Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

The discussion of the Linus Pauling vitamin C/lysine invention for chronic scurvy

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Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#1  Post by ofonorow » Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:02 am

Mr. Fonorow:

I recently read your Web page at:
http://internetwks.com/owen/HeartCureRD.htm.

I have a question to ask you, or maybe you can tell me who I can call for an
answer.

I am 63 and about 5 weeks ago I had a heart attack and my cardiologist installed a stent. He said my arteries were good except for the stent location and one other artery that was about 20% blocked by plaque. My cardiologist and family doctor placed me on the following medications:

1. 40mg of Lipitor per day
2. 10 mg of Effient (blood thinner) per day.
3. 10mg of Benicar per day (I have been on this blood pressure medication
for about a decade.
4. 325mg of aspirin per day.

Before the attack, I had been taking the following supplements:

1. 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily
2. 1,000 IU of Omega-3 fish oils
3. 1,000 IU of vitamin D3
4. Magnesium, biotin and Selenium supplement. (There were slightly low on my
last blood test.)

I read about the Pauling and Rath protocols, plus read the Hickey/Roberts book on Ascorbate, most of Linus Paulings books, and about 6 others.

I worked up to the following:

1. 6 grams of vitamin C. I hit my bowel tolerance at about 3-4 grams, slacked off by 500mg, and continued to work myself up to 6 grams by the end of the first month after my stent operation. I was still trying to increase the number of grams, until I ran into the problem below.
2. I worked up to 2 grams of Lysine.
3. I worked up to 1 gram of proline.
4. I added 400 IU of tocopheryls and 200 IU of tocotrienols. I cannot find large doses of tocotrienols, but I was working on it.
5. 2,000 IU of Omega-3 fish oils.
6. 2,000 Omega-3 fish oil
7. I cut out all sugar. I always avoided trans-fats.
8. 500mg of niacin. (My triglycerides were slightly high, so I started on Niaspan, but I switched to straight niacin after a week. This was added just recently.

I was working my way up to larger doses when I read the following warning on
the
[url]http://www.livonlabs.com/cgi-bin/start.cgi/liposome-encapsulated/lypo-spheri
c-vitamin-c.html[/url] Webpage:

Special Notes: It is not recommended that any form of vitamin C be taken
with blood thinners, such as Coumadin or Warfarin.


I emailed LPI and LivOnlabs and asked them about taking vitamin C and
Effient and I received the following emails:

"Hi Robert,

"Thank you for your email. Some studies show that vitamin C may reverse the
effects of blood thinners (i.e. make the blood more viscous), although the
results are inconclusive. We have many customers who take our Lypo-Spheric
Vitamin C in conjunction with a blood thinner without any adverse side
effects. However, we simply put a warning on our packaging to encourage our
customers to be on the safe side and consult their oncologists before
beginning any type of vitamin regimen. Many oncologists will permit their
patients to take vitamin C, and then monitor blood levels closely for the
first month or so. If no changes are noted, the patient is cleared to take
the vitamin C indefinitely.

"I hope this information is helpful to you. If you have any additional
questions, please feel free to reply to this email or contact Customer
Service at 866-682-6193. Thank you!

"Best Regards,

"Kara Gardner
Customer Service Manager
LivOn Laboratories
2654 W. Horizon Ridge Pkwy Ste B5-108
Henderson, NV 89052
Tel 1: 1-866-682-6193 ext 106
Tel 2: 1-702-255-0265
Fax: 1-702-492-6824"


Here is the reply from LPI:

"Dear Rob,

"I have summarized some information about vitamin C and blood thinners for
you below. I hope you find this information clear and useful. If you have
any additional questions, please let us know. Thank you very much for your
questions!

"Sincerely,
Giana

"VITAMIN C AND EFFIENT
"Effient is an anti-platelet medication. Although it may work differently
than Warfarin and Coumadin (anticoagulants), they all work to lessen the
ability of blood to clot. For this reason, I would classify all of them as
"blood thinners". Your doctor may have more to say on this front.

