the valve is required.  Magnesium and caffeine elimination will also help mild arrythmias, although I recommend electrocautery of ectopic electrical tissue for pronounced tacchycardias such as PSVT and some Atrial fibrillation syndromes.  A pacemaker is generally implanted for chronic and profound bradycardic episodes, and not infrequently directly after the first episode, especially in an elderly patient where the concern is syncope.  You may be able to help your patient avoid a pacemaker by evaluating B vitamin absorption (homocysteine level) and providing nerve nutrients such as lecithin, omega 3 oils, Hypericum, Convallaria and Cactus.

Hypertension (140/90 or more) is possibly the most dangerous of the CVD risk factors, and one of the most difficult to resolve.  It remains a problem of westernized societies; rarely found in rural, agricultural or less developed communities.  Smoking tobacco significantly increases the risk for high blood pressure.  Please quit.  If you have a patient that still smokes, yet continues to seek your services, they are asking for help quitting (even though they may deny that!)  If you have hypertension, enroll in a local meditation class, or learn some other relaxation techniques.  There’s a new tool to improve hypertension via self-awareness called RESPeRATE (www.respearte.com) which is a home biofeedback device, and basically helps you lower blood pressure through breathing exercises.  Daily contrast hydrotherapy (chase your shower or bath with at least one cooler rinse) will also help alleviate circulatory insufficiency.

Find some kind of movement you enjoy: belly dancing, Aikido, ball-room dancing, contact improv, roller-blading, yoga, hula hoops, getting to 10,000 daily steps on your pedometer.  As long as it gets your heart rate up, and you’re having a good time, this is successful exercise.

The American College of Sports Medicine last published exercise guidelines in 1995.  These updates are more exact about the types and duration of exercise. They are based on recent scientific findings about the relationship between physical activity and health. The authors point out that an increase above the recommended minimum amount of exercise may provide further health benefits.

A companion guide is also available for adults ages 65 and over and adults 50 to 64 with chronic medical conditions.  These guidelines are similar but add important detail about flexibility, balance and how to stick with a plan.

Currently only about 25% of the US population follows these guidelines, according to the CDC.  Haskell states this percentage could increase to 50% over the next decade with the active support of the community agencies, medical personnel and, especially, employers.

Classifications of CVD:
Coronary heart disease (CHD) and coronary artery disease (CAD): disease of the blood vessels supplying the heart that may lead to:  

Angina
Myocardial infarction
Congestive heart failure

Cerebrovascular disease: disease of the blood vessels supplying the brain that may lead to:
Transient ischemic attacks (TIA) or mini strokes
Strokes

Peripheral vascular disease: disease of blood vessels supplying the arms and legs that can lead to:
Claudication – obstructed blood flow in arteries,   causing pain
Gangrene – death of tissues in legs due to poor   circulation
Aneurysms - bulges or enlargements in the aorta

Naturopathic protocol considerations:
1) Nattokinase or Lumbrikinase for IMT over 1 mm, for high fibrinogen, for history of or current thrombus.  Proteolytic enzymes not with food are also useful.
2) Hawthorne solid extract to improve lipid digestion and maintain or restore smooth healthy vasculature.  Anecdotally I have not found niacin to be particularly helpful for lipid profile improvement.
3) Rauwolfia serpentina tincture, up to 30 drops twice daily, for hypertension.  Watch for depression.  Anecdotally I have not found arginine to work reliably for HTN.
4) CoQ10 (as much as affordable) and exercise to reduce hypertension.
5) Vit E (not synthetic, mixed tocopherols) for overall cardiovascular health.
6) Vit C & D to promote tissue repair and reduce inflammation (high CRP).
7) To reduce inflammation, avoid white sugar and white flour; increase use of fresh garlic and ginger in the diet; eat less red meat (ideally fresh game only) and avoid fried foods.
8) Take adequate amounts of B6, B12 and folate to optimize homocysteine and reduce stroke risk.
9) Pantothene (B5) to improve systolic (adrenal) hypertension and raise HDL.
10) Magnesium at bedtime to reduce vasospasms, mild arrythmias and diastolic hypertension.
11) If you have high blood pressure, you may need antihypertensive drugs short-term, until the diet and lifestyle changes kick in.  If you are diabetic, avoid beta-blockers which tend to raise blood sugars.  If you are on a calcium channel blocker, magnesium may work just as well. ACE inhibitors often cause a chronic cough.                                                           12) Statin alternatives such as Vit D, red yeast rice or chitin, if warranted.
13) Sodium restriction if the you are salt sensitive.
14) Optimal hydration (avoid diuretics as the kidneys quickly become dependent).
15) Daily movement: know the options in your community.  (see Exercise sidebar)
16)  Avoid fried foods, but not high quality fats.  Fish oils, nuts, flax seed will reduce risk of premature cardiovascular disease.

In closing, evidence is emerging that the long-held “truth” linking saturated fats and high cholesterol levels to cardiovascular disease was based on inaccurate tabulation of data.  For a comprehensive and fascinating discussion of this issue see Volk, MG, “An Examination of the Evidence Supporting the Association of Dietary Cholesterol and Saturated Fats with Serum Cholesterol and Development of Coronary Heart Disease” Alt Med Review: Sept 2007, Vol 12:3; 228-245.  Despite widespread use of statin drugs, cardiovascular mortality in the US has not improved.  In fact, more cases of nerve damage, TIAs, rapid progression to Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue and depression have been reported in the population taking statins (sample reference: Li G, Higdon R, Kukull WA, Peskind E, Van Valen Moore K, Tsuang D, van Belle G, McCormick W, Bowen JD, Teri L, Schellenberg GD, Larson EB. “Statin therapy and risk of dementia in the elderly: a community-based prospective cohort study.” Neurology. 2005 Apr 12;64(7):1319 . 

