natural treatment for liver disease disease

00:52 hello and welcome to "health for a lifetime"00:54 i'm glad you've joined us, and we hope that today's program00:58 will give you health that lasts for a lifetime,01:00 and to help us with that, is dr. kevin bryant01:04 from wichita, kansas. 01:05 dr. bryant is a specialist in familypractice, 01:09 and one of his real interests is heartdisease. 01:12 is that right? that's correct.01:13 and you know, we have many traditional approaches01:16 to dealing with heart attacks 01:19 and all of these different types ofthings.

01:21 there are lifestyle issues,01:24 and there are things that we could do. 01:26 we can exercise, we can take care ofour bodies, 01:29 but assuming all that has been done,01:31 we've looked at those different things, 01:32 this is really the foundation from whichwe look at 01:36 something like our subject for today.is that right? 01:40 that's correct, and it is importantto remember 01:45 that the lifestyle changes are reallythe most important. 01:48 what we're going to cover today, whilethey may be helpful 01:52 ...attitude, supplements, they don'treplace

01:55 the lifestyle changes that one mightneed to make. 02:00 so, it's also important to rememberthat these 02:04 herbal preparations natural remediesmay, in fact, 02:10 interact with medications that someoneis on, 02:14 so it may be important for them to talkwith their physician, 02:18 and let them know.02:21 we have an optimistic amount of things we're02:23 going to look at today, and we want to give an overview of them02:26 but maybe it would be helpful for you to work through02:28 what we're going to talk about.

02:30 yes, we wanted to look briefly at someof the evidence 02:34 relating to oat bran, look at vitamins,02:38 antioxidants, folic acid, 02:41 and then 2 herbal compounds,02:45 one called "gugulipid" 02:48 gugulipid... i know it's one you don'thear about too often, 02:52 and certainly most americans may nothave heard of it, 02:54 but in india, it's very well-known.02:58 hawthorn berry will be the last one we'll be looking at.03:01 well let's jump into it! let's start out.03:03 i mean, some of this maybe people have heard something03:05 about oat bran, but what can you tell

us about oat bran?03:08 oat bran may not be big news right now; 03:11 a number of years ago, it certainlywas. 03:15 and the story is told of dr. anderson03:18 from the university of kentucky, 03:19 that did the original research, thatwhen he went to 03:22 get a supply of oat bran,03:24 he had marked difficulty even finding it.03:27 it had been milled out in the process of03:31 producing oat products, 03:32 and we thought that it wasn't even auseful item. 03:36 well his research has shown us thatit can be very

03:39 helpful in lowering cholesterol.03:41 it works by going through the intestinal tract;03:46 it's not digested. 03:48 bran is not a digestible food item,03:51 so it goes right on through, 03:52 and as it goes through, it attachesto bile salts. 03:57 bile salts are made by the liver andusually are reabsorbed 04:03 but when they become attached to bran,oat bran in particular, 04:07 it's carried on out of the system,04:09 and thereby, takes cholesterol out of the body...04:13 and that's how it lowers the cholesterol level.04:16 normally we talk about at least 2 ounces

of oat bran04:21 being mixed with food. 04:23 so you sprinkle this on your cereal,04:25 or you do something with it, but get 2 ounces' worth04:27 and then it does the magic of taking stuff out.04:29 it goes on through, and does its work... 04:32 and the interesting studies have showna 04:35 10 to 15% decrease in total cholesterol...04:39 that's rather significant! 04:41 i mean, it seems anyway; what does thatmean? 04:43 if i have my cholesterol that's cutby 10-15% 04:47 what does that mean in terms of my riskfor

04:49 a heart attack or heart disease?04:50 well there are a number of other studies that show us that04:53 for every percent drop in cholesterol, 04:56 a drop in heart disease risk is 2 to3%. 05:02 so a 10-15% drop can be anywhere from30-45%. 05:07 wow... just by sprinkling that oat bran!05:10 it's amazing, something as simple as that.05:13 you told the story about, they didn't even know what it was.05:15 can we find it now in stores; is it readily available?05:18 could you go down to wherever your local supermarket05:21 and say, "give me oat bran,

05:22 and they know what they're talking about?05:24 well, that is an important point because it needs to be05:27 the crude unprocessed oat bran, not just simply oatmeal...05:34 it's oat bran, so that's an important distinction.05:40 you know, that leads into the next thing we want to look at,05:44 and that is the area of vitamins and antioxidants.05:50 another item in nature that is recently being found05:56 to be very important, and particularly there are06:00 2 vitamins that are most studied 06:04 and that's vitamin e, and vitamin c.06:07 and they are called antioxidant vitamins.

