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Eliminating Heart Disease Naturally Thru Nitric Oxide Therapy

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Update on CoVid19 and Endothelial Health

Posted by Dan Hammer //

05/01/2021

update-on-covid19-and-endothelial-health

As more and more research is being done on the CoVid19 virus, one of the areas of focus has been on the lining of the vascular system.

This lining is called the endothelium.

It’s only one-cell thick. But it actually regulates most of your cardiovascular health.

To give you an idea how large this tissue is, there is approximately 60,000 miles to the average vascular system. This includes all your arteries, veins, and capillaries. Lining all of this is the endothelium. If you took it out, and laid the endothelium on the ground, it would cover the surface area of a football field.

That’s a lot of surface volume.

(If you would prefer to view this information in a video format, then please click on my YouTube video below:)

Dr. William Li, who is a vascular biologist and the founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation, compared the endothelium to a freshly resurfaced ice skating rink before a hockey game. Smooth ice that allows the players and puck to glide smoothly.

However, the CoVid19 virus has an effect on the enthelium. In Dr. Li words,

“When the virus damages the inside of the blood vessel and shreds the lining, that’s like the ice after a hockey game. You wind up with a situation that is really untenable for blood flow.”

Dr. Li and his researchers came to this conclusion when they compared the lung tissues of people who died from CoVid19 to those who died from influenza. CoVid19 patients had nine times as many tiny blood clots when compared to influenza patients. And the endothelial lining of the blood vessels of the lungs were severely injured.

A normally functioning endothelium helps to: Read More →

Optimize Vitamin D Levels With Magnesium and K2

Posted by Dan Hammer //

03/01/2021

I’ve written several articles on the importance of vitamin D. But I’ve never written about how to optimize vitamin D levels.

Given the recent studies showing how normal vitamin D levels help to reduce your risk for the CoVid19 virus, I thought it would be helpful to discuss how to optimize vitamin D levels.

(If you would prefer to view this information in a video format, then please click on my YouTube video below:)

The main body of work in this area comes from research by GrassrootsHealth. Here are several statements that they have made regarding this issue:

“combined intake of both supplemental magnesium and vitamin K2 has a greater effect on vitamin D levels than either individually.”

“those taking both supplemental magnesium and vitamin K2 have a higher vitamin D level for any given vitamin D intake amount than those taking either supplemental magnesium or vitamin K2 or neither.”

“. . . 244% more supplemental vitamin D was needed for 50% of the population to achieve 40 ng/ml (100nmol/L) for those not taking supplemental magnesium or vitamin K2 compared to those who usually took both supplemental magnesium and vitamin K2.”

So what does all this mean if you want to optimize vitamin D levels in your body? Read More →

Health Benefits of Lycopene

Posted by Dan Hammer //

01/22/2021

If you are a fan of tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruit, then you’re enjoying multiple health benefits of lycopene.

Lycopene is the pigment in fruits and vegetables that make them red in color. This red pigment is part of the carotenoid family, which includes beta-carotene and lutein.

Lycopene is a very powerful antioxidant or free radical scavenger. And can provide the following benefits.

Antioxidant Health Benefits of Lycopene

As I’ve shared in previous articles, free radicals are unstable molecules that steal electrons from another molecule to stabilize themselves. This action creates a new free radical that then repeats this process. It finally stops when the last free radical steals an electron from a cell wall. This results in inflammation.

Antioxidants are your natural defense against this process.

Antioxidants are molecules that give away one of their outer electrons, which then stabilizes the free radical. The remarkable property of an antioxidant is that it does not become a free radical. It remains stable with or without the electron it gives away.

This means that antioxidants like lycopene can protect you from cellular damage. And significantly reduce the potential for inflammation. This makes the following health benefits of lycopene possible: Read More →

Improving Bone Health With Vitamin K2

Posted by Dan Hammer //

01/01/2021

Improving bone health is vitally important for adults over the age of 50. Commonly called osteoporosis, this bone loss can be a contributing factor in age related disability.

For example, in the United States approximately 25% of men and 50% of women age 50 and older will experience a fracture due to osteoporosis. And if this wasn’t bad enough, 20% of patients over 50 who suffer a hip fracture will die.

Most people believe that taking a calcium supplement will help in improving bone health. And while it may slow down bone loss, it does not prevent it.

Which brings us to the main focus of this article.

Research out of Japan shows that high doses of vitamin K2 helps to prevent bone loss and protect against fractures.

These clinical trials used 45 mg of vitamin K2 (menagquinone-4) in helping to:

Slow Bone Loss
Reduce Fracture Risk
and Build New Bone

In a two-year study, high doses of vitamin K2 helped older osteoporosis patients reduce vertebral fractures by half.

