This article is intended to be an introduction to dietary health supplements and is not in any way intended to be, nor should it be taken as, medical advice. If you have a health issue, you should always seek the advice of a health care practitioner.
To ensure that we start off correctly, I think that it is important to understand the difference between dietary health supplements and vitamins.
The term ‘vitamin’ first became popular in the early nineteenth century as a combination of the words ‘vital’ and ‘mineral’. A compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by the body, and must be obtained from the diet. The term vitamin does not include other essential nutrients such as dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids, nor does it encompass the large number of other nutrients that promote health but are otherwise required less often
There are an almost infinite amount of dietary supplements and we shall be covering only the ones that:
a) Claim to be heart healthy or curative
b) Are very popular or widely acclaimed
Omega-3 Fatty Acids
These healthy fats have emerged as the runaway heart-helpers, with numerous studies showing they can help reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and atherosclerosis and subsequently the need for heart bypass surgery. If you’ve had a heart attack, omega-3s appear to reduce the risk of suffering another one. Fish oil is by far the best supplement source of omega-3s.
CoQ10
At this point, there are no complete, sure bets with CoQ10. It is suspected to be beneficial in numerous applications, most notably heart-related damage, but until additional larger, longer and better-controlled studies are performed, no one can say for sure.
Currently, however, CoQ10 has shown the most definitive benefits in treating hypertension, or high blood pressure. People with high blood pressure have been shown to have less CoQ10 than normal, and CoQ10 has been shown to reduce high blood pressure in early research. The treatment of hypertension is the only CoQ10 application that has so far received a “B” rating, meaning there is good, solid scientific evidence that Co Q 10 may be helpful.
Green Tea
There are claims that the benefits of green tea include a lot of healing and preventive processes that cater to diseases like cancer, heart disease,rheumatoid arthritis, infections, impaired immune functions, and cardiovascular diseases.
The claims also suggest the benefits of green tea also help to alleviate problems with high cholesterol and improve the overall cholesterol level in the body.
It is further claimed that by drinking recommended amounts of green tea, the human body is cleansed from toxins that may cause a lot of health problems.
In 1994 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the results of an epidemiological study indicating that drinking green tea reduced the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by nearly sixty percent.
University of Purdue researchers recently concluded that a compound found in green tea inhibits the growth of cancer cells.
There is also research indicating that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the cholesterol ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol.
Here are just a few medical conditions in which drinking green tea is reputed to be helpful, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, high cholesterol levels, cardiovascular disease, infections and impaired immune function.
Alpha-Lipoic Acid
According to State Canadian researchers in the November 2003 issue of The Journal of Nutrition, Alpha-lipoic acid has been identified as a powerful antioxidant that is found naturally in our diets, but it appears to have increased functional capacity when given as a supplement in the form of a natural or synthetic isolate. They also noted that Alpha-Lipoic Acid supplements may help to prevent cardiovascular risk factors such as LDL oxidation and high blood pressure.
Aged Garlic
Garlic has been found to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol, blood pressure, and plaque formation. One study at the University of California found that 200 mg of aged garlic extract taken daily lowered heart attack risk by 65%.
A study from December 2008 examined the effects of a standard garlic supplement versus a placebo in 42 men with hypercholesterolemia. By the end of the 12 week trial, the garlic supplement group reduced total cholesterol levels by a mean average of 7.6% and 11.5% more than the placebo group.
The LDL (”bad”) cholesterol fell by almost 14%. The participants HDL (”good”) cholesterol rose by almost 12%. The dosage found to be most effective was 600 mg a day.
A 2007 experiment examined the effects of garlic supplementation in a total of 112 volunteers. Half of the men and women were diagnosed with heart disease, the remainder were described as having at least “one or more risk factors of cardiovascular pathology”. The exact figures of this Russian study weren’t available, but the summary states that 6 months of garlic supplementation resulted in a “moderate hypolipidemic” (cholesterol lowering) and “antioxidant effect”.
The researchers concluded that people with pre-existing cardiovascular disease would likely benefit in both the short and long term from a dosage of 600 mg daily. 300 mg was the recommended dosage for those with at least one risk factor, but who lack clinical diagnosis of heart disease.
In April 2009, a review of garlic’s role in the management of high cholesterol was published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and Therapeutics. This meta-analysis looked at 13 clinical trials that included over 1,000 participants. The authors of the study summarized their findings in the following way: “The available evidence from randomized controlled trials does not demonstrate any beneficial effects of garlic on serum cholesterol”.
Resveratrol
Resveratrol is claimed to be a key ingredient that helps prevent damage to blood vessels, reduces “bad” cholesterol and prevents blood clots.
Most research conducted with resveratrol has been conducted on animals, not people.
Research in mice given resveratrol has indicated that the antioxidant might also help protect them from obesity and diabetes, both of which are strong risk factors for heart disease. However, those findings were reported only in mice, not in people. In addition, to get the same dose of resveratrol used in the mice studies, a person would have to consume 100 to 1,000 bottles of red wine a day, which is why supplementation would be required to achieve such benefit.
