Laughter Is Still The Best Medicine!

The old saying that laughter is the best medicine appears to be true when it comes to protecting your heart.

A University of Maryland study says watching comedy boosts blood flow to the heart in the same way aerobic exercise does. “We do not yet know why this is so, but we know that mental stress is associated with impairment of the endothelium which is the protective barrier that lines our blood vessels," says Michael Miller, M.D., F.A.C.C., director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

This can cause a series of inflammatory reactions that lead to cholesterol and fat build-up in the coronary arteries and in the end to a heart attack

Blood flow rates dropped after participants watched distressing movie scenes - and "increased" in nearly 100 percent of people after watching a comedy.

When volunteers watched a movie that caused mental stress there was a reduction in the diameter of the blood vessel which would reduce in some reduced blood flow.

It also released chemicals that may increase blood clot formation and that may have adverse affects that may promote hardening of the arteries.

The study seems simple but it mimics what researchers have long suspected that there is a link between depression and the development of heart disease.

If you have heart disease and you're depressed your outcome of survival in fact can be affected.

So along with regular excercise, experts prescribe 15 minutes of laughter a day wherever you can find it.

Sources: Keep Laughing And Live Longer, Laughter Is The Best Medicine

So, here is your daily prescription of laughter. Watch a few of these videos and call me in the morning!

 

BLIND DATE

LAUGHING BABY 

BATHROOM BREAK

GET IN SHAPE


THE EVIL LOOK


GLADYS ROCKS THE ELLEN SHOW

The Truth About Cholesterol

. . . and Its Affect on Your Health

Cholesterol is a waxy, oily steroid compound which has received a lot of bad press in recent years – especially when it comes to cardiovascular degeneration. The truth states cholesterol is vital to the body's health and functioning.

Cholesterol is an essential component in cell membranes. It helps us to absorb fat-soluble vitamins (A,D,E, & K) and essential fatty acids. It is also involved in manufacturing key male and female sex hormones and steroidal hormones. These are crucial for a healthy immune system and a smooth running hormonal system.

Ironically, a significant percentage of coronary heart disease occurs in people with normal to low cholesterol. The problem behind heart disease isn't the cholesterol itself – but oxidized cholesterol. Over the past decade researchers have recently begun to realize that heart disease is actually the result of long-term, low-grade inflammation of our arteries. Numerous nutrients have been indicated by thousands of published studies to promote healthy cardiovascular function. There are four primary benefits that can be achieved by using nutrition to promote cardiovascular health:

1) Antioxidant nutrients that prevent cell oxidation of the LDL (bad) cholesterol. Cholesterol only becomes your enemy when the LDL faction is hit by a free radical and becomes oxidized. The following are nutrients that have been shown to act as antioxidants and protect the LDL cholesterol from oxidation:

• Garlic (400 - 2,000 mg per day - odorless aged extract is superior)


• Vitamin E (400 - 1,200 IU per day - a natural blend is up to 3 times for powerful)


• Grape Seed Extract (50 - 200 mg per day)


• Red Wine Extract (50 - 200 mg per day - use standardized 30% or greater polphenols)


• Green Tea Extract (100 - 300 mg per day - use standardized 80% polyphenols/55% epigallocatechin)


• CoEnzyme Q10 (60 - 120 mg per day)

2) Nutrients that promote healthy homocysteine levels. Over 500 studies have been published in the medical literature about the dangers of homocysteine. Elevated homocysteine is up to 5 times more deadly than elevated cholesterol. Vitamins B6, B12, Folic Acid promote healthy homocysteine levels.

The following are recommended nutrients and levels to promote healthy homocysteine levels:

• Vitamin B6 (50 - 150 mg per day)
• Vitamin B12 (500 - 2,000 mcg per day - Methylcobalamin form is far superior)
• Folic Acid (400 - 1,000 IU per day)

3) Nutrients that promote healthy cholesterol levels and ratios. Cholesterol levels are not the best indicators of cardiovascular health, the ratio of HDL (good) versus LDL (bad) are far superior. A ratio of 4 or less is good with 3 being optimal.