06:12 again, they're the vitamins that helpprotect our 06:16 bodies against the harmful effects ofwhat are called 06:19 "free radicals" and these are dangerous06:23 byproducts of our own metabolism; 06:27 sometimes we get it from the environment,06:28 and they can damage our cells. 06:31 so they're sort of like... an antioxidantis kind of like 06:36 a molecule that's gone bizerk.06:38 it's kind of just banging against 06:40 things and messing things up.06:41 right, free radicals are, and the antioxidants 06:45 scavenge those... calm those down orknock them out! 06:48 neutralize them.06:51 are there free radicals that we can

ingest,06:53 or, from the outside, something we eat; 06:55 there are oxidized things we can eat,and then there are 06:58 things inside our own body, is thatwhat you're saying? 07:00 yeah, and one of the major source inamerica today, 07:04 an external consumption of free radicalsis smoking. 07:09 smoking? right07:11 as the cigarette burns, and people inhale that smoke,07:15 there are an overwhelming number of free radicals in that smoke,07:20 that then does its damage. 07:21 i don't think you're suggesting we couldsmoke if we take

07:24 vitamin e or vitamin c though, right?07:26 no, they've looked at that, and found it doesn't protect enough.07:31 okay, so vitamin e, vitamin c, can you just get that in a07:34 supplement form, or is it better to take it in a plant source?07:38 there are plant sources for both of those.07:40 obviously, vitamin c is going to be found high in your07:43 fruits and a lot of your vegetables. 07:46 vitamin e is more in the grains, andsome in the nuts. 07:52 but collectively, in the fruits andvegetables, 07:56 not only are your getting those antioxidantvitamin c and e,

08:02 there are hundreds and thousands ofwhat are called... 08:06 "phytochemicals"08:08 "phyto" is a word that means plant; so plant chemicals08:12 which until just in the last decade or so,08:15 we really didn't understand what they were doing...08:18 and now we're finding out a lot of them are antioxidants.08:22 they're knocking out those bad guys. 08:23 so, is it better... i think what i hearyou saying is... 08:28 if you had a choice between gettinga plant, 08:31 or eating a banana, or eating an apple,or eating a strawberry

08:35 or eating a whatever it is, and buyinga bottle of 08:39 the same thing, you're going to getmore by 08:42 eating it nature's way usually, thanin a bottle, 08:45 because it's just one narrow part ofwhat's in that big 08:49 strawberry!08:51 right, you get a combination of them, and it's important,08:55 why do we need the antioxidants? 08:57 what is it that they're doing?08:59 and that comes back to the issue of cholesterol09:03 and heart disease, and now we know that cholesterol09:07 by itself, until it becomes oxidized,

09:11 or damaged by these free radicals,09:14 is not nearly as dangerous to promoting heart disease,09:18 so it's in an attempt to prevent cholesterol from being damaged09:23 by these free radicals that we need the antioxidants.09:27 so god knew what he was doing when he said eat09:29 plants, fruits, nuts, grains and vegetables. 09:32 yeah, he knew there was a tremendousplentiful supply 09:36 of antioxidants to help prevent that.09:39 what else do you have for us in your pharmacopeia of09:41 natural remedies? 09:43 well, another vitamin that has beenhighlighted now

09:46 just in the last few years, is vitaminb, 09:49 one of the b-complex vitamins, folicacid, 09:52 and where it comes to play is in a newrisk factor that 09:57 has been discovered in the last fewyears for heart disease, 10:00 and that's an amino acid called "homocysteine"10:06 ...that when that amino acid is at too high a level10:11 in our bloodstream, it's been associated with promoting10:15 and causing atherosclerosis... hardening of the arteries,10:20 which leads to heart disease and other strokes10:23 and vascular disease.

10:25 okay, so they can do a lab test andfind out whether 10:27 your homocysteine level is up, if youwant them to now. 10:29 that's true.10:31 folic acid acts on that. right 10:34 folic acid is an important vitamin neededfor our body 10:40 to take the homocysteine,10:42 convert it into another amino acid, 10:45 which is not dangerous...10:47 does not cause the disease process to occur.10:53 are there plant sources, or what should we eat for that?10:58 again, we come back to the fruits and vegetables that are11:01 high sources for the vitamin b6...

