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Reducing cholesterol without drugs

A case study by Margaret Jasinska ND

This case study is a brilliant example of how successful diet changes can be for lowering cholesterol levels. You just need to follow the right diet.

Kevin was a 63 year old man who came to see me four months ago wanting help with lowering his cholesterol. He was taking a prescription cholesterol lowering drug, but despite this, his cholesterol was still extremely high and that made Kevin worry. Kevin was taking a cholesterol lowering drug called ezetimibe (brand name Ezetrol). This drug works by reducing the amount of cholesterol absorbed in the small intestine.

Ezetrol is not as effective at lowering cholesterol as statin drugs (Lipitor, Pravachol, Zocor) but it has fewer side effects. Kevin had tried Lipitor in the past but it gave him extreme muscle pain. He is a mechanic and the pain made his job almost impossible. The muscle pain was reduced to a tolerable level on the lowest possible dose of Lipitor, but that dose wasn’t effective in reducing his cholesterol.

Kevin’s cholesterol was frighteningly high, even while taking Ezetrol. When he came to see me, his total cholesterol was 8.4 mmol/L. I was even more shocked at his triglyceride level – it was 6.3 mmol/L. Most people who come to our clinic wanting help with reducing their risk of heart disease know what their cholesterol level is and can recite it when asked. However, when I ask what their triglyceride level is, they give me a blank stare.

Cholesterol is not the villain the drug companies have made it out to be. Your body requires adequate cholesterol because it performs several vital functions. A cholesterol level of 8.4 is too high though, but it is an indicator of other problems in the body.

Triglycerides are a different matter. Most of the fat on your body is stored in the form of triglycerides. Problems occur when you have a large amount of triglycerides floating around in your bloodstream. They make your blood thick and sticky and extremely prone to clots. I gasped when I saw 6.3 as Kevin’s blood triglyceride level. Interestingly, when a person’s blood triglycerides are so high, the pathology company is not able to calculate the LDL (“bad”) cholesterol level.

Kevin was around 15 kilos overweight and held all of it over his abdomen. He had mildly raised liver enzymes and was vitamin D deficient. The raised liver enzymes indicated that Kevin had inflammation and damage occurring to his liver cells. His liver was busy manufacturing fat, which was accumulating inside his liver, damaging it and then the fat was leaking into his bloodstream. Vitamin D deficiency worsens insulin resistance (syndrome X), which was the reason his liver was manufacturing so much cholesterol in the first place.

Kevin was very motivated to do whatever it took to get his blood fats down. His father and uncle had died of heart attacks in their early 60s and he certainly didn’t want to follow in their tracks. Kevin also felt extremely tired all the time and he still suffered with aches and pains in his muscles and joints.

My recommendations

Kevin knew that he would need to reduce the amount of carbohydrate he ate because he had read our book Cholesterol: The Real Truth. Kevin craved bread and ate a lot of it. It always made him very bloated, but bread is such an everyday food, that he considered it normal.

I recommended the following:

I put Kevin on a lower carbohydrate, higher protein diet, as found in our book Fatty Liver: You Can Reverse It. Kevin needed to cut out or drastically cut down on bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, breakfast cereals, sugar and any food that contains flour. The more sugar you eat the more fat your liver manufactures. If you are not an athlete, you don’t need the level of carbohydrate in the average diet. Your liver will convert the excess into fat. I told Kevin he needs to stop eating sugar. He gave me the most common response – he told me he rarely eats sugar and he doesn’t add sugar to tea and coffee. I explained to Kevin that he ate more sugar than anything else – bread, pasta, rice and potatoes are all digested into sugar (glucose) very quickly after you’ve eaten them - so he had a very high sugar diet after all!
I gave Kevin a liver tonic to improve the health of his liver. This was necessary because of his abnormal blood test result, and it would speed up his results compared with just following the diet on its own.
I gave Kevin a vitamin D supplement. His blood level was 58 nmol/L when last tested and it needed to be between 100 and 150 nmol/L.
I gave Kevin a magnesium supplement and a fish oil supplement. Both of those help to reduce muscle and joint aches and pains. Magnesium helps your body to cope with stress and improves your quality of sleep. Fish oil helps to thin the blood, lowers cholesterol and triglycerides and helps to keep the insides of your arteries healthy.

Kevin wasn’t too thrilled with the necessary diet changes initially, but he followed them nonetheless. I had a consultation with Kevin eight weeks later to make sure he was still on track with his diet and supplements. I was pleased to discover he was loving the diet because it gave him so much energy. He no longer had aches or pains and he dropped one pant size. Kevin decided to discontinue the cholesterol lowering drug without discussing this with his doctor or me. He wanted to see how effective just the diet and supplements could be. (Please don’t stop taking any prescription medication unless you have discussed the matter with your doctor).

