Various Topics on Alternative Medicine

..trid..

Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com wrote:
> >>The study advances scientists' understanding of how fatty fish
affect
>
> the heart, said Dr. Jean Olson of the National Heart, Lung and Blood
> Institute, which funded it. For consumers, "the bottom line is, 'Eat
> more fish,'" she said.<<
>
> COMMENT:
>
> Another unhelpful opinion from another government "expert" who just
> doesn't get it.
>
> We are repeating the vitamin wars of 20 years ago, in which all kinds
> of good things were found out about this or that vitamin (folate,
say),
> and a ton of government money was spent to find out how much this or
> that vitamin was in foods, and how they should be prepared, and how
> much leached out into the water you boil your vegetables in, and ad
> nauseum. But it made a lot of nutritionists happy for decades because
> it paid their salaries. And did the public no good at all. Finally,
in
> the case of folate, after a few thousand more deformed babies were
> born, there was a giant argument between a bunch of government
> conservatives (at the NIH) and another set (at the FDA) until finally
a
> third bunch of government types who were at bit more enlightened (at
> the USDA) finally won out. Then the feds just started mandating the
> addition of folate to "enriched" flour. That actually began solving
the
> problem. It was very much the same story as adding iodide to salt
three
> generations earlier. And as with iodine, the food-fettish
nutritionists
> fought folate pills all the way until the day folate finally wound up
> in flour. Then they shut up. And moved on to the next nutrient.
>
> We've seen this before. It took about half a century for
> multivitamin/mineral pills to be accepted by nutritionists, because
> such pills made about half of what nutritionists did for the whole
20th
> century (measuring vitamins and minerals in foods and recommending
> foods with particular nutrients), irrelevent. But that doesn't mean
> that nutritionists have stopped hating supplement pills just because
> they finally gave in on multivitamins. As we said, if what's in the
> supplement pill is added to your food by your helpful government,
that
> nutrient will drop off the nutritionist radar screens. Until then,
> however, professional nutritionists will be in the middle of things,
> screwing things up, wasting money, and trying to get people to do
> *anything* but take the nutrient pill.
>
> I suspect we won't be rid of the unwanted and unhelpful advice of
this
> pesky profession on the omega-3 issue until the USDA finds a way to
add
> EPA+DHA to the food supply somehow---- and since that's going to be
> very difficult due to the needed dose and oxygen sensitivity of these
> nutrients, I suspect his nonsense will instead drag on for decades.
> Look for a lot more fishmeal to be fed to chickens and pigs and beef,
> but it won't be enough. After all, it took decades to get DHA into
> canned infant formula (lowering a lot of infant IQs in the process,
no
> doubt), and that is an EASY chemical problem compared with getting
DHA
> into the general adult food supply in any kind of preventive amounts.
>
> So meanwhile, here we are again, back with a new thing (long chain
> omega-3 FA's) and we're stuck at war with the anti-supplement-pill
> nutritionists as usual. Will we never learn? Unless you eat sardines
or
> red/sockeye salmon, you really don't know how much omega-3's in that
> fish in front of you. So why go through all the nonsense trying to
> figure it out? Take an omega-3 EPA/DHA supplement! It's cheap (25
> cents a day). It works (has been proven in prospective double blind
> studies of fish oil supplements in heart patients). End of omega-3
> problem. It seems too simple. It IS too simple.
>
> The simple fix is not happening for more than one reason. Not only do
> we have the anti-pill nutritionists screwing things up so more people
> don't take fishoil pills, but on the other side we have the Rx
> *pill-pushing* pharm-FDA industrial complex. This coalition has made
> sure the government (or your government sponsored health plan) is
> paying for some share of your prescription items, and that you don't
or
> won't really count a pill as "real" medicine or "strong" medicine
> *unless* a doctor prescribes it for you, a pharmacist gives it to
you,
> and your health plan pays for it. Which, in the case of fish oil
> capsules, the FDA and the DHHS and USPTO are making difficult enough
> that it's not likely to happen.
>
> Again, however, fish oil pills are supplements which do as well or
> better than the top-selling statins at preventing cardiac death in
> people with coronary disease. But, even though the AHA weakly
endorses
> fish oil pills (along, of course, with all the various kinds of fatty
> and confusing fish) relatively few people with coronary disease take
> them. The government pays for their angioplastics, their byp***es and
> (yes) their statins. And their cholesterol binders and niacin and
> fibrates and so on. Even their aspirin (provided it can be made to
look
> powerful and be extra expensive). But not their fish oil pills. The
> only thing the government DOES pay for nutritionally, is studies by a
> bevy of nutritionists to look at fish as food and figure out ways to
> divert people's attention from fish oil supplements. Go figure.
>
> Fish oil capsules are example of an easy, inexpensive, and fairly
> effective treatment for a very difficult and expensive problem
> (coronary disease--- I don't review the many other uses for them). Of
> course, fish oil capsules are not a cure-all. They won't fix heart
> disease. They don't lower cholesterol that well, though they do a
good
> job on triglycerides. They are apparently excellent antiarrhythmics.
> They may act synergistically with prescription drugs in heart disease
> to prevent death, and I expect they do. They merely deserve to be
seen
> as on par with the best pharmacological therapies (in terms of
effect)
> and as easily beating many medical therapies in terms of cost,
safety,
> and side effects. I personally have zero commercial interest in them.
> But in terms of bang-for-buck, I find them incredibly impressive.
>
> And yet, your government is doing almost everything it can, short of
> making fish oil pills actually *illegal,* to keep the average person
> from swallowing them. They pay for prescription drugs that don't work
> (fibrates). They pay for studies on what fish to eat (but none which
> can tell you for sure how to avoid those full of mercury and which
have
> little omega-3s). The government is unlikely to pay for studies on
fish
> oil pills (the biggest one was done in Italy), and the government
> prescription drug benefit of course will not pay for the fish oil
pills
> themselves. How is that for strange? It's almost enough to make one
> wonder about conspiracies. But it's not. It's simply the usual
> confederacy of dunces we saw with iodine, niacin, folate, and so on.
> And it's the usual information problem which crimps our use of almost
> any nutrient in a pill.
>
> And it's not as though the health care system we have, has much "bang
> for buck," that they don't need to look for other ways to attack
health
> problems. Rather the opposite. Those treadmills, CCU's, nuclear heart
> scans, byp***es, angioplasties and statin drugs are breaking the
> healthcare system. They contribute greatly to medicaid costs which
are
> growing exponentially everywhere. I heard the governnor of Virginia
> last night on CNN bemoan the fact that medicaid is now 24% of his
state
> budget, and doubing in cost every 7 years (that way lies bankrupcy
very
> soon). Medicaid costs now DRIVE most state budgets, even ahead of
K-12
> ed. But no state is going broke trying to supply "vulnerable
> populations" with fish oil capsules. They ARE, however, going broke
> trying to decide whether to pay for Lipitor vs Pravachol. The fish
oil,
> by contrast, would actually be financially do-able. How's that for
> irony?
>
>
> SBH






