B Vitamins: Essential for Good Health

The B vitamin connection

If you’re at risk for heart disease – or have even been diagnosed with it – you’re probably very concerned about your cholesterol level. You can hardly turn on your radio, pick up a magazine or watch TV without being bombarded, not only by information about cholesterol and heart disease, but also by hundreds of ads for prescription medications promising to lower your cholesterol.

Cholesterol may have less to do with heart disease than you think

Consider this: If heart attacks are caused by high-fat, high-cholesterol diets, why do many heart attack victims have normal cholesterol levels? Also, French cuisine is notoriously rich in fat and cholesterol, but the French have less than half the heart attacks per capita in North America.

Highly regarded physician and scientist, Dr.Kilmer McCully asked himself the same thing.

Realizing that the cholesterol theory of heart disease had never been proven – even after 85 years of research – Dr. McCully began to look for a different explanation. Beginning in 1968 and continuing throughout his practice and professorship at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. McCully developed a new scientific explanation for the cause of clogged arteries. His theory was revolutionary because it presented elevated homocysteine concentrations in the blood as the unrecognized cause of heart disease and arteriosclerosis.

What is homocysteine?

Homocysteine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in your body as it processes protein. According to Dr. McCully:

For many years, clogged arteries were thought to be the cause of heart disease, but the clogging itself only comes about as a result of the damage caused by homocysteine. The theory has been assessed in several scientific studies.

It is now widely acknowledged by scientists that pure cholesterol does not cause arteriosclerosis and that elevation of blood cholesterol is a symptom, not a cause of heart disease.

Your diet is a critical part of the equation

You may be asking yourself: If cholesterol is a symptom, rather than a cause of heart disease, why aren’t the French in the same boat?

The answer lies in our Western diet and poor lifestyle habits. Think about all the fast food restaurants, convenience stores filled with junk food, or even the processed foods that sit on the shelves of every grocery store – this food has little or no nutritional value. Yet, it has become a part of the lifestyle in North America, whereas in France, this junk food is only beginning to make its way into their cuisine.

Our fast-food mindset – combined with the depletion of vital minerals in our soil – has led to multiple deficiencies of essential nutrients. And due to our poor health choices, North Americans are generally depleted of the essential B vitamins.

Without B vitamins, homocysteine becomes toxic and damages your artery walls

Other factors, of course, can increase homocysteine in your blood, including your genetic background, certain drugs, aging, hormonal changes such as menopause, smoking, how little you exercise, diabetes and high blood pressure.

You can’t control all these things, but you can do something about your diet. The American Heart Association strongly advises patients at high risk for heart disease “to get enough folic acid and vitamins B-6 and B-12 in their diet. They should eat at least five servings of fruits and green, leafy vegetables daily.”

Don’t ignore your cholesterol

Even though cholesterol buildup is a symptom and not a cause of heart disease, it’s still important for you to monitor your cholesterol intake. Doctors and nutritionists consistently recommend that you decrease your level of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol, and increase your high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the “good” cholesterol in the blood.

And they are right! LDL is indeed bad for you…because it is the vehicle for homocysteine. A high level of LDL is correctly associated with a higher risk of heart disease because it delivers the damaging homocysteine to the artery walls. The less LDL you have in your system, the less homocysteine reaches your artery walls.

Doctors and scientists have applied all their knowledge, talent and resources into fighting heart disease – they’ve developed dietary guidelines, exercise regimes and even cholesterol reducing drugs.

Heart disease remains the number one killer in this country!

The question you have to ask yourself is why, with all the extensive and exhaustive research being applied to fight heart disease, are we not winning the war against it?

Cut your risk of heart disease by controlling the real culprit, homocysteine

Eat five servings of fresh fruits and vegetables a day, and augment your diet with a high-quality supplement like Super Sublingual B-12 from TriVita. Super Sublingual B-12 can help you win the war against heart disease.