Popular Antacids Could Cause Vitamin Deficiency

People taking acid-inhibiting medications, such as Prilosec, Zantac, Pepcid, or Nexium, could be short on Vitamin B12, writes Kristen Fischer on Yahoo! Health.

According to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and histamine 2 receptor antagonists (H2RAs) suppress gastric acid production, which can mean that the Vitamin B12 in food is not properly absorbed into the body. Vitamin B12 deficiency is linked to serious health complications, such as anemia, nerve damage, and dementia.

“Vitamin B12 deficiency is relatively common, especially among older adults; it has potentially serious medical complications if undiagnosed," the authors wrote.

Scientists from Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif. examined data from 25,956 patients with a new Vitamin B12 deficiency diagnosis between January 1997 and June 2011, and 184,199 patients without Vitamin B12 deficiency. They compared the two groups based on exposure to acid-inhibiting medications.

Among those who were newly diagnosed with a Vitamin B12 deficiency, 12 percent had been on PPIs for more than two years and 4.2 percent had been on H2RAs for more than two years; 83.8 percent were not on any of the medications. In the control group, 7.2 percent had been on PPIs for two years or more and 3.2 percent had been on H2RAs for more than two years; 89.6 percent were not taking acid-suppressors.

MyAchingKnees comment: I believe the major cause B12 and other deficiencies stem from eating nutrient poor foods and not taking quality supplements which are necessary to ensure your body receives the nutrients it needs to function properly.  Of course, taking OTC and prescription medications  can cause side effects, some very significant, as many Doctors treat the symptoms of a patient's health issues rather than trying to build that patient's health.

The researchers concluded that those on PPIs and H2RAs ran a higher risk of Vitamin B12 deficiency. And the higher the dose, the greater the risk.

They also discovered that the deficiency was more common in women and younger people. Once people stopped taking the medications, their risk went down.

“We cannot completely exclude residual confounding [factors besides the drugs] as an explanation for these findings, but, at minimum, the use of these medications identifies a population at higher risk of B12 deficiency, independent of additional risk factors,” the authors wrote.

Should Patients Stop Taking Acid-Inhibitors?

While their findings do not indicate that people should stop taking these medications, the researchers encourage physicians to be aware of the findings.

The strength of the association between acid-suppressors and vitamin deficiency increased with the medication dose, but not with the total length of time a person takes the medication, noted Dr. Douglas A. Corley, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research.

Knowing that Vitamin B12 deficiency is a possibility, should patients taking acid-suppressors ask for screenings? Talk to your doctor, Corley said.

“These results raise the question of whether patients on long-term acid suppressing medications should be screened at least once for vitamin B12 deficiency,” Corley said, noting that his statements refer to those who've been on the medications for more than two years.

The most commonly used PPIs are Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Protonix, and Aciphex. The most popular H2RAs include Zantac, Pepcid, and Tagamet.



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Case Is Closed: Multivitamins Are a Waste of Money, Doctors Say

This is a recent article posted on LiveScience.comhttp://news.yahoo.com/case-closed-multivitamins-waste-money-doctors- 150811128.html , by Bahar Gholipour, Staff Writer, trying to make the case that "People should stop wasting their money on dietary supplements, some physicians said today, in response to three large new studies that showed most multivitamin supplements are ineffective at reducing the risk of disease, and may even cause harm." I think this is total crapola and have a lot to say concerning this misinformation.

The Article,....

The new studies, published today (December 16, 2013) in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine —including two new clinical trials and one large review of 27 past clinical trials conducted by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force — found no evidence that taking daily multivitamin and mineral supplements prevents or slows down the progress of cognitive decline or chronic diseases such as heart diseases or cancer.

"The message is simple: Most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified and they should be avoided," the physicians wrote in an editorial published along with the studies.

This message is especially aimed at people who have no signs of nutritional deficiency — meaning most supplement users in the United States, the researchers said.

MyAching Kees comment: Who are the "people who have no signs of nutritional deficiency"? It is basically impossible to receive your necessary daily nutrients through today's food supply, therefore practically everyone has a need for supplemental nutrients. It could take years even decades for obvious signs and symptoms of chronic disease associated by nutritional deficiencies to become apparent. Many people will simply accept their reduced health and chronic conditions as just the process of getting old. I am saying don't accept that without a fight and high quality nutritonal supplements are one of your main tools in your arsenal in the fight.