It’s important to know that your body constantly breaks down old bone and replaces it with new bone.

After we are born, and for the first couple of decades of our life, bone density increases. Then for the next couple of decades it plateaus. Meaning that the amount of old bone being replace with new bone is about the same.

However, around the age of 40 bone density begins to decrease. And for women experiencing menopause, the bone loss accelerates.

Bone density is influenced by two types of bone cells: Read More →

What is Convalescent Plasma

Posted by Dan Hammer //

09/08/2020

Given the current CoVid19 pandemic, and new treatment programs from the FDA, a lot of people have been asking:

What is Convalescent Plasma?

I hope to give you a non-political answer. As well as links to key resources to help you make your own decision about whether this treatment program is safe and effective.

Now the following definition for convalescent plasma is taken from Cedars-Sinai:

“This is plasma that is collected from people who have recovered from a disease, whose blood is presumed to have antibodies for that disease. These antibodies are what helped the person fight off the initial infection.”

As people are exposed to new viruses or pathogens, they can be infected. Once that happens, the Adaptive part of your immune system kicks in to create specific immune cells to help destroy these viruses or pathogens.

Part of this process is to create antibodies.

Antibodies surround the infected cells to prevent the virus or pathogen from spreading. This gives your body time to ramp up its ability to create the specific immune cells that then destroy these inflected cells. And help to prevent further spread in your body.

Once a person has fully recovered from their illness, these antibodies float in their blood plasma, which is the liquid component of the blood.

Qualified medical personnel can than harvest this plasma and its antibodies. Test it for safety. Then purify it to isolate the antibodies to create “convalescent plasma.”

This convalescent plasma can than be injected into another patient sick with that same type of virus. The antibodies in the convalescent plasma can help fight the virus. And give the patient time for their own immune system to generate antibodies in sufficient quantities to then overcome the virus or pathogen.

This is where the controversy surrounding convalescent plasma comes in.

When do you give it to an inflected person to help their bodies produce the needed immune cells to overcome the infection?

I’m going to use an analogy here to help you understand this.

Starter Yogurt

Starter yogurt is a balanced blend of bacteria that consume the lactose in milk. They convert the lactose to lactic acid, which then gives the yogurt its taste and texture.

Now you don’t put starter yogurt into yogurt.

Instead you but starter yogurt into milk to help start the process of converting that milk to yogurt.

And the same with convalescent plasma.

To improve your outcome (which is to keep the illness from causing death) you give the convalescent plasma as early as possible once the virus or pathogen has been identified in the person’s system.

Recently, the FDA gave an Emergency Use Authorization or EUA for the use of CoVid19 convalescent plasma to treat people hospitalized with CoVid19.

Much of the work in this area has been spearheaded by the Mayo Clinic.

They released data in June of 2020 showing that this type of plasma treatment was safe. Their findings suggested that using convalescent plasma to treat patients with CoVid19 was associated with a lower likelihood of death.

The controversy about this treatment program is when to administer it to have a positive outcome.

When given within three days of a CoVid19 diagnosis, the seven-day death rate was 8.7%. When the convalescent plasma was given at day four or more, the seven-day mortality rate increased to 11.9%.

And the other factor that was not completely assessed was how long have these patients been inflected.

Once you test positive for CoVid19, that doesn’t mean that you just got the virus. It could have been in your system for several days before your symptoms causes you to go get tested.

And like “starter yogurt” the sooner you introduce it into the process the better the results.

Here are some excellent links for additional information on this topic. They will provide you with more information on the FDA’s decision to issue a EUA allowing doctors to prescribe this use of convalescent plasma to treat CoVid19.

https://www.fda.gov/media/141478/download

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/investigational-new-drug-ind-or-device-exemption-ide-process-cber/recommendations-investigational-covid-19-convalescent-plasma#:~:text=Convalescent%20plasma%20that%20contains%20antibodies,with%20COVID%2D19.

https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-recovery-overview#1

https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/convalescent-plasma-therapy/about/pac-20486440

Blessing Lives Through Nitric Oxide Therapy!

Dan Hammer

CoVid19 and Vitamin D Deficiency

Posted by Dan Hammer //

05/08/2020

There is emerging research that is beginning to link CoVid19 and Vitamin D deficiency. The purpose of this article to to examine this emerging research. And to clarify the level of vitamin D in the blood stream that might present a risk, as well as a benefit.

First, some background on vitamin D.

In nature there are two forms of vitamin D. Vitamin D2 is found in plants and is called ergocalciferol. This form is hard for the human body to convert into an active compound. Because of this vitamin D3 is a better source.