11:04 and particularly the legumes, the lentilsand the beans 11:09 are a good source.11:10 so a legume would be what? what's a legume?11:12 legume is beans and lentils. 11:16 it's also in a lot of the green leafyvegetables are good 11:21 sources for it. great!11:24 so, anything else about folic acid you want to share with us?11:28 ...and we were talking about how for every percentage drop11:33 of cholesterol, the heart disease risk drops by 2-3%11:39 with homocysteine, it turns out that for every 1%11:43 drop in your homocysteine level, that

translates to11:47 1% decrease in heart disease. wow! 11:50 and so increasing the folic acid intakeby 400 mcg/day 11:58 which, if someone is getting the 5-9servings of 12:06 fruits and vegetables a day,12:08 they will definitely increase the folic acid level,12:12 and that can drop that homocysteine level12:15 sometimes 20, 30, to 40%; 12:18 translating to 20-40% drop in that person'sheart disease risk 12:24 so, eating, what did you say... 6-9servings of 12:28 fruits and vegetables a day, you wouldn'thave to worry about it.

12:31 it's not like you have to say, "okay,what's my level now?" 12:34 but, should they take a supplement tobe sure, 12:38 or, what do you think?12:40 taking a supplement would be fine. 12:43 i think you're missing out again onall the other 12:46 good things in those fruits and vegetables.12:49 so, in other words, if you eat the fruits, you get all those12:52 thousands of other phyto plant chemicals that help you. right12:56 well, why don't we talk a little bit... 12:58 i think there's another one we wantto get to before 13:00 the break and just introduce it.13:02 l- arginine... what's that all about?

13:04 l- arginine is another amino acid,13:07 interestingly enough, that is important. 13:11 we've just been finding this out inthe last few years 13:15 that is converted in the body in thecells that line the 13:21 inside of the artery.13:22 it's converted into a substance called "nitric oxide"13:26 so that's like that nitroglycerin people 13:28 take a little pill or a little squirt..same thing. 13:31 that causes those coronary arteriesto dilate to open up. 13:35 blood gets through them better...13:36 and wet can get this from a plant source? 13:38 right... we can get it from a plantsource.

13:41 we've been talking with dr. kevin bryant.13:44 when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more13:46 about l-arginine and some more natural remedies for your heart.13:51 we hope that you join us. 14:06 have you found yourself wishing thatyou could shed a few pounds 14:09 have you been on a diet for most ofyour life, 14:12 but not found anything that will reallykeep the weight off? 14:14 if you've answered "yes" to any of thesequestions, 14:17 then we have a solution for you thatworks! 14:20 dr. hans diehl and dr. aileen ludington14:23 have written a marvelous booklet called...

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14:54 call or write today for your free copyof... 14:56 "reversing obesity naturally"14:57 and you could be on your way to a healthier, happier you!15:01 it's absolutely free of charge, so call or write today.15:17 welcome back, we've been talking with dr. kevin bryant15:20 about heart disease. 15:22 we've gone beyond normal medications,15:25 normal treatment for that. 15:26 we've been talking about natural remediesfor heart disease. 15:29 it doesn't take the place of those otherthings 15:31 that the doctor has suggested,15:33 but it is very fascinating; it is very

helpful.15:36 we've talked about oat bran. 15:38 we've talked about certain vitamins...vitamin e and c 15:42 we've talked about antioxidants,15:46 and then we talked about folic acid and l-arginine.15:51 yeah, let's come back to this l- arginine. 15:54 anything else you can tell us aboutit? 15:56 we've said that it vasodilates;15:59 it opens up the blood vessels, 16:00 and that's what you've shared with usfrom a natural source, 16:03 but anything else?16:04 yeah, dr. lerman reported in the journal "circulation" in 1998,16:11 that he studied 26 patients who were

having chest pain,16:15 heart pain, angina pain, but who didn't have16:20 blockages that they thought were causing these heart pains,16:25 so they determined that these patients' coronary arteries,16:29 the arteries supplying blood to the heart, were actually16:32 going into a spasm and cutting 16:35 the circulation off to their heart.16:37 he gave these patients l- arginine 3 grams, 3 x per day16:44 and was able to show that as this was converted16:48 into this nitric oxide, it opened their 16:51 coronary arteries up and increased thecirculation

16:55 150% in those coronary arteries... wow16:59 and their chest pains went away. 17:01 so double the amount of flow, just openedit up! right 17:06 just from a natural source!17:08 so this is really something we should think about17:10 especially if we have heart disease. 17:12 right, i think it's a natural thingthat anyone can do, 17:16 and there are sources in the plant kingdomfor this 17:21 l- arginine... this amino acid can befound in the beans; 17:26 interestingly enough in almonds andblack walnuts, 17:31 and in lentils, soybeans and17:34 in pumpkin kernels are the highest sources.

