Fish oil supplements are fantastic for heart disease!

Fish oil supplements are fantastic for heart disease!

Recent publications have suggested that fish oil supplements in low doses make little difference to heart disease, and people have been advised not to take them. Note I discussed this in my blog three sections down.

However, this has been turned upside down in a recent huge study called the REDUCE-IT trial used 4 g of fish oils daily, in a double-blind randomised trial involving 8179 patients followed over 4.9 years. The results were incredible. All cardiovascular events (death, non-fatal heart attack, non-fatal stroke, need for angioplasty or bypass surgery or unstable angina with all reduced over 25%.
This result is incredible and better than anything claimed by the statin drugs.
It obviously shows that omega-3 fish oils are extremely effective in people at risk of heart disease, but you need to take enough, and it does need to be a quality product.
A smaller study performed in Japan (JELIS trial) using a slightly lower dose of 1.8 g daily achieved in 19% benefit.

So fish oils are very beneficial to people at risk who want to avoid heart disease, or who already have it., But you need to take enough, and I would personally recommend 2 g twice a day of a quality product. There are no significant side-effects, and we have no medicines that can compete with these results.

But  doctor, can't I have just 1 cigarette per day?

Almost everybody realises these days that cigarette smoking increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer, and do their best to stop. Nicotine is probably one of the most addictive of all substances in some people, and many find it almost impossible to stop, and cut down to one or 2 cigarettes per day, in the belief that this dramatically reduces the risk. If you smoke 20 cigarettes a day and cut down to one, the assumption is that you reduce your risk 20 times.

Unfortunately a recent paper in the British Medical Journal is bad news for these people. They reviewed over 200 studies between 1946 and 2015, involving over 3 million men and 2 1/2 million women, and looked at the risk of having a heart attack or stroke if they smoke 20 cigarettes a day, or just one.
In men compared to non-smokers, the risk of having a heart attack was increased by 150% with one cigarette, and 200% with 20.  In women it was 220% and 390%.

So it appears that much of the damage is done by just one single cigarette, and complete abstinence is the only answer if we want to reduce the risk of heart attacks.
The incidence of stroke is similar.

To quote the paper: "smokers who cut down the number of cigarettes believe they can benefit from large reductions in the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. The study shows clearly that there is no safe level of smoking for cardiovascular disease, and light smokers cannot assume that continuing to smoke does not lead to harm. Smokers need to quit completely rather than cut down."

folic acid reduces alzheimer's and stroke

Folic Acid supplements reduce strokes, Alzheimers and possibly heart disease

Folic acid is routinely given to  pregnant women to prevent neural tube defects ( spina bifida and hydrocephalus), and is routinely added to  many breads and other foods because it is deficient in many diets.  

 However despite the fact low folic acid can lead to:  Raised homocysteine which is associated with coronary artery disease, Depression, diabetes and some forms of cancer - trials of supplementing people with folic acid have been disappointing - with little benefit seen, but none have shown any adverse effects. 
A number of recent studies however suggest that taking folic acid supplements might be very beneficial:

1. Reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease - in a study of  579 elderly non demented American men and women (click here) , those who took folic acid supplements had a 50% reduction in developing Alzheimer's in the subsequent 10 years. 
2. Reduces risk of stroke in people with high blood pressure - a presentation at the 2015 American College of Cardiology reviewed the China Stroke Primary Prevention trial.  They followed for 4.5 years, over 20,000 men and women with high blood pressure, half were given the BP reducing agent enalapril, and half took an enalapril combination tablet containing 0.8mg of folic acid.   The addition of folic acid reduced the development of stroke by 21%.   
3. May possibly reduce coronary heart disease.   In many trials using folic acid in patients with heart disease, aspirin was also given to the patients, and this may have a similar action to  folic acid and so mask any benefit from the folic acid. A London group reviewed 75 studies using folic acid (click here) in people with the MTHFR gene which raises homocysteine levels.  In the 5 trials with the lowest aspirin use, there was a 60% reduction in heart disease, but the 5 studies with the highest aspirin use, there was only a minimal insignificant benefit seen. 

So folic acid supplementation may reduce some cancers and coronary heart disease, but has now been shown to reduce the development of Alzheimer's disease and strokes (in people with high blood pressure).  

It does seem prudent  for everyone to take a good multivitamin supplement regularly that includes at least 0.5mg of  folic acid. 

Low vitamin D levels doubles size of a stroke

Low levels of Vitamin D double the size of a stroke.

In a paper presented at the International Stroke Conference 2015,  studied 96 patients after strokes – those with low vitamin D levels (<30ng/ml) had MRI evidence of brain damage TWICE that of those with higher Vitamin D levels (17 vs 8 mls).  The ‘poor 90 day outcome score’ was also doubled in those with low vitamin D levels.

Neurologists are seriously looking at checking vitamin D levels, but this is really after the horse has bolted.   Other studies which have shown low vitamin D levels increase cardiovascular risk, double the risk of having a stroke, increase risk of hip fracture post stroke – it does seem logical to maintain adequate vitamin D levels, and the only guaranteed way to achieve this is with supplementation.  

As you will see with this and subsequent posts, there are many good scientific and proven reasons why in today’s world we need to supplement our diet to enable our bodies to function the way they were designed to.   Until, we start doing this, from childhood all through life, then the disastrous direction that health is going, will continue unabated.