The Seven for the HEART

If you have been told you have coronary heart disease, you need to understand seven things about this problem:

1. Coronary heart disease is reversible.

2. Coronary heart disease begins in the circulating blood with formation of microclots and microplaques that clog heart arteries, injure heart cells, and cause heart disease.

3. Coronary heart disease cannot be reversed with bypass surgery, angioplasty, or blocker drugs.

4. Microclots in blood are caused by oxidative injury.

5. The most dangerous heart killers are anger and stress.

6. Cholesterol is an antioxidant that protects the heart, not injures it.

7. An injured heart heals with nutrients, not with beta and calcium channel blockers. Thus, the rational approach to reversing coronary heart disease must include meditation, "heart-smart" nutrients and herbs, limbic exercise, and therapies that prevent microclot formation in the circulating blood, such as EDTA chelation therapy.

1. Coronary Heart Disease Is Reversible
    Coronary heart disease is reversible for most people with failed bypass operations and angioplasty as well as for those who do not respond to multiple drug therapies. This is not an opinion, but a fact. Employing our integrative protocols, including EDTA chelation therapy, my colleagues and I recently reported complete control of symptoms and discontinuance of all drugs in 61% of patients with failed bypass surgery, angioplasty and multiple drug therapies.1 More than 75% reduction in symptoms and doses of drugs used was observed in another 17%, thus giving excellent or good results in 78%.

2. Coronary Heart Disease Begins in the Circulating Blood with Formation of Microclots that Clog Coronary Arteries
   Circulating blood clots and unclots at all times. Microbes in the circulation "curdle" blood just as a culture turns milk into curdles of yogurt. Certain chemicals curdle blood as lemon juice curdles milk. Microclots are thrashed around in the bloodstream and are compacted into microplaques. The author and his colleague, Omar Ali, recently introduced the term oxidative coagulopathy for excessive formation of microclots and microplaques in the circulating blood.3

3. Coronary Heart Disease Cannot be Reversed with Bypass Surgery, Angioplasty, or Blocker Drugs
   According to the New England Journal of Medicine (June 18, 1998), angioplasty and bypass surgery increase the odds of dying for people who had such procedures done after suffering heart attacks as compared with those who did not. Both types of procedures actually caused more deaths in the above-cited study in all three measured periods of study: (1) during hospitalization; (2) at one month after leaving the hospital; and (3) after one year.2 That is not surprising when one considers the fact that heart attacks are caused by microclots forming in the circulating blood. Neither angioplasty nor bypass operations address that basic cause of heart disease. As for beta and calcium channel blocker drugs, common sense alone would tell us that coronary artery disease cannot be reversed by blocking natural cell membrane receptors and channels.

4. Blood Curdles Are Formed by Oxidative Injury
    Oxidants, like adrenaline, damage ("cook") proteins, fats, and sugars in the blood and tissues just as heat cooks meat. Antioxidants like vitamin C prevent that. Some oxidants are produced in the body naturally as a part of metabolism while others enter the body with water, food, and air. Examples of oxidants are free radicals (such as hydrogen peroxide), adrenaline, tobacco smoke, excess iron and copper. Antioxidants not only prevent blood curdling, but under certain conditions can "uncurdle" recently formed soft microclots. In 1991, the author proved the oxidative nature of damage to blood cells by demonstrating that such damage can be reversed by vitamin C.4

5. The Most Dangerous Heart Killers Are Anger and Stress
   The most dangerous blood curdlers are anger and stress. Other common factors that promote blood curdling are: (1) adrenaline, lactic acid, and related molecules; (2) sugar overload and the resultant excess of insulin; (3) excess of minerals, such as iron and copper, that promote blood curdling; (4) oxidants produced by yeast and other microbes; (5) oxidants produced by chronic inflammation; (6) tobacco smoke and other environmental pollutants; and (7) miscellaneous molecules such as homocysteine. The lack of antioxidants in the diet indirectly contributes to oxidative coagulopathy.

