Reverse Atherisckerosis

Can Atherosclerosis be reversed. I know what needs to be done to make it worse but... I red about herbs like Garlic, Ginseng, Ginkgo biloba, Cayenne pepper,Green Tea, Hawthorne,Psyllium, Pomegranate juice and others that claim to clear arteries of calcium build-up. Also, I read that Cleveland Clinic found that 40 mg. of Crestor had clearing effects. Are any of these things true? Can this condition actually be reversed?  

[curmudgen]

first step do research --- http://www.ehow.com/how_4882947_reverse-atherosclerosis.html

search reverse atherosclerosis and look for medical web sites.....

[ed34]

I asked my Doctor about a different statin a few weeks ago, one that claims around 29% reduction in plaque in the first year, according to trials. My Doctor said you have to be very careful about what is claimed, particularly when trials are paid for by the drug companies themselves. It's always best to wait for independent trials to see if the results match, and unfortunately, not many do. At the moment, there is no way to reduce plaque in the arteries, and there is still a lot to be learned about the chemical processes which cause it. There has been one recent new line of thought which does look interesting. What research has looked at is the gulo gene, which is switched off in humans/apes. This means we have no ability to synthesize our own vitamin C and rely totally on consumption. Research has shown that in developed countries in particular, the average person has at least 20% deficit in vitamin C. This vitamin is believed to have a lot of important tasks in the body, including keeping the immune system healthy and absorbing many free radicals, which are dangerous, destructive particles released when cells chemically produce energy. These free radicals are believed to be a major contributor to atherosclerosis because they damage the signalling ability of the macrophages to have their fat removed. Instead, they die and become fatty foam cells. There are studies which are giving high dosages of vitamin C to lab animals that have been given atherosclerosis. It does seem to look promising, but it's early days yet. The simple reason for looking at the gulo gene is that apes also have this gene switched off, yet they don't seem to suffer this disease. They consume vast amounts of vitamin C in their diets. Another thing which seems to follow reality is that smoking seriously reduced vitamin C in the body, and we know smoking contributes to atherosclerosis.
I wonder, if you take vitamin C supplements, will the body absorb it all? if not, what percentage will it take in?

[erijon]

Here's a study released by the NIH that was not part of any drug company funding. Basically, statin use along with daily aerobic exercise has shown a regression arterial plaques. The key is increasing HDL-C;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20234098

[ed34]

There are no statins which increase hdl, whatever they may claim. They reduce the LDL, which isn't good enough and the damaged HDL need to be replaced by higher numbers. Niacin has been used for years, but this is basically just vitamin B anyway which we can get by eating selective foods.
Research has been going on for many years to find a drug to increase hdl levels. One such drug was torcetrapib and although it did increase HDL significantly, it caused lots of damage to arteries and lots of deaths. Now there is a much more promising drug, anacetrapib, is showing pretty good results so far. It reduces LDL by 40% on average but also dramatically increases HDL. The increases in HDL were 41 mg/dl to 101 mg/dl.
So you do have to ask why so much is being spent on finding a replacement for statins if they are so good.  People aren't silly, they know that the figures don't match the claims. I've been on statins for years, yet I still got 2 more blockages this year. Everyone I have ever met in hospital has been on statins, yet still it's necessary for further intervention. The death rate from heart attacks has decreased, but atherosclerosis problems are still increasing and spreading worldwide. Statins haven't had the results everyone hoped for and I believe any honest researcher will admit this. They obviously slow things down to some extent, I believe I would have had many more blockages without them due to hypercholesterolemia. Patients are told to exercise to raise HDL, but lets be honest, how many can exercise enough? There are so many who get angina from a short walk which isn't anywhere near enough. So, I hope this new drug continues to show promising results and finds its way into our bloodstreams ;)

[erijon]

I respect your opinion, but I have to challenge one point. You mention that heart attacks are on the rise which is true, but the real question is how many more would there be given the degradation in lifestyle today without statin therapy? How worse would your situation be without the role of a statin. There are just too many unknowns to try to compare statins use today and the number of CAD patients.

We'll know more about Anacetapib when the DEFINE [Determining the EFficacy and Tolerability of CETP INhibition with AnacEtrapib] trial is complaete an another year or so. The safety of this drug is proving to be excellent and should be the next great breakthrough. It is showing an average increase in HDL from 40 to 101, that would be huge.

