Chapter 7 of Practicing Medicine Without A License

[VanCanada]

Owen, in chapter 7 of Practicing Medicine Without A License?: The Story of the Pauling Therapy for Heart Disease (by Owen Fonorow with Sally Jewell, Copyright 2008) you give us a protocol for health. Is it primarily for cardiovascular health or is it for general good health like Pauling's 1986 book?

Why did you make the additions to and deletions from the work of Linus Pauling and Mathias Rath that you did?

[ofonorow]

Great question. This protocol, like the book, is designed to support Pauling's cardiovascular discoveries and nutritional recommendations. Each addition is based on now over a decade of recommending and monitoring heart patients while reading and researching the field of alternative medicine.

I recommend Pauling's basic protocol for general health, per HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER.

The additions are based on new or current knowledge. For example, Pauling seem to have been incorrect by not recommending vitamin D. He reviewed the toxic effects of vitamin D2. We now talk D3, and being from California, he may not have been sensitive to vitamin D deficiency that we in the higher latitudes suffer in winter.

Magnesium was brought to my attention as being vital to heart patients by Brian Lebovitz, Ph.D., He was the editor of the Journal of Optimal Nutrition. Brian cited studies that showed people who were injected with magnesium just after a heart attack were 50% less likely to die than people injected with a placebo. Magnesium is used in a large number of metabolic reactions, almost as many as vitamin C. It is vital for a regular heart beat. (The USDA has also discovered in animal experiments that manganese competes with magnesium, and too much manganese or too little magnesium will cause an irregular heart beat.)

Mitochondrial energy is impossible without CoQ10 (ubiquinone). While it can be made by the body, and although mentioned in passing by Pauling, he did not consider it a general recommendation, as it applies more to those of us older than 40. But the heart (and pancreas) have some of the highest tissue concentrations of CoQ10. We now know that many drugs, especially the popular statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, lower circulating CoQ10 levels.

Proline is interesting as Pauling only recommended lysine. His partner, Matthias Rath, MD, recommends both lysine and proline as Lp(a) binding inhibitors. I have tried to research why, and I can only guess that it is partially because the human body can make proline, while it must obtain all the lysine it gets from the diet. Also, the work that showed that proline is a strong Lp(a) binding inhibitor at the University of Chicago appeared in print after his death.

The take Omega/3 and eliminate transfat recommendations are connected with the advice to limit sugar and all have to do with Glucose-Ascorbate Antagonism. The goal is to improve the health of cell membranes and increase transport of vitamin C into cells. The more sugar in the blood, the less vitamin C that can make it into cells. Cellular membranes are disturbed by transfats (see healingmatters.com) and Type II Diabetes can make a vitamin C protocol less effective.

The unrefined salt advice is based on the book SALT by Dr. David Brownstein, as he cites compelling evidence that those on a low-salt diet with high blood pressure have something like a 400% great chance of a heart attack. (Has to do to hormone imbalance. See his book for the citation.) No doubt highly refined table salt is bad, akin to poison, but the unrefined sea salts have 80+ different minerals and are more like a health food.

I learned about the vitamin K connection to calcium build-ups in soft tissues thanks to Life Extension Foundation. Through experience, I have learned that high calcium scores can be reversed through vitamin K supplementation. I have also found supporting evidence that drugs that block vitamin K (e.g. Warfarin/Coumadin/Heparin) lead to rapid build ups of calcium in soft tissues.)

Each of the amino acids, arginine, carnitine and taurine have strong pro-cardiovascular properties. Arginine per UCLA Nobel work, carnitine for (heart) muscle building, and taurine from the late Dr. Robert Atkins who claimed that if cardiologists understood its value it would be the third best selling "heart drug."

Finally, I have read a great deal about melatonin, and its properties (like vitamin Cs) sounds so good as to not be believable. I know that many people taking statin drugs are unable to sleep (a common side effect) and this natural sleep hormone has many important antioxidant and other properties.

Bottom line is that in addition to vitamin C and lysine, every heart patient should be supplementing CoQ10, Magnesium, and Omega/3 and vitamin D (esp. in winter.) They would also most likely benefit from the rest of the recommendations.

[VanCanada]

[Ralph Lotz]

Owen,
Don't forget vitamin E, which of course along with the rest of the oil soluble vitamins has to be transported by naughty, bad LDL cholesterol.

[ofonorow]

Thanks Ralph, (I don't know how I missed this post this previously? ) Other than the carnitine(s) listed, no, I have not recommended any of these substances. (It is complicated enough as it now stands, and hard enough to get people to follow Pauling's basic recommendations..) These substances you list may be highly beneficial, or they may not. But nothing is more beneficial to heart patients than vitamin C. What I recommended is based mainly on Linus Pauling's recommendations, and I noticed that my recommendations match many of Dr. Levy's recommendations in STOP AMERICA'S #1 KILLER. As a general rule, unless I am highly confident, I usually restrict myself to parroting Linus Pauling. And again, lest there be no doubt, the PRIMARY recommendation is vitamin C to combat chronic scurvy.

[Ralph Lotz]

These substances you list may be highly beneficial

Many of us on this forum have recommended some of these. The trouble with long lists is that the reader is left with no criteria to determine which ones to take first.
My own criteria for taking supplements involves prioritizing to address acute potentially lethal issues first, then chronic complaints second and long term aging issues last. I also try to get the most bang for the buck since supplements are not covered by health insurance plans.

I keep up to date by making it my business to know who I can trust, what works, why it works, who makes it and how much does it cost.
Some of my current favorite reliable sources include Dr. Bruce Ames, Dr. Andrew Saul, Dr. Blaylock, Dr. Passwater, Dr. Dyerberg, Dr. Rath and Bill Sardi.

I have found this paper by Bruces Ames to be a real gold mine:

Low micronutrient intake may accelerate the degenerative diseases of aging through allocation of scarce micronutrients by triage
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/47/1758 ... IT#ref-147

[VanCanada]

gofanu,

(a). What would be your criteria for taking supplements?

(b). And for prioritizing them when one can't afford all those desired?

(c). Who are your current favourite reliable sources of supplement information?

(d). gofanu, please comment on the sources Ralph mentioned and more: Dr. Bruce Ames, Dr. Andrew Saul, Dr. Blaylock, Dr. Passwater, Dr. Dyerberg, Dr. Rath and Bill Sardi, etc.

Thanks.