Coronary Artery Disease Quotes

Here are the facts. Coronary artery disease is the leading killer of men and women in Western civilization. In the United States alone, more than half a million people die of it every single year. Three times that number suffer known heart attacks. And approximately three million more have “silent” heart attacks, experiencing minimal symptoms and having no idea, until well after the damage is done, that they are in mortal danger. In the course of a lifetime, one out of every two American men and one out of every three American women will have some form of the disease.

How poorly today’s North American way of life serves the needs of the human body may be gauged by the high levels of, say, heart disease, diabetes and obesity on this continent. The situation of the human brain is analogous. The miswired ADD circuits of the prefrontal cortex are as much the effect of unhealthful circumstances as are the cholesterol-plugged arteries of atherosclerotic coronary disease.

One of the key reasons that rates of dementia have fallen sharply since the 1970s is the advent of improved treatments for heart ailments. What’s good for the heart is actually very good for the brain. The steps you take to keep your heart arteries unclogged also keep brain arteries open. Cholesterol-lowering drugs have dramatically reduced coronary artery disease and are effective even in people who live sedentary lifestyles and eat foods that aren’t “heart healthy.” Statins, prescribed to lower cholesterol, have lately been shown to lower the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in most people.

WARNING: Before commencing any program of sustained physical inactivity, consult your physician. Sedentary living doubles the likelihood of stroke and coronary artery disease, making it as risky as smoking, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure. If unaccustomed to sitting for extended periods, you may experience weak muscles, low bone density, high cholesterol, hyperglycaemia, a rapid resting heart rate, mental decline, mood disorders, and obesity. Start slowly and increase inactivity gradually. If you experience drowsiness, difficulty in concentration, or craving for stimulation, discontinue inactivity immediately.:-)

Thus wailing and pounding the walls in grief or leaping about and shouting in ecstasy can place similarly large demands on a diseased heart. Put another way, your sympathetic nervous system probably has roughly the same effect on your coronary arteries whether you are in the middle of a murderous rage or a thrilling orgasm.

protein, or HSCRP. This test measures the levels of a specific blood protein that increases with inflammation of the coronary arteries, and it is considered by many cardiologists to be even better than a standard cholesterol measurement at assessing your risk of heart attacks. All those patients who failed turned out to have elevated HSCRP levels.

Specifically, participants were asked to describe their relationship with each parent using the following scale: “very close,” “warm and friendly,” “tolerant,” or “strained and cold.” Ninety-one percent of participants who stated that their relationship with their mother was tolerant or strained were diagnosed with a significant health issue (such as cancer, coronary artery disease, hypertension, etc.) in midlife, compared with 45 percent of participants—less than half—who reported that their relationship with their mothers was warm or close. Similar numbers were reported for participants who described their relationship with their fathers. Eighty-two percent of the participants who reported tolerant or strained relationships with their fathers had significant health issues in midlife, compared with 50 percent of those who had warm or close relationships with their fathers. If participants had a strained relationship with both parents, the results were startling: 100 percent had significant health issues, versus 47 percent of those who described their relationships with their parents as being warm and close.1

This tragic sequence helps explain the fearful loss of cognition in coronary artery bypass patients.3 But neuroradiologists also report that using magnetic resonance imaging, they can detect little white spots in the brains of Americans starting at about age fifty. These spots represent small, asymptomatic strokes (see Figures 18 and 19 in insert). The brain has so much reserve capacity that at first these tiny strokes cause no trouble. But, if they continue, they begin to cause memory loss and, ultimately, crippling dementia. In fact, one recently reported study found that the presence of these “silent brain infarcts” more than doubles the risk of dementia.4 We now believe, in fact, that at least half of all senile mental impairment is caused by vascular injury to the brain.

