Cardiovascular Disease
Nutritional Factors Make A Difference
An individual?s nutritional foundation and lifestyle are important missing pieces of the puzzle about why cardiovascular disease remains the nation's leading crippler and killer. It provides solid information about what can be done to significantly reduce cardiovascular risk today.
A staggering number of people are destined to experience a cardiovascular-related disorder sometime in their lives. Almost 1 million Americans die each year as a result of cardiovascular disease, whereas 556,000 die each year from cancer. Despite these facts, people are often more afraid of cancer than they are of vascular disease.
Americans have become complacent about the dangers of arterial disease. One reason is that the percentage of young people dying from acute heart attacks has plummeted over the past 50 years. Explanations for these reductions include lifestyle changes, greater use of dietary supplements/preventive medications, and improved cardiac medical care.
Many of the underlying causes of arterial disease have been identified in the scientific literature. Regrettably, cardiologists have only addressed a limited number of these factors, such as prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs, controlling hypertension, etc. By ignoring the other proven causes for the epidemic of vascular-related diseases, a significant number of Americans are experiencing needless suffering and are dying prematurely.
A growing consensus among scientists is that common disorders such as heart attack, stroke, and other vascular-related diseases are all caused in part by a chronic inflammatory syndrome. Numerous published articles demonstrate that the presence of blood indicators of inflammation are strong predictive factors for determining who will develop coronary artery disease and have a cardiac-related death.
The good news is lifestyle changes and certain dietary supplements can suppress these dangerous inflammatory components of blood. One of the dangerous inflammatory markers that have been identified is a coagulation protein called fibrinogen. The findings of published scientific studies show that persons with high levels of fibrinogen are more than twice as likely to die of a heart attack. Excessive homocysteine blocks the natural breakdown of fibrinogen. Folic acid, TMG, vitamin B12, and vitamin B6 reduce elevated homocysteine levels. High doses of fish oil or olive oils, have also been shown to lower fibrinogen in humans with elevated fibrinogen levels. Vitamin C, in pharmacological doses, has also been shown to break down excess fibrinogen.
Another inflammatory marker is C-reactive protein. Some studies show that people with high levels of C-reactive protein are almost three times as likely to die from a heart attack. Cardiovascular risk factors such as fibrinogen and C-reactive protein are produced in the liver by pro-inflammatory cytokines called interleukin-1B, interleukin-6, and tumor necrosis factor. Supplements such as highly concentrated DHA fish oil and DHEA suppress excess production of some of these dangerous cytokines.
Conventional medical journals have published hundreds of new studies in recent years that unequivocally link elevated homocysteine to greater risk of heart attack and stroke. The medical establishment woke up to the dangers of homocysteine when The New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association published articles suggesting that vitamin supplements be used to lower homocysteine levels. While folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin B6, and tri-methylglycine (TMG) all lower homocysteine levels, it is impossible for any individual to know if they are taking the proper amount of nutrients unless they have a homocysteine blood test. People taking vitamin supplements think they are being protected from the lethal effects of homocysteine when, in reality, even supplement users can have
homocysteine levels far above the safe level of 6.3.
With cardiovascular disease, like most degenerative diseases, prevention is simply, the very best medicine. Not only has a balanced and preventive lifestyle (diet, exercise and knowledgeable use of nutritional supplementation) been well documented to dramatically reduce risk to heart attacks and cardiovascular disease but add significantly to one?s quality of life. Natural approaches also exist that effectively treat existing heart disease and diseased, blocked arteries.
Physicians for Alternative Medicine is offering a free consultation to those who want to learn more about Dr. Volpe?s ?Healthy Heart Program? as well as other natural treatment programs.
