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Vitamins and Mineral Metabolism in Heart Disease
Published in Vitamin News, Vol. 3, No. 9, September 15, 1935.
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Heart pathology can be of three classes–nervous control is impaired, muscle tissue may be weak, hypertrophied, later degenerated or starved because of coronary disease, or infection or hypertrophy of muscle may have impaired valvular function.
Vitamin concentrates (in the form of “Catalyn”) will accomplish a great deal for the weak or enlarged heart or for the patient with tachycardia.
The speeding up of the heart is the normal reaction to a deficiency of certain essential nutritional elements in the blood. Oxygen deficiency is the commonly recognized stimulus, but it is becoming apparent that other deficiencies can also cause the specific nervous stimulation that causes an increase of pulse rate. Three things are necessary to muscular activity–oxygen, sugar and the oxidizing ferment (the catalyst) that promotes the oxidation of the fuel, without which the “combustion” with the consequent release of energy cannot take place. Vitamin C is necessary to insure a supply of the catalyst. (Sajous considered the oxidizing ferment as originating from “C” and similar chemically.) Therefore, it is not difficult to see why augmentation of vitamins can slow the heart. The muscular tissue is able to get its required amount of necessary supplies with a normal velocity of the “conveyor system”–the blood stream.
Vitamin B deficiency, on the other hand, causes a slowing of the heart, probably because of the direct action of the deficiency on the nervous system. Therefore, a deficiency of both “B” and “C” vitamins can obviously be a serious matter for the heart. The heart muscle itself then suffers because of the insufficient supply of essential nutrition, which without the “B” deficiency would be compensated for by an increased blood velocity.
Valve trouble overloads the muscle tissue and “Catalyn” is of great value here in maintaining or restoring compensation. Often the regurgitation decreases so markedly meanwhile as to lead one to suspect that the myocardial hypertrophy that is thereby reduced was acting to aggravate the valve trouble by the mechanical distortion of the valve structures.
In heart disease characterized by fibrillation less specific benefit can be expected. A certain amount of improvement will occur, but there has been degeneration and atrophy of nerve tissue that cannot be repaired.
In coronary occlusion, usually accompanied by angina pectoris, an improvement in the quality of the heart nutrition can be productive of considerable improvement in the heart performance. “V-P Phosphade” should be used for the first month or two of treatment, as it does two important things:
- It lowers the blood viscosity, thereby improving the circulation produced by a given amount of heart power.
- It dissolves the calcium carbonate responsible for the calcification of the coronary arteries that is usually the primary cause of the condition. (The coronary arteries have been found calcified when no other arteries in the body showed this pathology.)
Where there is a general arteriosclerosis, of course, the “V-P Phosphade” is also an essential part of the treatment. The dietary source of the phosphate radical is from the phytin component of cereals, mainly in wheat bran or brown rice. Phytin is chemically a combination of inosite and phosphoric acid with variable amounts of calcium and magnesium. In assimilation it is split by an enzyme (present in the small intestine and also in the blood) into inosite and phosphoric acid. The phosphoric acid of course immediately combines with the sodium carbonate or bicarbonate present to form sodium phosphate. This phosphate, however, differs in activity from the ordinary kind in that it is more loosely combined and can take place in new reactions more readily–such as,for instance, the double decomposition reaction with calcium carbonate.
As most of the phosphorus ingested is in the form of phytin, we must consider that element as an acid mineral as contrasted with the basic (or alkali) minerals as found in the green leaf vegetables. These alkali minerals require vitamins as a class for their assimilation, and a deficiency of either the basic minerals or the vitamins can cause almost the same general deficiency symptoms. In fact, where there is a failure to obtain results from vitamin therapy, it is usually because of a deficiency of these basic minerals.
These organic minerals (from green leaf vegetables) are now available in tablet form as “V-P” Organic Mineral Tablets. One of the most conspicuous effects of these tablets is their cooperative action with Vitamin B in improving the function and sensitivity of the sympathetic nervous system. This causes an improved bowel function, especially because of the specific action in correcting the condition known as “lazy colon.”
“V-P” Organic Mineral Tablets are a concentrate of the unaltered colloidal minerals in green leaf vegetable, made without heat. By the removal of unnecessary bulk the possible dosage is increased to a point where one or two tablets a day produces immediate and definite results.