Fish oils will often have anchovy oils but even salmon oil will be
higher in purines than a salmon meal. Many people with cardiovascular
disease and/or diabetes have problems with gout. Also, it is thought
some who took statins and had serious myopathic reaction have had
MYOGENIC HYPERURICEMIA disorders such as McCardle's disease triggered
by the statin. These people still need to lower cholesterol, cannot use
statins and are looking at other therapeutic options for heart health.
But should they be using fish oils or eating fish?

{"...carriers for "triggerable" metabolic myopathies are known to
become
more vulnerable to statin myotoxicity and 25% of pts continue to be
symptomatic even months after statin w/drawal.}

{private communication with researchers in neuromyotoxicity of
statins.}



Zee

..harris[atsign]ix.netc...c..

Thank you. I'm sure that study must have been a shock to him. No, I
don't think I'm going to see that bet money he offered.

It is too bad he didn't read the coconut oil/tropical oil literature,
which has recently pointed out quite reasonably that many studies which
purport to show the atherogenicity of coconut and palm oils, are really
showing the atherogenicity of EFA deficiency. Populations which eat
tropical oils, but which get enough EFA from other sources, don't have
specially high rates of heart disease. It's not so much that saturated
fats are bad per se, but that very *high* sat fat/PUFA ratios are bad,
especially in the setting of poor vitamin nutrition (as we see in
Finland and Ireland of years ago).

