Heart Health Month is here

3 Feb 2012

During Heart Month we are offering ARTERIOZYME, a natural enzymatic supplement that may help remove plaque from your arteries and improve health. 

Originally posted 17 2005


80% of patients who develop coronary artery disease have "normal" cholesterol levels.

On July 13, 2004 commercial media announced statements from U.S. health officials recommending new guidelines for Cholesterol levels. The recommendations are based on results of new clinical trials showing the benefit of cholesterol-lowering therapy in high-risk patients and support the ATP III treatment goal of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) <100>

Preventing heart disease requires much more than simply screening for high cholesterol in the blood. "Although this approach has been useful, it fails to identify almost one-half of the 1.3 million individuals who develop MI [myocardial infarction] in the US each year who have either normal or only moderately increased serum cholesterol concentrations," researchers have pointed out.1

What's more, an estimated 80% of patients who develop coronary artery disease have cholesterol levels (as measured by standard lipid profiles) comparable to those in healthy individuals.2 And nearly half of all cases of premature coronary artery disease are missed when using only current standard guidelines for cholesterol testing.3

Even among patients who have been identified with high cholesterol, a significant number of individuals do not respond to routine lipid reduction strategies, or, they go on to experience a cardiac event despite drops in cholesterol.4

This cumulative evidence clearly underscores the urgency of assessing patients with more advanced cardiovascular risk markers than those included in standard lipid panels.

The Comprehensive Cardiovascular Profile 2.0 incorporates the latest breakthroughs in cardiovascular disease research to provide advanced, early warning of CVD risk. This thorough evaluation features an advanced lipid profile with fractionation, independent risk markers (including homocysteine and hs-C-reactive protein), relative risk indices, and Metabolic Syndrome alerts. All of these advanced markers play a critical role in the biochemical environment underlying cardiovascular health. The insight they provide allows the clinician to accurately address abnormalities relating to heart and vascular diseases.

References:
1 Rifai N, Ridker PM. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein: a novel and promising marker of coronary heart
disease. Clin Chem 2001;47(3):404-411.
2 Schildkraut JM, Myers RH, Cupples LA, Kiely DK, Kannel WB. Coronary risk associated with age and sex of
parental heart disease in the Framingham Study. Am J Cardiol 1989;64(10):555-9.
3 Akosah KO, Gower E, Groon L, Rooney BL, Schaper A. Mild hypercholesterolemia and premature heart
disease: do the national criteria underestimate disease risk? J Am Coll Cardiol 2000;35(5):1178-84.
4 Superko HL. Did grandma give you heart disease? The new battle against coronary artery disease.
Am J Cardiol 1998;82(9A):34Q-46Q.


Selections from Natural Health News

Natural Health News: Helpers for Your Failing Heart

Sep 13, 2011

A group of people with heart failure was studied to see how well they responded to COQ10 and other antioxidants. Patients had a 40% or lower ejection rate and had been diagnosed for at least six months. Daily dose of ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: For Your Healthy Heart

Feb 02, 2011

Cordless Phones, like WIFI, Boost Heart Risk. Cordless Phone EMFs Trigger Heart Rhythm Abnormalities. By Erik Goldman / Editor in Chief - Vol. 11, No. 4. Winter, 2010. The controversy continues over the possibility that ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Creeping Diseases

Dec 22, 2011

When doctors recommend tests, drugs or surgeries to prevent bad outcomes (think cholesterol-lowering agents to prevent strokes or cardiac stents to prevent heart attacks) they tap into our deepest sense of what constitutes ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Diet soda linked to heart risks

Apr 19, 2010

Diet soda linked to heart risks. UPDATE: 29 April New information, or I should say confirmation of very old and well known information about phosphates and phosphorus in soda, diet or sweetened, reinforces negative health ...

Natural Health News: Heart Month Hype

Feb 03, 2010

Heart Month Hype. This morning I was checking email as usual and came across a most amazing advertising scheme being promoted by Diet Coke. Fashionable Diet Coke. Yikes! let's all get cardiovascular disease because ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: The Red Dress, Heart Month and Women's ...

Feb 11, 2009

The Red Dress, Heart Month and Women's Health. "Heart Disease Doesn't Care What You Wear -- It's the Number 1 Killer of Women." The primary goal of The Heart Truth campaign is to raise awareness that heart disease is ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Wear Red for Your Heart

Jan 31, 2010

Wear Red for Your Heart. Here's a compilation of articles we've posted on Heart Month and Heart Health and some good links. It seems as if little has changed in the way mainstream medicine looks at heart health concerns, ...

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/

Natural Health News: Matters of the Heart

Feb 02, 2010

Yes, it is heart month and with that comes the latest attack on herbal remedies at the behest of Big PhRMA, CNN, and Time-Warner's medical mainstream Health.com. While the ABC was contacted and interviewed for the ...

NATURAL HEALTH NEWS IS A TRADE NAME OWNED BY CREATING HEALTH INSTITUTE SINCE 2000

Chantix Risk Rises Again

Natural Health News has been covering Chantix since 2006.  There are at least a dozen articles here that speak to the dangers of this drug.

Now it is announced that there is a risk of PAD and other cardiovascular diseases caused by the drug, and the study shows about 62,000 people are affected.

