Buying a Multivitamin? Buyer Beware
by John Neustadt, ND
President, NBI
Medical Director, Montana Integrative Medicine
Dietary supplements are big business. Not only can you buy them almost anywhere -- supermarkets, big box stores, drug stores, gas stations -- everyone seems to be popping capsules or tablets of one kind of another. According to Nutraceuticals World, an industry publication, Americans spend $24-25 billion a year on supplements. And global sales are projected to reach $187 billion by 2010.
Every week patients show me their dietary supplements and ask me what I think. Most of the time they're inexpensive, one-a-day type brand. They're convenient and cheap. They're also very poor quality.
The industry is poorly regulated and it’s buyer beware. New FDA regulations are taking effect. These define Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and require manufacturing procedures that eliminate instances of contamination, mix-ups, and errors.
GMP is important for protecting the public. But GMP doesn't mandate the quality of the finished product. Manufacturers can still use poorly absorbed nutrients and in amounts that have never been shown in the research to actually help. In fact, to save money most manufacturers today use inexpensive, poor-quality raw materials.
There are three simple questions you can ask to make smart buying decisions. Is it a tablet or capsule? Is it one a day or do you take it multiple times a day? Are there "oxide" forms of minerals in the product? I'll explain each question.
Is it a tablet or capsule?
Tablets are generally more difficult to break apart in your stomach because they contain binders that hold it together. These pills can go right through you without being dissolved or absorbed. While not all tablets have this problem, it would be extremely difficult for the general consumer to know if any one tablet is good or not. But capsules don't have this problem. They are superior to tablets, and why NBI’s Supreme Multivitamin comes in vegetarian cellulose capsules. Always buy capsules if you can.
Is it a one-a-day multivitamin?
If it is, then you're pretty much guaranteed it's garbage. This is because companies have to squeeze and bind all the nutrients together in the tablet. To do so they tend to use forms of minerals that are poorly absorbed, which is a good lead into the next question. This is why NBI’s Supreme Multivitamin requires people take multiple capsules each day.
Does it contain highly-absorbable nutrients?
Companies use poorly absorbed nutrients because they are less expensive. They also know that they can get away with it because most consumers shop just on price. They don't understand that most of what they're buying is likely not even being absorbed.
If it's a once-daily tablet then the product likely contains nutrients that can't be absorbed. Simply look at the Supplements Facts label on the bottle. This is where each ingredient is listed in detail. Find magnesium, calcium, zinc and copper. If calcium is calcium carbonate, or if any of the other minerals are "oxides" (e.g., magnesium oxide, copper oxide), then it's a poor quality formula and not worth your money.
The oxide forms of these minerals are poorly absorbed. In fact, you can only absorb about two percent of magnesium when it's in the oxide form. So if the bottle lists one hundred milligrams magnesium (as magnesium oxide), then you're actually only absorbing about two milligrams. The remaining ninety eight milligrams just pass right through you. Magnesium in an oxide form is so poorly absorbed that in higher doses it's a laxative.
Companies use the oxide form of minerals because they're cheap. But you'd be better off eating a few spinach leaves than wasting your money on a dietary supplement that contains minerals in their oxide forms.
Instead, the most absorbable form of minerals are the amino acid chelated forms. A chelate is a mineral combined with an amino acid such as citrate, malate or aspartate. Amino acid chelated minerals are easier for the body to absorb and can increase absorption to 75%. If you really want your money’s worth, only buy products that contain all their minerals as amino acid chelates (eg, magnesium amino acid chelate).
Calcium, found in all multivitamins and calcium supplements, is a little different. It doesn't come in an oxide form. Instead, most products contain calcium carbonate (this includes coral calcium). It's a large molecule with a lot of elemental calcium. But its size makes it difficult to absorb and can be constipating.
Stomach acid is required to absorb calcium carbonate. But as people age they tend to produce less stomach acid. Up to twenty-one percent of people sixty to sixty-nine years old, thirty-one percent of those seventy to seventy-nine years old, and thirty-seven percent of those above the age of eighty have hypochlorhydria (low stomach acid) or achlorhydria (no stomach acid).
Just when people need the calcium most as they age and take osteoporosis supplements to protect their bones they're absorbing lessand less of this essential mineral.
In contrast, calcium citrate or malate is smaller, easier to absorb and doesn't require stomach acid. The most absorbable forms of minerals are listed as an "amino acid chelate," or as citrate, malate, aspartate or asporotate. Only buy supplements that contain these forms of minerals.
The dietary supplement aisle is confusing for most people, and manufacturers know this. That's why people largely shop just on price. They buy the least expensive bottle possible. In doing so they're flushing their money down the toilet. Be a savvy consumer. Look at your dietary supplement and ask these questions. You'll be getting a better value for your money by buying quality. This is why NBI’s Supreme Multivitamin contains only amino acid chelated minerals and calcium citrate.
