The dangers of long-term PPI (Proton Pump Inhibitor)treatment.

Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) like omeprazole, lantoprazole, are being used very frequently, and in many cases long-term, to treat peptic ulcers and gastro-oesophageal reflux, and "indigestion". They act by reducing the production of gastric acid. While they are incredibly effective in treating these conditions, they do have other less desirable and sometimes fatal effects:
By raising the gastric pH they can affect pepsin and other enzymes used to dissolve proteins.
The elevated pH also enables bacteria and viruses to survive where otherwise they would be killed, sometimes leading to infection in the lower GI tract.
Diseases resulting from prolonged use of PPIs include:

• Gastric and gut infections, especially traveller's diarrhoea.
• Pneumonia – the bacteria surviving in the stomach can migrate up the oesophagus and down into the lungs.
• Increasing fractures, presumably due to a direct effect of these drugs on bone architecture.
• Vitamin B12 deficiency – these drugs greatly affect the absorption of vitamin B12, particularly in the elderly. This can result in peripheral nerve problems, but also dementia.
• Heart disease and strokes, there is an increased incidence of heart disease and almost doubled increase in heart deaths according to a recent study from Stanford University. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26061035)

While there are many cases where these drugs are extremely useful, the need for long-term treatment needs to be carefully studied, and they should only be used if necessary. Like all drugs, they have significant side-effects.

Fish oils are crucial in today's diet

Fish oils – a crucial part of today's diet

The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oils (DHA and EPA) are crucial to balance the high levels of omega 6 fatty acids we get in today's diet. The ideal ratio should be 2-to-1, omega 6 to omega 3, but the average modern diet provides a 20 to 1 ratio. This leads to inflammation and many other effects, and asthma, autoimmune disease, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity, irritable bowel, macular degeneration have all been shown to be worsened by this 3/6 imbalance. The omega-3 oils are also important components of many tissues especially brain.

Below is a very impressive list of just some of the benefits of fish oil, which is why almost everybody from conception should be taking fish oils, continuing right through life. Unfortunately it is difficult to consume enough fish to achieve the major benefits, and there is always the worry of pollutants such as mercury, PCB and insecticides which could undo much of the benefit. For this reason a high quality pure fish oil supplement is by far the safest and most likely to give benefit.

The benefits of fish oil are almost to numerous to list, but some of the important ones include:

1. ADHD and IQ in babies and children – pregnant women taking fish oil supplements have babies with better mental function. After birth a study from the University of South Australia showed that children treated with fish oil had reduced symptoms of ADHD, inattention, hyperactivity, restlessness and impossible behaviour.
2. Reduced anxiety. A study in Neuroscience sure that fish oils reversed all anxiety like and depression like behaviour changes induced in rats. While this is also been seen in humans, the purity of a rat study confirms the benefit to the brain of fish oils.
3. Arthritis – the anti-inflammatory action has been shown in many studies to improve arthritis, particularly rheumatoid.
4. Alzheimer's disease – the DHA in fish oil is crucial for the brain tissue, and fish oils have been shown to help  function in patients whose minds are failing.
5. Cancer – fish oils have been found to help kill a variety of cancer cell lines, including colon, breast and prostate. While it's impossible to do a study excluding all other treatments, most cancer patients should be taking fish oils.
6. Depression – a recent fascinating study reviewed 26 papers where fish oil and depression were discussed. Over 150,000 participants were reviewed and those who had a high intake of fish oils had an almost 20% reduction in the incidence of depression.
7. Diabetes – studies in Brain Research have shown that fish oils reduce the risks of diabetic patients developing neurological problems, but the anti-inflammatory action might also reduce the development and worsening of type II diabetes.
8. Eye diseases – fish oils have been shown to reverse dry eye, cataracts and macular degeneration.
9. Cardiovascular disease – it has been known for a long time that fish oils are beneficial to patients with coronary artery disease, not just the development of the disease, but also reducing the risk of sudden death.

It is hard to understand why all doctors are not advising their patients to take fish oil supplements, probably because of the pollution (especially mercury) found in many of the supplements, or natural fish. However good quality fish oils which are pure are available, and my advice is for everybody to take them throughout life.