The following nutrients are recommended to promote healthy cholesterol levels and ratios:

• Fish Oil (1000-4000 mg per day of EPA & DHA)
• Garlic (900 mg per day - odorless aged extract)
• Tocotrienols (10-50 mg per day)
• Fiber (20 - 30 grams per day from food and supplements)
• Olive Polyphenols (5-10 Mg. per day)

4) Nutrients that promote strong and healthy blood vessels. Many people's diets do not supply enough Vitamin C and Bioflavonoids to promote healthy blood vessels. Vitamin C and Bioflavonoids are critical to collagen formation, the major connective protein that maintains and promotes strong blood vessels.

• Vitamin C (500 - 2,000 mg per day)
• Bioflavonoids (100 - 500 mg per day)
• Gingko Biloba (50-100 mg. per day)
• Phosphatidylserine (100-400 mg per day)

Do Statins Make You Stupid?

World-wide, some 25 million people take statins, including Zocor, Mevacor, Crestor, Pravachol and Vytorin to lower their cholesterol. Could they also be lowering their IQ at the same time?

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Orli Etingin, vice chairman of medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital and the director of the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center, declared that, "This drug makes women stupid." She told of a typical patient in her 40s, unable to concentrate or recall words. Tests found nothing amiss, but when the woman stopped taking Lipitor, the symptoms vanished. When she resumed taking Lipitor, they returned. I've seen this in maybe two dozen patients," Dr. Etingin said later, adding that they did better on other statins. "This is just observational, of course. We really need more studies, particularly on cognitive effects and women."

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego are nearing completion of a randomized controlled trial examining the effects of statins on thinking, mood, behavior, and quality of life. Separately, the UCSD researchers are collecting anecdotal experiences of patients, good and bad, on statins; memory problems are the second most common side effect, after muscle aches, in about 5,000 reports to date.

"We have some compelling cases," says Beatrice Golomb, the study's lead researcher. In one of them, a San Diego woman, Jane Brunzie, was so forgetful that her daughter was investigating Alzheimer's care for her and refused to let her babysit for her 9-year-old granddaughter. Then the mother stopped taking a statin. "Literally, within eight days, I was back to normal -- it was that dramatic," says Mrs. Brunzie, 69 years old.Doctors put her on different statins three more times. "They'd say, 'Here, try these samples.' Doctors don't want to give up on it," she says. "Within a few days of starting another one, I'd start losing my words again," says Mrs. Brunzie, who has gone back to volunteering at the local elementary school she loves and is trying to bring her cholesterol down with dietary changes instead."I feel very blessed -- I got about 99% of my memory back," she adds. "But I worry about people like me who are starting to lose their words who may think they have just normal aging and it may not be."


The brain is largely made of of cholesterol, much of it in the myelin sheaths that insulate nerve cells and in the synapses that transmit nerve impulses. Lowering cholesterol could slow the connections that facilitate thought and memory. Statins may also lead to the formation of abnormal proteins seen in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.


The cognitive changes can affect men as well as women. But women on statins are often simultaneously losing estrogen due to menopause, which can also cause cognitive changes. "Women are getting hit with a double whammy," says Elizabeth Lee Vliet, a women's health physician in Tucson, Ariz., who has a background in neuroendochronology.



According to the "LDL hypothesis," lowering bad cholesterol prevents plaque buildup in the arteries. And that, in theory, reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke. Vytorin -- which combines Merck's Zocor, a statin, and Schering-Plough's Zetia, a new class of LDL-lowering medicine -- does lower bad cholesterol but has also been proven to thicken the plaque in the carotid arteries (in the neck) of patients more than in those who took Zocor alone -- apparently contradicting the "LDL hypothesis." A blocked carotid artery can lead to restricted blood flow to the brain and a stroke.



Another cholesterol lowering drug called, Torcetrapib (Pfizer) represented a new class of cholesterol medicine designed not only to lower LDL cholesterol but also to boost HDL, or "good" cholesterol. But the results of two large-scale studies linked torcetrapib to deaths and showed it failed to prevent the buildup of arterial plaque. Soon after, Pfizer abandoned the project.


Myth: High cholesterol Goes Hand In Hand With Heart Disease

In the Framingham heart study done near Boston that spanned 30 years , the researchers concluded that high cholesterol was a risk factor for heart disease, but when one really dissects the data, one must question how they came to that conclusion. For example, when the participants of the study are plotted on a graph it clearly shows that those with cholesterol levels between 182 and 222 did not survive as long as those with higher cholesterol levels of between 222 and 261. The study shows that about half the people with heart disease had low cholesterol, and half the people without heart disease had high cholesterol.