"There is some evidence, though controversial, that vitamin C interacts with
anticoagulant medications (blood thinners). Individuals on anticoagulants
should limit their vitamin C intake to 1 gram/day and have their prothrombin
time monitored by the clinician following their anticoagulant therapy.
Because high doses of vitamin C have also been found to interfere with the
interpretation of certain laboratory tests (e.g., serum bilirubin, serum
creatinine, and the guaiac assay for occult blood), it is important to
inform one's health care provider of any recent supplement use. For more on
vitamin C safety,

"visit:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/v ... tml#safety)

"INTERACTIONS BETWEEN YOUR MEDICATIONS AND SUPPLEMENTS
"Effient:
"-According to the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database, Effient should
not be taken with certain herbals (Danshen, Dong Quai, Ginkgo, St. John's
Wart, Willow Bark), evening primrose oil, grapefruit, or policosanol.
Perhaps double-check the ingredients on your multivitamin to ensure none of
these products are present in the ingredient list.

"-Moderate caution is advised when combining fish oil, selenium, or vitamin
E with Effient because they may increase the risk of bleeding.
"-The other supplements you listed have no known interactions with Effient.

"Benicar:
"-Fish Oils may lower blood pressure, so caution is advised when combining
fish oil supplements with Benicar.

"Lipitor:
"-Vitamin D induces an enzyme that degrades Lipitor, therefore Vitamin D
supplementation may reduce the levels of Lipitor in your system. Caution is
advised when combining vitamin D supplements with Lipitor.

"ORTHOMOLECULAR DOCTORS
The Linus Pauling Institute is a basic research facility, and unfortunately
we do not have physician recommendations. However, you may be able to find
candidates by searching the two Web sites that deal with orthomolecular
medicine:
"http://www.orthomolecular.org/
-lists practitioners by location if you click on "Resources" on their home
page
"http://www.orthomed.org/
-fill in your email address to receive names of practitioners
(http://orthomed.org/resources/resources.html).

"MORE INFORMATION
"I followed the links you provided, and I would recommend reading the LPI's
article on vitamin C for accurate, science-based information about vitamin C
and optimum health: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/v ... /vitaminC/
"There is also a short commentary on the LPIs vitamin C recommendations for
healthy individuals that you might find interesting:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/paulingrec.html

"Best regards,
"Giana



I discussed the above with my family doctor and he had me stop all my supplements except 1 gram of vitamin C per day. I get a blood test on April 4.

My cardiologist said I would be on Effient for one year at a minimum, or the rest of my life at a maximum.

Both of my doctors think I am crazy for even thinking of supplements. My first cardiologist told me that supplements were a waste of money, and that all you needed to do was eat a balanced diet. I then switched to the cardiologist who installed my stent. He said there was no evidence that vitamin C does anything. He had read the original Pauling papers, but said that later tests proved that vitamin C was no better than a placebo. He is
not interested in supplements and told me to stay on my assigned medications.

Stents are about 80-90% successful, but are subject to restenosis, or return of blockage, and sometimes the arteries build new paths around the stent.

My doctors want me to stay on blood thinner and Lipitor forever, and this may be dangerous if I continue taking my supplements. However, if If I go off the supplements I won't get any better, or at least I won't be able to prevent further damage.

I have been looking for an MD that practices Orthomolecular medicine, but I have not been able to find one yet.

So, my question is: what do I do?

Any help would be appreciated.

Best regards,

Robert


In my experience - these warnings about vitamin C and blood thinners are misguided. (I am now of the opinion that warnings about vitamin K and blood thinners are also misguided.) Those who posted are being overly cautious with no basis, and unfortunately you are suffering a condition (if Pauling was correct ) that should be called chronic scurvy.

Since you suffered the heart attack while taking 1000 mg of vitamin C, we can assume
your metabolic requirement is higher, at least the 6000 mg Pauling recommended. In my experience, as detailed in my book, it can require 10,000 mg or more to overcome cardiovascular disease. You were right to consider Lypo-C given your low bowel tolerance. And I understand you wanting to be safe considering all the drugs you are taking.

In my opinion, all safety issues are with the drugs they have prescribed for you, not vitamin C. (If you follow their advice you WILL be a perpetual heart patient.)

Your doctors were never taught about the therapeutic benefits of any nutritional (i.e., unpatentable) substance, other than perhaps potassium. As I discovered from personal experience, information about vitamin C is glaringly absent from medical education. (it is sad that simply by reading the books you have, you now know far more than your doctors about vitamin C.)

Vitamin C (and lysine) are required in the diet in some amount for life. They are essential. They have no known lethal toxic dose, etc. Lets compare that with those drugs...

