The adhesiveness of blood cells known as platelets, which clump together to initiate a clot, can be markedly reduced in a few hours by giving coronary patients pure linolenic acid-less than a half teaspoon-linseed or soy oil rich in this essential fatty acid. As little as 1 tablespoon of linseed oil or 2 tablespoons of soy oil daily prevented the tendency of the blood to clot, but a half cup of com or safflower oil, rich in linoleic acid, had little or no effect. The linolenic acid had to be continued, however, to prevent abnormal adhesiveness from returning. The oils in whole-wheat breads and cereals, peanuts, and other nuts also supply linolenic acid.
Such a finding indicates that nutrients necessary to change linoleic acid into linolenic acid may be lacking in the diets of coronary patients; and it may explain why some populations have severe atherosclerosis but no coronary thrombosis.
Vitamin C And Clotting
Spontaneous breaks in capillary walls are the first signs of a vitamin-C deficiency; and clots form most readily at the point where a blood vessel has been broken, severed, or mashed. An undersupply of Vitamin C, therefore, is a major cause of heart attacks and strokes initiated by clots.
As fatty substances are deposited in the arterial walls, they damage the tissues and progressively increase the danger of breaking unless vitamin C is continuously adequate. Simultaneously, atherosclerosis creates a condition of stress, skyrocketing the need for vitamin C; hence a break may occur and a disastrous clot form even when the vitamin-C intake appears sufficient. The stress of anger, fear, keen disappointment, and similar emotions can cause blood fat and cholesterol to soar in minutes, but if the diet is adequate, particularly in vitamin C and pantothenic acid, this reaction to stress may do little harm.
Vitamin E And Heart Disease
A lack of vitamin E allows cells to break down because essential fatty acids, are destroyed by oxygen in its absence ; hence clots form readily. Adequate vitamin E strengthens the capillary walls and thus decreases clotting. When 100 coronary patients given only 200 milligrams of vitamin E daily were compared with an equal number not receiving the vitamin, the latter experienced four times more heart attacks caused by clots. Similarly, 457 such patients had no clots while taking vitamin E compared to 23 clots suffered by 246 patients not allowed the vitamin. It is because vitamin E markedly reduces the need for oxygen that it is particularly valuable for all persons with heart disease. In coronary insufficiency, for example, oxygen starvation is a major problem. Moreover, death from a heart attack, whether a coronary thrombosis or occlusion, results from oxygen deprivation. When ample vitamin E is obtained, so much less of the heart tissue is destroyed that a patient may survive an attack which otherwise might have proved fatal.
Experiments in oxygen starvation are clearly too dangerous to be conducted on coronary patients. Healthy volunteers, however, given 300 milligrams of vitamin E daily, have been compared to persons not receiving the vitamin when all breathed an air mixture so low in oxygen that they lost consciousness. Persons receiving vitamin E had more normal electrocardiograms, lost consciousness much less quickly, and had far less rapid pulse, showing that their hearts did not have to work as hard. The electrocardiograms of individuals not given the vitamin revealed drastic changes.
Animals undersupplied with vitamin E have abnormal electrocardiograms, and their hearts show degeneration of the muscles, massive scarring, and accumulations of brown pigment characteristic of this vitamin deficiency. These same changes are found in persons with coronary disease, and/or in autopsy studies of individuals who have died from heart attacks. Analyses of their tissues show marked deficiencies of vitamin E. Moreover, the death rate from heart disease is greatest among persons whose requirement for vitamin E is unusually high: men during the reproductive age, women after the menopause, and all obese individuals.
Vitamin E strengthens the heart muscles, and its action is said to be similar to that of digitalis. Many physicians believe that its effectiveness in preventing clots from forming rivals that of the anticoagulant drugs; and while the vitamin is never toxic, such drugs have frequently caused fatal hemorrhaging.
At times vitamin E also acts as a diuretic, ridding the body of surplus water and decreasing elevated blood pressure, probably by stimulating the output of pituitary hormones . Patients given 600 units of vitamin E or more daily after having heart attacks have experienced marked relief, improved electrocardiograms, decrease in pain; more regular pulse, and have been able to take more exercise than before they received the vitamin.
Because oils tremendously increase the need for vitamin E, all types of heart disease are made worse by adding oils to the diet unless vitamin E is adequate. Unfortunately, many physicians now recommend that heart patients increase their oil intake without giving vitamin E, and even believe oils to be an adequate source of this vitamin. Most oils supply only 10 units of d-alpha tocopherol per half cup, go per cent of which may be destroyed during cooking; hence 15 to 30 cups of fresh oil daily would be needed to furnish the amount of vitamin E found most helpful in restoring the health of coronary patients. The only way to obtain sufficient vitamin E is from capsules.
Author Resource:
David Crawford is the CEO and owner of a Male Enhancement Reviews company known as Male Enhancement Group which is dedicated to researching and comparing male enhancement products in order to determine which male enhancement product is safer and more effective than other products on the market. Copyright 2010 David Crawford of http://www.maleenhancementgroup.com This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.
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