The Pharmaco-Nutritional Solution for Those Suffering from Heart Disease

For those who will not or cannot alter their diets and are afraid of heart disease, there is pharmaco-nutrition. The pharmaco-nutritional approach starts by analyzing the many steps of the disease process, and then puts in place a support pro­gram of micro- and phyto-nutrients designed to rectify every one of the identified metabolic weaknesses.

In the case of vascular disease, this is relatively straightforward. The inflammation in blood vessel walls can be reduced by increas­ing the intake of the key anti-inflammatory agents, the flavonoids. These important compounds, which are found in foods such as berries and citrus fruits, and in wine and tea, have a set of properties 'designed' to normalize blood vessel function. They are antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, and are selectively taken up into the walls of the blood vessels. Once there they switch off inflammation, shutting down the synthesis and release of inflammatory mediators.

They also block the effects of enzymes in the walls of the arteries that cause constriction, and stimulate the synthesis of compounds that make the arteries dilate.

Accordingly, the short-term result of flavonoid therapy is the well-documented restoration of the arteries' ability to respond to vasodilators such as acetylcholine. A gradual lowering (normalization) of blood pressure follows, as the inflammation in the walls of the arteries calms down, enabling the vessels to relax and open up and, in the longer term, there is a stabilization of atheroma for­mation. At the same time, the flavonoids are making the blood platelets less sticky and less reactive, thus reducing the risk of blood clots.

This cloud of vaso- and cardio-protective effects is so con­siderable and so coordinated that you would imagine that the flavonoids must be vitamins - and in fact their discoverer, the great Hungarian biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi who won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for his work on vitamin C, originally identified the flavonoids as vitamin P.

Following Szent-Gyorgyi's discovery the pharmaceutical com­panies brought out a range of medicines containing vitamin P, but by the 1960s most had disappeared. Vitamin P could not be patented, and because nobody knew what P was, how best to measure it or even whether it was a single compound or a group of related compounds, the drug industry found it almost impossible to produce standardized and reliable products.

Incidentally, the statins - a class of drug which are now being sold almost like sweets over the counter in some pharmacies -and which were originally thought to protect against heart attacks by reducing cholesterol, have now been found to act as anti-inflammatory agents. In this respect they are just like flavonoids, but far more expensive and very much more prone to causing toxic reactions.

You would be unwise, however, to rely exclusively on either flavonoids or statins for protection. This is because if you live a Western lifestyle, your arteries may well be inflamed - but many other elements in your metabolism are also awry.

T.J. Pedley, "The Fluid Mechanics of Large Blood Vessels" Amazon