How does Supreme Multivitamin compare?
Supreme Mulitivitamin is manufactured to the highest industry standards. It comes in capsules, contains no binders and only the most absorbable forms of minerals. As important, it contains the highest amounts vitamin D, vitamin C, B-complex vitamins, minerals and additional nutrients available in one product.
NBI also ensures each nutrient is tested for contaminants and shown to exceed FDA standards. Additionally, all NBI products are manufactured at a GMP-certified, FDA registered manufacturing company that also manufactures pharmaceuticals. This ensures that NBI products actually conform to pharmaceutical grade manufacturing standards.
Finally, NBI stands behind every one of its products with an unconditional money-back guarantee. No other company provides this level of quality and assurance.
Researched by:
@mannaglide
http://MannaGoods.blogspot.com
-----
This information is not, and is not intended to replace actual medical advice from a qualified doctor.
To receive your free 'Manna Goods Health Bulletin' via email, send an email to: the.manna.goods@gmail.com (Put 'Subscribe' in the subject line.)
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Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
SAFE ALTERNATIVES TO BYPASS SURGERY
SAFE ALTERNATIVES TO BYPASS SURGERY
by: Whitaker, Julian, M.D.
Julian Whitaker is a graduate of Emory University Medical School and a member of the American Medical Association. In 1976 he began working with Nathan Pritikin and this changed the direction of his professional career. In 1979 he opened the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, California where he uses preventive medicine with low-fat nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes as the primary treatment for patients with heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Along with Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Linus Pauling, Dr. Whitaker founded the California Orthomolecular Medical Society. He is the author of Reversing Heart Disease, Reversing Diabetes, The Heart Surgery Trap, and Dr. Whitaker's Guide to Natural Healing. He is the publisher of Health and Healing, the nation's leading health newsletter with a circulation of nearly 700,000.
HEART DISEASE
I am of the very strong opinion that the whole premise of the invasive treatment of heart disease today is just plain wrong and has been disproven. The premise of doing catheterization to find blockages and the premise that you can't treat people unless you have an angiogram are wrong. We have this big debate that using chelation therapy and vitamins and minerals for heart problems is not backed up by scientific evidence. And all of that is just not true. I will present some studies to show you that the premise of the technical approach to cardiovascular disease of running in and trying to do replumbing, whether the replumbing is an operation or a catheter or a balloon simply doesn't get the job done and actually makes people worse. Most of these studies are listed in my two books on heart disease and my Guide to Natural Healing. Reversing Heart Disease, discusses diet and reducing risk factors, and the later book, The Heart Surgery Trap, discusses getting a second opinion when you are faced with a bypass operation or even catheterization.
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES ON BYPASS SURGERY
If we believe that surgical alteration of the arteries is beneficial, then there should be some proof in the scientific literature. In the United States there have been only two truly controlled trials of the values of bypass surgery. Heart disease is a fatal disease - its primary effect is a fatal heart attack. Therefore if you have a therapy which improves that disease you should improve mortality rates. However, scientific studies of bypass surgery have demonstrated that people die at the same rate with or without the surgery. The first study, the Veteran's Administration Hospital Study, published in 1977, was a highly sophisticated five year study with about 600 patients, all of whom had blockages. Half of them had had heart attacks and were typical bypass candidates. They randomized the people into two groups of 300. Three hundred had the operation and 300 didn't. At three, four and five years later, they found no difference whatsoever in the death rates between the two groups. The three year death rate was about 4% per year for both groups.
They did another study. Usually if a surgical procedure is not validated by a scientifically controlled trial, they abandon the procedure. But this industry was already ongoing, so they decided to do another study with 800 patients, all of whom had blockages. This was the CASS study, published in 1984 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Again, the survival rates turned out to be identical between the surgical and non-surgical groups. The death rate in both groups was 1.6% per year which means the survival rate is 98.4% on a yearly basis. They also found that there was no difference in the death rate whether the patient had one, two or three blockages. If there is no difference, why are we operating on them? Subsequently they looked at the five and ten-year follow-up. At five and ten years there was no difference in death rates between the two groups or in any other statistics for that matter. At 16 years, they found that there was no difference at all, and in fact that those who had the surgery were doing worse because the operation actually alters the blood flow in such a way that it begins to weaken the heart, so that having a bypass makes the next heart attack more dangerous.
BYPASS SURGERY WEAKENS THE HEART
The nationwide death rate from bypass surgery is 4%, but the nationwide death rate from the disease without the surgery is 1%, so the surgery is four times more deadly than the disease and actually increases it down the line because people have further problems. Once you get tied into the aggressive approach to heart disease, it is hard to get out because you are always having problems, and they always have to do another procedure, another angiogram or something else. Forty percent of the grafts are blocked up after five years, and 75% are blocked after 10 years. The side effects like memory loss and personality disorders are significant.
WALKING TIMB BOMBS
Yet, when a person is confronted by a cardiologist or heart surgeon about whether or not they should have surgery, they are told they are a walking time bomb, that they can go any moment, "but if we operate on you we can save your life". Both statements are a lie. This is not just my opinion. It's not that I have an axe to grind. It has been proven to be untrue in the CASS study which showed that whether they were operated on or not, the death rate was the same. That means that time bomb doesn't go off 98.4% of the time.
THE EJECTION FACTOR
The most important factor we consider is the ejection factor. This has nothing to do with blocked arteries; it is a measure of the efficiency of the pumping of the heart. The heart fills with blood; let's say it fills with 100 cc's, and then it pumps out 50 cc's. If the heart pumps out 50% that is called a 50% ejection fraction which means the heart is functioning well. This is the only measurement which will give you a prognostic indication about what is going to happen to that individual in the future. When the ejection fraction is 50% or greater, it doesn't matter how many blockages you have, even if it is the left main artery or triple vessel disease, the studies clearly show that surgery does not help you. It is when the ejection factor is low that you might have some benefit.
ESTIMATING THE EJECTION FACTOR
You do not have to have an angiogram to get the ejection fraction. You can estimate the ejection fraction on the function of the heart over the telephone. I had a patient who was a lawyer in his mid-forties. He had been skiing out west and all of a sudden he had some chest pains, so he went to the cardiologist, and they did a stress test and an angiogram, and found a couple of blockages and scheduled him for surgery. He was lying in Johns Hopkins shaved and ready for surgery when someone gave him my book. He called me up and I asked him some questions to find out how his heart was functioning: "Do you get short of breath; do your feet swell; do you have to sleep on two pillows; do you wake up at night short of breath; do you get really short of breath going up stairs?" He answered no to all the questions, so I told him he better get out of the hospital. He came to see me, and he was so healthy I didn't even recommend chelation therapy. But he was about to undergo a $70,000 operation that was putting him in jeopardy. When you undergo bypass surgery, you are subjected to the pump, and that will cause brain damage. It causes brain damage to everyone. So all of his professional and social life was being put into jeopardy for an operation he obviously did not need, could not benefit from, and could only be hurt by. I have hundreds of patients who have been told they had to have bypass surgery when they just didn't need it.
ANGIOGRAPHY
The only information you get from an angiogram is where the surgeon may or may not operate. It has nothing to do with treatment. Treatment depends on how much pain the individual has, the level of their blood pressure and cholesterol, the function of the heart and their exercise tolerance, whether they have cardiac arrhythmias. Eighty percent of angiograms go on to some kind of operation like a bypass or an angioplasty. So where you really stop it is with the angiogram. In 1987 and in 1992, Dr. T.D. Graboys and his group in Boston published studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which he gave his protocol for second opinions for patients who were told to have an angiogram. Most cardiologists tell you they can't treat you unless they have an angiogram to look at the blood vessels. I believe treatment of the patient with heart disease is usually best done without an angiogram. I am a nutritionally oriented physician. That is what you would expect me to say, and this is the way I treat my patients. But Thomas Graboys is a teaching cardiologist at Harvard. Of 168 patients referred to him who had been told by other board certified cardiologists to have an angiogram, he agreed with only six of them. If this Harvard board certified very conservative cardiologist feels comfortable in treating these 162 patients, why is it that they were told by other cardiologists they needed an angiogram or they couldn't be treated? Because it's a business. The increase in the numbers of bypass surgery reflects only one thing, and that is the number of surgeons in the community. Since that is what they have to do to survive in their profession, we are going to have more and more of this kind of thing. Get a second opinion. Dr. Graboys study concluded that bypass surgery could be reduced by 50% to 80%.
THE HEART INDUSTRY
Eugene Brunwald published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1977 which claimed that an industry was being built around an operation that had been disproven, and it was continuing to grow. It was a money machine. And that is still going on. In 1977, there were only about 70,000 bypass procedures per year. Now there are 500,000 bypass surgeries per year plus an additional 400,000 angioplasties, which also have never been validated scientifically.
ANGIOPLASTY
Angioplasty will never be researched in a scientific study, and no one has ever mounted a scientific study on the benefits of angioplasty. The death rate of the procedure is roughly four times the expected death rate of the disease.
