LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

triglycerides

NORMAL FASTING PLASMA GLUCOSE LEVELS – (11-07-05)

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Normal Fasting Plasma Glucose Levels and Type 2 Diabetes in Young Men

Remember that progression to diabetes is a continuum–a patient is not normal on Thurs and then diabetic on Friday when their labs finally tip over to abnormal. I can’t tell you how many patients come through my office with elevated triglycerides, low HDL, elevated LDL, hypertension, abdominal obesity and strong family history of diabetes and CVD, and tell me that they’re not diabetic because their family doc checked “that.” If physicians learned what to look for, we could be catching these patients literally DECADES before they get a diagnosis of diabetes or have their first heart attack, and starting them on a lifestyle management program. But alas, the status quo prevails…

Read entire article here

EFFECTS OF PRAVASTATIN ON HUMAN HEALTH – (07-11-05)

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Pravastatin does not affect insulin sensitivity and adipocytokines levels in healthy nondiabetic patients

This article just says it all.  I continue to preach that doctors who ignore elevated triglycerides  and the group of other findings in patients with elevated insulin, and just focus on the cholesterol with statin drugs, should be guilty of malpractice.  Period.  There is no excuse.  NONE.  And yet I see it time and time again in my practice.  So, the patient comes in with a neon sign over their head screaming insulin resistance, and their doctor only sees the high total cholesterol and gives them a statin drug.  This allows the hyper insulinemia to wreak havoc on every organ system unchecked.

Read entire article here

 

MECHANISM AND SAFETY ASPECTS TO CONTROL BLOOD CHOLESTEROL – (07-18-05)

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Plant Stanol and Sterol Esters in the Control of Blood Cholesterol Levels: Mechanism and Safety Aspects

Even though this title should surprise no one, the real shocker here is a cardiology journal dedicating AN ENTIRE ISSUE to this subject.  Safe, effective and dirt cheap when compared with statin drugs and yet we hear virtually nothing from mainstream media on this topic.  And yet statin drugs are handed out like candy based on recommendations to lower cholesterol levels below 200 mg/dl.

These recommendations, however, come with a whole littany of dangerous side effects when approached using statins.  Cholesterol levels really are pretty easy to drop (not to be confused w/ the elevated triglycerides seen w/ metabolic syndrome) and there are literally hundreds of natural products and foods that will bring levels down w/o side effects.

Read entire article here

ERRORS FROM TC/HDL C RATIO RISKS VASCULAR DISEASE – (07-17-06)

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Errors that result from using the TC/HDL C ratio rather than the apoB/apoA-I ratio to identify the lipoprotein-related risk of vascular disease

Wow. Sometimes we really hit articles that remind us how far we can fall behind in the research. Most physicians are still blissfully making clinical decisions based entirely on total cholesterol. Some even take HDL into account. Smaller still are the physicians recognizing the risk that triglycerides/HDL ratio play. So, while most physicians are decades behind using tri/HDL ratios, research is finding that apoB/apo A-1 ratios are much, much stronger at predicting CVD risk. Just when mainstream medicine might have been catching up…

Read entire article here

DAILY EXERCISE IS FIRST REQUIREMENT TO STAY HEALTHY – (02-27-06)

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Exercise and postprandial lipemia: effect of continuous compared with intermittent activity patterns

We’re always trying to look for that absolute minimum amount of exercise we need to do to stay healthy, and that answer seem to be slowly coalescing. Daily is the first requirement.

This study adds to this, finding that short bursts of exercising throughout the day is just as effective as one 30 min session at lowering triglycerides in the bloodstream after a meal. Yet another reason to take the stairs or park as far away from the building as possible.

Read entire article here

4 Sneaky Tactics to Keep Meds for High Trigylceride Expensive

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Tricor is a medication commonly used to “treat” high triglyceride levels.  Clearly, this discussion should be a moot point because the appropriate anti-diabetic lifestyle choices WILL slash high cholesterol and trigylcerides, but alas, it is not.  Abbott labs holds the patent for Tricor, which was approved in 1993.  Generics should’ve been available as early as 2000, but the sneaky tactis employed by Abbott kept this from happening.

Before we go into the details, let me again reiterate that the vast majority of lipid problems (high total cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides) are caused by a prediabetic lifestyle.  While few patients are told this, the research leaves little room for doubt.  If you have lipid problems, it is highly likely you are on your way to diabetes.

Luckily, for those of you who have no patience and want to get the process over with and just progress directly to diabetes without passing go, the statin class of drugs given to help lower cholesterol can assist.  Yes–It is now accepted that the statin class of drugs given to people with high cholesterol because they are prediabetic actually causes diabetes.

For those of you wanting to slow down and actually pass go and collect your $200, lifestyle is absolutely powerful enough to bring your blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides back to their youthful levels.  Simple changes like:

  1. As little as 9 minutes of burst type aerobic activity per week
  2. Cutting back on portion sizes and calories anywhere you can
  3. Cutting out processed foods
  4. Stop drinking your calories

The full list can be found here.

Should these changes prove too cumbersome and you’d prefer the medical route, you at least need to understand why Tricor remains an expensive drug.

Through it’s course of maintaining control over the brand name and squashing generics, this particular article outlines the sneaky tactic Abbot has employed.  These include:

  1. In 2000, Abbott filed a patent infringement suit, which legally delayed the approval of a generic by 30 months or until the litigation was resolved, protecting Tricor-1 from competition
  2. Eighteen months later, Abbott won approval for a new formulation (Tricor-2) based only on different mg dosages in the tablet
  3. Six months after approval, Tricor-2 accounted for 97% of fenofibrate prescriptions.  It is believed that Abbott pushed sales of the newly patented drug by destroying supplies of the Tricor-1
  4. In late 2002, Abbott again filed patent infringement complaints, postponing the approval of a generic Tricor-2 for another 30 months

The story goes on, but you get the idea.

Lest you think this is an isolated situation, similiar stories are almost commonplace in the pharamceutical industry.  So, the next time you hear someone claims that adding chiropractic care to a health plan will drive up the cost…just remember that we play NO part in the drug shenanigans.

What have you had to give up because the cost of your prescription medications have been so high?

RISKS OF CHOLESTEROL IN CORONARY HEART DISEASE – (04-30-07)

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Non–High-Density Lipoprotein and Very-Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol and their Risk Predictive Values in Coronary Heart Disease

Invariably, when I give a presentation to a group in the community, maybe 1 out of 20 know their lipids outside of total cholesterol. The reality is, you absolutely, positively CANNOT appropriately manage elevated lipids without knowing where your HDL, VLDL and triglycerides are. And yet PCP and Internists still look at lipids with blinders on and will aggressively treat patients based on total cholesterol alone.

And yet here, researchers found NO association between elevated LDL and CVD risk. Good thing the only bad thing that happens from statin drug use is fatal rhabdomyolysis.

Read entire article here

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TOTAL CHOLESTEROL, TRIGLYCERIDE AND HDL SUBCLASSES – (01-15-07)

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Relationship between total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio, triglyceride/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio, and high-density lipoprotein sub classes

While this study does not really add anything new (we already know that as triglycerides goes up due to insulin resistance then HDL will go down) it is a nice refresher to remind us that HDL has subclasses.  The HDL2 subfraction is generally considered the most protective, and in this study, the authors found that, as triglyceride ratios changed for the worse, the HDL subclasses moved towards the “less friendly” type.

Read entire article here