Showing posts with label Low-density lipoprotein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Low-density lipoprotein. Show all posts

Sunday, December 8, 2013

The Missing Link to Better Health? Magnesium

Cover of "The Magnesium Miracle"
Cover of The Magnesium Miracle
Magnesium is perhaps one of the most overlooked minerals. This is especially important because, an estimated 80 percent of Americans are deficient in it. The health consequences of deficiency can be quite significant, and can be aggravated by mmany, if not most, drug treatments.
In the featured video, Carolyn Dean, a medical and naturopathic doctor, discusses the importance of this mineral.
Dr. Dean was the lead author on the seminal paper “Death by Medicine” back in 2003, showing that modern medicine is in fact one of the leading causes of death in the United States. She also authored the book Death by Modern Medicine.
Last year, she was awarded the Arrhythmia Alliance Outstanding Medical Contribution to Cardiac Rhythm Management Services Award 2012. It was given by the Heart Rhythm Society of the UK, which is a major allopathic organization.
Dr. Dean has studied and written about magnesium for about 15 years. In January, 2003, she published the first edition of The Magnesium Miracleand she’s currently working on the third edition of this book.
“What I want to convey today is the importance of magnesium, how you can get it, how you can know how much you require in your body, and the incredible benefits from using this simple mineral,” she says.

Magnesium—One of Your Most Important Minerals

Magnesium is a crucially important mineral for optimal health, performing a wide array of biological functions, including but not limited to:
  • Activating muscles and nerves
  • Creating energy in your body by activating adenosine triphosphate (ATP)
  • Helping digest proteins, carbohydrates, and fats
  • Serving as a building block for RNA and DNA synthesis
  • It’s also a precursor for neurotransmitters like serotonin
As mentioned, few people get enough magnesium in their diet these days. Meanwhile, calcium tends to be overutilized and taken in high quantities. This can cause more harm than good, as it’s very important to have a proper balance between these two minerals.
If you have too much calcium and not enough magnesium, your muscles will tend to go into spasm, and this has consequences for your heart in particular.
“What happens is, the muscle and nerve function that magnesium is responsible for is diminished. If you don’t have enough magnesium, your muscles go into spasm. Calcium causes muscle to contract. If you had a balance, the muscles would do their thing. They’d relax, contract, and create their activity,” she explains.
Magnesium is perhaps critical for heart health, as excessive amounts of calcium without the counterbalance of magnesium can lead to a heart attack and sudden death. According to Dr. Dean, your heart has the highest amount of magnesium in your body, specifically in your left ventricle. With insufficient amounts of magnesium, your heart simply cannot function properly.

Pay Attention to Your Calcium-Magnesium Ratio

Over the past 30 years, women have been told to take supplemental calcium to avoid osteoporosis. Many foods have also been fortified with extra calcium to prevent calcium deficiency among the general population. Despite such measures, osteoporosis has continued to climb.
“I’ve heard statistics like a 700 percent rise in osteoporosis in a 10-year period, even while taking all this calcium,” Dr. Dean says.
“The myth that’s been created about calcium is that we need twice as much calcium as we do magnesium. Most of the supplements reflect this. We’ve got a situation where people are taking 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams of calcium and maybe a few hundred milligrams of magnesium.
The 2:1 ratio—that was a mistake; a mistaken translation from French researcher Jean Durlach, who said never ever go beyond two parts calcium to one part magnesium in your food, water, or supplement intake combined.”
This was misinterpreted as meaning a 2:1 ratio was an appropriate ratio, which it’s not. A more appropriate ratio of calcium to magnesium is 1:1.

Also Address Your Vitamin K2 and D Ratios

While not addressed specifically in the featured video, I want to remind you that calcium and magnesium also needs to be balanced with vitamin D and K2. Many of Dr. Dean’s blogs address this issue and her concern that high dose vitamin D can overwork magnesium and lead to magnesium deficiency.

These four nutrients perform an intricate dance together, with one supporting the other. Lack of balance between these nutrients is why calcium supplements have become associated with increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, and why some people experience vitamin D toxicity.
Part of the explanation for these adverse side effects is that vitamin K2 keeps calcium in its appropriate place. If you're K2 deficient, added calcium can cause more problems than it solves, by accumulating in the wrong places.

Similarly, if you opt for oral vitamin D, you need to also consume it in your food or take supplemental vitamin K2 and more magnesium. Taking mega doses of vitamin D supplements without sufficient amounts of K2 and magnesium can lead to vitamin D toxicity and magnesium deficiency symptoms, which include inappropriate calcification.
Magnesium and vitamin K2 complement each other, as magnesium helps lower blood pressure, which is an important component of heart disease. So, all in all, anytime you're taking any of the following: magnesium, calcium, vitamin D3, or vitamin K2, you need to take all the others into consideration as well, since these all work synergistically with one another.

Dietary Sources of Calcium and Magnesium

You can typically get enough calcium from your diet by eating nuts, seeds, deep green leafy vegetables, and dairy products. Homemade bone broth is another excellent source. Simply simmer leftover bones over low heat for an entire day to extract the calcium from the bones. Make sure to add a few tablespoons of vinegar. You can use this broth for soups, stews, or drink it straight. The "skin" that forms on the top is the best part as it also contains other valuable nutrients, such as sulfur, along with healthful fats. Magnesium, on the other hand, tends to be a bit scarcer in our modern food supply.
“Magnesium is farmed out of the soil much more than calcium,” Dr. Dean explains.  ”A hundred years ago, we would get maybe 500 milligrams of magnesium in an ordinary diet. Now we’re lucky to get 200 milligrams. People do need to supplement with magnesium.”
I agree with Dr. Dean on the supplement issue, as industrial agriculture has massively depleted most soils of beneficial minerals like magnesium. If you find biologically-grown organic foods (grown on soil treated with mineral fertilizers), you may still be able to get a lot of your magnesium from your food. Chlorophyll has a magnesium atom in its center, allowing the plant to utilize the energy from the sun. Seaweed and green leafy vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard can be excellent sources of magnesium, as are some beans, nuts and seeds, like pumpkin, sunflower and sesame seeds. Avocados also contain magnesium. Juicing your vegetables is an excellent option to ensure you're getting enough of them in your diet.
However, most foods grown today are deficient in magnesium and other minerals. Fertilizers like glyphosate also act as chelators, effectively blocking the uptake and utilization of minerals. As a result, I believe it would be highly unusual for anyone to have access to foods that are rich in magnesium, which is why I believe it is prudent to consider a magnesium supplement. This is my personal strategy even though I have access to highly nutrient dense foods.

Signs of Magnesium Deficiency

Unfortunately, there's no easily available commercial lab test that will give you a truly accurate reading of the magnesium status in your tissues. Only one percent of magnesium in your body is distributed in your blood, making a simple sample of magnesium from a serum magnesium blood test highly inaccurate. Some specialty labs do provide an RBC magnesium test which is reasonably accurate. This leaves you with looking for signs and symptoms of deficiency. Early signs of magnesium deficiency include loss of appetite, headache, nausea, fatigue, and weakness. An ongoing magnesium deficiency can lead to more serious symptoms, including:
Numbness and tinglingMuscle contractions and crampsSeizures
Personality changesAbnormal heart rhythmsCoronary spasms

In her book, The Magnesium MiracleDr. Dean lists 100 factors that will help you decide whether or not you might be deficient. You can also follow the instructions in her blog post, “Gauging Magnesium Deficiency Symptoms,”1 which will give you a checklist to go through every few weeks. This will help you gauge how much magnesium you need in order to take away your deficiency symptoms.

Which Form of Magnesium Is Best?

If you opt for a magnesium supplement as recommended by Dr. Dean, be aware that there are several different forms of magnesium. The cheapest sources of magnesium are magnesium oxide supplements, which are poorly absorbed by your body. A mere four percent is absorbed when you take this kind. The remaining 96 percent goes through your intestines, which is why magnesium oxide tends to have a laxative effect, which can be useful if you are challenged with constipation.
Besides taking a supplement, another way to improve your magnesium status is to take regular Epsom salt baths or foot baths. Epsom salt is a magnesium sulfate that can absorb into your body through your skin. Magnesium oil (from magnesium chloride) can also be used for topical application and absorption.
The reason for the wide variety of magnesium supplements on the market is because the magnesium must be bound to another substance. There's no such thing as a 100% magnesium compound supplement (except pico-ionic magnesium). The substance used in any given supplement compound can affect the absorption and bioavailability of the magnesium, and may provide slightly different, or targeted, health benefits:
Magnesium glycinate is a chelated form of magnesium that tends to provide the highest levels of absorption and bioavailability and is typically considered ideal for those who are trying to correct a deficiencyMagnesium oxide is a non-chelated type of magnesium, bound to an organic acid or a fatty acid. Contains 60 percent magnesium and has stool softening properties
Magnesium chloride / Magnesium lactate contain only 12 percent magnesium, but has better absorption than others, such as magnesium oxide, which contains five times more magnesiumMagnesium sulfate / Magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia) are typically used as a laxative. Be aware that it's easy to overdose on these, so ONLY take as directed
Magnesium carbonate, which has antacid properties, contains 45 percent magnesiumMagnesium taurate contains a combination of magnesium and taurine, an amino acid. Together, they tend to provide a calming effect on your body and mind
Magnesium citrate is magnesium with citric acid, which has laxative propertiesMagnesium threonate is a newer, emerging type of magnesium supplement that appears promising, primarily due to its superior ability to penetrate the mitochondrial membrane