It is by now well known that statins deplete CoQ10, and thus produce their array of muscle cramping/muscle wasting side effects.  What has yet to be fully appreciated is the additional devastation caused by artificially lowering cholesterol levels.  Statins may be contributing to the widespread disruption of hormone synthesis (including pandemic hypothyroidism), demyelination of nerves (more depression in the elderly, more dementia, more ALS) and weaker immune response (more colds and flus).  Instead of reflexively reducing cholesterol, clinicians would do well to focus on reducing inflammation instead, using natural therapeutics.  This will provide you with a safer and more effective approach to improved cardiovascular health.  Drink a green smoothie, put your face in the sun, and dance for joy today!

The new guidelines were published in Med Sci Sports Exerc 2007; 39:1423–34.

Specifically, the guidelines recommend:

• Moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, such as brisk walking, for 30 minutes five days per week, or vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, such as jogging, for 20 minutes three days per week.
• Muscle strengthening activity, such as weight training, a minimum of two nonconsecutive days per week, which should include 8 to 10 exercises repeated 8 to 12 times.

The lead author of the new guidelines, William Haskell, PhD, professor of Medicine at Stanford University’s Prevention Research Center, says “Following the current recommendations will lead to an increase in cardiovascular and muscle fitness, help achieve and maintain a healthy body weight, and assist in the prevention of chronic degenerative diseases such as coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer.”

A combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activities works just as well, say the guideline authors. For example, walking briskly two days and jogging two days per week. The authors also state that the 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity does not have to be completed all at once and can be broken down into increments of 10 minutes or more.

A big part of these new guidelines is the recognition that exercise must be planned. Regular exercise does not happen spontaneously. Walking to work is great, though, unfortunately, not feasible for most. Dean Ornish, MD, is known to have said “walk your dog every day, whether or not you have one.” Find some kind of movement you enjoy: belly dancing, Aikido, ball-room dancing, contact improv, roller-blading, yoga, hula hoops, getting to 10,000 daily steps on your pedometer. As long as it gets your heart rate up, and you’re having a good time, this is successful exercise.

The American College of Sports Medicine last published exercise guidelines in 1995. These updates are more exact about the types and duration of exercise. They are based on recent scientific findings about the relationship between physical activity and health. The authors point out that an increase above the recommended minimum amount of exercise may provide further health benefits.

A companion guide is also available for adults ages 65 and over and adults 50 to 64 with chronic medical conditions. These guidelines are similar but adds important detail about flexibility, balance and how to stick with a plan.

Currently only about 25% of the US population follows these guidelines, according to the CDC. Haskell states this percentage could increase to 50% over the next decade with the active support of the community agencies, medical personnel and, especially, employers.

Most people will get their blood drawn for a “cardiovascular panel” first thing in the morning before breakfast, when they have been fasting for 12 hours.  One of the fats measured in a cardiovascular panel is triglycerides.  Triglycerides literally means three glycerol molecules; this is the storage form of sugar.  When you eat carbs that are burned as fuel right away, the energy (calories) gets stored as fat.

Having high triglycerides typically corresponds with eating too many refined carbs (anything made with white sugar or white flour, and alcohol).  I can usually look at a patient and tell they have high triglycerides: the tell-tale “apple” shape.  Also known as beer gut.  The main problem with packing on the triglycerides, however, isn’t cosmetic.  It is much more than skin deep.  This kind of fat lays down under the muscular layers of the abdomen, and no amount of crunches will burn this off.  You need to dip into those deep energy reserves by working out and practicing light calorie restriction several times a day.  You don’t have to go hungry, but you need to eat lightly,  and frequently.  You need to exercise hard enough to burn through the readily available carbs from recent meals, and start dipping into your reserves.  A few grams of L-carnitine daily will also help convert fat to muscle. 

In the past few years, a new, quick tool for doctors in performing an annual physical exam has come into vogue.  This is a simple waist measurement, now considered more important (and quicker to figure out) than a hip to waist ratio.  For women, aim to keep your waistlines below 34 inches.  For men, no more than 38 inches.

The topic at hand, however, is how to accurately evaluate triglycerides.  Two recent studies suggest that nonfasting triglyceride levels were much more highly correlated with risk for imminent cardiovascular events (such as stroke or heart attack).  One study looked at nearly 14,000 Danish folk for over 25 years and found that the women with the highest nonfasting triglycerides were five times more likely to die from a cardiac event than women with the lowest nonfasting triglycerides.

Another study involving over 25,000 women, conducted by Harvard researchers, also found that nonfasting triglyceride levels predicted heart attacks and strokes better than fasting levels.  This means that, even tickling out variables such as smoking, hypertension, high cholesterol, and insulin resistance, women with high nonfasting triglycerides were much more likely to suffer serious cardiac events in the near future, compared to women with high fasting triglycerides.

The main function of triglycerides in the body is to move and store fat.  Triglycerides that remain elevated after a meal are speculated to be a special sub-type which may lodge in artery walls and thus contribute to cardiovascular disease.  Conventional doctors have determined that triglyceride levels should be under 150 mg/dL.  As a naturopathic physician, I prefer to have my patients’ trigs under 100 mg/dL.