It's quite a shock that you can give rats and dogs atherosclerosis by
depriving them of EFAs. How much easier is it to do the same with
monkeys and people? Quite easy. But all this was forgotten a long time
ago in the war on specific nutrients like saturated fats, which then
proceded to get mixed up in the very much more legitimate war on trans
fats. Through it all, there were all those French and Italians and
Greeks eating all the butter and cheese they liked, and doing very
well, thanks. But they also got a lot of fish and produce and vitamins,
so it wasn't as much of a paradox as first appears. It's only one if
you think saturated fat PER SE is evil and atherogenic. Which it is
not.

Montygram has gone to the other extreme dumb position, and thinks that
essential fatty acids and PUFAs are evil. That's wrong also. Many of
them are necessary nutrients. If you don't have them, your arteries
will clog up and you'll die. Even if you're a rat or a dog.

SBH

..harris[atsign]ix.netc...c..

>>Fish oils will often have anchovy oils but even salmon oil will be
higher in purines than a salmon meal. <<

Good heavens, no. Purines are found in DNA and aren't in general oil
soluble. Fish oil will have far less purines in it than and equivalent
amount of the meat itself, which still contains lots of DNA. Remember,
the meat of most Salmon is only 1 to 2% w-3 EFAs, and the capsules are
typically 30-50%. You need to use that factor of 30 it comparing them.

Gout sufferers, take the fishoil capsules. They're antiinflammatory.

SBH

..harris[atsign]ix.netc...c..

>>Fish oils will often have anchovy oils but even salmon oil will be
higher in purines than a salmon meal.<<

No. You must be confusing the purine content of anchovies or sardines
in oil, with the oil itself. The purines are in the organs of those
small fish, which you eat when you eat them whole. NOT in their oils.

SBH

..trid..

Sbharris[atsign]ix.netcom.com wrote:
> >>Fish oils will often have anchovy oils but even salmon oil will be
> higher in purines than a salmon meal.<<
>
> No. You must be confusing the purine content of anchovies or sardines
> in oil, with the oil itself. The purines are in the organs of those
> small fish, which you eat when you eat them whole. NOT in their oils.
>
> SBH


I don't know what the purine content of fishoils is. They don't list
that on the label. I noticed most fishoil (here at least) is not pure
salmon oil. It's a combination including salmon but listing anchovy
first.

So...ummm...they fillet the critters before packing them into the
capsule?

I'll take your word for it.



Zee

....

Any thoughts on polycosanol as a statin alternative?

..go..

Dave wrote:
> Any thoughts on polycosanol as a statin alternative?

How about a spoonful of natural honey as an alternative to policosanol?

Seriously, I think these studies are interesting, but lifestyle
modifications have been shown to be as effective in 80% of the cases.
We should be pushing lifestyle changes which have greater benefits.

Medications should be reserved for those cases where lifestyle
modification does not work, or is not possible.

There are many foods that have been shown to lower cholesterol.
Policosanol is one more.

..harris[atsign]ix.netc...c..

>>I don't know what the purine content of fishoils is. They don't list
that on the label. I noticed most fishoil (here at least) is not pure
salmon oil. It's a combination including salmon but listing anchovy
first.

So...ummm...they fillet the critters before packing them into the
capsule? <<

COMMENT:

No, of course they don't. But when they mash them, the DNA and ATP in
the organs of the critters does not come out in the oil, since DNA and
ATP don't dissolve in oil. And you can take my word on that.

SBH

..harris[atsign]ix.netc...c..

>>How about a spoonful of natural honey as an alternative to
policosanol? <<

How about a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down? How about
Mary Poppins and some dancing penquins?

In fact, there is very little evidence that "lifestyle" changes (if by
"lifestyle" that you mean changing your diet and exercising, as opposed
to taking fishoil pills) work as a secondary preventive for cardiac
death in those with cardiac disease. The endpoint in Ornish wasn't
death, and in fact his study was too underpowered to show any mortality
difference. And it was quite draconian.

SBH

..harris[atsign]ix.netc...c..

>>Any thoughts on polycosanol as a statin alternative?


Polycosinols are a sugarcane alcohol, and most of the work on them is
from Cuba, and is basically iron-curtain science, even after the iron
curtain is gone from Europe. Mostly unrepeatable except in Cuba, where
there seems to be a magical force field that produces them. Probably
from the iron curtain's having moved over and contracted about what JFK
called that "imprisoned isle."

Polycosinol has done nothing in my own patients on LDL, whereas I've
never failed to see SOME statin effect.

SBH