Heart Health and Supplements Sometimes you need a shotgun. In the recent e-Alert "Icing On The Cake" (7/30/03), HSI Panelist Allan Spreen, M.D., shared insightful details about supplementing with vitamin E. But when all was said and done, I didn't have room for some additional comments he sent along about addressing cardiovascular disease with vitamin E and other nutrients. So here's Dr. Spreen's take on how to put your vitamins to work on your heart: "If I had cardiovascular disease I'd be using a lot more than vitamin E (or tocotrienols, though I'd take them both). I'd have the selenium going, along with vitamins B-6, B-12 and folic acid (in doses higher than RDA amounts, by far), assuming my serum homocysteine levels were elevated (if they weren't I probably wouldn't be having cardiovascular disease!). "Then I'd be taking vitamin C, for a number of reasons, along with giving up the sugar and white flour products, since it's these that have caused most of the trouble and not the saturated dietary fat (and before anyone comes unglued at that remark, it does not originate with me - it comes from the director of the Framingham Study, the longest, best known and most prestigious heart disease study in history). "I'd also be off chlorinated water (not a problem in many countries outside the U.S., as they don't use it), which can react against vascular walls. And I'd be adding in the high-energy nutrients coenzyme Q-10 and L-carnitine (and maybe more if I were really worried). "So, there's lots that can be done, and a shotgun approach of nutrients (not drugs, which the body does not know how to metabolize properly) is the way to go about it." Just don't use a real shotgun. To Your Good Health, Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute
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