"Study after study comes back negative — yet people continue to take supplements, now at record rates," said Dr. Edgar Miller, one of the five authors of the editorial and a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

MyAching Kees comment: These studies are flawed. They use people in various states of health and lifestyles, giving them a incomplete mix of low quality supplements often in lows doses. These studeis are also done by the conventional medical community who have a stake in seeing patients with chronic diseaes so they can prescribe various solutions to their ills, often with side effects, and chalking that up to the lesser of two evils.

There may be a psychological component to taking supplements, Miller said. Despite evidence showing supplements hold no benefit for the general population, some people may rationalize they need supplements because their diets lack necessary nutrients, Miller told LiveScience.

MyAching Knees comment: Lets talk about evidence. Me. A 45 years old man, BP constantly around 138/96. Cholesterol at 210. Rising PSA, A1C, and homecystine levels. Knee pain upon climbing stairs to boot. Start taking high quality nutritional supplements in doses considerably above the 70+ year old Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). Six months later and continuing today (9 years later) my routine blood pressure around 118/84; cholesterol at 151. PSA, A1C and Homocystine continuing to drop. Last blood lab results stated that my chances of developing chronic heart disease are 0.5 on a scale where 3.0 is half the average risk. Not only will I not take prescription medication, but my Doctor say's none is indicated.

The new findings are in line with those of previously published studies that have found no benefits from dietary supplements, including B vitamins and antioxidants, and even suggested possible harms. Results of clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people have shown that beta-carotene, vitamin E and possibly high doses of vitamin A supplements actually increase death rates, the researchers said.

MyAching Knees comment: Again, flawed studies with the "possible harm" scare. If these studies were conducted on a set of people exactly the same with exactly the same lifestyle (cloned people for example) AND gave them all the nutrients, just not cherry picking a few nutrients, and gave them quality supplements in the right doses - then these types of studies may begin to have meaning.

"We believe that the case is closed — supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with most mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful," the researchers wrote in their editorial.

The use of multivitamin and mineral supplements among Americans has increased to about 50 percent in the mid-2000s, up from 40 percent in the early 1990s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For some supplements, such as beta-carotene and vitamin E, studies have found declines in use, following reports of their negative effects on lung cancer and mortality.

MyAching Knees comment: Cancer? My wife had surgery to remove a cancerous turmor in her sinus and frontal lobe. Doctors all recommended she stop taking supplements. She enters into seven weeks of radiation treatment being told that she will lose 30-50 lbs, be have continious nausea and fatigue, head aches, sore skin around head associated with the radiation and some other side effects. She was told to quit taking her supplements, but refused. She never had nausea,...did not lose any weight,...and the Doctors told her that have never had a patient breeze through surgical recovery and radiation treatment like she has.  You would think these Doctors would like to know what she did to be different,.....what she did to keep her health through the cancer treatment. But,...no.  As good as they are in what they do - surgically remove tumors and irradiate the affected site - they don't understand the simple connection between nutrition and health.  

In contrast, sales of multivitamins and other supplements have not been affected by major studies that didn't find benefits, the researchers said. The U.S. supplement industry continues to grow, and reached $28 billion in annual sales in 2010. Similar trends have been reported in the United Kingdom and in other European countries.

The dietary-supplement industry maintains that for many Americans, diet alone may not provide the necessary vitamins they need daily, Miller said.

"The industry tries to create the impression that we are deficient, but randomized trials show that we are not all deficient and we don't benefit from supplements," Miller said, adding that clinical trials include people with varied diets from the general population.

The new review study looked at clinical trials that included a total of 450,000 older adults. All together, the researchers didn't find clear evidence of a beneficial effect of supplements on cancer and heart diseases.

MyAching Knees comment: Look the terms this article is using,....."clinical research,...new studies,...randomized trials",......kind of leaving off the who, what, when and where aren't they?

In another study, researchers looked at the effects of taking a daily combination of nutrients —including vitamins A, C, E, beta-carotene and B vitamins — in 6,000 men ages 65 and older who were followed for 12 years. The cognitive performance and verbal memory of participants who took multivitamin supplements didn't differ from those of participants who took placebo.

