Woman Destroyed Her Kidneys (in 2 months) By Taking Common Vitamin

Actually, the video talks about 5 different vitamins you have to be careful not to overdue, especially if you have kidney disease, but sometimes even if you don't have kidney disease.  It's good stuff to know.

Nattokinase: a replacement for Warfrin?

I've been looking at Nattokinase as a supplement for my mother, who is suffering from a calcified heart valve, due to (I believe) her long term use of Warfrin. Warfrin is known to be a vitamin k antagonist. But without vitamin k (vitamin k2 specifically), the body can't regulate calcium properly, and it goes into the arteries instead of into the bones.

Nattokinase is known to prevent and even reverse atherosclerosis. Pure Natto is a source of vitamin k2. But even though the product description says that it contains pure nattokinase enzyme with all vitamin k removed, there are warnings to not take it if you are taking Warfarin (Coumadin), or to consult your doctor first if you are taking Warfarin. And from what I've read on the customer comments on Amazon, it seems that people use it to replace Warfarin:

Great results so far!

My husband has a blood clotting disorder and was placed on Coumadin for life. He wasn't doing well on Coumadin. There was so many nasty side effects so we looked for an alternative to Coumadin. This supplement was recommended to us 10 months ago. He is doing so much better since taking Nattokinase. He is off of Coumadin (without his Dr's blessing), it has brought his cholesterol down, brought his blood pressure down (along with vitamin C), and improved his cataracts. He just had an eye exam and his eye glasses prescription was the same as two and a half years ago. That has NEVER happened. His eyes have always gotten worse for every exam. His Dr wasn't happy with him when he got off of Coumadin, but he is happy with the results and can't believe hubby is off of cholesterol and high blood pressure meds. He has never see that happen in his patients. We are excited to see other benefits pop up in the future.

In the threads attached to that post, people ask for an update, and the author, Jennifer, replies one year later:

Hubby is still doing well on Natto. He also takes Vitamin E, Cod Liver Oil, and Ginko Biloba in order to get the thinnest blood that he can. His blood clotting disorder is serious, though.

Another person, Mary Turner, posts this under Jennifer's original post:

The first time I took Cumadin, my legs felt like they were on fire. I had to go every thursday to the clinic as you have to be monitored when taking cumadin which is really a low dose of rat poison (for real). They can never get it right. It's take one pill, take one and a half, go back to one pill and so on. I told my doctor, "I cannot keep taking this stuff. " He replied, "I don't know what else to tell you to take." I said, "yes you do but your hands are tied by the FDA."

I had already read about Natto and had been reading about natural cures for over 12 years. So I ordered Natto and stopped taking Cumadin. The Natto arrived the same day my brother passed away. I was off work for a week taking care of funeral arrangements but took the Natto everyday. The following Thursday, I went back to the clinic to give them a blood sample and went to work. They called my job to give me the results as usual.

The nurse was so excited and said to me, "your blood plattelets are perfect; how much Cumadin shall I tell the doctor you took?" I said, "tell the doctor I did not take any of that rat poison." She even got more excited and wanted me to tell her what I took to get these results. She looked it up on line as I spelled it out for her and gave me a big thank you as she wanted it for herself.

Now I had not spoke to anyone about what I had taken but they thought it was Cumidin that did the trick. So what does that tell you. [...]

Jennifer also said in the thread that her husband didn't just stop taking Warfarin/Coumadin, that there was an overlap for about a month, where he took both but transitioned to just Nattokinase.

Many other reviewers reported that it lowered their blood pressure, and improved their overall blood circulation. A handful of people said it did nothing for them (I've found that is usually the case with supplement reviews; there are always some who say that). It does seem that it's used in place of Warfarin/Coumadin, rather than with it.

My sister says that my mother's doctor says, he would not object to any supplements as long as they don't interfere with what he has prescribed for her. It seems to me that the Nattokinase would interfere with the Warfarin.