Why coconut oil is so good

Why coconut oil is so good

Slowly the conventional medical attitude to fats is changing. For many years we have been telling our patients not to eat saturated fats, eat a few polyunsaturated fats and mostly monounsaturated (olive oil canola oil). In reducing the fats we have encouraged people to eat sugars and this is one of the major reasons for the obesity epidemic worldwide. All of this was on very flawed data starting from the 7 country studies of Ancel Keys who claimed to show the incidence of heart disease related to the Unfortunately there were 22 countries studied by Dr Keys but only 7 were used, when all 22 were included there was still a very slight association but much less clear (see graphs). Following this the really has been virtually no information confirming that the intake of saturated fats leads to coronary artery disease. However for many years dairy fats and any other saturated fats have been excluded from the diet of people with heart disease. We are now realising we got this totally wrong!

Coconut oil is a saturated fat, and the evidence is that eating,drinking and cooking with it does nothing but good. It contains medium chain triglycerides in addition to the saturated fats. Studies have shown that consuming coconut oil has a number of beneficial effects including:

1 It has an antioxidant effect, oxidative stress is one of the major causes of many of today's health conditions.
2. It reduces inflammation and thus can be used for inflammatory conditions such as aches, pains, fevers and even stomach ulcers.
3. It seems to have an antiseptic affect, and has been used topically to treat viral bacterial and even fungal conditions.   Many people use it instead of toothpaste.
4. Probably the most exciting but sadly so far least researched is its potential effect on the brain. The brain can only use sugar or medium chain triglycerides as its source of energy (it cannot use fat). In Alzheimer's disease the brain cannot use sugar properly, and there are many anecdotal reports that coconut oil may well improve the mental function of patients with this terrible disease.
5. There have been some reports that it helps in thyroid function, and can help in weight loss and even reduction in cholesterol (click here.)

Coconut oil can be drunk as a very refreshing cool drink, it can be added to salads and other dishes, it can be used as a cooking oil, and can also be eaten straight from the spoon.

I'm quite certain that in the coming years this very safe and natural product will become part of our staple diet.

Magnesium reduces sudden cardiac death by 36%

Everybody with heart disease should be taking magnesium supplements.

It has been long suspected that low magnesium increases the incidence of sudden cardiac death, but most of the studies have been relatively small (few cases of sudden cardiac death).
In the nurses health study those with the lowest level of magnesium in their blood had a higher incidence of heart disease, the NHT FS follow-up study also suggested the same, but each only had a few sudden cardiac deaths.

A recent study of almost 10,000 normal people followed for 9 years in the Netherlands click here, showed that those with low serum magnesium level had a 36% increase in sudden cardiac death, and unexpectedly also a higher incidence of non-sudden cardiac death as well.

We often treat patients in hospital following a cardiac arrest or with severe rhythm problems with intravenous magnesium, suggesting the importance of this mineral in keeping the heart function regular.

Therefore everybody with heart disease (angina, heart attack, angioplasty, bypass surgery, palpitations and arrhythmias, hypertension, heart failure) should be taking supplemental magnesium at least 500 to 800 mg per day on a regular basis to reduce the risk of sudden death.

Because for many people, sudden death is the 1st indication of heart disease, it seems logical that all of us should be taking supplemental magnesium at least after the age of 50.

In addition to reducing the incidence of death by over 30%, magnesium also maintains a lower blood pressure, has a calming effect, relieves muscles aches spasms and cramps, and can be beneficial to prevent migraine.

A comprehensive approach to autoimmune diseases

Autoimmune diseases develop when our body's immune system attacks our own tissues. (Ankylosing spondylitis, coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, Graves' disease, thyroiditis, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, scleroderma, Sjogren's syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosis, ulcerative colitis, vitiligo). The current medical approach is to suppress the immune system to reduce the damage to the tissues, usually with very powerful drugs (steroids, immunosuppressives, cytotoxics). In addition to the significant side-effects, these simply attempt to control the symptoms and play little part in preventing the underlying disease and damage.
By adding simple complimentary therapies designed to assist in the immune process, we can make an enormous difference to the outlook for these patients.

