| Heart researchers and some cardiologists are becoming increasingly frustrated with the fact that their findings are not being taken seriously enough by the health practitioners and their patients. "There is just this embedded belief that fixing an artery is a good thing," said Dr. Eric Topol, an interventional cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. It has almost become fashionable to have one's arteries fixed, just in case. Dr. Topol points out that more and more people with no symptoms are now getting stents. In 2004, over one million Americans opted for a stent operation. |
| Their words carried a warning for the rest of us who perhaps are just as careless when it comes to keeping our cholesterol levels in check. Some cardiologists believe that Clinton will now have to be on a much higher dose of a cholesterol-lowering drug for the rest of his life. This is certainly not unusual after undergoing a heart bypass operation, but it rarely if ever makes sense.
In a Newsday report, Dr. |
Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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 A 2004 article in the New York Times relates a "joke" among cardiologists that the benefits of statins are so great that they "should be added to the water supply." The article continues:
Not only do statins greatly reduce cholesterol and lower mortality in people at risk for heart attacks, but some studies also suggest that they might help prevent or treat a wide range of ailments, including Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, bone fractures, some types of cancer, macular degeneration and glaucoma.'0
Quite a list. |
Connie Bennett, C.H.H.C. with Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Thankfully, a number of open-minded, nutrition-oriented physicians and cardiologists have now arrived at my point of view.
Actually, you may be surprised to learn that cholesterol is very important to our bodies. It lubricates our skin. It forms the basis for our sex hormones—testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. It's vital for our brain function. And cholesterol's release into our bloodstream provides our bodies' natural defense against toxicity, particularly from heavy metals. |
Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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| Second, cardiologists simply do not believe the results of statistical studies. What they see from their own patients is what forms their conclusions. Moreover, stenting does relieve symptoms. Ergo, it works. Ergo, we might say, the doctor eschews systematic data for individual and uncontrolled (and perhaps self-serving) observation. Third, "studies that substantiate preconceived notions are likely to be embraced and their recommendations followed, whereas those that do not are often ignored." Once again, the cardiologist eschews evidence-based medicine. |
Anne Harrington
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 In the mid-1950s, San Francisco cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosen-man began to make the link to stress. As they later told the story, they had noticed that the front edges of the chairs in their waiting rooms were worn down by fidgeting, impatient cardiac patients from that occupational sector.51 Was there a link between the chronic impatience of these men and heart disease, they wondered? |
Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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 Preserving diastolic cardiac function in their patients is a major concern for cardiologists, and maintaining a healthy cardiac energy pool is crucial for diastolic cardiac health.
The third primary energy consumer (after contraction and relaxation) with respect to cardiac pulsation has to do with maintaining the ion balance of the heart. The proper flow of ions into and out of the heart is required to keep the heart cell from filling with water (cardiac edema) and to maintain the normal electrochemical gradient on the cell membrane. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 Pomegranate Juice May Promote Cardiovascular Health
In another study, published in the American Journal of the College of cardiologists, forty-five patients with ischemic heart disease drank 8 ounces of pomegranate juice (or placebo) for three months. Compared to the placebo drinkers, the patients who consumed pomegranate juice had significantly less oxygen deficiency to the heart during exercise, suggesting increased blood flow to the heart. Pomegranate juice has also shown a greater ability to inhibit the oxidation of LDL ("bad" cholesterol) than other beverages. |
Lynne Mctaggart
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 After a month, symptoms in the prayer group had been reduced by more than 10 per cent compared with those receiving standard care, according to a special scoring system developed by three experienced cardiologists from the Mid-America Heart Institute, which rates a patient's progress from excellent to catastrophic. Although the healing didn't shorten their hospital stay, the patients being prayed for were definitely better off in every other regard.