Most studies have found that for women, high cholesterol is not a risk factor for heart disease at all - in fact, the death rate for women is five times higher in those with very low cholesterol. In a Canadian study that followed 5000 healthy middle-aged men for 12 years, they found that high cholesterol was not associated with heart disease at all. And in another study done at the University Hospital in Toronto that looked at cholesterol levels in 120 men that previously had heart attacks, they found that just as many men that had second heart attacks had low cholesterol levels as those that had high.
Why is it that over half the people who die of heart disease do not have high cholesterol? Could it be that cholesterol is not the main problem?

A personal note

My parents were taking Zocor for a number of years. At $60 per month, it was quite expensive. My mother died of Alzheimer's disease last year. My father has Parkinson's related dementia too. Before I took him off statins, my dad was experiencing muscle pain, numbness, memory loss, muscle weakness and many other side effects listed on the Zocor label. Although they claim that these side effects are rare, I believe that they are just under reported. Read the article below on, Is Your Doctor in Denial?


Other Side Effects Of Statins

Talk to your physician about the side effects of statin drugs which might include:


Inability to concentrate
Depression
Confusion
Impotence
Amnesia
Lowered sex drive
Disorientation
Violent BehaviorWeakened immune system
Shortness of breath
Liver damage
Fatigue
Kidney failure
Nerve pain
SuicideDeath
Muscle weakness
Rhabdomyolysis (painful bursting of muscle cells)

Getting Less Of What You Need
Statins block the production of Co enzyme Q10 in your body. Why is that so dangerous? Coenzyme Q10 is very important for heart function, it acts as an antioxidant in conjunction with Vitamin E, and it is important in energy metabolism in the mitochondria of muscles, which is why muscle pain is a common side effect of statin drugs. Your heart is one of your biggest and most important muscles. If your heart is weakened by the lack of Co enzyme Q10, statins could actually cause you to have a heart attack. Co enzyme Q10 is important for healthy brain function as well, and when Co enzyme Q10 levels are low, through statin use or otherwise, memory is affected.
Lower Your Chance Of Heart Disease Naturally
Eskimos, who eat a traditional diet of almost pure saturated fat (whale and seal blubber) have almost a zero incidence of heart disease. Danes, on the other hand, eat a high fat diet but have a much higher occurrence of heart disease. What's the difference? Eskimos eat a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet but one rich in fish, especially those containing the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These fatty acids lower plasma of very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and triglyceride (a type of fat in your blood) concentrations by depressing synthesis of triglycerides in the liver.

If you are not eating at least 3 meals a week that includes fatty, oily fish, you might want to consider taking some pharmaceutical-grade fish oil pills. These are more concentrated and purer than your regular grocery store brand. They are also less likely to give you the "fish burps" and you will have to take half as many pills because of the concentration.

Researchers at University Hospital in Basel Switzerland did a statistical analysis, called a “meta-analysis” of 97 double-blind, controlled studies, involving 137,140 people who received a heart-disease “intervention (statins, niacin, two other pharmaceutical drugs, diet or fish oil) and 138,976 who received a placebo. The remarkable findings: Fish oil reduced cardiac deaths by 32 percent; statins by 22 percent. Fish oil cut deaths from all causes by 23 percent; statins, by 13 percent. That means, say experts, that omega-3 fish oil was 45 per more effective than statins in preventing heart fatalities and 77 percent better at saving lives in general. (Marco Studer., Arch Intern Med 2005; 165:725-730)

Fish oil’s strong anti inflammatory activity is also a prime reason for its cardiovascular protection, say the Swiss scientists. Other reasons fish oil might beat statins: Omega-3s help regulate heart rhythms, preventing sudden cardiac deaths; thwart formation of blood clots; improve endothelial and vascular function, reduce triglycerides, lower blood pressure, and raise good HDL cholesterol. (Mori TA, Curr Atheroscler Rep 2004 Nov; 6(6): 461-7)

Fish oil has NONE of the side effects found with statins.

