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Congestive Heart Failure |
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Congestive Heart |
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In an average lifetime, your
heart will beat two and a half BILLION times. Congestive heart failure
(CHF) is the end product of any of a number of cardiovascular diseases that
can degrade the heart’s ability to pump blood efficiently. Much has been
written on diagnosing congestive heart failure but rather less is known about
treating it. This is because broken hearts are tough to fix. A
diagnosis of CHF means that it is too late for nutritional prevention. The
horse is long gone by the time most people decide to shut the stable door.
But nutritional intervention can still greatly help a damaged heart. In the past, drugs such
as digitalis or one of its ilk were often given to strengthen and to some
extent regulate heartbeat. Vasodilators (blood vessel opening drugs) are
given to improve cardiac output and relieve backed-up blood from blood
vessels throughout the body, especially in the lungs. Fluid buildup (edema)
is commonly treated with diuretic drugs. It may be possible to naturally
augment, or perhaps substitute for, these pharmaceutical drugs. Vitamin E Thiamin Common Sense Herbal Diuretics Selenium Magnesium Of the oral supplements,
magnesium aspartate or magnesium orotate may have the best chance of getting
into cardiac muscle cells. These forms of magnesium are rarely found on store
shelves. Your doctor may be able to have them compounded for you by a
cooperative pharmacist, or you might find them with an internet search. Intravenous
administration of magnesium may be necessary in more serious cases of
congestive heart failure. Have a test ordered to check serum magnesium.
Most doctors don’t. It is even better to check myocardial magnesium (Textbook,
p 275). This is because the amount of magnesium in the heart muscle cells may
be considerably lower than in the blood.
A great deal of
information about magnesium will be found at Potassium Co-Enzyme Q10. This is
very important. "I have had
patients with such severe CHF that they were waiting for a heart transplant.
After taking CoQ10, they no longer needed a transplant." Jullian Whitaker, M.D. (Health
& Healing, December 1997. http://www.drwhitaker.com ) If there is higher praise
than this, I have not yet seen it. Amino Acids Dr. Werbach recommends L-Arginine
at a daily dose somewhere between 5,600 and 12,600 mg because it "causes
peripheral vasodilation and improves cardiac output." (p 273). The
benefit to patients was an increase in "the distance they could walk in
6 minutes, and the rate of blood flow during exercise." Arginine is
normally considered by dieticians to be a "semiessential" amino acid,
necessary only for growth. It is possible that growth includes regrowth,
strengthening, and repair of cardiac muscle. Eggs, cheese, whole grains, and
legumes (beans) are good food sources. Peanuts are absolutely loaded
with arginine, containing three times as much as meat does. You’d need
to consume roughly a twelve-ounce can of peanuts a day to get in the middle
of the dose mentioned above. Chew nuts well for best absorption. That, or
consider supplements. Or do both. Taurine is an amino acid normally made in
your body from another amino acid, methionine. Methionine is found in eggs,
cheese, beans, nuts, and whole grains. Brazil nuts have over twice as
much methionine as meat, ounce for ounce. Extreme stresses to the body
(hospital food, perhaps?) can cause taurine deficiency. (Desai TK et al.
