Dr. Rodger Murphree's Health News

Helping Others Help Themselves

November/December 2006




The Medical Myths of Heart Disease

Cardiovascular disease kills almost one million Americans each year. This number accounts for 41 percent of all deaths in the United States. In fact, cardiovascular disease claims more lives than the next eight leading causes of death combined, including cancer, accidents, and AIDS. And, despite an aggressive campaign launched by the American Heart Association to counter the epidemic of heart disease, one person dies every 33 seconds. For nearly four decades, we have relied on medical myths to guide us in our attempts to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease. We have been told to reduce our cholesterol, saturated-fat intake, and to take lipid-lowering medications. Unfortunately, these recommendations have been shown to actually increase the risk of premature death, strokes, heart attacks, anxiety and depression, suicide, senile dementia, and congestive heart failure.

 

Medical Myth Number One

Most health organizations and the public at-large are sold on the idea that high cholesterol is the main cause of arteriosclerosis and heart disease.

However, a growing body of research is dispelling this medical myth. The prestigious medical journal, The Lancet, reported in 1994 that most individuals with coronary artery disease have normal cholesterol levels! Forty percent of all heart attacks occur in individuals with normal cholesterol levels. The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that there is no evidence linking high cholesterol levels in women with heart disease. In fact, low cholesterol levels, especially after the age of forty-five, increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, depression, and early death. As reported in The Journal of Cardiology, “low cholesterol increases the risk of a heart attack.”

Yes, you read this correctly. Low cholesterol increases the risk of a heart attack. To cite the medical experts from the famous Framingham study: For each 1 mg/dl drop of cholesterol, there was an 11 percent increase in coronary and total mortality (death from all sources).

Your body needs cholesterol. Cholesterol makes up eight percent of brain-matter. It is essential for proper brain function. The importance of cholesterol is far reaching. Cholesterol is the precursor to Vitamin D and other hormones that are needed for sustaining a healthy life. Cholesterol is one of the key substances at nerve synapses needed to transmit information. Cholesterol helps regulate brain chemicals known as neurotransmitters. Low cholesterol can cause depression, fatigue and neurological disorders (nerve pain, tingling, and numbness). Individuals with low cholesterol are three times more likely to suffer from depression as normal adults. The lower the cholesterol, the more severe the depression.

 

Medical Myth Number Two

The American Heart Association recommends you follow a low-fat diet. Individuals are encouraged to eat polyunsaturated fats (vegetable oils) and avoid saturated fats (animal fats). They also recommend eating 11 servings of grain a day.

This is a recipe for disaster. Excess grain consumption leads to insulin resistance and increases inflammatory chemicals, the real cause of heart disease. Research shows that there is evidence that saturated fats are bad for your health, but there is plenty of evidence that saturated fats actually help prevent heart disease and strokes.

 

Medical Myth Number Three

Cholesterol-lowering drugs are a safe and effective way to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Over the last twenty years, the pharmaceutical companies have promoted cholesterol-lowering statin drugs with such fervor that they’ve become household names: Lipitor, Crestor, Vytorin, Zocor, and others. Sixteen million Americans take Lipitor, the most popular statin drug. Statin sales in the U.S. alone are over $12.5 billion a year.

No doubt, the statins lower cholesterol levels and perhaps do lower the risk of dying from a heart attack–at least in patients who already have had one–but the size of the effect is unimpressive. For instance, in one of the experiments, the CARE trial, the odds of escaping death from a heart attack in five years for a patient with manifest heart disease was 94.3 percent, which improved to 95.4 percent with statin treatment. This difference of 1.1 percent is surely not worth all the hype these medications have received, especially since the potential side effects from these drugs may include congestive heart failure.

The acknowledged side effects of statins include muscle pain and weakness, nerve damage, and a potentially fatal muscle-wasting disorder called rhabdomyolysis. One statin, Baycol, has been withdrawn because it was linked to 31 deaths from rhabdomyolysis. Interference with production of Co-Q10 by statin drugs is the most likely explanation. The heart is a muscle and it cannot work when deprived of the essential nutrient, Co-Q10. A deficiency of CoQ10 can lead to nerve damage and congestive heart failure.

While heart attacks have slightly declined, CHF (congestive heart failure) has more than doubled since Lipitor and other statins were first prescribed in 1987.

Taking statins for one year raised the risk of nerve damage by about 15 percent. Researchers studying CoQ10 have estimated that as little as a 25 percent reduction in bodily CoQ10 will trigger various disease processes, including high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, cancer, immune dysfunction, and fatigue.