First Step Therapy

Doctors have always been encouraged by the medical community to help their patients to become heart healthy by prescribing healthy lifestyle changes like diet and exercise prior to beginning any medication at the early signs of these diseases. This is referred to as First-Step Therapy. Physicians have for the most part been very discouraged with the results of First-Step Therapy and have a tendency to simply write a prescription without offering their patients an opportunity to improve their clinical situation with healthy lifestyle changes. This is happening because physicians believe that their patients will simply not be able to make these lifestyle changes or even if they do, they will not be that effective. This attitude along with the tremendous amount of marketing by the pharmaceutical industry directly to the patient has led individuals to believe that their best option is to just begin taking medication. However, it is becoming more evident each and every day that there is also an inherit risk with taking any medication. In fact, adverse drug reactions to properly prescribed and properly administered medication are the FOURTH leading cause of death in this country. 

Sources:
Statins May Spur Dementia

Is Your Doctor in Denial?

Can a Drug That Helps Hearts Be Harmful to the Brain?

In wake of Vytorin study, some heart doctors reassess LDL factor

Diet Comparable To Statin Drugs In Lowering LDL Cholesterol
Omega-3 fatty acids reduce mortality risk more effectively than statin drugs

Debunking The Cholesterol Myth

If you buy any grapefruit juice this year, make sure it the "FAT-FREE" kind! I'm so happy to finally find a juice company that is trimming the fat off of their fruit. If I
were you, I would go to my refrigerator right now and check the fat content of all my juices. Caution: you have now entered the world of the absurd.

We now live in a world that is obsessed with all things that are low-fat and low-cholesterol. It is just an accepted fact that eating a low-fat diet will aid in lowering your cholesterol. Lowering your cholesterol will lead to a lower chance of heart disease and death. If this is true, why do Eskimos who eat a traditional diet of almost pure saturated fat (whale and seal blubber) have almost a zero incidence of heart disease?

Studies of African tribes have shown that intakes of enormous amounts of animal fat do not necessarily raises blood cholesterol; on the contrary it may be very low. Samburu people, for instance, eat about a pound of meat and drink almost two gallons of raw milk each day during most of the year. Milk from the African Zebu cattle is much fatter than cow's milk, which means that the Samburus consume more than twice the amount of animal fat than the average American, and yet their cholesterol is much lower, about 170 mg/dl. Shaper AG. Cardiovascular studies in the Samburu tribe of northern Kenya. American Heart Journal 1962;63:437-442.

Shepherds in Somalia eat almost nothing but milk from their camels. About a gallon and a half a day is normal, which amounts to almost one pound of butter fat, because camel's milk is much fatter than cow's milk. But although more than sixty percent of their energy consumption comes from animal fat, their mean cholesterol is only about 150 mg/dl, far lower than in most Western people.
Lapiccirella V., and others. Enquête clinique, biologique et cardiogra-phique parmi les tribus nomades de la Somalie qui se nourissent seule-ment de lait. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 1962;27: 681-697

The Japanese are known for their healthy diet and low cholesterol. Harvard Medical School did a study of Americans and Japanese health in the 1950's. They found that U.S. people on average had a blood cholesterol of 220 whereas Japanese had about 170. The theory has always been that people with high cholesterol were more likely to get a condition called atherosclerosis. This is usually referred to as hardening of the arteries due to plaque build up, calcification and deposits of cholesterol.

The aorta, the main artery of the body, from 659 American and 260 Japanese people were studied after death. Meticulously all signs of atherosclerosis were recorded and graded. As expected, atherosclerosis increased from age 40 and upwards, both in Americans and in Japanese. Now to the surprising fact.

When degree of atherosclerosis was compared in each age group there was hardly any difference between American and Japanese people. Between age forty and sixty Americans were a little more arteriosclerotic than Japanese; between sixty and eighty there was practically no difference, and above eighty Japanese were a little more arteriosclerotic than Americans.
Gore I, Hirst AE, Koseki Y. Comparison of aaortic atherosclerosis in the United States, Japan, and Guatemala. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1959;7:50-54.

A similar study was conducted by Dr J.A. Resch from Minneapolis and Dr.s N. Okabe and K. Kimoto from Kyushu, Japan. They studied the arteries of the brain in 1408 Japanese and in more than 5000 American people and found that in all age groups Japanese people were more arteriosclerotic than were Americans.

The conclusion from these studies is of course that the level of cholesterol in the blood has little importance for the development of atherosclerosis, if any at all.