Some research shows that resveratrol could be linked to a reduced risk of inflammation and blood clotting, both of which can lead to heart disease, but more research is needed before it can be confirmed whether resveratrol was the cause for the reduced risk.
Here is a summary from The Linus Pauling Institute:
Resveratrol is a polyphenolic compound found in grapes, red wine, purple grape juice, peanuts, and some berries.
When taken orally, resveratrol appears to be well-absorbed by humans, but its bioavailability is relatively low because it is rapidly metabolized and eliminated.
Scientists became interested in exploring potential health benefits of resveratrol when its presence was reported in red wine, leading to speculation that resveratrol might help explain the “French Paradox.”
Moderate alcohol consumption has been consistently associated with 20-30% reductions in coronary heart disease risk, but it is not yet clear whether red wine polyphenols, such as resveratrol, confer any additional risk reduction.
Although resveratrol can inhibit the growth of cancer cells in culture and in some animal models, it is not known whether high intakes of resveratrol can prevent cancer in humans.
Resveratrol administration has increased the lifespans of yeast, worms, fruit flies, fish, and mice fed a high-calorie diet, but it is not known whether resveratrol will have similar effects in humans.
At present, relatively little is known about the effects of resveratrol in humans.
The French paradox does seem to lend some weight to the argument. The paradox is the observation that the French appear to suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats. The term French paradox was first coined in 1992 by Dr. Serge Renaud, a scientist from Bordeaux University in France.
Nattokinase
Nattokinase has been the subject of more than 17 studies, including two small human trials.
Researchers from Biotechnology Research Laboratories and JCR Pharmaceuticals Co. of Kobe, Japan, have tested its ability to dissolve a thrombus in the carotid arteries of rats. Animals that were treated with nattokinase regained 62 percent of blood flow, whereas those treated with plasmin regained just 15.8 percent.
Researchers from JCR Pharmaceuticals, Oklahoma State University, and Miyazaki Medical College tested nattokinase on 12 healthy Japanese volunteers (six men and six women, between the ages of 21 and 55). They gave the volunteers 200 grams of natto before breakfast, then tracked fibrinolytic activity through a series of blood plasma tests. The tests indicated that the natto generated a heightened ability to dissolve blood clots. On average, the volunteers’ ELT (a measure of how long It takes to dissolve a blood clot) dropped by 48 percent within two hours of treatment.
Volunteers also retained an enhanced ability to dissolve blood clots for two to eight hours. As a control procedure, researchers later fed the same amount of boiled soybeans to the same volunteers and tracked their fibrinolytic activity. These tests showed no significant change.
Conclusion:
Nattokinase is a particularly potent treatment because it enhances the body’s natural ability to fight blood clots in several different ways.
Additional benefits Include the convenience of oral administration, confirmed efficacy, prolonged effects, cost effectiveness, and the fact that it can be used preventatively. It is a naturally occurring dietary supplement that has demonstrated stability in the gastrointestinal tract.
The properties of nattokinase closely resemble those properties of plasmin in that it also dissolves fibrin directly. More importantly, it enhances the body’s production of both plasmin and other clot-dissolving agents.
Nattokinase may actually be superior to conventional clot-dissolving drugs such as recombinant tissue plasminogen activators (rt-PA), urokinase, and streptokinase, which are only effective therapeutically when taken intravenously within 12 hours of a stroke or heart attack.
Nattokinase, however, may help prevent the conditions leading to blood clots with a dose of only 2,000 fibrin units or 50 grams, of natto per day.
Terminalia Arjuna
Terminalia arjuna is a medicinal plant of the genus Terminalia, widely used by Ayurvedic physicians for its curative properties in people with heart problems including angina, hypertension and deposits in arteries.
Research suggests that Terminalia is useful in alleviating the pain of angina pectoris and in treating heart failure and coronary artery disease.
Terminalia may also be useful in treating hypercholesterolemia. The cardio protective effects of terminalia are thought to be produced by the antioxidant nature of several of the constituent flavonoids and oligomeric proanthocyanidins, while positive inotropic effects may be caused by the saponin glycosides.
There are documented studies on humans which appear to be sufficient enough to confirm the theraputic benfits of this dietary health supplement.
Pycnogenol
The extract has four basic properties – it’s a powerful antioxidant, acts as a natural anti-inflammatory, selectively binds to collagen and elastin, and finally, it aids in the production of endothelial nitric oxide which helps to dilate blood vessels.
There is a large amount of clinical trial information that appears to support the efficiency of this dietary health supplement with particular emphasis on heart health.
Supplements often undergo clinical trials and more so as they become more popular. This will mean that although every care has been taken to detail the current information accurately, as new trials are undertaken, some of this information may become redundant.
written by HealthyLiving
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