The Company We Keep So now we have seen that our cells are in relationship with our thoughts, feelings, and each other. How do they factor into our relationships with others? Listening and communicating clearly play an important part in healthy relationships. Can relationships play an essential role in our own health? More than fifty years ago there was a seminal finding when the social and health habits of more than 4,500 men and women were followed for a period of ten years. This epidemiological study led researchers to a groundbreaking discovery: people who had few or no social contacts died earlier than those who lived richer social lives. Social connections, we learned, had a profound influence on physical health.9 Further evidence for this fascinating finding came from the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Epidemiologists were interested in Roseto because of its extremely low rate of coronary artery disease and death caused by heart disease compared to the rest of the United States. What were the town’s residents doing differently that protected them from the number one killer in the United States? On close examination, it seemed to defy common sense: health nuts, these townspeople were not. They didn’t get much exercise, many were overweight, they smoked, and they relished high-fat diets. They had all the risk factors for heart disease. Their health secret, effective despite questionable lifestyle choices, turned out to be strong communal, cultural, and familial ties. A few years later, as the younger generation started leaving town, they faced a rude awakening. Even when they had improved their health behaviors—stopped smoking, started exercising, changed their diets—their rate of heart disease rose dramatically. Why? Because they had lost the extraordinarily close connection they enjoyed with neighbors and family.10 From studies such as these, we learn that social isolation is almost as great a precursor of heart disease as elevated cholesterol or smoking. People connection is as important as cellular connections. Since the initial large population studies, scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology have demonstrated that having a support system helps in recovery from illness, prevention of viral infections, and maintaining healthier hearts.11 For example, in the 1990s researchers began laboratory studies with healthy volunteers to uncover biological links to social and psychological behavior. Infected experimentally with cold viruses, volunteers were kept in isolation and monitored for symptoms and evidence of infection. All showed immunological evidence of a viral infection, yet only some developed symptoms of a cold. Guess which ones got sick: those who reported the most stress and the fewest social interactions in their “real life” outside the lab setting.12 We Share the Single Cell’s Fate Community is part of our healing network, all the way down to the level of our cells. A single cell left alone in a petri dish will not survive. In fact, cells actually program themselves to die if they are isolated! Neurons in the developing brain that fail to connect to other cells also program themselves to die—more evidence of the life-saving need for connection; no cell thrives alone. What we see in the microcosm is reflected in the larger organism: just as our cells need to stay connected to stay alive, we, too, need regular contact with family, friends, and community. Personal relationships nourish our cells,

The impact of second-class treatment on black people’s bodies is devastating. It is manifested not only in the black–white death gap but also in the drastic measures required when chronic disease is left unmanaged. Black patients are less likely than whites to be referred to kidney and liver transplant wait lists and are more likely to die while waiting for a transplant.68 If they are lucky enough to get a donated kidney or liver, blacks are sicker than whites at the time of transplantation and less likely to survive afterward. “Take a look at all the black amputees,” said a caller to a radio show I was speaking on, identifying the remarkable numbers of people with amputated legs you see in poor black communities as a sign of health inequities. According to a 2008 nationwide study of Medicare claims, whites in Louisiana and Mississippi have a higher rate of leg amputation than in other states, but the rate for blacks is five times higher than for whites.69 An earlier study of Medicare services found that physicians were less likely to treat their black patients with aggressive, curative therapies such as hospitalization for heart disease, coronary artery bypass surgery, coronary angioplasty, and hip-fracture repair.70 But there were two surgeries that blacks were far more likely to undergo than whites: amputation of a lower limb and removal of the testicles to treat prostate cancer. Blacks are less likely to get desirable medical interventions and more likely to get undesirable interventions that good medical care would avoid.

