I’ve hear this question more than once from patients and acquaintances and the short answer is yes, vegans get heart disease. Heart disease is an equal opportunity afflicter and vegans are just as prone to it as any one else.

One of the reasons I think this question has come up more often in the past year or so is due to the popularity of “The China Study” and the companion movie “Forks Over Knives.” While researching the different points made in theses books I came across Denise Minger, a blogger and former vegan who has a done an incredibly in depth, scientifically based counter to the premise presented in “The China Study.”  Since she has done a far more meticulous and thorough job than I would, I’m going to post her links for anybody who is interested in this subject.

“When a treatment is ineffective, its risks — if not zero — always will exceed its benefits.”  Dr. Michael Shannon,  Children’s Hospital Boston pediatrician and Harvard Medical School professor.

I recently came across an article on a very popular health site and was struck by the opening paragraph: “Fevers, while not typically dangerous in their own right, can make children uncomfortable. If you have a child with a fever— whether it’s because of an illness or is a normal response to vaccination— you may wish to give antipyretic, or fever-reducing, medication.”  Giving any fever-reducing medicine, such as Children’s Tylenol, is the last thing you want to do for an ill child and can, in fact, both prolong the illness and actually cause more harm. The fact that there is little-to-no evidence that Tylenol/Advil therapy contributes to health has not stopped marketers, and sadly, most doctors from continuing to give patents this bad advice. According to the World Health Organization:

“Fever represents a universal, ancient, and usually beneficial response to infection, and its  suppression under most circumstances has few, if any, demonstrable benefits. On the other hand, some harmful effects have been shown to occur as a result of suppressing fever: in most individuals, these are slight, but when translated to millions of people, they may result in an increase in morbidity and perhaps the occurrence of occasional mortality. It is clear, therefore, that widespread use of antipyretics should not be encouraged either in developing countries or in industrial societies. Unfortunately though, just as fever represents an ancient biological response, an emotional effect is embedded deeply. Through the ages, parents have seen that when fever begins to diminish and disappears, the child feels better and recovers from the illness — whatever it was. Thus, the fever has become synonymous with the illness. This flaw in logic has persisted in parents’ and physicians’ minds, and they are seduced by the thought that if they “make the fever go away, the patient will be well.” No amount of scientific discourse will change this attitude . . .”

What exactly is a fever?

Simply put, fever is the body treating itself with heat. What happens during a fever? An infective agent (bacteria, virus etc.) is engulfed by a part of your immune system known as a macrophage. A series of chemical reactions take place that cause the thermostat (set-point) of your body to turn down. The body perceives its normal temperature to be too low and begins to generate more heat by shivering and conserving heat by constricting the blood vessels, which limits blood flow to the skin, and by shutting down the sweating mechanism. This is what causes chills.

The immune system also releases chemicals that provoke sleep to help preserve energy for fighting against the infecting germs. At the same time, chemicals are released that promote the breakdown in muscle tissue, which increases the body’s amino acid supply, which are the raw materials it uses for defense, repair, and energy. This is why muscle aches are common with fevers and chills. Excess amino acids also suppress the appetitive. This is important because the digestive system shuts down when the temperature goes above 99.5°F.  If food is eaten during a fever, it will strain the system by not being properly digested, and will add to the body’s toxic load, inhibiting its ability to deal with the fever’s cause. When body temperature is elevated, white blood cell production, motility, and killing ability are enhanced, and antibody production is increased up to 20 times. While the fever is cranking up the body’s defenses, it is also providing an inhospitable environment for the germs. At a temperature of around 104°F, most bacteria and viruses are killed. (Before the availability of antibiotics, syphilis was treated by infecting the patient with malaria, inducing a high fever and leading to a cure.)¹ The ideal temperature for a fever is between 102-103°F for fighting infectious disease. 104-107°F is considered the point where dehydration becomes a serious concern and a fever above 107°F is considered dangerous. Most harm associated with high fevers is usually due to dehydration rather than the fever. The concern should be more directed towards the cause of the fever rather than the fever itself. Serious conditions such as meningitis can cause a high fever, but the treatment should be directed towards the meningitis, not the fever.

What about the most common fear for parents— febrile seizures? All the medical research I have found has debunked the two most commonly held misconceptions about high fever in children: that it can result in dangerous seizures, and that fevers from infection must be controlled before they reach a certain point (usually I06°F), to prevent seizures and brain damage. Febrile seizures tend to occur early in the fever process, rather than after fevers have mounted, and a small percentage of children simply seem to be prone to them. Administering fever-reducing medicine does not stave off their recurrence. Most febrile seizures are the result of imbalanced electrolytes due to dehydration from diarrhea, vomiting, and increased perspiration.