The report follows an FDA announcement last month that prescribing information for varenicline will be revised to include a warning about an increased risk of second heart attack and peripheral artery disease in people with a history of cardiovascular disease.  SOURCE

If you are interested in stopping smoking using natural options please contact us or Health Forensics. 

Prevention and Health Forensics

Here's a very good example of why Health Forensics was created.

• Natural and nutritional support can prevent hardening of the arteries.
• Thorough evaluation of your medications can identify nutrient depletion that can lead to other health risks and also problems with poly-pharmacy (drug interactions), risky side effects and more.

Autopsy reveals Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage died of natural causes
By Chris Chase
An autopsy revealed that wrestling great Randy "Macho Man" Savage died from heart diseaseand not from any injury sustained in hisMay 20 car crash.The St. Petersburg Medical Examiner's Office found that the 58-year-old had an enlarged heart with hardened coronary arteries. He became unresponsive while driving his Jeep Wrangler on a Florida highway in May and crashed into a tree. While the auto accident left minor cuts and bruises, the heart problems were the official cause of death of the wrestler.

At the time of his death, it was unknown whether the former wrestling star had died because of the heart issue or because the heart issue caused him to crash. The coroner said Savage was found with therapeutic levels of a number of prescribed drugs in his system and that alcohol wasn't a factor. There was no evidence he was taking any heart medication, leading to the assumption that Savage may not have known about his condition.

His wife, Lynn, was riding in the car during the accident. Their Jeep Wrangler flipped over a concrete median into oncoming traffic before skidding into a tree. The couple were married in a beachfront ceremony in 2010.

Born Randy Poffo, the future Macho Man had a brief minor league baseball career before joining the wrestling circuit. He grew to fame in the 1980s with the WWF where his bouts with Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and George "The Animal" Steele made him a star. Advertisements with Slim-Jim and his signature catchphrase, "Ooh yeah!," helped him become a household name.

Aloe Vera, Not Dangerous Drugs

Shawn M. Talbot, PhD, author of A Guide to Understanding Dietary Supplements, the aloe plant also “has been shown to exert beneficial effects on cardiac disease risk factors by reducing blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose.”

Learn more about Aloe

Read more about Aloe 

Oh, I know, you are one of those health nuts

UPDATE: 11 May 2010 - Diabetes associated with statin use Reported Sattar N, Preiss D, Murray HM, et al, Lancet. 2010;375:735-742. Epub 2010 Feb 16.
Certainly the risk of diabetes is not one which you may wish to undertake. Changing foo and lifestyle can do many great things for health, and help you reduce cholesterol without risk of diabetes.

And from another source here's more old news about the benefits of raw nuts for health. I wonder how many times the same studies are done before the findings trickle down to the everyday public...

Nuts, by the way, in addition to containing vitamin E for cardiovascular health, do contain a fat that is found in deficient levels in people suffering with wheat allergy.

Remember, it's just 1/4 cup daily of raw nuts to help you reap a multitude of benefits to help you avoid using problematic drugs.

Eating nuts may help lower cholesterol levels, US research suggests.
The review of 25 studies, involving nearly 600 people, showed eating on average 67g of nuts - a small bag - a day reduced cholesterol levels by 7.4%.
The US Loma Linda University team believes nuts may help prevent the absorption of cholesterol.
UK experts said the research showed nuts were an important part of a healthy diet, but warned against eating nuts covered in sugar or salt.
Previous work has indicated eating nuts regularly is beneficial, but the Archives of Internal Medicine study set out to put an accurate figure on the effect.

“ The effects of nut consumption were dose related, and different types of nuts had similar effects ” Lead researcher Joan Sabate

The people involved ate 67g of nuts a day on average, over a period of three to eight weeks.
As well as improving cholesterol levels, it also reduced the amount of triglyceride, a type of blood fat that has been linked to heart disease.
However, the impact was least pronounced among the overweight.
It is not yet clear why nuts have this effect, although one suggestion is that it is down to the plant sterols they contain, which are thought to interfere with cholesterol absorption.
Lead researcher Joan Sabate said increasing nut consumption as part of a healthy diet should be recommended.
He added: "The effects of nut consumption were dose related, and different types of nuts had similar effects."
Ellen Mason, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, agreed, but she urged people to go for unsalted nuts.
"Apart from salted peanuts at the pub, nuts in sugary cereals or the traditional Christmas selection, nuts have been largely lacking in our diets in the UK," she added.
The study was carried out by independent researchers, although it was partly funded by the International Tree Nut Council Nutrition Research and Education Foundation.

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8673208.stm
Published: 2010/05/10 23:31:27 GMT © BBC MMX
12.15.08 - Nutty for sure but up on healthy foods for longer than most people ever thought of this so-called "new" report on why eating nuts is good for health.

About a dozen years ago I taught one of my seminars at Edmonds Community College about heart health. I had just found an excellent study about how just 1/4 cup daily of raw walnuts would go a long way to keep your heart healthy. Plus they would give you a food source of health promoting vitamin E.

Now someone has gone again and gotten some money to do research about something that could have been found in a thorough search of the literature.

So here you go, since it is "news", a few more facts on nuts.

Please note that the health benefits refer to using raw nuts and organic would be the best choice.

