Homocysteine: One Of The Cause Of Heart Attacks!
16 April 2008
No CommentAccording to Dr Ray Strand in his book, “What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You“, it says that it is estimated that an elevated homocysteine level in the blood is responsible for approximately 15 percent of all the heart attacks and strokes in the world today.
What Is Homocysteine?
Homocysteine is an intermediate by-product that we produce when our bodies metabolize or break down an essential amino acid called methionin, which is found in large quantities in our meat, eggs, milk, cheese, white flour, canned foods and highly processed foods.
Our body need methionine to survive and normally convert homocysteine into either cysteine or back to methionine again. Cysteine and methionine are benign products and are not harmful in any way but here is the catch: the enzymes needed to break down homocysteine into cysteine or back to methionine are folic acid, vitamin B12 and vitamin B6 (which all can be found in our flagship product, Bios Life, that is clinically proven to lower cholesterol) to do their job.
If we are deficient in these nutrients, the levels of homocysteine in the blood begin to rise. Unlike cholesterol, which the body needs for the production of certain cell parts and hormones, homocysteine provides no health benefit. So the higher the level of homocysteine, the greater the risk of cardiovascular disease. Conversely, the lower the level of homocysteine, the better.
Have you checked on your levels of homocysteine?
I will be checking my level when I am having my medical check up in July. I did mention about checking my homocysteine level to my GP when I consulted him about a month ago and he says that it is not necessary. I was then thinking that since it is going to cost about $90 to have it checked and have a peace of mind, why not?