To some of your points (since your heart attack was so recent, there may be considerations I am not aware of, and I hope johnwen will address these issues if they exist.)


Before the attack, I had been taking the following supplements:

1. 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily
2. 1,000 IU of Omega-3 fish oils
3. 1,000 IU of vitamin D3
4. Magnesium, biotin and Selenium supplement. (There were slightly low on my
last blood test.)



You mentioned that your arteries were "generally" in good shape, except where they inserted the stent. (Do you know which type of heart attack you had?)

My first thought is to read or re read Pauling's HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER. You would be wise to follow his complete Foundational supplement regimen, including and especially a multi-vitamin/multi-mineral, 400 to 800 vitamin E, 25,000 vitamin A and 1 or 2 Super-B complexes. Linus Pauling's minimum vitamin C recommendation was 6000 mg daily!


1. 40mg of Lipitor per day
2. 10 mg of Effient (blood thinner) per day.
3. 10mg of Benicar per day (I have been on this blood pressure medication
for about a decade.
4. 325mg of aspirin per day.


We haven't updated the page lately, but we devoted an entire large page to the "hidden dangers" of station cholesterol lowering drugs, e.g. http://www.vitamincfoundation.org/statinalert/ What is especially disturbing is that medicals cience knows that cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease (merely the body's natural healing reaction to heart disease), not that ordinary doctors are made aware of this. So "they" now claim statins are good for things like lowering C-Reactive Protein, etc. What we do know for sure, is that statins will RAISE Lp(a) - which is the major culprit in atherosclerosis according to Pauling/Rath. Medicine has no protocol for lowering Lp(a) - but we do - follow Pauling's advice and take vitamin C and lysine at the right dosage, and add Rath's advice to also supplement the non-essential amino acid proline. See http://www.practicingmedicinewithoutalicense.com/protocol/ for dosages.

I leave the efient discussion to Dr. Johnwen. However, we know that by following Pauling's advice and adopting his therapy, blood clots are in theory much less likely. It sounds from the description of yourarteries being generally in good shape, that you don' t have the "unstable plaque" issue described in Dr. Levy's STOP AMERICA'S NUMBER 1 KILLER (livonbooks.com). This is the main issue (unstable plaques that have grown capillaries) where all these drugs become important.

Jumping to the aspirin. If I were having what I thought was a heart attack, I might even take a good dose of aspirin. But daily use (especially without vitamin C) can be expected to do much more harm than good, to the stomach lining, etc. Reference Pauling's HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER. Instead, of aspirin, I would take 400 to 1600 of A.C. Grace's Unique-E natural vitamin E, and I might increase the magnesium and Omega/3 dosage, etc.

In summary, it is to be expected that medicine has "learned" to prescribe certain drugs, as it keeps patients coming back for more treatment.

But I wish LivonLabs and LPI would consider the effects of their misguided cautions on heart patients, who are almost by definition vitamin C deficient! To the extent heart patients do not take extra vitamin C based on warnings from these "Friendly" institutions, they are set on a course of action that makes the underling problem - chronic scurvy - worse!
Owen R. Fonorow
HeartCURE.Info
American Scientist's Invention Could Prevent 350,000 Heart Bypass Operations a year

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#2  Post by ofonorow » Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:41 am

I asked Dr. Levy about the Livon warning "Special Notes: It is not recommended that any form of vitamin C be taken with blood thinners, such as Coumadin or Warfarin. ", and this is his response:

Hi Owen,

Prothrombin times must be checked more frequently, at least initially, when vitamin C is taken with Coumadin or warfarin, with the doc usually adjusting the prescription dosage upwards a bit with a fixed amount of VC supplementation to achieve the desired degree of anticoagulation.

I do not feel there needs to be any concern about vitamin C and antiplatelet agents. I am not aware of any information or studies to the contrary on this matter.

Best regards,

Dr. Levy


It would seem that Livon's warning should be modified to something to the effect of "If on blood thinners, your doctor may wish to check prothombin times more frequently as vitamin C is increased to achieve the desired degree of anticoagulation." Rather than dramatic advice to avoid vitamin C altogether!
Owen R. Fonorow
HeartCURE.Info
American Scientist's Invention Could Prevent 350,000 Heart Bypass Operations a year

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#3  Post by JoMo145 » Thu Mar 29, 2012 6:14 am

Hi Owen,

Prothrombin times must be checked more frequently, at least initially, when vitamin C is taken with Coumadin or warfarin, with the doc usually adjusting the prescription dosage upwards a bit with a fixed amount of VC supplementation to achieve the desired degree of anticoagulation.

