Health and Wellness: HEPA Filters Reduce Heart Risks

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May 10, 2011

In This Issue...

Read This BEFORE You See Your Heart Doctor
HEPA Filters Reduce Heart Risks
New INSTANT Cure for Extra High Cholesterol -- Cholesterol Drops 100 Points or More
Simple Test Tells You Your Chances After Bypass Surgery
Complementary Cancer Care

Read This BEFORE You See Your Heart Doctor

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Even worse, medical powers are suppressing natural remedies that can relieve, and even reverse, heart disease -- for pennies on the dollar compared to conventional heart treatments.

Enough is enough! Hushed Up Natural Heart Cures reveals the truth behind America’s most popular heart treatments—and uncovers powerful, natural secrets for protecting your heart and adding many years to your life.

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HEPA Filters Reduce Heart Risks

Most people know that pollution can aggravate lung diseases like asthma, but the American Heart Association warns that polluted air -- a toxic brew of carbon monoxide, ozone, lead, tobacco smoke, particulate matter and an array of other poisonous components -- also raises your risk for heart attack and stroke. One easy and inexpensive way to cut this risk: Use a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter in your home. These powerful filters, which were first developed to remove radioactive contaminants from nuclear facilities, can’t clean every pollutant from your home’s air (for example, they don’t remove carbon monoxide), but they do trap the tiny particles that other filters would miss -- and now there’s no doubt that they can rapidly improve health.

Fewer Indoor Pollutants = Better Cardiovascular Health

Ryan Allen, PhD, assistant professor, Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, and his colleagues spent the last few years studying the impact of air pollution on residents’ heart health in a small rural community where wood-burning stoves are a major source of home heating... and the primary cause of pollution. Dr. Allen’s team installed portable HEPA filters in 25 tobacco-free homes of 45 adult residents. Thirteen homes had wood-burning stoves. The participants operated the HEPA devices for two seven-day periods -- one in which their filters, made of special fibers, were in place and one in which they were not (so no pollutants were removed).

At the end of each seven-day period, the researchers collected air samples from each home and blood samples from each adult resident. To evaluate the health of endothelial cells that line the inside walls of blood vessels, researchers used a fingertip device to measure reactive hyperemia (a temporary increase in blood flow that follows a blood flow shortage). A low hyperemia index is an early sign of atherosclerosis -- a buildup of waxy plaque inside blood vessels and hardening of blood vessels that can lead to heart attack or stroke.

In comparing results from the two periods (with and without air filters), investigators found that HEPA filters made a huge difference. Dr. Allen reports that HEPA use...

Reduced indoor air pollution by more than 50%. The level of average indoor pollutant particulates fell by 60% and wood smoke by 75%.

Improved blood vessel health. A 9.4% increase in the reactive hyperemia index suggested better blood vessel health and endothelial function.

Decreased systemic inflammation. Participants’ blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), an important marker of heart disease, dropped by 32.6% after one week of HEPA filtration.

Pollution causes inflammation in the lungs and blood vessels, including those that deliver blood to the heart and brain, Dr. Allen noted. When you subject your body to this kind of insult over and over, such as when you breathe polluted air week after week, the inflammation becomes chronic... damaging blood vessels and raising your risk for heart attack and stroke. This study shows that a simple intervention can improve indoor air quality and reduce pollution-related cardiovascular health risks.

Researchers’ findings appeared in the January 21, 2011, edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

What to Look for in a Filter

The Department of Energy (DOE) has established strict standards for HEPA filters: They must remove at least 99.97% of airborne particles 0.3 micrometers or larger -- a particle that size is far too small for the human eye to see (nearly 100,000 of them would be needed to span the diameter of a quarter). That’s why these filters can make quick work of most of your air’s dust, pollen, mold, carcinogens and irritants from smoke or vehicle emissions. A good HEPA room unit costs about $200. Here’s what to look for...

Make sure that it’s a true HEPA filter. Beware of look-alike products labeled HEPA-type, HEPA-like or 99% HEPA. These may not meet DOE requirements. A true HEPA filter will have a serial number and list the test results (i.e., that it traps at least 99.97% of 0.3 micrometer particles).