Four months after his initial consultation, Kevin had another blood test. We were both absolutely thrilled with his results. His cholesterol when from 8.4 to 5.3 in such a short period of time. Even more importantly, his triglycerides went from 6.3 to 1.5. I’d like his triglycerides to be lower than that, but I can’t complain with what he has achieved in only four months.

Kevin wanted to know how long he would have to strictly avoid all grains and cereals. I explained to him that he should soon be able to include small amounts in his diet a couple of times a week and watch what happens to his body weight and blood fats. If they go up, he’ll need to cut down on the carbs again. Bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, etcetera are convenient foods and fun foods. You can include small quantities in your diet for entertainment. Contrary to what you’ve probably been told, these foods are not a necessary part of your diet. No bad things will happen to your health if you stop eating these foods. It’s far more likely that bad things will happen if you continue to eat these foods.

So many people are told by their doctor to go on a diet to lower their cholesterol. They go away and follow an absolutely inappropriate diet (low fat, high carbohydrate). The patient returns to their doctor, discovers their cholesterol has not come down, therefore they are put on cholesterol lowering drugs. Their doctor will explain that their liver is producing excessive amounts of cholesterol, and that’s why prescription drugs are the only way to get it down.

Everybody’s liver manufactures cholesterol.

Approximately 80 percent of the cholesterol in everyone’s body was made by their liver. All you have to do is stop ingesting the substances your liver uses to manufacture cholesterol: sugar, flour, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes and alcohol.

There is more information about cholesterol and heart disease in our book Cholesterol: The Real Truth.

Your immune system is your greatest health asset

A case study by Victoria Taylor ND

Mike came to see me complaining of recurrent headaches, fibromyalgia and fatigue. Some days he would wake up feeling well and other days he would wake up feeling like he was 100 years old.

He had been treated with antibiotics for sinus infections but the drugs only worked for a few weeks and the symptoms would recur.

He was tender over his sinuses and had tender trigger points in his muscles and had a sallow complexion with dark circles under his eyes. His tongue was coated with a white film that looked like candida, which is typical of someone who had been on recurrent courses of antibiotics.

I did a live blood cell analysis (LBA) on Mike’s blood and he was shocked to see the state of his blood under my high powered microscope. His blood showed that he had various micro-organisms in his plasma, including candida and mycoplasma, and his red blood cells had thin walls typical of someone who is deficient in omega 3 fatty acids.

I explained to Mike that his immune system was weakened and this was the reason he had recurrent infections and chronic inflammation in his body. The inflammation was causing his headaches and muscular aches and pains. His fatigue was due to the fact that his liver and spleen were not removing the unhealthy micro-organisms from his blood and thus his immune system was continually fighting the infections in his body. It takes a lot of energy to fight infections and a toxic blood stream.

I treated Mike with a dairy free and gluten free diet and a program of raw juices. He was told to juice pear, carrot, parsley, mint, red radish, thyme and basil and to drink 400mls daily.

I prescribed a course of probiotics to allow friendly organisms to grow in his gut, as 80% of the body’s immune cells are found in the gut. Mike’s gut had been damaged by food allergies and antibiotic drugs and thus I also prescribed a product to repair his gut lining. I gave him natural antibiotic tablets called DETOX 123 tablets and vitamin C, selenium and liquid fish oil. I also prescribed vitamin D 3 capsules, as his blood tests revealed low levels of vitamin D, which is not surprising as Mike was an office worker and did not get enough sunshine. Vitamin D is vitally important for a strong immune system and also reduces the pain of fibromyalgia.

After 3 months Mike had recovered and his headaches and fibromyalgia were no longer an issue for him. His follow up live blood cell analysis showed that the chronic infections had disappeared from his blood stream. However, it was too early to get complacent and I told Mike we now had to begin work on improving his liver function.

A case of unknown stomach pain

by Claire Georgiou

Kate came to see me at the clinic with her mother. Kate had a case of unknown stomach pain; this pain would have her up in the morning, vomiting and dry-retching.

Kate was 11 years old and had complained of stomach pain for years on and off, but it had become particularly bad in the last few months. She also had chronic low iron stores although she was eating iron rich foods regularly.
She had every test they could think of to find a cause. Eventually her doctors diagnosed period pain - they claimed due to her age she didn’t understand the pain location properly.

After examination and discussion with Kate and her mother, I explained that I believed that Kate’s low iron levels were an indication of gluten intolerance causing malabsorption.

I put her on a gluten free and dairy free diet and encouraged her to eat a more balanced diet. She was eating as a typical teenager would - too much processed foods.

I also recommended a broad spectrum probiotic and a good quality glutamine powder. Four weeks later, when they came back to see me, Kate was smiling and telling me she felt so much better and had more energy. No more vomiting attacks or pain at all and she felt good about the diet.

