Natural Eradication of Cardiovascular Disease

Natural Eradication of Cardiovascular Disease

Every second man and woman in the industrialized world dies from the consequences of atherosclerotic deposits in the coronary arteries (leading to heart attack) or in the arteries supplying blood to the brain (leading to stroke). The epidemic spread of these cardiovascular diseases is largely due to the fact that, until now, the true nature of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease has been insufficiently understood.



Conventional medicine is largely confined to treating the symptoms of this disease. Calcium antagonists, beta-blockers, nitrates and other drugs are prescribed to alleviate angina pain. Surgical procedures (angioplasty and bypass surgery) are applied to improve blood flow mechanically. Rarely does conventional medicine target the underlying problem: the instability of the vascular wall, which triggers the development of atherosclerotic deposits.

Cellular Medicine provides a breakthrough in our understanding of the underlying causes of these conditions and leads to the effective prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease. The primary cause of coronary heart disease and other forms of atherosclerotic disease is a chronic deficiency of vitamins and other essential nutrients in millions of vascular wall cells. This leads to the instability of the vascular walls, lesions and cracks, atherosclerotic deposits and, eventually, heart attacks or strokes. Since the primary cause of cardiovascular disease is a deficiency of essential nutrients in the vascular wall, the daily optimum intake of these essential nutrients is the primary measure to prevent atherosclerosis and help repair artery wall damage.

Scientific research and clinical studies have already documented the particular value of vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, lysine, proline and other ingredients in Dr. Rath’s Cellular Health recommendations for preventing cardiovascular disease and improving the health of patients with existing cardiovascular disease.

Vitamins and Other Nutrients Can Halt and Reverse Coronary Heart Disease

Millions of people die every year from heart attacks because no effective treatment to halt or reverse coronary heart disease has been available. Therefore, we decided to test the efficacy of Dr. Rath’s Cellular Health recommendations for the number one health problem of our time: coronary atherosclerosis, the cause of heart attacks. If these Cellular Health recommendations were able to stop further progression of coronary atherosclerosis, the fight against heart attacks could be won and the goal of eradicating heart disease would become a reality.

To measure the success of this program, we did not primarily look at risk factors circulating in the bloodstream. We focused directly on the key problem, the atherosclerotic deposits inside the walls of the coronary arteries. A fascinating new diagnostic technique had just become available that allowed us to measure the size of the coronary deposits non-invasively: Ultrafast Computed Tomography (Ultrafast CT).

Ultrafast CT measures the area and density of calcium deposits without the use of needles or radioactive dye. The computer automatically calculates their size by determining the Coronary Artery Scan (CAS) score. The higher the CAS score, the more calcium has accumulated, which indicates more advanced coronary heart disease.

Compared to angiography and treadmill tests, Ultrafast CT is the most precise diagnostic technique available today to detect coronary heart disease already in its early stages. This diagnostic test allows the detection of deposits in the coronary arteries long before a patient notices angina pectoris or other symptoms. Moreover, since it directly measures the deposits in the artery walls, Ultrafast CT is a much better indicator of a person’s cardiovascular risk than measurements of cholesterol or other risk factors in the bloodstream.


Before following Dr. Rath’s Cellular Health recommendations, the patient had developed atherosclerotic deposits in the walls of his left coronary artery (white circled area in the left picture). The scans below are magnifications of the heart scan taken with Ultrafast CT.

We studied 55 patients with various degrees of coronary heart disease. Changes in the size of the coronary artery calcifications in each patient were measured over an average period of one year without vitamin supplementation, followed by one year with Dr. Rath’s Cellular Health recommendations. In this way, the heart scans of the same person could be compared before and after the vitamin program. This study design had the advantage of patients serving as their own controls.

The results of this study were published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition. The full text of this landmark study is documented at the end of this book. The most important findings can be summarized as follows: This study measured, for the first time, how aggressive coronary heart disease progresses until eventually a heart attack occurs. Without the use of Cellular Health recommendations, the coronary calcifications increased at an exponential rate (very fast) with an average growth of 44% every year. Thus, without vitamin protection, coronary deposits increased approximately half their size every year.

When patients followed the Cellular Health recommendations, this trend was reversed and the average growth rate of coronary calcifications actually slowed down. Most significantly, in patients with early stages of the disease, this essential nutrient program stopped further progression of coronary heart disease within one year. This study also gives us valuable information about the time it takes for the Cellular Health recommendations to show a repair effect on the artery wall.

While for the first six months the deposits in these patients continued to grow, albeit at a decreased pace, the growth essentially stopped during the second six months with the vitamin program. Of course, any therapy that stops coronary heart disease in its early stages prevents heart attacks later on.

It is not surprising that there is a delay of several months until the healing effect of these Cellular Health recommendations on the artery wall becomes noticeable. Atherosclerotic deposits develop over many years or decades, and it takes several months to control this aggressive disease and start the healing process. More advanced stages of coronary heart disease may take still longer before the vascular healing process is measurable. To determine this, we are continuing our study.