LOW FAT VEGETARIAN DIET When I worked with Pritikin I saw people on the Pritikin low fat diet get well. I saw diseases melt away. We were always able to take the patients off drugs. The Lifestyle Heart Trial conducted by Dean Ornish, published in the Lancet, 1990, demonstrated that atherosclerosis can be reversed by changing the diet. The control group received regular medical care and followed the standard American Heart Association diet. The experimental group was asked to eat a low-fat vegetarian diet for at least one year. The diet included fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and soybean products, but no animal products were allowed except egg white and one cup per day of nonfat yogurt. Although margarine has been promoted by the American Heart Association, studies show that margarine and other hydrogenated foods are very damaging foods to heart patients and probably carcinogenic. They were also asked to perform stress-reduction techniques such as breathing exercises, stretching exercises, meditation, and other relaxation techniques for an hour each day and to exercise at least three hours a week. At the end of the year, the experimental group showed significant regression of atherosclerosis of the coronary blood vessels. In contrast, subjects in the control group showed progression of their disease.
VITAMINS AND MINERALS Research has shown that 300 mg. of vitamin C or more daily reduces heart attack rates by 50% and increases life span by about six years. Beta carotene, vitamin E and the other anti-oxidants have a similar effect. Doctors prescribe Mevacor to lower cholesterol presumably to lower heart attacks. The side effects of Mevacor are cataracts, liver failure, hepatitis or gall bladder disease. Why don't you just take some vitamin C which has no side effects whatsoever. Folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 are essential for eliminating homocysteine build-up in the blood which reduces the conversion of LDL and the deposition of cholesterol in the arteries. This has been published in many journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. You need to take B complex vitamins every day, at least 400 mg of folic acid, 50-100 mg of B6, and 400 or more mcg of B12. B vitamins alone can reduce heart disease dramatically. We use magnesium I.V.'s for heart disease, arrhythmias, high blood pressure, angina and asthma. It's a natural calcium channel blocker which works in a similar way to calcium channel blocker medications with none of the side effects.
COENZYME Q10 AND CARNITINE
If you have heart disease, you definitely need to be taking coenzyme Q10 and carnitine. I use coenzyme Q10 for every single heart patient, particularly when your ejection level is low. Take 30 to 100 mg three times daily. Carnitine also helps the ejection factor. Take 500 mg of carnitine two times daily.
AMINO ACIDS
L-arginine at about 6 g per day will increase nitric oxide which relaxes the arteries, lowers the blood pressure and smooths out the blood flow. In a study done at Stanford, it was shown that L-lysine when given with vitamin C can actually carve out arterial blockages.
CHELATION THERAPY
Most of you know about this. Dr. Cutler is now doing it at Stoneybrook. There is better research on chelation therapy than there is on bypass surgery, and it has to be better than bypass surgery because it doesn't hurt anyone. Chelation results in a 93% improvement. There are plenty of scientific studies on this subject. I don't think chelation therapy is a cure all, but I think used along with everything else, it is extremely powerful.
ENHANCED EXTERNAL CALIPULSATION
This is a new very powerful therapy for heart disease. There has been a large study done on it in Stoneybrook in New York. People don't have to suffer with angina with this kind of therapy available. I have seen some excellent results. Of the patients I have treated, 16 out of 18 had complete relief of angina.
SUMMARY:
The best that can be said about bypass surgery and balloon angioplasty is that they are irrelevant to the course of the disease in all but the most serious cases. Bypass does not increase blood flow to the heart in most cases and may even reduce blood flow. The cardiopulmonary pump used during bypass surgery can cause brain damage. This damage can lead to memory loss, paralysis and personality changes. The need for bypass surgery is determined mainly by how well the left ventricular pump is working, not the number of blood vessels blocked. Bypass surgery or angioplasty are not curative; they do not address the reasons why the plaque developed in the first place. The section upstream of the graft has accelerated plaque formation at a rate ten times higher than the ungrafted coronary artery. This is probably way patients do poorly over time. Up to 90% of bypass procedures are done when the ejection fraction is greater than 50% which indicates a healthy heart.
Researched by:
@mannaglide
http://MannaGoods.blogspot.com
---------
by: Whitaker, Julian, M.D.
Julian Whitaker is a graduate of Emory University Medical School and a member of the American Medical Association. In 1976 he began working with Nathan Pritikin and this changed the direction of his professional career. In 1979 he opened the Whitaker Wellness Institute in Newport Beach, California where he uses preventive medicine with low-fat nutrition, exercise and lifestyle changes as the primary treatment for patients with heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Along with Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Linus Pauling, Dr. Whitaker founded the California Orthomolecular Medical Society. He is the author of Reversing Heart Disease, Reversing Diabetes, The Heart Surgery Trap, and Dr. Whitaker's Guide to Natural Healing. He is the publisher of Health and Healing, the nation's leading health newsletter with a circulation of nearly 700,000.
