Danger of Heart Medications

One of every three deaths in the U.S. in 2013 were from heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. Heart disease and stroke were the No. 1 and No. 2 killers worldwide, according to the American Heart Association’s 2016 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics Update. In the U.S., the data showed:

• cardiovascular diseases claimed 801,000 lives;
• heart disease killed more than 370,000 people;
• stroke killed nearly 129,000 people;
• about 116,000 of the 750,000 people in the U.S. who had a heart attack died;
• about 795,000 people had a stroke, the leading preventable cause of disability;

Being lost in the pharmaceutical and surgical paradigms of cardiology has done nothing for all of these people. Dr. Dwight Lundell, former Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital in Arizona told the world not to take statin drugs. “We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong. So, here it is. I freely admit to being wrong. As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.”

A recent study in the journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention reported that women who have used cholesterol-lowering statin drugs for more than 10 years have double the risk of two common types of breast cancer: invasive ductal carcinoma and invasive lobular carcinoma.[1]

Cardiology has accepted that coronary atherosclerosis (arterial narrowing and blockages) never develops in the absence of inflammation in the coronary arterial wall, initially in the endothelium, its innermost layer.

There is nothing more inflammatory than magnesium deficiencies. It is magnesium that modulates cellular events involved in inflammation yet cardiologists would prefer to poison their patients with statin drugs.

Dr. Duane Graveline, Former USAF Flight Surgeon and NASA Astronaut says, “The fact that statin drugs are two-edged swords is known to few. It is no wonder doctors are confused about this class of drugs. When a statin reduces cholesterol, it is, at the same time, reducing synthesis of CoQ10, dolichols, selenoproteins, Rho, glutathione and normal phosphorylation by a similar amount. This, I believe, is the cause of the thousands of side effect reports largely unknown to the medical community.”[2] Lowering LDL too low actually increases the rate of death from any one of several causes.

Beware of the Dangerous Cardiologists

The New York Times reports that, “It is truly shocking and counterintuitive but not having the country’s famous senior heart doctors caring for you might increase your chance of surviving a cardiac arrest.” In JAMA Internal Medicine 10 years of data involving tens of thousands of hospital admissions. found that patients with acute, life-threatening cardiac conditions did better when the senior cardiologists were out of town.

“When the cardiologists were around, patients in cardiac arrest, for example, were significantly more likely to get interventions, like stents, to open up their coronary blood vessels. We — both physicians and patients — usually think more treatment means better treatment. We often forget that every test and treatment can go wrong, produce side effects or lead to additional interventions that themselves can go wrong.”

This should give you a clue as to the dangers of the field of cardiology and how completely off base, its doctors, even their best ones, can be. “The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world,” as a 2014 Commonwealth Fund report finds, yet consistently “underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance.” Currently, according to that report, the U.S. ranks last among 11 major industrialized nations in efficiency, equity, and “healthy lives,” meaning health outcomes attributable to medical care.

Dr. Evan Levine, a cardiologist in New York and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine asks, “How does one explain an internist who wrote over 900 prescriptions for the controversial and very expensive drug Lovaza, a drug approved to lower triglycerides, or a geriatric doctor who is the top prescriber of a very expensive heart medication known as Ranexa? The answer is simple and unsurprising — greed. It’s all about putting more money in the pockets of doctors and the coffers of the big Pharmaceutical companies.”

Dr. Levine continues, “I am a busy cardiologist and I wrote about 1,500 Medicare scripts in 2010, but a cardiologist practicing in New York City’s Chinatown, wrote 21,000! How is that possible? How can one person write 1,400 % more prescriptions than me? And not by coincidence, he was a top prescriber for one my least favorite drugs, Bystolic, a costly blood pressure medication that competes with generics that cost pennies per pill.” Big Pharma and greedy doctors are a lethal combination so heart patients need to take care and be aware of who they are seeing to prevent them from dying of heart disease. It is all about putting more money in the pockets of doctors and the coffers of the big Pharmaceutical companies

Medical boards overwhelmingly protect doctors’ careers over the health and safety of their patients no matter how many people the medical system kills. You may want to think twice before your next visit to the cardiologists office. According to Dr. Barbara Starfield’s now-famous study, iatrogenic deaths (those resulting from treatment by physicians or surgeons) are the third leading cause of mortality in the United States, resulting in the loss of 225,000 lives per year. Of that total, hospital-acquired infections kill 80,000, physician errors claim 27,000, and unnecessary surgery results in 12,000 deaths. Cardiac anti-arrhythmia drugs, for example, are known to have cost more American lives than the Vietnam war.

