How to Live to be 100
New Year
This article was first published in Health View, January 2004.
It is a new year. The more things change the more they stay the same. We change our medication and our waistlines stay the same. We change our exercise program and we end up not losing weight. There are so many paradoxes in what we do. Time Magazine says something is good and then Reader's Digest says it is bad. Where do we go? Whom do we believe?
The best bet is the Bible. It has so many good health tips. It tells us in Genesis 1:29 that we are designed to be vegetarians. It tells us in Leviticus not to eat fat or blood. In Matthew chapter six Jesus tells us to give, to fast and not to worry. That about sums it up...
But you say, "Come on Doc, give us some news we can use!" So I will give you a few tips that anybody can do.
Presently the "statin" drugs are king of the hill in medicine. Lipitor is over a six billion dollar a year drug, and there is now one on the market that is said to be even better. Crestor is said to be able to lower the bad cholesterol in half with only a small 10mg dose. This is astounding. We are being told both as physicians and patients that almost everybody should be on the drugs.
However, there are a few concerns that nobody is talking about. The same pathway that is blocked by these drugs to prevent cholesterol synthesis is also the path that the body uses to make something called coenzyme Q-10. I have written about this before. I am befuddled by the lack of people to see how serious a threat this is to their health. Coenzyme Q-10 is known to prevent Parkinson's disease—a disease of slow and progressive brain degeneration.
If you are on a statin drug, you need to think hard about supplementing Coenzyme Q-10. It has become very affordable. I recommend 100mg a day, but if there is a family history of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease or macular degeneration then I suggest taking up to 400mg a day. If you shop around you can get that dosage for about a dollar a day.
I do prescribe a considerable amount of statin drugs, but I almost always encourage the patient to protect themselves from the significant side effects of the statin drugs by taking CoQ-10.
Another directive by the "evidence based" medicine people is that everybody who takes aspirin should also be on Plavix to protect them from heart attack. The studies show a thirteen percent improvement of the combination over the aspirin itself. One has to treat nearly a hundred people for one event to be "prevented." The cost of preventing that event (a mild stroke to a sudden cardiac death) is something like $120,000 a year! We now are ahead of the "evidence base" and can test to see which patients are not protected by aspirin. The test is called the "platelet aggregation test." It has a wholesale cost of $20. We know that only one in five patients is not fully protected by aspirin alone. We can now check those patients and only give the plavix—or some other medication or supplement—to the twenty percent who need it. This program saves $96,000 a year and gives everybody the best outcome!
And remember, fish oil is a very effective anti-platelet drug. I would venture to say that even if you were aspirin resistant, if you were taking fish oil your platelet aggregation test would show that you are very well protected. Fish oil is a lot cheaper than Plavix.
Also, take your multivitamin. Make sure it has at least 400 micrograms of folic acid. Only take iron if you are still menstruating or if your doctor says you need it. Consume a calcium-magnesium supplement and as long as the sun rises in the east, take your natural vitamin E every day.
Lastly, cook healthier. Using our recipes is a good start. These recipes are tested in the Richey Culinary Works and are designed to add years to your life.
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