In the third study, the researchers examined whether high doses of multivitamins and minerals could prevent heart attacks, strokes and death in 1,700 people who have already had a heart attack. After an average follow-up of five years, the results didn't show a difference between participants who took dietary supplements and those who didn't.

MyAching Knees comment: "no difference between participants who took dietary supplements and those who didn't",......what supplements are they talking about anyway? The low quality food grade off the shelf supplements? Or the pharmaceutical grade supplements containing all the nutrients in the right doses? These un-named physicians can keep their "clinical research,...new studies,...randomized trials",.........we're going to keep doing what we are doing and that is take the best supplements we can find, avoid toxins as much as we can, and live a physical lifestyle which has been possible these last 9 years since my knee pain is gone. We're just going to maintain our healthy lifestyles trying to live long and die short which is the opposite of most Americans.

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5 Surprising Immunity Boosting Foods for Cold and Flu Season

Timely `on winter colds and flu, given the cold fronts that just have passed through, by Epicurious.com and posted on Healthy Living

According to the CDC's weekly FluView report, "flu activity continues to increase in parts of the United States." Additionally, my super-scientific Sneezers on the Subway observations indicate that colds are also on the rise. And while the CDC stresses that the best ways to prevent the flu is to get vaccinated against it and wash your hands properly, there's evidence that certain foods can help boost immunity and might help ward off colds and the flu. Here are a few you might not know about:

Organic, Whole Milk: The findings of a just-released study on organic milk and fatty acid composition, published in the reputable peer-reviewed journal PLOS one, indicate that organic milk contains a better balance of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids than conventional milk. And omega-3s have been linked to tons of benefits, including boosting immunity by increasing the activity of phagocytes, "cells that fight flu by eating up bacteria," says Prevention. You'll also get the most omega-3s from whole, rather than skim, milk though you'll have to weigh whether the extra total fat and calories are worth it to you.

Pickled Turnips: "Scientists have discovered that eating a traditional Japanese pickle could have 'protective effects' in preventing people from catching the flu," according to The Independent's recent article on the immunity boosting properties of a friendly bacteria in the pickles called suguki. If you can't find suguki, consider adding sauerkraut and kimchi to your menu -- the lacto-fermentation process by which these and some other traditional pickled products are made produces probiotics (those good-for-you bugs most associated with yogurt).

Red Grapes and Blueberries: These fruits may have "a significant benefit for immunity," according to a New York Daily News article reporting on an Oregon State University study. "Findings published in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research showed that two compounds, resveratrol found in red grapes and pterostilbene found in blueberries, when combined with vitamin D, could boost the bodys ability to fend off illness." (Findings of a separate study, published in BMJ, linked blueberries, grapes, and apples to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.)

Golden Kiwifruit: You might want to keep your eyes open in exotic fruit section of the grocery store for this sweet, yellow-fleshed kiwi, as a small study (funded by a fruit exporter, so take it with a grain of salt), suggested that this fruit could help with congestion and sore throats. (See The New Zealand Herald's "gold kiwifruit 'wonder drug' for colds" for more.) But if you can't find the gold kiwis, don't worry: Regularkiwi is an excellent source of vitamin C.

"Five a Day": While many studies have drawn associations between certain nutrients (e.g. vitamin C or E) and increased immunity, the article Healthy Diet Fights Infection by Boosting Immune System from the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter cites a study in which participants who increased their produce consumption from two to five servings per day of any fruit and vegetable saw increased immunity. Yet another reason to eat a balanced diet filled with whatever fruits and vegetables you love.

MyAchingKnees comment: Pickled Turnips? No thanks. But it IS possible to protect yourself from seasonal colds and flus.....and I don't mean by getting a flu shot. Something is wrong with your immune system if you get sick several times a year. I used to put up with being sick,..getting the occasional cold or bout with flu with headaches and racking joint pain. I even have had pneumonia three times. Once it was so severe that the Doc's thought I was having a heart attack. But in the past 8 years, going on 9, I have no been sick once. Not once. Sure is nice to use your work sick days for something other than lying in bed.  Eat right - low glycemic,.....take quality supplements, avoid toxins and live a physical life. 