Heart Disease Starts in Childhood In 1953, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association radically changed our understanding of the development of heart disease. Researchers conducted a series of three hundred autopsies on American casualties of the Korean War, with an average age of around twenty-two. Shockingly, 77 percent of soldiers already had visible evidence of coronary atherosclerosis. Some even had arteries that were blocked off 90 percent or more.20 The study “dramatically showed that atherosclerotic changes appear in the coronary arteries years and decades before the age at which coronary heart disease (CHD) becomes a clinically recognized problem.”21 Later studies of accidental death victims between the ages of three and twenty-six found that fatty streaks—the first stage of atherosclerosis—were found in nearly all American children by age ten.22 By the time we reach our twenties and thirties, these fatty streaks can turn into full-blown plaques like those seen in the young American GIs of the Korean War. And by the time we’re forty or fifty, they can start killing us off. If there’s anyone reading this over the age of ten, the question isn’t whether or not you want to eat healthier to prevent heart disease but whether or not you want to reverse the heart disease you very likely already have. Just how early do these fatty streaks start to appear? Atherosclerosis may start even before birth. Italian researchers looked inside arteries taken from miscarriages and premature newborns who died shortly after birth. It turns out that the arteries of fetuses whose mothers had high LDL cholesterol levels were more likely to contain arterial lesions.23 This finding suggests that atherosclerosis may not just start as a nutritional disease of childhood but one during pregnancy. It’s become commonplace for pregnant women to avoid smoking and drinking alcohol. It’s also never too early to start eating healthier for the next generation.

Heart Disease is one of the most common and dangerous disease in the world. It is a coronary artery disease which causes a reduction in blood supply to the heart. There are various reasons for this disease but most common are high BP, overweight, saturate life style, junk food, smoking habits and heredity of heart problem in family. Blockage of artery is mainly because of high level of cholesterol in your blood. These issues with slow down your working capacity and will lead you to a point where you will be unable to do what you want to do. You will fatigue, tiredness, unable to exercise and this will ultimately lead towards heart attack & death. The Common remedies for heart diseases are lifelong medicine, angioplasty, bypass surgery. All these methods have great side effects associated with them. Fortunately nature has given us a great gift to cure heart problem. Unfortunately most of the people are not aware about it.

CALCIUM-SCORE SCREENING HEART SCAN This is a test used to detect calcium deposits found in atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries. Computerized tomography methods, such as this one, are the most effective way to detect early coronary calcification from atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), before symptoms develop. The amount of coronary calcium has been recognized as a powerful independent predictor of future heart problems and is useful in making lifestyle changes and guiding preventive care to reduce their risk. The doctor uses the calcium-score screening heart scan to evaluate risk for future coronary artery disease. If calcium is present, the computer will create a calcium "score" that estimates the extent of coronary artery disease based on the number and density of calcified coronary plaques in the coronary arteries. Absence of calcium is considered a "negative" exam. However, there are certain forms of coronary disease, such as "soft plaque" atherosclerosis, that escape detection during this CT scan. It is important to remember that a negative test suggests a low risk, but does not exclude the possibility of a future cardiac event, such as a heart attack. The calcium-score screening heart scan takes only a few minutes to perform and does not need injection of intravenous iodine.

Ultra-Sensitive C-Reactive Protein Blood (HS-CRP) C-reactive protein measures an inflammatory response in the body and has been shown to play a role in atherosclerosis and blood clot formation.  Patients should ask their doctor specifically about HS-CRP, as this test helps determine heart disease risk. Elevated HS-CRP is related to increased risk for heart attack, restenosis of coronary arteries after angioplasty, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease (PVD). While elevated cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides plus low HDL are independent risk factors for heart disease and cholesterol build-up, HS-CRP provides added information about inflammation in the arteries. This cannot be determined by lipid testing alone. Results Less than 1.0 mg/L = Low Risk for Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) 1.0 – 2.9 mg/L = Intermediate Risk for CVD Greater than 3.0 mg/L High Risk for CVD

SAMPLING OF SOME OF THE MAJOR TRIAL RESULTS WITH EDTA CHELATION A 1993analysis of 19 studies of 22,765 patients receiving EDTA chelation therapy for vascular disease found measurable improvement in 87%. A study of 2,870 patients with various degrees of degenerative diseases, especially vascular disease, almost 90% of the patients showed excellent improvement. The study measured walking distance, ECG, and Doppler blood flow changes. A small, blinded, crossover study of patients with peripheral vascular disease found significant improvements in walking distance and ankle/brachial blood flow. In 30 patients with carotid artery stenosis, there was a 30% improvement in blood flow after EDTA treatment. EDTA chelation treatment was evaluated in patients with carotid and coronary disease using technetium 99 isotope techniques. Significant improvement in arterial blood flow and ejection fraction (a measure of heart pumping ability) was reported. 65 patients on the waiting list for CABG surgery for an average of 6 months were treated with EDTA chelation therapy. The symptoms in 89% (58) improved so much they were able to cancel their surgery. In the same study, of 27 patients recommended for limb amputation due to poor peripheral circulation, EDTA chelation saved 24 limbs.