Could it be that we are looking at the wrong things? Could it be that heart disease is not a disease of cholesterol at all? Could it be that eating fat has little to do with it? Look at the people on the Atkins diet as they eat foods that are full of cholesterol and fat. You might think that this would make their cholesterol (LDL) go up. The fact is that it goes down.

You might argue that vegetarians usually have lower cholesterol than other people and they eat little animal fat. But vegetarians differ from the rest of the human population in more than their diet. They usually smoke less, they are usually thinner, and they usually exercise more often than other people. Whether it is their diet, or their other living habits, or perhaps something else that lowers their blood cholesterol is unknown.

In an article by Dr. Cranton, he suggests that heart disease could be strongly linked to vitamin D3 deficiency. Robert Scragg, Associate Professor in Epidemiology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, first proposed that vitamin D deficiency plays a role in cardiovascular disease. He explains that heart disease is higher at higher latitudes with less sunlight, lower altitudes, in the winter, in African Americans, in older, inactive, and in more obese patients. Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin in that our body produces it naturally when our skin is exposed to the sun. Altitude is the least known of these associations. The age adjusted mortality for heart disease in the USA showed a striking inverse correlation with altitude in 1979, before the sun scare. American populations at the highest altitude had about half the heart disease of sea level populations. Thirty-five years ago, Leaf observed that most of the long-lived populations in the world reside at high altitude. Dr. Scragg showed that higher vitamin D levels are associated with lower risk for heart attack.

For more on vitamin D, refer to my other blog post by clicking on the following link:

Vitamin D Shortage

Facts about Cholesterol

Click on items below for scientific evidence.

1 Cholesterol is vital to cell health. A high cholesterol is not dangerous by itself.

2 Scientific studies show that people with low blood cholesterol have as much atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease as people with high cholesterol.

3 The human body produces most its cholesterol. Diet has little influence.

4 No evidence exists to show that animal fat and dietary cholesterol cause heart attacks. Plaque formation seen at autopsy is unrelated to dietary cholesterol or fat.

5 Drugs that lower cholesterol do not lower the overall death rate significantly. In fact, cholesterol lowering drugs may shorten life.

6 Statin drugs may reduce heart disease somewhat, but that is the result of other mechanisms unrelated to cholesterol. Unfortunately, they may also stimulate cancer, cause muscle damage and birth defects.

7 The effect of cholesterol on cardiovascular disease is widely discredited in scientific journals and text books.

8 Companies that market statin drugs choose to ignore the scientific evidence. The public is deceived.

9 Higher Cholesterol has many benefits: 1) People with high cholesterol live the longest. 2) Studies show that low cholesterol is in certain respects worse than high cholesterol. 3) Cholesterol protects against infection. 4) People with low cholesterol die younger.

The above facts do not apply to a small group of people (approximate incidence 0.2%) who inherit a familial type of genetic mutation causing very high cholesterol's levels (usually greater than 400 mg/dL), with fatty deposits in the skin and tendons (xanthomas), and family history of premature death.

Click below here for three highly recommended books:

The Cholesterol Myths : Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease, by Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD

Malignant Medical Myths: Why Medical Treatment Causes 200,000 Deaths in the USA each Year, and How to Protect Yourself, by Joel M. Kauffman, Ph.D.

Lipitor: Thief of Memory, Statin Drugs and the Misguided War on Cholesterol.
by Duane Graveline, M.D, M.P.H

Click here to link to scientists who agree with the above facts

Sources:

http://www.drcranton.com/nutrition/cholesterol_facts.htm

http://www.drcranton.com/Cholesterol_myth.htm

Technorati Tags: Cholesterol,Heart Disease,Low-Fat Diets

HEART DISEASE STARTS IN CHILDHOOD

According to a 1998 article in the New England Journal of Medicine, heart disease starts in childhood.



Ages 16-20 (30% affected)

Ages 21-25 (50% affected)

Ages 26-39 (75% affected)



Cancer and Heart disease are not limited to older people any more! There is often 10-20 years of DNA damage that is done before cancer is even detected. A recent study (August 2007) reported in the Journal of American Pediatrics said that Metabolic Syndrome in children is a strong predictor of adult cardiovascular (heart) disease 25 years later.

1 in three women and 1 in 2 men will get cancer in their lifetime.

My mother had cancer in her 60's. That means it probably started when she was in her 30's or 40's. She got it again in another place when she was in her 70's!

