Pumping Marvellous

Fish Oils and EPA – Whats all the fuss

Omega-3 fatty acids are very important to health. Whilst Omega-6 fatty acids are abundant in all sorts of vegetable oils and meats, the omega-3′s (including EPA) are much harder to come by. They can be found in oily fish (salmon, mackerel, trout) as well as some seeds and nuts, including walnuts, flax seeds and pumpkin seeds. Unfortunately, however, most of us are not including enough of these items in our diet – if we are including any at all!

Firstly, you can try to add into your diet the foods that contain EPA, listed above. In doing this, bear in mind that some Governments, such as the UK are now recommending that you eat no more than 200g of sea-fish a week, due to the levels of toxins such as dioxin and mercury in fish, especially fish livers, where toxins concentrate.

Secondly, and this goes for most people, you should add a high-quality EPA supplement to your diet. Be sure that the fish oil used to produce it is from sources that filter out all the toxins, ensure it is PURE Omega-3 and is not diluted with other oils, e.g. vegetable oils.

The essential qualities of Omega-3 Fatty acids

Make sure it is PURE Omega-3
Check it is undiluted
Ask if dioxin has been removed

A very good article by Dr Alex Richardson of the charity Food & Behaviour Research, and one of the world’s leading researchers into Omega 3.

What are Beta-blockers

Beta-blockers have been proven to extend life and improve the symptoms of heart failure. Your doctor may start you on a low dose and increase it over a few weeks or months.

All beta-blockers have names that end in lol. There are several different beta-blockers, including atenolol, bisoprolol, carvedilol and metoprolol.

They work by slowing your heart rate and reducing blood pressure. Your doctor will probably start you on a beta-blocker after you have started taking an ACE inhibitor.

The most common side effects are tiredness, cold hands and feet, insomnia, dizziness or giddiness.

I thought I would share this with you. It is a very simple explanation of where we are with Stem Cell research. It is a press release by Cryo-Cell International INC

Dr. Joshua Hare believes medicine is close to a goal long thought to be impossible: healing the human heart.

The way to get there? Stem cells.

“These could be as big as antibiotics were in the last century,” said Hare, who leads the University of Miami ‘s new Stem Cell Institute. “Stem cells have the potential to have that kind of impact. Diseases like heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, liver failure and Heart Failure — we will be able to transition them into things you live with.”

Hare spends his days peering through powerful microscopes, recruiting scientists from top universities and attending to patients betting on improving their conditions through his clinical trials.

Stem cells, only one-thousandth the size of a grain of sand, are the master cells of the body, the source from which all other cells are created.

The most basic are embryonic stem cells, which are “totipotent,” meaning they can divide into any other type of cell — heart tissue, brain tissue, kidney tissue — all 220 cells that exist in the human body. They’re controversial because when they are harvested, the embryo is destroyed, ending potential life.

But coming into view are new kinds of stem cells — immature adult stem cells that can be extracted from bone marrow, from organs such as the heart or kidney or even from the skin. These can be taken without destroying embryos.

While researchers until recently believed adult stem cells were limited because they could develop only into cells similar to them — bone marrow cells only into cord blood stem cells, for example — evidence is growing that they, too, may become the tissue for hearts, brains, kidneys and other organs.

Hare expands on these developments:

Q. You’ve said that the basic idea behind your work is that a healthy human body is creating stem cells all the time to keep its organs healthy, and you’re trying to tap into this ability to expand its powers?

A: That’s the theory. It does sound fantastic. Actually, it happens in the body all the time, in tiny amounts. In our blood, to survive, we have red blood cells that carry oxygen, white cells that regulate the immune system and platelets, which are tiny cells that seal off cuts. They come from stem cells in the bone marrow. The marrow is the source for all red blood cells, platelets and some white blood cells.

The cells circulate in the blood all the time. Unless there’s a signal that says, “Come here and do this,” they will just keep circulating. If you get a cut, the cells will be recruited to that area to do what they do.

Q: Could such cells heal a heart attack all by themselves?

A: Experts believe the ability of the body to heal itself without help is limited. The system can slowly replace missing cells here and there, over a lifetime. But it’s not designed to repair a massive injury like a heart attack. That’s where we as doctors can intervene.

Q: In fact, you are intervening. You’ve led two studies at Johns Hopkins University and University of Miami in which you have harvested immature, or “mesenchymal” adult cord blood stem cells from the bone marrow, multiplied them many times in the lab, then injected them into the damaged heart. Is the idea that the bone marrow stem cells become heart cells?

A: This is where the biology gets somewhat murky. We don’t understand all the elements. We do have evidence that the cells differentiate, develop into healthy heart tissue.

Q: And this could be true with a damaged liver, kidney or brain?

A: In theory.

Q: You’ve said other kinds of adult stem cells are at work too?