I do not feel there needs to be any concern about vitamin C and antiplatelet agents. I am not aware of any information or studies to the contrary on this matter.

Best regards,

Dr. Levy




It would seem that Livon's warning should be modified to something to the effect of "If on blood thinners, your doctor may wish to check prothombin times more frequently as vitamin C is increased to achieve the desired degree of anticoagulation." Rather than dramatic advice to avoid vitamin C altogether!




Would this imply that VC does have some kind of "blood clotting" or "blood thickening" affect? Would it then be dangerous or risky for someone with Thrombophilia (hypercoaguable blood/ Factor V Leiden) to take larger doses of VC?

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#4  Post by Dolev » Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:03 pm

Sheffrey, in his excellent book, claims that vitamin C greatly increases the dose of warfarin needed to achieve the anticoagulation effect. This is because C detoxifies warfarin, just like it detoxifies most other poisons. He brings some case histories. The book is not next to me now, but later I'll take a look and bring more details if necessary.
Dolev

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#5  Post by Johnwen » Sat Mar 31, 2012 3:30 pm

I'll be very straight forward!!!
My wife takes 5mg Effient and 6Grams AA 4Grams L-Lysine Daily since December 2011 prior to that she was on Plavix and 6 Grams AA 4 Grams L-Lysine for 8 years.
None have given her any problems! We do our aa and L-Ly as a drink from powder with NO-Fillers.

With warfarin consistency in your V-C intake including times taken are a must then the tech can adjust for INR. If you vary your intake of V-C your going to be all over the place. Best results are gotten taking your morning dose of V-C 1 hour before warfarin then the next dose of V-C 3 hours after the warfarin dose then whatever V-C routine after that to days end. CONSISTENCY is the key EVERYDAY!!
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is
research!

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#6  Post by Robert J » Mon Apr 02, 2012 8:14 pm

In answer to what kind of heart attack I had, my cardiology report stated that my "EKG revealed an acute myocardial wall infarction ... which revealed a 20-30% mid LAD stenosis but a 99% proximal right coronary artery stenosis filled with clots. We successfully performed AngioJet thrombectomy of the clotted RCA, and stented it with a drug-eluting stent (DES) reducing the lesion to 0% residual ... Ejection factor after stenting 50-55% ... stress test, one week: 9 minutes to reach 88% of predicted target heart rate."

My cardiologist says I was within the "2 hour" window, so there is no evidence of heart damage.

Both my family physician and cardiologist were aware of my increase in supplements after my heart attack, but neither of them saw any problems with it. They just did not think they were important.

Johnwen, I am taking your advice and keeping my meds and supplements unchanged and on a strict schedule, which I started the day of your post. I am due for an INR PT and I need to know how long I should now wait before I take the test. ?

I have a few more questions:

1. I would like to find a cardiologist that practices orthomolecular medicine, preferably somewhere near Tampa, Florida, but I will travel. I have found only a few MDs on ACAM.org in my area, but no cardiologists I would expect to find more than one group or practice today, but so far I have not found one.

2. My cardiologist said that my stent is permanent. However, I talked with a physician yesterday who said that it might be possible to replace my DES with one of the new Bioabsorbable stents now available from Abbott labs. I have not had a chance to research this yet, but I like the thought of getting rid of this stent. Any knowledge here?

3. My cardiologist placed me on Lipitor after my heart attack. I have not been able to find one clinical trial that states that statins help prevent plaque build up in stents, but there are a lot of reports on the bad side effects of statins. My cardiologist says there is some evidence it helps. Any knowledge here?

My main goal now is to find a cardiologist that practices orthomolecular medicine. I don't have enough knowledge to take care of myself at this point, and it is clear that my current physicians are not going to help.

One interesting note: I met with an endodontist today and we discussed Dr. Levy's and Kulacz's book "The Roots of Disease", which I just purchased. Interestingly, he was not aware of the book, but well aware of the problem. He said that the normal procedure for handling abscessed teeth in the early 20th century was extraction. Later, root canals then became the new trend, but infection became a big problem, so they returned to extractions again. Later, new technology reversed the trend back to root canals.

