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June 27, 2005
Effective Blood Tests for Cardiovascular Health
There are many similar examples where physicians ignore certain treatment options because "we don't have a drug for it." It seems that doctors automatically use blood measurements to determine what drugs to prescribe. Most ignore nutrient measurements all together. A fundamental shift in the way traditional physicians view the purpose of laboratory measurements may be necessary before they can use nutritional diagnoses and nutritional solutions to help patients achieve and maintain health.
You can learn a lot about your heart and blood vessels by examining your blood. The following five blood tests paint a precise picture of your cardiovascular health:
• Homocysteine
• C-reactive protein
• CoQ10
• Insulin
• VAP cholesterol
Abnormalities in these tests are linked to heart disease and you can use them to detect heart problems you didn’t know you had. But they also do something more – they assess your heart health. Each of the tests provides a piece of the puzzle. Taken together, these tests provide an excellent measure of how healthy your cardiovascular system is. You can then use these tests to take action to move away from disease and toward outstanding heart health, vigor, and vitality.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 5:58 AM | Comments (24)
June 20, 2005
"No Drug Equals No Solution" If You Want to Lower Heart-Threatening Levels of Homocysteine? Not True!
A 66-year-old woman came to my Center for Health and Wellness from New York after she had suffered a stroke. Her doctors told her "there was no reason" for her stroke. She was not overweight, she did not smoke, and she had low cholesterol. (Her doctors told her to take a cholesterol-lowering drug anyway.)
After she was seen and her records reviewed, she was told that some other things in her blood could be checked that hadn’t been measured before, including her homocysteine.
She told her neurologist of this plan and he asked her, “Why are they checking for homocysteine? Even if it is elevated, there is no drug to lower it.” It would appear that from this neurologist’s point of view, no drug equals no solution.
The simple truth is that no drug is necessary! It is easy to lower homocysteine quite effectively and reliably with safe and inexpensive nutritional supplements available at your grocery store.
To discover how to lower your homocysteine safely and naturally order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 5:50 AM | Comments (0)
June 13, 2005
The Single Biggest Risk Factor for Strokes
Traditional doctors didn't know what to do with Edward N. His story baffled the experts. He first came to the Center for Health and Wellness about 10 years ago walking with a cane and slurring his speech after suffering two strokes. That’s not unusual; 50 percent of stroke sufferers have a repeat stroke within a couple of years. What was unusual was that Ed had a stroke at all. He had none of the traditional risk factors.
Ed didn’t smoke or drink alcohol, and his cholesterol was quite low at 150. At 155 pounds, he was not overweight. In fact, he appeared quite lean, trim, and muscular. He had big “Popeye-like” forearms from his work as a lifetime roofer, and he was only 48 years old.
Ed’s first stroke came without warning. He was driving home from work when he suddenly felt dizzy and had trouble remembering how to drive his truck. He made it home, but found he couldn’t speak. His wife drove him to the emergency room where an MRI on his brain detected a blood clot blocking an artery that supplied an area in the side of his brain used for language.
Strokes are lessons in the anatomy of the brain. During a stroke, an area of the brain dies from lack of oxygen. You can tell what area of the brain was affected by the difficulties the stroke survivor develops. Ed had expressive aphasia. He could understand language when he heard it, but he couldn’t speak. A year after his first stroke, Ed still suffered episodes when he couldn’t think of the proper word for simple things, but he had regained much of his ability to communicate.
Ed’s second stroke was more devastating, as is usually the case. This time the blood clot affected an area in the back of his brain that controls coordination and balance. After months of physical therapy, he could walk again, but he was noticeably shaky. His doctor told him he would never be able to climb a ladder again. Each expert Ed went to said they could find no reason for his two strokes, and Ed accepted that.
The reason Ed went outside of his HMO to come to the Center for Health and Wellness was something else his doctors told him. They told him that statistically he had an 80 percent likelihood of having a third stroke and those are always worse.
Ed was pleased to learn that the approach of the Wellness Center was different. He was asked questions that might expose risk factors his doctors had missed. Center staff told him they would check new markers in his blood for the answer to why he was having strokes.
When his lab results came back, an answer was immediately obvious. One number jumped out; Ed’s homocysteine level was 26, the highest ever seen at the Center for Health and Wellness.
Homocysteine is the best single risk factor for stroke. In one study of people who had had a stroke but had no other risk factors, 90 percent had elevated homocysteine. Yet, incredibly, no one ever checked Ed’s homocysteine level. This is not an exception. Of all the Center’s cardiac patients, only a handful had homocysteine levels checked before they arrive.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 6:10 AM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2005
Low Serum Cholesterol Levels Are Dangerous to Your Health
Drug companies got a recent boost in sales when the National Cholesterol Education Program published new cholesterol guidelines, which dictate that almost everyone needs cholesterol-lowering drugs. According to the guidelines, the optimal cholesterol levels are below 130 for LDL and below 200 for total cholesterol.
The new recommendations advise that you take steps to even further lower your cholesterol levels if you have any risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Risk factors include a history of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and smoking. This you-can-never-be-too-rich-or-have-too-low-a-cholesterol-level approach backfires when you look at the consequences of very low cholesterol levels. Studies have linked pushing cholesterol levels below 160 to depression and low testosterone levels.
In 2000, Dutch researchers found that men with low cholesterol levels had an increased risk of depression. Cholesterol may affect the metabolism of the mood-altering substance known as serotonin. Other studies have found that serotonin levels are lower in men with low levels of cholesterol. It appears that cholesterol levels below 160 may be low enough to put men at risk.
To read more about this topic order Al Sears MD’s The Doctor’s Heart Cure today.
Posted by james at 5:41 AM | Comments (0)