With just 30 minutes of physical activity a day you can: Reduce health risks (high blood pressure, stroke, osteoporosis, coronary disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers) Keep off excess weight Ward of viral illnesses Help keep your arteries clear Strengthen your heart

a man’s lack of closeness to his parents, or having a father who was physically and emotionally less involved, could predict early disability and death from suicide, hypertension, coronary artery disease, and tumors.

The heart is essentially a muscular pump connected to an elaborate network of branching tubes. Although there are several kinds of cardiovascular disease, almost all arise from something going wrong in either the tubes or the pump. Most problems start with the tubes, primarily the arteries that carry blood from the heart to every nook and cranny of the body. Like the pipes in a building, arteries are vulnerable to getting clogged with unwanted deposits. This hardening of the arteries, termed atherosclerosis, starts with the buildup of plaque—a gloppy mixture of fat, cholesterol, and calcium—within the walls of arteries. Plaques, however, don’t simply accumulate in arteries like crud settling in a pipe. Instead, they are dynamic, changing, growing, shifting, and sometimes breaking. They develop when white blood cells in arteries trigger inflammation by reacting to damage usually caused by a combination of high blood pressure and so-called bad cholesterol that irritates the walls of the artery. In an effort to repair the damage, white blood cells produce a foamy mixture that incorporates cholesterol and other stuff and then hardens. As plaque accumulates, arteries stiffen and narrow, sometimes preventing enough blood from flowing to the tissues and organs that need it and further driving up blood pressure. One potentially lethal scenario is when plaques block an artery completely or detach and obstruct a smaller artery elsewhere. When this happens, tissues are starved of blood (also called ischemia) and die. Plaques can also cause the artery wall to dilate, weaken, and bulge (an aneurysm) or to tear apart (a rupture), which can lead to massive bleeding (a hemorrhage). Blocked and ruptured arteries create trouble anywhere in the body, but the most vulnerable locations are the narrow coronary arteries that supply the heart muscle itself. Heart attacks, caused by blocked coronary arteries, may damage the heart’s muscle, leading to less effective pumping of blood or triggering an electrical disturbance that can stop the heart altogether. Other highly vulnerable arteries are in the brain, which cause strokes when blocked by blood clots or when they rupture and bleed. To this list of more susceptible locations we should also add the retinas, kidneys, stomach, and intestines. The most extreme consequence of coronary artery disease is a heart attack, which, if one survives, leaves behind a weakened heart unable to pump blood as effectively as before, leading to heart failure.

