TO THE HEART PATIENT - Dr. Tim O'Shea

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TO THE HEART PATIENT

JoAnn Guest

Aug 31, 2006 10:40 PDT

 

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TO THE HEART PATIENT

 

- Tim O'Shea

www.thedoctorwithin.com

 

 

Are you really trying to drive me crazy? I see you come into my

office year after year, usually for other reasons, and I take your

blood pressure and it's usually above 140/100. Sometimes above

180/100. You're overweight, sweating, dehydrated, can't breathe

well, and have no

energy. But you think everything's under control because your

doctor, very well-respected, knows about your problem and has

decided that you need to have your 'problem controlled' with drugs.

Here they come -

Lotensin, Mevacor, Cardizem, Procardia, on and on. And the months

turn into years and your blood pressure problem turns into a

degenerative heart condition, mainly because of the drugs. The drugs

weaken the heart muscle.

 

DRUGS

 

There are two main types of heart medication: calcium channel

blockers

and beta adrenergic blockers. (Merck) Without going into a long

winded

harangue, let's just say that one slows down muscle activity - heart

muscle, that is, and the other dims the nerve signals that must link

the

brain with the heart for normal operation. The brain sends thousands

of

signals every second to the heart to make minute little adjustments

in

heartbeat and blood flow in order to accommodate variation in demand

coming from the organs and muscles. So. When blood pressure elevates

due

to plaque in the arteries, or because of stress tightening up the

arteries, the heart has to work twice as hard to push all that blood

through the system.

 

But instead of trying to do something to ease the burden on the

heart,

to unblock the flow, what do our doctors do? We drug the heart so

that

our blood pressure gauges will read normal, even though the heart is

still struggling to keep up with the oxygen demands of the body,

demands

which have not changed. But now since the heart is shackled by the

added

pharmacological deadweight, the oxygen demands don't get met. Short-

term

effect: decreased circulation, oxygen deficit, fatigue. Long term

effect: heart muscle degeneration, enlargement, degeneration of any

other organ or tissue which is not getting the blood it keeps

calling

for, lung congestion, and death.

 

Heart muscle is different from skeletal muscle. When you work out

and

your biceps get bigger, it's getting stronger. The biceps is

skeletal

muscle. Heart muscle is different. When heart muscle enlarges, it's

because it' s getting weaker - overstretched and thinner and

flimsier.

(Guyton, p 282) That's why an enlarged heart is a problem. Why does

the

heart enlarge? Increased resistance from blocked arteries makes it

harder to push all the blood through the system.

 

In 1900 the term " heart attack " didn't even exist. In this century,

for

the first time in history more people are dying of heart problems

than

any other disease. This is insane. If no one has ever brought it to

your

attention, allow me this opportunity to point it out - this is

insane.

Heart drugs were supposed to be a temporary solution. Nothing is

more

permanent than a temporary solution, right? Result of heart drugs

and

the " foods of commerce " both of which are new in this century: 1 out

of

2 Americans dies of congestive heart failure. (CDC website) this

statistic has gone unchanged since 1994. (Statistical Abstracts)

 

A partial list of side effects to the above-cited heart drugs

 

Headache Dizziness Slowed heart Edema Abnormal EKG Angina Irregular

heartbeat Low blood pressure Fast heart Fainting Amnesia Depression

Hallucinations Insomnia Personality change Tremors Ringing in the

ears

Anorexia Constipation Vomiting Weight gain Photosensitivity

Nosebleed

Muscle cramps Joint pain Sexual difficulties Anemia

 

source: Physician's Desk Reference

DEATH BY BYPASS

 

Angioplasty? Bypass? Think these are gonna save you? Know what the

re-occlusion rate for angioplasty is after two years? Guess. It's

about

57%. (Willix) Re-occlusion means the arteries close up again. In

1992, a

study in Journal of the American Medical Association reported that

at

least half of angioplasties were unnecessary. Long term benefit of

bypass? What do 90% of people with bypass surgeries eventually die

of?

Take a wild guess.

 

In a 1997 study, two groups of heart attack patients were followed

for

one year. The first group had either angioplasty or bypass. The

second

group had nothing. Guess what the difference in mortality was? Zero.

After one year both groups were exactly the same! (New England

Journal

of Medicine May 22, 1997) That means that neither bypass nor

angioplasty

extends people's lifespan whatsoever †" statistically you'll live

just

as long without either, by doing nothing.

 

This is a common finding in many other studies. In a 22 year follow-

up

study of 682 heart patients, it was found that the bypass surgery

had no

effect on the survival rate or the day to day pain.( Am J Cardiol

1998

Jun)

 

Same thing in a 16 year follow up study showing bypass surgery makes

no

difference whatsoever in survival rate. (Caracciolo)

 

We could go on and on citing similar studies, but the conclusion is

inescapable. After several years, every heart surgeon must

eventually

confront reality: bypass surgery doesn't save lives. 13% die on the

table. The rest come back for more later on.

 

Most bypass surgeries these days are done before the patient is in

acute

distress. Often the patient is intimidated into surgery with mild

chest

pain as the only symptom, perhaps even with normal blood pressure.

The

diagnosis is made quickly before the prey gets better and flies

away.

We're talking sales and marketing here, and the surgeons are very

good

at closing the sale. Fear and panic are very persuasive motivators.

 

Even for those with verified arterial blockage, surgery is a

temporary

housecleaning procedure, and all the studies show the same thing:

bypass

does not increase overall survival rate. People die of heart disease

just as soon.

 

Stands to reason - if the coronary arteries were crammed full of

atherosclerotic plaque, enough to require surgery, what kind of

condition do you think the rest of the arteries of the body are in?

All

those years of chips and fries and burgers - did all that residual

sludge just select the big arteries near the heart as its final

resting

place? Not likely. Blood cholesterol level is everywhere the blood

goes

- that means all the arteries, throughout the body. So after the

fanfare

of the surgical rituals dies down, what happens? The arteries that

have

been roto-rootered immediately begin to take on the condition of the

rest of the cardiovascular system, i.e., clogged. How could it

possibly

be otherwise? Nature abhors a vacuum.

 

The above statistics don't even take into account the actual risk of

death from the bypass operation itself. In a bizarre advertisement

in

the 23 Nov 98 issue of Newsweek, we see a comparison of bypass

surgery

death rates on the operating table among the leading hospitals in

the

country. Here are the odds they advertise for bypass surgery

 

 

Texas Heart Center 87%

Johns Hopkins 90.2%

Mayo Clinic 93.3%

 

A 13% chance of dying from a surgery that isn't even going to

prolong

survival? That, my friend, is marketing.

 

LIFETIME PROGRAM?

 

 

Let me ask you something else. Remember when you were first

diagnosed as

having high blood pressure and were first put on medications

to " control

your blood pressure " ? Remember that? OK now, when was the next time

your

doctor took your blood pressure? Two months later? Six months? One

year?

Never? The point is, if you're taking these powerful medications to

'control' blood pressure, how will you or your doctor know if

they're

working or not unless you monitor your blood pressure every few

days?

The body is not a car. Everyone responds differently to medication.

 

Heart medications are like most medications - fine for short-term,

life-threatening situations. But long term, as with any drug, legal

or

illegal, eventually your body will pay the price. Looking in the

Physicians' Desk Reference, we find that even the manufacturers of

most

heart medications don't recommend them for indefinite, open-ended

use.

This book is easy to get. Look up your medication and see the

recommended duration of prescription. One reason is that the testing

they did to put the drug on the market probably wasn't long-term.

The

other reason is that everybody knows that all side effects of drugs

are

cumulative.

 

So people say - look at my BP - 125/80. And I've been on medication

for

4 years. I need it to keep my blood pressure down. Well how do you

know

that you still need the drug to do that? Perhaps the heart has

accommodated after all this time, or else maybe you have learned to

do

less and to make less energy demands on the system. Is this health?

Are

you getting stronger or weaker, year by year? Others will say, yes

I've

been on medication for several years and my blood pressure is

160/105.

Guess what? It's not that your medication is ineffective - it is

definitely having a physiological impact. It's just that the effect

is

not the one your doctor predicted. He wanted to lower your blood

pressure. This drug didn't work - it's still high. That doesn't mean

the

drug did nothing. It did plenty. See above list. Patients like this

are

at double the risk - high blood pressure plus drug toxicity and side

effects.

 

Or they say - yeah I know it's high, but if I stop with the

medication,

it'll go through the roof. Long term or short term? How do you know?

What if you were on vacation and your cruise ship marooned you on a

desert island somewhere, without your drugs. Would you die? What

would

happen?

 

 

OPTIONS?

 

 

What's the alternative to this one-way downward spiral? Well, it's

obvious that such a lifestyle isn't working too well and probably

won't

last too long. Do people you know on heart medications look healthy?

Are

they getting stronger or weaker, year by year? Look at all the

people

you used to know in this category who are no longer around. A

universal

principle for any life form is that either it's improving or it's

dying.

Day by day the inner systems are either becoming stronger and more

refined, or else they're degenerating and breaking down. Can't be

both.

Unless they're in a serious accident, most people don't die all at

once.

No, most people die by stages, day by day, very often with no pain

or

symptoms. Just like heart attacks. Do these people get a warning?

Sometimes, but for 33% of them, their very first symptom was death.

(Willix)

 

These days it seems everybody and his dog is on the healthy heart

bandwagon. No fat, low fat, fat free - often these labels are found

on

some very heart-unfriendly foods. How can you make any sense of all

this? Well for starters, with very few exceptions if a food has any

pasteurized dairy derivatives at all, it's either hard fat or

chemicals.

You can definitely live without it. This group includes pizza,

yoghurt,

clam chowder, ice cream, meringue, whipped cream, cottage cheese,

linguini alfredo, tapioca, brie, creamed chicken - get the idea?

 

 

LOWFAT?

 

Next, if you want to calculate the true percentage of fat in any

item,

take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 10, and divide by the

number of calories. Your answer may surprise you, especially if the

product is supposedly low fat.

 

For example, let's say a bag of ‘low fat' snack food has 350

calories

and 20 grams of fat. Add a zero to the fat grams - that's 200. Two

hundred divided by 350 is 57%. That's 57% fat for this ‘low-fat'

food.

Don't read the advertising; read the numbers. We need fat. We need

it in

the form of essential fatty acids, which compose many important

structures of the body, such as nerve linings and hormones, for

example.

But most fat we eat is manmade, chemical, rancid, oxidizing, harmful

fat

from chips, fries, and fast food. This fat is largely indigestible.

Good

fat comes in avocados, bananas, raw nuts, fish, small amounts of

clean

lean meat, and raw butter.

 

 

WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU

 

 

A small percentage of at-risk patients actually make a serious

change in

their day-to-day food intake. They make great progress and begin to

feel

much better. But then they may get to a point where even though they

are

eating very reasonably, they just don't seem to be able to lose any

more

weight. They've hit the plateau, the brick wall, the glass ceiling.

This

is a different stratum of problem from simple food intake. Here we

are

dealing with fundamental issues: digestion, metabolism, fat storage,

colon blockage. Why can't a person of normal weight lose cellulite

in

the hips and legs no matter how good the diet becomes? Answer:

digestion, enzyme metabolism, fat storage.

 

 

ENZYMES

 

The surprise here is: it doesn't matter what you eat; it only

matters

what you digest. That is why most discussions of calories and

fat/protein/carbo ratios are meaningless. If the food isn't being

digested, what does it matter what percentage protein you eat, or

for

what blood type or in what Zone? And that brings us round to the

subject

of enzymes. For the whole story, see the chapter on enzymes at

thedoctorwithin.com.

 

Enzymes are proteins made by most life forms whose purpose is to

control

the chemical reactions necessary for the second-by-second

maintenance of

normal cell function. What's that mean? Well, think about it - how

can

your body take in fried chicken, Fritos, and Dr. Pepper and turn

them

into bone and blood, as well as a thousand other substances your

body

needs to stay alive another day? It's enzymes. Enzymes break down

foods

into their simplest components, the only usable forms. The body has

its

own enzymes for digestion - amylase, pepsin, lipase, chymotrypsin,

(Guyton), to name a few. The problem is that there is a limited

supply.

 

The other problem is that, because of food processing, most foods we

eat

contain no enzymes necessary for their own breakdown inside the

body. So

the body simply does the best job it possibly can with its own

enzymes.

The best foods humans can possibly eat are those which contain

within

them the enzymes necessary for complete breakdown and assimilation

by

the body. (Howell) That way the body's stores of enzymes are not

taxed.

Examples: raw fruits and vegetables. The more raw fruits and raw

vegetables in the diet, the more digested the food becomes,

resulting in

a greater nutritive value by the time the blood nourishes the

individual

cells in all organs and tissues. It's a very simple idea, very

simple

indeed. Many modern processed foods contain some strange and brand

new

chemical configurations, stuff that didn't come from nature. Ever

see a

Hamburger Helper tree, or a Velveeta plant? How many meats in the

deli

case never had parents? The result is that the body simply cannot

keep

up with the enzymatic demands being made upon it week after week,

month

after month.

 

So what do you think happens to what doesn't get broken down, what

doesn't get digested within your digestive tract every day? Right.

It

stays there. Comes in but never goes out. Does the word putrefy mean

anything to you? It's a big word for rot. The undigested food rots

and

clumps up and blocks your stomach and intestines. Year by year we

simply

fill up, like a balloon. The body dehydrates, toxifies, and

degenerates.

No energy. Bad circulation.

 

 

DEBRIS IN THE BLOOD

 

 

Undigested food then makes its way from the intestines to where it

doesn't belong - into the bloodstream. Leaky Gut Syndrome. (Garland)

This makes the blood cells clump together, like bunches of grapes,

or

stacks of coins (rouleaux). Blood cells are supposed to circulate

through the smallest vessels, single file. When they're all stuck

together, blood flow slows way down. Increased resistance for the

Main

Pump - the heart. Harder to push all that blood through the system.

 

Once in the bloodstream, the undigested food can no longer be

digested,

because digestive enzymes only exist in the digestive tract, not in

the

blood. The only thing the undigested stuff can do is lodge

somewhere -

in muscles, joints, or any organ. As debris which doesn't belong in

those locations, the undigested food triggers a response of

inflammation. After awhile, that chronic inflammation can actually

begin

to destroy the cells of that organ.

 

The weakest organ, the one that goes first, will malfunction. Then

you

go to Emergency and have all efforts focused on this one organ,

whatever

it may be, and they'll even give you a name for your condition. And

each

condition has a certain protocol of tests, drugs, and surgery. None

of

which has anything to do with the original problem, which is still

ongoing, especially if we factor hospital food into the equation.

The

original problem was simple: you're not digesting your food.

 

Long-term intake of enzymeless foods blocks the colon Toxification

of

this organ can cause practically any disease you can name. For a

long

look into this area of awareness, please see the chapter on the

colon.

 

 

FREE RADICALS

 

 

The second half of the artery story has to do with free radicals.

Remember, those are the unstable little molecules we get from drugs,

alcohol, stress, processed food, smoking, radiation from TV and

computers, trauma - the usual culprits. A free radical is a molecule

that is missing an electron. It tries to steal an electron from a

normal

cell or molecule in the body, making that molecule able to do the

same

thing to another one, in a chain reaction, like musical chairs. This

is

how DNA gets altered, and how cells change - how cancer starts.

Doctors

call it mutagenesis. In the arteries, free radicals are the guys who

make the little cuts or nicks in the artery lining. Babies' arteries

are

as smooth as looking down the inside of the barrel of a shiny new

shotgun. With these little cuts, the free-floating bits of

undigested

fat, called plaque, now have a place to stick onto.