Beware: Many Prescription Drugs Deplete Your Magnesium Stores

According to Dr. Dean, two major lifestyle factors that deplete your body of magnesium are stress and prescription drugs. Unfortunately, the conventional medical approach for the former oftentimes leads to the latter, making your situation progressively worse. Dr. Dean explains:
“The scenario that I like to talk about is very basic. You will recognize it immediately in either yourself or your family members. You go to your doctor. You’re under massive stress. Massive stress means you’re losing magnesium. You’re burning magnesium out of your body, because it helps support your adrenal glands. It helps keep you away from anxiety and depression. It helps relax your muscles.
If you’re all tight and stressed, your magnesium is being lost, [which makes] the muscles of your blood vessels tighten. That tightness is going to cause increased blood pressure. Your doctor... will say, ‘Oh, your blood pressure is elevated. We’ll give you a diuretic.’
A diuretic will drop the fluid level in your body to take the pressure off your blood vessels, so your blood pressure will drop. But diuretics also drain off your magnesium... A month later you come back, and the doctor finds your blood pressure’s even more elevated. Yes—because you’ve just lost more magnesium! Your doctor then puts you on a calcium channel blocker. Now, they have that part right. They know that without magnesium, your calcium is going to become elevated and will tighten up your blood vessels, so they try to block calcium. But they don’t know that magnesium is a natural calcium channel blocker.
Your doctor may also put you on an angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitor, another blood pressure drug... So, you go away with three drugs now. After two or three months, you come back and have blood taken to make sure that drugs aren’t hurting your liver... All of a sudden, your cholesterol is elevated. All of a sudden, your blood sugar is elevated. What does the doctor say? ‘Oh, we caught your cholesterol. We just caught your blood sugar. We can put you on medications.’ But they didn’t catch them; they caused them.”
Dr. Dean warns that the more you deplete your magnesium, the more out of control your cholesterol will get, because magnesium helps balance the enzyme that creates cholesterol in your body, thereby aiding in normalizing your cholesterol levels. Interestingly, and importantly, statin drugs destroy the same enzyme that magnesium balances, she says. Magnesium deficiency is also a common symptom in diabetes, so drugs may inadvertently contribute to diabetes simply by depleting your body of magnesium.

Fluoride Very Effectively Drains Your Body of Magnesium

Of particular concern is fluoride, which is used in a variety of different drugs. Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like Cipro are the most well known for their fluoride content and its associated problems. But fluoride is also added to other drugs, including certain cholesterol medications, anti-anxiety drugs, and painkillers for arthritis, for example. Magnesium binds to fluoride to form magnesium fluoride, and that very effectively drains magnesium from your body.
Many drugs also tend to promote chronic inflammation. According to Dr. Dean, calcium is a precursor of inflammatory effects, while magnesium is an effective anti-inflammatory nutrient. This is why it’s so important to maintain the appropriate ratio of magnesium to calcium. Again, too much calcium without sufficient amounts of magnesium may actually contribute to the development of heart disease.
“We’ve got three studies now in the British Medical Journal. It was a research facility out of New Zealand that showed that women who simply take calcium supplements are at a much higher risk for heart disease. Nothing is said about magnesium. People were just sort of left up in the air. Some doctors are saying, ‘Yeah, don’t take calcium anymore.’ Nobody’s talking about magnesium as being the balance point,” she says.

More Information

You can learn more about this important mineral by visiting Dr. Dean’s website, DrCarolynDean.com,2 or by reading her book,The Magnesium MiracleShe’s also on the medical board of the Nutritional Magnesium Association,3 a non-profit organization where you can get free information about magnesium. It too provides a helpful page4 you can use to determine whether you might need more magnesium in your diet. You can also find Dr. Dean on the Facebook page, The Magnesium Advocacy Group5(MAG).
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Friday, November 29, 2013

New Cholesterol Treatment Guidelines Could Double the Number of People on Dangerous Statins





By Dr. Mercola
One in four Americans over the age of 45 currently take a statin drug, despite the fact that there are over 900 studies proving their adverse effects, which run the gamut from muscle problems to increased cancer risk.
Now, new treatment guidelines for high cholesterol will likely DOUBLE the number of Americans being prescribed these dangerous drugs, bringing the total to an estimated—and staggering—72 million people!
The new guidelines, laid out in the report 2013 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Treatment of Blood Cholesterol to Reduce Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Risk in Adults1,2 were issued by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology on November 12.
The updated treatment guidelines now focus on risk factors rather than cholesterol levels.
The guideline report was prepared by a panel of “experts” who volunteered their time, and is ostensibly based on an analysis of randomized controlled trials. Not surprisingly, the panel members are affiliated with more than 50 different drug companies, many of which have a financial interest in the outcome of this report. One of the authors even has stock in a medical malpractice firm.
According to the New York Times,3 several committee members ended up dropped out of this investigative panel because they were “unhappy with the direction the committee was going.”

How May the New Guidelines Affect You?

As explained by the American Heart Association,4 the new guidelines advise doctors to look at certain risk factors in order to determine if a patient should be prescribed a statin drug, or whether he or she should simply focus on heart healthy lifestyle changes. The problem is, virtually no one will fall into the latter category.
If you answer “yes” to ANY of the following four questions, the treatment protocol calls for a statin drug:
  1. Do you have heart disease?
  2. Do you have diabetes? (either type 1 or type 2)
  3. Is your LDL cholesterol above 190?
  4. Is your 10-year risk of a heart attack greater than 7.5 percent?
The calculation to ascertain your 10-year heart attack risk was developed by a committee chaired by Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones. He explained the cardiovascular risk calculator,5 to CNN:6
"We were able to generate very robust risk equations for both non-Hispanic white men and women as well as African-American men and women. Those equations factor in age, sex, race, total and HDL ('good') cholesterol levels, blood pressure levels, blood pressure treatment status as well as diabetes and current smoking status. Each of those factors is assigned a numerical value and can be used to determine individual risk percentage using an online calculator.”