Arrhythmias are additional common causes of problems and death, and the heart can also be damaged by infections, birth defects, drugs, and faulty wiring. But atherosclerosis is by far the leading culprit, and chronically high blood pressure, hypertension, is a close second. Hypertension is a silent condition that relentlessly strains the heart, arteries, and various organs. At least 100,000 times a day, the heart forces about five liters of blood through thousands of miles of arteries that resist each squeeze, generating pressure. When we exercise, blood pressure rises temporarily, causing the heart’s muscular chambers to adapt, mostly by becoming stronger, larger, and more elastic so it can pump more blood with each stroke.30 Just as important, arteries also adapt to exercise to keep blood pressure low, primarily by expanding, multiplying, and staying elastic.31 However, when blood pressure is chronically high, the heart defends itself by developing thicker muscular walls. These thicker walls stiffen and fill with scar tissue, and eventually the heart weakens. A vicious cycle then ensues. As the heart’s ability to pump blood declines, it becomes harder to exercise and thus control high blood pressure. Blood pressure may rise as the heart progressively weakens until the failing heart cannot support or sustain a normal blood pressure. Death usually ensues. Coronary artery disease is ancient and has even been diagnosed in mummies.32 But research on nonindustrial populations provides powerful evidence that coronary artery disease and hypertension are largely evolutionary mismatches. Although many medical textbooks teach doctors that it’s normal for blood pressure to rise with age, we have known since the 1970s this is not true among hunter-gatherer populations like the San and the Hadza.33 The average blood pressure in a seventy-year-old San hunter-gatherer is 120/67, no different from a twenty-year-old. Lifelong low blood pressure also characterizes many subsistence farming populations. My colleagues Rob Shave and Aaron Baggish and I measured more than a hundred Tarahumara farmers of every age and found no difference in blood pressure between teenagers and octogenarians.34 By the same token, blood pressure can also stay normal into old age among industrialized people who eat sensibly and stay active.35

In the last 120 years, coronary artery disease has exploded more than two-and-a-half-fold to become a leading cause of death worldwide.38 Since Jeremy Morris’s pioneering study on London bus conductors first pointed the way, it has become indisputable that coronary artery disease is a largely preventable mismatch caused by a combination of formerly rare risk factors: high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and chronic inflammation.39 These harbingers of disease, in turn, are affected by genes but are mostly caused by the same interrelated behavioral risk factors we keep encountering: smoking, obesity, bad diets, stress, and physical inactivity.

Thus strength training gives your metabolism a boost far beyond the duration of the actual workout, for as long as 48 hours. In contrast, after aerobic training your metabolism returns to normal almost immediately. So with interval training we’re not only building muscle, but we’re also able to kick up our metabolism long after–even when sleeping! Many people believe aerobic activity strengthens their heart, and decreases the chance of things like coronary artery disease. Yet, after much research, even U.S. Air Force Cardiologist Dr. Kenneth Cooper–the very man who coined the term “aerobics”–now believes there is no correlation between aerobic performance and health, longevity, or protection against heart disease. On the other hand, aerobic activities do carry with them a great risk of injury. Most, even so-called “low impact” classes or activities like stationary cycling, are not necessarily low-force. And things like running are extremely high-force, damaging to your knees, hips and back. Aerobic dance is even worse. Sure, you’ll hear the occasional genetic exception declare that they’ve never ever been injured doing these exercises. But overuse injuries are cumulative and often build undetected over years until it’s too late, leading to a decrease or loss of mobility as you age, which, in turn, too often leads to a shortened lifespan.

Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.

Sleep deprivation is no joke. The magnitude of impairment from a week of five-hour nights is similar to that reported in people who smoke, have diabetes, or have coronary artery disease.

When you are cooking with oil, use a good Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It is more expensive than vegetable oil, but the health benefits are much better and it is worth the cost. Olive oil has been associated with a reduced risk in coronary heart disease and helps to increase the elasticity of the arterial walls which reduces the chance for heart attack and stroke.

Proven environmental diseases, such as colon cancer, coronary artery disease, and adult-onset diabetes, all run in families—not necessarily because of genes, but because family members share the same dietary patterns. Simply

The likelihood of suffering a fatal first heart attack was no less for those with a cholesterol level of 180 mg/dl than for those with 250. “The lack of association between serum cholesterol level and the incidence of sudden death suggests that factors other than the atherosclerotic process may be of major importance in this manifestation of coronary artery disease,

DESPITE NEARLY A CENTURY’S WORTH OF therapeutic innovations, the likelihood of a diabetic’s contracting coronary artery disease is no less today than it was in 1921, when insulin was first discovered. Type 2 diabetics can still expect to die five to ten years prematurely, with much of this difference due to atherosclerosis and what Joslin’s Diabetes Mellitus has called an “extraordinarily high incidence” of coronary disease.

