Chiropractic Nuts!

I have 3 things to share with you today. First the nutty world of medicine, second non-nutty D3 news, and then something great about pecan nuts!
It’s always amazed me that although most of the drugs prescribed by doctors have side effects, often leading to a shorter life, they are based on naturally occurring substances that have similar benefits, without the risks.
One such drug, often touted as ‘safe’ is aspirin. Yet even this drug is related to doubling the risk of heart attacks and tripling the risk of stroke, according to a new study published in the British Medical Journal. Completely at odd to the normal, unscientific practice, of giving it to people ‘just in case’. You can however get your daily dose of aspirin another way, without the risk, and in fact with more benefits.

Simply try eat 9 or 10 portions of vegetables and fruits every day – most contain natural aspirin. Doing this will dramatically improve many aspects of your health – and you’ll probably loose weight too.

Vitamin D3: A new study has found that larger doses may protect against breast cancer – Vitamin D3
Nuts: Pecan nuts contain a number of anti-oxidant compounds and they help prevent the oxidation of ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol. This is something statins can’t do. It is the oxidation process that turns LDL cholesterol, which is very important for your immune system, into something that can clog arteries. Here's a link to the article:

Pecan Nuts

I’ve got just over 4 weeks to go to my Marathon, so if you would like to help me raise money for the North London Hospice, please put up my link on your Facebook pages, or Tweet it!

www.virginmoneygiving.com/drchris

Thank you

Be Well

Dr Chris

Chiropractic Heart Disease Special

Well,

I made it back from Dr Dighton’s office in Loughton.

What a nice man! And his assistant Noreen was lovely too.

Before I start revealing all the details I have a message from my clinic manager to pass on – our Female Hormone Specialist – Judy Evans – is in on Friday and has 3 slots open for consultations – so ring the clinic now on 01707 662 704 to book one.

I highly recommend Judy to any one suffering from the menopause, PMS, endometriosis, osteoporosis, or just general bad health and fatigue. If you want to know more then give us a ring or check out the Natural Progesterone page of the website:
http://www.thepainreliefcentres.co.uk/Natural_Progesterone.asp

So far in over 15 years of practice I’ve never personally met a medical doctor both so interested in what I do as a chiropractor, and so willing to look at the big picture of health, rather than just drugs and surgery.

There is no way I’m going to be able to get through everything I learned from Dr Dighton in the hour and a half of time he kindly gave me, but I’ll have a go.

First of all he said ‘statins work’. Coming from a doctor this was not shocking, and if you’ve read my past articles on cholesterol you’ll know I have a different opinion. But, Dr Dighton was not talking about their effect on lowering cholesterol, he was talking purely about there effect on reversing, or slowing atherosclerosis. Dr Dighton was also talking from first hand experience as they do ultrasound scans of arteries in his office, so he’s seen it.

He also stressed that no blood test can tell you whether you need to take them – you’re cholesterol level is irrelevant (which is what I’ve always said) and what you need is an ultrasound scan. It was also clear that the amount you need to make a difference may be 3 or more times the amount needed to lower cholesterol. Dr Dighton wasn’t happy with this though and thinks there is a better, safer way.

Dr Dighton then went on to explain that of course the best way to treat heart disease is to not get it in the first place by following a heart healthy lifestyle. He had a little bit of a dig at modern medicine as he found most of his colleagues uninterested in the idea of promoting health and said all these drugs really do is ‘keep you going’ rather than actually curing anything.

Dr Dighton has spent many years trying to find out the very best foods for the heart, as well as what are the ones to avoid and came up with some quite surprising findings. All the details can be found in either of his two books.

He has also looked into what supplements can help and has formulated an easy to take powdered drink with everything heart healthy in it.

I’ll get into more detail next time – such as the 3 types of atherosclerotic plaque that block the arteries – including which is the dangerous one – and what is the nutrient Dr Dighton recommends we can’t get enough of.

If you can’t wait then you can call the clinic to reserve a tub of his Heart Sense powder, and get a free copy of his book with it. If you have anyone in the family with heart disease and they are sceptical about nutrition now is the time to get them on something Dr approved.

You can call us on 01707 662 704, or just pop in to the Brookmans Park clinic.

Best of Health

Dr Chris

p.s. Don’t forget to book for Judy Evens this Friday.
http://www.thepainreliefcentres.co.uk/Natural_Progesterone.asp

Forget About Cholesterol - Get Your CRP Checked

Despite conventional medicine insisting on rigorous investigation for other forms of healthcare, saying without it these alternatives are worthless, they are truly unaware of how much is unknown about how the drugs they use.

For example it is still unknown exactly how aspirin works, despite it being recommended for all sorts today. The artificial sweetener aspartame was apparently being developed as an ulcer drug, but when it didn’t work it got re-sold as a sweetener as someone in the lab had tasted it.

This, however is nothing compared to the latest offering –
One drug company developed a drug, pagoclone, specifically for treating panic disorders. As is often the case though the drug failed to perform in clinical trials.

Instead of giving up, they retried pagoclone as a solution to premature ejaculation. No luck there either.

Finally pagoclone has been found to help people who stutter and I believe has now been licensed.

Statins, are marketed as cholesterol lowering drugs, yet the evidence tells us that any good effect they have is NOT through lowering cholesterol, and the only people who really benefit are people with already low cholesterol, not high! A new trail however has just started to shed light on this:

As many ‘alternative’ health care practitioners will tell you, inflammation is more related to heart disease than high cholesterol. At last medicine has decided to examine what its own experts have been saying for years and measured a marker called C Reactive protein in people with heart failure.

One group was put on a statin, the other – nothing. Both groups had CRP and cholesterol levels checked. Both groups also started with the same cholesterol levels.

There was another subdivision of those with high CRP, and those with low CRP.

First of all, the statin lowered the cholesterol equally in both high and low CRP groups, but the death rate was different. While the those with high CRP did slightly better on the statin (8.5% fewer deaths than on the group on placebo)), those with low CRP on statins faired worse than placebo – almost 13% worse.

So this study gives us more insite into when to takes statins – high CRP – yes, low CRP – definitely not. High cholesterol – irrelevant.

As a side note, in the article the authors stated, “We examined whether the anti-inflammatory action of statins may be of benefit in heart failure, a state characterized by inflammation in which low cholesterol is associated with worse outcomes.”

Again acknowledging that high cholesterol is NOT a cause of heart failure, but low cholesterol.

I hope that you take this evidence to your doctor and get your CRP checked!