Walnuts

In addition to their omega-3 fatty acids, walnuts are an important source of monounsaturated fats — approximately 15% of the fat found in walnuts is healthful monounsaturated fat. A host of studies have shown that increasing the dietary intake of monounsaturated-dense walnuts has favorable effects on high cholesterol levels and other cardiovascular risk factors.

and

Did you know that just one-quarter cup of walnuts contains over 90% of the daily value for those hard-to-find omega-3 essential fatty acids? They are called .essential. because they are a special protective type of fat that cannot be manufactured by our body and therefore must be supplied by the foods we eat. Researchers believe that about 60% of Americans are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids, and about 20% have so little that tests cannot even detect any in their blood. The list of benefits derived from omega-3s is impressive, ranging from improving cholesterol levels and reducing the risk of stroke to acting as anti-inflammatory agents and improving bone density. Enjoying walnuts as part of your Healthiest Way of Eating not only adds wonderful taste and texture to your meals, but it is an easy way to include more omega-3s into your diet. Walnuts also contain ellagic acid a compound that supports the immune system and appears to have anticancer properties.

and don't forget that walnuts do have a thyroid lowering effect so perhaps this will aid those with hyperthyroid conditions who aren't sold on slaying their gland with radioactive iodine.

Diet soda linked to heart risks

UPDATE: 29 April
New information, or I should say confirmation of very old and well known information about phosphates and phosphorus in soda, diet or sweetened, reinforces negative health effects. Worse is the chemical reaction between phosphorous-containing compounds and aluminum cans.

Early death by junk food? High levels of phosphate in sodas and processed foods accelerate the aging process in mice

ScienceDaily (2010-04-28) -- High levels of phosphates may add more "pop" to sodas and processed foods than once thought. That's because researchers have found that the high levels of phosphates accelerate signs of aging. High phosphate levels may also increase the prevalence and severity of age-related complications, such as chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular calcification, and can also induce severe muscle and skin atrophy. ... > read full article

UPDATE: 22 April, 2010
What the ABC News report did not state, is that most sweetened soda and other such beverages contain HFCS, not fructose. There is a difference. Also to be considered is that over 90% of corn used in food products is known to be genetically modified (GMO)and/or controlled by Monsanto as Round-Up Ready. Round-Up is a carcinogen. Atrazine, another very toxic chemical, is used in growing corn crops.
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain
See also - Death of HFCS, this and this.
Originally posted 7/23/07

Dr. Vasan Ramachandran might be on to something. Something the FDA already knows and has known for many decades, according to the history of aspartame toxicity and the extreme measures utilized to cover it up.

Not much is different about sucralose (marketed as Splenda). Both were originally developed as insect poisons.

The only cautions I will offer is to check with the experts on this subject and ignore Ramachandran's advice to use these products moderately.

I'll also mention that diet drinks DO cause weight gain and that study has been done. (Once again no thorough search of the literature Vasan). They also cause diabetes, cancer and other serious health problems.

My advice is not to use them at all. Especially when there are more than 92 registered complaints against aspartame on file with the FDA, and the ones on sucralose are mounting.

Safe sweeteners are available - Stevia and Just Like Sugar are in many of the same products as the toxic ones, and there is no health risk.

Study: Diet soda linked to heart risks

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Writer

People who drank more than one diet soda each day developed the same risks for heart disease as those who downed sugary regular soda, a large but inconclusive study found.

The results surprised the researchers who expected to see a difference between regular and diet soda drinkers. It could be, they suggest, that even no-calorie sweet drinks increase the craving for more sweets, and that people who indulge in sodas probably have less healthy diets overall.

The study's senior author, Dr. Vasan Ramachandran, emphasized the findings don't show diet sodas are a cause of increased heart disease risks. But he said they show a surprising link that must be studied.

"It's intriguing and it begs an explanation by people who are qualified to do studies to understand this better," said Vasan, of Boston University School of Medicine.

However, a nutrition expert dismissed the study's findings on diet soda drinkers.

"There's too much contradictory evidence that shows that diet beverages are healthier for you in terms of losing weight that I would not put any credence to the result on the diet (drinks)," said Barry Popkin, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who has called for cigarette-style surgeon general warnings about the negative health effects of soda.

Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association, said the notion that diet drinks are associated with bulging waistlines defies common sense.

"How can something with zero calories that's 99 percent water with a little flavoring in it ... cause weight gain?" she said.

The research comes from a massive, multi-generational heart study following residents of Framingham, Mass., a town about 25 miles west of Boston. The new study of 9,000 observations of middle-aged men and women was published Monday online in the journal Circulation.

The researchers found those who drank more than one soda per day — diet or regular — had an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, compared to those who drank less than one soda. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of symptoms that increase the risk for heart disease including large waistlines and higher levels of blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood fats called triglycerides.

At the start of the study, those who reported drinking more than one soft drink a day had a 48 percent increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome compared to those who drank less soda.

Of participants who initially showed no signs of metabolic syndrome, those who drank more than one soda per day were at 44 percent higher risk of developing it four years later, they reported.

Researchers expected the results to differ when regular soda and diet soda drinkers were compared, and were surprised when they did not, Vasan said.