Jon

[jrbon]

Here is another study that shows modest decrease (from 2001):

"On average, after three years of placebo therapy, the mean percent stenosis in proximal arteries increased by 3.9 percent ... By contrast, the mean percent stenosis increased by 1.8 percent ...after antioxidant therapy, and decreased by 0.4 percent  after simvastatin–
niacin therapy."

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa011090

Jesus

[ed34]

"but I have to challenge one point"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you wouldn't expect the same patients back in hospital so many times once on statin therapy. This is far from reality though.

I do accept statins have some good to them, as I've stated. But I do think in the vast majority of cases it is over hyped and clever marketing.

[Dadeo11]

Thank you for your input. I guess no one really knows if the herbs work then.

[curmudgen]

You might check the NIH web page...I think they looked at herbal remedies.  Personally I don't think herbs are a magic bullet for the treatment of diseases.

[Rosemary349]

Hi there

I would say of course the herbs work, along with the whole lifestyle change.  I don't think they will cure necessarily - but who knows?  How many people don't try these regimes and stick to them strictly because they don't believe it'll work?

I say go with what you have read.  Also check out Caldwell Esselstyn's book - google it and also Dean Ornish - he also has a book.  If you cannot find them on google message back here and i'll dig out the refs.

Their main arguments are that there have been cultures where heart disease has not been present when their soldiers (killed in warfare) have had autopsies.  These cultures lived on virtually fat free diets but with loads of fresh fruit, vegetables and beans.  It means a strict and radical change...and it's about getting one's cholesterol down to a certain low level - apparently when it reaches that level and without the fat in the diet, there has been some cases of reversal.....

i'm no expert, i only know what i've read.  :-)

[curmudgen]

No question that there needs to be a life style change but it is important to note that the people that live on fat free diets rich in fruits, vegetables and daily exercise did this for their entire lives and not after they were diagnosed with atherosclerosis.  

[ed34]

It's also interesting how the fattest people in the world who live on fried foods seem to have healthier arteries than those who are skinny and take statins.

[kenkeith]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20234098. An appropriate combination of statin therapy and lifestyle modification, in particular, physical activity, may result in coronary plaque regression. This combined treatment strategy, inducing an increase of the serum HDL-C, may contribute to coronary plaque regression.

That study was a small sampling of the Japanese population.

There may be an X factor associated with that population.  The research, published in the August 5, 2008, issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), suggests that the protection comes from omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in oily fish. In the first international study of its kind, researchers found that compared to middle-aged white men or Japanese-American men living in the United States, Japanese men living in Japan had twice the blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids—a finding that was independently linked to low levels of atherosclerosis.

[ed34]

Don't you find these claims a tad confusing? I mean, they refer to 'plaque' in many reports and yet they don't seem to mention which 'type' of plaque. Do you think for example that if someone has a total occlusion, say 20mm in length or more, and this has solid calcified end caps, it would be dangerous if HDL-C weakened these as it broke them down? Would it mean a sudden eruption of soft vulnerable plaque into the vessels as the caps become too weak?
If the HDL-C increase breaks down only soft vulnerable plaque, then there is still the issue of trying to remove all the calcified plaque. So, this has me very confused. Do you think the regression involves calcified or soft or both? I do wish they would be a lot more specific because when you understand the mechanics, it tends to make less sense. It's a bit like saying we can make you a chocolate cake, but we have no chocolate.

[kenkeith]

It probably breaks down to whom one wishes to believe!  If there were some reversal it would have to be a process that shrinks the hard plaque within the lumen as that appears to be the medical issue of interest....less vessel blockage to blood flow...and that would involve a chemical change or something to the hard plaque.

If the vessel has remodeled causing stenosis and there is some elasticity to the inner walls a reduction of the plaque within the walls  could widen the diameter of the lumen.  

If R&D put some hard plaque in a test tube and then added some compound substance like acid that destroys or dissolves the plaque without damage to vessel cells, that would have my attention....thinking about it there may be something that can be given by injection in an emergency situation to dissolve the plaque!?  

