Through the years, Ive seen hundreds of patients with heart disease completely reverse the disease. Some of these patients had their cardiologist tell them they had to have bypass surgery. And some had nearly escaped death from heart attacks. Others had such a weak heart, they could hardly walk or even breathe.
Few things give me more joy than to see these folks walk out of my clinic with a healthy heart and a new lease on life. To get them there, I have to use a lot of different therapies. Two of my favorites, as you probably know, are oxidative and oxygen therapies.
Ive used oxidative and oxygen therapy for 21 years to treat heart problems. When your arteries are blocked or your heart is failing, your body just cant get enough oxygen. Giving the patient hyperbaric oxygen therapy, hydrogen peroxide therapy, or ultraviolet blood irradiation can work miracles. And, if they are healthy enough, they can even exercise at home with oxygen (EWOT), which has remarkable therapeutic effects.
The problem with all of these therapies is that they are not simple to do (except for EWOT). They usually require a visit to a doctors office. And they can be expensive.
Ive always wanted to find a way to increase the oxygen in your body — and repair your damaged heart — with a supplement. Ive found many supplements that can help with this. But none of them are strong enough to do away with the oxidative therapies. I never found one that was so effective that I did not have to use the oxidative therapies along with it — until now.
This supplement has been around for a while. Unfortunately, none of us connected the action of oxidative therapy to ribose. Even us oxygen doctors had no idea it could generate energy within your cells in a fashion similar to oxidation therapy! What you are about to read is ground-breaking new information on something you may have heard of before. This supplement can literally regenerate damaged heart cells and rejuvenate cells throughout your body.
The supplement is actually the sugar ribose. You may be a little startled to see me discuss a sugar in such a positive light. But ribose is different from most sugars. Heres why: If you look at the molecular structure of most sugars, you will see that they are all a chain of carbon atoms. The most common sugars, including glucose, sucrose, and fructose, have a six-carbon chain in their nucleus. When your body metabolizes these sugars, the six-carbon chain causes your body to produce insulin.
Ribose, on the other hand, has only a five-carbon chain in its nucleus. Your body handles this type of carbon chain in a completely different way. It does not raise your blood sugar levels or cause your body to produce insulin. And that difference brings some stunning therapeutic effects.
For instance, we have known for over 16 years that ribose helps cells that are not getting enough oxygen. If your heart does not have enough oxygen (i.e., its ischemic) in certain areas, those areas might go into hibernation. That protects their limited energy capacity. The cells will still be viable, they just wont pump.
In a 1991 study, researchers found that ribose can quickly get those cells pumping again. This is especially important to anyone who undergoes bypass. If tests indicate that ischemic areas are not pumping, the surgeon will assume those cells are dead. But they are not … they are just asleep. If the surgeon does not repair their blood supply, they will never wake up.
However, if we can get those cells pumping again, the surgeon wont miss the area. Taking ribose before a thallium stress test could show the cells are viable. The surgeon will be more likely to address their blood flow needs. Remember, if the cells are dead, they do not need a blood supply. Living cells do! (Of course, I am not a proponent of bypass, but in selected acute cases, it can save lives.)
If you do have to undergo bypass surgery, make sure you have plenty of ribose on hand. A recent study conducted by an orthodox cardiac surgeon shows why. Dr. D. Perkowski of Laguna Hills, California studied 143 people. All of them had previous bypass surgery. That means that a significant portion of their hearts had vascular damage. He used patients he had treated in the past as controls. Then he compared the heart function of new incoming bypass patients with the controls. The newcomers received ribose as soon as they entered the hospital and continued to take it until they went home.
Considering that bypass restores circulation, you would expect cardiac function to improve with surgery alone. It did. He measured their heart condition using the cardiac index. This is a measure of the pumping ability of your heart in a minute. He found that bypass without supplements led to an improvement in cardiac index from baseline 2.39 L/min/m2 to 2.71 L/min/m2 — or 13%.
However, with ribose, the postoperative improvement went from 2.19 L/min/m2 to 3.13 L/min/m2. That is a 43% improvement in cardiac index — triple the improvement of non-supplemented patients in the hands of the same surgeon. Plus, the ribose did not cause any adverse reactions.