However, iatrogenic errors are not the only reason people should avoid hospitals, says Dr. Archelle Georgiou. She says that relying on doctors shortens lifespans. Georgiou bases this idea on her studies of the earth’s so-called “blue zones,” isolated communities around the world whose inhabitants live longer and healthier lives than the greater populace. Doctors and hospitals are dangerous and have only gotten increasingly so. I hope it becomes obvious from reading this series that changing the pharmacology of cardiology into something more effective, safe and humane should receive top priority.

Alpha Blockers

One major side effect of alpha-blockers is a drop in blood pressure when a person stands up abruptly (orthostatic hypotension); this can result in dizziness or fainting. Care must be taken to avoid sudden changes in position, especially when first taking the drugs. Other side effects that are less common include nausea, headache, and palpitations. Alpha blocking drugs work through the autonomic (automatic) nervous system by blocking nerve receptors that are called alpha receptors. Alpha receptors normally promote constriction of the arterioles. Blocking constriction promotes dilation of vessels and lowers blood pressure as well as reducing the work of the heart in some situations. Alpha-blocking drugs also inhibit the actions of one of the adrenal hormones, norepinephrine, that raises blood pressure as part of the fight-or-flight response. This classification clearly causes heart problems meaning they are a terrible replacement for magnesium.

Beta-Blockers

Widely used beta-blocker blood pressure medications can raise the risk of death in patients with specific genes who receive the drugs after a heart attack or unstable angina, Long term treatment with beta-blockers has long been standard therapy for many heart patients. Beta-blockers work by blocking the hormone adrenaline from reaching the beta-adrenergic receptors of cells in the sympathetic nervous system, which controls basic heart functions. This allows the drugs to slow the heartbeat and lower blood pressure. Beta-blockers are prescribed for patients sent home after treatment for acute coronary syndrome, an umbrella term that covers heart attack and unstable angina.

Lethargy and cold hands and feet because of reduced circulation may occur with Beta Blocker use. They may cause nausea, nightmares or vivid dreams, and impotence. Beta Blockers may also precipitate asthmatic attacks and in diabetics may mask the signs of hypoglycemia.

Calcium Channel Blockers

Calcium channel blockers are relatively new synthetic drugs that work by blocking the passage of calcium into the muscle cells that control the size of blood vessels. Side effects of most of the Calcium Channel Blockersinclude lower extremity edema, headache, nausea, heart rate changes, dizziness, constipation and rashes. Some Calcium Channel Blockersare more effective at slowing heart rate than others thus causing worsening problems. For example, when diltiazem or verapamil are given to individuals with heart failure, symptoms of heart failure may worsen because these drugs reduce the ability of the heart to pump blood. Hypersensitivity to the particular calcium channel blocker agent can cause second or third degree heart block[3], Wolfe-Parkinson-White syndrome, or sick sinus syndrome, symptomatic hypotension, congestive heart failure or coronary artery disease.