 

 

CEMENT LINING

 

 

After the bits of fat accumulate in the arteries for years, they

eventually get dried out and hardened into a cement-like matrix

called

plaque.

 

And that's exactly how atherosclerosis starts. Now follow this,

please:

one of the biggest producers of free radicals in the body is rancid

(rotting) indigestible hard fats, which just sit there in the tract

for

too long a time, because they're too weird to be broken down by the

body's own enzymes. Fats like these are new to our species - only

within

the last 75 years - chips, fries, deep-fried foods. With 50% of the

population now dying of heart disease; something has obviously

changed

for the worse.

 

That's right - of all the people who died this year in the U.S. 1

out of

2 of them died from heart disease. Not very good odds for the rest

of

us, would you say? People aren't born with a bad heart, most of the

time. The genetic theory is pretty shaky - it really doesn't matter

if

your parents or grandparents died of heart attacks. People inherit

eating habits. These habits determine the health of the heart far

more

than genetics can. What were the grandparents eating?

 

We dig our graves with our teeth - it's not just an epigram; more

often,

it's an epitaph.

 

CHELATION

 

 

Between two and three thousand MDs are now offering a medical

alternative to bypass surgery. It is called chelation therapy. EDTA

is

an amino acid compound that is introduced into the blood for the

purpose

of dissolving the plaque out of the arteries. Practitioners claim

high

rates of success.

 

Chelation therapy can be either intravenous or else given orally,

with

tablets. Originally developed for cleaning heavy metals out of the

blood, the application with arterial plaque soon became obvious.

Because

chelation therapy cuts into the $25 billion heart surgery turf, many

insurance companies won't cover it unless the diagnosis is to

resolve

heavy metal poisoning. Although EDTA may place some temporary stress

on

the kidneys, at least it actually does what it advertises, which is

to

remove plaque from all the arteries. This is in contrast to bypass

surgery and angioplasty, which only rearranges the plaque

temporarily.

 

NATURAL ALTERNATIVE TO HEART MEDICATION

 

If you're on medication now, there is a natural way to lower blood

pressure and get off drugs. Many people have done it. Two natural

supplements can actually do the trick:

 

1. Enzymes ( 800 572 6204, 1 (ask for Brent)

 

2. Oral Chelation -- www.extremehealth-autism.com

 

NOW WHAT?

 

 

So, the alternative to blocked arteries. The alternative is - digest

everything you eat every day. A few hints:

 

1. Stop all dairy immediately

 

2. Cut way back on white sugar: soft drinks, donuts, cookies, ice

cream,

etc. White sugar destroys digestive enzymes, which prevents fats

from

being broken down

 

3. Eat as many raw foods as possible, because they contain their own

enzymes and won't drain the body's own resources. 4. Take whole food

enzyme supplements - only the absorbable kind, like DigestAMeal --

408

298 1800

 

5. Take a powerful antioxidant (free radical neutralizer) Like

Megahydrin. If you're still smoking cigarettes, throw this chapter

away,

disregard everything you've just read, and light up! Sayonara.

 

 

 

Enzymes taken at mealtime will not only ensure complete digestion at

that meal. In addition, they will break down the toxic, residual,

undigested fats and protein that have been lurking in the intestines

and

in the bloodstream. This is no theory. You can see it. You can feel

it.

It's not medication - it's nutrition. See Enzymes chapter.

 

 

CANCER

 

 

Does your doctor ever tell you that heart medications cause cancer?

A

study in top British medical journal Lancet shows as much as a 65%

increase in cancer risk for those who take calcium channel blockers.

(Lancet 349:525,1996)

 

That stands to reason. Since the 1920s the relationship cancer and

oxygen has been widely studied. In the chapter titled " To The Cancer

Patient " we see in the work of Nobel laureate, Dr. Otto Warburg that

cancer is closely associated with the presence of oxygen in the

blood.