But Popkin said that result isn't that surprising. He said much of the market for diet sodas are people who have unhealthy lifestyles and know they need to lose weight — with the other portion being thin people who want to stay that way. That means many people drinking diet sodas have unhealthy habits that could lead to increased heart disease risks, whether they drink diet soda or not.

In studies in which some users were randomly given diet sodas and others were given regular soda, diet soda drinkers lost weight and regular soda drinkers gained weight, Popkin said.

In a statement, the American Heart Association said it supports dietary patterns that include low-calorie beverages.

"Diet soda can be a good option to replace caloric beverages that do not contain important vitamins and minerals," the association said, adding further study is needed before any association between diet soda and heart risk factors would lead to public recommendations.

Vasan also said poor overall health habits may be one reason diet soda drinkers did not show lower heart disease risks in the Framingham study, but there hasn't been enough research to say for sure.

Another possible reason is a controversial theory called "dietary compensation," which holds that if someone drinks a large amount of liquids at a meal, they aren't satisfied and will tend to eat more at the next meal, Vasan said.

Other theories, Vasan said, are that people who drink a large amount of sweetened drinks are prone to develop a taste for sweeter foods, or that the substance that gives soda its caramel color promotes resistance to insulin, which is needed to process calories.

Without a more definitive explanation, Vasan offers only this advice to diet soda drinkers: "Consume in moderation and stayed tuned for more research."
___

On the Net:

Framingham Heart Study: http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/

American Heart Association: http://www.americanheart.org

http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/09/affecting-unborn.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/11/soft-drinks-with-artificial-sweeteners.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/02/maybe-its-pink-maybe-its-not-breast.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/04/words-on-water.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/10/bone-health-is-not-helped-with-soap-or.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/05/better-than-rx-for-gerd.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2005/07/nutraceutical-hype.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/problems-with-new-sweetener.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/zerose-zevia-or-what-ever-you-wish-to.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2010/02/heart-month-hype.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/12/lethal-science-of-splenda.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2010/02/soft-drinks-and-pancreatic-cancer.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2007/07/diet-soda-linked-to-heart-risks.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2010/03/diet-soda-for-kids-brings-more-obesity.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2010/03/clintons-soda-deal-reinforces-obesity.html

Finally, science agrees with herbalYODA on fructose

Food sweetener could be 'fuelling' childhood diabetes, study finds


The sweetener fructose, a cheap sugar substitute found in thousands of processed foods and soft drinks, may be increasing childhood diabetes and the obesity crisis, new findings suggest.

Fructose


By Amy Willis, Daily Telegraph, 13 Dec 2009

In a study by researchers at the University of California, 16 volunteers were put on a controlled diet with high-levels of fructose – a sweetener derived from corn.

After 10 weeks, the volunteers had developed more fat cells around the heart, liver and other major organs as well as showing signs of food processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease.

Another group of volunteers, who were also on a controlled diet but without the fructose, did not show the fat cell increase or the food processing abnormalities.

Both groups put on the same amount of weight.

Children are said to be in a higher risk group as they are more likely to eat products with high-levels of sweeteners over longer periods of time.

"This is the first evidence we have that fructose increases diabetes and heart disease independently from causing simple weight gain," Kimber Stanhope, a molecular biologist who led the study, told a Sunday newspaper.

What about Heart Healthy Herbs?

This story is interesting because it follow on a report yesterday from the BBC that seemed to indicate a plan to promote this combo pill to any one over 55 years of age.

What happened to the art of diagnosis? Maybe it is too much cell phone use as a vector, food allergy or something obscure. We may never know.

And what about side effects, or what about the cholesterol hoax and the terrible side effects of these drugs. And what about the fact that anti-hypertensives and diuretics can lead to diabetes, even osteoporosis. Then there is aspirin that can cause lots of problems like silent bleeding and 8th cranial nerve damage that can affect hearing and maybe lead to Bell's Palsy. And don't forget electrolyte loss and CO Q 10 destruction. Yes, there's more...

Sounds crazy to me, but then I'd rather try vitamin E, magnesium, vitamin C, cod liver oil, nutritional yeast, lecithin, hawthorne, meadowsweet, or something else other than a drug to maybe have a small effect along with high risk of other disease.

So are you willing to go for profit and more problems when, if your systolic B/P is 150, you can expect to lower it by .05 percent, to 142.5 mm Hg ?

Not sure this is a statistically valid premise.

from UPI: 'Polypill' combines heart medications
Published: March 31, 2009 at 1:08 AM

HAMILTON, Ontario, March 31 (UPI) -- A "polypill" that combines blood pressure drugs, a cholesterol-lowering statin, aspirin and folic acid may minimize heart attacks, Canadian researchers say.

Dr. Koon Teo of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, says the polypill could reduce cardiovascular events by more than 80 percent in healthy people.

In a double-blind trial in 50 centers in India, 2,053 people without cardiovascular disease -- ages 45-80 and with one risk factor -- were randomly assigned to the Polycap. It consisted of low doses of the drugs: 12.5 mg. thiazide, 50 mg atenolol, 5 mg ramipril, 20 mg simvastatin and 100 mg aspirin per day.

Subjects were otherwise assigned to eight other groups, each with about 200 individuals, of aspirin alone, simvastatin alone, hydrochlorthiazide alone, three combinations of the two blood-pressure-lowering drugs, three blood-pressure-lowering drugs alone, or three blood-pressure-lowering drugs plus aspirin.

