Showing posts with label cardiovascular disease. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cardiovascular disease. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Amazing Drug to Reduce Heart Disease Risk!

Imagine the billions in profits that would be earned if a company developed a drug that could to the following things for diabetic patients:

  • significantly lower blood glucose
  • significantly lower total cholesterol
  • significantly lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol
  • significantly lower CRP, an important risk factor for heart disease
  • significantly lower triglycerides
  • significantly lower VLDL (another type of "bad" cholesterol)
  • Significantly raise HDL ("good" cholesterol)
If a pharmaceutical could solidly claim even two or three of these benefits, it would be the top-selling drug in the world. 

Well, of course, there is something that has been found to do all of these things, but it isn't a drug. A study published in the Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry has found that an extract of the herb Amla (Indian gooseberry) does all these things. People who like the details can read the whole study here

Unfortunately, our "health care system" will take very little notice of this study, because there are no opportunities for outrageous profits in this herb. But just because our medical system doesn't care for health very well, that doesn't mean that you can't.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Olive Oil and Heart Disease

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States and around the world. One in three adults in the US, it is estimated, has some degree of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

A recent study found that individuals who consumed the most olive oil in their diets had the least amount of thickening of their arteries. More specifically, the highest consumption of olive oil had far less than half the risk of artery thickening.

In everyday terms, this means that olive oil consumption dramatically lowers the risk of atherosclerosis, which is a leading cause of CVD and death.

This one change in the US diet - a substantial increase in the use of olive oil - rather than less healthy corn or soybean oil, for example - could save billions of dollars currently spent to treat heart disease.