A Hearty Dose of Calcium???

March 12, 2010

Institute For Medical Wellness Healthy Living Report

A Hearty Dose of Calcium???

Everyone always asks, Hey Doc, What type of calcium supplement should I take? You know, I don't want to have weak bones or Osteoporosis.

But does calcium supplementation help you or hurt you?

To answer this question we need to go back to a term mentioned a while back in an older, more ancient newsletter. The term or concept is called NNT, or number needed to treat. This is, to me, a very valuable statistic. It tells me how many people we need to treat to help or to hurt one person? I then convert that number into a percentage to see the actual percentage of people helped, or hurt, by a treatment.

Here is an example:

If 11 people have strep throat, and I give an antibiotic to all 11, on average, 10 people will be cured and 1 will not. The NNT is 10/11, or a 91% success rate. In healthcare, that is pretty good odds, especially for a treatment that is very safe.

Before I get to calcium, let me provide another NNT, this time for one of my favorites, the cholesterol drug Lipitor. Lipitor has an NNT of 100 to prevent one cardiovascular event. So it helps 1 out of every 100 people who take it, or 1%. I'll bet that is not what you see or hear on the television advertisements.

Now let us look at NNT for calcium supplementation in a few different ways.

Over five years,to prevent one symptomatic fracture in one person, we need to give calcium supplementation to 50 people. That is an NNT of 50, which means 1 out of 50 or 2% of people may benefit. That also means 98% do not!

Now, can calcium cause any problems?

In the above population, the NNT of individuals who took calcium supplementation over 5 years and went on to have a heart attack, otherwise known as an MI, or myocardial infarction, a coronary, or acute coronary syndrome, or coronary thrombosis .............

Sorry bout that! I sometimes get carried away!

The NNT of individuals who took calcium supplementation and went on to have a heart attack was 44. This means that 1 out of 44 individuals or 2.3% went on to have heart attacks. Here is another study on Vitamin D, calcium and prevention of cardiovascular events.

Things that make me go Hmmm!!!

2% of people benefit from calcium by not developing a symptomatic fracture, while 2.3% had a heart attack. More had heart attacks than prevention of fractures.

I do not exactly like those odds ; (

So the benefit of calcium supplementation appears to be overblown!

But I can still take one of those Osteoporosis drugs to prevent my bones from weakening. They will help because I trust Sally Fields!!! Sally would not lie to me!!

Full disclosure time: The only movie I ever liked with Sally Fields was Smokey and the Bandit. But that was a long, long time ago!!!

Below are the NNT's for prevention of hip fractures over 3 years for 3 common Osteoporosis drugs, as well as for low dose Vitamin D supplementation and hormone replacement therapy.

1. Risedronate (Actonel): 77
2. Alendronate (Fosamax): 91
3. Zoledronic Acid (Reclast): 91
4. Vitamin D 800 IU daily: 45
5. Hormone Replacement Therapy: 385

The lower the number, the better.

It appears that low dose Vitamin D was twice as effective as Fosamax or Reclast.

My suggestion.

Eat a well balanced diet, low in processed carbohydrates, with an abundance of colorful vegetables, meats, chicken, fish and eggs. Throw in some nuts, butter and olive oil. Get some summer sunshine for Vitamin D, or take a Vitamin D supplement.

And "just say No", to calcium supplements and Osteoporosis drugs!


To Good Health!


Steven Horvitz, D.O,
Board Certified Family Practice
Founder of The Institute For Medical Wellness
128 Borton Landing Road, Suite Two
Moorestown, NJ 08057
Phone 856-231-0590
Fax 856-294-0311
www.drhorvitz.com

President Clinton and Heart Disease

February 12, 2010

President Clinton and Heart Disease

With Presidents Day just a few days away, former President Bill Clinton is not celebrating. Unfortunately, he is having heart issues again. About six years after having quadruple bypass surgery, he went back to the operating room. This time he avoided open heart surgery, but did have 2 cardiac stents placed to open a blocked artery. I wish him well and a speedy recovery. But I also hope he does not listen to the advice I heard from the media pundits and television docs. These TV docs have decided to blame the former president's high cholesterol levels as the cause of his recent heart trouble. Furthermore they advise that he go on cholesterol reducing medications to lower his risk of further problems.