Well-Known Integrated Cardiologist Decimates Treatment Guidelines

Dr. Stephen Sinatra7 wrote an in-depth article in which he decimates every single one of these four treatment guidelines. According to him, the new guidelines are at best 20-25 percent accurate, and here’s why:
  1. The heart disease criteria, while it might be appropriate for older men, does not really work for women. There’s no data demonstrating that the benefits of statins outweigh the health risks in women—risks that include diabetes and breast cancer.
  2. According to Dr. Sinatra: “[I]n my opinion, the only women who should be on statins are those with advanced coronary artery disease who continue to deteriorate despite lifestyle interventions. I believe that less than one percent of women with coronary artery disease fall into this category.”
  3. In short, giving a drug that causes diabetes to someone who already hasdiabetes is nonsensical. It can only make matters worse. What’s more, data indicates that statins can cause arterial calcification in diabetic men who take the drug. Thirdly, statins can cause cataracts, which is a common problem in diabetics. The drug may therefore increase this risk.
  4. This may be appropriate if you have genetic familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes you resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol, such as diet and exercise. This condition is quite rare, affecting an estimated one in 500. In the absence of this genetic situation, treating high LDL levels has little validity.
  5. As you will see below, the 10-year heart attack risk calculation has been “programmed” in such a way as to make patients out of virtually everyone. Besides that, Dr. Sinatra points out that the complexity of estimating risk based on age, race, blood pressure, smoking habits and other criteria is quite likely to lead to overzealous prescribing.

The CV Calculator—‘A Major Embarrassment'

The CV risk calculator, which basically evaluates those who do not immediately qualify by having heart disease, diabetes or elevated LDL, appears to have some very significant flaws. And again, not surprisingly, the flaws are such that a vast majority of people end up having a greater than 7.5 percent risk of a heart attack within the next 10 years—thereby qualifying them for “preventive” statin treatment.
A very clever strategy indeed: create a test that virtually assures that everyone who takes it will be a candidate for these expensive drugs they’re seeking to have people take for the rest of their lives. According to a November 17 article in the New York Times,8 Dr. Steven Nissen (quoted earlier) spoke out against the implementation of these guidelines:
“[I]n a major embarrassment to the health groups, the calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk, so much so that it could mistakenly suggest that millions more people are candidates for statin drugs. The apparent problem prompted one leading cardiologist, a past president of the American College of Cardiology, to call... for a halt to the implementation of the new guidelines.
‘It’s stunning,’ said... Dr. Steven Nissen... “We need a pause to further evaluate this approach before it is implemented on a widespread basis.’ ‘We’re surrounded by a real disaster in terms of credibility,’ said Dr. Peter Libby, the chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.”
...The controversy set off turmoil at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association... After an emergency session... the two organizations that published the guidelines — the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology — said that while the calculator was not perfect, it was a major step forward, and that the guidelines already say patients and doctors should discuss treatment options rather than blindly follow a calculator.”

Using the CV Calculator Virtually Guarantees You’ll Be Put on a Statin

As it stands, the guideline committee has vowed to examine the flaws to determine if and what changes are needed to make it more accurate. Until then, it may be good to know that the calculator appears to overestimate your risk by anywhere from 75 to 150 percent! Dr. Nissen used the calculator to evaluate some of his own patients—men who had no known risk markers. They had healthy cholesterol levels, normal blood pressure, and didn’t smoke; in short, men who were completely healthy, and found they still ended up having a 7.5 percent risk, qualifying them for arbitrary drug treatment.

“Something is terribly wrong,” he told the New York Times,9 noting that using this calculator will ensure that virtually every “average healthy Joe” gets statin treatment. According to the two researchers who discovered the problem:10
“Miscalibration to this extent should be reconciled and addressed before these new prediction models are widely implemented. If real, such systematic overestimation of risk will lead to considerable overprescription.”
But that’s not all. As described by the American Heart Association,11 the guideline also does away with the previous recommendation to use the lowest drug dose possible—a strategy that typically meant you’d end up being prescribed a low-dose statin along with one or more other cholesterol-lowering medications. The new guideline basically focuses ALL the attention on statin-only treatment, and at higher dosages, ostensibly to eliminate the need for additional drugs. But if you don’t need ANY drug to begin with, why take a much higher dose of a drug that is well known for having potentially serious side effects?!

Statins Are Hardly Preventive Medicine

The panel members have concocted a bizarre justification for these actions, trying to make it sound like the new recommendations are focused on prevention through lifestyle modifications along with statin therapy. This is a gross misapplication of the word “prevention,” as these drugs cannot address the underlying conditions of heart or cardiovascular disease. Even more egregious, they have apparently chosen to completely ignore recent research showing that statins can effectively negate the benefits of exercise, which is one of the primary heart disease prevention strategies!
But the biggest “sham” of all is that statin drugs, touted as “preventive medicine” to protect your heart health, can actually havedetrimental effects on your heart. For example, a study published just last year in the journal Atherosclerosis,12 showed that statin use is associated with a 52 percent increased prevalence and extent of calcified coronary plaque compared to non-users. And coronary artery calcification is the hallmark of potentially lethal heart disease. Just what kind of prevention is that?