A: Many cells are involved in the body’s attempts to heal itself. Some are from blood cells from bone marrow. But also, within the organs themselves, there are resident precursor cells that are stem cells. They’re sitting there like front-line soldiers in an injury. We think those stem cell cord blood collections that talk to each other and can go out and do healing. So we are engaging in a new study that will look at cardiac stem cells.

We can take pieces of heart tissue during surgery, multiply the stem cells in the lab and have a large amount to give back to the patient.

Q: Could an organ stem cell from, say, heart tissue, become a stem cell in the brain or kidney?

A: It’s possible, but not certain. We’re interested in studying how many degrees of freedom these cells have.

Q: And now researchers are getting stem cells even from the skin?

A: We’re starting to look at that. We know that stem cells in the skin replenish every 120 days. Researchers a year ago took regular stem cells from the skin and genetically reprogrammed them by introducing four genes. They were able to turn them into stem cells with a nearly unlimited capacity.

I hope enjoyed the read

Beta-blockers

Commonly associated with some sports people for the wrong reasons.

Beta-blockers have been proven to extend life and improve the symptoms of heart failure. Your doctor may start you on a low dose and increase it over a few weeks or months.

All beta-blockers have names that end in lol. There are several different beta-blockers, including atenolol, bisoprolol, carvedilol and metoprolol.

They work by slowing your heart rate and reducing blood pressure. Your doctor will probably start you on a beta-blocker after you have started taking an ACE inhibitor.

The most common side effects are tiredness, cold hands and feet, insomnia, dizziness or giddiness.

Diuretics

Diuretics used to be known as water pills because they stop fluid collecting in your body and make you urinate more often. These are one of the most common treatments in heart disease. However, there have been only a few large studies into how effective they are in heart failure.

Researchers have combined the findings from smaller studies and concluded that diuretics extend life and improve symptoms of heart failure. Clinicians recommend them for people with heart failure who have signs of fluid retention, such as swollen ankles or breathlessness due to fluid in the lungs. Doctors will vary the dose of diuretic depending on your symptoms.

There are many different types of diuretic, but some of the most widely used for heart failure are bendroflumethiazide, chlorthalidone and furosemide.

Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors)

Bit of a mouthful and thats why we call them “ACE” in pumping marvellous.

ACE inhibitors have been shown to extend life and improve symptoms in people with heart failure. It is recommended that anyone with heart failure caused by a failing left ventricle (most people) should take an ACE inhibitor.

All ACE inhibitors have names that end in pril and include ramipril, captopril, enalapril, lisinopril and perindopril. They work by making the blood vessels open up more (dilate), which makes the blood flow more easily and reduces blood pressure, easing the strain on the heart.

The most common side effects are a dry, irritating cough. Some people simply cannot put up with it and have to switch to another treatment, but persevere if you can. Some people find the cough is less of a problem with a different ACE inhibitor, or that it disappears after a few weeks. Another side effect is hypotension. This means your blood pressure has fallen too low, making you feel dizzy or giddy, especially when you get up after sitting or lying down.

The worst attitude to adopt with Heart Failure is just take your drugs as the clinician has told you to. As explained in other posts on this site make sure you know what each drug does, the benefits and the the side effects.

When I was in my teens I always wanted to be a doctor but my Maths was not up to scratch to continue my favourite subjects which were Chemistry, Biology and Physics obviously essential to get me into Med school. This is where my fascination with everything medical started. After being diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy in January 2010 I found that I had a real life patient who was very close to home. I was in the Royal Blackburn Hospital cardiology wards for 3 weeks and if you ask people who know me I am not one for standing still so whilst lying their for days on end I decided to find out what all this Heart Failure was about.

I constantly asked questions around the condition, medication and recovery. The Nurses, Doctors and Consultants must have thought they had a wild one on their hands. What I found was that indirectly they knew I was more interested in Heart Failure than the average punter and although I asked a lot of questions there was more than just a prescriptive relationship between their patient and the clinicians. The feedback I got months have leaving hospital was this “your recovery has been excellent because you really worked with us…..”

What I am trying to say is get interested and inquisitive about Heart Failure. Follow these three guidelines and you won’t go wrong.

Always ask questions about the drugs you are taking and what are the potential side effects
Always challenge your Nurse or Consultant if you are concerned or unhappy – you can if you want to!
It is very important that you work with all Nurses, Doctors and Consultants -this will produce the best result

These reason why I am writing this post is that my nails keep breaking and this is down to one of the drugs I am taking. I have found a solution because I know what I am doing!

New to Warfarin?

Just a little helpful tip which nearly caught me out.

After coming out of Hospital I thought that Warfarin Sulphate was the same as any drug in terms of:-

Get your prescription
Go to the pharmacy
Collect your Warfarin tablets

Assumption is an evil – I nearly ran out of Warfarin when I found that the GP had not authorised the prescription.

Remember that you need to show your INR record card to the GP and the Pharmacist to prove that you have been attending regular clinics for checking your INR level. In the UK you must produce your INR record card,
and lets face it Warfarin was used as Rat poison and if you take too much you will cause yourself untold problems; mainly your blood will not clot.