Artery Disease & Antibiotics: Could your antibiotics be making you ill?
By Karen Skaggs
(Originally published in Total Health January 30, 1998)
Coronary Artery Disease is one of the largest killers in the United States today, according to the American Medical Association, and with all the news about how elevated homocysteine levels are contributing to coronary artery disease, is it any wonder that we as American's are looking toward nutrition and nutritional supplements to try and remedy this deadly disease?
Almost 30 years ago, a doctor at Harvard Medical Center by the name of Dr. Kilmer McCully discovered a human amino acid that he realized was contributing to the deterioration of arteries in small children. He knew that cholesterol and other various factors known to cause coronary artery disease were not present in these small children, and went searching for another cause for the disease. He found an amino acid called homocysteine. As soon as his discovery was presented to the medical community, he was immediately black listed, and fired from his job from Harvard, being called a fraud. It has to make one wonder why.
According to some medical experts today, the American Medical Association was leery about disclosing the information regarding homocysteine because of the financial ramifications it would have on the medical community. According to Dr. McCully the homocysteine levels in the body could be lowered by taking vitamin B6, vitamin B12, and folic acid. The medical association couldn't risk the loss of patients and the pharmaceutical companies couldn't risk the loss in sales of major heart and cholesterol medications. The financial loss would devastate the foundation of medicine as we know it.
Still, with all that had been proven by Dr. McCully, the information about homocysteine would not be revealed until 3 decades later. Finally, doctors could not ignore the findings, and as more and more people began to do research into their health and natural nutrients that could help keep them healthy, the public began to realize that there had to be something more to heart disease than just cholesterol and other contributing factors. People who were relevantly healthy, didn't smoke, had normal cholesterol levels, and no history of heart disease in their family were developing coronary artery disease and no one knew why. Recently Dr. McCully's work has come to light, and with the publishing of his book, "The Homocysteine Revolution", people are beginning to realize how homocysteine plays a major part in their coronary artery disease, and how homocysteine levels can be reduced by taking simple, inexpensive vitamin supplements.
However, something that may have not come to light yet, is that during the last 3 decades, antibiotics have also become more prevalent than any other drug prescribed by doctors. Doctors are prescribing antibiotics as if they were the aspirin drug for the 80's and 90's. Along with the knowledge that antibiotics could treat most major types of infections, there came the lack of knowledge of what antibiotics do to the nutrients in the body. The simple fact that antibiotics deplete the body of B vitamins is not well known, however, it is a fact that has been well over looked for years. In fact, the recent surge in the amount of antibiotics being prescribed, could well have contributed to the fact that healthy humans develop coronary heart disease. If the human body is depleted of essential B vitamins, then the homocysteine levels in the body could rise, and cause damage to the coronary artery system.
So, it stands to reason that everyone taking antibiotics should be taking a natural vitamin supplement, to replenish the B vitamins that protect the arteries and level out the homocysteine levels in the blood. Ask your doctor about your homocysteine levels…you could be at risk for coronary artery disease.
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