Buy the right size. Purchase a unit that is appropriate for the size of the room it will be used in, and be sure to have units covering the rooms where you spend the most time, such as bedrooms and the living/TV room. Replace filters regularly. Even if the owner’s manual recommendation is for every two to three years, yearly replacement of filter elements ensures that your unit will operate efficiently.

Get a prefilter, too. In addition, most HEPA units come with prefilters, which remove larger particles so they do not clog finer internal filters.

There are many qualifying brands, including Whirlpool, Hunter and GE.

If you have forced-air heating, consider a house-wide filtration system, such as those made by Fantech http://Residential.Fantech.net/residential-products/indoor-air-quality/hepa/, rather than investing in separate units for each room. These house-wide systems are fitted to your existing ductwork. Cost: Approximately $500 for the unit (installation costs are separate and vary according to where you live).

About that noise...

Unfortunately, there is one downside to portable HEPA filters -- they’re noisy. They contain strong fans that force air through the system to effectively filter it. One way around this is to run filters on medium or high when you are not home and turn them down to low when you are home. A house-wide system connected to your ductwork will create less noise in your living areas.

Source(s):

Ryan Allen, PhD, assistant professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.

New INSTANT Cure for Extra High Cholesterol -- Cholesterol Drops 100 Points or More

Do you have stubborn high cholesterol? Would you love to get your count under control without having to depend on expensive prescription drugs? Changing your diet can help, of course. But here’s something better. This breakthrough new therapy instantly filters excess cholesterol from your body. And it’s completely safe.

This new therapy takes only a matter of minutes and lowers unhealthy cholesterol like no drug known to science. At the same time, it triggers a reduction in C-reactive protein and fibrinogen, substances that can increase the risk for blood clots. Patients who receive the therapy report a rapid reduction in cardiovascular symptoms such as angina.

Simple Test Tells You Your Chances After Bypass Surgery

Believe it or not, coronary artery bypass surgery -- a procedure that used to seem almost miraculous in its complexity -- has become essentially commonplace for those with blocked heart vessels. With about 400,000 of these often life-saving procedures performed each year in the US, I’d bet every one of us knows at least one person who has had a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) -- or simply "bypass." It seems to me we’ve almost come to take the procedure for granted. It turns out that’s not a good idea. New research shows that the skills of the surgeon you choose can have a major impact on both the outcome of your surgery and your chances to thrive in the years to come.

For instance, you may not realize that even when these surgeries are successful at removing blockages, between 1% and 4% of patients don’t do well postoperatively and will die as quickly as if they had not had the surgery. I spoke with the study’s lead author, Michael Domanski, MD, who is a professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He explained that the heart muscle is sometimes slightly damaged during the surgery. For a time, it was thought that this had no bearing on how well patients did afterward.

Now we know otherwise: Dr. Domanski and his team studied the importance of the chemical releases (enzymes, in particular two -- creatine kinase MB and troponin) that signify muscle damage in this setting and found that even almost imperceptible elevations signal heart damage that can have a long-term effect on mortality. Their results were reported in the February 9, 2011, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Domanski explained that this finding has three important implications for doctors:

First, doctors studying bypass techniques can use these enzymes as a way to measure how successful a therapy (particularly a new one) is.

Second, they may be useful as a quality-control measure to compare surgical programs.

Third, the findings suggest the need for surgeons to learn more about how to prevent muscle damage caused by CABG surgery.

In fact, Dr. Domanski said, it turned out that enzyme levels are a stronger predictor of mortality than any other factor that we know about, even including age and a history of prior heart attack.

This is an important finding that, it seems, will improve outcomes for CABG surgeries overall and also, eventually, be used as one more quality measure that can help patients choose the very best hospital and surgeon in the event they need one. It’s hard to overemphasize how important it is to put in the time needed to check out your surgeon and his/her record of heart surgery. In fact, your life may depend on it.

Source(s):

Michael J. Domanski, MD, professor of cardiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, director, Heart Failure Research, Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, New York City.

Complementary Cancer Care

I’ve reached the age where it feels like every time I turn around, I hear about someone else diagnosed with cancer. With all of the information at my fingertips, I am always quick to volunteer my resources.

In fact, I’ve shared information so often that I have a scanned collection of articles that I quickly e-mail whenever I hear of someone with a cancer diagnosis.

Health and Wellness

May 10, 2011

HEPA Filters Reduce Heart Risks

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