Tag: cholesterol’
To Drug or Not To Drug ~ That Is The Question
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Watching this little film clip made me think about our medical treatment options offered today. Most of us have family members who, upon learning their cholesterol is high, are immediately offered a prescription to take care of it. Should we really be abdicating control of our own personal health?
Dietary and lifestyle choices have been shown to be far better than treatment. According to Dr. Dean Ornish, author of Reversing Heart Disease, there is a genetic variability in how efficiently (or inefficiently) a person metabolizes dietary saturated fat and cholesterol. Some people can eat almost anything yet their blood cholesterol levels do not increase very much. Others find that even a small amount of dietary fat or cholesterol makes their blood cholesterol levels increase. Most people are somewhere in between on this spectrum.
In 1985 Drs. Michael Brown and Joseph Goldstein won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery of LDL-cholesterol receptors, located primarily in liver cells, and they bind and remove cholesterol from the bloodstream. According to Ornish, “The more cholesterol receptors you have, the more efficiently you can metabolize and remove cholesterol from your blood.” And this is, in part, genetically determined.
So what is the answer? Ornish goes on to state that if the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet is low enough, then your blood cholesterol level will be low even if you don’t have very many cholesterol receptors. Three fourths of the cholesterol in our blood is made by the body. It’s the excessive amounts of cholesterol and saturated fat in our diet that lead to coronary heart disease.
By eating healthier, controlling our weight and supplementing wisely, the rewards can be great, particularly over a lifetime. According to Ornish, if drugs are used to control a patient’s symptoms without also treating the underlying causes of the illness, than that patient will probably have to take these drugs for the rest of his or her life, often in ever-increasing dosages and with unpleasant and sometimes dangerous side effects. Not a pretty picture!
With one in three American adults having high cholesterol, one option is using a natural way to lower it. Natural compounds called plant sterols and stanols, when added to a healthy diet, can significantly reduce LDL cholesterol. These sterols and stanols are found naturally in plants, fruits, vegetables and grains and because their structure is similar to cholesterol, they compete for absorption, and thereby may help to decrease the level of cholesterol in the body. Ask me about it.
I am so happy and grateful that I am still prescription-free just as I celebrate my 69th birthday. Fortunately I took control of my own health and it has been very rewarding for me. What about you? What changes are you making daily that keep you on the path of wellness? I would love to hear your comments.
More News About Statins and What To Do About It
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Are you one of the many who have been prescribed a statin drug by your doctor as a way to prevent heart disease? A recent study of postmenopausal women, led by Dr. Yunsheng Ma of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, has found that statins may increase some people’s chances of developing Type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Steven Nissen, cardiology chairman at the Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the research, fears that people who need and will benefit from statins will be scared off of using the drugs because of reports like this.
So what exactly are statins? According to the Mayo Clinic, statins are drugs that can lower your cholesterol. They work by blocking a substance your body needs to make cholesterol. Statins may also help your body reabsorb cholesterol that has built up in plaques on your artery walls, preventing further blockage in your blood vessels and heart attacks.
Statins include well-known medications such as atorvastatin (Lipitor), simvastatin (Zocor), lovastatin (Mevacor), pravastatin (Pravachol), rosuvastatin (Crestor) and others. Lower cost generic versions of many statin medications are available. This class of medication, cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, generate more than $15 billion in worldwide sales every year; and 40 million Americans have been recommended to take them for the rest of their lives. Basically, statins have become the most profitable drug class in the world.
One interesting fact about statins ~ In Canada all statin drugs require warnings that the drugs reduce the coenzyme Q10 level ~ one the substances needed for the creation of energy by virtually every cell of your body.
According to Michael B. Schachter, M.D., when these drugs are given to lower LDL cholesterol levels in order to reduce risks of a heart attack, CoQ10 levels in the tissues are lowered, thus increasing risk for heart disease. He believes anyone taking Mevacor or similar type drugs should be on a significant dosage of CoQ10. He also mentions beta blockers, drugs that are used extensively to treat heart disease, high blood pressure and other conditions, also deplete the heart and other tissues of CoQ10. Unfortunately, most cardiologists and conventional physicians in the U.S. are unaware of this fact and do not give patients on these drugs supplements of CoQ10.
The Women’s Health study mentioned above certainly can be looked at as a needed note of caution for women. Taking a statin cholesterol-lowering drug should be your last resort, but if you do take one, it might be advantageous that you also take the supplement CoQ10 to replenish what has been lost by taking that statin.
My husband was recently requested by his doctor to begin taking a statin to reduce his cholesterol. Rather than take a drug, he chose to take a heart-healthy choice, containing 2,000 mg of plant sterols and stanols found naturally in plants, fruits, vegetables, and grains, and clinically proven by more than 80 studies to lower LDL cholesterol. Other suggested lifestyle changes for lowering our cholesterol include:
- Decreasing our intake of saturated at to less than 7% of total calories
- Decreasing our dietary cholesterol intake to less than 200 mg per day
- Losing 10 pounds if overweight
- Adding 5-10 g of soluble fiber to our diet each day
- And adding that 2,000 mg of plant sterols and stanols to our diet each day
A Summertime Drug ~ Fresh Organic Tomatoes
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A row of tomatoes
Loved this picture ~ we are in the midst of such a heatwave here but summertime brings us such great bounties (like these beautiful tomatoes!)
Not only are tomatoes one of the tastiest treats of the summer, we can enjoy them as well all year simply by using tomato pastes, sauces, and even sun dried tomatoes. Gary Null, author of Power Foods includes tomatoes on his list of power foods due to the presence of carotenes, antioxidants with a host of health benefits. He also stresses organic tomatoes, as the powerful carotenoid antioxidant lycopene can be up to three times higher in organic tomatoes than in conventionally grown tomatoes.
Null further emphasizes that when cooking or juicing tomatoes, be sure to use the whole tomato, including the peel, to gain the most benefits from the synergy of all the nutrients that are present. Loaded with healthy vitamins and trace minerals, one cup of ripe, raw tomato provides 57% RDV of vitamin C, 22% RDV of vitamin A, 13% RDV of vitamin K as well as ample amounts of B vitamins, and potassium, manganese, fiber, chromium, folate, magnesium, iron, vitamin E, tryptophan, and even a small amount of protein! Wow! Makes me want to definitely include tomatoes in my daily diet.
Of course no matter how red a tomato is, if it was picked to be shipped to a faraway supermarket, then it was picked too soon. That would certainly encourage us all to purchase ours from a local farmer’s market (or grow our own). A recent article in the NYTimes emphasized the phytonutrient called lycopene contained in the red pigment of tomatoes. One of its known benefits is preventing the oxidation of cholesterol, thereby slowing the development of atherosclerosis. Perhaps the drugs so commonly prescribed to people with slightly elevated cholesterol levels could be avoided simply by consuming more tomatoes (and with no side effects).
Also listed in that NY Times article were some wonderful recipes using tomatoes including Blender Tomato Soup, Brushetta with Tomato Topping, and Pizza Without The Dough. Go to that link and check it out. I am going to try some of these recipes as well as include in my daily diet a supplement that contains key carotenoids in each serving.