Having survived a heart attack, it is important to avoid a second attack and the more possible fatal consequences. Research has found that heart attack patients halve their risk of a second attack if doctors talk to them, play them music and help them to pray.
“Coronary heart disease is not just physical but also has a psychological component,” says Zoi Aggelopoulou, the researcher of a study about the survival of heart attack patients in her coronary care unit at the NIMTS Veterans Hospital in Athens.
Dr Aggelopoulou noticed that patients at the hospital were less likely to suffer a second attack, die or return to hospital if doctors talked to them about their treatment, let them listen to music or helped religious patients say their prayers.
In carrying out further analysis, by looking at nine previous studies, Dr Aggelopoulou found they endorsed her own findings in relation to psychological interventions on heart patients.
These studies also found that the risk of death and a second heart attack were reduced by 55 per cent over a two-year period (European Heart Journal, supplement, 2013). So, would you believe that such resources could have such life-altering results?
Moving on to another interesting fact, resveratrol is a member of a group of plant compounds called polyphenols, which are thought to have antioxidant properties, protecting the body against the kind of damage linked to increased risk for conditions such as cancer and heart disease.
Found in some foods, such as the skin of red grapes, resveratrol is a stilbenoid, a type of natural phenol and a phytoalexin produced naturally by several plants, especially the roots of the Japanese knotweed, from which it is extracted commercially when under attack by pathogens such as bacteria or fungi.
The effects of resveratrol are a topic of numerous animal and human studies. Much has been written in the media about resveratrol’s anti-ageing effects, but as of last December, there is accepted data to form a scientific basis for the application of these claims to mammals.
However, if you are undertaking radiation therapy for cancer, drink a glass of red wine first, according to recent research. Apparently, it makes the treatment more effective. In fact, the time may come when red wine’s active ingredient, resveratrol, could be recognised as a cancer-fighting element in its own right.
Melanoma skin cancer and prostate cancer cells are both made more susceptible to radiotherapy if the patient first drinks a glass of red wine or takes resveratrol supplements.
Research has found that heart attack patients halve their risk of a second attack if doctors talk to them, play them music and help them to pray
In a laboratory experiment, researchers from the University of Missouri treated cell lines of melanoma cancer with resveratrol alone or resveratrol and radiotherapy. The resveratrol killed 44 per cent of cells; however, 65 per cent died with the addition of radiotherapy. Earlier experiments with prostate cancer cells achieved similar results.
The researchers say there isn’t enough evidence for people to forget about conventional therapy in favour of resveratrol alone.
However, after the collection of more data and studies, there could be a breakthrough in treatment. Who would have believed a glass of red wine and radiotherapy would go together? (J. Surg. Res., 2013).
Turning our attention to supplements, as we know, any form of supplement is deemed as a challenge to the pharmaceutical companies. However, would you believe it that the big food manufacturers can make health claims that supplement companies cannot?
A good example are the adverts and claims by certain margarine companies (or brand owners) that advise purchasers to consume amounts of this ‘special’ margarine as part of a healthy diet and lifestyle with sufficient fruit and vegetables.
This ‘food’ is supposed to be a cholesterol-lowering product and the health claim clearly states that eating it daily will lower cholesterol.
If a supplement made this very obvious claim, it would have had to produce evidence in the shape of double-blind studies.
The cost of registering each supplement, by jumping through the hoops required by the EU, is prohibitive to many supplement manufacturers.
This is despite the fact that many supplements are from natural sources and have been used for hundreds of years. Any claim from a supplement manufacturer would, according to EU law, make the product a drug.
EU regulations allow food manufacturers to only communicate health claims approved by an EU authority.
It is meant to protect the public from misleading claims and is also part of the EU’s five-year anti-obesity strategy.
In relation to glucosamine products sold as a food supplement, despite a huge amount of evidence that it supports and helps joint problems, any claim for alleviating joint pain would, according to EU law, make the product a drug.
In effect, we are seeing the ‘pharmaceuticalisation’ of our food supply.
The next time you visit the supermarket and consider health claims made on labels, you might reflect that what you are reading is mostly the result of major corporate lobbying mixed with skewed EU politics.
It has almost nothing to do with providing truthful, useful and meaningful information based on the available evidence. For more information, visit www.anh-europe.org.
kathryn@maltanet.net