Taurine deficiency after intensive chemotherapy and/or radiation. American
Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 55:708, 1991.) Taurine appears to
help regulate heartbeat. Dr. Werbach mentions a doseage of 4,000 to
6,000 mg/day. The amino acid L-Carnitine
is also made in your body IF (and, to quote Ed Sullivan, this is a
"really big" IF) you consume plenty of methionine, lysine, vitamin
B-6 (pyridoxine), niacin, and vitamin C. (Iron is also necessary; adult
men do not need to seek after iron.) Most people, especially the elderly
with chronic illness, do not get nearly enough of those three vitamins. This
study recommends 2,000 mg of L-carnitine daily, specifically for CHF: Ghidini
O, Azzurro M, Vita A, Sartori G. (1988) Evaluation of the therapeutic
efficacy of L-carnitine in congestive heart failure. International Journal
of Clinical Pharmacology, Therapy and Toxicology 26: 217-220. Large amounts of
supplemental Creatine, still another amino acid that your body
normally produces, may help strengthen heartbeat. As creatine phosphate, it
is involved in supplying energy to power muscle tissue, especially cardiac
muscle. Dr.Werbach cites studies that indicate that persons with CHF have a
deficiency of creatine in the heart muscle itself, and that daily doses of
20,000 mg/day "improve cardiac function… physical strength and
endurance." (Textbook of Nutritional Medicine, p 276) All quantities mentioned
above should be divided up into several smaller doses throughout the day. I
would add vitamin C, about 4,000 to 10,000/day (or to bowel tolerance)
both because of its antioxidant properties and also because of its role in
amino acid synthesis. I also suspect that since the heart prefers fatty
acids for fuel, a long-standing deficiency of essential fatty acids causes
deterioration of heart muscle. Lecithin, fish, and primrose oil are
sources of essential fatty acids. http://www.doctoryourself.com/lecithin.html If these natural options
do not speak strongly enough to you, bear in mind that 1) there is no drug cure
for congestive heart failure; and
2) the pharmaceutical
drugs given in an attempt to cope with the condition have many side effects;
and 3) the excerpt (below)
from an article by the National Institutes of Health is quite
depressing. When you’ve finished reading it, you may want to read the
above information once again. Brace yourself; here we go: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute An estimated 4.8 million Americans have congestive heart
failure (CHF)… Half of the patients diagnosed with CHF will be dead within 5
years. Each year, there are an estimated 400,000 new cases. CHF is the… most common diagnosis in hospital patients age
65 years and older. In that age group, one fifth of all hospitalizations have
a primary or secondary diagnosis of heart failure. Visits to physicians' offices for CHF increased from 1.7
million in 1980 to 2.9 million in 1993. More than 65,000 persons with CHF
receive home care each year. In 1993, an estimated $17.8 billion was spent
for the care of CHF patients… The magnitude of the problem of CHF is large now, but it
is expected to get much worse… Incidence of CHF is equally frequent in men and women, and
annual incidence approaches 10 per 1,000 population after 65 years of age.
Incidence is twice as common in persons with hypertension compared with
normotensive persons and five times greater in persons who have had a heart
attack compared to persons who have not… Survival following diagnosis of congestive heart failure
is worse in men than women, but even in women, only about 20 percent survive
much longer than 8 to 12 years. The outlook is not much better than for most
forms of cancer. The fatality rate for CHF is high, with one in five persons
dying within 1 year… CHF remains a highly lethal condition. With the use of
angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors as a possible exception,
advances in the treatment of hypertension, myocardial ischemia, and valvular
heart disease have not resulted in substantial improvements in survival once
CHF ensues. The death rate for congestive heart failure increased most
years between 1968 and 1993. These increases are in contrast to
mortality declines for most heart and blood vessel diseases. In 1993, there
were 42,000 deaths where CHF was identified as the primary cause of death and
another 219,000 deaths where it was listed as a secondary cause on the death
certificate. The death rate for CHF in 1993 was nearly 1.5 times higher in
black men and women than in white men and women). (An ideal) drug (to cure CHF) might improve the heart's
pumping ability, open clogged arteries, and prevent tissue damage from free
radicals, a byproduct of the body's metabolic processes. Free radicals are
thought to contribute to the development of atherosclerosis. Investigations also are being done to improve heart
transplantation for CHF patients. In some cases, a heart transplant is the
only possible treatment. However, such patients face a shortage of donor
hearts. A possible solution to this critical shortage may be the use of a heart
from other animals. Called xenotransplantation, this procedure once was made
difficult because of the rejection of the heart by the CHF patient's immune
system. However, new technologies have been forged that can overcome such a
barrier. For example, scientists have been able to alter genes in the heart
of a pig to diminish the immune system reaction in a baboon. Scientists still
need to discover how to turn such genes on and off to prevent human
rejection. (The full text of this
article, with graphs and charts, is posted at September 1996 +++ Copyright 2003 and prior
years by Andrew W. Saul. Andrew Saul is the author of the books FIRE
YOUR DOCTOR! How to be Independently Healthy (reader reviews at
http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html
) and DOCTOR YOURSELF: Natural Healing that Works. (reviewed at http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html
) For ordering information, Click Here .
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