Compared with groups not receiving blood-pressure-lowering drugs, the Polycap reduced systolic blood pressure by 7.4 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure by 5.6 mm Hg, which was similar when three blood-pressure-lowering drugs were used, with or without aspirin.

The findings were published in The Lancet.

Is there evidence for heart therapy in mainstream medicine?

Worth reading and worth drawing up a list of questions for your provider.

Note that while this article favors use of aspirin, the downside of long term ASA is an issue to question. ASA is something, even in low dose, that over time can cause the cell wall membrane of red blood cells to disintegrate. Natural therapy may include vitamin E, nattokinase, cayenne, garlic (see ALLI-C, right column), or the heart health promoting herb - hawthorne. (More information on these natural treatments may be found here.

Consider as well that there is a great deal of doubt about the veracity of "double blind studies". Most researchers do know that these studies can be manipulated quite easily to get a "desired" result.

A reader poses this query: "I'm intrigued by your comment that "...there is a great deal of doubt about the veracity of 'double blind studies.' Most researchers do know that these studies can be manipulated quite easily to get a 'desired' result.Would you please elaborate? How can these studies be manipulated to get a desired result? Can you provide some examples that are suspicious along those lines?"

The answer is Rosenthal Effect and it is displayed in the film "My Fair Lady". But then money and notoriety, along with the extreme pressure of "publish or perish" are other vectors to be considered.

The Vast Majority of Recommendations Given to Heart Patients Are NOT Supported by Good Science!

Study Questions Evidence Behind Heart Therapies
By Ron Winslow/ WSJ
FEBRUARY 24, 2009

Heart disease is among the most studied illnesses in all of medicine, yet just 11% of more than 2,700 recommendations approved by cardiologists for treating heart patients are supported by high-quality scientific testing, according to new research.

About half the medical recommendations for heart patients have limited scientific backing, according to a study published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Instead, they are based mostly on expert opinion -- subjective viewpoints where consensus is often lacking.

A daily aspirin for heart patients is supported by rigorous scientific research.
For instance, people who previously have had a heart attack and take an aspirin daily to help avert a second such incident can rest assured that the treatment is supported by rigorous scientific studies. But there is much less certainty around another common recommendation that patients treated with artery-opening stents remain on a potent blood thinner for a year to avoid a rare but potentially life-threatening blood clot. The downside: Patients who stay on blood thinners for an extended time risk potential complications if they need urgent surgery.

The findings from the JAMA study reflect the challenge doctors and patients face in choosing the best course of treatment for a variety of conditions. And they underscore that even though drug and device companies, government agencies and philanthropic groups have spent billions of dollars developing and testing new treatments in recent years, much of what happens in the doctor's office or the hospital operating suite might not be based on rigorous scientific evidence.

"In most situations that we encounter when we see patients, it isn't so clear what is the best thing to do," says Pierluigi Tricoci, a cardiologist at Duke University's Duke Clinical Research Institute and lead author of the study.

For more than two decades, health-policy experts, health insurers and employers have been beating the drum for evidence about what works and what doesn't in medicine in an effort to reduce wide variation in medical care, cut health-care costs and develop standards by which to measure the performance of doctors, hospitals and health plans.

This month, the Obama administration and Congress budgeted more than $1 billion of the economic stimulus package to fund research for comparing the effectiveness of different treatments in head-to-head studies aimed at providing evidence to clinicians and insurers on the best treatment strategies.

"We need those studies to make the kind of changes in health care that are being talked about -- being sure we get the best possible care for our patients in the most cost-effective manner," says Sidney Smith, a medical guidelines expert and cardiologist at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and senior author of the JAMA paper.

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have been jointly issuing guidelines to doctors on care of cardiovascular patients for more than 20 years. Recommendations based on multiple randomized clinical trials, in which patients are randomly assigned a treatment, are considered having the highest level of evidence. A single randomized study or non-randomized studies comprise the second level, while recommendations backed by expert opinion or case studies are considered having the weakest evidence. Guidelines are also ranked by whether empirical evidence or general opinion supports that a treatment is useful and effective or not.

For instance, strong evidence of benefit based on several randomized controlled clinical studies is behind guidelines calling for use of aspirin, cholesterol medications called statins and other pills called beta blockers among heart patients to avoid a second heart attack. Similar rigor is behind recommendations that patients who arrive at the emergency room with a major heart attack get treated with an angioplasty balloon within 90 minutes.

Experts Disagree
But such examples are the exception. For a variety of other conditions, treatment recommendations rely largely on non-randomized studies or expert opinion. For instance, it's unclear at what point patients who suffer excess bleeding during a heart procedure should get a blood transfusion, Dr. Tricoci says. And debate rages among cardiologists over two new tools for assessing a patient's long-term risk of a heart attack. When does a blood test for a marker called C-reactive protein aid in making such a prediction? How about a scan to check for calcium buildup in a patient's arteries? Mounting evidence supports each test, but more data are needed to determine how they might best be used, Dr. Tricoci says.

Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist at Yale University School of Medicine, says doctors should disclose to patients the strength of the evidence behind the care they recommend. "Treatment decisions are often made very dogmatically even when the level of evidence isn't very strong," he says.