If you decide to take statins, you really should also take CoQ10 daily to offset the depletion caused by taking the statin drugs.

CoQ10 is an enzyme found in all cells of the body. In short, all human cellular functions depend on ATP. ATP function depends on CoQ10. If it is lacking, the body's most important source of cellular energy is depleted and many medical conditions are aggravated. It is most concentrated in the heart and liver and is also a vital component in the mitochondria, the body's metabolic factories. It would take one pound of sardines, or two-and-a-half pounds of peanuts, to provide about 30mg of CoQ10. This is at the very minimum recommended daily allowance. In reality, the typical daily intake of CoQ10 from dietary sources is only about 3-5 mg per day - this isn't anywhere near the level required to significantly raise blood and tissue levels. Coenzyme Q10 is one of the primary treatments for cardiovascular disease in Japan for approximately 12 million people - based on the evidence established by Folkers et al., showing that CoQ10 levels were decreased in patients with heart disease.

Statins (Lipitor, Crestor, Mevacor, Zocor) block the body’s production of CoQ10. A CoQ10 deficiency can lead to muscle pain (a common side effect for those taking statins), angina (chest or heart pain), hypertension, accelerated aging, and heart disease. The heart is one of the largest muscles in the body. CoQ10 deficiencies can lead to congestive heart failure (CHF). Coenzyme Q10 lessens the incidence of angina attacks, arrhythmias (irregular heart beats), cardiomyopathy (heart muscle damage), congestive heart failure (CHF), heart valve irregularities, hypertension, mitral valve prolapse, and periodontal disease; protects LDL cholesterol against oxidation; increases exercise tolerance; burns unwanted fat; supports healthy cholesterol and triglyceride levels; and is beneficial to smokers.

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Medical Myth Number Four

The drugs used to treat chest pain, high blood pressure, and congestive heart failure are safe and effective.

Nothing could be further from the truth. These drugs are dangerous. Calcium channel-blocking drugs (Cardizem, Procardia, Calan, Norvasc, and others) increase the risk of having a heart attack by 500 percent.

Beta-blocking drugs (Atenolol, Inderal, Toprol, Tenormin, and others) may cause congestive heart failure, heart block, depression, Type II diabetes, tingling in the hands and feet, fatigue, and many other unwanted side effects. Diuretics increase the risk of developing type II diabetes by fifty percent.

 

Medical Myth Number Five

Heart surgery, including coronary bypass and angioplasty, are safe, effective, and proven procedures.

In fact, neither surgery has been subjected to double-blind, placebo-controlled trials. The National Institute of Health (NIH) has estimated that 90 percent of Americans who undergo bypass surgery receive no benefits. A Swedish study revealed that 12 percent of those undergoing bypass suffered obvious brain damage, including strokes. Other studies have shown that the majority of patients are more likely to die from the surgery, up to 10 percent, than a heart attack. One study showed that patients who elected not to have the surgery actually lived longer than those who did have surgery.

 

Medical Myth Number Six

The test to determine if someone needs heart surgery, known as an angiogram, is a safe and accurate diagnostic procedure.

Over one million angiograms are performed each year, costing over $10 billion. These tests use a long catheter with a tiny camera for the purpose of observing arterial blockages. A study that measured the blood flow in 44 blocked arteries, as demonstrated by angiogram, found that heart arteries with up to 96 percent blockage had the swiftest blood flow. While arteries with only a 40 percent blockage had a reduced flow. The authors concluded the angiogram is an unreliable diagnostic tool and should be considered worthless.

 

Medical Myth Number Seven

Traditional medicine continues to promote these five medical myths while perpetuating the greatest myth ever: nutritional supplements are unregulated, aren’t proven, and are dangerous.

This is probably the most unscrupulous myth of all. The medical journals are overflowing with studies (over 1,000 of them) that demonstrate the effectiveness of various nutritional supplements for treating high blood pressure alone. The Federal Drug Association fought for 20 years and spent millions of dollars to prevent the following statement from being used on bottles of fish oil supplements: “Consumption of Omega-3 fatty acids may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.”

Fortunately, truth and justice prevailed. A recent American Heart Association study showed that individuals who took 1,000 mg of fish oil a day had a 41 percent reduction in heart disease and sudden death. CoQ10 supplements have been proven to be more effective in reversing congestive heart failure than traditional drugs. Normally, class IV or terminally ill congestive heart patients live only a matter of days. The majority of those receiving CoQ10 survived 2 years or more.