When I first meet Kate she was quiet, a little withdrawn and her mother did most of the talking, at the next visit I had a bright alert chatty patient in front of me.

Although Kate had been tested for celiac disease and the results had come back negative, some studies indicate that gluten can still be a problem and cause discomfort or pain without it being full blown celiac disease.

If the necessary dietary changes are not made, a person suffering with a gluten intolerance can then go on to develop celiac disease later in life or be pre-disposed to any other type of auto-immune disease.

Diabetes - The power to change

by Claire Georgiou

Recently, a new client called Mark came into the clinic to see me. He told me how he was shocked at the sudden passing of his father, who was only 65 years old and had seemed relatively well - in fact, they had planned on painting the house together the following weekend.

His father suffered a sudden heart attack due to a history of poor blood sugar control, heart disease and excess weight. This tragedy prompted Mark to go and have a full health check-up, after which he discovered that his random blood sugar was as high as 30 and fasting blood sugar of 18.4.

Mark was greatly surprised at this information because he thought he was relatively healthy - albeit carrying a little too much weight and suffering with the occasional bout of blurred vision.

His doctor prescribed him with some medication and sent him off to the diabetes educational seminars through the hospital. This gave him a small improvement with his blood sugar but not enough to satisfy him. Mark was determined not to follow in the footsteps of his father and he didn’t want to be taking any medication long term.

Mark started to look around and found Dr Cabot's book 'Diabetes Type 2 – How to reverse it naturally!' He read the book quickly and decided he also wanted some additional support, so he booked in to see me.

I advised him to follow a low carbohydrate eating plan and I prescribed him a number of daily health supplements such as a quality liver tonic, magnesium and a blood sugar balancer.

I also recommended he start a exercise program such as walking for at least 30 minutes daily.

Within a short while, his blood sugar was being maintain at around 6-7 and he was losing weight. He was so happy about this that he was sharing the news at the hospital diabetes talks - the reception to his news was a little conflicted as the dietary advice they offer is quite different to what I had suggested for him.

But, as Mark said to me, "the proof is in the pudding!"

Fatty Liver and Gastritis

by Claire Georgiou

Bill was 48 years old and came in to see me complaining of constant pain and discomfort in the stomach and liver region. He had many liver symptoms such as weight gain, liver roll, reflux, bloating, wind, fatigue, dark circles, pasty complexion, nausea and allergies. He was diagnosed with gastritis and a fatty liver by his specialist.

We went through his diet and made a lot of dietary changes - these were based on Dr Cabot's fatty liver diet from her recent book Fatty Liver - You Can Reverse It. I suggested that he reduce his carbohydrates by avoiding grains and sugars - he had recently stopped drinking due to the pain.

Bill is a busy executive who attended many business dinners and long lunch meetings. The meals he ate at these often consisted of heavy creamy foods, desserts and alcohol.

I suggested he take

a quality liver tonic which supports phase one and two detoxification pathways. This liver tonic will ensure optimum detoxification of many toxic substances.
a high potency selenium supplement with supporting antioxidants.
L-Glutamine.
Probiotics to put back some 'good bugs' into his stomach.

I also advised him to make a glass of vegetable juice every morning.

I saw him again after four weeks and he looked like a different person. He had so much colour in his face and was happy as he had no pain or discomfort.

Bill told me that these days when he goes to his business lunches and dinners, he makes healthy choices in regards to his food and that he drinks sparkling mineral water.

He told me that many of his friends and family members were asking him what he had been doing because he looked so well in such a short time. Bill has been back to see me a few more times and he continues to lose weight and look well. He is enjoying his plan because he feels so well!

No more Fatty Liver!

I was diagnosed with fatty liver on 14th May and today (19 October) had a scan which showed a normal, healthy liver, much to the surprise of the Radiologist. I took a liver tonic twice daily, reduced my alcohol consumption down to 1 glass wine daily (sometimes low alcohol wine) and as a result, lost 5+ kilos. I ate more vegetables and drank vegetable juices. I am now borderline underweight but have a healthy liver!

Brenda C, Indooroopilly QLD

I lost 11 kilos!

I am a lady in my late 40's and realise that the risk of having health problems as I get older, is increased because of being overweight. I had tried meal replacement shakes some years ago, but apart from the unpleasant taste, found that I started having dizzy spells, so the little bit of weight I did lose came back immediately that I stopped. Having a family, and working, means that I am time poor, and so decided to give Sandra Cabot's Quick Loss Meal Replacement a try. I am delighted to say that I have had a steady weight loss, and have now lost 11 kilograms, just by replacing my lunch with Quick Loss and following the guidlines for my snacks and evening (family) meals. Not only am I able to fit into my old jeans, that haven't been worn for a long time, but I am also receiving compliments from friends and work colleagues. I certainly don't feel like I'm on a "diet", and in fact, having my shake feels a little like indulgence, as I enjoy the flavour so much (Honeycomb Delight is my favorite). The snack ideas for morning tea easily see me through til my shake at lunchtime, and the Quick Loss shake keeps me well satisfied til my evening meal. I feel great, and it's been so easy.

