Owen,
I'm writing to tell you that I am quite disappointed. I have been taking Heart Technology for 3+ years, after finding high Lp (a). I had a heart scan in 2004 that had a calcium score of 83. I repeated that test yesterday and had a calcium score of 216!!
I have an appointment with Dr. Stephen [deleted], an integrative cardiologist for next month.
It doesn't seem like the Heart Technology is working for me and my arteries. I was so hoping that the test would show a reversal of the calcium scores.
Any thoughts,
Ms. A S
You are correct, there is little or no evidence that vitamin C and lysine lower calcium scores in arteries, which seems to be more of a function of the vitamin K status
However, I would be quite surprised if your arteries are not "wide open" and much healthier.
Here is an anecdote, for what it is worth. The president of a company I consult for is now in his 80s, became interested after his own diagnosis of heart disease more than 15 years ago. He has been taking HeartTechnology since 1994. After a few years, or around 1996 or 1997, a friend of his introduced a "fast CT scanner" product. The friend offered to check how well the Tower HeartTechnology product (HT) was working, at no charge.
Well, this scan on the President showed "massive" disease (calcium). The President checked himself into the hospital for an angiogram. The angiogram showed no or minimal blockage, left-descending wide open, etc. The Cardiologist said he was in fine shape.
So the knowledge we gained from this is this: arteries can be healthy and wide open, yet have "massive" calcium scores on these heart scans, in this case, most likely from the previous cardiovascular disease.
The President did have a very high arterial stiffness index (as measured by FDA approved cardio-vision) which makes sense, given the calcium near his heart, and after we found this out at conference we both attended, I suggested he supplement with vitamin K, which he did. One year later (at the next conference where we were tested by CardioVision) his Arterial Stiffness Index (ASI) had dropped hundreds of points to normal - same as mine, which remaind the same. I had been taking Heart Technology for the same length of time, and vitamin C since around 1983-1986..
The only change in this gentleman's supplements was adding the vitamin K for almost one year. We considered another Fast-CT scan, but it was expensive and he never retested..
This experience with the ASI is/was why, for several years, the A-9 product included vitamin K. However, most heart patients are on "blood thinning" drugs that block vitamin K, which leads to calcifcations of soft tissues. So Tower removed the vitamin K, to avoid obvious legal issues, but I still highly recommend it. Ralph Lotz points out that micrograms of K2 (versus milligrams of K1) can overcome the problem with coumadin and other vitamin K-blocking drugs.
Now in your case, I understand your wish to see improvement, but unless the units have changed, I don't think a 200 score is that high, is 218 considered high? And I am curious whether you are still taking any drugs or heart medications?
After 3 years, I am confident that your cardiovascular system is healthy, healthier than it was, but If you want to reduce that calcium score, I would consider supplementing with vitamin K (k1 or k2).