Beta blockers, digoxin, and amiodarone may have additive cardiovascular effects when used in combination with calcium channel blockers. Some agents may inhibit the clearance of digoxin, resulting in increased risk of digoxin toxicity. Cimetidine in combination with nifedipine or diltiazem may result in increased cardiovascular toxicity. Carbemazeine, phenytoin, and tacrolimus metabolism may be inhibited by concomitant use with diltiazem. Cyclosporine metabolism may be inhibited by certain calcium channel blockers, resulting in an increased risk of cyclosporine toxicity. Azole antifungal agents may increase the potential for cardiovascular toxicity of dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers due to inhibition of metabolism. Hypotension may occur when calcium channel blockers are used in conjunction with fentanyl anesthesia. Theophylline metabolism is inhibited by diltiazem and alterations in theophylline serum concentrations (increase or decrease) can occur with nifedipine use.[4]

Digoxin

As recently as April 2008, a form of digoxin was found to be manufactured improperly thus delivering twice the intended dose of digoxin.[5] Some Digitek users have suffered heart attacks, strokes or death as a result of digitalis toxicity.[6]Other patients have reported Digitalis side effects that include low blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, vision problems, nausea and dizziness. Digitek—which is also known by its generic name, digoxin—is prescribed to treat the symptoms of patients with congestive heart failure or an irregular heartbeat. The drug works by increasing the amount of calcium in the cells of the heart in order to stimulate and strengthen heartbeats. Other Digitek side effects include low blood pressure, changes in vision and stomach complaints (nausea, diarrhea and vomiting). The occurrence of adverse drug reactions is common with this class of drug, owing to its narrow therapeutic index (the margin between effectiveness and toxicity). Adverse effects are concentration-dependent, and are rare when plasma digoxin concentration is <0.8 μg/L.

Common adverse effects include: loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, visual disturbances (yellow-green halos), confusion, drowsiness, dizziness, nightmares, agitation, and/or depression, as well as a higher acute sense of sensual activities. Less frequent adverse effects (0.1%–1%) include: acute psychosis, delirium, amnesia, shortened QRS complex, atrial or ventricular extrasystoles, paroxysmal atrial tachycardia with AV block, ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation, heart block[7] Every type of heart rythym disturbance can be induced by digitalis.[8]

Antiarrhythmic Drugs

While the vast majority of patients benefit from antiarrhythmic drugs, heart arrhythmias may paradoxically worsen in 5 to 10 percent of patients. An example of an antiarrhythmic is Amiodarone (Cordarone). This is a highly toxic drug, and therefore used for conditions where other drugs have not been effective. Its many dangerous effects include: lung inflammation. It also causes liver inflammation, muscle degeneration and weakness, loss of balance, and slow heart rate. Skin may become more susceptible to sunburn and may take on a blue-gray discoloration. Paradoxically, amiodarone can cause both thyroid underactivity—with symptoms of fatigue, intolerance to cold, constipation, and weight gain—or hyperthyroidism— characterized by sleeplessness, heat intolerance, sweats, weight loss, and rapid heart rate. Other side effects are rash, weight loss, nausea, constipation, dizziness, fainting, palpitations, and changes in vision.

Nitroglycerin

Nitroglycerin, in common with other nitrates, produces generalized vasodilation, thereby decreasing venous return and workload on the heart. Both arterial and venous dilation occur, although venous effects predominate. Coronary vasodilation also occurs even in the presence of atherosclerosis. Reflex tachycardia may occur; Nitroglycerin can cause sudden severe hypotension. Excessive hypotension, especially for prolonged periods of time, must be avoided because of possible deleterious effects on the brain, heart, liver and kidneys from poor perfusion and attendant risk of ischemia, thrombosis, and altered function of these organs.

With the chronic use of nitrates, there have been reports of anginal attacks being more easily provoked as well as reports of rebound in hemodynamic effects, occurring soon after nitrate withdrawal.[9]

Diuretics

Diuretic use is common in treating to prevent heart problems such as congestive heart failure and hypertension.[10] The potential side effects of diuretics include: twitching, spasms, rash, vomiting, diarrhea and cramps. You may feel lightheaded or dizzy. A rare side effect is the development of an arrhythmia (irregular heart rhythm). You may experience impotence and/or a decreased desire for sex. This situation is reversible with the cessation of the medication. With diuretic use you may become dehydrated. Some diuretics cause a loss of potassium. You may be required to take supplements. If you experience a substantial loss of potassium without supplementation, the situation may life threatening. Thiazide diuretics raise blood sugar levels.