Diane S, NSW

Tyrosine powder - Mood Food

Within 24 hours of taking Tyrosine, I felt I had turned back the clock on 20 years of emotional eating. I have been taking it for 1 week now and I have not had one single emotional eating craving (whereas I used to battle 10 to 20 cravings a day). I feel energised, happy, stable and I am finally able to feel pleasure. I am happily shocked about Tyrosine and what a difference it is making in my life. THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES OVER. You mentioned on the phone this is only the tip of the iceberg and I believe you. More people need to know about Tyrosine. I have now been on tyrosine for almost 2 months. After battling with emotional eating for almost 20 years every minute of every day, in the last 2 months I have not once felt the desire to eat from my emotions. Tyrosine is truly incredible. I feel the most wonderful release in my life. I keep walking past people in the street and can't help but wonder if they also suffer from emotional eating. All I want to do is whisper in their ear 'tyrosine'. More people need to know about this.

Celeste F, Sydney

WOW! Tyrosine is amazing stuff. I feel like a new woman in a matter of a few days. I have wanted for so long to feel normal again. I thought I would never feel like this again. Happy, calm, secure, not afraid, not angry, not sad, not tearful and so many more negative emotions I have endured for so long. It is definitely a good start. I know I will have some setbacks but at last I have the right information to move forward and a better mind to cope with everything in life I sincerely thank you for writing the book called 'Want to lose weight but hooked on food'. It is early days but I think I am gaining confidence in myself now to move on and forget the past and make a happy life for me.

Judy K, South Yamba, QLD

My 8 yr old daughter was struggling. On the outside she was putting on a good front while on the inside she was crying out for help. She was a very sad little girl under all the layers. She had started to binge with food and warning bells went off in my head. She started on Tyrosine and within a coupe of days she was a different child. She has no problems taking it as there is no taste. She herself feels happy and is no longer looking at food for comfort.

Carina D, NSW

Hi Wendy, Tyrosine has been fantastic. Well I must admit I felt the change within 1 day, I felt happier, brighter, more confident and relaxed. It took the "edge off" so to speak. Also it made me have more energy and I was able to focus mentally. I also noticed it depressed my appetite, which is a good thing as I wanted to loose a few extra kilos that I put on over the winter months. I found I slept better too.

Carol Mackey, Burrill Lake, NSW

Tyrosine for me has being life changing. I truly believed I had something seriously wrong with me however the doctor prescribed anti-depressants and away I went, they never really seem interested in helping me to change or understand why I am the way I am. They kind of just wanted me to "get by". Tyrosine has helped control my moods, my motivation has improved as too my concentration. Don't get me wrong I still have my moments, however I put them into perspective and look at them rationally. I take a minute, take a step back and can deal with it. And I can tell you that is a fantastic accomplishment. Now that my moods are under control and my motivation has improved I can concentrate on the patterns that I have developed over many years to cope. It's an extremely freeing feeling, the weight is lifted off my shoulders, its exciting and terrifying at the same time. As I know have the tools to change my thinking. It is not going to happen over night however with Tyrosine it is going to happen. I am no long going to just get by. I am confronting the past; my distorted thinking and I am going to change what I can and not worry about what I can't change. Thank you Tyrosine (Mood Food).

Elizabeth Callaghan, Brownlow Hill, NSW

Tyrosine was the start of my recovery in dealing with my depression. It allowed me to refocus my mind and bring back my motivation; In turn, this helped me move about more (both physically and mentally) and not sit around so much and mope like I used to. The Tyrosine helped me concentrate again and not worry so much about the little things. It definitely corrected my brain chemistry, which was controlling me in ways I can't begin to describe before I started the Tyrosine.

Pam O, Clockwork Films

Tyrosine gently takes me from feeling flat to feeling positive and in turn feeling inner peace.

Margie Nyholm, South Coast NSW

Tyrosine has helped take the edge off my stress and anxiety and I've been able to cope much better over the past couple of months.

Tania R, Mollymook

Tyrosine has already given me a real boost for my moods & energy, and has helped me to feel motivated to seek & believe in improvement.

Carmen W, Perth

I find the tyrosine is just as good, if not better than the pills I've been taking for years and without the side affects. I'm going to recommend it to my daughter-in-law for my grandson, who suffers with attention deficit disorder. I remember you telling me how a lot of your younger patients do very well on tyrosine and how it helps their concentration at school. Will let you know how my grandson responds to tyrosine.

Desolie M, Sydney

I'm so glad I found tyrosine.

Shirley A, Pagewood

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