@Bicep Thanks, I never heard that before. I used to take glucosamine and chondroitin for knee pain but quit when I stopped needing it. Maybe I should add it back. I’ll check it out.
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@Beth thanks!
Berberine is good for many benefits. I was surprised to learn about this latest benefit (increase ldl receptors) but I use it for blood sugar and gut health benefits already.
Baby aspirin also seems to have several potential benefits but also has risks related to stomach irritation and bleeding risk. Dr Twyman said a daily baby aspirin was a net good idea if you had an event of have a high CAC score. I don’t know the half-life of aspirin.
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@约瑟夫_拉维尔 Excellent episode. The previous episode with Dr. Loh was also very good.
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@Kandice Thats great. Today I recorded my follow up with Dr Loh on retaining or gaining muscle while losing excess body fat. Several surprises for me in this one. I’ll get it out as quickly as possible.
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Beth
#12
I just did a quick search on here to see if anyone recommended a particular brand or even dosage of Berberine, and I saw you might take Dihydroberberine…… talk to me… 
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Here’s some info…
I don’t know if the results are better but I now take 1 tab a day (150mg) vs. 2 tabs (400mg each) previously.
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Just on the half life of aspirin… not actually the right question on that medication.
Aspirin irreversible inactivated platelets from forming clots. Platelet aggregation is part of the pathway to stroke or heart attack, especially when a plaque ruptures.
You make about 15-20% of your circulating platelets daily and a similar amount are out of function daily.
About 300 mg once will inhibit all your circulating platelets. Adding around 50 mg or more daily will inhibit all new ones made in the last 24 hours.
The data is that for most people, daily aspirin causes more harm than good, unless there is a clear vascular risk to be treated.
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There are different strategies to minimizing vascular risk. The ability to objectively measure if you actually have disease should modify one’s desire to aggressively treat.
I take Atorvastatin and have no side effects that I can identify. This is probably the case in 90% of people. However the core question beyond side effects, is whether you need it.
If you are 65 and have a CAC of less than 100 without a focal lesion accounting for all one’s score, do you need lipid mitigation? Maybe if you are going for 130, maybe not if goal is 80.
Obviously, other options can be used beyond statins.
Curious if others have used AMLA … a gooseberry extract … looks pretty solid as an option in this space for moderate lipid impact.
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I noticed that there was no discussion of psychological stress as a cause of endothelial dysfunction. I think this is very under-appreciated, especially because the health effects of stress may only manifest themselves many years later.
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@DrFraser Thanks. I used to take a baby aspirin everyday, 87mg I think. The only bleeding consequence was if I cut myself shaving it would take an extra 5 minutes to clot. How does that jive with your 50mg kills all platelets made in last 24 hours? Did I clot without platelets? (I honestly do not know how that works). Or do you mean 50mg added to 300mg everyday (350mg in total)? If so would a person taking >350mg of aspirin everyday have zero platelets (will bleed out)?
I remember seeing a news piece about reporters who chewed aspirin like candy for headaches. They also smoked cigarettes stuck in their nostrils so they could talk on the phone while they smoked. Hard core dudes with short lives, I guess.
Aspirin comes as 81mg and 325 mg typically. A loading dose of 325 mg is typical then 81 mg per day in the U.S.
The platelets aren’t completely dysfunctional due to aspirin, but are inhibited. So yes they still participate in clotting, just more slowly and less effectively.
Taking more aspirin than this adds toxicity, but no better platelet inhibition.
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The podcast mentioned “lozenges or capsules” that give you NO if your body isn’t producing it. What are they talking about there? Has anyone tried them? Do they actually work?
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@Dexter_Scott I believe he was referring to the Humann brand…they have nitrate test strips, beet root products and a lozenge that somehow gives you NO. I just take a Berkley Life brand nitrate / nitrite supplement in the AM plus eat celery with dinner everyday. Of course I had to figure out how to stop killing my oral biome but I’m good now.
I’m in the middle of another podcast that argues that not only should you avoid antiseptic mouthwash, but also fluoride in toothpaste and the water. Perhaps it’s time to install a reverse osmosis water filter…
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@Dexter_Scott i have done so for myself. It is somewhat controversial but I need strong NO for heart health and more.
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Maybe I’m not 100% informed, but the use of statins for longevity never made much sense to me, as there is some literature that shows that lower LDL-C levels increase the risk of mortality at the end of life.
LDL-C does not seem to me to be the culprit of cardiovascular disease, in my opinion there are other more important things to prevent atherovascular plaque accumulation, like manage blood preassure, exercise regularly, controling inflamation, managing blood glucose levels, and have good insulin sensitivity.
I almost got on the statin trend some time ago when i read the Attila book, but when i got deep in the studies, it seems to me that they are not a good solution or a preventive mesure to a healthy guy. Maybe to a person with CVD, but still i think there are better ways.
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Based on observational trials which are not even backed by ITP data.
LDL-C does not seem to me to be the culprit of cardiovascular disease
We have plenty of mechanistical, observational and interventional data proving a direct connection between LDL-C (or rather apoB particles) and heart disease. It’s not the sugar that gets stuck in the cell walls.
I agree with you and the literature, LDL is indeed deposited there, but it is not the main culprit of this happening. In my opinion, it is inflammation, high blood pressure, that causes damage to the endothelium and the LDL that is passing through the bloodstream gets trapped in these gaps that damage the endothelium.
I’m always suspicious of the literature, especially statins, a lot of economic interest. When you think about the functioning of the body, physiology, and we don’t reduce the cause of a problem to 1 factor, lowering LDL doesn’t make sense to me.
If LDL were so harmful, why does it continue to exist in our body? Wouldn’t evolution have eliminated LDL if it were useless and non-essential?
To me it doesn’t make sense that downloading something as much as possible is beneficial, if that were the case why is it still there?
Why are there studies of people with high LDL levels who do not have plaque buildup?
These are all questions I ask myself, and they don’t make sense to me, and that’s why I choose not to take a statin. LDL has a role in the body, a function, and lowering it as much as possible doesn’t seem logical to me.
But I could be wrong, but for me reductionism is something that doesn’t work for us, and LDL is a clear case of that. Medicine is reductionist and our body works as a whole.
Medicine said that the appendix had no function, like other organs, and they removed them left and right. Now we see that they have a function, we just didn’t know it, will the LDL not be the same??
Just questions, food for the brain, we have to transcend what they tell us and think outside the box, beyond the reductionism that medicine is.
It’s my opinion
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AnUser
#27
Yes, yes you are wrong.
This is some mysticism stuff.
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