More studies are now under way in several universities. |
Lynne McTaggart
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 Even the most conservative of cardiologists were beginning to take home the message that remote healing might actually work after all, and that prayer in particular was good for the heart.5
Krucoff understood that for his results to be meaningful, the study needed to be replicated on a far larger scale. |
Ray D. Strand
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 However, some cardiologists like to perform blood level testing on the amount of CoQ10 in your blood before they begin to push to these higher levels.1
Cancer Patients
It is hard to give a simple formula for all the various cancers. But if there is no evidence of the cancer spreading (or the surgeon believes he totally removed it), I will add 200 mg each of grape-seed extract and CoQ10. If the patient has metastatic cancer (cancer that's spread), I will recommend 300 mg of grape-seed extract along with 500-600 mg of CoQ10. |
Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| Most American cardiologists cannot acknowledge that a natural substance not manufactured by pharmaceutical industry giants could be so valuable. These factors have rendered therapies including D-ribose, L-carnitine, and coenzyme Qio victims of politics, bias, insufficient marketing, economics, and ignorance regarding the results of real science.
That is not to say that the nutritional supplement industry is blameless. |
Melody Petersen
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 In the summer of 2001 three cardiologists at the Cleveland Clinic, one of the top heart centers in the nation, reported that they had found that both Vioxx and Celebrex appeared to increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes. The three doctors focused more of their concern on Vioxx, however. In an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, they explained that the overall risk of heart attack when taking the drugs was low. |
Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| Initial interventions include eliminating the cause if possible, or normalizing electrolytes like potassium. Most cardiologists don't use drugs to treat PVCs unless they are happening frequently and on a regular basis (like more than six times a minute, in couplets, triplets, and short "runs" despite avoidance of precipitants) or if the individual is quite symptomatic. Coenzyme Qio is a sound intervention for bothersome arrhythmias; by stabilizing the membranes of the electrical conduction system, coenzyme Q10 can make it harder for arrhythmias to start in the first place. |
Shannon Brownlee
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 When the Justice Department gave Hunt's medical records to outside cardiologists, they found no evidence that the surgery had been needed. Hunt's blurry vision cleared up once his blood pressure was successfully treated with drugs, but his life would never be the same after his surgery. He suffered a hernia at the incision site, which meant he could no longer do the physical labor of ranching: the fencing, bucking hay, and moving cattle. Five years later, he lost his ranch. |
Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| Since D-ribose is now being used by more integrative cardiologists like Dr. Roberts and myself, I now want to focus on how I use it in my everyday practice of cardiology.
Ribose in Cardiovascular Disease
There can be no doubt whatsoever that patients with heart disease are energy depleted. The medical and scientific literature on this point is overwhelming. Pharmaceutical companies have been working for decades to develop drugs that will do exactly what ribose does for diseased hearts—increase the energy pool and promote the metabolic health of the tissue—with no success. |
| Identification of hibernating myocardium is a significant challenge to cardiologists charged with determining where surgeons should run new plumbing during coronary artery bypass graft surgery. If the hibernating segments are not identified as viable they are assumed to be dead, and the surgeon will not supply blood flow to the tissue. This 1991 study clearly showed that treating these hearts with ribose before thallium imaging woke up the hibernating segments, allowing the cardiologist to locate them and giving surgeons a road map to follow during surgery. |
Shannon Brownlee
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| When outside cardiologists looked at the patient records from Redding Medical Center, they found hundreds of such inappropriate cases. Studies have found that half a million of the angioplasties and stents performed each year are of questionable value—not quite inappropriate, but not clearly called for either. |
| Given the fact that invasive cardiologists should have the information they need in order to know when a catheterization is appropriate and when it isn't, you have to wonder why they perform so many unnecessary procedures. The answer to this question is complicated by several factors, not the least of which is the handsome compensation they receive for every stent, catheterization, and angioplasty they perform. But money isn't the only motivator here. |
| Another reason invasive cardiologists do so many inappropriate procedures has to do with the art of medicine; when faced with a patient with symptoms of heart disease, a primary care physician or cardiologist must use her clinical judgment before sending the patient off to the catheterization lab. Once the patient is on the table, the invasive cardiologist who performs the procedure has his own decisions to make. Does the patient even need to be catheterized? If so, which narrowings actually need to be opened and which ones are best left alone? |
| The Tower allowed Moon and Realyvasquez to recruit other cardiologists and surgeons to the area—and to bring in more patients.