Ayurveda is useful in any chronic illness. Coronary artery disease, rheumatoid arthritis or other inflammations. Bronchial asthma, obesity, type 2 diabetes. Because these are all linked to lifestyle”. 

S.P. is a 68-year-old retired painter who is experiencing right leg calf pain. The pain began approximately 2 years ago but has become significantly worse in the past 4 months. The pain is precipitated by exercise and is relieved with rest. Two years ago, S.P. could walk two city blocks before having to stop because of leg pain. Today, he can barely walk across the yard. S.P. has smoked two to three packs of cigarettes per day (PPD) for the past 45 years. He has a history of coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension (HTN), peripheral vascular disease (PVD), and osteoarthritis. Surgical history includes quadruple coronary artery bypass graft (CABG × 4) 3 years ago. He has had no further symptoms of cardiopulmonary disease since that time, even though he has not been compliant with the exercise regimen his cardiologist prescribed, he continues to eat anything he wants, and continues to smoke two to three PPD. Other surgical history includes open reduction internal fixation of the right femoral fracture 20 years ago. S.P. is in the clinic today for a routine semiannual follow-up appointment with his primary care provider. As you take his vital signs, he tells you that, besides the calf pain, he is experiencing right hip pain that gets worse with exercise, the pain doesn't go away promptly with rest, some days are worse than others, and his condition is not affected by a resting position. � Chart View General Assessment Weight 261 lb Height 5 ft, 10 in. Blood pressure 163/91 mm Hg Pulse 82 beats/min Respiratory rate 16 breaths/min Temperature 98.4° F (36.9° C) Laboratory Testing (Fasting) Cholesterol 239 mg/dL Triglycerides 150 mg/dL HDL 28 mg/dL LDL 181 mg/dL Current Medications Lisinopril (Zestril) 20 mg/day Metoprolol (Lopressor) 25 mg twice a day Aspirin 325 mg/day Simvastatin (Zocor) 20 mg/day Case Study 4 Name Class/Group Date ____________________ Group Members INSTRUCTIONS All questions apply to this case study. Your responses should be brief and to the point. When asked to provide several

The US dietary guidelines were the first ever to inform the general public about what should not be eaten. Specifically, we were told to avoid fat, especially saturated fat, and to replace dietary saturated fats with carbohydrates and polyunsaturated ‘vegetable’ (actually seed) oils. Failure to do so, we were warned, would cause us all to die of heart attacks, because cholesterol, we were told, causes coronary heart disease. Instead, the advice drove us down the road to obesity and the much more severe form of arterial disease caused by T2DM. Some have described this monumental error as the greatest scam in the history of modern medicine. The fallout has produced some very big ‘winners’, specifically those pharmaceutical companies that have benefited from the sale of the largely ineffective statin drugs, and the processed-food industry, dominated by 10 companies that produce the ‘displacing foods of modern commerce

In contrast, when a coronary artery in your heart is only 30–40 percent blocked, it is more unstable because it’s not calcified, and it has not had time to grow a protective network of collaterals. This is why these are called “vulnerable plaques”—because they are more likely to rupture and cause a sudden total obstruction, known as “catastrophic progression,” which is as bad as it sounds.

But that doesn’t mean genes don’t play an important role in disease. Genetic variations influence plenty of chronic diseases such as coronary artery disease, heart arrhythmias, type 2 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, and Alzheimer’s.65 In these and other cases, genes help load the gun, but environment pulls the trigger.

Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure. Fitting Charlotte Brontë’s prophetic wisdom that “a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow,” sleep disruption further contributes to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality.

Coronary artery calcification has long been recognized as a big risk factor for heart disease, but for some reason we continue to obsessively focus on cholesterol, while few people have heard much about the calcium connection.

Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.

