posted June 14, 2000 08:54 PM         

" The expensive, technologically advanced treatment for coronary artery disease, such as coronary angioplasty, bypass surgery, thrombolytic therapy, antiarrythmic drugs and pacemakers are all palliative, not curative, none do anything about the underlying arteriosclerotic disease that causes the problem " - Journal of the American Medical Assoc, 269 (5): 1993.

These means EVERYTHING medicine has to offer is patch up (palliative) and not a fix or cure (curative). To fix the problem you must address the underlying arteriosclerotic disease (narrowing of the artery due to plaque). Diet and lifestyle are the ONLY effective ways to doing that. If you rely on medicine it will be too late. Consider that a 1997 study published in the American Journal of Cardiology found that medical cardiologists are more likely to take vitamins than aspirin to prevent their own heart attacks....but are more likely to recommend aspirin than vitamins to their patients. What happened to the golden rule?

If you are diagnosed as needing a bypass and do nothing (by nothing I mean stay at home, smoke cigars, eat Twinkies and watch Gilligans Island all day) - your chances of dying are 1% in the next year. if you have angioplasty the rate goes up to 4.6% in the next 6 months and angioplasty fails around 50% of the time. Disclaimer : I am not recommending eating Twinkies, smoking cigars or doing nothing. However wathing Gilligans Island has not been shown to be hazardous to your health.

Niacin is vitamin B3 and has its own seperate post. It is the most effective thing known to lower cholesterol. It also raises the HDL or good cholesterol. But it can be extremely liver toxic. Doses should be 200-800 mg day depending on your size. Several grams can cause liver failure. Do not take it if you already have liver disease or elevated liver enzymes.

What else is there :
1) Fiber in the diet - cholesterol is deposited in the gallbladder as part of bile. Bile is made up of many things - some of which are waste and some are digestive enzymes. When you eat a meal the gallbladder dumps this junk onto the food to aid in digestion. The cholesterol goes into the digestive tract with it. If you eat alot of fiber the fiber soaks it up and it is eliminated in the stool. If you do not eat fiber the cholesterol is re-absorbed once again into the blood stream out of the intestine.
2)Vitamin C enhances the transformation of cholesterol into bile acids. Large doses of vitamin C leads to a significant fall in chol, triglycerides and total lipids (Alimentary Nutr metab 2(3) : 1981)
3) Pantethine - this vitamin has a significant lipid lowering effect (Clin Ther 8:1986)
4) Digestive enzymes such as Bromelain and lipases have been shown to reduce chol and triglycerides. (Enzymes the Fountain of life, Lopez M.D., 1994)
5) Vitamin E - raises the HDl and lowers the LDL (bad cholesterol)
6) probably my favorite is something called Guggullipid. This is an ancient ayurvedic remedy made from Myrrh. It is known to lower cholesterol through scientific studies (J Assoc Phys 37 : 1989) and may even be stronger than Niacin but this is inconclusive to date.

One of the most important points is this : Cholesterol is not of concern unless it sticks to the artery walls. Cholesterol by itself will not kill you...it is not rat poison. You need it to make enzymes, antibodies and hormones. If your cholesterol gets too low (below 120) you can get sick and be more prone to hemorrhagic strokes.

Just because your cholesterol is "high" does not necessarily mean your cholesterol is clogging your arteries. Cholesterol is more likely to stick if it is the LDL form. LDL is more likely to oxidize. Rust is a form of oxidation and makes steel rough. Oxidation makes cholesterol rough and more likely to stick to artery walls. This is one reason we take anti-oxidant vitamins is to prevent oxidation of cholesterol. It is also one reason to eat foods high in natural anti-oxidants - vegetables and fruits.

Also cholesterol is more likely to stick if the artery wall is rough, with places for the cholesterol to lodge. Things that make the artery rough are specific chemical irritants and chronic inlammation. One irritant is a chemical called homocysteine - which elevates in the presence of a high animal protein diet and is lowered by the B vitamin called Folic acid. Smoking roughens the hell out of arteries. David Latterman recently had a quintuple bypass BUT prior to that his cholesterol had been 175 for years and he ran 5 miles a day. But the ignoramus smoked hella cigars. heck you could see him with a cigar in his mouth weeks after his surgery. I am not sure if he has quit at this point but we can bet if he has not he will be in for a bypass again.

A low cholesterol diet does not gaurantee low blood cholesterol and eating lots of cholesterol does not mean you will have high cholesterol. That is because 80% of all the cholesterol in your blood stream is produced in the liver. When you take medications to lower your cholesterol it does not keep chol from coming out of your food, it affects the way your liver produces it. I have personally seen people with fairly normal diets and fairly normal cholesterol switch to a vegetarian diet and see their cholesterol and triglycerides shoot through the roof - even though a vegetarian diet does not supply any cholesterol. However a diet rich in fruits and vegetables will provide the nedded fiber, antioxidants and elements that help cleanse the liver. But the key is always BALANCE. Any extreme can damage health ----

I think the best way to determine if Cholesterol is sticking to your arteries is with diagnostic vascular ultrasound. It is a painless non-invasive method. A little wand like instrument is placed over an artery and the velocity and amount of plaque is measured. Other invasive methods like angiograms carry certain risks.