Statins Shown to Nullify Benefits of Exercise

One of the major benefits of exercise is the beneficial impact it has on your heart health, and exercise is a primary strategy to naturally maintain healthy cholesterol levels. Alas, if you take a statin drug, you’re likely to forfeit any and all health benefits of your exercise. As previously reported by the New York Times:13
In past studies, researchers have shown that statins reduce the risk of a heart attack in people at high risk by 10 to 20 percent for every 1-millimole-per-liter reduction in blood cholesterol levels (millimoles measure the actual number of cholesterol molecules in the bloodstream), equivalent to about a 40-point drop in LDL levels.
Meanwhile, improving aerobic fitness by even a small percentage through exercise likewise has been found to lessen someone’s likelihood of dying prematurely by as much as 50 percent... But until the current study, no experiment scrupulously had explored the interactions of statin drugs and workouts in people. And the results, as it turns out, are worrisome.”
The study, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology,14 discovered that statin use led to dramatically reduced fitness benefits from exercise, in some cases actually making the volunteer LESS fit than before. The results showed that:
  • On average, unmedicated participants improved their aerobic fitness by more than 10 percent after a 12-week long (five days a week) supervised exercise program. Mitochondrial content activity increased by 13 percent
  • Volunteers taking 40 mg of simvastatin improved their fitness by a mere 1.5 percent on average, and some had reducedtheir aerobic capacity at the end of the 12-week fitness program. Mitochondrial content activity decreased by an average of 4.5 percent
According to senior study author John P. Thyfault, a professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri:15“’Low aerobic fitness is one of the best predictors’ of premature death. And if statins prevent people from raising their fitness through exercise, then that is a concern.”

How Statins Might Undo Fitness Benefits and Make Your Heart Health Worse

The key to understanding why statins prevent your body from reaping the normal benefits from exercise lies in understanding what these drugs do to your mitochondria—the energy chamber of your cells, responsible for the utilization of energy for all metabolic functions.
The primary fuel for your mitochondria is Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), and one of the primary mechanisms of harm from statins in general appears to be related to CoQ10 depletion. This also explains why certain statin users in the featured trial ended up withworse aerobic fitness after a steady fitness regimen.
It's been known for many decades that exercise helps to build and strengthen your muscles, but more recent research has revealed that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential role exercise can play in your health. A 2011 review published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism16 pointed out that exercise induces changes in mitochondrial enzyme content and activity (which is what they tested in the featured study), which can increase your cellular energy production and in so doing decrease your risk of chronic disease.

Are New Guidelines a Shrewd Way to Promote Statins Without Blaming Cholesterol?

Odds are greater than 100 to 1 that if you're taking a statin, you don't really need it. The ONLY subgroup that might benefit are those born with a genetic defect called familial hypercholesterolemia, as this makes them resistant to traditional measures of normalizing cholesterol. For many years, I’ve been educating my readers about the fact that cholesterol isn’t the cause of heart disease, and even conventional doctors have started catching on. So I can’t help but wonder if these new guidelines, which bypass the issue of cholesterol levels, placing the focus on risk factors instead, aren’t just a shrewd way of getting around this pesky issue.
Now, in three out of four cases, your cholesterol levels will not be a factor at all—you still qualify for statin treatment just by having heart disease, diabetes or a 7.5 percent or greater 10-year risk, based on a calculator that makes patients out of completely healthy people. This truly appears to be a recipe for disaster, and I cannot advise against falling into this trap strongly enough. It reminds me of the ludicrous suggestion three years ago to provide free statins with meals at fast food restaurants.17

Special Warnings for Statin Users

Statins are HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, which means they act by blocking the enzyme in your liver that is responsible for making cholesterol (HMG-CoA reductase). But remember, your body NEEDS cholesterol—it is important in the production of your cell membranes, hormones, vitamin D, and bile acids that help you to digest fat. Cholesterol also helps your brain form memories and is vital to your neurological function. There is also strong evidence that having too little cholesterol INCREASES your risk for cancer, memory loss, Parkinson's disease, hormonal imbalances, stroke, depression, suicide, and violent behavior.
As I mentioned earlier, there are over 900 studies demonstrating the harmful effects of statins. To learn more about statins, please see my special report: “Do YOU Take Any of These 11 Dangerous Cholesterol Drugs?” It’s also important to remember that statins are classified as a "pregnancy Category X medication" meaning, it causes serious birth defects, and should NEVER be used by a woman who is pregnant or planning a pregnancy.  If it is prescribed it is simply gross negligence and malpractice.
Another factor to keep in mind is that statin drugs may not mix well with other potentially lifesaving drugs, such as antibiotics. According to recent Canadian research,18 patients —especially the elderly—taking cholesterol-lowering drugs such as Lipitor, should avoid the antibiotics clarithromycin and erythromycin, as these antibiotics inhibit the metabolism of statins. Increased drug concentrations in your body may cause muscle or kidney damage, and even death.