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The Truth About Your Metabolism

The Truth About Your Metabolism From Men's Health, .....well maybe not the whole truth, but interesting enough to post. 

People talk about their metabolism a lot. You'd think they actually understand it. But often that's not the case. Here are four things you should know about the M-word:

Burning Truth No. 1: Skinny People Have Fast Metabolisms

VERDICT: Sometimes

"There are slim people with slightly low metabolisms who just don't eat very much," says Michael Jensen, M.D., an endocrinologist with the Mayo Clinic. "And there are heavy people with really high metabolisms who eat a huge amount."

Burning Truth No. 2: Lean Tissue Burns More Calories Than Fat Does Even While You're Asleep

VERDICT: True

"Your brain, heart, liver, and kidneys use a lot of energy, even when you're lying still," says Dr. Jensen. Muscle and the GI tract don't use much at rest; fat burns practically nothing. His estimate: You burn about a calorie per minute at rest. A quarter of that is torched by muscle, and 1/50th of it is burned by fat.

Burning Truth No. 3: Some Guys Can Only Slim Down By Slashing Calories

VERDICT: False

"In 30 years I've never seen anyone with a truly low metabolic rate," says Dr. Jensen. "People who think they need an 800-calorie diet often have resting metabolic rates of 1,500 calories."

So why can't they slim down? They're often eating many more calories than they realize. His fix: Accurately record everything you eat for two weeks. Unhealthy trends may emerge.

Burning Truth No. 4: Cutting 500 Calories A Day Means You'll Lose A Pound A Week

VERDICT: Not Quite

A pound of fat does equal 3,500 calories, and you may lose a pound the first week. "But when you eat less, you lose lean tissue, so your basal metabolic rate goes down," says Dr. Jensen.

Surprise: You may gain more than a pound after a 3,500-calorie pig-out, since calories stored as sugar cause you to retain water.

MyAchingKnees Comment: You can spend your time trying to figure out Metabolism rates, what foods may increase it, and what doesn't. You can try the latest fat burning tablets from the local pharmacy. Or you can just accept that diet and exercise, minimizing the bad foods you eat and increasing your physical activity is the most assured way to lose weight.

If you try some of those well advertised diet plans out there just be aware that most of these diets fail because they do not provide the nutrients your body needs. That's why some people get sick during their diets as their immune system is depressed from the lack of nutrients, and that's why some people gain weight after the diet as they are nutrient starved when they come off their diets.

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Beware of Faulty Supplement Studies

NBC News produced a report titled "Vitamins don’t prevent heart disease or cancer, experts find" by Maggie Fox. This is one of the poorest articles I have ever read. I am in no way reluctant to post it because I believe in letting the "buyer beware". Make your own decision and if it works for you then good, keep doing it. However, I must say that many supplement studies are just B.S. because of many reasons or combinations of reasons: poor quality supplements for test; testing single nutrients; testing nutrients in small RDAS level doses; testing nutrients on subjects with widely diverse ages and health where a common baseline is impossible. Anyway, like I said, let the buyer beware!

The article: 

There’s not much evidence that vitamins can prevent heart disease or cancer – the two leading killers of Americans, experts said Monday.

Even though half the U.S. population pops vitamins in the belief they can help people live longer, healthier lives, a very extensive look at the studies that have been done show it may be a waste of time when it comes to preventing the diseases most likely to kill you.

The findings, by a team at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., being used as the basis to update recommendations by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), aren’t clear-cut. They are likely to add to confusion over the benefits of vitamins.

"A healthy balanced diet is critical for good health, and that's probably the most important way that we get the nutrients that are essential," says Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, a heart disease specialist at the University of California San Francisco who's a member of the Task Force.

“The USPSTF reviewed 24 studies of individual vitamins, minerals, or functional nutrient pairs. Across all the supplements studied, there was no evidence of beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease, cancer, or all-cause mortality," they wrote.

That doesn’t mean people don’t need the nutrients. It’s just that a multivitamin might not be the best way to get them.

There are two clear exceptions, the researchers report in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Beta-carotene can raise the risk of lung cancer in smokers, and vitamin E does no good at all in preventing cancer or heart disease. “The USPSTF concludes with moderate certainty that the net benefit of vitamin E supplementation is zero," they wrote.