About 89% of cases are considered to be primary hypertension, and while no specific cause can be singled out as the culprit, many factors are implicated in the development of primary, or essential hypertension. Some of the recognized risk factors include family history, environment (family size, crowding, eating patterns, occupation, obesity), salt ingestion and sensitivity (there is controversy over whether the sodium or chloride part of the salt molecule is the principal factor), race (blacks have more primary hypertension and more morbidity and mortality than whites), hyperlipidemia, smoking, and diet.

Secondary hypertension accounts for only a small minority of patients with hypertension, but must be ruled out in all cases, as discovery and treatment of the cause will cure the hypertension. Causes of secondary hypertension include:

• sympathetic nervous system compensation in response to pancreatic hypoglycemia which usually will fluctuate; in the morning it will be better and in the afternoon it will be worse.
• epinephrine compensation in response to severe pancreatic hypoglycemia: the patient will seem like they are calm outside but really tense inside. They will tend to have increasing hypertension as the day goes on.
• obese hypertension: may be hormonal, hormonal with adrenal compensation, or hormonal with liver compensation.
• renal hypertension: divided into renovascular hypertension (pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, usually seen in pregnancy), and renal parenchymal hypertension (stenosis of a renal artery causing decreased renal perfusion which results in the kidneys activating the renin-angiotensin pathway)
• endocrine hypertension: this includes adrenal hypertension (primary aldosteronism, Cushing’s syndrome, and pheochromocytoma), acromegaly, hypercalcemia, and oral contraceptives (probably the most common cause of secondary hypertension).
• coarctation of the aorta

Signs and symptoms of hypertension are as follows:
In primary hypertension patients are often asymptomatic until late in the disease, and frequently hypertension is discovered during routine physical examination.

• occipital headache: seen only with severe, advanced disease; worse in the morning on rising, and better as the day goes on
• dizziness
• palpitations
• blurred vision
• epistaxis (nosebleeds)
• hematuria (blood in the urine)
• abnormal sounds over the renal arteries, possibly due to abdominal aorta aneurysm
• no fall in BP from supine to standing. Blood pressure should normally drop slightly with position changes just momentarily, then calibrate.

In secondary hypertension the same symptoms as primary hypertension are seen, plus symptoms or history related to whatever is the inciting cause. In addition:

• blood pressure falls during orthostatic measurement (sitting to standing)
• sympathetic nervous system compensation may cause BP fluctuations with a better BP reading in the morning and worse in the evening. The individual will appear calm but experiences internal tension.

To treat hypertension from a physical medicine standpoint, the first order of business is to assess cardiovascular fitness with a submaximal stress test. This is something typically done in a hospital or sports medicine setting, by a qualified exercise physiologist. Your aerobic condition is calculated, copared to normal for your age and other factors, and then an aerobic exercise program tailored to your needs can be designed. Typically heart patients need to work out in the range of around 40% of their maximum target heart rate, sometimes for only 10 mintues a day at first. Don’t overdue. Consistency, and slowly building up as your condition improves is the key. Severe hypertension patients may be advised to do NO aerobic exercise at first. Isometrics are strongly contraindicated because they can unduly stress the venous system. A system of slow, standing Chinese exercise movements called Qi Gong have helped many people and are widely practiced in China not only as therapy but treatment of many diseases, including cardiovascular problems.

Physical medicine therapies using water may also provide great benefit. Some of these include:

• hot baths: to promote sweating
• peroxide baths: to greatly stimulate skin circulation
• constitutional hydrotherapy
• for acute hypertension : enema, then full body hot bath with cold compress to head and neck
• foot baths: alternating between tubs of hot and cold water.

Stress is an important complicating factor in hypertension, so you may benefit from stress reduction techniques. One of the oldest and best beloved stress management technique is treating yourself periodically, as your budget allows, to a gentle, full body massage.

The importance of nutrtion and diet cannot be overemphasized in disease control, and hypertension is no exception. In general, attempt to adhere to the following eating principles:

• low sugar, especially refined, white sugar and products which contain it.
• low fat diet of unsaturated fats — no more than 15% is optimal, and try to avoid saturated fats (meat fat) altogether.
• your daily food intake should provide calories in the following percentages: 70% complex carbohydrates, 12-15% protein and 10-15% fat .
• high fiber, such as the good old apple a day, and whole grains
• low cholesterol (avoid animal fat).
• low Sodium/Sodium-restricted diet . Take the salt shaker off the table.
• 1-2 week fast on alkaline juices or watermelon fast, followed by a vegetarian diet .
• if overweight, reduce weight to normal range.

Foods that can provide specific therapeutic benefit in hypertension include:

• high Potassium foods such as millet, buckwheat, oats, rice, raw goat’s milk, raw leafy vegetables, watermelon, garlic, onions, rutin-rich foods, cornsilk tea, garlic, broccoli, celery, cherries, nectarines, pineapple, kumquats, watermelons, squash, pomegranate, guava, parsley, cucumber, dandelion greens, cornsilk and white mushroom soup. If you are taking diuretics as part of your plan to control or reduce your hypertension, replacing Potassium is especically imortant.
• increase omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. These high quality oild are found in vegetable, nut, and seed oils (particularly good is flaxseed oil), salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines, walnuts, evening primrose oil, and black currant oil.