But before we condemn cholesterol, perhaps we should first understand the role of cholesterol in our bodies. Cholesterol performs many important functions in the body including:

*forming and maintaining cell walls and structures
*helping cells adjust to changes in temperature, as well as being used by nerve cells for insulation.
*Cholesterol is also essential for synthesizing a number of critical hormones, including testosterone, progesterone and estrogen.
*Bile, a fluid produced by the liver from cholesterol, aids in the processing and digestion of fats.
*My favorite vitamin, Vitamin D, is made from cholesterol and sunlight.

It sometimes makes me want to bang my head against a wall that the majority of doctors still believe that the lowering of cholesterol, by pharmaceutical means, is helpful.

Why???

I'll tell you. While cholesterol is present in cardiac blockages, so are other inflammatory substances. A very important, but not well known fact is that heart disease is influenced by many factors other than cholesterol including:

*age
*gender
*smoking
*physical inactivity
*obesity
*low serum antioxidant levels
*elevated levels of inflammatory substances
*among many other more technical factors.

But we do not always hear much about these!! All we ever hear about is cholesterol is bad, cholesterol is bad!! Too many people in the healthcare field have been brainwashed by Big Pharma and their demonization of cholesterol.

Now let's get back to former President Clinton. After going through bypass surgery, don't you think his cardiologist already placed him on cholesterol lowering medications, as that was and still is the standard of care?

It worked real well for him, didn't it??

The standard of care needs some fixing!! Lowering cholesterol by pharmaceutical means may make lab reports look pretty, but it does not prevent heart disease. To get my point across, I'll use a high school SAT tactic.

Elevated cholesterol on a lab report is to seeing a blizzard on radar

as

the use of cholesterol medication to lower cholesterol is to turning off the radar.

The blizzard or snow storm is still approaching, but with the radar turned off, we just no longer see the warning sign. So when we use cholesterol lowering medications, we no longer see a risk factor as most medications are potent enough to "normalize" our levels,

So why do we even check cholesterol levels?

Cholesterol levels are important and should be used, but as a marker for heart disease, as opposed to a cause of heart disease.

If cholesterol levels are at an unhealthy level, we should try to lower them, but by dietary and lifestyle changes, not with medication. At the Institute For Medical Wellness, we have been successful in teaching and promoting these dietary changes, and have seen many lab results improve dramatically. I will be sharing some of these results with you in a future newsletter. If you wish to get started on lowering your risk of heart disease, without the use of medications, please consider our Healthy Weight program, which provides in depth analysis of your diet patterns, to help lower your future risk of disease.

Many of you reading this newsletter may believe I am skeptical about cholesterol causing heart disease. You are probably correct. But I am not alone. Please consider the following link, The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics, composed of a society of cholesterol skeptics who have been around a lot longer than I.
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Wellness Network Update:

Just a reminder. Everyone enrolled in a Wellness Program can receive one therapeutic massage at half price. That is $35 for a one hour massage, and $50 for an hour and a half.
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Institute For Medical Wellness New Offers:

Our supplement of the month for February 2010 is Revitalize. Revitalize is our once daily multivitamin that contains an abundance of vitamins and minerals, along with small amounts of antioxidant, and liver detoxifying herbs. Revitalize comes in a bottle of 90 capsules, with most people taking 1-3 a day. I find that one a day is sufficient for most, and also allows the bottle to last for 3 months. Through the end of this month, Revitalize will be available for $5 off its regular price. For more information on Revitalize and the other supplements we offer, please visit here.

To Good Health!

Steven Horvitz, D.O,
Board Certified Family Practice
Founder of The Institute For Medical Wellness
128 Borton Landing Road, Suite Two
Moorestown, NJ 08057
Phone 856-231-0590
Fax 856-294-0311
www.drhorvitz.com

Heart and Vascular Disease: Is cholesterol the culprit?

February 4, 2010

Institute For Medical Wellness Healthy Living Report

Heart and Vascular Disease: Is cholesterol the culprit?

For those of you who have had an Institute For Medical Wellness full history and physical, along with complete lab testing, you have had the honor of hearing my speech on cholesterol and heart disease. For those of you who have not, what are you waiting for??

Just kidding.....

Regardless of what you hear from the media, government, insurance companies, or other less than stellar pundits, cholesterol does NOT cause heart disease.

Let me repeat myself.

Cholesterol does NOT cause heart disease.

As with most government-industry partnerships in our country, the advice they have given us about cholesterol is just plain wrong. Now, don't take home the wrong message. It is still important to measure your cholesterol levels. In fact, I prefer to use a more sensitive type of cholesterol test, to better stratify your risk of disease. But the key is not to lower your cholesterol, but whether you need to, and if so, how you lower your cholesterol in the safest and most effective manner.

More on the above is part of our yearly wellness plan physical, which is structured for real life results, instead of the propaganda, fear tactics and rhetoric you hear from the government-insurance partnerships. There are many so called experts out there. Make sure you choose your experts wisely, as not everyone fits into the same mold.

For information on what some of the more likely risks of vascular and heart disease, please visit here, for a very informative article.
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Healthcare Reform Update:

Speaking of heart and vascular disease...................

There are many healthcare reform advocates who complain and complain again about our healthcare system. We spend too much! There are too many uninsured. Healthcare should be government run or non-profit! We should use Canada as a model for our healthcare system, after all, healthcare is free up there, and no one is turned away!!

To all the people who claim Canada has better healthcare than the United States, I highly recommend you read the following article, about a Canadian Premier, would be a state governor?? in the USA, who will be undergoing heart surgery later this week. Now I do not live in Canada, and for all I know, their doctors and hospitals may be wonderful. A Canadian Premier should be able to attest to the fact that his country's healthcare system can provide all the necessary care for its citizens.

So what I am getting at??

The Canadian Premier is having his heart surgery in the United States !!!

What does that tell you?

I'll speak for myself instead. When a high ranking elected official of a nation with a government run healthcare system, crosses the border into our country to obtain healthcare, I would say that our doctors and hospitals, stuck in a flawed system, is still the best place to receive the most advanced care in the world!!!
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Interesting Article:

Autism article retraction..

I need to reread this article again. I would advise anyone who has lingering questions on the safety of vaccines to also read this article. On my first read through, I became angry. If a doctor fudged data to help a legal case against a vaccine manufacturer, the doctor should have his license revoked, at a minimum. The study results suggesting an autism link to a vaccine set up an enormous fear of vaccines in general, that may have been unfounded. Parents are always looking to protect their children. Prior to the perceived autism link, vaccines were considered a parent's duty to protect their children. That all changed when the fear of autism arose. Talk about unintended consequences!!

I have seen many vaccines come and go. Most vaccines that have been around for ten years or more are safe for use. Postmarketing surveillance of vaccines has taken many vaccines off the market. But the vaccine fight will not end with the apparent autism retraction. There are still other factors we need to think about before getting a vaccine. Even if an autism link is proven false, other factors such as chemicals and preservatives in vaccines, spacing of vaccines in infants, and proper regulation of the vaccine production will always be an issue. That is why, regardless of the above autism retraction, I only recommend vaccines once they have been available long enough to prove their safety and efficacy.
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Healthy Weight Program Update:

One of the unique aspects of our Healthy Weight Program is our use of a private shared internet document. This document allows for increased communication between our office and you. The document is used for food diaries, diet and nutrition articles, as well as links to other research and helpful dietary information. My hope is that each Healthy Weight Program enrollee, with the use of this document, will learn enough about proper nutrition, that this will be the last weight program they need to enroll in.
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Wellness Network Update:

Just a reminder. Everyone enrolled in a Wellness Program can receive one therapeutic massage at half price. That is $35 for a one hour massage, and $50 for an hour and a half.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Institute For Medical Wellness New Offers:

Our supplement of the month for February 2010 is Revitalize. Revitalize is our once daily multivitamin that contains an abundance of vitamins and minerals, along with small amounts of antioxidant, and liver detoxifying herbs. Revitalize comes in a bottle of 90 capsules, with most people taking 1-3 a day. I find that one a day is sufficient for most, and also allows the bottle to last for 3 months. Through the end of this month, Revitalize will be available for $5 off its regular price. For more information on Revitalize and the other supplements we offer, please visit here.

To Good Health!

Steven Horvitz, D.O,
Board Certified Family Practice
Founder of The Institute For Medical Wellness
128 Borton Landing Road, Suite Two
Moorestown, NJ 08057
Phone 856-231-0590
Fax 856-294-0311
www.drhorvitz.com

Butter...... Parkay !!!

October 5, 2009

Butter..... Parkay !!!

Remember that commercial.

I do!

Here is a link to its youtube video !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvM-5LYMohM

I am often asked whether to eat butter or margarine.

Growing up it was cool to eat margarine instead of butter. Better eating through better science, or so we thought!!

Here is how butter is made.
Milk a cow.
Skim off the cream.
Add salt.
Churn the cream until it’s thick and chunky and tastes awesome.

Here is one of the processes for making margarine:
Farmers grow seeds.
The seeds are harvested.
The seeds are crushed to extract some of the oil.
The rest of the oil is extracted by mixing the seeds with hexane, a chemical solvent.
The hexane is (supposedly) all removed.
The oil is pumped full of hydrogen gas and nickel powder.
The remaining oil is subjected to heat and high-pressure CO2 gas.
The oil is mixed with sodium hydroxide and passed through a centrifuge.
The oil is mixed with water and passed through another centrifuge.
At this point, the margarine is a gray, speckled, oily mass that doesn’t smell so good.
The oil is mixed with hydrated aluminum silicate that binds to and filters out the unwanted pigments.
The mix is heated again and the oil is extracted.
The oil is passed through a steam distillation chamber to remove unwanted odors.
Yellow food coloring and artificial flavors are added.

Margarine.

Mmm Mmm good!!!

Not !!!

So what would you rather eat?

Most margarines are chemically altered vegetable oils and contain dangerous and unhealthy trans-fats otherwise known as trans-fatty-acids. While vegetable oils have received good press coverage, most contain an abundance of omega-6 fatty acids, which may counter the healthy effects of omega-3 fatty acids.

So what are we supposed to eat?

Cardiologists say butter is bad, because it contains saturated fat which they argue is responsible for an increased rate of heart disease.

But is this fact or fiction?

Let us look back at history for a moment.

In America, the rate of heart disease soared during a period when saturated fats consumption fell sharply while cholesterol intake remained roughly unchanged.Before 1900, heart disease was rare in America, affecting about 8 percent of the population.

By 1950, heart disease caused 30 percent of all deaths in America. Today, it causes about 45 percent of all deaths.During this period, consumption of butter, which is high in saturated fats, fell from over 18 lbs per person per year at the turn of the century, to about 10 lbs per person per year by 1950.

Today it is even lower, yet the rate of heart disease continues to escalate.In the same period, Margarine consumption rose from about 2 lbs per person at the turn of the century to about 8 lbs per person.

Ok now.

Do we follow the advice of clever advertisers and marketers?

Or do we follow the logic of our ancestors who relied on a very low processed foods diet?

Listen to your ancestors !!!

They ate saturated fats.

They did not eat processed food.

Pass on the Parkay and vegetable oils.

Eat butter!!

To Good Health!!!

Steven Horvitz, D.O.
Board Certified Family Practice
Founder of The Institute For Medical Wellness
128 Borton Landing Road, Suite Two
Moorestown, NJ 08057
Phone 856-231-0590
Fax 856-294-0311