Statin Drugs Can Wreck Your Health in Multiple Ways

Statins have also been shown to increase your risk of diabetes via a number of different mechanisms, so if you weren’t put on a statin because you have diabetes, you may end up with a diabetes diagnosis courtesy of the drug. Two of these mechanisms include:
  • Increasing insulin resistance, which can be extremely harmful to your health. Increased insulin resistance contributes to chronic inflammation in your body, and inflammation is the hallmark of most diseases. In fact, increased insulin resistance can lead to heart disease, which, again, is the primary reason for taking a statin in the first place. It can also promote belly fat, high blood pressure, heart attacks, chronic fatigue, thyroid disruption, and diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and cancer.
  • Raising your blood sugar. When you eat a meal that contains starches and sugar, some of the excess sugar goes to your liver, which then stores it away as cholesterol and triglycerides. Statins work by preventing your liver from making cholesterol. As a result, your liver returns the sugar to your bloodstream, which raises your blood sugar levels.
Drug-induced diabetes and genuine type 2 diabetes are not necessarily identical. If you're on a statin drug and find that your blood glucose is elevated, it's possible that what you have is just hyperglycemia—a side effect, and the result of your medication. Unfortunately, many doctors will at that point mistakenly diagnose you with "type 2 diabetes," and possibly prescribe anotherdrug, when all you may need to do is simply discontinue the statin in order for your blood glucose levels to revert back to normal.
Statin drugs also interfere with other biological functions. Of utmost importance, statins deplete your body of CoQ10, which accounts for many of its devastating results. Therefore, if you take a statin, you must take supplemental CoQ10, or better, the reduced form called ubiquinol. Statins also interfere with the mevalonate pathway, which is the central pathway for the steroid management in your body. Products of this pathway that are negatively affected by statins include:
  • All your sex hormones
  • Cortisone
  • The dolichols, which are involved in keeping the membranes inside your cells healthy
  • All sterols, including cholesterol and vitamin D (which is similar to cholesterol and is produced from cholesterol in your skin)

New Guidelines Fraught with Massive Conflicts of Interest

The authors of the guideline list conflicts of interest, starting on page 51 of the document, but it’s been reported that anyone with conflicts did not actually vote on the final draft. Some news outlets have therefore reported that there were NO conflicts of interest involved in the making of the guidelines. This is, I believe, a serious mistake in reporting, as members of this panel actually have ties to more than 50 different drug companies. Whether they voted on the final draft or not, they were still instrumental in creatingthe guidelines in the first place.
For example, the lead author, Dr. Neil J. Stone, is a strong proponent of statin usage and has received honoraria for educational lectures from Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kos, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Novartis, Pfizer, Reliant, and Sankyo. He’s also served as a consultant for Abbott, Merck, Merck/Schering-Plough, Pfizer, and Reliant.  Here are two more examples:
  • The second author listed, Jennifer Robinson, admitted to the New York Times in 2011 that she was taking research money from seven companies, including some top sellers of cholesterol pills. University of Iowa records show industry financing of more than $450,000 for research led by Robinson between 2008 and 2011. (As an FYI, 2008 was the year the committee began working on these new treatment guidelines.)
  • Another author, C. Noel Bairey Merz, has received lecture honoraria from Pfizer, Merck & Kos, and has served as a consultant for Pfizer, Bayer, and EHC (Merck). She’s also received unrestricted institutional grants for Continuing Medical Education from Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Novartis, Wyeth, AstraZeneca, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, as well as a research grant from Merck. She also has stock in Boston Scientific, IVAX, Eli Lilly, Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, SCIPIE Insurance, ATS Medical, and Biosite.

12 of 16 Panel Members have Ties to Drug Industry

Two years ago, the New York Times19 criticized the cholesterol panel, including Dr. Stone, for its many apparent conflicts of interest. Stone told the NYT that the group was taking “extraordinary measures to reduce bias,” but with the evidence I've found on this group, how could they possibly not be biased toward the use of statins? At least 12 of the 16 members have financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry!   Even more egregious, only seven of them chose to disclose such ties. After hours of internet research, I discovered five more authors had potential conflicts of interest with industry. It's nothing short of outrageous that an entire nation of people may be prescribed these hazardous drugs based on the decision by a group that has so many financial ties to so many drug companies.
The panel’s conflicts of interest again came under fire in a recent article in Time Magazine,20 which noted that:
“The Institute of Medicine (IOM), an independent organization of scientists that analyzes available data and provides advice on medical issues, recommends that chairs of guideline committees should have no conflicts of interest if possible, and that the entire panel should also be free of ties to industry; if that’s not possible, then at least half of the members should meet this criterion...
Those policies stem from studies suggesting that biases do creep into people’s behaviors, whether consciously or not. In one study published earlier this year, for example, scientists compared the guidelines proposed by two different groups of experts for treating a blood clotting disorder; the panel in which 73% of members reported connections to pharmaceutical companies suggested stronger recommendations for turning to drug-based treatments compared to a panel in which none of the members had ties to industry.”
Dr. Stone claims the panel could not have been created unless members with conflicts of interest were included, because anyone involved in a statin drug trial would be considered a consultant. “And you can’t have expertise without having done clinical trials,” he told Time. However, according to the IOM, panels charged with devising treatment guidelines do NOT really have to be experts in the field. While helpful, clinical experience is not critical because the job of the panel is to assess available research for sound methodology and accuracy of data.