I thought that I might try her on Vitamin K2 (Jarrow Formulas MK-7), because I read that vitamin k1 interferes with Warfarin's blood thinning, but vitamin K2 does not. Yet the K2 supplements also warn against taking them with Warfarin, or at least with consulting a doctor first before taking them.

So, is the only answer to stop taking Warfarin/Coumadin? That would be a tough sell for my mom. She's afraid to go against what the doctors tell her.


Here are a list of links about vitamin K2, and how it's been used to reverse calcification in arteries and heart valves. There have been studies that show reversal of arterial calcification in rats:

http://www.knowguff.com/2012/05/vitamin-k2-as-mk-7-restores-elasticity.html

http://www.natmedtalk.com/f25/1614-vitamin-k2-shown-reverse-arterial-calcifications.html

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-vitamin-k2-reverse-arterial.html

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2009/jan2009_Vitamin-K-Protection-Against-Arterial-Calcification-Bone-Loss-Cancer-Aging_01.htm


I've looked for information about reversing calcification of heart valves in humans. I could not find a lot of information, and what I did find was anecdotal:



http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7533

http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6207

But even mainstream medicine doesn't rule it out completely, they just say there are insufficient studies to prove it yet:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18196985?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum&ordinalpos=6

There seems to be no end to articles on the subject:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi82.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi85.html

http://blogs.webmd.com/integrative-medicine-wellness/2007/11/vitamin-k-keeping-calcium-in-your-bones-and-out-of-your-blood-vessels.html

http://www.smart-publications.com/articles/vitamin-k-keeps-calcium-out-of-your-arteries-and-in-your-bones

http://www.preparemd.com/supplements-vitamins-categories-information/vitamin-k2-mk7-reduced-heart-attack/

There was even a book published in 2011, called "Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life":

http://www.amazon.com/Vitamin-K2-Calcium-Paradox-Little-Known/dp/1118065727/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373147390&sr=1-1&keywords=vitamin+k2+and+the+calcium+paradox

But it's gone out of print, despite getting high ratings from readers. Only the Kindle edition is still available at a reasonable price. Used copies are very expensive. I hope they print more copies soon.


Update 07-12-13:

Our local health food store gave me a report about Nattokinase. It's quite informative, and I found it online in PDF format:

http://www.enzymedica.com/images/enzy/articles_handouts/pdf/CardiovascularHealthandNattokinase_H30.pdf
   

Health Links 09-08-12

Is it "feed a cold, starve a fever" or vice versa? And should you?

[...] The idea, if not the exact wording, dates back to 1574, when a dictionary maker named Withals wrote, "Fasting is a great remedie of feuer."

You're thinking: this guy wrote a dictionarie? His medical advice wasn't so hot either. Doctors have been trying to stamp out the above piece of folklore for years. Current medical thinking is that you want to keep an even strain when you're sick with either a cold or a fever, and you certainly don't want to stress your system by stuffing or starving yourself.

Nobody's sure where the notion of feeding colds and so on arose. (It surely didn't originate with Withals.) One somewhat dubious explanation has it that the proverb really means "If you feed a cold now, you'll have to starve a fever later." A more plausible interpretation is that the feed-a-cold idea arose out of a folk understanding of the disease process, namely that there were two kinds of illnesses, those caused by low temperatures (colds and chills) and those caused by high temperatures (fever). If you had a chill, you wanted to stoke the interior fires, so you pigged. If you had a fever, you didn't want things to overheat, so you slacked off on the fuel. [...]

WebMD goes a bit further, and gives lots of advice on How to Feed a Cold:

Starve a Cold, Feed a Fever?

Do you starve a cold and feed a fever when you're feeling under the weather? Or is it the other way around? Good news -- starving is never the correct answer. [...]

Read the whole thing for detailed recommendations.


8 Lifestyle Tweaks for Restless Legs Syndrome

If you've got restless legs syndrome (RLS), your daily habits can make a difference to your condition.