[erijon]

Just pointing out a study, the results show there is a possibility of some plaque regression, demographics really do not change the study or the results. The presence of fatty acids has nothing to do with this, the study was looking at individuals already with plaques and how exercise along with statins caused a regression of existing plaques so I don't know what the discussion of preventing plaques is about, they were already there so the fatty acids did not prevent the plaques already in place or have anything to do with the regression.

[ed34]

"thinking about it there may be something that can be given by injection in an emergency situation to dissolve the plaque!?"

I asked this very question to my cardiologist back in 2009. He just smiled and said it would be nice. However, it still has me wondering if it would instantly kill the patient. The hard plaque is holding the soft plaque in the artery wall, preventing escape. If we dissolve these caps, there would be an untold amount of soft plaque suddenly rushing around the blood stream. So two agents would be required. One to remove the caps, and one to break down the soft plaque.

[ed34]

The "acid" was hyperthetical, just an idea. A way to perhaps simply remove hard plaque from the lumen to increase blood flow. Are you saying that the research is looking at soft plaque in the artery wall? because to increase blood flow you would have to reduce the hard plaque caps also, as these protrude into the lumen, restricting the flow of blood. My concern is, if you reduce the strength of the caps by reducing them, then the soft pressurised plaque beneath will erupt, causing heart attacks and strokes.

[erijon]

This study must be looking at soft plaques as I have never read anywhere that statins have any impact of calcification which would be considered hardened plaques. The point was that along with statin use, aerobic exercise increased HDL and the combination helped encourage plaque progression. I have no reason to believe that an increase in HDL would work on anything other than soft plaques made up predominantly of LDL. Although, there has recently been a publication that reported the termination of a study based on including niacin with statin meds to reduce risk of cardiac events. The study showed that adding niacin showed no additional benefits than simvastatin alone. The whole idea of niacin is to increase HDL so what this trial is basically saying is that increased HDL did not prove to have any additional protective properties.

Here's the link;

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43182051/ns/health-heart_health/

Interesting, this trial was funded by the NIH along with participation from Abbott Labs, the makers of Niaspan and the NIH halted the study. We may need to re-think the whole HDL theory and wait for the other trials to be completed.

Your thoughts?

[ed34]

I don't personally believe they will ever get the desired results by looking at lipids. The main reason for the disease in the first place is inflammation and we should be aiming at drugs to prevent this. Parallel research should be concentrating on how to get rid of existing disease, without hoping lipids will do it. One area of research I've become interested in is HIFU. High intensity focused ultrasound. This has been used in the past to treat abnormal tissue, such as cancer, but it's not very controllable. The way it works, you end up damaging lots of normal tissue. Now a new system has been developed where targeting is very accurate indeed and monitoring the accuracy on the fly is brilliant. They seriously believe this can be applied to artery disease. Imagine laying on a table and having your arteries cleared from outside your body, no need to make any incisions. If they can vapourise the fats (both hard and soft) from outside the body like this, it will be very low risk with the accuracy of the technology. So far they can treat an area the size of a sesame seed without harming surrounding tissue.

[erijon]

Your statements concerning CAD as being an inflammatory disease is one I agree with. What gets confusing is that statin are in themselves considered an anti-inflammatory drug with proven results. So much so that they are now being subscribed by surgeons before and after major surgery to reduce inflammation, particularly vascular inflammation. Also, the are being used in severe cases of sepsis to prevent inflammation in the lungs and reducing lung damage. The latest news from just yesterday is that statins have been shown to help treat prostate cancer as well for the same reason.

Having read all that I think that statins will eventually be shown as beneficial, however I wonder if we really understand completely the role played by the components of cholesterol. Much to consider still.

[curmudgen]

Interesting technique that is being used on solid tumors and fibroids but not yet on a moving target such as a beating artery. The focus should be on prevention of diseases which  is probably the hardest way to approach the problem.  People are so reluctant to alter their lifestyles before the fact.... but I am preaching to the choir.

[erijon]

Well said.

[ed34]

"The focus should be on prevention"

I don't think I agree. I don't believe the vast number of people in the worlds population would agree either, who are all ages and want a normal quality of life. There is also the financiers who wouldn't agree. To find a cure for anything makes a huge profit, and a cure for CAD would reap profits far exceeding any other medication so far.
If we look at all the contributors to CAD, the biggest 'prevention' would need to come from society itself. We would need less stress and be able to afford healthy diets. We would need to stop meddling with nature, such as feeding pellets/steroids instead of grass in a field. We would have to start at the basics and restructure everything that we know because it all contributes in a small way to our bad health. In the UK, thanks to this recession, people can only afford bargains at supermarket stores, but the quality is anyones guess. I was told in rehab to use olive oil for cooking, but I had to laugh because it's so easy to say such things. I was told to eat lots of fruit and veg, but wow, the price of those is also ridiculous these days. How do people eat healthily when producers know it's what we want, so charge extra.