Heart drugs artificially reduce blood flow, thus decreasing the

amount

of oxygen that is available to the tissues. Cancer does not like

oxygen.

The less oxygen, the more the cancer is promoted. How often does the

cardiologist explain that risk to the patient who is to be taking

heart

drugs for the first time?

 

 

LIFETIME OF DRUGS

 

 

Don't think you can do it? Ask you doctor when he plans on taking

you

off drugs. Not in this lifetime? Several medical doctors are helping

their patients get off heart drugs. Willix, MacDougall, Atkins, even

Whittaker. Dr. Kavanaugh, a Canadian cardiologist, instead of bypass

and

angioplasty, takes his patients and puts them on a specialized

exercise

program , initially very light, and gradually increasing in

duration.

One of his bypass patients actually went on to run in the Boston

Marathon!

 

But even easier than these programs are the simple enzymes and

chelation

supplements cited above.

 

Ever notice the pattern of how the cause of every disease seems to

be a

deficiency of drugs? Very curious. One of the most famous heart

surgeons

in the US, Robert Willix no longer recommends either drugs or

surgery

because of all the years of watching his own failures and realizing

that

angioplasty and bypass simply do not heal people. They just postpone

the

inevitable for a short time. Willix has come to the same conclusion:

no

matter how far gone the patient is, there's a greater chance of

lasting

improvement simply by diet and exercise. In fact, that's the only

chance. It's really going against the grain, though isn't it? I mean

Americans don't think like that. Responsible for my own health? I

just

trust my doctor. That way I don't actually have to do anything,

except

take my pills. I can continue my present course of my toxifying self

destructive lifestyle. I'm sure Doctor knows what's best.

 

The death statistics however indicate otherwise - in 75 years, it's

gone

from less than 1% all the way up to 50% of all deaths being caused

by

heart failure. Today almost a million Americans die of heart disease

every year. The doctor knows what's best? Best for whom? The

surgeons,

hospitals and drug companies? Some of us are coming into a new phase

of

mass consciousness - a quantum shift in which the old ideas of

drugging

the body into submission are losing credibility. Reason: it usually

doesn't work. What's the main cause of death in the U.S. today? Side

effects from prescription drugs.

 

The new idea is - work with the body, facilitate its own inner

systems

of regulation, minimize stress from food overload. Detox the blood,

the

milieu in which all cells are bathed. The holistic approach, in

evidence

since the days of Hippocrates.

 

Drugs? If drugs worked, you'd already be better.

 

- copyright MMV Dr Tim O'Shea

 

REFERENCES Howell, Edward, MD Enzyme Nutrition Medical Economics

Physicians Desk Reference 1998 MacDougall, John MD McDougall's

Medicine:

A Challenging Second Opinion Merck Manual Sixteenth Edition Tu JV,

et

al. Use of Cardiac Procedures and Outcomes in Elderly Patients With

Myocardial Infarction in the United States and Canada. New England

Journal of Medicine. 1997;336(May 22):1500-1505. Peduzzi P.et al.

Twenty

two-year follow-up in the VA cooperative study of coronary artery

bypass

surgery for stable angina. Am J Cardiol 1998 Jun 15;81(12):1393-

1399.

Garland, Leo, MD “Leaky Gut Syndrome: Breaking the Vicious

Cycleâ€

1995 Jensen, Bernard Empty Harvest Avery 1990. Willix, Robert, MD 3

Minutes a Day to a 120-Year Lifespan 1994. Caracciolo, E et al.

Comparison of surfgical amnd medical group usrvival in patients with

left main equivalent coronary artery disease. Circulation May 1,

1995

p2335 advertisement 23 Nov 98 Newsweek Statistical Abstracts of the

U.S.

Pahor, M Calcium channel blockers and incidence of cancer in aged

population. Lancet 349:525,1996 Lazarou J, et al. “Incidence of

adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients†JAMA 15 Apr 98,

v279,

p1200

 

 

 

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