The cardiology specialists were not actually employed by the hospital; they had private practices and what's known as "admitting privileges," a relationship that is beneficial to both physician and hospital. Once known as the "doctor's workshop," a hospital is a little like a hotel filled with nursing staff, technology, and beds, where physicians are granted the privilege of admitting and treating patients. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 Indeed, in their enthusiasm for statins and other drugs, some cardiologists advocate the development of a "polypill" that would include a statin, a beta-blocker, aspirin, and maybe an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor. The idea is that everyone, even those considered normal, would take a polypill to prevent heart disease.
Pfizer is one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world largely because of the success of Lipitor, its best-selling drug. |
Shannon Brownlee
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| When outside cardiologists looked at the patient records from Redding Medical Center, they found hundreds of such inappropriate cases. Studies have found that half a million of the angioplasties and stents performed each year are of questionable value—not quite inappropriate, but not clearly called for either. |
Stephen T. Sinatra, M.D.
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| After getting my advice about dosing, she convinced his cardiologists to give it a try. After all, Tommy had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Thanks to Kathy and his unbiased, willing-to-give-it-a-go physicians in Chapel Hill, South Carolina, Tommy's heart recovered in only eight weeks. When he flew back to Houston for medical follow-up, the team agreed that Tommy no longer needed that heart transplant, and they too, cleared him to go back to his real estate business and active lifestyle.
These stories and many, many more just like them fill my files. |
Alan R. Gaby, M.D., Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Forrest Batz, Pharm.D. Rick Chester, RPh., N.D., DipLAc. George Constantine, R.Ph., Ph.D. Linnea D. Thompson, Pharm.D., N.D.
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 Most cardiologists believe that only damaged LDL increases the risk of heart disease. Studies of the ability of vitamin E supplements to prevent heart disease (page 98) have produced conflicting results,252 but many doctors continue to recommend that everyone supplement 400 IU of vitamin E per day to lessen the risk of having a heart attack (page 212).
L-carnitine (page 543) is needed by heart muscle to utilize fat fot energy. Some,253,254 but not all, preliminary trials report that carnitine reduces serum cholesterol. |
Joe Graedon, M.S. and Teresa Graedon, Ph.D.
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 Craven's astounding observations were initially ignored by cardiologists. It took decades for the medical community to accept his results. Now physicians themselves often take low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes. And emergency rooms routinely give aspirin to patients they suspect may be experiencing a heart attack. If they don't administer aspirin, it is considered a major faux pas.
Over the last 50 years, evidence of aspirin's heart-protective effects has continued to accumulate. |
| Just as cardiologists keep lowering the target levels for cholesterol, they are also reducing the goals for blood pressure. It used to be that many physicians didn't treat high blood pressure unless the systolic pressure (the upper number) stayed above 160 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and the diastolic (the bottom number) was above 100 mmHg. These days many doctors define hypertension as anything over 140/90.560 Some who would nave us aim even lower have proposed a goal blood prestips for blood pressure monitoring
• Use the proper cuff size. |
| Now, fish oil is a part of mainstream medicine, and cardiologists routinely recommend supplements. There is even a pharmaceutical-grade prescription fish oil product (Omacor) that has become quite popular among physicians.
At the time of this writing, there are more than 10,000 articles on fish oil in the National Library of Medicine database. More than 1,600 relate to cardiovascular issues. The evidence is in, and it is convincing. Fish oil dramatically lowers triglycerides by up to 45 percent (at doses of 4 grams daily). |
Jacky Law
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 And it did what the trial name suggested, proving among the vast majority of cardiologists that lower really is better.
Exactly a year later, in March 2005, the results of the Treating to New Targets (TNT) study were presented to a 2005 meeting of the American College of Cardiology. This compared an 80mg dose with a lOmg dose of Lipitor in patients with milder heart disease and showed, again, that the more aggressive approach results in better clinical outcomes. |
Gary E. Schwartz and Linda G. S. Russek
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 I told her, "Linda, if we include this, most cardiologists will do more than smile. They will laugh us out of science and dismiss the whole energy cardiology paper, period." But Linda persisted, and we included a few, very brief sentences about the prediction. |
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