A new report shows the number of kids taking statin drugs shot up 68% in just 5 years.1

It’s great that younger people are focusing on heart health. And it’s certainly alarming that health problems related to heart disease are showing up at younger ages than ever before. But statin drugs aren’t the answer. As I’ve pointed out before, they pose serious health risks, including

Inability to concentrate
Depression
Confusion
Impotence
Amnesia
Lowered sex drive
Disorientation
Weakened immune system
Shortness of breath
Liver damage
Fatigue
Kidney failure
Nerve pain
Death
Muscle weakness
Rhabdomyolysis (painful bursting of muscle cells)


Study after study has demonstrated the potentially debilitating effects of statin drugs. They can produce confused states similar to Alzheimer’s disease. They may increase the risk of cancer death. And putting the blame on LDL cholesterol, they don’t even help solve the underlying problems that cause heart disease.

Cholesterol is the great red herring of mainstream medicine’s take on heart health. Despite twenty years of propaganda from the heart health industry, the fact is that LDL cholesterol levels are still a terribly poor predictor of whether or not you’re going to have a heart attack. It may surprise you to learn that 75% of heart attack victims have normal cholesterol levels.

And this is old news. The myth of cholesterol’s role in heart disease has been thoroughly debunked.
Debunking The Cholesterol Myth
The Cholesterol Conspiracy

My advice is to forget about cholesterol and statin drugs and focus instead on the true indicators of heart health. Here’s what you should really be looking out for if you want to know whether you’re at risk:



Triglycerides
Insulin
Blood Pressure
Fasting Blood Glucose
Waist Size

Triglycerides are the kind of fat in your bloodstream that clogs your arteries. You can lower them safely and naturally by getting more omega-3 and vitamin D. Cod liver oil’s a great source of both. Lean meats, fish, and eggs are also rich in omega-3s. You can also get your vitamin D from supplements – 1,000 IEUs per day will do the trick.

Insulin is the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. And high blood sugar levels lead to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. If your insulin levels are high, you may be developing insulin resistance, the cause of diabetes.

Glycemic Index

Dr David Ludwig of Boston's Children's Hospital has done several studies on overweight teenagers.

In one, he tested the idea that a high-GI breakfast makes people hungrier at lunch. A dozen obese boys were fed three different breakfasts, all with the same calories - a low-GI vegetable omelet and fruit, medium-GI oats or high-GI instant oatmeal.

At noon, they could eat as much as they wanted. Those who started the day with instant oatmeal wolfed down nearly twice as much as those getting the veggie omelet.

Ludwig says overweight people do not need to starve themselves. On a low-GI diet, they can eat enough to feel satisfied and still lose weight.

In a pilot study, he tested this on 14 overweight adolescents. They were put on two different regimens - a standard low-cal, low-fat, high-carb diet and a low-GI plan that let them eat all they wanted. After one year, the low-GI volunteers had dropped three kg of pure fat. The others had put on nearly two kg. Now he is repeating the study on 100 heavy teenagers.


Blood Pressure is another indicator of heart disease risk. You can easily lower it through exercise, diet, and supplements. Coenzyme Q10, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and vitamin C have all been shown to benefit people with high blood pressure. Garlic and cayenne pepper also contain natural ingredients that reduce hypertension.

Omega-3 fatty acids reduce mortality risk more effectively than statin drugs

Omega-3 fatty acids reduce mortality risk more effectively than statin drugs
A review published in the April 11 2005 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine analyzed the effects of various lipid lowering regimens on overall mortality and mortality from coronary heart disease. Researchers reviewed 97 clinical trials that included 137,140 men and women receiving treatment and 138,976 control subjects. This analysis compared the mortality risk associated with diet, lipid lowering drugs, omega-3 fatty acids (commonly found in fish oils) and niacin. Statins (a class of lipid lowering drugs) and omega-3 fatty acids significantly lowered both overall and coronary heart disease mortality risk during the trial periods. When compared to controls, overall mortality risk was reduced 13 percent by statin drugs and 23 percent by omega-3 fatty acids. When the risk of mortality from heart disease alone was examined, the use of statin drugs and omega-3 fatty acids were found to lower the risk by 22 and 32 percent, respectively. Since omega-3 fatty acids did not reduce cholesterol levels significantly, researchers suggest that protection against heart arrhythmias, in addition to its anti-inflammatory properties may be responsible for the reduction in mortality risk.