Therapeutic foods used in Oriental cultures for hypertension include:

• mung bean soup
• chrysanthemum and spinach tea
• persimmon
• radish
• cucumber vine tea

Other specific food-based remedies include:

• take 60 g of banana skins or stems, steam in water and eat three times daily
• one cup of grape juice and celery juice each, taken with warm water three times daily for 20 days. After one 20-day course of treatment, a 5-7 day rest, then resume another course.
• drink the decoction of 10 water chestnuts and 25 g each of kelp and corn silk. This means bring 1 quart of water to a boil, add the ingredients and simmer for about 20 minutes on a low heat.
• soak peanuts in vinegar for 5 days, then eat 10 peanuts every morning.
• take a handful of sunflower seeds every morning and evening with 1/2 cup of celery juice (an effective, potassium-sparing diuretic) for one month.
• drink one small “wine glass” of freshly pressed turnip juice morning and evening for 10 days
• soak 6 g black fungus in water overnight; steam for one hour; sweeten with sugar to taste. Take one time per day in evening before bed until the symptoms and blood pressure have improved.
• for constipation caused by hypertension take 500 g of peeled banana and mash together with 15 g black sesame seed. Eat daily.
• take 60 g of water chestnuts and 30 g of fresh orange peel. Add water, steam until cooked and eat this dish 2 or 3 times daily.
• take 30 g dried green peach (pitted young green fruit left to dry in the sun) cover with water and simmer until cooked and drink in place of tea.

Avoid:

• allergenic foods
• salt, salty foods: pickles, olives, chips, packaged snacks, meat, (especially ham, frankfurters, bacon, bologna, corned beef, lunch meats, frozen fish fillets, sardines, herring, caviar, anchovies, shellfish), dairy products, spicy foods: salsa, white and black pepper, mustard, ginger, hot foods, canned tomato juice, V-8 juice, processed cheese, canned, dried or instant soups, frozen peas and beans, most processed and refined foods, MSG, mayonnaise, salad dressings, gravies, ketchup, food with Sodium benzoate as a preservative, Sodium proprionate in cheese and bread, baking powder, baking soda, ice cream, milkshakes, soft drinks, smoked meats and fish, Jello, pretzels, potato chips, salted nuts, candy, rennet tablets, pudding mixes, beverage mixes, spicy foods, alcohol, fried foods, fatty foods, pork, overeating, low levels of Calcium
• alcohol, sucrose, caffeine
• trans-fatty acids, hydrogenated oils (margarine, vegetable shortenings, imitation butter spreads, most commercial peanut butters) oxidized fats (deep fried foods, fast food, ghee, barbequed meats)

Supplements that may be additionally helpful, because it is sometimes impossible to get therapeutic levels of certain nutrients through diet alone. Please contact a qualified health care provider for specific dosages.

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin B-complex
• Vitamin B3
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin D
• Calcium 1-2 grams
• Magnesium 500 mg daily
• Potassium 100 mg daily
• Coenzyme Q10 60 mg dialy
• omega-3 fatty acids 10-15 g daily
• omega-6 fatty acids, especially evening primrose oil (EPO)

The world of plant medicine has much to offer for controlling or even reducing chronic high blood pressure. Please consult with a qualified herbalist or naturopathic doctor to find out about specific doseages, or the form in which to take the herbs. The following list will provide a guideline.

• Achillea millefolium (Yarrow) for essential hypertension
• Allium sativum (garlic)
• Apium graveolens: juice and seeds
• Arctium lappa (Burdock)
• Arnica spp. (toxic)
• Berberis vulgaris (root bark of Oregon Grape Root)
• Cimicifuga spp. (Blue cohosh)
• Crataegus oxyacantha: cardiotonic, stabilizes heart (Hawthorne berries)
• Fagopyrum esculentum (buckwheat) with vitamin C for raised arterial tension with capillary bleeding
• Ginkgo biloba (standardized extract)
• Hamamelis virginiana (Witch Hazel)
• Olea europaea (olive oil)
• Rauwolfia serpentina (toxic):primary hypertension
• Scutellaria lateriflora (Skullcap) to soothe the nervous system
• Taraxacum officinale (Dandelion), useful as a diuretic and to tone the vasculature
• Tilia platyphyllos for hypertension associated with atherosclerosis
• Valeriana spp. (Valerian root)
• Viscum album (Mistletoe). Beware! this plant is toxic in relatively low doses but useful for high blood pressure which presents with headache, dizziness, loss of energy, and irritability

Chinese herbs:

• Coptis and Scute (Huang Lian Jie Du Tang) (or if constipation, Coptis and Rhubarb C. (Xie Xing Tang)); Jiang Ya Wan (patent); Uncaria 6 (patent): Liver Fire Blazing Upward: irritability, dry mouth, insomnia, dark urine, red tongue with yellow coat, forceful pulse
• Bupleurum and Dragon Bone (Chai Hu Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang): Gall Bladder Phlegm: irritability with occasional attacks of palpitations, constipation, heavy sensation in the body, wiry rapid pulse , greasy tongue coat
• Zhen Gan Xi Feng Tang; Tianma Chu Feng Pu Pien (patent); Jiang Ya Wan (patent); Uncaria 6 (patent): Liver Wind Arising from Liver Yang Rising: dizziness, headache, irritability, flushed face
• Ban Xia Bai Zhu Tian Ma Tang: Spleen Qi Xu (Deficiency) causing Phlegm and Liver WInd Stirring: vertigo, headache, nausea/vomiting · Major Bupleurum C. (Da Chai Hu Tang): Liver Qi Stagnation in obese or strong constitution patients
• Rehmannia Six F. (Liu Wei Di Huang Wan): Kidney Yin Xu (Deficiency)and Liver Yin Xu (Deficiency): low back pain, tinnitus, night sweats
• Linking Decoction (Yi Guan Jian): Kidney Yin Xu (Deficiency) and Liver Yin Xu (Deficiency) with Liver Qi Stagnation: hypochondriac and chest pain/tightness, acid regurgitation
• Tang Kuei and Gambir C.: Kidney Yin Xu (Deficiency): Weaker patients with chronic hypertension, including due to kidney disease · Yao Qin Qing Dan Tang: Gallbladder Damp-Heat: alternating fever and chills, chest pain/tightness, nausea, bitter taste in mouth, acid regurgitation
• Gentiana C. (Long Dan Xie Gan Wan) (available as patent); Gentiana 12 (patent): Liver and Gall Bladder Invaded by Damp-Heat
• Xue Fu Zhu Yu Tang: Xue (Blood) Stagnation and Liver Qi Stagnation: chest and hypochondriac pain, chronic fixed piercing headache, depression, insomnia, irritability
• Si Sheng Wan: Xue (Blood) Heat: dry mouth, nosebleeds · Er Xian Tang: Kidney Yin Xu (Deficiency) with Empty Fire Blazing and Kidney Yang Xu (Deficiency): menopausal hypertension
• Vitality C. (Zhen Wu Tang); Du Zhong Pian (Compound Cortex Eucommia Tablets) (patent): Kidney Yang Xu (Deficiency)and Spleen Yang Xu (Deficiency) with Water Stagnation: primary hypertension: edema, loose stools, dizziness, pain worse with cold
• Tienma and Shou Wu (patent); Uncaria 6 (patent): Liver Xue Xu (Blood Deficiency) with Liver Yang Rising.
• Wan Shi Niu Huang Qing Xin Wan (patent): Pericardium Invaded by Heat
• Bupleurum and Gambir F.

Acupuncture point combinations:
After assessing the person and palpating, consider these patterns:

• Flourishing of Fire of Liver and Gall Bladder; Liver Wind Stirring; Liver Yang Rising; Liver Fire Blazing Upward; Upward Attack of Qi and Xue (Blood); Gall Bladder Phlegm; Liver and Gall Bladder Invaded by Damp-Heat; Xue (Blood) Stagnation and Liver Qi Stagnation; Liver Xue Xu (Blood Deficiency) with Liver Yang Rising; Pericardium Invaded by Heat; Xue (Blood) Heat; Xiao Yang imbalance in the Windows to the Sky; Spleen Qi Xu (Deficiency); Excessive secretion and obstruction by Wet Phlegm; Wind-Phlegm Obstruction; Liver and Kidney Yin Xu (Deficiency), esp. with Empty Fire Blazing; Xu (Deficiency) of both Yin and Yang

Illustrative combinations:

• Stomach-9, Larege Intestine-11 and Stomach-36 for hypertension
• Liver-3, Urinary Bladder-18, Stomach-36 and Large Intestine-11 for primary hypertension; also consider Heart-7 and yin tang (extra point between eyebrows) with dizziness; Pericardium-6 and Urinary Bladder-15 with palpitation; Heart-7 and Spleen-6 with insomnia
• Gall Bladder-20, Large Intestine-11, Stomach-36 and Liver-3 for hypertension; also consider Liver-2, tai yang (extra point at lateral edge of eyebrows), Triple Warmer-7, Heart-7, an mian (extra point behind ear), Spleen-6, Kidney-3, Gall Bladder-34, Spleen-9, Stomach-40, Pericardium-6, Conception Vessel (CV)-4 and CV-6

Homeopathy is another form of “energy” medicine, which like Traditional Chinese Medicine uses substances to stimulate your own innate power to heal. Homeopathic medicine is often touted as the “medicine of the 20th century” by its proponents because it uses minute doses of plants, minerals or animal parts to produce “remedies” with very little resultant environmental damage. The remedies to consider in hypertension are:

• Aurum metallicum if the presentation is violent palpitation; orthopnea (difficulty breathing while lying down), fullness in the heart region, with symptoms worse at night
• Baryta carbonicum is you are chilly, physically and mentally compromised, have palpitations which are worse while you’re lying on your eft side; vertigo in the morning, fainting with nausea
• Conium maculatum for vertigo which comes on with the slightest motion of head or lying down, if you feel better closing your eyes or if you have an occipital headache on rising in the morning
• Kali iodatum for hypertension with a past history of syphilis or Mercury poisoning; for hypertension with bleeding problems; for chronic, burning nasal discharge and pain in the frontal sinus
• Lachesis for left-sided heart failure, hemorrhagic tendencies, with angina, and in a hot patient
• Natrum muriaticum for headache and vertigo, throbbing, one-sided symptoms if you’re also a hot patient; have vertigo with nausea and tendency to fall forward and to the left
• Picric acid for hypertension due to enlarged prostate, renal conditions; with occipital headache that feels better when a tight bandage is applied to the head
• Plumbum metallicum with atherosclerosis; nephritis; mental depression; when symptoms are worse at night, worse from mental exertion; for dark, hard stools
• Secale cornutus is the remedy for you if you feel internal heat with external coldness, and you feel better uncovering bedclothes or clothing; if you have ableeding tendency; with palpitation and a boring pain in chest.
• Strontium carbonicum with flushed face and threatened apoplexy; vertigo with headache and nausea; chilly, better immersing hands in water.