[kenkeith]

Social egineering to prevent CAD is not a workable solution for political, economic, diverse population, etc., reasons.  And there is no clear delineation of the human anatomy and physiology the body can endure on an individual basis, and what may be harmful to one individual may not effect another individual, but impose a restriction for the individual's freedom of choice for their health care. For instance, would social engineering impose a health care penalty on an obese individual for not eating a healthy diet? Working in an unhealthy environment, etc.?

As stated social engineering would also impact the structured economy such as  redistribution of government funds, taxation incentives, etc.  

[curmudgen]

See the posting below  - health care costs increased for smokers....it can be done to help people make healthy choices...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/us/27questions.html?_r=1&hpw

[erijon]

As if we did not have enough to worry about, the British Heart Foundation has discovered a new more dangerous LDL which helps explain CAD in those with Diabetes and the elderly.

What will be interesting is determining what came first, the onset of diabetes or the formation of this new "super sticky" LDL. If it is the result of Diabetes and not the cause of it we have one more reason to modify our lifestyle.

Here's the article, thanks to a fellow member elsewhere for this;

http://medicalfront-page.com/?p=8546

[ed34]

"What will be interesting is determining what came first, the onset of diabetes or the formation of this new "super sticky" LDL"

Perhaps there is no link at all, it does say it's also common in the elderly and it is also existent in non-diabetic patients. Interesting that a new lipid should be discovered after all this time. You would have thought with thousands of blood samples, and an inexhaustable supply of microscopes, that all lipids would have been identified by now. It makes you wonder what they've been doing all these years lol.

[ed34]

"and what may be harmful to one individual may not effect another individual"

But long exposure to high levels of stress does take its toll in everyone. It could be that some people are good at disguising it, such as turning to alcohol, anti-depressants. Our bodies are not designed to handle long exposure to stress, and swedish research has clarified that it does affect the body and contribute to CAD. If you look at how our closest relatives, the apes, react to stress, then we can see how damaging it is. Some go nuts, some die and some just sit there with their minds forever in narnia land. We are designed to gather food, lay in the sun and digest it and have the occasional encounter with an enemy. In society many people are in the fight/flight mode 24/7 without realising it. It will cause damage.

[ed34]

And, don't forget alcohol. The highest health expenditure in the UK at present is through alcohol related problems.

[kenkeith]

...."our closest relatives, the apes, react to stress"

>>>>...may be your closest relative, not mine! :)  What is stress to some individuals is not stress to another. Also, reverting to self-medication such as drugs, alcohol, etc. for stress can be substituted with beneficial alternatives....you are leaving out beta blockers...that is treatment to lower blood pressure and control heart rate. That is the damaging effects of stress.  

There are self-awareness mind control techniques that have proven to reduce harmful effects of stress evidenced by a brain wave patterns changes.  What comes to mind is transcendental meditation, yoga, zen, etc...It can be related to the cyper expressions...consider there is a mind browser, now clear your cache, delete your history, now navigate to a blank web page...if and when successful an individual will reduce the harmful effects of stress on the body.  .  

[ed34]

"may be your closest relative, not mine! :)"
So which life form do you believe closely matches yours :)

"What is stress to some individuals is not stress to another"
I agree if a person is not normal in their mind. For example, there are nutters who find it very easy to take anothers life, without remorse. I am saying that if any human body is under prolonged stress it will damage it. I think you are clouding the issue here a bit. You are saying if you take 2 individuals and give them a stressful task, one possibly wouldn't find it stressful at all and wouldn't be affected. I'm saying if you stressed both bodies to the same levels, they would both suffer damage. I'm not referring to mind control or beta blockers and I can't see a nation performing very well if the whole population is on beta blockers anyway. I wouldn't get on a plane if the pilot was on beta blockers, I would want him to be able to react instantly to adrenaline in an emergency :)