Dear Mr. Fonorow,
I was referred to you by Tower Laboratories. I have been using the Tower Labs Heart Tech vitamin C supplement for a year, and due to disappointing results, called Tower to cancel my monthly order. We chatted for a while and she asked about my condition. I told her that a year ago during my annual physical, my doctor suggested I get a CT Heart Scan to determine if I have any plaque in my arteries. The results came back unexpectedly high and my doctor wanted me to start taking Lipitor right away. But statins didn't appeal to me due to side effects, so after some research found out about Vitamin C and other plaque reducing dietary changes, which I started immediately. A year later (a couple days ago), I had another CT heart scan expecting a good result. However I found that my coronary calcium score had increased by 129 points-diagnosis Atherosclerosis. Not only no improvement or stabilization as I had hoped, but the condition got worse!
I don't have any other health problems, live a healthy lifestyle, don't smoke, have exercised daily for decades, eat healthy, took vitamin supplements like Tower Labs. So I'm at my wits end as to what do to do now but to start taking statins as my doctors suggested, as I am alarmed that my CT scan results indicate that I am at high risk of having a cardiovascular event within the next 2-5 years!
Tower suggested I contact you as you might have some insight from all the people you have talked to, as to why it didn't work for me, and how I might proceed from here. I would appreciate any suggestions, doctor references, or pointers you can provide.
Regards,
--Ed
The CT scans measure calcium in the arteries. We have known for over a decade that taking vitamin C and lysine will have little to no effect on calcified arteries (arteriosclerosis). The "trick" is adding vitamin K. The Japanese research showing that vitamin K acts as a hormone moving calcium from soft tissues into bones was not published until after Linus Pauling's death.
Anecdotally, my wife and I take one LEF.ORG Super-K per day, and our scores on the CT-Scans (posted) are zero - age 62. I would expect yours to drop by adding vitamin K, and staying off drugs that block vitamin K (e.g. Warfarin)
As far as the statin hoax, there is no real science that Statin cholesterol-lowering drugs s do anything positive for heart patients, and there is a ton of data that these drugs are harmful. Here is a good place to start, but the evidence against statins is voluminous.
http://vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=12520
And here is our blurb on adding vitamin K to the Pauling vitamin C/lysine therapy
http://vitamincfoundation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=11891