Revamping your diet, exercise, and medications is just the beginning of what you can do to improve your RLS. You might even find some help in unexpected places. [...]

Can't Sleep? When to Get Out of Bed

You wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep.

Whether you drank one cup of coffee too many earlier, or you've got a lot on your mind, it's time to decide whether to get up or stay in bed.

Getting out of bed makes sense at some point. Tossing and turning endlessly isn't going to help.

If you do get up, though, you're not giving up for the night. You still need rest. So your goal should be to get back to sleep as soon as possible.

Some activities help with that. Others put sleep even further out of reach.

What you do now, in the wee hours, will affect how the rest of your night goes. That could make all the difference in how you feel tomorrow. [...]

Read on for suggestions.
     

Vitamin D and Depression; which comes first?

Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Depression

[...] The relationship between depression and vitamin D is likely a two-way street, Pathuk says. "People who have depression are at high risk for vitamin D deficiency because they stay indoors, don't exercise too much, and are likely not eating a healthy diet."

There are also vitamin D receptors in areas of the brain that help regulate behavior and emotion, she says.

"It is not unusual for people with depression to be deficient in vitamin D and treating the deficiency may make a huge difference in how they feel," Pathuk says.

If you are being treated for depression, ask your doctor to test your vitamin D levels. "If you are deficient, get treated," she says.

"People often feel better when they take vitamin D," says Michael Holick, MD, PhD. He is the director of the Vitamin D, Skin, and Bone Research Lab at Boston University. "One of the effects that vitamin D has on the brain is to improve serotonin levels -- which is the same chemical that many antidepressants act on."

"This is an interesting study," says Erin LeBlanc, MD. She is an endocrinologist and researcher at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland. "It does show that vitamin D and its effects on things besides bone should be studied more." [...]

     

Are conditions like "Allergic Disease" and "Increased Intestinal Permeability" related?

At the very least, they may overlap:

Allergic Disease IS the Symptom

Allergic Disease, also called Atopic Disease, is a term used for any one of several allergic diseases that all share one thing in common, an inappropriate and hyperactive immune system response to common substances.

[...]

People who have atopic diseases tend to say that their disease is genetic. While this is partly true, diseases are only INFLUENCED by genetics, The environment controls the outcome of how those genetics are expressed.

You may have a PREDISPOSITION to have these allergic diseases, but that does not mean that everyone who has the genes gets the disease. In fact, much recent research has been focusing on substances called nuclear receptors. These receptors attach to specific areas on DNA strands and act as messengers that tell the genes what is going on in the body. When specific deficiencies of enzymes or nutrients are present then the genes will 'turn on' other genes in response to the 'problem'.

The genes that get turned on can cause various things to happen in the body: inflammation and increased hormonal activity are examples of what can happen depending upon the situation. If you begin to understand this way of thinking, allergic diseases become SYMPTOMS of imbalance in the body and not a disease in and of themselves. When you have flare-ups, it is the body’s way of informing you that you have imbalance from overload of Environmental Toxins or improper nutrition for your genetics.

This allows you to have control over whether you experience symptoms or not. Allergy relief drugs become a way to get temporary allergy symptom relief when you are miserable, but they are NOT a lifelong commitment. [...]

So it's suggesting that imbalance can cause the body's failure to properly deal with ordinary substances. For instance, if the cell wall of the small intestine isn't able to do it's job optimally, as this next article claims:

Is Increased Intestinal Permeability
Making You Sick?

[...] Your small intestine is literally one cell thick and is the only barrier between the food that you eat and your bloodstream!!

These cells, called intestinal villi, are packed tightly together and are designed to absorb nutrients from your food and send it directly into the neighboring bloodstream that it is only one cell away from.

But this ultra thin barrier doesn’t just protect you from pathogens in your food, but from your food itself!!