On Living a Heart Healthy Lifestyle

Contrary to what pharmaceutical PR firms will tell you, statins have nothing to do with reducing your heart disease risk. In fact, this class of drugs can increase your heart disease risk—especially if you do not take Ubiquinol (CoQ10) along with it to mitigate the depletion of CoQ10 caused by the drug.
Poor lifestyle choices are primarily to blame for increased heart disease risk, such as eating too much sugar, getting too little exercise, lack of sun exposure and rarely or never grounding to the earth. These are all things that are within your control, and don’t cost much (if any) money to address.
The fact that statins can effectively nullify the benefits of healthy lifestyle changes like exercise, which in and of itself is important to bolster heart health and maintain healthy cholesterol levels, is yet another reason to think twice before opting for such a drug. Also remember that the BEST way to condition your heart (as well as burn excess fat) is to engage in high-intensity interval exercise. Evidence suggests that this may actually provide MORE protection against heart attacks than long durational aerobic-type exercises.
If you’re currently taking a statin drug and are worried about the excessive side effects they cause, please consult with a knowledgeable health care practitioner who can help you to optimize your heart health naturally, without the use of these dangerous drugs.
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Sunday, November 3, 2013

CoQ10 versus Ubiquinol

Ubiquinol, 100MG
Ubiquinol, 100MG (Photo credit: scriptingnews)





By Dr. Mercola
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) has become one of the most popular and well-researched supplements in the US, and for good reason – it's used for energy production by every cell in your body, and is therefore vital for good health, high-energy levels, longevity, and general quality of life.
But while it can be beneficial for virtually everyone, especially if you're seeking to combat the natural aging process, it's absolutely vital for those taking a statin drug.
One in every four Americans over 45 is on a statin, and every single one of these individuals needs to be taking CoQ10 to replenish that which is depleted by the drug. CoQ10 can also help protect your body from free radical damage. What you might not be aware of however, is that there are two forms of CoQ10, and the better, far more effective alternative is its reduced form, called ubiquinol.

Ubiquinol vs CoQ10

Ubiquinol is the form your body actually uses to achieve it benefits. Substantial research shows that if you are over 25, this reduced form is superior for your health in a number of ways. I personally take ubiquinol every day for its superior bioavailability and far-ranging health benefits.
If you're under 25 years old, your body is capable of converting CoQ10 to the reduced form fairly well and the additional expense of purchasing the reduced form is unnecessary. However, if you're older, your body becomes increasingly challenged to convert the oxidized CoQ10 to ubiquinol.
It occurred to me in the interview that the age was really similar to the decrease in growth hormone and Dr. Barry agreed that its reduction most likely follows a similar age related graph, so I've included the age reduction graph for growth hormone below.
Aside from aging, numerous other factors can also impact this conversion process, including:
Increased metabolic demandOxidative stressInsufficient dietary CoQ10 intake
Deficiency of factors required for biosynthesis and ubiquinol conversionPotential effects from illness and diseaseAge-related changes in your genes

If you're over 40, I would strongly recommend taking ubiquinol instead of CoQ10 as it's far more effectively absorbed by your body. In every study conducted so far, ubiquinol has been shown to be far more bioavailable than the non-reduced form (CoQ10).

How Ubiquinol Can Help Prevent Statin-Induced Myalgia

Ubiquinol has only been commercially available for about six years, but already there are well over 100 studies demonstrating its many health benefits. One area of intense research is ubiquinol's effect on statin-induced myalgia. When you take a statin drug, it's important to understand that you:
  • Deplete your body of the primary energy source for your heart – namely CoQ10
  • Diminish the antioxidant protection for the various lipids in your blood, which are required for normal metabolism
Ubiquinol is a critical component of cellular respiration and production of ATP. When you consider that your heart is the most energy-demanding organ in your body, you can surmise how potentially devastating it can be to deplete your body's main source of cellular energy! So while one of statins' claims to fame is to ward off heart disease, you're actually increasing your risk when you deplete your body of CoQ10.
Hence, if you're on a statin, you MUST take supplemental CoQ10 – ideally in the form of ubiquinol – to counteract the damage being inflicted by the drug itself.
The other part most people don't realize is that CoQ10 and ubiquinol are lipid-soluble materials biosynthesized in your blood. The carrier is the blood lipidcholesterol. The ubiquinol actually keeps your LDL (often referred to as the "bad" cholesterol) reduced, as it's an exceptionally potent antioxidant.

Reduced LDL cholesterol isn't bad cholesterol at all. Only the oxidized version will cause a problem. So by reducing CoQ10 production in your body, you're also removing the mechanism that keeps your LDL cholesterol from doing harm in your body.
There's reason to believe ubiquinol could actually be a superior alternative to statins to control cholesterol and protect against heart disease. Unfortunately, it may take a while before anyone will admit its therapeutic powers.
This is because it would have to be proven in formal clinical trials, and then you could be assured of a fight by the pharmaceutical companies.

Lipitor alone is responsible for nearly one-fifth of Pfizer's annual revenue! Ubiquinol could not produce such profits, and Big Pharma would surely not surrender a cash cow as statins to a simple supplement without making a huge fuss. Still, there's highly compelling evidence to consider ubiquinol, whether you're taking a statin drug or not – and perhaps even in lieu of one.

