Posted by Larry Hoover on May 31, 2005, at 9:32:25
In reply to Re: Anyone sea that infomercial for Sea Vegg? » Larry Hoover, posted by vitaqueen on May 27, 2005, at 11:03:55
> First, thank you so much Larry for your response to my post.
You're welcome.
> I really am very new to all this vitamin/herb/mineral supplementation, as new as last November after reading Dr. Strand's book (referenced in my initial post). So I'm like a hungry sponge eager to whet [pun intended] my appetite by seeking new and valid information. I so want to improve the quality of the rest of my life (triple bypass 2+ years ago I guess can do that to you), but I also want to be intelligent about it, and not jump at every "advertised miracle cure" that saturates all media.
If you needed a bypass, I'd be very certain to get your homocysteine levels as low as they can practically be maintained (i.e. ensure good intake of B12/folate (one mechanism), and/or trimethylglycine (another mechanism)), and to keep your triglycerides down. The latter can happen with low-carbing, and/or fish oil.
> Inasmuch as I have a "guarded faith" about the medical profession (AMA), I do trust at least my cardiologist (to a point). I don't want to take any prescribed medication unless absolutely positively necessary. The biggest issue right now (as has always been) is my cholesterol level, which it has been without a doubt determined that my body manufactures.
For most people (well over 95% of the population), the liver produces the cholesterol in the blood. Dietary cholesterol is a poor predictor of blood cholesterol, no matter what the "standard wisdom" says. The thing is, what variables signal the liver to produce cholesterol, *and* more importantly, what form does the cholesterol take? VLDL, LDL, HDL?
> My diet has absolutely no trans fats, I eat lean meats only and infrequently, there is no dairy whatsoever in my diet either, and yet without statin medication, my # is over 400.
What's your HDL/LDL ratio, though? And your triglyderides? From all that I've read, those are more important than total cholesterol. Restricting protein and fat might be your problem. It's not fat per se, that is the problem. Individual fatty acids do different things. Most saturated fats are actually cholesterol nuetral. They do nothing, vis a vis cholesterol. You're high-carbing?
> I refuse to put another statin in my body for many reasons, and it appears the red yeast rice (2400 mg/day) and/or acupuncture, dropped my # so far by about 150 points (but that was with a home test and I'm not sure how accurate they are.
I'd go with the red yeast supp as the independent variable.
Fish oil shifts the HDL/LDL ratio, and substantially lowers VLDL (i.e. triglycerides).
> I have been hearing and reading by the naysayers, that "cholesterol" is over-hyped due to the billions of $ in statin therapy, and that the homocysteine level is really the truer indicator of what's going on in the arteries. Since on B-complex, folic, and trimethylglycine (500 mg/day which I forgot to mention previously), my homocysteine dropped from 13.5 to 9.8.
Oh, maybe I should have read your post before I started replying. <grin>
> But my doctor is very concerned about the cholesterol # and wants me back on Crestor & Zetia, or the new one, Vytorin. I am fighting him tooth and nail on it though, because I hated the way my muscles and legs felt while on it.
There can be major muscle damage from these statins. I'm with you, listening to the messages from your body.
> > Sea vegg (or any other product) cannot cram into one capsule that which presently requires 26 tablets. It's a physical impossibility.
>
> Common sense at least, tells me that you are absolutely correct. I didn't think the product could "hurt" me in any way and ordered it to give it a try. But I believe I will be returning it. Thanks.Common sense is rather uncommon, it would seem.
> > Five mg of vanadium?!? 8 mg manganese? I'll get back to you on those doses.
>
> I look forward to it. What about Vitamin D?The UL (safe average daily intake, the Upper Limit) for vanadium is 1.8 mg/day. That said, acute treatment of vanadium deficiency (I'm talking the philosophy of treatment of mineral deficiency in general) would allow higher doses for a limited time (to saturate the tissues that need vanadium). So, let's assume that you have accomplished this task, and cut the vanadium down to 1 mg/day. You have to presume *some* intake from food.
The UL for manganese is 11 mg/day (more than I realized). So, your supplement is fine. That's one of the reasons I love questions. I'm not likely to forget these answers.
Vitamin D is undergoing a sea change in medical perception. The RDA used to be 200 IU, and it's gone up to 400 IU, and soon (if not already) it'll be 1000 IU. Recent research has shown that 4000 IU might be closer to the essential need (but, remember, your body does manufacture this stuff, if exposed to UV light). Despite all the hoo-haw about excess vitamin D being toxic, that actually refers to plant-source vitamin D, ergocalciferol. When given as a high-dose supplement, that stuff can be toxic, but it may simply be a case of the *conversion* of ergocalciferol to the active hormone form that induces toxic stress.
Anyway, too much information. I see nothing inherently wrong with 2000 IU vitamin D each day. I still have a little bit of caution in my mind, as vitamin D is really a steroid hormone. It's not a vitamin at all, but historically, it looked like one.
> > You could definitely cut some of these out, or reduce doses. In acute treatment of symptomatic conditions, some of these doses are required, but maintenance of health does not require the larger dose. You soon learn how to "listen to your body", and increase certain supps as needed.
>
> Problem is right now, I'm not sure which ones are doing what for what. The combination gave me a somewhat sustained feeling of betterment; I guess I need to read up more on each individual one. Are there any that could harm me after a prologed use????I'm going with the conservative medical people on the vanadium. There are people who routinely take 60-100 mg/day, without apparent adverse effects other than gastrointestinal disturbances, but fatigue and lethargy are also known side effects. In animal studies, similarly high doses of vanadium led to kidney failure. That's the basis for the setting of the UL at 1.8 mg/day (which happens to be about 100 times the typical dietary intake already).