Good fever management in the form of limiting food and maintaining fluids and electrolytes will prevent most fevers from progressing to more critical stages. And while it is true that fevers over I06°F are potentially damaging, such high temperatures are virtually always the result of heatstroke or brain injury, not infection, and so fears of a cold or flu causing a fever to rise to this level are groundless.  What happens when you give a fever reducer such as Tylenol? The entire metabolic process is stopped in its tracks, and now you still have an infection, but without any natural defenses. The potentially infectious person, instead of staying in bed because they feel sick, feels well enough to go to work or school, thereby exposing colleagues to the same illness. The maker of Tylenol (and those who manufacture other fever-reducing products) has successfully convinced the public that something absolutely must be done to bring down all fevers in young children. According to a recent article: 

Keeping in mind that bringing fever down by using medication possibly postpones recovery, increases the probability of a secondary infection, deprives one of clues as to the need for further examination or for changes in the therapeutic approach, and may provoke widespread side effects; physicians should treat feverish patients only when the expected benefits outweigh the possible risks.

Anti-fever medications have been marketed for use in children for decades, with drug companies spending $50 million a year on heart-tugging ads in parenting magazines and elsewhere. Still, it has long been acknowledged there is little or no data from studies in the very young to show the medicines are safe and work. Worse, some studies suggest the medicines are no better than dummy pills in treating cold and cough symptoms in young children.²

To sum up:

1.) Fever is the cure, not the sickness.

2.) Leave the fever alone unless it is threatening to go to dangerous levels.

3.) The febrile patient should fast and slowly resume feeding only when natural hunger returns, and the body’s temperature is back below 99.5°F.

4.) 102-103°F is considered optimal for infection fighting.

5.) Leave the sweating patient alone- sweating is the body’s own mechanism for lowering temperature, so don’t interfere with it.³

6.) Consult a Naturopathic Doctor in your area if you feel your fever is getting too high.

¹Wade Boyle,ND, Andre Saine, ND Naturopathic Hydrotherapy. Eclectic Medical Publications 1998; pp. 54.

²Axelrod PI, Lorber B: Antipyretic orders in a university hospital. Am J Med 1990; 88:31-35

³Wade Boyle, ND, Andre Saine, ND Naturopathic Hydrotherapy. Eclectic Medical Publications 1998; pp. 62.

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This little mite is likely responsible for up to 90 percent of all acne and rosacea cases, yet it is rarely looked for by dermatologists here in America.

There are two types, the long and the short, both which survive in the sebaceous (oil) glands.  They feed on oils, hormones and fluids around the follicle.  For most people, the mites are harmless and live in balance with their host. Like any infection, the body’s immune system is responsible for keeping the mites from overproducing. Mite colonies can spread unchecked because patients cannot produce the antibodies needed to control the parasites.

Dr. Frank Flowers, a professor of dermatology at UF’s Health Science Center, said ”Under normal conditions, mites produce an antigen when they feed in a hair follicle, and then the human body makes antibodies against the bugs, thereby keeping their reproduction low and in balance,” Butler said. “The mites are actually needed to make the antigen that stimulates the body into making protective antibodies.  If you have high levels of hormones, you’re going to have high levels of mite reproduction because these anthropods obtain their steroids from the host.”  This is likely why many women experience outbreaks of acne around their menstrual cycle and why teenagers experience acne. I’ve noticed that when many people remove dairy from their diet, their acne improves.  I used to attribute this to being a straight sensitivity to dairy. I now believe that the dairy may be just another stressor on the system that allows the immune system to not function optimally, thus allowing for the mites to reproduce at a higher rate.

The mite has a life span of about 15 days, and when they die the bodies decay inside the sebaceous glands. Since demodex spend all their lives inside the sebaceous glands, they physically and chemically affect the skin, reducing its immune competence, and causing allergic reactions in some parts of skin tissues, where acne breaks out. According to Dr. Zhongzhou, “If not treated properly with correct medication, the inflammation will reoccur. In more serious cases, the epidermis, or the appearance of skin, will be permanently injured, scars resembling the texture of orange skin will be left, hair  follicle pores will be enlarged, and the skin will become thicker due to hyperplasia. Sometimes, the inflammation even leads to superfluous tumors or lumps, and red nose.” 

The way that a demodex outbreak is treated by most dermatologists is with a Metronidazole cream. However many people react poorly to this cream, and Metronidazole is listed by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) as reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen. I recommend a demodex cream developed by Dr. Zhangzhou that can be purchased here .  This cream works great for all types of acne and rosacea. It can take several months to kill off all of the mites. Of course I also recommend removing all dairy products as well.