But even if you do not need heart surgery — even if you do not have a heart condition — ribose is worth taking. A study conducted in 1992 showed how taking ribose for only three days can significantly improve your exercise tolerance. The Lancet study followed 20 men and found that those taking ribose could exercise much harder before their EKG showed ischemia. Better exercise tolerance means you are getting more oxygen burned in your cells.
A 2002 study proved this. The researchers in this study followed the performance of athletes exercising at 16% oxygen. Room air is 20%. Hypoxia (low oxygen) can cause free-radicals to form. In this case ribose can stop that formation. In addition, the athletes who took ribose had a lower heart rate with a given amount of exertion. That means that ribose improved oxygen utilization and energy production.
Ribose obviously has an amazing ability to protect and heal the heart. While we have known this for some time, we did not realize its effectiveness came from its ability to mimic my beloved oxidative therapies. And, more importantly, we know that ribose can actually awaken worn out and dying heart cells! This is an incredible property for a supplement.
Heres how it works: If your cells are not producing enough energy, it means they are producing too much lactic acid. The acid then builds up in your tissues due to oxygen deprivation. A recent study from Germany shows that oxidation therapy causes your cells to consume more oxygen, which reduces the lactic acid stores. That gives you great improvements in your exercise tolerance.
This is where sugar, as glucose, comes into play. Most glucose is burned by your body and turned into energy. Energy is stored in your cells as the molecule ATP. If ATP production falls, your cells will be starved for energy. They could become diseased, disabled, and even die.
To make ATP, your body needs ribose. But unlike glucose, your cells do not burn ribose. Instead, ribose is the skeleton backbone of the ATP molecules. No ribose, no ATP. No ATP, no energy.
Its a vicious cycle. If your cells energy falls, they cant hold on to their ribose or make it on their own. That impairs energy further. Loss of energy, loss of ribose. Loss of ribose, more energy loss. Their only way to stop the cycle is with outside sources of ribose, such as supplements.
That is how taking ribose mimics the effects of oxidative therapies. One of the key mechanisms of oxidation therapy is that it causes your cells to produce more ribose. So taking ribose is essentially a short cut for getting the same result. Oxidation therapies have many other effects as well, so they are still very valuable treatments. But taking ribose can help you reap some of the best benefits of oxidation therapy at a much lower cost.
As you can imagine, all of this great research has not changed conventional medicine. Few conventional doctors use ribose, just like few use CoQ10. That is unfortunate for those missing out on it. Ribose is easily and quickly absorbed in your intestines. In fact, your body absorbs 95% of it. So you do not have to worry about this supplement not getting into you when you take it orally. It will pour into your bloodstream, where its carried to the tissues that need it. And, it does not have any toxicity or known side effects.
Since ribose is a sugar, you might be concerned if you have diabetes. Well, no cause for alarm. As I mentioned earlier, ribose has little effect on insulin (unlike its 6-carbon brothers). Furthermore, by increasing energy production, it can help you burn off sugar more efficiently!
So how much ribose is right for you? If you are in good health, you can help keep yourself there with five to seven grams daily. That is one rounded teaspoon. If you have congestive heart failure, you will likely need more.
I suggest one rounded teaspoon twice daily. This dose would be useful if you have moderate heart problems or if you are facing heart surgery.
If you have advanced congestive heart failure, take two to three teaspoons daily. Once your energy is improved and you have less shortness of breath, you can taper the dose somewhat. But make sure you pay careful attention. If your cells have compromised circulation, they will need a continuous supply of ribose.
If you are interested in more information on this stunning nutrient, as well as metabolic (not drug) solutions to your heart problems, you can find it in The Sinatra Solution, by Stephen Sinatra, MD, who is a board- certified cardiologist. Dr. Sinatra writes Heart, Health, and Nutrition, a competing newsletter. I want to recommend his book, as it has outstanding information on ribose.
Ribose is available as Corvalen. I am so pleased with the results in my own patients that I asked the people at Healthy Resolve to carry it for you. I do not think that it will do all that oxidation does, but just getting that increase in energy production from a supplement instead of an IV is wonderful! It could be a most cost effective alternative. Ill tell you more about ribose and its magic in fibromyalgia and muscle disease in an upcoming issue.