17:37 pumpkin pie okay? i think it has tobe the kernel. 17:42 and so they are a good source.17:44 now, commercially, they do make 17:46 capsules that have 500 mg of it in there.17:51 so l-arginine is a whole new area of research that we're17:56 finding can improve coronary blood flow and circulation.18:02 we've got quite a few things in 18:04 our shopping cart today, natural remedies.18:05 but, the next one fascinates me, the name is "gugulipid"18:11 gugulipid, yes. this is a whole new area,18:14 i've never heard of gugulipid before. 18:16 if you lived in india, this name wouldnot be so unfamiliar.

18:22 in india this medication is used frequently.18:27 it's an herbal medication, but it's prescribed18:30 by physicians over in india for the treatment of18:34 high cholesterol levels. 18:36 it's taken from the mukul myrrh tree;18:41 it's the resin of that tree that they extract,18:45 they compound gugulipid from. 18:48 now, it does a number of things.18:50 some pretty big words here, 18:53 you're going to have to help us withthis. 18:54 right, it slows down the process ofputting fat in fat cells. 19:02 it helps to stop or slow down the liver'sproduction of

19:08 cholesterol and this is similar to someof the 19:10 prescription drugs that are prescribedin america. 19:14 this is what they do, cholesterol-loweringdrugs 19:17 do this thing; they suppress the19:20 liver's production of cholesterol. 19:22 it helps to stimulate fat coming outof the fat stores. 19:27 it also acts kind of like oat bran inbinding 19:32 to bile acids and taking bile acidsout of the body; 19:36 taking cholesterol out of the body.19:38 so, a number of different ways in which this gugulipid works;19:44 fascinating how it works.

19:47 most of the studies have been done inindia. 19:51 there are some that have been done inamerica, 19:53 and the well-controlled studies showus that it does 19:58 all the right things.19:59 it lowers the bad cholesterol, ldl, by as much as 17%.20:07 it increases the good cholesterol by 14%,20:12 and lowers triglyceride levels 24%. 20:15 wow, these are significant things.20:17 so, i think before we were talking that, 20:20 you know, ldl is the "lousy" type;20:23 and you want that to go down because it's not good for you.20:26 that's the type, you correct me if i'm

wrong, that goes right20:29 into your artery walls and makes them thicken,20:32 and you don't want that. 20:34 right, so lowering that is good.20:36 and then the hdl, the "happy" 20:39 or the "healthy" density lipoprotein.20:43 those are the ones that take away the bad or whatever.20:46 take the cholesterol out of the plaques, 20:50 and so you want that to go up.20:53 this is helping elevate that. 20:55 and then the triglycerides...20:57 does something good with those too. 20:58 that's the fat in the blood that's actuallycirculating. 21:01 that's different than cholesterol.21:03 it's lowering that... okay, it's lowering

that.21:06 now, there's one problem with this, i mean, look at this name21:10 "gugulipid"... i might feel embarrassed telling someone21:13 i'm on gugulipid... how do i get over that?21:16 maybe there's no way! 21:18 well, just remember the last part ofthe name "lipid" 21:21 that's what it's for, to lower the lipids,the fat, 21:24 and the cholesterol in your blood stream.21:26 and, an important thing to bring out at this point is21:32 the importance of what are called standardized doses.21:36 in europe and most of the rest of the

world,21:41 where herbal medications are used considerably more21:44 than they are here, prescribed, in fact, in europe21:48 90% of the time physicians prescribe herbal preparations.21:53 they do a very good job of making sure that the21:58 quality control is there, so that when you read22:02 the amount that's on the bottle, 22:06 that you can be sure it's that amount.22:09 america, to this point in time, has not got22:13 quite the same process of being sure 22:16 that everything is standardized.22:17 one thing that is helpful when you're

looking at22:20 an herbal preparation, and looking at the ingredients in it22:23 if they say "standardized," you can feel better22:28 that they have the quality control to keep that in there.22:32 i mean, you seem to know a lot about these things...22:34 i know that you run a lipid clinic. 22:36 i know that you follow up these peoplethat go through 22:38 the health program that you run severaltimes a year, 22:41 and you look at them on a monthly basis.22:43 but how do we find people like you? 22:45 let's say that i don't live in wichita,kansas,