HEART DISEASE
I am of the very strong opinion that the whole premise of the invasive treatment of heart disease today is just plain wrong and has been disproven. The premise of doing catheterization to find blockages and the premise that you can't treat people unless you have an angiogram are wrong. We have this big debate that using chelation therapy and vitamins and minerals for heart problems is not backed up by scientific evidence. And all of that is just not true. I will present some studies to show you that the premise of the technical approach to cardiovascular disease of running in and trying to do replumbing, whether the replumbing is an operation or a catheter or a balloon simply doesn't get the job done and actually makes people worse. Most of these studies are listed in my two books on heart disease and my Guide to Natural Healing. Reversing Heart Disease, discusses diet and reducing risk factors, and the later book, The Heart Surgery Trap, discusses getting a second opinion when you are faced with a bypass operation or even catheterization.
SCIENTIFIC STUDIES ON BYPASS SURGERY
If we believe that surgical alteration of the arteries is beneficial, then there should be some proof in the scientific literature. In the United States there have been only two truly controlled trials of the values of bypass surgery. Heart disease is a fatal disease - its primary effect is a fatal heart attack. Therefore if you have a therapy which improves that disease you should improve mortality rates. However, scientific studies of bypass surgery have demonstrated that people die at the same rate with or without the surgery. The first study, the Veteran's Administration Hospital Study, published in 1977, was a highly sophisticated five year study with about 600 patients, all of whom had blockages. Half of them had had heart attacks and were typical bypass candidates. They randomized the people into two groups of 300. Three hundred had the operation and 300 didn't. At three, four and five years later, they found no difference whatsoever in the death rates between the two groups. The three year death rate was about 4% per year for both groups.
They did another study. Usually if a surgical procedure is not validated by a scientifically controlled trial, they abandon the procedure. But this industry was already ongoing, so they decided to do another study with 800 patients, all of whom had blockages. This was the CASS study, published in 1984 in the New England Journal of Medicine. Again, the survival rates turned out to be identical between the surgical and non-surgical groups. The death rate in both groups was 1.6% per year which means the survival rate is 98.4% on a yearly basis. They also found that there was no difference in the death rate whether the patient had one, two or three blockages. If there is no difference, why are we operating on them? Subsequently they looked at the five and ten-year follow-up. At five and ten years there was no difference in death rates between the two groups or in any other statistics for that matter. At 16 years, they found that there was no difference at all, and in fact that those who had the surgery were doing worse because the operation actually alters the blood flow in such a way that it begins to weaken the heart, so that having a bypass makes the next heart attack more dangerous.
BYPASS SURGERY WEAKENS THE HEART
The nationwide death rate from bypass surgery is 4%, but the nationwide death rate from the disease without the surgery is 1%, so the surgery is four times more deadly than the disease and actually increases it down the line because people have further problems. Once you get tied into the aggressive approach to heart disease, it is hard to get out because you are always having problems, and they always have to do another procedure, another angiogram or something else. Forty percent of the grafts are blocked up after five years, and 75% are blocked after 10 years. The side effects like memory loss and personality disorders are significant.
WALKING TIMB BOMBS
Yet, when a person is confronted by a cardiologist or heart surgeon about whether or not they should have surgery, they are told they are a walking time bomb, that they can go any moment, "but if we operate on you we can save your life". Both statements are a lie. This is not just my opinion. It's not that I have an axe to grind. It has been proven to be untrue in the CASS study which showed that whether they were operated on or not, the death rate was the same. That means that time bomb doesn't go off 98.4% of the time.
THE EJECTION FACTOR
The most important factor we consider is the ejection factor. This has nothing to do with blocked arteries; it is a measure of the efficiency of the pumping of the heart. The heart fills with blood; let's say it fills with 100 cc's, and then it pumps out 50 cc's. If the heart pumps out 50% that is called a 50% ejection fraction which means the heart is functioning well. This is the only measurement which will give you a prognostic indication about what is going to happen to that individual in the future. When the ejection fraction is 50% or greater, it doesn't matter how many blockages you have, even if it is the left main artery or triple vessel disease, the studies clearly show that surgery does not help you. It is when the ejection factor is low that you might have some benefit.
ESTIMATING THE EJECTION FACTOR
You do not have to have an angiogram to get the ejection fraction. You can estimate the ejection fraction on the function of the heart over the telephone. I had a patient who was a lawyer in his mid-forties. He had been skiing out west and all of a sudden he had some chest pains, so he went to the cardiologist, and they did a stress test and an angiogram, and found a couple of blockages and scheduled him for surgery. He was lying in Johns Hopkins shaved and ready for surgery when someone gave him my book. He called me up and I asked him some questions to find out how his heart was functioning: "Do you get short of breath; do your feet swell; do you have to sleep on two pillows; do you wake up at night short of breath; do you get really short of breath going up stairs?" He answered no to all the questions, so I told him he better get out of the hospital. He came to see me, and he was so healthy I didn't even recommend chelation therapy. But he was about to undergo a $70,000 operation that was putting him in jeopardy. When you undergo bypass surgery, you are subjected to the pump, and that will cause brain damage. It causes brain damage to everyone. So all of his professional and social life was being put into jeopardy for an operation he obviously did not need, could not benefit from, and could only be hurt by. I have hundreds of patients who have been told they had to have bypass surgery when they just didn't need it.
