Congestive heart failure is an all too common problem
Although there are many conventional and alternative therapies that can help, patients with heart failure still have a significantly increased risk of dying. That’s why this brand new study is so important. The authors have discovered that in patients with heart failure, one simple mineral can reduce the chance of dying by more than 500%.
The authors looked at 127 men and women with congestive heart failure. They were all stable. Their condition was such that even though their ejection fraction was less than 45%, they were not getting any worse. “Ejection fraction” refers to how much blood the heart is able to pump with each stroke. Healthy hearts have an ejection fraction over 60%. But, as the heart becomes weak from heart failure, the ejection fraction decreases. An ejection fraction of 45% is tolerable, but it will definitely limit the patient’s ability to exert energy and get around.
The mineral the researchers were looking at was iron.
Iron is a critical mineral. The cells cannot produce energy efficiently if there is not enough iron present. Additionally, many people, particularly women, are deficient in iron and don’t know it because they haven’t been tested for it. Since the heart is such a high energy organ, a deficiency of iron is very likely to cause problems, especially if the patient already has heart failure. And that’s why this study is so important. When the researchers looked at the iron levels of these patients, they found out that 36% of them had an un-diagnosed iron deficiency, that’s not all.
When the heart is failing, it produces a substance called brain natriuretic peptide or BNP for short. The higher the BNP levels are, the worse the heart failure is. When the researchers looked at the BNP levels in the patients, they found the patients with iron deficiency were significantly more likely to have higher BNP levels. The study doesn’t end there.
Researchers followed the patients for an average of 225 days to see how they fared. What they discovered was sobering. The patients with iron deficiency were more than five times more likely to have either died or had a heart attack in that time than those with healthy iron levels.
Have Your Doctor Check Your Iron Levels.
If you find out that you are low, the next thing to figure out is how you got that way.
The most common cause for iron deficiency is blood loss. Your doctor can check your urine and stool to make sure that you are not bleeding in such small amounts that you don’t notice it. One cause for un-diagnosed blood loss is aspirin and NSAID drugs, such as Advil and Aleve. They can cause microscopic bleeding that can go un-diagnosed for years.
Another very common cause for iron deficiency is a vegetarian diet. Iron is in vegetables, but the iron in vegetables is very poorly absorbed compared to the iron in meats.
A third common cause for iron deficiency is poor absorption. This can happen from the use of drugs that deplete stomach acid. In order for iron to be absorbed, it has to come into contact with stomach acid. So if you are taking one of these drugs all the time, there is a fairly good chance that your iron levels are low. This is especially true in older folks who often already have low stomach acid levels and in people who don’t eat enough animal protein.
Yours for better health,
Dr. Jack Belitz
PS If for any reason you are taking a drug which affects stomach acid, call the office and let’s see if we can come up with an alternative for you. I often find that people are taking drugs for heartburn or “to much stomach acid”. Very often we find that people are on these drugs because of reasons that can be solved with no medications needed
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