The American Heart Association reports that studies show that fish oil supplements drastically reduce the risk of sudden death from heart attacks and or stroke. At the end of the three-and-a-half-year study, those receiving fish oil supplementation were 45 percent less likely to die from a heart related disease.

Omega-3 EPA and DHA fatty acids found in cold water marine fish support many physiological processes related to immune function, regulation of inflammation, lipoprotein metabolism, and brain function. Our fish oil concentrate is molecularly distilled to heavy metals, pesticides, PCB’s, and other contaminants. Our specifications are in full compliance with voluntary industry guidelines. The milligrams of EPA and DHA as labeled are based on the actual content per gram of oil in the capsule, not as a portion of the omega-3 content only which would result in a higher value. Thus, our calculation reflects the true “elemental” EPA/DHA content. Addition of mixed vitamin E tocopherols maintains oil freshness by retarding oxidation of lipid contents. Cholesterol-free.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE HIGH QUALITY MARINE FISH OIL


A number of studies have shown that vitamins help prevent heart attacks and strokes. Vitamin E has been shown to cut subsequent heart attacks by 77 percent. In fact, taking Vitamin E reduced the chances of death from all causes by 42 percent. B vitamins have been shown to decrease the amount of plaque in the carotid (neck) arteries by 10 percent.

Traditional medicine and its political organizations, including the American Heart Association, have failed to stop the rising epidemic of heart disease. Given heart disease’s epidemic proportions–and that most of the traditional therapies commonly used to treat it may actually cause more deaths than the illness itself– it’s time to put these dangerous myths to rest.

What can you do to reduce your risk of developing heart disease? Well, first of all, please quit being stressed out about fats and cholesterol. Stress will kill you, literally. So forget your cholesterol numbers. Eat all the free-range eggs, meat, and butter your heart desires. Increase your consumption of fruits and vegetables. Avoid hydrogenated oils and excess sugar. Supplement your diet with a good multivitamin and at least 1,000 mg of fish oil each day. Above all, avoid falling prey to the medical myths of heart disease.


THIS BOOK COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE!

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Almost one million Americans die each year from cardiovascular related illnesses. This number accounts for 41 % of all deaths in the United States each year. In fact, cardiovascular disease claims as many lives as the next eight leading causes of death combined, including cancer, accidents, and AIDS. And, despite an aggressive campaign launched by the American Heart Association to counter the epidemic of heart disease, one person dies from it every 33 seconds.

For nearly four decades, we have relied on medical myths to guide us in our attempts to prevent and treat cardiovascular disease. We have been told to reduce our cholesterol, saturated fat intake, and to take lipid-lowering medications. Unfortunately, these recommendations have been shown to actually increase the risk of premature death, suicide, senile dementia, heart attack, strokes, and death. The material in this book comes directly from medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, The British Medical Journal, and The Lancet.

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About Dr. Murphree

Dr. Murphree is a board-certified nutritional specialist and chiropractic physician who has been in private practice since 1990. He is the founder and past clinic director for a large integrated medical practice located on the campus of Brookwood Hospital in Birmingham Alabama. The clinic was staffed with medical doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, nutritionists, and massage therapists. He is the author of five books for patients and doctors, including Heart Disease: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You; Treating and Beating Anxiety and Depression with Orthomolecular Medicine; and Treating and Beating Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

He can be reached at 1-888-884-9577 (toll free), or at 205-879-2383, or by email: DrRodgerm@yahoo.com


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Don't forget that I have a special brain function questionnaire available online to help you see if you are low in certain brain chemicals (neurotransmitters). This short questionnaire shows you which neurochemical group you belong to and how to improve any symptoms you are experiencing.

In the past, I have worked with doctors who used prescription medicine. Many times, it only created a never-ending cycle of dealing with side effects and treating the side effects with more prescripions–and on and on. And here's a very interesting fact that The American College of Rheumatology states on their website concerning a 15-year study: "Conventional medical therapies are ineffective and no better than a sugar pill for the treatment of fibromyalgia." Even after this study, every day we see fibromyalgia patients being asked to take these drugs, some with terrible side effects–especially on the pocket book!

For those suffering with FMS and CFS, read more about correcting the REAL underlying causes here.


Dr. Rodger Murphree,
Corporate Center
2700 Rogers Drive
Suite 204, Homewood, AL 35209

If you have any questions, call us: (Toll-free) 1-888-884-9577
or (Regular Office Phone) 205-879-2383