Posted May 17, 2013: by Bill Sardi
When radio listeners, like the 5 million-strong Coast-to-Coast nighttime radio audience, hear an interview with a so-called authority on essential oils and he casts a convincing pall over the idea of taking one of the most popularly used dietary supplements, fish oil, there are sure to be millions who pause before they put the next fish oil capsule in their mouth.
The expert is Brian Peskin, an MIT graduate in electronic engineering, who mixes a lot of pseudoscience and straw-man arguments to falsely brand fish oil supplements as ineffective, even potentially dangerous.
Like many of us, Mr. Peskin has his own product to peddle – a plant-based multi-ingredient formulation of sunflower, safflower, pumpkin, evening primrose seed oil along with coconut oil. (Not wanting to lead naïve consumers to his website that disseminates factitious information, his website will not be divulged.)
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart ; No Comments »
Posted April 21, 2013: by Bill Sardi
The data is striking. A meta-analysis (review of combined results from different studies) concludes a commonly available dietary supplement is deemed to significantly improve cardiac health after a heart attack.
The meta-analysis involved 13 studies involving 3629 patients and found L-carnitine results in a 65% relative reduction in ventricular heart rhythm abnormalities, 40% reduction in chest pain (angina), a significant reduction in the area of heart muscle damaged by a heart attack, and reduced all-causes of mortality by 27%.
In some studies drugs improve cardiac health following a heart attack but, because of side effects, do not improve the survival of the patients.
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Posted April 17, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Modern medicine’s often repeated mantra is that dietary supplements are unproven and therefore cannot make any claim they prevent, treat or cure any disease like FDA-approved drugs do. But who can believe that only synthetically made patentable molecules exclusively cure diseases? Most people know vitamin C cures scurvy, vitamin D prevents rickets, vitamin B1 reverses beri beri, vitamin B12 remedies pernicious anemia, but no dietary supplement company can make those claims on their label because their product hasn’t been tested for that purpose. And it’s not like food fortification has eliminated these vitamin deficiencies. In fact, most Americans suffer the consequences of these nutrient deficiencies over their lifetime.
And while the FDA and other health agencies chase down side effects for dietary supplements they are helping Big Pharma hide all their negative clinical trials that have never been published. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have needlessly died as even doctors cannot access information about a drug’s failures. Yet FDA-approved drugs smugly claim they are safe and effective while dietary supplements are unproven.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart, Modern Medicine, Vitamins ; No Comments »
Posted March 5, 2013: by Bill Sardi
Paroxysmal atrial fibrillation is a condition described as intermittent heart palpitations of varying duration of the top pumping chambers (atria) of the heart. It may progress to persistent heart flutter. Upon detection, physicians will place patients on blood thinners to prevent blood clots that form within the heart and then are released into the brain where they may cause a stroke.
This health writer has endured a two-week bout of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation of unknown origin. This biological malady should be distinguished from “old man’s heart” where scarred tissue results in chronic and unremitting atrial fibrillation. Symptoms can include fatigue, shortness of breath upon exertion, leg swelling, interrupted sleep, lightheadedness, even fainting spells.
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Posted February 17, 2013: by Bill Sardi
OK, you knew you were light-headed from time to time, your thinking a bit slow and you were a bit fatigued. But you didn’t discover that the top chambers of your heart flutter periodically or constantly till your doctor discovered this problem during an examination. Some people with atrial fibrillation experience no symptoms.
The moment this condition is detected patients are placed on a laundry list of medications as if this condition is caused by a drug deficiency. No effort is made to determine the cause of this condition or to prevent it. Its detection is an opportunity to prescribe problematic drugs.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart ; No Comments »
Posted November 28, 2012: by Bill Sardi
Heart doctors are circling the wagons in defense of digoxin which has now been found to increase the relative risk for death from any cause by 41% among patients being treated for atrial fibrillation (fluttering heart muscle in the top chambers of the heart). About one in six patients taking digoxin for an abnormal heart rhythm will die from the drug rather than their heart rhythm disorder over a 5-year period says the report published in the European Heart Journal.
Digoxin (digitalis), first approved for heart failure in 1998, was originally derived from the herb foxglove and used traditionally since the late 1700s.
Posted in Heart, Modern Medicine, Vitamins ; No Comments »
Posted November 15, 2012: by Bill Sardi
How much evidence will it take before modern medicine backs away from beta blockers? Beta blockers slow the heart rate by about 8 beats per minute and are most often prescribed in cases of high blood pressure. About 20 brands of beta blockers vie for 200 million prescriptions written annually. But evidence that beta blockers are of little value in reducing mortality from strokes or heart attacks goes back as far as 2004. In fact, there is evidence that beta blockers actually increase the relative risk for a stroke by 26%.
Now the most conclusive evidence against the use of beta blockers, a 3.5-year study involving almost 45,000 subjects says beta blockers do not work as intended. Another recent study shows there are other drugs that work far better than beta blockers. The New Scientist has written the best slamdown of beta blockers, which can be accessed here.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart, Modern Medicine ; No Comments »
Posted July 20, 2012: by Bill Sardi
Vitamin K, that essential but often avoided “blood clotting” vitamin that we consume in green leafy vegetables is generally not included in multivitamins and avoided by the many thousands of patients taking blood thinners. The “often-avoided” category speaks for the ongoing insanity within modern medicine.
About 1% of the adult population is affected by atrial fibrillation, an abnormal heart rhythm (rapid disorganized heartbeats) that affects the top chambers of the heart. Atrial fibrillation increases the risk for a stroke by five-fold and accounts for about 15% of 700,000 strokes in the U.S. annually.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart, Modern Medicine, Vitamins ; No Comments »
Posted March 23, 2012: by Bill Sardi
Worldwide headlines herald a test that may make it possible for cardiologists to predict an impending heart attack. The test may be particularly beneficial for people who have silent (non-painful) heart attacks or heart attacks that cannot be detected by conventional methods.
Compared to healthy adults, four times as many loose cells that slough off the inner lining of arteries, called endothelial cells, were found among heart attack patients who arrived at a hospital emergency room complaining of chest pain. A quicker and more efficient test is now being developed to count circulating endothelial cells in a blood sample.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart, Resveratrol ; No Comments »
Posted March 8, 2012: by Bill Sardi
(March 8, 2012)- Millions of Americans are paying with their lives and their eyesight for the US Food & Drug Administration’s denial that nutriceuticals prevent, treat or cure disease says Bill Sardi, dietary supplement industry executive and health writer, speaking at the annual Nutracon meeting in Anaheim, CA this week.
“Nutriceuticals, a more sophisticated name for dietary supplements, do in fact prevent, treat and cure essential nutrient deficiency diseases such as vitamin D for rickets, vitamin C for scurvy, vitamin B1 for beri beri, as well as many chronic diseases, yet the FDA bans (censors) statements of fact, keeping the public in the dark over the obvious health benefits and cost effectiveness of nutriceuticals,” says Sardi.
“The US FDA maintains a narrow pharmaceutical model for chronic diseases, which are basically treated as drug deficiencies. The FDA maintains dietary supplements must become expensive drugs before statements can be made they cure or treat disease, which is absurd,” says Sardi.
Posted in Dietary Supplements, Heart, Resveratrol ; No Comments »
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