Ronald Grisanti D.C., D.A.B.C.O., D.A.C.B.N., M.S.
I can remember like yesterday, a dear friend in the prime of his life suffered a massive stroke. My wife and I went to the hospital every day for a few weeks and watched the medical team work to keep him alive. I will say that there is a time and place for appropriate medical intervention.
My friend did survive only to be left blind and paralyzed on the right side of his body.
Life has not been same since his stroke.
I pray you never ignore any of the early warning signs of stroke, such as sudden dizziness, severe headache, loss of vision, inability to speak or even not knowing where you are, or sudden uselessness of a limb.
On the positive side, there are a growing number of people who have made a 90% to 100% recovery by correcting their biochemistry via the results found in doing a timely Cardio/ION test.
The sad fact is these people are in the minority simply because traditional medicine does not look at human biochemistry as it relates to stroke recovery.
As it now stands in standard medical care thrombolytic therapy is the only treatment for ischemic stroke.
The most commonly used drug for thrombolytic therapy is tissue plasminogen activator (T-PA). T-PA works best to help people with strokes caused by clots (ischemic strokes) when it is given right away after stroke symptoms begin. Ideally, one should receive thrombolytic medications within the first 90 minutes after arriving at the hospital for treatment.
Unfortunately a 2008 paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine stated that due to its narrow therapeutic window and complexity of administration, only 3-5% of patients benefit from plasminogen activator (T-PA) therapy. The paper further commented that the current treatment for stroke patients is simply not enough to give good results.
A viable and medically documented answer that sadly is not addressed for the stroke victim is the recommendation of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid that is in cod liver oil).
Yes, you read that right.
A recent study showed that when they created strokes in experimental animals, if they gave DHA this cut the size of the infarct (the area of brain that is damaged) by up to 77%! In other words the brain’s area of stroke damage was only one quarter of its original size.
Now that is amazing!
Now there is something you MUST know to make this effective and that is DHA needs to be given within five hours of the stroke.
If you want to take a pro-active role in your cardiovascular health it would be wise to have your fatty acids checked by your physician.
What you want to see is your docosahexaenoic acid levels in the 5th quintile
This study emphasized the significance of doctors giving as little as 500 mg of DHA as soon as someone is diagnosed with a stroke.
This amount not only cut the area of damage by three-fourths, but speeded up recovery and improved many other parameters, such as reducing the amount of swelling in the brain, and much more.
You need to know that the accumulation of phthalates (plastics), statin drugs, chemotherapy as well as calcium channel blockers (high blood pressure medication) all damage DHA conversion in the body.
If you have any friends hospitalized with sudden stroke, make sure doctors give them DHA within five hours, which may cut the size of brain damage 77%!
Of course don’t forget to protect yourself with the benefit of DHA.
To be quite honest, if you want to do something good for yourself and really take a pro-active role in your cardiovascular health ask your doctor to order a Cardio ION Test. The fatty acid test is part of the Cardio ION test.
to read more information about the Fatty Acid Profile
to read more information about the Cardio ION Test
References:
- Belayev, et al, Docosahexaenoic acid therapy of experimental ischemic stroke, Transl Stroke Res, 2:33-41, 2011
- Lukiw WJ, et al, A role for docosahexaenoic acid derived neuroprotectin D1 in the neural cell survival and Alzheimer’s disease, J Clin Invest 115:2774-83, 2005
- Ward RE, et al, Docosahexaenoic acid prevents white matter damage following spinal cord injury, J Neurotrauma 27:1-12, 2010
- Belayev L, et al, Robust docosahexaenoic acid mediated neuroprotection in at model of transient focal cerebral ischemia, Stroke 40:3121-6, 2009
- Leyden P, Thrombolytic therapy for acute stroke — — not a moment to lose, New Engl J Med 359:1393-5, 2008
- Bazan NG, Neuroprotective D1-mediated anti-inflammatory and survival signaling in stroke, retinal degeneration, and Alzheimer’s disease, J Lipid Res, 50: S400-5, 2009
- Akbar M, et al, Docosahexaenoic acid: a positive modulator of Akt signaling in neuronal survival, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:10858-63, 2005
- Rogers Sherry, Total Wellness, Prestige Publishing, November 2011
- Mukherjee PK, et al, Neuroprotective D1: a docosahexaenoic acid derived docosatriene protects human retinal pigment epithelial cells from oxidative stress, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101:8491-6, 2004