In 1963, Choh Hao Li, chairman and lone tenured faculty member in the Institute of Experimental Biology at Berkeley, announced that he had isolated and purified his sixth pituitary hormone, lipotropin. The magnitude of such a feat is clear considering that only one other person had ever purified a hormone, and that person was not coincidentally a student of Li's. The purification of lipotropin should have been a reason to celebrate; however, Li's colleagues at Berkeley acknowledged but did not rejoice in his success. As they perceived it, endocrinology was a scientific field that came out of the clinical sciences, which meant that Li's research was completely unsound, and they put enormous pressure on him to change his scientific topic. When that did not work, Wendell Stanley tried to 'promote [Li] out of the Virus Laboratory,' then later University Chancellor Clark Kerr threatened to discontinue the Institute for Experimental Biology because it did not fit with Berkeley's commitment to pure research. Things got infinitely worse for Li, of course, because he became perceived as less qualified with each professional achievement. [...] C. H. Li's travails at Berkeley are only half the story. In 1969, five years after transferring from Berkeley to UCSF, Li and his laboratory assistants assembled a highly complex synthetic version of human growth hormone (HGH) that was biologically active and could promote the growth of bones and muscle tissue. Rather than ignore or criticize the work, however, journalists waxed eloquently [sic] about Li's creation of HGH. One described it as no less than a panacea for most of the world's problems. Others clearly saw specific applications: 'it might now be . . . possible to tailor-make hormones that can inhibit breast cancer.' Li's discovery of synthetic HGH 'constituted a truly . . . great research breakthrough [that had] obvious applications,' ranging from 'human growth and development to . . . treatment of cancer and coronary artery disease.' Desperate letters poured in too; athletes wanted to know if HGH would help them become faster, bigger, stronger, and dwarfs from all over the world begged for samples of HGH or to volunteer as experimental subjects. Unlike at Berkeley, Li's discovery made him a hero at UCSF. None other than UCSF Chancellor Phillip Lee described Li's discovery as 'meticulous, painstaking, and brilliant research' and then tried to capitalize on the moment by asking the public and their political representatives to increase federal support of bioscience research. 'Research money is dwindling fast,' repeated Lee to anyone who cared to listen. 'We've proven than synthesis can be done, now all we need is the money and time to prove its tremendous value.' It is not surprising that federal and state money began to pour into Li's lab. What is shocking, however, is how quickly Li achieved scientific acclaim, not because he changed, but because the rest of the world around him changed so much.

risk factors [for heart disease].” This means the more calcium you have accumulated in your coronary arteries, the greater your chances of some blood ending up clotting there, causing you to suffer a heart attack.

in the progression of arterial disease among those who regularly eat them. In studies of two of the most important arteries in the body, the coronary arteries that feed the heart and the carotid arteries that feed the brain, people who ate the most whole grains had significantly slower narrowing of their arteries.90,91 Since atherosclerotic plaque in the arteries is our leading killer, ideally, you should not just slow down the process but actually stop or even reverse it altogether. As we saw in chapter 1, this appears to require more than just whole grains; whole vegetables, whole fruits, whole beans, and other whole plant foods are needed, along with a significant reduction in your intake of trans fats, saturated fats, and cholesterol, the food components that contribute to clogging your arteries shut.

Routinely sleeping less than six hours a night weakens your immune system, substantially increasing your risk of certain forms of cancer. Insufficient sleep appears to be a key lifestyle factor linked to your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.

Dr. Robert O. Young states, “The exact cause of atherosclerosis is NOW known. It is caused by an acidic lifestyle and diet leading to excess acid retention in the blood and then tissues leading to acid solidification or plaque that builds up on the arterial wall causing poor circulation, cold hands, cold feet, light headedness, dizziness, muddle thinking, forgetfulness, high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and finally death.

Treatments for atherosclerosis will include alkalizing lifestyle and dietary changes, alkalizing nutraceuticals, and chelation to remove acidic plaque on the blood and lymphatic vessels. Lifestyle changes include following a healthy alkalizing eating plan, increasing physical activity, maintaining a healthy weight, quitting smoking, and reducing acidic

When you understand that the body needs to be maintained in an alkaline state at a delicate pH of 7.365 in order to have sustainable energy, health, fitness and vitality, then everything you drink, everything you eat, every activity you engage in, even your thoughts, all produce acidic waste products that affect the health, fitness and vitality of the blood, tissues, organs and glands.