The 'Anti-Aging' Benefits of Ubiquinol

Again, ubiquinol is a critical component for the production of energy in every aerobic cellular system, and if you take that away, you considerably compromise mitochondrial function. This affects more than just your heart. In addition to cardiovascular disease, mitochondrial dysfunction has become increasingly recognized as being directly associated with the aging process itself, including many age-related diseases.
Many anti-aging experts believe optimizing your mitochondria is one of the most powerful strategies you can have to extend your life, and there is certainly overwhelming animal studies that support this view.
Ubiquinol is also important for cellular protection. As mentioned earlier, ubiquinol is one of the strongest lipid-soluble antioxidants known that is produced within your own body. A number of studies published over the past decade have shown that our oxidative state significantly rises with age, even in healthy individuals. Metabolism is a complex affair, and there are few if any magic bullets to address the degeneration that comes with aging. That said, one very important component of that is ubiquinol, as it's required for the production of cellular energy, and serves an important role in cellular protection.

Ubiquinol for Other Chronic Diseases

Ubiquinol is also being studied for a number of other chronic and even genetic diseases such as Down Syndrome. A hallmark of Down Syndrome is a high oxidative state. Studies conducted at a children's hospital in Cincinnati found that ubiquinol was able to bring 80 percent of children with Down's back to normal oxidative levels within a month or so. This did not occur with conventional CoQ10, nor any other therapeutic antioxidant supplements.
According to Dr. Robert Barry, head of scientific affairs at Kaneka Nutrients – the sole producer of ubiquinol in the world, and the major supplier of the world's CoQ10 supply for the last three decades – they're now conducting a formal clinical phase 2 trial to evaluate the clinical benefits of normalizing the oxidative state of children with Down's. Still, regardless of the outcome of such studies, the initial finding is a testament to the sheer effectiveness of ubiquinol in comparison to CoQ10, in terms of repairing heavy oxidative states. Other studies have shown ubiquinol has a positive effect on:
  • Inflammatory processes
  • Septic shock (which is also associated with mitochondrial dysfunction)
  • Cardiac arrest recovery
  • Stroke recovery
  • Periodontal disease (including gingivitis and dry mouth)

Dosing Recommendations and Safety Questions

A common concern by producers of ubiquinol, scientists, and consumers alike, is whether or not supplementing with ubiquinol may negatively affect your body's own production of it. Fortunately, several studies have shown that this is not the case. Even at very high levels of ubiquinol – upwards of thousands of milligrams a day for a considerable period of time – natural production has remained unaffected. The safety profile for ubiquinol is enviable indeed. Even at very large doses, no adverse effects or drug interactions have ever been found or reported.
These considerations – its profound, well-documented health benefits, along with its safety profile – makes supplementing with ubiquinol a no-brainer. Clearly, diet and exercise are the cornerstones of optimal health, but there's overwhelming evidence that ubiquinol can go a long way toward optimizing energy levels, quality of life, and longevity, even if you eat right and stay fit. In fact, one of the most dramatic benefits of ubiquinol lies in its potential to slow down the aging process. This is what motivated me to start taking ubiquinol personally.
In a previous interview with Dr. Barry, he recounted one particularly powerful example of ubiquinol's anti-aging effects. Specially-bred mice that age very rapidly were used to test CoQ10 and ubiquinol against a control group that did not receive supplementation. At the end of the study, when the mice were the equivalent age of 90 to 100 in human years, the differences between the control group and the ubiquinol groups were dramatic. While the control mice were near death, the ubiquinol mice ran around like teenage mice, and the only difference during their entire lifespan was taking ubiquinol.
"What we found is that, in just about every study that has been conducted with ubiquinol (and each one is necessarily a direct comparison to coenzyme Q10), there is a very dramatic metabolic and physiological effect seen with ubiquinol that you don't necessarily see with conventional coenzyme Q10. That study convinced me that there was something different going on with ubiquinol," Dr. Barry says.
Needless to say, this may have profound implications for humans as well. Again, if you're on a statin drug, you MUST take at least 100-200 mg of ubiquinol or CoQ10 per day. If you're not on a statin drug, the amount of CoQ10 or ubiquinol you might need depends on how sick you are. The sicker you are, the more you need.
According to Dr. Barry, if you don't take any form of CoQ10 at all and you're just starting out with ubiquinol, start with 200-300 milligrams a day. Within a two- to three-week period your plasma levels will typically plateau to its optimum level. After that, you can go down to a 100 mg/day maintenance dose per day. This dose is typically sufficient for healthy people. If you have an active lifestyle, exercise a lot, or are under a lot of stress due to your job or "life" in general, you may want to increase your dose to 200-300 mg/day.
Again, you're simply replenishing natural cellular energy that is used up through physical activity and/or stress, and counteracting the natural drop in production levels that come with age. More often than not, especially if you've been "running low," you will feel a difference in energy levels when you start taking it. Ideally, you'll want to split the dose up to two or three times a day, rather than taking it all at once, as this will result in higher blood levels. Other dosing guidelines, as presented by Dr. Stephen Sinatra (a board certified cardiologist, and a prominent expert in the field of natural cardiology) include:

Hypertension, 200 mg/day World class athletes who need extra ATP turnover, 300-600 mg/day Heart transplant or severe CHF, 300-600 mg/day in divided doses
Arrhythmia, 200 mg/day Typical athlete 100-300 mg/day Mitral valve prolapse, a combination of 400 mg magnesium and 100-200 mg of CoQ10
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