Another popular, new to the West, type of plant medicine makes use of specially prepared flower “juices” whose essences are extracted in alcohol, usually. The flower essences to consider in hypertension are:

• willow
• honeysuckle
• gentian
• dill
• mallow

Yet another form of “vibrational” medicine consists of the use of various colors for the specific therapeutic properties these colors emit. There are different ways to apply color therapy, including wearing clothing of a certain color, or assuming a relaxed or meditative state then imagining the color seeping into your body, or using thin colored pieces of plastic (”gels”) over a light source in the home or office, such as a lamp. Colors reputed to benefit hypertension are:

• lemon (helps to dissolve blood clots) and purple (helps to lower blood pressure by three pathways: vasodilation, slows heart rate, and helps to calm kidney and adrenals)
• magenta (a cardiotonic; helps to build up and balance the functional activity of kidneys and adrenals) on chest and kidneys
• indigo (an astringent, antipyic, antiemetic, and hemostatic) on whole body if tumors found in chromaffin system, or on kidneys if found in kidneys or adrenals
• blue or green
• green on top of head
• indigo, blue, green, and orange

Other people like to use “healing rocks,” or semi-precious stones to help with physical, emotional or spiritual complaints. Gems that have been reported to be helpful in hypertension are:

• Sapphire
• Coral
• Pearl
• Pearl, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond combination
• Emerald, Sapphire, Cat’s Eye combination

As with most diseases, hypertension is likely to have mental and emotional correlates, that may even be part of the causation of the trouble. When exploring who to best treat your hypertension, open you mind to the following concepts. They may help!

• Do you have a mainly type A behavior pattern?
• Could you describe your personality as dynamic, maybe even hyperactive? Do you work with a large steady output of energy. Are you sensitive and quick tempered, but without serious mood fluctuations? · Do people tell you you exhibit too much anxiety, ambition, and anger?
• Can you relate to feeling that your blood and anger are boiling over and need to be cooled?
• Do you feel suppressed rage, fear or repressed hostility resulting from frustration or resentment? Do you have inhibited aggressive impulses and hostile tendencies?

Hypertensive patient are like overreactive sounding boards and often display increased anxiety, inappropriate coping behaviors in socially distressing situations or exaggerated dependency needs.
Treatment procedures derived from a cognitive-behavioral base and consisting of training experiences for coping effectively with stress may produce significant decreases in your state of anxiety and your systolic blood pressure. High diastolic blood pressure is more dangerous, and more difficult to treat with psychospiritual approaches.

The heart represents your center of love and security. Heart problems are thus logically associated with longstanding emotional problems such as lack of joy or belief in strain and stress. If you are a person who feels threatened with being harmed by an ever-present danger you will constantly feel the need to be on guard, as though you need to be prepared to meet all conceivable threats. This stance is exhausting, especially to the heart! A suitable psychospiritual approaching to treating hypertension must be geared towards resolving residual anger, fear or frustration in your life

Consider this quote: “The blood pressure is an expression of a person’s general dynamism. It arises out of the mutual effects of the behavior of the liquid blood on the one hand and the behavior of the limiting walls of the blood vessels on the other. When considering the blood pressure we always need to bear in mind these two mutually contradictory components: the fluid and the flowing on the one hand, and the limitation and the resistance on the other. To the extent that the blood corresponds to our own inner being, the walls of the vessels correspond to the limits that the unfolding personality sets upon itself and the resistances that stand in the way of our developement.
In the case of hypertension, the circulatory system maintains a long term excitation in the expectation that it will eventually be translated into action. If the action fails to materialise, the patient stays ‘under pressure’. Of even greater importance is that the same relationship applies where conflict is concerned. These patients take refuge in superficial ‘busy-ness’, attempting through great external activity to divert both themselves and others from the challenge to come to grips with their conflict.” People with hypertension have a good deal of aggression which they repress by exercising self-restraint. (Dethlefsen, p. 195-197, 201)

Here are some specific therapeutic ideas towards using the power of your loving mind to heal hypertension:

• Any relaxation techniques such as meditation, Transcendental Meditation, yoga, progressive relaxation, autogenic training will be beneficial.
• Qigong (Chinese breathing exercise) treatment indicates that breathing exercises may reliably regulate the internal autonomic functioning, and thus signal the nervous system to slow down.
• Relaxation techniques may fail if underlying behavioral factors are not addressed. In other words you can meditate all you want but it won’t help if you’re still real

The reason you have “high cholesterol” is probably because you have eaten too much saturated fat (from animals) over the years. Some people, however, have an inherited type of high cholesterol. For more information on familial hypercholesterolemia please see the conventional diagnosis section.

Clinical high cholesterol is usually found in the blood values on a annual check-up. No signs or symptoms may be present even with life threatening atherosclerotic disease. This diagnosis may be a result of a life of poor eating habits, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, excessive drinking, etc. You may be experiencing angina, hypertension, or kidney disease as well as the elevated blood lipids. Even though it’s quite likely you can control your high cholesterol with some basic dietary changes, there are some other disease problems which can cause this syndrome. Make sure your doctor has discussed the “rule-outs” with you; in other words make sure your high cholesterol is NOT because of:

• von Gierke’s disease
• “sluggish” liver syndrome
• hypothyroidism
• pregnancy
• pancreatic dysfunction
• nephrosis

In industrial countries, people who are apparently symptom-free may suddenly have a massive MI (myocardial infarction, or heart attack). It may be the first indicator of disease. Therefore yearly cholesterol screens are highly recommended. Hypercholesterolemia in Western countries seems well-linked to significant morbidity (hypertension, angina) and mortality (MI, CVA or cerebral vascular accident, which usually refers to stroke). It is estimated that half the population in the U.S. will die from Congestive Heart Disease (CHD) and the results of atherosclerosis. Coronary bypass surgery is one of the most common operations now performed, even though it carries inherent risks and research has shown that its effect is generally transient, with patients often experiencing repeat symptoms only 2-3 years post-surgery. Chelation therapy offers some hope, but it remains controversial and only a few physicians have adequate training to perform this technique. New research suggests that prevention and natural treatment offer the healthiest, most lasting and least costly route to recovery.