Nothing could be further from the truth than the myth that if we lower our cholesterol levels we might have a greater chance of living longer and healthier lives. In a recent report appearing in the prestigious medical journal the _Lancet_, researchers from the Netherlands studied 724 elderly individuals whose average age was eighty-nine years and followed them for ten years. What they found was truly extraordinary. During the study, 642 participants died. Each thirty-nine-point increase in total cholesterol corresponded to a 15 percent decrease in mortality risk. In the study, there was absolutely no difference in the risk of dying from coronary artery disease between the high- versus low-cholesterol groups, which is incredible when you consider the number of elderly folks who are taking powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs. Other common causes of death in the elderly were found to be dramatically associated with lower cholesterol. The authors reported: 'Mortality from cancer and infection was significantly lower among the participants in the highest total cholesterol category than in the other categories, which largely explains the lower all-cause mortality in this category.' In other words, people with the highest total cholesterol were less likely to die from cancer and infections -- common fatal illnesses in older folks -- than those with the lowest cholesterol levels. In fact, when you compare the lowest- and highest-cholesterol groups, the risk of dying during the study was reduced by a breathtaking 48 percent in those who had the highest cholesterol. High cholesterol can extend longevity. ~ David Perlmutter, M.D., _Grain Brain_

The idea that coronary artery disease is a result of saturated fats is a lie shamefully perpetuated by an industry and government dependent on corn and petroleum, who place profits before our health and wellbeing.  Don’t believe it! The real culprit is sugar, and in the next chapter, I’ll explain

The bottom line is that insulin use creates a vicious cycle that cuts years off a person’s life. Insulin both blocks cholesterol removal and delivers cholesterol to cells in the blood vessel walls, increasing the risk for heart attacks and strokes. Almost 80 percent of all deaths among diabetics are due to hardening of the arteries, particularly coronary artery disease. Many diabetics turn to their physician for guidance, but oftentimes the well-meaning doctor only worsens the problem by prescribing more insulin. The extra insulin does not just cause heart disease, weight gain, and the eventual worsening of the diabetes; as with type 1 diabetes, insulin can increase the risk of cancer as well. Type 2 diabetic patients exposed to insulin or sulfonylureas, which push the pancreas to produce more insulin, have significantly increased incidence of cancer at multiple sites.8

The bottom line is that insulin use creates a vicious cycle that cuts years off a person’s life. Insulin both blocks cholesterol removal and delivers cholesterol to cells in the blood vessel walls, increasing the risk for heart attacks and strokes. Almost 80 percent of all deaths among diabetics are due to hardening of the arteries, particularly coronary artery disease. Many diabetics turn to their physician for guidance, but oftentimes the well-meaning doctor only worsens the problem by prescribing more insulin. The extra insulin does not just cause heart disease, weight gain, and the eventual worsening of the diabetes; as with type 1 diabetes, insulin can increase the risk of cancer as well. Type 2 diabetic patients exposed to insulin or sulfonylureas, which push the pancreas to produce more insulin, have significantly increased incidence of cancer at multiple sites.

If the truth be known coronary artery disease is a toothless paper tiger that need never ever exist and if it does exist it need never ever progress.

Broadly speaking, antiplatelet medications are of greater efficacy in the prevention of arterial thrombosis and of less value in the prevention of venous thromboembolism. Thus, anti-platelet agents such as aspirin and clopidogrel are the drugs of choice in acute coronary events, and in ischaemic cerebrovascular disease, while warfarin and other anticoagulants are favoured in venous thromboembolism.

Chances are your vegetarian baby will have: 1. less likelihood of becoming obese; 2. a lower risk of lung cancer and alcoholism; 3. less risk of developing hypertension, coronary artery disease, non-insulin-dependent (type II) diabetes, and gallstones; 4. and possibly a lower risk of developing breast and colon cancer, diverticulosis, kidney stones, and osteoporosis.