And it’s also clear that vitamins can help pregnant women ensure they have healthy babies. The benefits of folic acid are so clear that flour is supplemented with it.

Vitamins are a multibillion-dollar industry in the United States. “Americans spend an estimated $11.8 billion each year on vitamin and mineral supplements,” the researchers wrote. But study after study has returned mixed evidence, at best, that they help most people in any way. The exceptions are people with vitamin deficiencies.

The team did what’s known as a meta-analysis, pooling the evidence of many different studies.

Evidence is clear that “fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, and seafood may play a role in the prevention of cancer or cardiovascular disease,” the researchers wrote. The American Heart Association agrees in its latest statement. "We recommend that healthy people get adequate nutrients by eating a variety of foods in moderation, rather than by taking supplements," the group says.

Dr. Paul Offit of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who criticizes the supplement industry in his book “Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine,” says he is not surprised by the findings.

But he doubts that the millions of Americans who buy vitamins will stop because of this recommendation. “They are constantly hearing information from those who market these products that they are good for you, that they boost your immunity, that they reduce stress,” Offit said in a telephone interview. “Many celebrities endorse them. One cannot imagine how they could hurt you because you need vitamins, you need vitamins to live. The notion is the more, the better.”

Offit said the review could have done more to highlight some of the dangers of overdosing on vitamins. Vitamin A, for example, can cause liver damage if taken in high amounts. “I wish they had taken on the issue of taking megavitamins in excess," he said. “I would like to see someone step forward and say there’s harm.”

There is evidence that taking too many vitamins may be harmful. One study found that too much vitamin E may raise the risk of prostate cancer. And one study of 40,000 women found a slightly higher risk of death in women who took supplements.

Even studies showing benefit have mixed results. Last year, a study showed that men who took a specific multivitamin had a lower risk of death. But the benefit didn’t extend to women.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade association and lobbying group for the supplement industry, said the findings show the benefits of vitamins. “Your multivitamin provides you those missing nutrients that are missing from poor diet or busy travel schedules and that's really what the importance of a multivitamin is,” said Douglas MacKay, VP for scientific and regulatory affairs at the group.

But Madelyn Fernstrom, NBC's Diet and Nutrition Editor and a professor of psychiatry, epidemiology, and surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, disputes this.

Consumers should know that taking vitamins does not offset poor lifestyle choices," she says. "Many people fool themselves into 'bartering' for self- selected lifestyle factors. Smokers who take vitamins to support heart health, or sun-worshippers who take antioxidant vitamins to prevent skin cancer, are only fooling themselves."



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Can Vitamin D Prevent Diabetes?

This article is from Lisa Collier Cool and was originally titled "Can This 7-Cent Vitamin Prevent Diabetes?".

Researchers have launched the world’s first large, definitive clinical trial to find out if vitamin D supplements can stave off type 2 diabetes in people at high risk for the disease.

About 20 US medical centers are participating in the National Institutes of Health-funded trial, known as the D2d study, which will include some 2,500 volunteers with pre-diabetes, a problem affecting 79 million Americans.

“Without an effective intervention, about 10 percent of people with pre-diabetes will progress to type 2 diabetes each year,” reports Anatassios Pittas, MD, co-director of the Diabetes Center at Tufts Medical Center, who has received a grant of more than $40 million over five years from the NIH as part of the D2d study.

In the double-blinded clinical study, pre-diabetic participants ages 30 and older will be randomly assigned to take 4,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D3 or a placebo. Their health will be tracked for about four years.

MyAchingKnees Comment:  While I think Vitamin D in a necessary supplement and a daily dose in the several thousand of IU's is required, I don't think these studies involving single nutrients do a lot of good since they do not consider nor evaluate the necessary and synergistic effect of taking all the required nutrients for the bodies immune system to optimally function.......still I am glad someone thinks that daily doses of more than the RDA recommended 400 IU are necessary.     

New strategies are urgently needed to halt the diabetes epidemic, which now affects nearly 26 million Americans—with about 1.9 million new cases diagnosed each year, according to the American Diabetes Association. Rates have been rising in tandem with the obesity epidemic.