22:48 or i'm not near someone like that,22:50 how would you go about finding out who it is?22:53 just ask around and see who has an interest? 22:55 talk to your physician, see who theyknow, 22:57 and try and find someone?22:59 actually in the last few years, the area of what's called...23:04 "alternative medicine," herbal medications has become23:07 more and more highlighted in traditional medicine.23:11 so, our american physician is becoming more aware,23:18 and depending on that physician he may have read more.23:21 so talking to your physician, you may

find that he has23:24 an interest in this area, or is willing to at least look into it23:28 are there any side effects for gugulipid? 23:30 that's one of the nice things aboutit, it's very low in 23:34 side effect, and by and large, mostof the herbal preparations 23:40 are low in side effect... not all ofthem. 23:42 and that's why it's helpful to23:43 talk that over with your physician. 23:46 he can find out some unbiased informationabout them, 23:50 and find out, "do they have possibleside effects," 23:53 might they interact with some medicationyou're already on. "

23:58 so, how often should i take it?24:01 let's say i find the standardized type, 24:03 i know it's good; how often do theyusually take it? 24:06 the dosage is considered about 500 mg3 x per day. 24:12 let's go on to our next one.24:14 hawthorn extract. 24:17 we've saved a few minutes here, tellus about this. 24:19 hawthorn berry... well, this is movinginto a 24:23 different area of heart disease.24:25 today there are over 4.7 million americans that have24:31 congestive heart failure. 24:33 that's where the heart gets big, it'snot pumping well.

24:36 it's kind of falling apart.24:37 it's failing as a pump, fluid congests in the lungs.24:42 the person becomes weak, fatigued, 24:44 short of breath when they're walking...24:46 and in europe, one of the primary medications 24:52 used for this is hawthorn berry.24:55 we've know for 200 years that digitalis is helpful24:59 for congestive heart failure. 25:01 it used to be called "dropsy. "25:03 so digitalis is actually taken from the flower of the25:08 foxglove plant, and it's an herbal preparation. 25:12 the problem with digitalis is that itcan be toxic 25:16 if you get too much of it and it doesn'ttake too much.

25:19 hawthorn berry on the other hand isnot as toxic, 25:23 and can be tolerated much better.25:26 so it can do everything that digitalis does well... better!25:30 it can do probably close to its effective as digitalis,25:35 but much less toxic, and in europe they use25:40 it for what's called stage ii heart failure.25:44 there are 4 stages to heart failure, 25:47 and stage ii would be a milder formof heart failure. 25:52 so severe heart failure, they don'tuse it for that, 25:56 but they have shown that it can increasethe heart's

25:59 ability to contract and pump the blood.26:03 and so, they use it in europe frequently either26:09 as a first line, or sometimes adding it to digitalis.26:15 now for anyone listening today that is on digitalis,26:20 digoxin, or lanoxin, you want to be careful about26:24 just going out and getting some of this and adding to it26:26 without talking to your physician because 26:28 it can interact with digitalis sometimes26:31 and raise that level... 26:33 so you need to be working with yourphysician on this. 26:36 so dosage then?26:37 dosage starts at around 100 and can

go up as high26:42 as 900 mg per day... 26:46 usually divided throughout the day 2or 3 different doses. 26:50 is this really something someone thatis not a 26:52 medical doctor should be doing?26:54 i mean thinking through how much they're taking?26:56 i mean, i would feel kind of nervous about that.26:59 in europe, it's prescribed by the physician, 27:04 controlled by the physician... and we'regoing to get there 27:07 in america, you think; we're movingthat way. 27:10 i think that we're moving in that direction.27:13 this hawthorn berry was just highlighted

in one of the27:16 journals that looks at alternative medications, 27:19 so i think more and more physiciansmay be 27:21 becoming aware of its use.27:25 we've been talking with dr. kevin bryant 27:27 he's a specialist in family practice.27:30 we've been talking about natural remedies for the heart.27:34 this is assuming, doctor, that the people that have27:38 been with us had been doing all the right things27:40 in terms of lifestyle; they've 27:42 been following through with their physicians.27:43 you've given us some really tangible things to think about;27:47 some alternatives to try;

27:50 things that don't have side effectsthat have been 27:52 produced as god would have them.27:54 we hope that this has been helpful to you,27:56 and that as a result, you'll have health that lasts27:59 for a lifetime!