Coumadin and Aspirin

Every patient on coumadin is increasing the calcium content of all
vascular tissues. The calcium content of arteries is now proven to be
more dangerous than diabetes, elevated cholesterol or hypertension.
Dr. Gary Gordon

Who hasn’t been told to take an aspirin every day to prevent heart attacks? Shane Ellison, of the People’s Chemist, points out an important fact in a recent newletter:[11] “Many Adverse Drug Events (ADR’s) are not caused by the drug directly. Instead, they are the result of drug-induced nutritional deficiencies. Marketed and prescribed for daily use to prevent heart attack, Aspirin™ depletes the body of the life-saving nutrient folic acid (as well as iron, potassium, sodium and vitamin C). Symptoms of folic acid depletion include anemia, birth defects, elevated homocysteine (a risk factor for heart disease), headache, fatigue, hair loss, insomnia, diarrhea and increased infection.

Over 10 percent of patients who take low-dose aspirin to ward off a
heart attack develop peptic ulcers, which often have no symptoms.

Complications from ulcers caused by aspirin include bleeding, perforation and stomach obstruction. Swelling and scarring from an ulcer may close the outlet of the stomach, preventing food to pass and causing vomiting and weight loss. People who are taking aspirin and Coumadin together have a 12 fold increased risk of bleeding.

Statins

Daily supplements of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids — the kind found in fish oil — reduced deaths and hospitalizations of people with heart failure, an Italian study found. But a cholesterol-lowering statin drug had no beneficial effect in a parallel heart failure trial. “This confirms what we’ve been seeing for a couple of decades in observational studies,” Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health, said of the fish oil trial. “There is a benefit of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids for heart failure patients.” Both findings were published online Aug. 31 in the journal The Lancet and presented at a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology, in Munich, Germany.[12]

Statins are medications to lower blood lipids (cholesterol and triglyceride) to help prevent future heart attacks. The best-known side effects of statins, which include widely prescribed drugs such as Lipitor and Zocor, are liver damage and muscle problems, although statins have also been tied to changes in memory, concentration and mood, among other problems. Other side effects to statins include a degenerative muscle disease called myopathy, which can be fatal. Bayer pulled its statin — Baycol — off the market in August 2001 because it caused too many cases of myopathy. Baycol was linked to 52 deaths worldwide, including one in Canada.

Common statins are:

Atorvastatin – Lipitor

Fluvastatin – Lescol

Pravastatin – Prevachol

Rosuvastatin – Crestor

Simvastatin – Zocor

Statins! Suzy Cohen of Dear Pharmacist says she can’t find one study that proves statins make you live any longer. “Inflammation and nutritional deficiencies will continue to damage your heart, even if you have perfect cholesterol.” A case in point was made over the heart drug Vytorin. A recent study presented in London showed no significant difference between patients who received Vytorin and those who received a placebo. Dr. Terje Pedersen of Ulleval University Hospital in Oslo, Norway is just one of many who are pointing out the disaster in allopathic medicine that magnesium can step in and correct. In a clinical trial, the cholesterol-lowering drug Vytorin did not help people with heart-valve disease avoid further heart problems but did appear to increase their risk of cancer, scientists recently reported.[13]

Statin drugs are derived from a fungus. Cholesterol-lowering statins do not reduce your risk of a heart attack — unless you’ve already had one. Yet the largest selling prescription drug category in the US today is cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Americans are bombarded with the message from doctors, companies, and the media that high levels of bad cholesterol are the ticket to an early grave and must be brought down. Statins, the message continues, are the most potent weapons in that struggle. The drugs are thought to be so essential that, according to the official government guidelines from the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), 40 million Americans should be taking them. Some researchers have even suggested—half-jokingly—that the medications should be put in the water supply, like fluoride for teeth.[14] .

Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs increase the risk of prostate
cancer in overweight men, a new study has discovered.[15]

Despite previous findings that lowering cholesterol levels increases the cancer risk, they are now stating that after further examination of the evidence, that statins do not impact this risk.[16] Previous studies have linked very low LDL cholesterol to cancer risk. The Karas team heading the research confirmed this link. “We found a very interesting thing, which is that in those studies, the lower the LDL level, the higher the risk of cancer. It was a pretty strong effect,” Karas said. “There was about a three-fold increase in cancer going from the highest LDL levels to the lowest LDL levels” reports Karas.

