From the Archives: The Line Between Taking Charge of Your Health & DIY Healthcare

A man goes to the hospital for a routine surgery. Though he has had prostate cancer, it’s in remission. He appears healthy. He says he cycles 50 miles a week.

Then his doctors discover that his blood oxygen levels are extremely low. They run tests and find a elevated levels of cyanide in his blood. Why?

For 5 years, he had been self-medicating with apricot pits and kernel supplements in hopes of keeping his cancer at bay. The amygdalin (also referred to as laetrile) they contain is touted by some as an anti-cancer nutrient. The body converts it to cyanide, which in turn is said to kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.

The case history was published last fall in BMJ Case Reports.

Whether there’s a time and place for this particular supplement isn’t our concern here. What jumped out at us when we first heard about this report is how it illustrates one of the perils of self-medication.

This case illustrates how chronic dosing of complementary medicines can result in harmful toxicities, which may carry potential for serious consequences and how these chronic toxicities may present to physicians in atypical ways.

In these days of soaring medical costs and easy access to all kinds of health info online, it’s not hard to see why someone would choose to self-diagnose and self-medicate. On the whole, supplements are extremely safe – far safer than pharmaceutical drugs – and are readily available. There would seem to be no harm in trying out this “natural” DIY treatment or that.

Yet it’s important to realize that supplements are not drug analogs. Rather, they’re a way of supplying nutrients (or, in the case of homeopathics, information) that the body can use to self-repair and restore as it was designed to do. And there are a lot of things to consider, such as

• Is the supplement the right supplement? Does it address real physiological needs?

• 

  Are you taking a good quality supplement? Not all supplements are created equal. Synthetic forms may not be as effective as natural forms, derived from organic whole foods.

• Are you taking the right dosage? Presuming the supplement is appropriate, are you taking enough to get the effects you desire? Are you taking more than you need and risking harmful side effects?

• Do you know if there are any harmful interactions between the supplement and other medicine you’re taking? Combinations such as St. John’s wort and SSRIs or B complex and statins can cause serious damage. If there is a risk of harm, is there another supplement that might still be appropriate?

• Is the supplement alone enough? Does it need to be taken with other nutrients or medicines in order to do what you want it to? Are other therapies or lifestyle changes called for?

The most common chronic illnesses today are multifactorial and thus need to be addressed by far more than just taking a single supplement or remedy. Because of that complexity, it’s wisest to have a trained and knowledgeable physician or other health professional to guide you – not just to the right supplements but the right overall approach for meeting your health goals.

Taking charge of your health doesn’t mean you go it alone.

Holistic, functional, integrative medicine aims to do more than just manage symptoms. We look for the root causes of your health woes and help you address them by giving your body what it needs to heal and thrive.

So we look at the big picture to give you a proper diagnosis and treatment plan. We analyze your whole health history, as well as your current health status, challenges, and lifestyle.

With this broader understanding, we can create a personalized plan – one suited to your needs, goals, and values – to help your body mend.

No, it may not be as convenient as trying something you saw on the internet, but it’s far more apt to deliver the results you want and deserve.

Image by Clean Wal-Mart, via Flickr

Originally posted September 19, 2017; updated

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Heavy Metals & Your Heart

No matter how clean your diet, no matter how much physical activity you get, no matter how balanced your lifestyle, you’re exposed to a crazy cocktail of environmental toxins every day – including heavy metals such as lead, copper, cadmium, and arsenic.

Such metals can build up in the body over time and prove a detriment to health in a variety of ways. Mercury toxicity, for instance, can manifest through neurological symptoms, cognitive difficulties, mental illness, and autoimmune disorders.

The specific health problems, of course, depend not only upon the type(s) of metals involved but the length and amount of exposure and the individual’s health history, including any other present physical burdens.

One new study in the BMJ takes a closer look at the impact of heavy metals on heart health in particular – a meta-analysis of 37 previous studies involving nearly 350,000 patients.

As a report on MDLinx summarized,

Compared to people with the lowest levels of arsenic exposure, those with the highest exposure were 30% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease. The highest levels of lead exposure were tied to a 43% higher risk, top levels of cadmium were linked to 33% higher risk, and the greatest level of copper exposure was associated with 81% higher risk.

“These findings reinforce the fact that environmental exposures are equally important (beyond conventional behavioral risk factors such as physical activity or diet) for cardiovascular risk, and should not be ignored,” said lead author Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury of the University of Cambridge in the UK.

Interestingly, the authors didn’t find a link between mercury exposure and CVD – perhaps, suggested Dr. Chowdhury, because so much of our mercury exposure comes through eating fish. The healthy fats in fish may offset any heart-related issues from mercury exposure, though not necessarily other mercury-related health problems.

This link between heavy metal exposure and heart health further reinforces the findings of the important TACT study done some years back, which showed that chelation therapy – a kind of detox using synthetic amino acids to eliminate heavy metals in the body – was both safe and beneficial. Heart attacks were reduced by 23%; heart-related hospitalizations by 28%; and strokes by 23%.

The results were even more impressive among patients with diabetes. They experienced a 41% overall reduction in the risk of any cardiovascular event, a 52% reduction in recurrent heart attack, and a 43% reduction in death from any cause.

Chelation is just one of the detox therapies we provide here in our West Los Angeles holistic health clinic to support not just our patients’ heart health but their overall health and wellness. There is evidence, for instance, that EDTA – one of the common chelators we use – enhances brain function and stimulates mitochondrial activity. It’s also been shown to optimize nitric acid production, which supports healthy circulation and enhances oxygen delivery to the tissues of your body.

While chelation can be done orally, with suppositories, or through IV drip, the latter – IV – is generally recommended when pursued to support heart health. You can learn more about other drip therapies we offer here.

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