Vitamin D3 is found in animals and is called cholecalciferol.

By themselves both forms are inactive. Our bodies have to convert them to an active compound. This is usually done by the liver and then the kidneys.

Your liver converts vitamin D3 to 25-hydroxycholecalcifoerol, which is then convert by your kidneys into 25-dihydroxycholecalciferol. This final conversion is what is measured in your blood serum. A simple blood test can determine is you fall into one of the following three categories for 25-dihydroxycholecalcifoerl:

Normal – would be 30 ng/ml or higher
Insufficient – would be 21 – 29 ng/ml
Deficiency – would be 20 ng/ml or less

A 2011 study of the US population found that 41.6% of adults are vitamin D deficient. But when viewed based on ethnicity the following was discovered:

69.2% of Hispanics were vitamin D deficient
82.1% of African-Americans were vitamin D deficient

This might be a significant factor in CoVid19 and vitamin D deficiency being a greater issue in the Black population groups. As well as Hispanics having a high risk when compared to the general population.

Now before we look at some of the emerging scientific articles, let’s briefly summarize why vitamin D might be so important in the CoVid19 health crisis. Read More →

CoVid 19 The New March Madness

Posted by Dan Hammer //

03/22/2020

Welcome to CoVid 19 the new march madness. Here in the United States the month of March was all about the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championship.

People would fill out their brackets. And then spend hours watching basketball games from Thursday night through Sunday. This would go on until the field was whittled down to the Sweet Sixteen, then the Elite Eight, and then the Final Four.

Once the Final Four were set, there would be a break in the action until the final weekend of play.

Bars and restaurants would be packed.

People would gather in homes to watch the action.

Well not this year.

CoVid 19 is the new March madness.

I live in Illinois and our governor has just implemented what California and New York have implemented:

Settle In Place or “Stay At Home” order.

All non-essential workers are now asked to stay at home. All schools have been closed for the past week and will remain closed until sometime in April. All bars and restaurants are closed except for takeout or drive-thru.

And all sporting events have been canceled.

In fact all events over 50 are canceled and those less than 50 are encouraged not to meet.

Since we can’t fill out our brackets for the basketball tournament, I thought I would share with you links that provide up-to-date information on CoVid 19. Sites that are updated on a regular basis as this health crisis works it way through the United States and the rest of the world.

Click Here for a good overview of 2019 Novel Coronavirus or CoVid 19.

Here are additional links to help you stay current about CoVid 19: Read More →

5 Fun Facts You Should Know About Your Heart

Posted by Dan Hammer //

03/01/2020

Your heart is located just to the left of center of your chest area. It’s why when you say the Pledge of Allegiance you place your right hand over this area of your chest. Some consider your heart muscle the strongest muscle in your body because of the lifetime of work it does to keep you alive. Which brings us to our first fun fact.

Fun Fact #1 – Your heart will beat about 115,000 times each day. In the United States the average life expectancy is 80 years. This means your heart will beat approximately 42 million times per year. And if you multiply this by 80, then your heart will beat about 3.36 TRILLION times in your lifetime.

Fun Fact #2 – A women’s heart beats slightly faster than a man’s heart. Because of this some might say that a women’s heart is stronger than a man’s heart. And does even more work than a man.

Now that we’ve established the amount of work your heart is going to do in your lifetime, let’s look at its primary purpose. That purpose is to circulate your blood, which carries oxygen and needed nutrients to every part of your body.

Fun Fact #3 – Your heart pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood every day. This means your heart pumps approximately 730,000 gallons per year. Which is 58.4 million gallons in your lifetime. That’s a lot but it’s even more impressive when you understand that a gallon of blood weight 8.72 pounds. This means your heart moves 509 million pounds or 255 tons of blood during your lifetime.

Yes ladies, if we apply Fun Fact #2, then your heart does even more work than those lazy men. This gets even better when you add in the next fun fact. Read More →

Bergamot Extract Lowers Cholesterol

Posted by Dan Hammer //

12/08/2019

Today I want to introduce you to a natural way to address cholesterol concerns by highlighting how bergamot extract lowers cholesterol. And without side effects.

In most cases the medical community will recommend taking a statin drug to lower a person’s cholesterol. And while statin drugs are very effective in doing this, they can have some significant side effects such as:

Statins reduce CoQ10, which is needed for energy production in every cell, especially the heart. There is a direct link to an increase in congestive heart failure with the increase use of statins.
Statins reduce vitamin K2, which your body uses to regulate calcium levels in the vascular system. As vitamin K2 decreases the potential for vascular calcification increases.
Statins reduce ketone production, which can then accelerate the aging process.
Increased risk for cancer: Breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.
Increased risk for diabetes.
Muscular issues like pain and muscle wasting.
Increased risk for cataracts.