Urgent Need for Safe, Low-cost Strategies to Stop an Epidemic

“There’s a lot of hype about potential benefits of vitamin D—which is one of the most popular supplements with sales of $425 million a year in 2009—but not enough good scientific evidence to support a recommendation for or against taking it for diabetes prevention,” adds Dr. Pittas.

However, there are strong signals that the inexpensive vitamin—available for as little as 7 cents per pill—might be helpful. For example, Dr. Pittas and colleagues reported in a 2012 study that pre-diabetic patients with the most vitamin D in their blood had lower risk for progressing to type 2 diabetes, even when lifestyle interventions known to cut the threat, such as weight loss, exercising more, and eating a better diet were taken into account.

Ample amounts of the sunshine vitamin are linked to dramatic drops in risk for both type 1 and 2 diabetes. Compared to people with the most vitamin D in their blood, those with the least are 50 percent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a meta-analysis of 16 studies published earlier this year in Clinical Chemistry.

High levels of vitamin D have an even more potent effect on risk for type 1 diabetes (an autoimmune disease). A 2012 study found that people with vitamin D levels of 17 nanograms or less per milliliter of blood had more than triple the risk for type 1 versus those with levels above 40.

While these and other studies show a strong correlation between vitamin D and lower diabetes risk, they don’t establish causation. In other words, there is no proof that the sunshine vitamin prevents diabetes.

Facing Diabetes Head On: Tips to Help You Cope

What’s the Link Between Vitamin D and Diabetes Risk?

“For type 2 diabetes to develop, people have to have two problems: their bodies become resistant to insulin and the beta cells in their pancreas don’t produce enough insulin to keep up with demand,” says Dr. Pittas.

“There is some preliminary evidence that vitamin D may improve both problems,” adds Dr. Pittas. “Another intriguing discovery is that the beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin have the ability to activate vitamin D locally, which is not the case with most other tissues in the body.”

These discoveries offer a plausible biological mechanism by which vitamin D may fight diabetes, continues Dr. Pittas, who has been researching links with both forms of the disease for more than a decade. “I became intrigued with this association after learning that rates of type 1 diabetes rise as you move further from the equator.”

This geographic pattern also holds true for other autoimmune conditions, leading many researchers to hypothesize that sunshine, which sparks the body to produce vitamin D, may be protective.

However, there could also be other reasons, cautions Dr. Pittas. “For example, people who live close to the equator tend to have a healthier lifestyle than those in northern countries where people exercise less and eat a Western diet.”

Should You Take Vitamin D to Prevent Diabetes?

Since it’s not yet known if high doses of vitamin D, such as those used in the study, protect against diabetes, Dr. Pittas recommends sticking to the RDA of vitamin D (600 IU for people ages one to 70, and 800 IU for those over 70), unless your healthcare provider recommends higher doses.

Also discuss being checked for vitamin D deficiency, which is very common among Americans, especially in the winter, points out Amy Doneen, ARNP, medical director of the Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention Center in Spokane, Washington.

“Although a cause-and-effect relationship with diabetes hasn’t been established, optimizing your vitamin D levels if they’re low appears to be particularly beneficial if you have insulin resistance, the root cause of both type 2 diabetes and many heart attacks,” adds Doneen.

The best dietary sources for vitamin D include oily fish like salmon and mackerel, beef liver, egg yolks, and fortified dairy products.

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What Causes Heart Disease?

This article is by a world renowned Heart Surgeon who is speaking out on what he thinks really causes heart disease. This was published on MyScienceAcademy.org by Dr. Dwight Lundell. Dr Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ. His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ. Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease. He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is also the author of The Cure for Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.

What Causes Heart Disease? We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong.. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

World Renowned Heart Surgeon Speaks Out On What Really Causes Heart Disease

I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labeled “opinion makers.” Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake. The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease. Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.

It Is Not Working!

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible. The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.

Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.

Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes. Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended. It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.

Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus. The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders. However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.

What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body? Well,smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.

The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.

Let me repeat that: The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine.

What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

Take a moment to visualize rubbing a stiff brush repeatedly over soft skin until it becomes quite red and nearly bleeding. you kept this up several times a day, every day for five years. If you could tolerate this painful brushing, you would have a bleeding, swollen infected area that became worse with each repeated injury. This is a good way to visualize the inflammatory process that could be going on in your body right now.

