Nutrition
Amla (dried Indian gooseberry) against Lipitor to lower cholesterol
Amla (Indian gooseberry) extracts were pitted head-to-head against cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and the blood thinners aspirin and plavix.
Indian gooseberries, also known as amla, were made touted than anything from a cancer fighter to a hair tonic to a refrigerant. (A refrigerant? Like Freon?) Amla actually was labeled a snake venom Detoxifier– but based on what kind of research? I discuss this in my video Flashback Friday: Amla vs. drugs for cholesterol, inflammation and blood thinning.
Yes, food intake of turmeric and amla “increases Lifespan ”- of fruit flies. Are we really interested in the effect of amla on the lifespan or “sexual behavior” of fruit flies? How do you even study the sexual behavior of fruit flies? Just why to introduce “A virgin woman and a bachelor man … in an Elens-Wattiaux mating chamber,” don’t you know? (Can you imagine having an insect mating chamber named after you? And it looks like two people were fighting over naming rights, so they had to go with both of them!)
Okay, the maiden and the bachelor are in the chamber. Now it’s just a matter of pulling out a stopwatch. As you can see at 1:06 in my video Amla vs. drugs for cholesterol, inflammation, and blood thinning, 20 minutes is the average “copulation time” but it was almost half an hour on Amla. In addition, amla has reduced the “pairing latency” from ten to seven seconds, from the time they met in the chamber to the time they started getting busy. Seconds? You don’t play around! Well, they actually play around – and pretty quickly.
And on Amla they lay more eggs and more of these eggs hatch into larvae. But just as you probably don’t think of flies, when you hear that amla is “the best life-extension medicine,” you probably don’t think of maggots anymore when you read that amla could to have a “strong aphrodisiac effect”.
Now there was a study as I show at 1:56 in mine Video, The found extraordinary improvements in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol in actual humans, but that was compared to placebo. What about simvastatin, a leading cholesterol lowering drug sold as Zocor? Treatment with the drug “produced “significant lowering of” cholesterol, as one would expect, but so does the amla. In fact, it was hard to tell which was what. There was only a 10 to 15 percent decrease in total and LDL cholesterol, but the dose of amla in this study was only 500 milligrams, which is about a tenth of a teaspoon, and it wasn’t just the powdered fruit, it was also about the powdered fruit juice of the fruit, which can have made a difference.
How about Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering drug known than atorvastatin? As I show in my video at 2:50 a.m., there was no effect from placebos seenHowever, there were significant improvements for the drug and also for two different doses of amla, but again only a decrease of about 15 percent or so. Did the researchers use the juice again? Worse, they used a patented amla extract. Instead of costing 5 cents a day, it was 50 cents a day and didn’t even seem to work that well. Because of this proprietary product, at least someone is willing to raise the funds to do the research.
It’s like the cancer story. For Indian gooseberries ”too become clinically relevant ”, researchers pray for the synthesis of“ patentable derivatives ”. “Without the possibility of patents, the pharmaceutical industry will undoubtedly not invest in research”. Their shareholders did not let them. They’re patents on patients. But without this research, how can we ever prove their worth or worthlessness? The interest of the pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement industry in patenting natural foods is therefore a double-edged sword. Without them, the study would never have existed demonstrate not only benefits for cholesterol but also arterial function as you can see in mine at 4:04 am Video, to reduce Arterial rigidity in the two amla extract groups and the drug group, but not in the placebo, as well as a dramatic decrease in inflammation, with C-reactive protein levels halving. Therefore, amla – or at least amla extracts – can be a good therapeutic alternative to statins for diabetics with endothelium [artery] Dysfunction because it has the beneficial effects of statins but without the known adverse effects of the drugs, including muscle damage and liver dysfunction.
The amla extract was too compared to the blood-thinning drugs aspirin and plavix, often prescribed after a heart attack, which have about three-quarters of the same anti-platelet effects as the drugs, significantly increasing bleeding and clotting time – that is, the time it takes you to listen on to drip after being pricked with a needle. This is actually a good thing when you have a stent or something that you don’t want to clog, but the blood has not been thinned outside of the normal range, which may not unduly increase the risk of major bleeding.
Amla extract too appears reduce the effects of stress on the heart. The researchers had people dip their hands in ice water and hold them there until the pain became “unbearable,” causing your arteries to narrow and your blood pressure to rise – but not as much if you were taking an amla extract. Good to know for your next ice bucket challenge.
I introduce the study that used all of the fruit in my video The best food for high cholesterol.
You can find more information about amla at:
The double-edged sword of patenting natural substances keeps popping up. See for example Plants as Intellectual Property: Obviously Wrong?.
A healthier diet may not require medications or supplements:
You can find all of my videos on the latest research on cholesterol on our website Cholesterol Topic Page.
In health,
Michael Greger, MD
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