He also told me about a new treatment he was studying called 3Mix-MP. I searched for it on the net and found the following Wikipedia listing:

"In December 2010, a study was published demonstrating a new alternative to root canal therapy in treating infected tooth pulps, 3Mix-MP procedure, through the local application of an antibacterial drug mixture. While previous studies had failed in similar experiments, this study succeeded by utilizing a unique vehicle for the antibiotics, propylene glycol, which has been shown to successfully penetrate and spread through dentinal tubules. This is an important finding which seems to offer an alternative to root canal therapy other than tooth extraction."

One last point: I hope that no one on this site ever has to go through a heart attack. The world literally ceases to exist for awhile. When I was in the emergency room, a doctor and a nurse walked in and casually, and very confidently, hooked me up to an EKG and a number of IVs. We talked about how I felt and what I was doing when I first had my chest pain, and how long ago it had started. When they took me to the heart cath lab there were at least 6 other people in the room. Each one knew their part and the teamwork was truly inspiring. Each one explained what they were doing and what was going to happen next. One physician stood off to one side of the room staring intently at a monitor. When I looked at him, he simply said, "Take a short nap; we are going to fix this." He then winked at me. I actually remember smiling. As I was laying there half awake I thought about how many years each of those people had studied and trained just to be able to be in this room at this time to save my life. I then started to think of ObamaCare and how all those politicians wanted to turn doctors and the whole medical profession into property. That is when I fell asleep.

I wish I had known more about Linus Pauling and his work before my heart attack. I wish our physicians were more open to his ideas. I wish that I had not had a heart attack. I wish that I did not have a stent implanted in my chest.

However, I am truly glad that these people were there to save my life in the best way that they knew how. If they only knew there was a better way.

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#7  Post by Johnwen » Tue Apr 03, 2012 3:50 am

proximal right coronary artery stenosis filled with clots


I'm sure this is where the concern and the blood thinners come from.
Their thoughts are that if one of these break loose your in for trouble! My beliefs, it's a good call by your docs.

I am due for an INR PT and I need to know how long I should now wait before I take the test. ?


When first starting out on thinners your tech/Doc want to establish a baseline and adjust from there. What you want to do is not try to impress the test. Which means you want the test to reflect the way you are normally. Take your meds and supps. at their regular times and just go and get stuck (blood draw) without any preping. Usually for the first three or four times it'll be a weekly thing then as they get you on your mark it'll be a every two or three week affair.

It sounds like things are pretty much under controll. Remember what Dr.Pauling said:
"Don't stop not even for a single day!" My advise is "IF in doubt or you have a question Take more Vitamin C you can get the answer later!!!"
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is
research!

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#8  Post by Jacquie » Thu Apr 12, 2012 11:47 am

Dolev wrote:Sheffrey, in his excellent book, claims that vitamin C greatly increases the dose of warfarin needed to achieve the anticoagulation effect. This is because C detoxifies warfarin, just like it detoxifies most other poisons.

Yep. Warfarin/Coumadin is a synthetic analogue of dicoumarol, a mycotoxin (fungus toxin). Vitamin C is very good at detoxifying mycotoxins (see Curing the Incurable).

Robert J wrote:However, I am truly glad that these people were there to save my life in the best way that they knew how. If they only knew there was a better way.

I agree wholeheartedly.

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Re: Livon warns heart patients NOT to take vitamin C!?

Post Number:#9  Post by NiacinVC » Thu Apr 12, 2012 6:31 pm

Its only a matter of time before big pharma buys livon and dismantles it. I am watching very closely to see how the acquisition of Alacer Corp(makers of emergen-c) by the devil(Pfizer) will be handled. Will we see emergen-c go from 1000mg of vitamin c to 100 mg vc with low amounts of other vitamins/minerals in its ingredients? Will we see emergen-c gradually taken out of local 7-11's/cvs/rite aids/etc so the general public wont be able to shorten duration of illnesses at sight of onset and instead go into the doctors and be prescribed medicines? If livon ever gets more mainstream it will be a shock to me if they are not bought and dismantled by big pharma. It still amazes me to this day that the FDA would so blatantly show how they were bought by big pharma and there legion of lobbyist in 2009 when they classified pyridoxamine as a drug.
"When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one does have"- Steven Hawking


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