Cholesterol levels have become the source of much national fear, even though cholesterol is one of the most valuable substances in the human body. Cholesterol is needed for strong cell walls, as a precursor for hormone production, and as a coating around nerves, to name just a few of its very important functions. Cholesterol is made in the liver in amounts up to 2000 mg/day. Cholesterol associated with high density lipoprotein, HDL (and Apolipoprotein A-1), is generally considered to be beneficial to the body, as it works to remove cholesterol from blood vessel walls and the the blood itself, bringing it to the liver for processing and excretion. Cholesterol associated with the low density lipoprotein, LDL (and Apolipoprotein B), is generally thought to be harmful to the body as it carries cholesterol into the bloodstream and can therefore place it into the intima of the arterial walls, promoting atherosclerotic processes. Very low density lipoproteins, VLDLs, become LDLs in the liver and are therefore also generally thought to be harmful.

For many years, this theory placed the effect of high cholesterol as the major etiologic agent in the epidemic of heart attacks and cardiovascular disease experienced in Western nations. However, recent evidence suggests other important factors, such as atherosclerosis.

The best approach to prevention of high cholesterol is regular aerobic exercise and a low animal-fat diet. There are also specific nutritional approaches which include eating a low sugar diet (because where there’s sugar, there’s often fat too), with a high fiber content and, of course, low or no extra cholesterol and a low Sodium or Sodium-restricted diet . To get to the point of prevention, in other words to bring down you high cholesterol at the beginning of your therapy, try 2 or 3 weeks of a vegetarian cleansing diet or a series of short juice-only fasts . Do not attempt a fast unsupervised. Work with a doctor or an experienced friend.

Foods that have specific ability to dissolve blood fats and therefore can hlep reduce high cholesterol include:

• garlic, wheat germ, liquid chlorophyll, alfalfa sprouts, buckwheat, watercress, rice polishings, apple, celery, cherries
• foods high in water-soluble fiber: flax seed, pectin, guar gum, oat bran
• onions, beans, legumes, soy, ginger, alfafa, yogurt
• omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (high quality fats) available in raw vegetable, nut, and seed oils; salmon, herring, mackerel, sardines, walnuts, flaxseed oil, evening primrose oil, and black currant oil.

If you are willing to make fresh juices, the following ones are beneficial for high cholesterol,
according to Dr. Bernard Jensen:

• carrot and pineapple with honey
• liquid chlorophyll
• parsley, alfalfa, and pineapple
• carrot, celery, parsley, and spinach
• carrot and spinach
• carrot, beet, and celery
• celery, lettuce, and spinach
• asparagus and honey

Of course, you must have guessed by now that there’s a list of foods you SHOULDN’T eat.
Please strongly consider avoiding:

• trans-fatty acids, hydrogenated oils (margarine, vegetable shortenings, imitation butter spreads, most commercial peanut butters) and oxidized fats (deep fried foods, fast food, ghee, barbequed meats)
• refined, simple carbohydrates: sucrose, white flour, processed foods

Supplements to consider:

• Vitamin B3 100 mg three times daily, working up to 6 g daily. (Monitor for POSSIBLE LIVER PROBLEMS). Vitamin B3 is also known as niacin and very often produces an intense whole-body flushing reaction that can last up to several hours after taking the supplement. A modified form of the vitamin, which is still useful for lowering cholesterol in most people, is called NIACINAMIDE. Also, remember that the optimal dose must be worked up to. Don’t start with a high dose. Consistency is the key here. Taking niacin for a few weeks then quitting is not going to lower your choelsterol, especially if you continue to eat red meat.
• omega-3 fatty acids: EPA 5-10 g daily
• Vitamin B6 40 mg and folate 5 mg
• Vitamin C 3 g daily
• Vitamin E
• Magnesium 500 mg daily
• Selenium
• Bromelain (a digestive enzyme derived from pineapple stems)
• Molybdenum
• Chromium 200 mcg daily
• Zinc (Hooper, 1980)
• Copper 2 mg daily
• L-carnitine 3 g daily
• phosphotidyl ethanolamine
• rice bran oil 3 g daily

Plant medicines have been used for hundreds of years to contorl and help all sorts of physical and even mental complaints. Before attempting to use plant medicine yourself, please consutl with a qualified herbalist or naturopathic doctor. At the very least go to the library and coose a variety of books to educate you on the topic. Plant medicines can be TOXIC. It is very important to know what you’re doing here. Also, you can waste time and money if you don’t know the best plant to use, or what form or dose to take. However, with these warnings, the following list of herbal (botanical) medicine approaches to high cholesterol is provided as a guideline.