It is ESSENTIAL that food particles do not get into your bloodstream. I know that it seems silly to think that food even COULD get into your bloodstream- yet that is EXACTLY what happens with Increased Intestinal Permeability!

[...]

You see, anytime that you get severely stressed, your intestinal tract becomes inflamed- and when inflammation occurs, the intestinal cells that are usually packed tightly together- begin to swell.

Under normal conditions, the Adrenal Glands produce a stress hormone called cortisol that decreases this inflammation and all is well again.

But if you are under severe stress for months or years- you get divorced, your mother dies, you’re working 80 hour workweeks in a job that you hate- the Adrenal Glands will Begin to Get Fatigued and won't be as effective at reducing the inflammation.

This constant swelling will eventually damage the cells and small gaps will form in between their usual 'tight junctions'.

Once this happens, those tiny gaps and inflammation prevent you from absorbing nutrients AND allow pathogens from your food and tiny undigested food particles into your bloodstream!! And that becomes a HUGE PROBLEM as you will soon see.

[...]

When Increased Intestinal Permeability allows food or pathogens into your bloodstream, your immune system gets activated in order to fight off the “invader”.

In the case of a pathogen, this is GREAT- as the next infection will be fought off easier. However, in the case of food particles, this is NOT a good situation. Your body recognizes that food particle as the enemy.

And each time you eat that food, the Immune System continually mounts a stronger and stronger response to that invader.

This is What Causes Food allergies- usually to milk, wheat, corn or soy- and is often the 'trigger' for Gluten Sensitivity- which is a HUGE undiagnosed health problem!

Some people are more aware that the food that they are eating is making them ill and they avoid those foods, but these food reactions can take hours or days to really be felt.

By that time, all you know is that you don’t feel well, but you don’t associate it with the food you ate 2 days ago! And if you eat that food nearly every day, then all you know is that you are always feeling tired and unwell.

This sets up a self perpetuating cycle because these food particles and pathogens cause you MORE STRESS which makes your Leaky Gut Syndrome even worse, which allows MORE food particles to pass through, which makes you allergic to even MORE foods....

[...]

The liver, when it’s healthy, is able to use it’s own immune system to take care of any pathogens or food particles that have escaped- and dispatch them without too much trouble. But when Increased Intestinal Permeability becomes the normal situation- the liver gets bogged down processing all of the excess junk that is coming at it. Your liver can only do so much! When it gets overloaded, it begins to store Environmental Toxins from your food, water, air and home products -in your fat so that it can ‘get to it later’.

If Leaky gut is the problem, then later never comes. When the liver gets REALLY overloaded, some of these molecules begin to get into your general circulation- and this is where the problem gets REALLY messy. Your entire immune system gets involved and goes into overdrive.

[...]

When the immune system begins to be activated on such a large scale and on such a constant basis, it's almost a sure thing that you will have some sort of chronic illness.

Everyone reacts differently to this, but it’s likely that you’ll be feeling pretty bad and will have been to the doctor a few times for your ‘disease symptoms’ that are really just symptoms of Increased Intestinal Permeability and liver toxicity.


Some of the problems that different people get are:

* Neurologic conditions like: autism, depression, schizophrenia

* Pain conditions like: Symptoms of Fibromyalgia, migraines, osteoarthritis

* General problems like: Chronic fatigue, multiple chemical sensitivity

* Gastrointestinal problems like: IBS, Crohn’s Disease, Celiac Disease, Diverticulitis

* Skin problems like: Eczema and psoriasis

* Chronic infections: Urinary Tract Infections, Yeast Infections, Sinus Infections, Colds and Flu

* Autoimmune Disorders like: Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus


Sound like you or someone that you know?? [...]

Follow the links, for suggestions on how to deal with these problems.


Also see:

What Causes Food Allergies?
You Might Be Surprised...