> > You could halve the CoQ10. Halve the milk thistle. (I wouldn't take it every single day, anyway. Give your body a break from herbs. I would take it half the time, or less.)
>
> The CoQ10 was referred by my cardiologist at the time I was taking statins, and this specific one is the only water soluable grade he is aware of. I WAS on 200mg/day, but dropped it to 100mg shortly after I stopped the statins. You feel I should still halve it?Should? I said could.
CoQ10 is a fat-soluble vitamin. The forms that are supplied as gelcaps in oil have the highest bioavailability (up to 9 times the bang for the buck of dry forms). Usually, it's CoQ10 in rice bran oil, and I have no idea why they chose that oil.
> Likewise, the 200 mg of Milk Thistle I started when on statins. Would 100 mg 3X a week still be too much?
I just don't know if long-term use of herbs is safe, without breaks. I'm applying a general concept to the specific herb milk thistle. I'll go rooting around again, on that.
> > If you've been on the selenium for a few months, you could halve it.
>
> I have been on the selenium (200 mcg) for 6 months; I will take that now every other day.That should be fine. The UL is still a good deal higher than 200 mcg. You seemed like you were looking for ways to cut back on the 27? pills a day you were taking. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with taking that many. I'm trying to respond to that implicit question, "Can I cut back?".
> > You don't need to take the antioxidant polyphenol supps every single day. (lycopene, grape seed)
>
> Same for alpha lipoic acid and Vitamin C?Correct. You don't have to have them every single day. The half-lives of these substances are more than 24 hours.
Just for the record, the RDA is conceptually based on a full week's intake, divided by seven, to give an *average* daily requirement.
> > Oral glutathione is a waste of money, in that the glutathione is digested. Glutathione is a protein, and it doesn't survive the stomach intact. You're better off just ignoring this, or substituting in some whey protein powder (high in cysteine). Or some other source of cysteine, such as N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC).
>
> OK. I have heard of NAC. What dosage would you recommend?500 mg/day would be plenty, IMHO, but more than that if you suspect any sort of liver stress. Up to 2000 mg/day, I'd suggest.
You were taking 20 mg of glutathione. Glutathione is a tripeptide (three amino acids, joined together in a string, in a specific sequence). In crude terms, one third of the mass of the glutathione supp was cysteine, so you were getting maybe 7 mg of cysteine from it. 500 mg of NAC will provide 50 or more times that amount. (very crude ratio)
> > Where's the zinc? I see no zinc on your list. It is the most likely mineral for deficient intake, of them all.
>
> I was on 15-30 mg/day of zinc throughout the winter, but discontinued it in March; would you suggest I reinstitute zinc in my regimen?There is no mineral that you are more likely to not get from diet; zinc deficiency in American diets is widespread.
Look at this table:
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/130/5/1367S/T4Please note that this table deals in Adequate Zinc Intake, which is an arbitrary number set at only 77% of the RDA. Even at that lower threshold, about half of all Americans are zinc deficient.
> > You would probably be doing just as well, health wise, if you took all this stuff every other day. That would cut your bill in half, right there. And, you'd till get all the benefits. Some of your blood numbers might shift a tiny bit, but I seriously doubt there would be any significant shifts back the wrong way.
>
> This makes complete sense. I also forgot to mention . . . I am taking 600 mg/day of Omega 3 fish oil,Especially with your cholesterol issue, I would strongly recommend you up your fish oil intake towards 5000 mg/day. Take fish oil with a meal, the fattier the better. I know you are trying to avoid fats (from what you said about diet), but that is wrong-headed. It gets complicated (the explanation), but high-carb diets promote cholesterol, via an inducible liver-mediated process called de novo lipogenesis. The fats are synthesized directly from carbs, and those fats just happen to be the ones that also signal the liver to produce cholesterol, particularly VLDL and LDL.
> glucosamine sulfate (1500 mg/day), and the aforementioned TMG. I tried Policosanol for about 2 months, but no change at all in the cholesterol. I am also taking whole enzymes and aloe juice (which has done wonders to get me off of Prevacid),
You had GERD? Try some bromelain.
> and 400 mg acidopholous which likewise did wonders to alleviate a pain I had in my side for 4 years (diagnosed as IBS, although I seriously doubted it); nevertheless, I was also able to discontinue dicyclomine.
B12 plays a role here, too. As do the enzymes.
> Larry, thanks again, and I am wide open to any suggestions you may have, or books to read, if it will help me to better understand all the health choices available.
Well, iherb has a good encyclopedia section.
http://www.iherb.com/health.html
Some of the entries are very conservative, vis a vis dose, though.
If you want the low-down on what a nutrient really does, and why you need the amount you do, you can search here:
http://lab.nap.edu/nap-cgi/discover.cgi?term=dietary+reference+intake&restric=NAP&mw=I've got the link set to "dietary reference intake", which is now the official term for what used to be the RDA. All the books that come up are the official ultra-conservative collective medical opinion of the Academies of Science. All the books are free to read, online. In each box that describes a particular book, on the right side, is a button with an eyeball symbol. That lets you read the whole thing online.
> I truly believe we are an overmedicated country in dire need of more "unbiased" and objective knowledge about prescription drugs versus vitamin, herb, and mineral supplementation.Oh, yeah.
I'm sometimes slow answering a thread, and sometimes forget to do so at all......so I don't mind getting reminders like you gave me. I don't mind at all.
If anybody else read down this far, I repeat, I don't mind reminders at all. Sometimes I'll read a post (which changes it's colour on screen), and then I'll forget which one it was. I often want to ponder some questions, look around a bit, and then I simply forget to follow through. Or, I'm busy, and it doesn't get to the top of my list.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:469333
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050510/msgs/505720.html