ANGIOGRAPHY
The only information you get from an angiogram is where the surgeon may or may not operate. It has nothing to do with treatment. Treatment depends on how much pain the individual has, the level of their blood pressure and cholesterol, the function of the heart and their exercise tolerance, whether they have cardiac arrhythmias. Eighty percent of angiograms go on to some kind of operation like a bypass or an angioplasty. So where you really stop it is with the angiogram. In 1987 and in 1992, Dr. T.D. Graboys and his group in Boston published studies in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which he gave his protocol for second opinions for patients who were told to have an angiogram. Most cardiologists tell you they can't treat you unless they have an angiogram to look at the blood vessels. I believe treatment of the patient with heart disease is usually best done without an angiogram. I am a nutritionally oriented physician. That is what you would expect me to say, and this is the way I treat my patients. But Thomas Graboys is a teaching cardiologist at Harvard. Of 168 patients referred to him who had been told by other board certified cardiologists to have an angiogram, he agreed with only six of them. If this Harvard board certified very conservative cardiologist feels comfortable in treating these 162 patients, why is it that they were told by other cardiologists they needed an angiogram or they couldn't be treated? Because it's a business. The increase in the numbers of bypass surgery reflects only one thing, and that is the number of surgeons in the community. Since that is what they have to do to survive in their profession, we are going to have more and more of this kind of thing. Get a second opinion. Dr. Graboys study concluded that bypass surgery could be reduced by 50% to 80%.
THE HEART INDUSTRY
Eugene Brunwald published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1977 which claimed that an industry was being built around an operation that had been disproven, and it was continuing to grow. It was a money machine. And that is still going on. In 1977, there were only about 70,000 bypass procedures per year. Now there are 500,000 bypass surgeries per year plus an additional 400,000 angioplasties, which also have never been validated scientifically.
ANGIOPLASTY
Angioplasty will never be researched in a scientific study, and no one has ever mounted a scientific study on the benefits of angioplasty. The death rate of the procedure is roughly four times the expected death rate of the disease.
LOW FAT VEGETARIAN DIET When I worked with Pritikin I saw people on the Pritikin low fat diet get well. I saw diseases melt away. We were always able to take the patients off drugs. The Lifestyle Heart Trial conducted by Dean Ornish, published in the Lancet, 1990, demonstrated that atherosclerosis can be reversed by changing the diet. The control group received regular medical care and followed the standard American Heart Association diet. The experimental group was asked to eat a low-fat vegetarian diet for at least one year. The diet included fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and soybean products, but no animal products were allowed except egg white and one cup per day of nonfat yogurt. Although margarine has been promoted by the American Heart Association, studies show that margarine and other hydrogenated foods are very damaging foods to heart patients and probably carcinogenic. They were also asked to perform stress-reduction techniques such as breathing exercises, stretching exercises, meditation, and other relaxation techniques for an hour each day and to exercise at least three hours a week. At the end of the year, the experimental group showed significant regression of atherosclerosis of the coronary blood vessels. In contrast, subjects in the control group showed progression of their disease.
VITAMINS AND MINERALS Research has shown that 300 mg. of vitamin C or more daily reduces heart attack rates by 50% and increases life span by about six years. Beta carotene, vitamin E and the other anti-oxidants have a similar effect. Doctors prescribe Mevacor to lower cholesterol presumably to lower heart attacks. The side effects of Mevacor are cataracts, liver failure, hepatitis or gall bladder disease. Why don't you just take some vitamin C which has no side effects whatsoever. Folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 are essential for eliminating homocysteine build-up in the blood which reduces the conversion of LDL and the deposition of cholesterol in the arteries. This has been published in many journals including the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association. You need to take B complex vitamins every day, at least 400 mg of folic acid, 50-100 mg of B6, and 400 or more mcg of B12. B vitamins alone can reduce heart disease dramatically. We use magnesium I.V.'s for heart disease, arrhythmias, high blood pressure, angina and asthma. It's a natural calcium channel blocker which works in a similar way to calcium channel blocker medications with none of the side effects.