Regardless of where the inflammatory process occurs, externally or internally, it is the same. I have peered inside thousands upon thousands of arteries. A diseased artery looks as if someone took a brush and scrubbed repeatedly against its wall. Several times a day, every day, the foods we eat create small injuries compounding into more injuries, causing the body to respond continuously and appropriately with inflammation.

While we savor the tantalizing taste of a sweet roll, our bodies respond alarmingly as if a foreign invader arrived declaring war. Foods loaded with sugars and simple carbohydrates, or processed with omega-6 oils for long shelf life have been the mainstay of the American diet for six decades. These foods have been slowly poisoning everyone.

How does eating a simple sweet roll create a cascade of inflammation to make you sick?

Imagine spilling syrup on your keyboard and you have a visual of what occurs inside the cell. When we consume simple carbohydrates such as sugar, blood sugar rises rapidly. In response, your pancreas secretes insulin whose primary purpose is to drive sugar into each cell where it is stored for energy. If the cell is full and does not need glucose, it is rejected to avoid extra sugar gumming up the works.

When your full cells reject the extra glucose, blood sugar rises producing more insulin and the glucose converts to stored fat.

What does all this have to do with inflammation? Blood sugar is controlled in a very narrow range. Extra sugar molecules attach to a variety of proteins that in turn injure the blood vessel wall. This repeated injury to the blood vessel wall sets off inflammation. When you spike your blood sugar level several times a day, every day, it is exactly like taking sandpaper to the inside of your delicate blood vessels.

While you may not be able to see it, rest assured it is there. I saw it in over 5,000 surgical patients spanning 25 years who all shared one common denominator — inflammation in their arteries.

Let’s get back to the sweet roll. That innocent looking goody not only contains sugars, it is baked in one of many omega-6 oils such as soybean. Chips and fries are soaked in soybean oil; processed foods are manufactured with omega-6 oils for longer shelf life. While omega-6’s are essential -they are part of every cell membrane controlling what goes in and out of the cell – they must be in the correct balance with omega-3’s.

If the balance shifts by consuming excessive omega-6, the cell membrane produces chemicals called cytokines that directly cause inflammation.

Today’s mainstream American diet has produced an extreme imbalance of these two fats. The ratio of imbalance ranges from 15:1 to as high as 30:1 in favor of omega-6. That’s a tremendous amount of cytokines causing inflammation. In today’s food environment, a 3:1 ratio would be optimal and healthy.

To make matters worse, the excess weight you are carrying from eating these foods creates overloaded fat cells that pour out large quantities of pro-inflammatory chemicals that add to the injury caused by having high blood sugar. The process that began with a sweet roll turns into a vicious cycle over time that creates heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and finally, Alzheimer’s disease, as the inflammatory process continues unabated.

There is no escaping the fact that the more we consume prepared and processed foods, the more we trip the inflammation switch little by little each day. The human body cannot process, nor was it designed to consume, foods packed with sugars and soaked in omega-6 oils.

There is but one answer to quieting inflammation, and that is returning to foods closer to their natural state. To build muscle, eat more protein. Choose carbohydrates that are very complex such as colorful fruits and vegetables. Cut down on or eliminate inflammation- causing omega-6 fats like corn and soybean oil and the processed foods that are made from them.

One tablespoon of corn oil contains 7,280 mg of omega-6; soybean contains 6,940 mg. Instead, use olive oil or butter.

Animal fats contain less than 20% omega-6 and are much less likely to cause inflammation than the supposedly healthy oils labeled polyunsaturated. Forget the “science” that has been drummed into your head for decades. The science that saturated fat alone causes heart disease is non-existent. The science that saturated fat raises blood cholesterol is also very weak. Since we now know that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the concern about saturated fat is even more absurd today.

The cholesterol theory led to the no-fat, low-fat recommendations that in turn created the very foods now causing an epidemic of inflammation. Mainstream medicine made a terrible mistake when it advised people to avoid saturated fat in favor of foods high in omega-6 fats. We now have an epidemic of arterial inflammation leading to heart disease and other silent killers.

What you can do is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.





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