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Few people in the world of medicine—even fewer in the world of cardiology—have taken the time to even consider, no less test, [my proposal that congestive heart failure is primarily caused by beriberi of the heart and/or prescription drugs]. I have personally tested it and found it to be true in tens of thousands of patients over a period of more than 30 years.
For John Lamendola, a Ph.D. professor, it snuck up on him. He was getting weak, tired and becoming a problem at his job. He figured that at 71, he was just getting old. Then it all came crashing down on him. But I will let him tell you his story…
“I felt myself getting weak and dizzy. My mind was not clear, and I was causing problems at my job. It had all happened slowly over a period of a year or two. I figured I was just old, but just to be sure I went to see my doctor to make sure I wasn’t anemic. He did an EHG and within minutes, my wife was summoned and I was whisked off to the cardiology center at the hospital.
After two days of every imaginable test, I was told that my heart was nearly destroyed, looking more like the heart of a 150 -year-old man. They estimated that my heart was working at perhaps 15-20% capacity and that my ejection fraction (beating force0 was measured at somewhere around 8. Normal is 50-60. I was prescribed 9 different drugs and placed on a heart transplant list.
Over the next 12 months the drugs took their toll. I was all but bed-bound, waiting for a heart transplant. My heart was all over the place, with wild beats, skipped beats, fast beats, slow beats and sometimes no beats. I barely slept. My wife and I were both emotional wrecks. While waiting for a transplant, a pacemaker was implanted in my chest to buy me some time. On my regular checks to machine was beating for my heart 75% of the time.
Then one day I received ‘Exposed—Heart Health Hoax’ from Dr. West. Upon receiving his information, I changed my diet and ordered the products needed to help my heart. Within 30 days I felt way better! I continued from another 30 days and felt better still. But I knew the drugs were killing me, so I went back to the cardiologist to start with withdrawal. On this visit they read the ICD on my pacemaker. Amazingly, it showed the pacemaker didn’t have to work at all since my heart didn’t need to depend on it any more.
My doctor agreed to start drug withdrawal. In 90 more days I was drug free. And now, 9 months later I feel great, can walk all day, do my workouts at the gym, garden, jog, work at my job and enjoy life. My ejection fraction is back to normal, my heart has shrunk back to normal size, my pacemaker can be removed at any time, and my doctor tells me that my heart is lat of a 40-year-old. I literally went from an invalid—with a 150-year-old heart, waiting to die or for a heart transplant—normal. No one at the hospital can believe it.”
So Many Lessons from One Person
Lesson Learned #1. Cholesterol does not cause heart disease. John had low cholesterol. He also had low LDL, normal HDL, low to normal blood pressure, no clogged arteries, no plaque, and no family history of heart disease. In fact, about the only thing his doctors could come up with as the cause of his heart disease was some unknown infection in his heart. This also turned out not to be the cause.
Lesson Learned #2. You will be drugged with the standard drug fare for heart failure no matter what. John received cholesterol-lowering drugs and blood pressure drugs, even though both these were low normal. These made his condition dramatically worse.
Lesson Learned #3. With heart disease, you will never get better until you treat the underlying cause of the problem. John was dying right before everyone’s eyes, even as he was receiving the “very best medical and cardiac care in the world.” And the reason he was dying was simple. The underlying cause of his heart disease was totally ignored because no one knew it, and worse, none of the medical thoughts leaders (the top leading cardiologists in the world) even believe it exists.
Lesson Learned #4. Because of his dismal high-carbohydrate American diet, John suffered from beriberi of the heart—a B-vitamin disease that paralyzes and cripples nerves and muscles—most often in and around the heart. The lesson: millions of Americans suffer from what I call subclinical beriberi of the heart which mimics all kinds of heart disease, including congestive heart failure.
Lesson Learned #5. Since beriberi of the heart is not accepted as a cause of heart disease, millions of Americans will be treated incorrectly with powerful drugs and even surgery, when what they really need is the right nutrition. John was treated for high blood pressure and high cholesterol even though he had neither, because that the medical treatment for heart failure. He was prescribed a host of other drugs to treat the symptoms of beriberi of the heart. These symptoms include swelling and edema, sweating, chest pain, abnormal heartbeats (arrhythmias, paralyzing weakness, insomnia and more. He was even treated with drugs for symptoms caused by the other drugs—dizziness from the blood pressure drugs, leg pains and exhaustion from the cholesterol-lowering drugs, fainting from the antiarrhythmia drugs, and more.
Lesson Learned #6. Most cardiac arrhythmias (abnormal heartbeats) are not a disease—no matter what name is given. Rather they are a symptom of a heart that is weakened by nutritional deficiencies and trying desperately to keep functioning by beating slower, faster, erratically, and in whatever fashion it can. Therefore, treating arrhythmias with drugs and even ablation (burning nerve sites in the heart) is generally futile.
Lesson Learned #7. The standard American diet causes beriberi of the heart. The standard fare of junk food, fast food, processed foods, and non-foods are devoid of B-vitamins. And their chemical nature makes a B-vitamin deficiency worse. While most people can withstand the nutritional deficiencies caused by this diet for a while, for many the heart finally gives out.
Lesson Learned #8. Vitamin therapy will not cure beriberi of the heart or heart disease/congestive heart failure. BeriBeri of the heart is known as a B-vitamin deficiency disease, in particular a thiamine deficiency disease. And with classic beriberi, as found I peoples that eat nothing but polished rice, thiamine will usually resolve their problem. But John had been taking high-potency B vitamins all along. They did nothing to help him.
Lesson Learned #9. Vitamins didn’t help John because to cure beriberi of the heart, all the B vitamins in their natural form are required. That includes vitamin B4 and probably lots of other ancillary nutritional factors which you cannot get in any store-bought B vitamin supplement no matter how potent. John was taking B-vitamin fractions. Even though these contained thiamin, they have been proven over and over again to have no effect against heart disease. That is why cardiologists do not believe that beriberi of the heart is a leading cause of heart failure. If it were, B vitamin would cure it.
Lesson Learned #10. Nature’s rich tapestry of nutrients that accompany and balance B vitamins including B4, can only be found in food, or in supplements made from properly grown, raw organic food or extracts. When it comes to beriberi of the heart and heart disease, there are simply no substitutes. Unfortunately, you are not about to eat wheelbarrows full of heart extract, liver extract, all kinds of vegetables (root, leaf and plant) and so on. Fortunately, you can use concentrates and extracts of all these in the form of whole-food and phytonutrient supplements. They are the ones I use for my family and recommend for my patients.
For John, he needed primarily Cataplex B and Cardio-Plus from Standard Process. Since these facts are unknown to most people, more people will die from heart disease this year than ever. And John would have been one these—no matter the heroics and “advances” of modern medicine. Instead John treated the underlying cause of his heart disease and actually cured it—a phenomenon absolutely unknown in medicine. He was better in 30 days and cured in less than 9 months. He never needed any of the medical treatment he was given. He needed not one drug. He didn’t need a pacemaker. He certainly did not need a heart transplant. He only needed the right form of concentrated nutrition.
If you are in the same situation as John, your lesson is to act preemptively and treat yourself nutritional deficiency as the cause of your heart disease (rare). At best you will avoid invasive treatments that can leave you totally disabled or dead (very common). And at the very best, you can do the medically impossible—cure your heart disease entirely—something we help thousands of people do every day of every year.
