COMPREHENSIVE CARDIO-VASCULAR PROFILING

Although I write a lot about cancer, heart disease is still the # 1 killer in the western world. Numbers have improved somewhat due to the previously run anti smoking campaign. Standard practice programs of prevention and treatment are quite dismal and still deeply invested in the unfounded cholesterol theory of heart disease. A pharmaceutical business goal is to try to get 100 million Americans on statin drugs. Statins do lower cholesterol, but not without a price. As a stand alone therapy, statins are insufficient and so is lowering cholesterol as a primary goal in both the prevention and treatment of heart disease. Looking at the facts; 1 glaring truth is outstanding and that is that in ½ of the 650,000 deaths a year in the U.S. attributed to heart disease, 50% have a normal cholesterol reading.

Now lets watch a short introductory video:

Screening for cardiovascular disease is at best minimal. Expanded testing with a great deal more information is critical to determining an effective protocol and for that matter, who is actually at risk. Once again, the technological capacity is there, but is rarely implemented. The following tests are available and are not  difficult  for a Dr. to access.

C.B.C- Complete Blood Count:  This is a standard front line test that Docs give when you get a general physical. This test should be taken yearly post 45: at the very least every 2 years. Coupled with this test there should be a lipid panel and a chem or metabolic panel. This should be about a three page read out with lots of information. When a person wants to find out more preliminary information about their cardio-vascular system, five add-on tests would be Fibrinogen, Homocysteine, C-Reactive Protein, Insulin, and something called HbA1C. These last five add-ons can give you a direct window into the vascular system to determine both blood quality (thickened blood) and inflammation in the blood stream. Inflammation is one of the major driving forces behind all of our major killers and thickened blood can move towards thrombosis, which can create a clot and give us a heart attack or stroke.  Insulin and HbA1C can also tell us if we are moving towards or are already in the disordered condition of Insulin Resistance (pre-diabetic) or Type2 Diabetes. Insulin Resistance and Type 2 Diabetes are a very common finding ( post 45 ) and both are foundational to vascular disease in very big ways.

If there are abnormalities in the numbers that reflect a problem in the vascular system, then the following test should be implemented. Either a VAP  test or NMR test. These tests offer much greater detail in information concerning the cardio-vascular system. In this test, we are given some very important numbers that help us determine to a much greater degree where to place our efforts at trying to heal this problem.

To get back to Statins: Initial statin dose for patient used to be 10-20 mg. Now it is not uncommon to see doses up in the range of 50-70mgs. Statins get prescribed even if cholesterol just slightly high and or if LDL is slightly elevated. The Docs use this as their sole criteria for prescribing. Statins do lower cholesterol and LDL. Statins also undermine the production in our body of the critically important nutrient CoQ10. Muscle is particularly sensitive to CoQ10 deprivation. The Heart is a Muscle. Long term use of statins without CoQ10 will weaken heart muscle. In Europe, the mandate is that C0Q10 has to be given to patients taking statins. Why has that not been done in the U.S.?  Statins, used long enough will induce myopathy ( extreme muscle weakness ) and will weaken the kidneys.

 No matter which form of healing you ascribe to, a practitioner of that art form has to have a strategy based on a tried and true model. If that model is holistic one, than it will create a map that goes from health to disease and back again to health.  From physiology to patho-physiology back to physiology. All traditional models do this. Our physiologic model can do this if it is applied within this same paradigm. Part of that holistic physiologic model is the intelligent use of diagnostic technology based on a model of a living, fluid, ever changing and challenged universe known as a human being. We are not doing this in our contemporary standard practice medical model. It is a static model that has evolved through the continuing and ever present influence of the pharmaceutical industry in both medical school and in the Dr’s office. It is a model based on a symptom-drug complex. This idea definitely has its place in healing, but when it is the basis for your whole strategy, it is way too exclusive and fractured. Our diagnostic technology is following that model, and the Docs order tests and draw conclusions based on that model.

Natural medicine has many great things to assist the heart patient as well as many things to help prevent it. In order to apply help you need to know where you are going and why. A diagnostic approach based on a larger, more integrated framework can help create that map.

 Harry Chrissakis, Herbalist, M.H. Natural Healing

 contact@herbalist-herbs.com  530-933-8244  www.herbalist-herbs.com