If you live in Portland and would like to be screened for the demodex mite,  call my office at 503-232-5653. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments below.

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I asked my doctor, “you mean I should never eat wheat again?”  He simply replied; “You’d be healthier.”  So I gave his diet a try for 6 weeks, and though I didn’t want to admit it, I felt much better. The chronic aches in my shoulder and wrist went away, the stiffness in my back went away and my digestion, which I had though was fine, actually felt better. I often hear form patients who are as suprised as I was about what a proper diet should be, and the common refrain is “why didn’t my other doctor tell me this.” Modern medicine is slowly (very slowly) catching on that what we eat, and the source of our food plays a huge role in our health, but they don’t quite seem ready to admit that the cause of many of the illnesses that plague our country is the food we eat. The food supply in just the last 20 years has been forever changed through genetic modification.  Changing the practices of food corporations like Monsanto, who are responsible for most of the genetically modified foods that have shown up in our food supply is going to take a grass roots movement.  If people refuse to buy these foods, then they will no longer be economically viable to produce. This TED talk by Robyn O’Brian is a powerful presentation on how our food supply is affecting families, and what can be done about it. Thanks to Dr. Batten for passing this on to me. I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic, feel free to leave a comment at the bottom.

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The one fact that, for some reason, seems to get overlooked is that statins DO NOT prevent heart disease or heart attacks. Lipitor has not extended a single person’s life by a single day; yet it is prescribed like candy. What are the criteria then for so many prescriptions? The data from the companies that sell these drugs are very clear and available to the public. However, it can be confusing for the layperson to sort through it all–so I will do my best to translate some of the data for you.

In statistics there is a number used to determine the effectiveness of a medication; this number is known as Number Needed to Treat (NNT). It represents the number of patients who need to be treated in order for one to benefit from the drug.  If a drug has an NNT of one, it means that every person who takes the drug receives a beneficial outcome. If it has an NNT of 10, it means you have to treat 10 people for one to have a benefit.  The NNT of Lipitor is 100. Another way to say this is that Lipitor has a 99-percent failure rate.

What Lipitor will do is lower your cholesterol. If this is so, why doesn’t it prevent heart disease?  The simple answer is that there is no correlation between heart disease and cholesterol. In other words, of the people who have heart attacks, about one-half will have “high” cholesterol and one-half will have normal or low cholesterol.

Cholesterol is not fat; it is a waxy substance of which about 80 percent is made in the liver. It is produced from a molecule called HMG-CoA. Statins poison the enzyme that converts this molecule to cholesterol.  They also stop the production of CoQ10, which is an essential part of the production of ATP, the main energy unit of our cells.  Ironically, the highest concentration of CoQ10 is in the heart.

Cholesterol is the substance from which all of our steroid hormones (estrogen, testosterone, cortisol etc.) are made. It is also present in every cell membrane. When there is damage to the wall of an artery, cholesterol is sent in to “patch” that damage. Cholesterol itself, however, needs to be transported and the proteins that transport it to and from the cells are known as low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and high-density lipoproteins. (HDL).  These are often erroneously referred to as “bad” and “good” cholesterol respectively. LDL is responsible for taking cholesterol from the liver to the tissues, and HDL is responsible for recirculating the HDL from the tissues back to the liver. They are strictly shuttles that take cholesterol to and from tissues. LDL particles, however, come in different sizes and new tests can determine what your LDL particles are made of. They basically fall into two types: large buoyant and small dense.  It is the small, dense particles that can get under the lining of your blood vessels and oxidize and cause a plaque to form.  The large buoyant particles are too large to get under the lining and do not pose a threat.

Statin drugs do nothing to modulate the size of the particles.  This is done through diet alone. And the most offending food, the one that drives those small, dense particles? Sugar. Sugar is the main cause of both increased small LDL particles and increased triglycerides (fat) – not saturated fat.  One of the worst things you can do for your heart is to go on a low-fat diet. A low-fat diet is, by definition, a high-carbohydrate diet, which is a recipe for heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes etc.

If your doctor is trying to put you on a statin, or if you are currently on a statin, I would highly recommend that you get the more specific particle testing done. The two labs that we use at our office are the Lipoprotein Particle Profile by Spectracell Laboratories and the VAP Cholesterol test through Quest Diagnostics.

A normal total cholesterol level is between 180 and 250. These numbers in themselves are meaningless because two people can have the exact same numbers but be at completely different risks. A total cholesterol count below 160 becomes problematic because the body doesn’t have enough of the building blocks it needs to maintain cellular health and steroid hormones.  I found this video from the movie “Fathead” that sheds some truth on the cholesterol debate. Please feel free to leave a comment below, I would love to hear your feedback or answer questions you may have about this subject.

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