Treating Atopic Dermatitis

     

Health tips, and drugs VS herbs

Gee, just when you thought you had it all figured out:

Seven daily sins: Shower every day? Rinse after brushing teeth? These 'healthy' habits could be devilishly bad for you

Heart Trouble? 18 Herbal Remedies to Avoid
Herbal remedies and heart drugs can be a dangerous mix.
     

The importance of Magnesium in your diet

A recent doctor's visit showed that I have a vitiman D defeciency, and that I have kidney stones. What do those two things have in common? Magnesium.

Preventing Kidney Stones
Just Takes Understanding the Cause

While doctors seem to think that Preventing Kidney Stones is a big mystery and they just simply don't counsel patients how to prevent kidney stones at all except to tell them to drink more water. But it's really not that mysterious at all when you understand what causes kidney stones in the first place and many clinical studies clearly show how to prevent kidney stones. But the fact that most people don't know how to prevent kidney stones is simply a lack of understanding of the Signs of Magnesium Deficiency by their doctor. [...]

While it does focus a lot on the magnesium factor, there are other factors too that people with stones should be aware of. For example, drinking citrus juices is valuable in dissolving stones. Read the whole thing. But there are also other things about Magnesium worth knowing:

Take Magnesium AND Vitamin D
To Avoid Vitamin D Side Effects

Vit D needs magnesium to convert D into a form that can be absorbed by the body. Some people who take D have symptoms they think are caused by D, but if they are deficient in magnesium when they start taking D, they may actually be experiencing symptoms of magnesium deficiency, exacerbated by using D.

Magnesium in the body is also used up by many drugs, and a deficiency of magnesium can cause many so-called drug "side effects":

Surprising Magnesium Facts
Read some Amazing Magnesium Research

[...] As well as interfering with the absorption of nutrients, low Magnesium Levels also interfer with the absorption of some drugs.

One drug in particular, a heart drug called digoxin, is used to treat an abnormal heart condition called atrial fibrillation. In one study, patients with this fast heart rhythm required twice as much of the drug digoxin to slow their heart rate when the patients had low magnesium levels.

In some studies, the atrial fibrillation actually changed into the correct heart rhythm using ONLY magnesium and NO DRUGS- which are usually required for this heart problem. [...]

It all makes for interesting reading.
     

What does it mean to be "vitamin D deficient"?

My doctor recently told me that I'm not getting enough vitamin D, and that I need to take a supplement. Vitamin D is one of the ones that it's possible to overdose on, so I looked it up. Overdosing on D, while possible, isn't that easy to do. And in fact, many people actually have a deficiency.

This website can tell you just about anything you want to know about vitamin D:

Learn the Symptoms of Vitamin D Deficiency Before It’s Too Late!

It has lots of links. One of them was this one:

Which kind of vitamin D should I take?

It says, among other things, that recent studies have show that the maximum vitamin D levels that have previously been recommended as normal can and should be considerably higher.

This other site was also very informative too:

vitamin d deficiency symptoms guide
     

"Natural" tips from WebMD

Natural Good Sleep: Tips on Melatonin, Valerian, and More

[...] So, what's been proven to work? What's safe?

Plank is a big advocate of chamomile tea, as well as valerian and melatonin. "Both of those have good scientific evidence backing them up," Plank tells WebMD.

Start with low doses of any supplement, she advises. Always tell your health provider what you're doing, as some people should not take specific supplements. There may be interactions with other medications you're taking or other serious side effects. Also, keep these sleep solutions short-term.

"Any sleep aid should not be taken for long periods," Plank says. "You must address lifestyle, too. Make sure something else is not interfering with sleep."

Plank recommends:

* Chamomile tea
* Melatonin
* Valerian
* Kava

For optimal nerve health (to help you relax), she also advises 100 to 400 milligrams of magnesium. "I don't know of studies of magnesium for sleep, but in my experience it helps," she tells WebMD. [...]

The rest of the article goes into more detail about each of those supplements.

The next two article follow a similar format on their topics:

Natural Allergy Remedies

Natural Pain Relief: Chronic Pain Supplements