One reason for the lack of stronger evidence is that the large "megatrials" that have dominated cardiovascular research in the past decade were sponsored by drug and device companies. While those studies provide an important source of information, they are typically designed primarily to win approval for a treatment or to widen the market for a therapy already on the market, and not to guide treatment decisions, according to the JAMA study.

Limitations of Studies
Clinical studies also typically exclude patients with complicated illness, which can limit the ability of doctors to apply findings to many of their patients. For instance, many heart patients also suffer from kidney disease. But contrast agents typically given to patients undergoing a diagnostic X-ray called cardiac catheterization can be harmful to kidneys.

Dr. Tricoci says he and his colleagues also observed that guideline writers are picked for their expertise in the field -- but they are also often those who consult regularly with industry. Such possible conflict of interest raises the potential to introduce bias into the guidelines, undermining their credibility.

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

One Consumer with Common Sense

I found this comment on a web site addressing the problems associated with a diabetes drug, Avandia, known to cause cardiovascular health problems.

The information in the comment is so very important that I am posting it here for all to see and share with others.

Thank you John Payne, whoever you are and where ever you are.

May 29, 2007

If it were not such a serious health situation, I would be amused at the time and money that is spent on research into cardio-vascular disease and related syndromes.

The answer to all and I mean all of the syndrome X afflictions is very simple. But because doctors and drug companies cannot patent it, the information has received little public exposure despite the fact that a U.S. patent was issued for it and one of the developers of the process was a double Nobel prize winner.

I refer of course to Linus Pauling and his documented research in to the use of Vitamin C, L lysine and L proline as a cure for arteriosclerosis etc.

I am living proof that it works: 6 GMS of each item per day split into two doses, once in am and again 12 hours later. It works, and it is sad to think that because nobody can now patent the process or make any money from the research, etc., that millions of people will die, without knowing the answer is already available. I challenge you to post the information after you have verified of course and I shall watch to see if you really are worth reading.

Sincerely,
John Payne

Using more drugs, not less, for cancer

Anti-angiogenesis drugs haven’t been more successful than standard chemotherapy for cancer.

These drugs include Stutent, Gleevec and Avastin. All three have had serious problems in use and do little to prolong life or cure the disease in any significant manner.

These drugs are very expensive and if they must be used in combination with other chemotherapy is there hope for extended life, quality of life and a cure?

There are many treatment options for cancer. Most of the effective one are not in the media kit sent to oncologists or taught in medical schools.

There is much less spent on prevention. But here's a tip you might enjoy reading -

"The John Wayne Cancer Institute is a supporter of the Vita-Mix."
With the help of this wonderful invention, patients can more easily satisfy their goal of eating five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. The therapeutic antioxidants and phytochemicals in Vita-Mix whole food meals have shown to lower the risk of heart disease, cancer and other health problems.

MSM Pushing Supplements Out of Consideration

I'm really pleased I sought advanced education away from the MPH or MPA degrees as I was being encouraged by some doctors who were friends of mine back in the 60s and
70s. Knowing what I know now, how, even more so, these degrees are designed to encourage you to become a keeper of the status quo, I know it surely doesn't fit my style.

Had I followed this track I guess I had a twenty years stint in the USPHS and be long gone on a fat retirement having been a GS 15-16. Also I probably would have been bucking the 'system' on a daily basis.

I'm what is called a giraffe or turtle, depending on who you talk with. You know, someone who gets ahead by sticking out its neck.

Mainstream Medicine, and medical education, is really very controlled by the CDC, and in turn, the FDA, and in turn, Big Pharma, and in turn, Big Insurance...

And round and round we go in the circle game...

Of course right now in the tenuous situation the US health system finds itself these kind of reports do little to compare their design to earlier studies that conclusively show that both vitamins do, in fact, prevent and reverse heart disease.

Of course we also have no report from the AP writer on what type of E and C vitamins were used, the dose, and other important factors.

And, yes, vitamin E in high doses does have a very beneficial action of "thinning" your blood. If more doctors used vitamin E first, rather than heparin or coumadin, we would have less trouble with side effects, healthier patients and less in the way of long term problems. The science proves it.

Doctors, especially the ones doing this study, need to read that science before they do another study, then replicate it. This is science and real research based on the Scientific Method.

Another study with women not too long ago (and reported here and Natural Health News) showed poor results with supplements. I was able to locate the data showing synthetic vitamins were used with exceptionally low dose rates, well below therapeutic level.

Hope they can do better next time.

And, make sure you do write your members of Congress and demand health parity for supplements.

Drugs kill, vitamins don't!

Health News
Studies: Vitamin pills don't prevent heart disease AP - Sun Nov 9, 2008
NEW ORLEANS - Vitamins C and E — pills taken by millions of Americans — do nothing to prevent heart disease in men, one of the largest and longest studies of these supplements has found.

Its the Potassium

Have you eaten your kale today?

I haven't yet but I'll be having a pear-kale-kiwi-lime smoothie later in my day with a scoop of Leaflady's Great Green Powder Blend added in (order from us, it is organic too!).

Potassium is one of the key nutrients for heart health, although it needs to be in balance with other vitamins and minerals.

Vegetables are the real powerhouse for minerals and vitamins along with protein when it comes to boosting your intake of these health promoting nutrients.

