Ruby red grapefruit features in this month’s newsletter recipe. It’s one of my favorite flavors and not found very often in foods. The reason I chose a salad with grapefruit is one, it’s a delicious salad, and two, I wanted something out of the ordinary to support the articles information on balancing acid in the body. Citrus fruits do that tastily.

For many of you reading this it’s not news that grapefruit can have ill effects when taken with prescription meds. I was reminded recently and surprised at how dangerous it can be to eat or drink grapefruit with certain cardiac drugs. In the April issue of Dr. Sinatra’s Heart, Health and Nutrition, his wife Jan, a specialist in cardiac rehab, wrote an interesting update on this issue.

1) If you are a cardiac patient grapefruit can either increase or decrease the potency of drugs, depending on which one you are on.

2) Grapefruit can dangerously increase absorption of statin drugs–used for lowering cholesterol

3) If you are on an antibiotic you might be sick longer if you drink grapefruit juice or eat a grapefruit hoping to boost Vit C levels.

4) Grapefruit can interfere with hormone replacement, increasing estrogen levels by inhibiting an enzyme that breaks down sex hormones.

Here is a list from Dr. Sinatra’s website on cardiac specific drugs that should not be taken if you are going to include grapefruit in your diet. I read on the Mayo clinic site that there are often different makes of the same drug which will not have the grapefruit worries. It’s always best to ask your doc about this before you start on any prescription meds.

And of course if you’d like to avoid the medications all together so you can enjoy a delicious salad with grapefruit or a glass now and again, shoot me an email about how to do that safely and easily.There will always be times when a drug is the fix we need but  75% or more of lifestyle diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, can be prevented or reversed with a change of food, exercise, and whether or not you smoke.

Statins are America’s best selling drugs as of 11/07–the lastest stat I can find. Lipitor sold $9 Billion worth and Zocor $4.7 Billion. 12 Million Americans take one and more are being fed into the pipeline all the time. According to an ABC news online article from Dec. 2009,” The joke in the world of heart disease is that “they should put statins in the water,” but to a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel that has recommended giving statins to “healthy” people, it’s no joke. The panel voted 12 to four with one abstention to recommend that the potent statin Crestor (rosuvastatin) be approved to prevent heart attacks in people who have no history of heart disease and don’t fit the traditional profile of an “at risk” population.”

The results of the trail of about 17,000 people from 25 countries is this, of the half that got Crestor, levels of mortality and morbidity were reduced vs the half that got a placebo.By how much? 70 or so people out of 8901. The reduction in events was tied to reduction of CRP– or C-reactive protein which is a marker of inflammation and an important test for anyone with a history of heart disease or any symptoms of heart problems. Did I mention that this trial was sponsored–that means paid for–by Crestor? And that some cardiologists pointed to the increase in diabetes in the subjects who got the drug vs the placebo group? That last finding was not mentioned by the people who published the findings.

This was not meant to be a diatribe against yet another fatal flaw in the current illness care system but I had to point out some startling and (should be) scary statistics. A statin drug could be coming your way, ill health or no. My point in this post is to tell you about the importance of taking the supplement CoQ10 if you are on a statin–or considering one. (It’s important for cardiovascular health and a supp I recommend even for those of us not on statins but it’s imperative for statin users as you’ll see.)

CoQ10 is the raw material needed for energy production within the cells. (That’s the reader’s digest version) It is also a scavenger of the free radicals produced by this process. Statin drugs not only suppress cholesterol production  they suppress production of CoQ10. Muscles are the biggest consumers of energy–the heart is the muscle that uses most because it never rests. Can you see the problem here? Less CoQ10 means less energy being made for the heart which is supposed to benefit from the use of a statin drug.

So what really occurs with too little CoQ10 on board? Let me quote one of the best integrative cardiologists I know. Dr. Steven Sinatra reported in his 2/09 newsletter, “The cascade effect that results from statin therapy goes something like this: lower CoQ10 levels lead to decreased ATP production, (energy production) which leads to diastolic dysfunction of the left ventricle, which leads to heart failure.”

That’s heart failure, the very thing the statin is supposed to be protecting you from. In countries like Japan, Germany and others in the EU, statin drugs come with a warning that it is recommended that you supplement with CoQ10 if you are taking this drug. Doctors prescribe it when people are in their offices. Clearly if other countries not so tied to their pharmaceutical behemoths can warn patients of a necessary, safe, and easy to use adjunct to the statin therapy, our government has that option.

Low CoQ10 also leads to muscle pain and weakness and fuzzy thinking. I don’t know about you but at this age I don’t need any help in that area. If you are on a statin, please do not stop it abruptly! If you want to add CoQ10 the best form is ubiquinone according to Dr. Sinatra. That’s because it’s converted, in the body, into ubiquinol, the antioxidant form of CoQ10. And the form you’ll see most often.) You can get a hydrosoluble product or a gel cap type. If you are on a statin, many of the docs I follow suggest 200 mgs per day in divided doses. You can talk to your MD about this but many will be unaware of the statin/CoQ10 connection. Drs. Sinatra, Julian Whitaker, Jim Roberts, and many other integrative cardiologists can be found online with more information.

One last quote, from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, a bastion of all things conservative and Big Pharma focused. They reported a study that proved that higher levels of CoQ10 was related to longer life for heart failure patients. It wasn’t a very well publicized finding. I wonder why?