6. Cholesterol Is An Antioxidant-Antioxidants Protect the Heart, Not Hurt It
   Cholesterol is an antioxidant. To blame natural, "unrancid" cholesterol for heart disease is a gross biochemical error. In 1991, the prestigious British Medical Journal published astonishing results of a survey of 22 large trials of cholesterol-lowering drugs performed in this country and in Europe. The overall reduction in the number of heart attacks was actually less than one-third of one percent. Consider the following quotes:"Lowering serum cholesterol concentrations does not reduce mortality...Methods subject to bias...probably explain the overall 0.32% reduction recorded in non-fatal coronary heart disease."5 When TV and newspapers tell you that cholesterol-lowering drugs can reduce the risk of heart attacks by 40 percent or more, please ask your doctor to calculate the actual rate of reduction in those studies. You will find out that it will be in the range of a mere one percent. That means 99 persons needlessly take drugs for every one who might really benefit from it. Regrettably, this critical issue is seldom addressed in the medical literature.

7. An Injured Heart Heals with Nutrients, Not with Drugs: The Rational Approach to Reversing Coronary Heart Disease

For designing a rational approach to reversal of coronary artery disease, we must be clear about three facts.

1. The heart is a pump. An air pump is not clogged when it pumps clean air. A water pump is not clogged when it pumps clean water. It is exactly the same way with the heart. It is not clogged as long as it pumps clean blood.

2. A hurt heart heals with heart-smart nutrients, not with blocker drugs. As necessary as drugs are in acute illness, drugs have no place in healing an injured heart.

3. The nutritional villain of the heart is sugar, not cholesterol.

Thus, a rational program for heart disease must seek to (1) prevent formation of microclots and microplaques in the circulating blood (with prayer and meditation, optimal hydration, proper choices in the kitchen, and with heart-smart nutrients and herbs for restoring the battered bowel-blood-liver ecosystems; and (2) improve the flow characteristics of the circulating blood with heart-smart nutrients and herbs, exercise and EDTA chelation.

Prayer is the most potent antioxidant. The scientific basis of that is simple: Adrenaline is a potent oxidizing agent for the heart. Prayer cancels adrenergic hypervigilence. Meditation saves the heart from merciless punishment by the thinking mind.

Heart-Smart Nutrients
   The author's list of the "big seven for the heart" in this category includes the following: (1) magnesium, 1,500 to 2,000 mg; (2) coenzyme Q10, 100 to 200 mg; (3) taurine, 1,000 to 2,000 mg; (4) lecithin 2 to 5 gm; (5) glutathione, 600-800 mg; (6) essential oils; and (7) vitamin C, 1,500 to 3,000 mg. Others of value include: pantetheine, 150-250 mg; alpha lipoic acid, 150 to 250 mg; potassium, 150 to 300 mg; oral EDTA, 1,000 mg; antioxidant vitamins, vitamin E (400 IU); and vitamin A (10,000 IU); and inositol hexaphosphate, 500-1,000 mg.

Heart-Smart Foods and Herbals
  The author's list of big seven for the heart in this category includes: (1) fresh ginger (one-half piece of chopped ginger root taken with water or eaten with food); (2) hawthorne berry tincture; (3) lilly of the valley (rich in heart-protective glycosides); (4) butcher's broom; (5) motherwort; (6) figwort; and (7) bugleweed. Other herbs for the heart include foxglove (source of digitalis), fenugreek, fennel seeds, and night- blooming cereus. Since anger and stress are the most dangerous killers, an herbal program for the heart should include judicious amounts of valerian, St. John's wort, passion flower, skullcap, and oils for aroma such as lavender. The use of bowel herbs, such as echinacea, astragalas, pau D'Arco, artemesia, goldenseal , burdock root and others are very valuable to prevent oxidative coagulopathy (see The Seven for the Bowel Ecosystem of this series). The doses of herbals must be judged by the clinician on individual bases since standardization procedures vary so much.

EDTA Chelation Therapy
   Intravenous EDTA chelation therapy, in the author's view, must be considered as an integral part of any program for reversing advanced heart disease. For those interested in further information, I strongly recommend my video Reversal of Heart Disease (973-586-4111). Professional and advanced readers are referred to reference # 1

Safety first. It is imperative that heart disease be managed by an experienced clinician.

References:
(1) Ali M, Ali O, Fayemi AO, et al. J Integrative Medicine 1997;1:113-145.
(2) Lange RA, Hillis LD. N Eng J Med 1998;338:1838-9.
(3) Ali M, Ali O. J Integrative Medicine 1997;1:6-112.
(4) Ali M. Am J Clin Pathol 1991;95:281;
(5) Ravnskov. British Medical Journal 1991;305:15-19.