Fruit is good but more in moderation because of the sugar content, especially bananas. Fruit is great for fiber and it promotes cleansing. Its also best to keep from mixing fruit with vegetables, especially as found in a lot of green powder products.

Another one of my favorite things is kale salad with avocado, nori seaweed, raisins, lime juice and hemp seed oil.

Greens, greens, they're good for your heart: study
by Karin Zeitvogel

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Diets worldwide that are rich in fried and salty foods increase heart attack risk, while eating lots of fruit, leafy greens and other vegetables reduces that risk, a groundbreaking study showed.

The study, called INTERHEART, looked at 16,000 heart attack patients and controls between 1999 and 2003 in countries on every continent, marking a shift from previous studies which have focussed on the developed world.

The patients and controls filled in a "dietary risk score" questionnaire based on 19 food groups, which contained healthy and unhealthy items and were tweaked to include dietary preferences of each country taking part in the study.

The researchers found that people who eat a diet high in fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat -- the "Western Diet" -- had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack than people who consumed little or no fried foods or meat, regardless of where they live.

People who ate a "Prudent Diet" -- high in leafy green vegetables, other raw and cooked vegetables, and fruits -- had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack than those who ate little or no fruit and veg, the study showed.

The third dietary pattern, called the "Oriental Diet" because it contained foods such as tofu and soy sauce which are typically consumed in Asian societies, was found to have little impact on heart attack risk.

Although some items in the Oriental diet might have protective properties such as vitamins and anti-oxidants, others such as soy sauce have a high salt content which would negate the benefits, the study said.

The study was groundbreaking in its scope and because previous research had focussed mainly on developed countries, according to Salim Yusuf, a senior author of the study.

"We had focussed research on the West because heart disease was mainly predominant in western countries 25-30 years ago," Yusuf, who is a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada, told AFP.

"But heart disease is now increasingly striking people in developing countries. Eighty percent of heart disease today is in low- to middle-income countries" partly because more people around the world are eating western diets, he said.

"This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in western countries exist in different regions of the world," said Yusuf, who is also head of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario.

Patients who had been admitted to coronary care units in 262 centers around the world, and at least one control subject per patient, took part in the study.

The INTERHEART results were published Monday in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association.

The main countries in the study were Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia in South America; Canada and the United States in North America; Sweden in western Europe; Croatia, Poland and Russia for eastern Europe; and Dubai, Egypt, Iran, Kuwait and Qatar for the Middle East.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the main countries were Cameroon, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe; while nearly all the South Asian countries -- India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka -- took part, as did Southeast Asian countries including the Philippines and Singapore, Yusuf told AFP.

Copyright © 2008 Agence France Presse

Pfizer hedging its bets? UPDATE

Today Pfizer agrees to pay out $894 million to settle lawsuits over Celebrex and Bextra. Other NSAIDS still show a link to heart disease but this is one of the most readily preventable health conditions we know of and other posts on this blog give you some of that data. For pain and inflammation there are many excellent natural remedies as well as one of the natural products I use from time to time that has been tested at Dana Farber.

$894 million deal ends pain of Pfizer's lawsuitsBy Linda A. Johnson, Ap Business Writer
17 October, 2008
TRENTON, N.J. – Drug giant Pfizer Inc. has reached an $894 million deal to end most of the lawsuits over its two prescription pain relievers, the popular Celebrex and a similar drug, Bextra, no longer on the market.

The world's biggest drugmaker said Friday it has agreements in principle to end more than 90 percent of personal injury lawsuits brought by people claiming the pills caused heart attacks, strokes or other harm.

The settlement includes roughly 7,000 personal injury cases, mainly plaintiffs who took since-withdrawn Bextra, said plaintiff attorney Perry Weitz. He represents nearly 2,000 claimants, about 10 percent of them relatives of people who died.

"It gives Pfizer closure and the claimants their money sooner, rather than later or never at all," Weitz said.

Pfizer hopes to finalize claims covered by the settlement, which now includes up to 92 percent of plaintiffs, by year's end. It also hopes to include many of the remaining claimants in the settlement and will fight any remaining personal injury suits with court motions or at trial, General Counsel Amy Schulman told The Associated Press.

"I don't think either side has an interest in protracting this," Schulman said in an interview.

Weitz said plaintiff lawyers will "have issues" with Pfizer "if their claimants aren't paid before the end of the year."

In early trading, Pfizer shares were down 47 cents, or 2.8 percent, at $16.50.

Schulman said the deal comes after two important court rulings — one by a New York state judge overseeing many of the state-level personal injury cases and the other by a federal judge in San Francisco coordinating pretrial steps in federal lawsuits over the drugs.

"We teed up some pretrial motions for a court ruling on whether there was significantly reliable evidence that would allow an expert to testify as to whether there was an increased risk of heart attack and stroke at the most common dose," 200 milligrams, Schulman said. Both judges ruled that was not the case, she said.

The proposed deal also would end suits by insurers and patients seeking to recover what they spent on Bextra and Celebrex, as well as claims by 33 states and the District of Columbia that Pfizer improperly promoted Bextra.