COENZYME Q10 AND CARNITINE
If you have heart disease, you definitely need to be taking coenzyme Q10 and carnitine. I use coenzyme Q10 for every single heart patient, particularly when your ejection level is low. Take 30 to 100 mg three times daily. Carnitine also helps the ejection factor. Take 500 mg of carnitine two times daily.
AMINO ACIDS
L-arginine at about 6 g per day will increase nitric oxide which relaxes the arteries, lowers the blood pressure and smooths out the blood flow. In a study done at Stanford, it was shown that L-lysine when given with vitamin C can actually carve out arterial blockages.
CHELATION THERAPY
Most of you know about this. Dr. Cutler is now doing it at Stoneybrook. There is better research on chelation therapy than there is on bypass surgery, and it has to be better than bypass surgery because it doesn't hurt anyone. Chelation results in a 93% improvement. There are plenty of scientific studies on this subject. I don't think chelation therapy is a cure all, but I think used along with everything else, it is extremely powerful.
ENHANCED EXTERNAL CALIPULSATION
This is a new very powerful therapy for heart disease. There has been a large study done on it in Stoneybrook in New York. People don't have to suffer with angina with this kind of therapy available. I have seen some excellent results. Of the patients I have treated, 16 out of 18 had complete relief of angina.
SUMMARY:
The best that can be said about bypass surgery and balloon angioplasty is that they are irrelevant to the course of the disease in all but the most serious cases. Bypass does not increase blood flow to the heart in most cases and may even reduce blood flow. The cardiopulmonary pump used during bypass surgery can cause brain damage. This damage can lead to memory loss, paralysis and personality changes. The need for bypass surgery is determined mainly by how well the left ventricular pump is working, not the number of blood vessels blocked. Bypass surgery or angioplasty are not curative; they do not address the reasons why the plaque developed in the first place. The section upstream of the graft has accelerated plaque formation at a rate ten times higher than the ungrafted coronary artery. This is probably way patients do poorly over time. Up to 90% of bypass procedures are done when the ejection fraction is greater than 50% which indicates a healthy heart.
Researched by:
@mannaglide
http://MannaGoods.blogspot.com
---------
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Comedian Says Doctor Botched Bypass Surgery
Comedian Says Doctor Botched Bypass Surgery
By, Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer
Published 4:00 am, Friday, May 19, 2000
2000-05-19 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- Comedian Dana Carvey said it was a somber day when he learned that a doctor had operated on the wrong artery during Carvey's double bypass surgery in 1998.
Carvey, who has a family history of high cholesterol, had the surgery to clear a blocked artery. Because of the surgical mishap, the blockage in the diseased artery remained. He has since made a complete recovery. But yesterday he was in court to testify in his $7.5 million lawsuit against the San Francisco surgeon who made the mistake.
After he learned of the botched surgery, he said, he was devastated. "I remember just lying in my bed just sobbing," Carvey told the jury in San Francisco Superior Court. "I can't believe they connected it to the wrong artery," he kept saying to himself.
"I was absolutely just terrified that I was going to have another open heart surgery," he said. That turned out to be unnecessary. But he did require a subsequent angioplasty to clear the blocked artery.
Last year, Carvey, a resident of Marin County, filed suit against the surgeon, Elias Hanna, to recover damages for the six months in 1998 the entertainer spent recovering from the angioplasty. During that time, he said, he had to turn down offers to do commercials, a television series and a spot on the "Hollywood Squares" game show.
In the doctor's defense, Hanna's lawyer has said that Carvey, 44, has an "unusual anatomy" and that his blood vessels were positioned in an atypical way.
While Hanna sat in the front row of the courtroom, Carvey, wearing a blue shirt and black suit, testified how he anguished over making the decision to have open heart surgery in the first place.
But after three unsuccessful angioplasties in 1997, he said that the doctors convinced him that surgery was an effective way to resolve the recurring blockage of his arteries.
"Let's bite the bullet and do this horrific thing, this open heart surgery so I can get on with my life, my career," he recalled thinking to himself.
He had the operation at Marin General Hospital in March 1998. He was "euphoric" when he went home, believing that the potentially life-threatening blockage was finally cleared.
But soon after the surgery, he began to have the same discomfort he experienced before. Hanna assured him it was the effects of the operation. But in May, Carvey was tested by his regular doctors in Los Angeles, who discovered the mistake. They called it a "goof-up" and a case of "gross negligence," Carvey said.
He was told there was a high risk of the artery closing up again. "We all knew I was back to square one again," he said quietly.
He had another angioplasty and then went through six months of recuperation. He recalled being weak and pale and dreading the prospect of having to undergo another open heart surgery if the angioplasty was unsuccessful.
For the first four months, he said, he was so sapped of strength that he could only work three days of stand- up comedy performances.
By the fall, he was beginning to regain his strength and picked up his work schedule.