Can already existing coronary deposits be reversed in a natural way? The answer is yes. In individual patients, we documented the natural reversal and complete disappearance of early coronary artery deposits approximately within one year. The ongoing study will tell us how long the natural reversal takes in patients with advanced coronary artery disease.

The complete natural disappearance of atherosclerotic deposits with Dr. Rath’s Cellular Health recommendations confirms that this vitamin program contains the essential ingredients needed to start the natural healing process of the artery wall.

In patients with early coronary heart disease, this healing of the artery wall can lead to the complete, natural disapearance of atherosclerotic deposits.

In patients with advanced coronary artery disease, these Cellular Health recommendations can stabilize the artery walls, halt the further growth of coronary deposits, reverse them, at least in part, and contribute to the prevention of heart attacks.

Scientific Publications on Nutrients and Cardiovascular Disease
Learn more about Cellular Health
Abstract from Dr Rath Health Foundation

Coronary Heart Disease Is an Early Form of Scurvy

Dr. Rath’s Scientific Discovery in Heart Disease

Dr. Rath’s research reveals that coronary heart disease occurs exactly for the same reason that clinical (early) scurvy does – a deficiency of vitamin C in the cells composing the artery wall. Humans, unlike animals, develop heart disease because their bodies cannot produce vitamin C. The average diet provides enough vitamin C to prevent scurvy, but not enough to guarantee stable artery walls. As a consequence of vitamin C deficiency, millions of tiny cracks and lesions develop in the artery walls. Subsequently, cholesterol, lipoproteins and other blood risk factors enter the damaged artery walls to repair these lesions.

In the case of chronic vitamin deficiency, this repair process becomes continuous. Over the course of many years, atherosclerotic deposits develop. Deposits in the arteries of the heart eventually lead to heart attack; deposits in the arteries of the brain lead to stroke.

Dr. Rath identified and our research has proven that atherosclerosis is nature’s plaster cast for weak and cracked arterial walls that are chronically deficient in vitamin C and other essential nutrients. One of these nutrients is the amino acid lysine. Lysine is called an essential amino acid because, similar to vitamin C, it cannot be produced in the human body. Lysine, together with another amino acid, proline, is the main component of collagen. These two amino acids comprise about 25% of all amino acids in the collagen molecule. A deficiency of lysine and proline can also trigger blood vessel wall weakness and instability.

Research and clinical studies conducted by Dr. Rath confirm that the most important function of vitamin C in preventing heart attacks and strokes is its ability to increase the production of collagen, elastin, and other reinforcement molecules in the body. This groundbreaking discovery in heart disease should be taught in every medical textbook and school and explains why other cardiovascular conditions, including heart failure, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure and circulatory problems in diabetes, occur in the case of long-term vitamin deficiencies.

http://www.drrathresearch.org/sci_discoveries/heart_disease.html

The Cholesterol Myths

UFFE RAVNSKOV
author of The Cholesterol Myths

UFFE RAVNSKOV is radical. He is so radical that, on a television show in Finland, his critics set his book on fire!

His website (or a website about him) says: If you think this is written by another internet crackpot, take a look at Dr Ravnskov's credentials and the reviews of his book.

The book in question is titled The Cholesterol Myths. Its main argument is that cholesterol is not harmful to health but, in fact, healthy. Its author is certainy no internet crackpot. His credentials are, indeed, impressive.
Uffe Ravnskov graduated with a medical degree in 1961 and, in 1973, obtained a PhD in Chemistry. Between 1975 and 1979, he was Assistant Professor at the Department of Nephrology, University Hospital, in Lund, Sweden. Ravnskov went into private practice in 1980 and, in 2000, retired to become a full-time independent researcher.

More significantly, Uffe Ravnskov has published over 80 scientific papers and letters in peer-reviewed journals criticizing what is commonly called the Lipid Hypothesis of heart disease – the belief that dietary saturated fats and cholesterol clog arteries and cause atherosclerosis and heart disease.
Uffe Ravnskov began studying cholesterol in 1989, the year Sweden launched an anti-cholesterol campaign.

“Very soon I realised that the scientific evidence behind the campaign was non-existing,” he writes.

Among the many research findings published in scientific journals, Uffe Ravnskov discovered that:

lowering cholesterol did not result in lower death rates from heart disease, but in HIGHER death rates from all causes.

drug trials with an allegedly positive outcome was cited almost only by the trial directors, although the numbers of trials with an allegedly positive and a negative outcome were identical.

the successful dissemination of the diet-heart idea is due to authors systematically ignoring or misquoting discordant studies.
Uffe Ravnskov also discovered that LDL, commonly called “bad cholesterol”, actually protects against infections. This led him to put forward the hypothesis that high cholesterol, rather than promoting atherosclerosis, in fact may protect against it.

Uffe Ravnskov first summarised his research findings in a book, first published in Sweden in 1991, whose title translates to The Cholesterol Myths.

In 1992, the book was published in Finland. That was when his critics burned the book during a television show about it.

In 2000, an updated and expanded English edition of The Cholesterol Myths was published in the United States.

In 2002, a German edition of The Cholesterol Myths was published.