• Allium cepa (garlic) lowers cholesterol
• Allium sativum (onion) also lowers cholesterol
• Commiphora mukul (guggalon gum), an East Indian botanical, is particularly useful because it lowers LDL and VLDL while raising HDL (”good” cholesterol).
• Eletherococcus senticosus (known as Siberian ginseng, although it isn’t actuallly a form of ginseng) lowers cholesterol and also increases overall stamina with regular use.
• Panax ginseng is useful in hyperlipidemia because it reduces total serum cholesterol, triglycerides and raises serum HDL-cholesterol levels.
• Vaccinium myrtillus (blue berries) reduces serum cholesterol and triglyceride levels in primary hyperlipidemia.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a 3,000+ year old system of diagnosis and therapeutics which works primarily in stimulating the body’s natural “vital force” (known as Qi – pronounced chee). There are several areas of TCM, including diet and nutrition, acupuncture and moxibustion (a stick of compressed mugwort which is burned and held close to the body to insert Qi into the area of distress), Qi Gong (slow breath and movement exercises) and medicinal herbs. Chinese medicinal herbs to be considered for high cholesterol, with the guidance of a qualified acupuncturist or Chinese herbalist:

• Cir Q (patent)
• Tienchi Ginseng Tablet (patent)
• Siler and Platycodon F. (Fang Feng Tong Sheng San) works well for obese patients with cardiac disorders, habitual constipation, a strong pulse, abdominal firmness and fullness, facial reddening
• Saliva Shou Wu (patent)

The Qi of the body travels through 12 maor and two “extra” meridians. The energy of each meridian congeals in tiny “pools” along the course of the meridian which can be tapped into to move sluggish energy or draw out excess energy. These pools of Qi are where the acupoints are located. The more than 400 primary acupoints are located in very specific locations on the surface of the skin and are useful for treating not only local complaints, but tap in, each and every one, to an organ system, an emotional state, a sensory pattern (such as vision or hearing) and may also have other special applications. TCM acupoints points to consider after assessing the person constitutionally, as well as for the speicif problem such as in this case, high cholesterol, are the following:

• yi shu (extra point)
• Urinary Bladder-20
• Triple Warmer-4
• Triple Warmer-5
• Pericardium-6
• Liver-13
• Conception Vessel-22
• Conception Vessel-12
• Conception Vessel-9
• Conception Vessel-6
• Stomach-34
• Stomach-36
• Stomach-40
• Stomach-41
• Spleen-9
• Spleen-6
• Spleen-4
• Spleen-3
• Spleen-2
• Kidney-7
• Liver-8
• Liver-3
• Liver-2

Probably the most famous point combination in China for high cholesterol is:

• Liver-3 and Stomach-36 which together help resolve increased blood lipids

homeopathic remedies to consider:

• Cholesterolinum: if necessary, with regular lab work every three months; starting with higher potencies and descending
• Carbo vegetabilis: patient is sluggish, fat and lazy; very debilitated; general venous stasis, bluish skin, limbs cold; the simplest food distresses; digestion slow, food putrifies before it digests; aggravation from rich fatty foods
• Ferrum metallicum: obesity, patient looks strong, but is weakly anaemic and chlorolic with pseudo-plethora; worse after any active effort; muscles flabby and relaxed; irregular distribution of blood; sanguine temperment; distention and pressure in stomach after eating; aggravation from fats, oils; intolerance of eggs
• Nitric acid: person dark complexioned and past middle life; hydrogenoid constitution; irritable; vindictive; hopeless despair; love fat and salt; longing for indigestible things; great hunger with sweetish taste
• Nux vomica: patient is thin active irritable, seeks stimulants, takes preferably rich and stimulating food; indulges in alcohol; has late hours; thick head; dyspepsia and irritable temper; easily chilled and avoids open air
• Pulsatilla: mild, gentle, yielding disposition; seeks open air; symptoms ever changing; averse to fat food, cannot tolerate it; eructations; taste of food remains a long time · Sulphur: great acidity; sour eructation; craving for fats; food tastes too salty; very selfish; averse to business; worse standing, worse warmth of bed; better in dry warm weather; very weak and faint around 11 A.M.

flower essences

• aloe vera
• angelica
• blackberry

color therapy

• lemon (helps to dissolve blood clots; acts as a chronic alterative) on front and back
• magenta (a cardiotonic) on chest
• scarlet (acts as a stimulant to the kidneys and adrenals) on kidneys

psychospiritual approaches

• Stress management training in group of 23 patients showed the following results after 24 days: 20% decrease in plasma cholesterol, 44% increase in duration of exercise, 55% increase in total work performed, a 6% increase in ventricular ejection fraction from rest to maximal exercise, and 91% decrease in anginal episodes.
• Four year evaluation: 13,000 male patients age 35-57 were assigned to usual care or to intervention designed to reduce smoking, hypertension, and serum cholesterol. The intervention group showed a strong decrease in all three risk factors over the four years, while the control group showed a moderate decrease (indicative of societal changes in health attitudes). · Clogging the channels of joy; fear of accepting joy.

Visualizations, affirmations and behavior modification:

• Intervention project for type A behavior pattern showed decrease in serum cholesterol which exceeded the decrease in serum levels for patients only treated with psychotherapy. These results were maintained six months after treatment.
• Relaxation techniques reinforced by biofeedback for six weeks where the patients practiced twice a day and incorporated the exercises into everyday activities reduced mean blood pressure from 170/102 to 148/89, and reduced mean cholesterol from 241 to 217.
• Biofeedback-aided relaxation and meditation reduced blood pressure, pulse rate, and smoking habits as well as serum cholesterol, triglycerides, and free fatty acids.
  affirmation (from Louise Hay):I choose to love life. My channels of joy are wide open. It is safe to receive.