During his daylong testimony, Carvey mostly maintained a serious demeanor, often taking deep breaths to relieve the tension. But occasionally he drew chuckles from the jury.
After he came out of the surgery at Marin General Hospital, he recalled how he was given morphine to relieve the postoperative pain. "They tell you it's going to run out," he said with a smile, refering to the patient-regulated morphine pump. "But I kept hitting it."
When Hanna's lawyer, Dane Jones, asked him about his accounting and business affairs, he shook his head and talked vaguely about "that stuff."
"I'm just a comedian," he told the lawyer.
A year later, Carvey said that he is on a low-fat diet as well as medication to maintain a low cholesterol level.
"Is your health otherwise good?" his lawyer, David Baum asked him.
"Perfect," Carvey responded.
The trial is expected to last through next week.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Comedian-Says-Doctor-Botched-Bypass-Surgery-2759026.php#ixzz2PS5IHYbi
Researched by:
@mannaglide
http://MannaGoods.blogspot.com
-----
Bring A Smile To Someone's Day
http://ow.ly/1z4j1b
By, Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer
Published 4:00 am, Friday, May 19, 2000
2000-05-19 04:00:00 PDT San Francisco -- Comedian Dana Carvey said it was a somber day when he learned that a doctor had operated on the wrong artery during Carvey's double bypass surgery in 1998.
Carvey, who has a family history of high cholesterol, had the surgery to clear a blocked artery. Because of the surgical mishap, the blockage in the diseased artery remained. He has since made a complete recovery. But yesterday he was in court to testify in his $7.5 million lawsuit against the San Francisco surgeon who made the mistake.
After he learned of the botched surgery, he said, he was devastated. "I remember just lying in my bed just sobbing," Carvey told the jury in San Francisco Superior Court. "I can't believe they connected it to the wrong artery," he kept saying to himself.
"I was absolutely just terrified that I was going to have another open heart surgery," he said. That turned out to be unnecessary. But he did require a subsequent angioplasty to clear the blocked artery.
Last year, Carvey, a resident of Marin County, filed suit against the surgeon, Elias Hanna, to recover damages for the six months in 1998 the entertainer spent recovering from the angioplasty. During that time, he said, he had to turn down offers to do commercials, a television series and a spot on the "Hollywood Squares" game show.
In the doctor's defense, Hanna's lawyer has said that Carvey, 44, has an "unusual anatomy" and that his blood vessels were positioned in an atypical way.
While Hanna sat in the front row of the courtroom, Carvey, wearing a blue shirt and black suit, testified how he anguished over making the decision to have open heart surgery in the first place.
But after three unsuccessful angioplasties in 1997, he said that the doctors convinced him that surgery was an effective way to resolve the recurring blockage of his arteries.
"Let's bite the bullet and do this horrific thing, this open heart surgery so I can get on with my life, my career," he recalled thinking to himself.
He had the operation at Marin General Hospital in March 1998. He was "euphoric" when he went home, believing that the potentially life-threatening blockage was finally cleared.
But soon after the surgery, he began to have the same discomfort he experienced before. Hanna assured him it was the effects of the operation. But in May, Carvey was tested by his regular doctors in Los Angeles, who discovered the mistake. They called it a "goof-up" and a case of "gross negligence," Carvey said.
He was told there was a high risk of the artery closing up again. "We all knew I was back to square one again," he said quietly.
He had another angioplasty and then went through six months of recuperation. He recalled being weak and pale and dreading the prospect of having to undergo another open heart surgery if the angioplasty was unsuccessful.
For the first four months, he said, he was so sapped of strength that he could only work three days of stand- up comedy performances.
By the fall, he was beginning to regain his strength and picked up his work schedule.
During his daylong testimony, Carvey mostly maintained a serious demeanor, often taking deep breaths to relieve the tension. But occasionally he drew chuckles from the jury.
After he came out of the surgery at Marin General Hospital, he recalled how he was given morphine to relieve the postoperative pain. "They tell you it's going to run out," he said with a smile, refering to the patient-regulated morphine pump. "But I kept hitting it."
When Hanna's lawyer, Dane Jones, asked him about his accounting and business affairs, he shook his head and talked vaguely about "that stuff."
"I'm just a comedian," he told the lawyer.
A year later, Carvey said that he is on a low-fat diet as well as medication to maintain a low cholesterol level.
"Is your health otherwise good?" his lawyer, David Baum asked him.
"Perfect," Carvey responded.
The trial is expected to last through next week.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/health/article/Comedian-Says-Doctor-Botched-Bypass-Surgery-2759026.php#ixzz2PS5IHYbi
Researched by:
@mannaglide
http://MannaGoods.blogspot.com
-----
Bring A Smile To Someone's Day
http://ow.ly/1z4j1b
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