Category: General

7 Reasons Why You Should Do a Level One Workup in Addition to a Heart Scan By Steve Parcell, ND Level One Diagnostics is a cardiovascular lab that is making prevention of stroke and heart attack more of a reality.  A heart scan is very helpful in determining calcified plaque volume in the coronary arteries and by tracking the calcium laden lesions we can assess how well a treatment program is working. There are quite a bit of functional attributes a heart scan does not evaluate, however. Lets talk about a few: 1. Circulation including peripheral blood vessel tone and elasticity. 2. Endothelial function (dysfunction). When the cells that line the artery do not function well we call the endothelial dysfunction. This is the true first cause of atherosclerosis and the reason plaque starts to accumulate. 3. Arterial stiffness and arterial age. You are only as old as your arteries. 4. Stress effect on cardiovascular system. The balance between the parasympathetic and sympathetic aspects of the nervous system affect the heart and vessels in many ways. 5. Heart rate variability as determined by RR intervals. A little variability is good. You don’t want a metronome for a heart. 6. Plaque...

Preventing Heart Attacks in Athletes By Steve Parcell, ND NatureMed Clinic Boulder, Colorado The thought of having a sudden heart attack is so disturbing that many people don’t even consider that it could happen to them. I call this the “it can’t happen to me scenario”. Other people may say things like “my cholesterol is normal and I exercise, eat well and don’t have too much stress so I will not get a heart attack.” Well I’m here to tell you from personal experience that this is a very poor way to gauge your risk of an unexpected heart attack. I call this myth number one. While getting regular exercise and following a heart healthy diet reduce risk of heart disease these elements alone do not completely prevent it and if you have plaque, I assure you that diet and exercise are not enough to reverse it. When I speak about unexpected heart attacks, I am referring to heart attacks in otherwise healthy people between 30 and 70. At over 70 years of age many of us already have coronary plaque, and though still somewhat preventable, a heart attack would not be that unexpected. In the Boulder area in particular there...

By Steve Parcell, ND Boulder In 2013 the big chelation study was finally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study added further data supporting chelation for heart disease, especially coronary artery disease. Chelation therapy with disodium EDTA has been used for more than 50 years to treat atherosclerosis without proof of efficacy.The objective was to determine if an EDTA-based chelation regimen reduces cardiovascular events. Effect of disodium EDTA chelation regimen on cardiovascular events in patients with previous myocardial infarction: the TACT randomized trial. Double-blind, placebo-controlled, 2 × 2 factorial randomized trial enrolling 1708 patients aged 50 years or older who had experienced a myocardial infarction (MI) at least 6 weeks prior and had serum creatinine levels of 2.0 mg/dL or less. Participants were recruited at 134 US and Canadian sites. Enrollment began in September 2003 and follow-up took place until October 2011 (median, 55 months). Two hundred eighty-nine patients (17% of total; n=115 in the EDTA group and n=174 in the placebo group) withdrew consent during the trial. Patients were randomized to receive 40 infusions of a 500-mL chelation solution (3 g of disodium EDTA, 7 g of ascorbate, B vitamins, electrolytes, procaine, and heparin) (n=839) vs...

By Steve Parcell, ND On January 1st marijuana became legal to purchase in Colorado with or without a medical prescription. As marijuana is now legal in Boulder I have seen I slight increase in concerns about breast enlargement (gynecomastia) in men. Speculation that men who smoke pot are prone to develop abnormal breast tissue or "man boobs" has been around for decades. The first scientific paper examining the clinical impact of the drug's active ingredient, THC, on hormonal systems was published in 1972 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The 1972 study found that the drug has "widespread effects on multiple hormonal systems, including gonadal, adrenal, prolactin, growth hormone, and thyroid hormone regulation." When the drug throws off the normal balance of hormones, estrogen levels rise and stimulate breast tissue growth. Some men are more susceptible to gynecomastia than others. Smoking pot can lower testosterone levels for 24 hours. After just one joint, some patients have reported feeling swelling and puffiness around the nipple. Adolescents who use anabolic steroids, or who abuse alcohol, marijuana, heroin, or amphetamines may develop gynecomastia. Treatment includes discontinuation of the offending drug or decreasing usage as well as looking at other causes. Very rarely is...

By Steve Parcell, ND Valsartan is a common blood pressure lowering agent that I like for it beneficail effect aging. Now there is new data on Valsartan and plaque reversal. In the  EFFERVESCENT trial researchers hypothesized that the angiotensin receptor blocker valsartan (Diovan, Novartis) would reduce carotid artery wall thickness and inhibit atherosclerotic plaque progression. The EFFERVESCENT trial included 120 participants with carotid intima-media thickness >0.65 mm who were randomly assigned valsartan 320 mg/day titrated (n=80) or placebo (n=40). Each participant underwent carotid MRI at baseline, 12 months and 24 months. At 24 months, 49 participants from the valsartan group and 27 from the placebo group could be analyzed. At 24 months, the valsartan group exhibited a decrease in mean carotid bulb vessel wall area (P=.008), whereas it was unchanged in the placebo group (P=.28); the valsartan group had a significantly greater change than the placebo group (P=.01). Similarly, mean circumferential wall thickness of the carotid bulb was decreased in the valsartan group at 24 months (P=.0035) vs. an insignificant change in the placebo group (P=.34); the valsartan group had a significantly greater change than the placebo group (P=.011). Maximum wall thickness of the carotid bulb increased with placebo at...