NEWS > Educational Update ESP: Vitamin K2 and vitamin D3 are teammates in heart disease prevention and more

Educational Update ESP: Vitamin K2 and vitamin D3 are teammates in heart disease prevention and more

One of the most important things for you to understand is that all nutrients work in partnerships in your body—none is an “independent contributor.”
Calcium and magnesium work together to regulate your heartbeat. Calcium causes your heart to contract, and magnesium tells it to relax between beats.
Sodium and potassium regulate the fluid levels in your body. Sodium causes your body to retain water when you need it, and potassium makes your body excrete water when there is excess.
Well, vitamins D3 and K2 carry out a very important, life-saving role in your body.
In addition to fighting heart disease-causing inflammation, vitamin D3 also helps your body absorb calcium—that’s why it’s so important for your bones.
At the same time, vitamin K2 tells the calcium where it needs to go. This is VITAL because if all that calcium that vitamin D just helped you absorb doesn’t get to your bones and teeth, it can hang out in your arteries, causing calcification and encouraging plaque buildup!
Which INCREASES your heart disease risk!
In addition, excess calcium that doesn’t get told where to go by vitamin K2 can also accumulate in your organs, and when this happens in your gallbladder—you guessed it—gallstones may be in your future!
This is why it boggles my mind that SO many doctors push calcium, calcium, calcium for osteoporosis prevention, with no acknowledgment whatsoever of the carefully orchestrated partnership between calcium, vitamin D3 and vitamin K2.
Let me clarify this a bit more—menopausal women who are blindly gulping calcium to prevent osteoporosis are in effect INCREASING their heart disease risk if they ignore vitamins D3 and K2.

You may be low in K2—especially if you’re taking medication!
It’s a pretty well-known fact that vitamin D3 is a common deficiency due to our shunning the sun and slathering ourselves in toxic sunscreen.
But many of us are running low in K2 as well. Current estimates state that up to 85 percent of us don’t have the K2 levels we should.
One of the main reasons for this is our heavy reliance on meat and dairy from grain-fed animals. In addition to being low in omega-3 essential fatty acids, products derived from grain-fed animals are low in vitamin K2. Grass-fed beef and the dairy products from grass-fed animals, on the other hand, are higher in vitamin K2.
Another reason for low levels of nutrients, in general is our guts are completely out of whack. When your gut flora balance is topsy-turvy and harmful microbes call the shots, trust me, your nutrient absorption is in the tanker.
And things like stress, eating lots of sugar and carbs and lacking sleep can destroy your friendly flora population and leave them waving the white flag of defeat.
Many medications, including the blood thinner warfarin, statins and anti-tuberculosis medications—can impair your body’s ability to absorb K2. In addition, broad-spectrum antibiotics can alter your gut microbiome and reduce the ability of your gut to synthesize vitamin K2.

Even more heart disease prevention!
If you’re interested in minimizing heart disease risk, probiotics and omega-3 essential fatty acids are also vital.
Probiotics help enhance absorption of the nutrients (like vitamins D and K) that are essential to fight heart disease (and all diseases in general). Plus probiotics also “eat” excess cholesterol, which is another heart disease risk!And the omega-3 essential fatty acids have been PROVEN to lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and help reduce arterial inflammation!
Now you know the truth !!!! The truth is, your body needs a variety of nutrients to fight disease. You can’t concentrate on one to the exclusion of all others.
Dr. Stephen Cavallino MD – European School of Prolotherapy (ESP) SIPRO – Società Italiana di Proloterapia – Education Director

Prolo vertigo 2

Diagnosis and treatment of cervical vertigo and chronic instability associated with neck movements.
The diagnosis of cervical vertigo is controversial; it was once a misunderstood diagnosis now it is often over-considered and seems to combine elements of myth and reality. The controversy surrounding a diagnosis of cervical vertigo stems from the same difficulties related to making a correct diagnosis for the causes related to whiplash injury.
Vertigo and instability are a growing problem in the aging population
The big question that arises in front of a dizzy over-fifty-year-old patient is to differentiate vertigo from instability, in fact if in the first case there is a subjective or objective sensation of rotation in the second, it does not exist.
A group of Australian researchers has noted that vertigo and instability are poorly defined terms, affecting more than 30% of the population over 65.
In fact, it is often difficult to define the primary cause of vertigo and instability because it can originate from cardiovascular, vestibular, psychological and neuromuscular causes. However, despite the difficulty in identifying the primary cause, it is vital to investigate it in order to seek an effective therapeutic strategy for the patient.
New research confirms that feeling of instability is a growing problem in the aging population with critical health consequences.

In summary: instability is one of the prevalent symptoms in the elderly that tends to increase with age.
In a recent research Swedish doctors examined a population of 675 people aged 75 years. They delivered a questionnaire with questions regarding instability and vertigo, the level of physical activity, the habit of walking, the reaction to falls, the number of falls, subjective health or general fatigue and the therapies in place.
More women than men reported lightheadedness and lack of balance. (40 vs 30%).
People with dizziness, compared with those without dizziness, exercised less frequently at a moderate intensity level, walked less often daily, more often reported general fatigue, more often had fallen in previous years, and had increased medication intake.
In addition, people without dizziness also had a brisk walk, a quick and stable step-up, and good posture on one leg. The study’s conclusion was that older people with vertigo are less physically active, have worse lower limb function, fall more frequently, and report worse self-assessment of their health than people without vertigo.

Damaged cervical ligaments can cause vertigo
Trying to isolate a real cause of cervical vertigo and instability, the scientists methodically eliminated the possible causes of vertigo (for example, whiplash) to focus on degenerative osteoarthritis (cervical spondylosis) as the primary cause. They examined 583 patients with spondylosis, and found out that 379 had had dizziness for more than 6 months. Then other tests were done on these patients to rule out other common causes of vertigo. The severity of the disease was then compared in the 323 patients, with no obvious cause of vertigo, with the remaining 260 patients. A series of clinical tests were done to rule out a vertebral artery occlusion. No significant disparity in disease severity was found between the 2 groups, only a few patients in the first group showed signs of arterial occlusion, while cervical spondylosis cannot be blamed as the cause of vertigo because it is present in all patients. So not every patient who had cervical spondylosis had vertigo but many did. So the conclusion was that cervical spondylosis was a cause for some but not all.
However, these findings were not in agreement with a more recent study that found that vertigo and cervical instability are associated with advanced degenerative changes in patients with cervical spondylosis.

Vertigo is associated with degenerative changes in patients with cervical spondylosis and reduced blood flow in the brain.
In this research, the researchers found that because vascular risk factors that can lead to arterial blockage are common in the elderly and that cervical spondylosis is also common in this group, the two issues may be associated, as noted in their research.
These researchers then investigated the effect of cervical spondylosis on blood flow during cervical rotation and tried to identify the possible association of vertigo with blood.

What did they discover?
A significant prevalence of cervical spondylosis was found in patients who complained of vertigo compared to those in the non-vertigo group.
Furthermore, among the patients with cervical spondylosis, the patients who had vertigo showed more evident degenerative changes.
Patients with cervical spondylosis with vertigo had a statistical lowering of blood flow parameters in the contralateral rotation of the head in the left and right vertebral artery compared to the group of patients without cervical spondylosis.
They concluded: “In patients with a high degree of cervical spondylosis with more extensive osteophyte formation, the reduction in blood flow becomes prominent and symptomatic, presenting itself as vertigo”.

Vertigo associated with other pathologies
Barré Lieou syndrome which includes a wide range of symptoms due to dysfunction of the group of nerves called posterior cervical sympathetic;
Temporomandibular joint syndrome which includes spasms in the chewing muscles, often as a result of clenching of the jaw or clenching of the teeth aggravated by stress;
Eagle syndrome, which consists of lengthening of the styloid process and calcification of the stylohyoid ligament with intermittent pain along the glosso pharyngeal nerve and vertigo;
Ernest syndrome, which originates from the stylomandibular ligament which becomes inflamed and produces pain sensations in various areas of the head, neck and vertigo;
Occipital neuralgia, due to trauma of the occipital nerve;
– Paroxysmal vertigo due to cupolithiasis;

Treatment of vertigo with prolotherapy
A patient seeking treatment for vertigo from his doctor must seek treatment options based on the cause of the disorder, which can be determined by examining the ears, eye movements (nystagmus), and the nervous system. Other tests can be: caloric tests, in which water at different temperatures is injected into the ear to evaluate the function of the vestibular system; radiological examination of the cervical spine to evaluate cervicarthrosis; CT scan or MRI to evaluate a tumor that compresses the brain.
Last but not least, the evaluation of the postural tonic system with all its peripheral receptors (foot, eye, occlusion, skin, endo-oral galvanic currents, etc.) the dysfunction of which can cause vertigo / instability.

The results should determine the appropriate treatment.
For example, if Ménière’s syndrome is suspected as a cause of dizziness, a low-salt diet combined with drug treatment may be recommended. If an infection is suspected, antibiotics will be prescribed. If no apparent cause has been found, antihistamines, anticholinergics (to prevent nausea, vomiting and movement sickness) or benzodiazepines (which may be prescribed to relieve anxiety that can help stabilize inner ear structures) may be prescribed. Vestibular rehabilitation or proprioceptive balance exercises may also be recommended For severe cases that are unresponsive to drugs and exercises, a surgical solution may be considered.

Prolotherapy
Prolotherapy is an infiltrative technique that stimulates the repair of unstable, sprained or damaged ligaments. When the ligaments are unstable, they cause excessive mobility to the joints and this can reduce blood flow to the brain, pinch nerves (a pinched nerve can make you dizzy), and cause other symptoms associated with joint instability. lassi is useful for the regeneration of connective tissue, the degeneration of which can be responsible for pain and instability.
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