Of course heart experts played down fears that an anti-cholesterol drug could cause cancer. A study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, linked Inergy, a combination of two statins, was shown to increase the risk of developing cancer. But the British Heart Foundation (BHF) advised patients to continue taking the drug until hard evidence suggested otherwise.[17]For some doctors we have to wait for eternity for them to stop using dangerous poisons, it is just part of the religion they subscribe to. They cannot afford to lose trust in the pharmaceutical companies and their products because they are in bed with the devil to the point where the trust they have in themselves is directly proportional to the trust they put in the pharmaceutical companies, the medical organizations and journals that support them.

A significant number of people taking statins (between 3 and 15%) develop mild to crushing muscle pain that can lead to permanent muscle problems, severe kidney problems or death.[18] The drugs can cause severe liver damage, and some recent reports have linked the use of one statin to neurological and memory problems. Statins cause reductions in the muscle mitochondrial content of ubiquinone or Coenzyme Q10, an important part of the ATP-producing electron transport chain that employs the same precursor molecules as cholesterol.

“What would be the typical treatment of cardiovascular disease?” asks Dr. Ron Rosedale. “First they check the cholesterol. To treat high cholesterol (over 200) they put you on cholesterol lowering drugs, which shut off your CoQ10. What does CoQ10 do? It is involved in the energy production and protection of little energy furnaces in every cell, so energy production goes way down. A common side effect of people who are on all these HMG co-enzyme reductase inhibitors is that their arms feel heavy. Well, the heart is a muscle too, and it‘s going to feel heavy too. One of the best treatments for a weak heart is CoQ10 (for congestive heart failure). But doctors have no trouble shutting CoQ10 production off so that they can treat a number.”

. One 2007 study showed that when patients suggested a link between
their pain and statin use, nearly half of doctors dismissed the possibility.

Hospitals offer financial incentives to doctors who keep their patients’ cholesterol levels low, which encourages them to overlook side effects, says Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California-San Diego School of Medicine and the lead investigator behind a research project that tracks the side effects of statins

One study, published in the August 2003 American Journal of Cardiology found that lowering bad cholesterol with statin drugs may not reduce the rate at which plaque builds up in the arteries surrounding the heart. This finding flies in the face of the widespread belief that lowering LDL cholesterol levels is the best way to reduce arterial plaque. In the study, participants taking varying doses of a statin did generally lower their cholesterol. However, all the groups had an average increase in arterial plaque of 9.2 percent.

A report from the Annals of Internal Medicine published their own study report in October 2006 after they had received all studies relating to cholesterol-lowering benefits by Statin drugs..Their conclusions: Current clinical evidence does not demonstrate that titrating lipid therapy to achieve proposed LDL cholesterol levels is beneficial or safe.

The release of Crestor, the newest of the statin drugs was associated almost immediately with a need for a revised package insert because of a rash of adverse drug reports of muscle and renal toxicity. Increased numbers of rhabdomyolysis reports began to surface in Crestor users associated with kidney damage. Cognitive, muscle and nerve problems, due to the inevitable impairment of glial cell cholesterol synthesis and mevalonate blockade are only part of the problem with Crestor. The Crestor side effect potential, that it shares with all other statins, is far more basic than this. Now we have learned that mitochondria are an inevitable target of statins. Because of inhibition of CoQ10 availability with its powerful anti-oxidant effect, mitochondria are left fully exposed to the mutagenic effect of free radicals. The resulting mutations of mitochondria are what is causing the legions of permanent, disabling side effects.

Special Note: In another chapter, we will introduce a lineup of natural medicinals that fulfill their purpose through the realization of nutritional laws. Many of these medicines are available in intensive care wards, medicinals like magnesium chloride or sulfate, iodine, sodium bicarbonate, injectable selenium and now the new medical discovery on molecular hydrogen, which is being widely used in Japan.