In his book, Uffe Ravnskov critically analyzes and demolishes the nine main myths of the Lipid Hypothesis:

High-fat foods cause heart disease
High cholesterol causes heart disease
High fat foods raise blood cholesterol
Cholesterol blocks arteries
Animal studies prove the diet-heart idea that diet affects heart disease
Lowering your cholesterol will lengthen your life
Polyunsaturated oils are good for you
The cholesterol campaign (to have people reduce their cholesterol levels) is based on good science
All scientists support the diet-heart idea.
All the above statements, Uffe Ravnskov maintains, are NOT TRUE. And he backs his assertions with solid scientific research.

Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study

Uffe Ravnskov starts off with a critical analysis of the original 1950s research that gave rise to the idea that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease – Dr Ancel Keys Six Countries Study, which later became the more famous Seven Countries Study published in 1980.

The Seven Countries Study – which gathered data on heart disease of some 13,000 men in Greece, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Japan, Finland and the Netherlands over several decades – is widely considered to be one of the greatest epidemological studies ever undertaken.

Ancel Keys' Seven Countries Study showed that countries with the highest animal fat intake have the highest rates of heart disease. And this is frequently cited as “proof” that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease.

Uffe Ravnskov informs us, however, that Ancel Keys had deliberately hand-picked the countries he included in his studies. In other words, Ancel Keys chose to study only those countries that supported his hypothesis.

Yet there are many other countries where high consumption of animal fat DID NOT cause heart disease. But, Ufee Ravnskov points out, Ancel Keys ignored those countries.

Dangers of statins and other cholesterol lowering drugs

Uffe Ravnskov is also highly critical of statins, the cholesterol-loweing drugs that are widely hailed as miracle “wonder drugs”.

He presents scientific evidence that show:

drug trials involving statins produced only neglible reductions in the rates of heart disease
lowering cholesterol did not reduce the death rate from heart disease but INCREASED the overall death rate from all causes
whatever positive benefits associated with the use of statins are due to factors other than cholesterol-lowering.
statins are probable carcinogens and women on statins have reported higher rates of breast cancer.
Uffe Ravnskov warns that exposure to carcinogens may result in cancer only after 20 or more years. And since there has not been controlled studies on statins over such long periods, we do not know whether the use of statins will lead to increased rates of cancer in the coming decades.

"“Millions of people are being treated with medications the ultimate effects of which are not yet known.”
– Uffe Ravnskov

Of course, it is not just Uffe Ravnskov saying all this and more. What he tells us about saturated fats and high cholesterol foods comes mainly from studying the reports of other scientists. He further tells us that…

The reason why laymen, doctors and most scientists have been misled is because opposing and disagreeing results are systematically ignored or misquoted in the scientific press.

Cholesterol sceptics

Myth Number 9 in Uffe Ravnskov's book is that “All scientists support the diet-heart idea.”
This certainly is not true and Uffe Ravnskov has gathered a large – and growing – group of doctors, scientists, academics and science writers in The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS).

Members of the group may disagree about what causes heart disease. But they share one thing in common.

The website of THINCS state:
"For decades, enormous human and financial resources have been wasted on the cholesterol campaign, more promising research areas have been neglected, producers and manufacturers of animal food all over the world have suffered economically, and millions of healthy people have been frightened and badgered into eating a tedious and flavorless diet or into taking potentially dangerous drugs for the rest of their lives.
As the scientific evidence in support of the cholesterol campaign is non-existent, we consider it important to stop it as soon as possible."


http://www.stop-trans-fat.com/uffe-ravnskov.html

Vitamin D prevents and improves several diseases

Vitamin D has been shown to suppress inflammation in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, congestive heart failure, and even stroke. Clinical studies have also shown that there is a decrease in the risk of both type 1 and 2 diabetes in individuals who supplement with vitamin D. There are far fewer falls in those elderly patients who supplement with vitamin D at this optimal level. Another important aspect is the fact that vitamin D is required for proper immune function. It is also known that those individuals who live in higher latitudes contract multiple sclerosis at far higher rates than those who obtain more sunshine throughout the year. Studies with supplementing even 400 IU of vitamin D have shown significant reduction in the risk of developing multiple sclerosis. The question is now arising that we need to actually be providing our bodies with much more vitamin D than we previously thought.

Source: Dr. Strand Health Nuggets (newsletter@Bionutrition.org)

Inflammation and Vitamin D

Oxidative stress and inflammation is an underlying factor in the development of numerous age-related diseases. In clinical trials, vitamin D has been shown to suppress what is referred to as pro-inflammatory cytokines. This offers additional protection against conditions ranging from rheumatoid arthritis, prediabetes, heart failure, stroke, and heart disease.
It has become evident that those individuals who live in higher altitudes contract multiple sclerosis at much higher rates than those living where they get sunshine throughout the year. Scientists have identified specific vitamin D receptors in the white matter of the brain. The reduction in inflammation, which is the result of adequate vitamin D, may play a role in protecting you against developing multiple sclerosis.

Source: Dr. Strand Health Nuggets (newsletter@Bionutrition.org)