Rethinking angioplasty – not necessarily the first best choice
Popping the Balloon
If your doctor says you need balloon angioplasty to open narrowed blood vessels, you’ve got to ask: “Are you sure, Doc?”
Really. Dig in and make him sell it to you. Because the argument against angioplasty has taken a dramatic turn in recent months.
Cold, hard logic
This past June, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study that followed nearly 2,400 heart disease patients with type 2 diabetes. Half the subjects received drug therapy (statins, aspirin, beta- blockers, etc.), while half received drug therapy and angioplasty.
Results: After five years, researchers found no significant difference in rates of death, heart attack, or other major events. And this research confirmed similar results of a 2007 Department of Veterans Affairs study.
Then just last month, the journal Circulation followed up with some cold, hard dollars-and-cents logic to the angioplasty issue.
Again, researchers looked at data compiled in the June NEJM study. Lead researcher Mark Hlatky, M.D., told Science Centric, “‘For patients with relatively mild symptoms of heart disease, angioplasty is clearly more expensive and it’s clearly not more beneficial.”
Over four years, an average of $11,000 per patient was saved by passing on angioplasty. (Some angioplasty procedures cost upwards of $15,000.)
And if you happened to be bored and browsing the September 2009 issue of Journal of Vascular Surgery you might have seen another revealing angioplasty trial. In this one, researchers found that narrowing of blood vessels in and around the kidneys is generally over-treated with angioplasty and stenting.
Head to head
Now you might be thinking you’d be willing to get the angioplasty if it meant you wouldn’t have to take the drugs.
Good thinking. But the drugs will still be strongly recommended unless you have a naturopathic doctor.
Which brings us to this request I’d like to make of Dr. Hlatky: Give us one more study. But this time replace the drugs with supplements. And no messing around with weak doses and inferior forms!
We can start with vitamin D. And please, make it vitamin D3 in doses of at least a couple of grams per day. (This past Monday I told you how people with high blood levels of vitamin D are less likely to develop artery disease, and FAR less likely to experience heart failure.)
Then add to the mix a top quality niacin supplement to replace the statin drug. And let’s include a good B complex, because niacin is a B vitamin and the Bs work best when taken together.
Next add some fish oil with high potency omega-3 fatty acids. And we’ll also want a mixed-tocopherol vitamin E.
What else? Some Coenzyme Q10 in a form that enhances absorption. And for good measure, let’s check with an experienced herbalist who can supply a hawthorn extract with guaranteed potency.
That’ll do for starters.
Give us a fair trial of those supplements and I’ll bet we can tell most heart patients to avoid angioplasty and to forget about that drug mix that virtually guarantees adverse effects.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Sources:
“A Randomized Trial of Therapies for Type 2 Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease” New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 360, No 24, 6/11/09, content.nejm.org
“Economic Outcomes of Treatment Strategies for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Coronary Artery Disease in the Bypass Angioplasty Revascularization Investigation 2 Diabetes Trial” Circulation, Published online ahead of print 11/17/09, circ.ahajournals.org
“Drug Therapy More Cost-Effective than Angioplasty for Diabetic Patients with Heart Disease” Science Centric, 11/18/09, sciencecentric.com
“Docs May Be Overdoing Some Invasive Procedures” HealthDay News, 10/16/09, healthday.com