In today’s medical world cholesterol has become the enemy. Yet healthy cholesterol levels are key to good health.

Why?

Because cholesterol is need for proper cell membrane integrity. In fact, without cholesterol you would just be a pool of living matter, instead of an upright thinking human being.

Cholesterol is also essential for your brain, which contains about 25 percent of the cholesterol in your body. It’s critical for synapse formation, i.e. the connections between your neurons, which allow you to think, learn new things, and form memories. So perhaps it’s not surprising that memory loss is widely reported in association with statin use. Read More →

To Stent Or Not To Stent

Posted by Dan Hammer //

11/22/2019

To stent or not to stent has recently become public news with the release of the ISCHEMIA study. This study has create headlines like this one from The Washington Post:

“Stents and bypass surgery are no more effective than drugs for stable heart disease, highly anticipated trial results show”

or this headline from CBS News:

“Medication and lifestyle changes could be as effective as surgery for heart disease, trail finds”

This newly released trial was led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Stanford University. They looked at over 5,000 patients who had heart blockages but were stable. And what they found can be summarized as follows:

Placing a stent in a patient with stable blockages could improve a patient’s quality of life by reducing their symptoms like chest pain.
But when compared to taking medications or implementing lifestyle changes, stenting didn’t lower their risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Needless to say this study has caused a significant reaction in the medical community. According to Harvard Medical School “about 600,000 people in the United States undergo an angioplasty to widen a narrowed coronary artery, nearly always with a tiny wire mesh tube (stent) left inside the artery to keep it open.”

This is not an inexpensive procedure.

To Stent or Not To Stent – The Numbers

The average cost for this procedure (angioplasty with the placement of a stent) is around $29,000.

This means that this medical procedure is a 17.4 billion dollar industry. It’s a major income stream for both interventional cardiologist and hospitals.

In response to the release of this study Elliot Antman, a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital made the following statement:

“The ISCHEMIA trial shows that an early invasive approach does not protect patients against death or the overall chance of a heart attack, but does effectively relieve chest pain – the more chest pain a patient has, the more likely they are to benefit.”

Now before we demonize interventional cardiologist and hospitals it’s important to note the following key words that apply to this trial:

“. . .who had heart blockages but were stable.”

Stable heart blockages is the key piece of information.

Going back to the Harvard Medical School they estimate that approximately “two-thirds of these procedures are done in people experiencing a potentially life-threatening event – a heart attack or unstable angina, defined as severe, worsening chest pain during exertion or stress, or chest pain that happens at rest.”

One-third of 600,000 is 198,000 people who might find other alternatives like medications and lifestyle changes to be as effective as stenting in keeping themselves alive. That could be a 5.7 billion dollar savings per year.

To Sent or Not To Sent – What is Stable Heart Blockages

Most vascular blockages are due to a process called atherosclerosis. This usually starts with very low density lipoprotein (bad cholesterol) being oxidized by free radicals. This creates inflammation and damage to the endothelium resulting in plaque formation. Over time this plaque continues to grow, which narrows the inside of the artery.

There is usually a fibrous cap to this plaque. This fibrous cap provides structure to the plaque.

However, unstable plaque or vulnerable plaque has a thin fibrous cap usually formed from a collection of white blood cells and lipids like bad cholesterol. And if free radical damage is continuing to occur, then the resulting inflammation makes this cap even more vulnerable for a rupture.

This rupture can then form a blood clot, or release cellular debris, that can then lead to a blockage resulting in a heart attack or stroke. If you remember Tim Russert from Meet The Press, then his heart attack and death would be a good example of this process.

There are certain biomarkers that can help you and your physician determine the increased probability of plaque being unstable. They are:

c-Reactive Protein

Oxidized LDL

Both of these are due to inflammation. Oxidized LDL is usually due to free radical damage.

Which gives a strong clue to lifestyle changes that can address this. One lifestyle change would be to significantly increase your intake of fruits, vegetables, and herbal extracts that are powerful antioxidants.

As well as eliminating as many omega 6 fatty acids from your diet and replacing them with omega 3 fatty acids.

Sugar and highly processed foods also contribute to vascular inflammation.

These 3 lifestyle changes can significantly improve your health while reducing the potential for oxidized LDL and vascular inflammation. All of which can help to stabilize any plaque in the vascular system.

And as I’ve share multiple times in previous articles, nitric oxide therapy can help to vasodilate the vascular system for improved blood flow. This would then help those who are experiencing chest pain and angina.