Out of the total settlement, $745 million will go to settle personal injury cases, $60 million will cover settlements with attorneys general in the 33 states and the District of Columbia, and $89 million will cover consumer fraud class action cases over reimbursement for money spent on the two drugs. Two additional states, Louisiana and Mississippi, still have pending cases regarding Pfizer's promotion of the drugs.

New York-based Pfizer withdrew Bextra from the market in 2005, a year after Merck & Co. withdrew its Vioxx, a similar drug.

The Vioxx withdrawal, which triggered an avalanche of lawsuits against Merck, also raised concerns about the safety of other medicines in the same class, called Cox-2 inhibitors. They were heavily touted by their makers as superior to traditional nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen, because they block an enzyme involved in promoting inflammation but — unlike NSAIDs — don't block an enzyme that protects the stomach from bleeding and other side effects.

Other NSAIDs, such as ibuprofen and naproxen, have also been linked to increased heart risks.

Celebrex is the only Cox-2 inhibitor that the Food and Drug Administration has allowed to remain on the U.S. market.

Attorney Christopher Seeger, a member of the plaintiffs steering committee, said he'll "have no problem recommending" the settlement to the roughly 400 clients he represents.

"We're very satisfied with the deal," Seeger said.

Schulman said the company's negotiations with opposing lawyers had been under way for some time but picked up in the late summer.

"Litigation can be distracting, and putting these matters behind us helps our shareholders and, most importantly, patients and doctors," Schulman said.

Weitz noted that it took four or five years to get through trials for less than 20 cases in the massive Vioxx litigation, because the court system can only handle a limited number of cases at a time.

Pfizer will take a pretax charge of $894 million to its third-quarter earnings, which it is scheduled to report on Tuesday.

Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., has begun paying a $4.85 billion settlement to end about 50,000 lawsuits brought by people claiming Vioxx cause heart attacks, ischemic strokes or death. It still faces other litigation over the former blockbuster arthritis treatment.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.

Pfizer to Drop Development of Certain Drugs
by Shelley Wood, Heartwire 2008. © 2008 Medscape

October 3, 2008 (New York, NY) — Pfizer is getting out of the cholesterol-lowering game to focus on what it perceives to be more lucrative diseases, according to an internal memo obtained by Forbes [1]. And for the most part, the chosen "disease areas" don't include the heart.

In the memo, Martin Mackay, president of Pfizer Global Research & Development (R&D), informed his staff that the company plans to "exit" the fields of atherosclerosis/hyperlipidemia, heart failure, obesity, and peripheral arterial disease.

Instead, the company, whose cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin (Lipitor) is the world's top-selling drug, says it is turning its attention and R&D dollars to cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, pain remedies, and mental health as its "higher-priority areas."

The news comes in the wake of the flop of Pfizer's hoped-for new flagship, torcetrapib, a CETP inhibitor that was widely predicted to be the company's next blockbuster drug. While CV drugs have been the major moneymakers for Pfizer in recent years, those days are drawing to a close. In addition to Lipitor, which will lose patent protection in 2011, Pfizer's other major player in the CV drug arena is Norvasc (amlodipine), which came off patent in 2007.

Among the lower-priority "disease areas" where the company says it will continue working are thrombosis and transplant, the memo notes.

Contacted by heartwire, a handful of leaders for some of the major Pfizer-sponsored trials in cardiovascular disease over the past decade declined to comment on the company's announcement or speculate on what it might mean to the field of CV drug development--with one exception. Dr John Kastelein (Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands), who was an investigator in the Pfizer-sponsored ASAP, TNT, and IDEAL trials, called Pfizer "a real powerhouse" in the CV drug arena.

"I kind of knew this was coming, but when you see it in print, it still hits hard," he told heartwire. "I think this is very, very significant both for the company itself and for the whole field of CV drug development. Pfizer had truly excellent people in the development arm of their company for CV and metabolic drugs, and they've contributed to this whole notion that you need more robust LDL lowering and that that's better than mild LDL lowering, which has become one of the axioms of CV prevention. And if they're stepping out now, that not only signifies their own problems, but it also signifies the problems in CV drug development, and how incredibly difficult and costly it has become to bring new drugs forward. And that's not good for patients."

Kastelein predicts that drug companies, having "lost faith" somewhat in HDL-raising therapies, will need to look more closely at anti-inflammatory drugs in the setting of coronary artery disease. "But there, the problem is, if you have no biomarkers whatsoever to do even dose-finding studies, you need to move from relatively small phase 2 trials to incredibly large, hard-outcome studies, which is taking quite a risk," he said. And that, at least for Pfizer, is too much risk.

"Everyone, not just Pfizer, is realizing that the days of the really big blockbuster drugs are over. And what is going to replace that are drugs in a class that are 10 times or 100 times more difficult to develop, so the risks are much higher. And these days, after Avandia and ezetimibe, everything is about safety. This means the FDA is forced, by public and colleague pressure, to demand even larger databases before drugs are going to market, which is of course making it more expensive. It's a cycle that's very hard to break."

Calls to Pfizer were not returned before this story was published.

Herper M. The Pfizer memo. Forbes, September 30, 2008. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/business/2008/09/30/pfizer-drug-agenda-biz-bizhealth-cx_mh_0930pfizermemo.html.

The complete contents of Heartwire, a professional news service of WebMD, can be found at www.theheart.org, a Web site for cardiovascular healthcare professionals.