To understand why these treatments work, a very basic understanding of the immune response is necessary, I will try and make this a simple as possible and it is worth persisting if you can.
1. When we are exposed to any form of outside threat (virus, bacteria, toxin etc.)  the 1st reaction of the body is to create heat (fever), swelling with an increase in blood supply and white blood cells rush to the area. At the same time APCs (antigen presenting cells) detect the invader and rushed to the immune system around the body.
2. The APCs instruct the immune system to create 2 types of cells – T helper cells, and T reg cells. There are a number of types of T helper cells (cytotoxic, suppressor, killer,) and all of these attack the invader and hopefully destroy it.
The T reg cells are a bit like the brakes on a car to tell the T helper cells to slow down. Many autoimmune diseases are caused by insufficient T reg and the T helper cells start attacking the cells of our body.
3. The gut plays a crucial role in our immune response. Almost 70% of our immune system is in the gut (the gut associated lymphoid tissue GALT) and thus the majority of immune interactions occur in the gut.

By approaching all 3 of these immune responses (the T helper cells, the T reg cells and the GALT) we can fight immune diseases very much more comprehensively and with a much higher chance of success with less toxicity.
1. Suppressing the T helper cells is what modern medicine does with its powerful drugs. It would be much better for the natural brakes to be put on by the T reg cells.
2. A number of natural products are known to increase the T regs and thus should reduce the T helper cells production. These products include curcumin, botswellia, vitamin D, zinc).
3. Changes in the bacteria in the gut  affects the gut immune system (GALT), and can affect the balance between the T helper cells and the T reg cell production.  Probiotics (especially lactobacillus rhamnosus LGG) have been shown to increase the production of T reg cells and thus dampen down the excessive immune response.

Conclusion – I apologise that this may be somewhat complicated but I think it's worth sharing this information. It also makes for a much better and holistic therapy approach to patients with autoimmune disease:

• Regularly take a probiotic containing LGG.
• Regularly take tumeric (curcumin) and possibly boswellia
• Take other natural products which can reduce inflammation – omega-3 fish oil, vitamin D and zinc.
• Medical drugs as recommended by your doctor, but ask for the minimal dose necessary as the above therapies start to take an effect.

Resveretrol may reduce heart disease via the gut bacteria

Resveratrol and red wine resveratrol and red wine may prevent disease by changing the bacteria in the gut (the microbiome).

Moderate amounts of red wine, probably acting through resveratrol is known to have significant health benefits reducing the incidence of heart disease, cancer and other conditions. In a recent paper (attached but it is virtually unintelligible unless you have a PhD in biochemistry), scientists from a Chinese University have shown that resveratrol reduces the amount of TMAO (trimethyl n oxide) which is a known risk factor for artery disease.

The resveratrol increases the levels of a number of bacteria in the gut (Lactobacillus and bifidobacterium) which seems to inhibit the production of TMAO.

It does seem that the bacteria in the gut (microbiome) is incredibly important, and something we are only just beginning to understand. It also suggests that food, nutrients, drugs which are not even absorbed into the body may well have a major effect, simply by changing the bacteria in the gut.

If you would like to read the article (I would not recommend this for the faint hearted), it can be found here

Vitamin D helps treat heart failure

Vitamin D improves heart function in people with chronic heart failure.

Heart failure is an extremely serious condition, causing unpleasant symptoms of breathlessness tiredness weakness and swelling, but also has a very significant mortality. Medical treatment consists of drugs (ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers and diuretics) but these have limited effectiveness in some patients, and complimentary therapies such as coenzyme Q 10 l-carnitine and D ribose have also been suggested.

A recent study performed in Leeds hospital (the Vindicate trial) offers hope from an unexpected source, namely vitamin D.
In the study 160 patients on full medical treatment were either given vitamin D or dummy tablets for one year.  At the end of the year those taking the dummy tablets had no benefit on heart function as measured by a cardiac ultrasound scan, but in the 80 patients who took vitamin D 3 the heart function improved from 26 to 34%.

This is a very major improvement in heart function, probably greater than that achieved by any of the modern medical drugs. One wonders why this has not been trumpeted around the world, possibly because it is a supplement and not a drug. Considering there are more than 900,000 people in the United Kingdom, and over 23 million worldwide suffering from heart failure, this therapy could be an extremely cheap and efficient way of helping many people.

It was presented at the American College of cardiology, 65th annual scientific sessions in Chicago in April.

Anybody suffering from heart failure should undoubtedly be taking additional