Cholesterol Lie Q & A

Dear Dr. Jonny,

Following your suggestion, I just finished reading "The Great Cholesterol Lie"! What an eye-opener.

But I recently read in the mainstream media about a study called the JUPITER Study that showed the benefit of statin drugs even for people with normal cholesterol! How can this be?

Well, I can certainly see why my reader was confused. So let's try to sort it out.

In the JUPITER study, people with normal cholesterol were given statin drugs. But these people didn't just have normal cholesterol- they also had elevated levels of a blood protein called C-reactive Protein (CRP).

When this group of people took statin drugs (specifically Crestor), their risk factors did indeed improve.

The question is, "Why?"

Here's the answer- and it's not nearly as confusing as the results might seem at first.

Statin drugs are mildly anti-inflammatory. I believe- and I'm quite sure Dr. Lundell would agree with me- that any good that statin drugs do is solely because of their ability to reduce inflammation. In the JUPITER Study, statins lowered CRP, which is- guess what- a measure of systemic inflammation!

And here's what backfired for the pharmaceutical company. This study confirmed the fact that cholesterol is largely irrelevant. The patients in the JUPITER Study were at risk not because their cholesterol was high (it wasn't) but because they had high levels of inflammation.

The statin drug lowered their inflammation, and any lowering of inflammation improves risk factors for heart disease, not to mention overall health. Let's not forget those nasty side effects of painful muscle cramping and recent studies that show extreme cognitive dysfunction from statins.

Wouldn't an aspirin be better? And better yet, Omega-3?

Statins are the "Frankenstein" medication of our time. And Dr. Lundell exposes the reasons why in his excellent book.

The bottom line is that Inflammation is a very, very serious thing—it's a silent killer.

Cholesterol is not. My advice? Take Omega-3 fish oil, the most anti-inflammatory compound on the planet and one that has exactly zero side effects. With fish oil available, why in the world would someone choose a statin as their anti-inflammatory drug of choice?

The simple steps to begin healing your heart outlined in Dr. Lundell's book, "The Great Cholesterol Lie" will absolutely astonish you.

Go here now and silence that deadly killer - inflammation.

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Vitamin B6 May Lower Heart Attack Risk in Women

In an article published online on August 10, 2009 in the American Heart Association journal Circulation, Harvard researchers report an association between higher plasma levels of vitamin B6 and a reduction in the risk of myocardial infarction (heart attack) in women.

The study included 144 participants in the ongoing Nurses' Health Study who were diagnosed with myocardial infarction. The women were each matched for age, smoking status and other factors with two participants in the same study who did not have a history of heart attack at the time of the heart attack cases' diagnoses. Stored fasting blood samples were analyzed for plasma pyridoxal 5' phosphate (PLP), which is the predominant form of vitamin B6 that exists in circulation, and homocysteine, an amino acid which, when elevated, has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Higher levels of PLP were correlated with greater dietary intake of vitamin B6, lower body mass index and lower levels of homocysteine. The researchers uncovered a significant association between plasma PLP levels and reduced heart attack risk. Women whose PLP levels were among the top one-fourth of participants at greater than 70 picomoles per milliliter had a 78 percent lower adjusted risk of undergoing a heart attack compared to those whose levels were lowest at less than 27.9 pmol/mL. When the women were analyzed according to age, those aged 60 and older whose PLP levels were among the top quarter were found to have a 64 percent lower risk than those in the lowest quarter, while those who were under 60 in the top fourth of PLP had a 95 percent lower risk.

The authors remark that the study's findings are consistent with the role of vitamin B6 as a cofactor in the conversion of homocysteine to cysteine. The vitamin also plays a role in the transport of important minerals such as magnesium across cell membranes. The authors observe that the results of some research suggest that factors other than diet that control vitamin B6 levels could eventually be found to be more important in reducing heart attack risk.

The current prospective study is the first, to the authors' knowledge, to examine the relationship of vitamin B6 levels with heart attack in postmenopausal women. "Our investigation revealed that a lower fasting concentration of PLP is significantly associated with an increased risk of myocardial infarction in predominantly postmenopausal women, a relationship that may be causal," they write. "Future studies are needed to better understand both dietary and nondietary determinants of plasma and tissue vitamin B6 status and their role in the prevention of myocardial infarction and other chronic diseases."

If you want to supplement your diet with more B6 I recommend this brand of PLP Vitamin B6 which is similar to the kind used in the study but it also contains magnesium to help with PMS symptoms.

A Smarter Way to Reduce Heart Attack Risk

Think the best way to predict heart attacks is by knowing your cholesterol?

Think again.

Researchers from the Hanyang University in Seoul, matched 50 men and women who had experienced a non-fatal heart attack with 50 age and gender-matched controls who did not have a history of heart attack. The researchers analyzed the red blood cells of both groups and measured their levels of both trans-fatty acids and omega-3's. (As readers of this newsletter know, trans-fatty acids are those spawn-of-Satan fats made by hydrogenating or partially hydrogenating vegetable oil; omega-3's are the wonderful anti-inflammatory fatty acids EPA and DHA found in fish and ALA found in flax and hemp.)

The researchers wanted to see how well blood levels of trans-fatty acids and blood levels of omega-3's could predict heart attack. Specifically, they wanted to see if these two measures- trans-fats and omega 3's-- did any better in predicting cardiovascular disease than the "standard" Framingham risk scores.

Framingham risk scores- named after the famous study of adults in Framingham Massachusetts that began in 1948- are calculated using age, gender, smoking status, total cholesterol levels, HDL-cholesterol levels, diabetes history and hypertension history.

While an individual's Framingham score is 70 to 80 percent accurate in predicting coronary heart disease risk, it fails to take into account more recently recognized risk factors that could improve its predictive value.

The current research-- published online on June 9, 2009 in the British Journal of Nutrition-- found that the new measures did even better than the Framingham measures in predicting heart attacks. Those who had the lowest levels of omega-3's in their blood had the greatest risk of heart attack as did those who had the highest levels of trans-fats.

Specifically, the omega-3 fatty acid index-- which is the sum of red blood cell EPA and DHA-- was significantly lower in heart attack patients compared with controls, while total trans-fatty acids were significantly higher. Those whose omega-3 fatty acid index was among the top third of participants had an amazing 92 percent lower risk of heart attack than those whose levels were in the lowest third.

Meanwhile, when it came to trans-fats, the exact opposite was true. For those whose total trans-fatty acids were in the top third, the risk of heart attack was a whopping 72.67 percent higher than subjects in the lowest third.

The authors note that omega-3 fatty acids are associated with decreased blood viscosity, and have anti-inflammatory, anti-thrombotic, anti-arrhythmic, lipid lowering and vasodilatory effects. Conversely, trans-fatty acids have been associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease.

The researchers wrote that "the fatty acid profile is more powerful than the Framingham risk score for identifying patients" with non-fatal heart attacks.

There are two take-home points here:

1. keep your man-made trans-fat intake as close to zero as possible
   
2. keep your omega-3 intake nice and high. You can do this by eating cold-water fish (like the virtually toxin-free cold-water fish available frozen and in cans from Vital Choice) and/or by taking fish oil on a daily basis.
   

Vegetarians can get omega-3's from flaxseeds and flaxseed oil, but to make sure you're getting enough of the all-important EPA and DHA that were measured in the study (and that are found naturally in fish) be sure to take at least two tablespoons or more a day of flaxseed oil.