Homocysteine and its Relation to Heart Disease
To boost your ticker, cook steak quicker
By now, you’ve probably heard about homocysteine. I’ve been
writing about it for 20 years, and unless you’re new to
alternative medicine, you’ve probably heard a bit about how
it relates to heart disease.
But just in case you’ve haven’t, here’s a refresher:
Homocysteine is a harmful amino acid your body forms as a by-
product of the digestion of certain foods (like well done
steak). Increased homocysteine in the bloodstream is
strongly associated with the occurrence of heart disease.
This correlation has been common knowledge in alternative
medicine circles for years.
Your body, however, has a built-in defense mechanism against
homocysteine buildup – it transforms it into a harmless
substance called cystathionine, which is flushed from the
body in the urine. Again, old news.
Here’s what’s new: Recent research conducted in the
Netherlands points to the likelihood that some people are
genetically unable to convert homocysteine at a sufficient
rate, contributing to unsafe levels in the body and
subsequent increased risk of heart disease. This research
also studied the effects of a treatment for homocysteine my
alternative medicine colleagues and I have been recommending
for years: Folic acid. And the results confirmed what I’ve
known all along: Folic acid supplementation lowers
homocysteine, decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Now, other studies have shown this in the past. But the
Netherlands research took it one step further, concluding
that those people with a genetically reduced capacity to
process homocysteine were ONLY at increased risk for heart
disease when their folic acid levels were low.
What that means is this: Even if you’re one of those
unfortunate souls whose body is ill-equipped to break down
homocysteine, folic acid supplementation can “even the
playing field” as far as your heart disease risk goes. But
taking folic acid isn’t the only thing you can do to reduce
blood homocysteine – Vitamins B12 and B6 are also critical
for the metabolism of this killer amino acid. Oh, and when
you cook steak, prepare it as rare as you can enjoy it -
because the closer to “well done” it is, the more
homocysteine you’ll produce in digesting it.
But don’t skip the steak altogether – it’s too good for you!
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Nurse, where’s my scalpel?
Are you having trouble getting through airport metal
detectors ever since that appendectomy a few years back?
If so, you might be carrying around a hemostat or two – in
your belly!
That’s right: According to a New England Journal of Medicine
report, 1500 patients a year in the U.S. leave the operating
table with some of the hospital’s equipment still INSIDE
THEM. What are the most common hiding places for wayward
clamps, sponges, electrodes, retractors and various and
sundry other instruments? The chest, abdomen, hips, and body
cavities like the vagina. Oh, and here’s an interesting
tidbit: This kind of thing happens a lot more often to
patients who are overweight!
The study further showed that fully two-thirds of these
mistakes occurred even though the surgical equipment was
inventoried before AND AFTER the procedure. This means that
not only can’t these doctors operate – they can’t even
count! Complications from these blunders can lead to
internal bleeding, infection, and sometimes death. Yet in
some cases, patients weren’t even aware of their little
stowaways until they were “uncovered” in a later procedure.
These findings, from a Harvard-affiliated study (the largest
of its kind ever conducted), should rightly shock you.
Even though such mistakes are relatively rare (about 1 in
20,000), they’d be even more of a scarcity if all the
unnecessary surgeries Americans undergo each year were
eliminated. That – and apparently losing weight – will keep
us out of harm’s way as much as possible.
Keeping you in the loop,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD
