How Niacin Lowers Cholesterol

It has been known for years that increased levels of niacin in the blood stream is a very effective way of reducing cholesterol levels without the need of additional drugs. Numerous medical and university studies have shown that niacin lowers overall cholesterol levels.

These studies show that niacin reduces the bad cholesterol (LDL) by 10-20%, reduces triglycerides (fat in the blood) by 20-50% and raises the good cholesterol (HDL) by 15 to 35%. 

Niacin accomplishes these changes naturally in the following ways:

1)  It reduces the breakdown of fat from fat cells which is the source of raw material used by the liver to create excess triglyceriedes.

2)  It inhibits the liver from converting sugar to triglycerides.

3)  It inhibits the liver from creating the building blocks of the bad cholesterol (VLDL) and thus as a result the bad cholesterol drops naturally.

4)  Virtually every study done on niacin has shown it to increase good cholesterol and which then picks up the excess bad cholesterol in your blood and takes it back to your liver for disposal.   The higher the good cholesterol, the less bad cholesterol you’ll have in your blood.

In a study called the “Coronary Drug Project” which ran for 6 years and included 3908 patients to study the effects of niacin besides lowering both triglycerides and cholesterol levels there were other astonishing results:

The study found that the use of niacin led to a 14% reduction in non fatal heart attack, a 26% reduction in damage to blood vessels in the brain (stroke or blockage) and a 47% reduction in the need for coronary artery bypass surgery.

Unfortunately, the use of niacin to bring down cholesterol levels never became popular due to the high amounts of niacin needed, which created side effects due to “niacin flush”. (Niacin cannot be confused with niacinaide or nictoinamide which does not cause flushing and does not lower cholesterol levels).

For more information about niacin and lowering cholesterol, go to www.mcvitamins.com/cholesterol.htm

Neuropathy, why the pain, the tingling and the numbness?

Neuropathy has many symptoms. It may start with a tingling feeling and end up with numbness. It can be a pricking, or burning sensation, loss of reflexes and muscle shrinkage, abnormal sensations, or sensitivity to touch. Its worse symptom is pain, sometimes so excruciating that a person would amputate rather than continue the pain.  

It is called many names such as paresthesia, neuritis, neuralgia, dysesthensia, hypoesthesia, hypesthesia, hypalgesia, hypealgesia and hyperesthesia due to its many different kinds of symptoms. 

But, what underlies all these symptoms?

They are created by a specific type of nerve damage. This nerve damage can come from too much sugar in the blood (the reason it is a side effect of diabetes). It can be caused by exposure to chemicals such as cancer treatments, poisons, alcoholism, or a side effect of some medications. It can be the result of kidney or liver failure, infectious disease or nutritional deficiencies especially B vitamins. The reasons are many; the damage they produce is the same.

What creates the problem is damage done to the outer lining of the nerve cell.  Cells have coverings much like an electrical wire has an insulation of plastic. Have you ever seen a wire whose insulation is damaged – the electrical current doesn’t flow correctly. It can send electricity out from the area where it is damaged, it can stop the flow of electricity or it can damage what it's supposed to be supplying electricity to.

A damaged nerve covering does the same thing. It can send out “sparks” that cause tingling, it can stop the flow resulting in numbness. It can create feelings of hot or cold or sensitivity due to crossed signals. It can definitely cause pain especially as the damage gets worse.

The idea is to fix this outer covering. This is called the myelin sheath. What is needed are specific B vitamins. The only question is how to get these B vitamins in sufficient amounts so that the body can actually build healthy nerves. Isolated B vitamins that are sold at the health food stores or local drug stores get washed out of the system too quickly to fix the damage. It would be hard to take enough of this type of nutrients to make a difference. You can’t get it from vitamins made in a laboratory.

What is needed is a whole food supplement with methylcobalamine and benfotiamine and other B vitamins that the body can use to build healthy nerve cells. That is one of the functions of the body, to build health. But it does need specific nutrients to do its job.  

Nutrients are what a body runs on. A car runs on gas. If you drive the car down the road, it uses up a steady amount of that gas. If you take that same car and speed down the freeway, you will use up a lot of gas. When you take a body “out on the freeway”, or put it under physical stress, it uses up a lot more nutrients. Thus, getting the right supplements in the right amount is important.

Just as a car won’t drive without giving it gas a body can’t or function correctly or build health without the proper nutrients it needs to “drive”. In the case of neuropathy, it needs these B vitamins.

Neuropathy can be a side effect of many things.  Although most often it is caused by too much sugar in the blood - Diabetes - there are many factors. Chemotherapy and some drugs have neuropathy as a side effect and it can be caused by surgery damaging the nerves - there are others.

For more information about neuropathy.

Success in Handling the Nerve Damage of Neuropathy

We got lots of different people who got nerve damage from many different reasons who have written up what happened to them.

Go here for their stories   

Read about getting relief by building healthy nerves.

Chemotherapy & Neuropathy

Individuals at risk for acquiring neuropathy are those associated with chemotherapy and also have the following conditions

• Diabetes

• Alcoholism

• Severe malnutrition

Why? Because these conditions all result in the nerve damage, specifically the myelin sheath surrounding the nerve starts to deteriorate.  

Symptoms include:

• Numbness, tingling (feeling of pins and needles of the hands and or feet.

• Burning of hands and/or feet

• Numbness around the mouth

• Constipation

• Loss of sensation or touch

• Loss of positional sense (knowing where a body part is without looking)

• Weakness and leg cramping or any pain in hands and/or feet.

• Difficulty picking things up or buttoning clothes.

Chemotherapy and other chemicals and drugs can cause the nerve’s myelin sheath to deteriorate and this is what needs to be repaired.   This can be undone:

Go here to www.mcvitamins.com/wsn/nerve-support-formula.htm

Damaged Cell Receptors and Diabetes

Doctors prescribe medications because they are merely handling a symptom and not the cause.  Certain medications increases insulin secretion while others try to get the body to use it's own insulin more effectively and insulin injections are just that, more insulin.  Medical doctors usually try the oral medications first and when those are no longer effective or maxed out they then proceed onto insulin injections.

There can be a lot of insulin in the body, but the body is insulin resistant because of damaged cell receptors that don’t allow the insulin to do the job it needs to. The doctor’s medocations introduce more insulin to force the sugar out of the body into the now damaged cell receptors. Your body just ends up building up more and more insulin resistance/tolerance so that the level of oral medications or injections only go up and up.

High sugar levels are only a symptom of the diabetic condition, they are not the diabetic condition itself! Using drugs to keep the blood sugar down is like having a fire burning in the living room and turning on the exhaust fan in the kitchen to pull the smoke out of the house. The fan pulls out the smoke (a symptom of the fire) but the fire is still burning, and will consume the house unless it is handled.

In the same way, the diabetic condition continues to get worse, until it (not just a symptom) is addressed and handled. You can see the progression in many cases, where the amount of medication needed to control blood sugar levels continues to increase, because the condition has not yet been handled.

What needs to happen is the body needs to resensitize the cells to the insulin your body is making and as a result will lower your blood sugar levels. Diet needs to be used to give you body a rest so that it isn’t dealing with a high amounts of sugar coming in.   A low carbohydrate diet 20-30 carbohydrates a day is recommended until the cells repair themselves.  Carbohydrates are just long chains of sugar molecules.  

For more information go to Diabetes http://www.mcvitamins.com/diabetes.htm

Here's to your good health and Happy Holidays

Chris
McVitamins.com
www.mcvitamins.com
818 552-2402
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