If I Were Vice President Dick Cheney’s Physician

© Copyright 2002 by Dr. Garry F. Gordon, M.D., D.O., M.D.(H) & President, Gordon Research Institute; USA
(Explore Issue: Volume 11, Number 4)

I have been fortunate in developing a program that has eliminated well over ninety percent of heart attacks and strokes in patients willing to closely adhere to my recommendations. For more than ten years, in fact, I am not aware of anyone following my total program ever having had a heart attack or stroke. I find that the latest developments in what is known as molecular cardiology help to explain why my all-natural supplement program, with the aid of oral EDTA, has been so successful. I am quite confident that a similar program would be successful in the Vice President’s case, even though he has reacted badly to his stent placement.

The old cardiovascular risk factors of stress, cholesterol management, obesity, hypertension, etc, are now being totally eclipsed by new, far more relevant risk factors, which include the vital information that controlling chronic INFLAMMATION is far more important than lowering cholesterol levels. This means we must measure levels of things like C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, homocysteine, antibodies to oxidized LDL, vascular cell adhesion molecules (VCAMs) and intercellular adhesion molecules (ICAMs), as well as an impressive and comprehensive panel of tests for hypercoagulability as done by Hemex Laboratories in Phoenix (see http://www.hemex.com). Then, having measured these things, we need safe natural products (such as FYI, that has never failed to significantly lower C-reactive protein levels) that affordably can bring these all into safe healthy ranges and can keep these levels for a lifetime.

Dr. Lester Morrison initially brought the importance of blood clots as the cause of heart attacks and strokes to my attention in 1984. I worked with him and subsequently formulated Cardio Guard, which evolved into my latest version of his work, Garlic Plus, now renamed Essential Daily Defense. This is an EDTA and garlic-based product designed specifically to deal with today’s hypercoagulability. I routinely use it to replace aspirin and coumadin, which I find, are too toxic for the small amount of protection they provide against heart attacks. Essential Daily Defense improves on the anti-coagulation benefits Dr. Morrison had discovered in his research with heparin related compounds such as chondroitin sulfate. He spent over $10 million and finally settled on using a sulfated polysaccharide found in a particular specie of red algae which when consumed with several other nutrients provided the needed synergy to prevent heart attacks. It developed that this sulfated polysaccharide, when in the presence of orally ingested EDTA, safely reduced the hypercoagulability as we documented by employing the Chandler Loop technique. I have placed all of this research into the formula Beyond Chelation, a total heart support product that contains maintenance levels of the detoxifying/blood thinning Essential Daily Defense, the oral chelator that I have developed, and I believe everyone would benefit by taking this daily for life.

At the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology on March 19, 2001, a new drug —a super aspirin called Plavix—was touted as “the answer we have been waiting for”. Dr. Eugene Braunwald of Harvard Medical School is calling this new drug a “blockbuster”. Dr. Valentin Fuster regards Plavix as a “breakthrough.” Dr. Fuster, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is the immediate past president of the American Heart Association. He is also the editor of Vulnerable Atherosclerotic Plaque, the most important textbook I have studied regarding the causes of death due to heart attack and stroke. This book supports my non-interventional approach to cardiology since Dr. Fuster also argues that we do not need to operate on the blood vessels of the heart as though we were plumbers, but we should instead treat the blood so that we do not form fatal blood clots and that we need to stop treating the patient’s blood vessels and treat the blood stream.

I draw attention to the fact that this new drug, Plavix, is reportedly producing a twenty percent reduction in the likelihood of heart attack, stroke or death; but it is doing so at a tremendous cost. Approximately thirty percent of the patients suffer a serious episode of internal bleeding. The researchers commented that the thirty percent serious bleeding episode from Plavix didn’t concern them very much because it is basically equivalent to the episodes of serious bleeding seen in patients who consume aspirin for the blood thinning effect. I believe this is what is happening with all the standard drugs now recommended in the United States to prevent blood clots; they are all too weak to really prevent the formation of fatal blood clots, meanwhile they are so toxic that far too many patients are dying or entering the hospital needing transfusions.

I bring up Plavix, manufactured by Bristol-Myers Squibb, known generically as Clopitogrel, because it proves that cardiologists are beginning to accept the fact that death and heart attack in eighty-five percent of cases is really due to a clearly provable blood clot that often develops minutes before death. Now that the pharmaceutical industry has an expensive new drug to put in the pipeline, all of the “experts” are anxious to point out how poor the protection against blood clots has been up to now from the standard programs of aspirin, coumadin, etc.

It is clear that Plavix will only improve one of the numerous newly recognized, molecular-based risk factors. Thus, I am certain that this drug will do little to address the overall problem of heart attack and stroke, but again will make lots of money for a drug company. Since I am not controlled, as so many doctors are, by the pharmaceutical industry, I have been fortunate enough to recognize that there are numerous natural products that can safely provide the control of the molecular-based risk factors without any of the dangerous side effects. These products include ginkgo, garlic, Vitamin C, as well as a sulfated polysaccharide derived from red algae, particularly when taken with oral EDTA, as well as many other substances.

Since I have spent my life researching safe, natural products to produce desired drug-like effects in my patients, I find this level of serious side effects entirely unacceptable, and therefore have developed natural products such as Essential Daily Defense and FYI to replace these drugs. A predigestion process that enables the well-studied natural ingredients in FYI to provide drug-like activity without side effects has uniquely potentized all of the 12 active ingredients, including Oil of Oregano, Cats Claw, Ginger, Tumeric, Bayberry leaf, etc. — this combination works so well that most patients with arthritis can safely stop all of their other medications within 3 months.

My experience to date is that we always find that these hyped new drugs are so unnatural for the body that they disturb our normal bleeding and clotting mechanism. In fact, they often kill patients and cost millions of dollars for the associated hospitalizations to treat the blood loss associated with these anti-platelet and anti-coagulant drugs. Note: NSAIDs like Ibuprofen kill over 17,000 a year and the newer Cox-2 inhibitors may be no better; FYI can routinely do far more for all patients needing anti-inflammatory assistance with NO chance of any deaths or internal bleeding ever having been reported.

The balanced program of natural products with which I have worked for nearly fifteen years not only produces far better protection because it only gently perturbs the numerous hypercoagulable factors moving them back toward more optimal values, but also does so without inducing serious disturbances in the patient’s ability to control bleeding and clotting. I have never encountered “a serious bleed” or in fact any reported abnormal bleeding in any patients taking the nutritional program that I advocate.

Please take note that I am so confident of the success of the natural products that I routinely advise my patients, even those who have heart valves, to seriously consider replacing Coumadin, as well as aspirin. I do this because tests such as Platelet Aggregation, fibrinogen or the more sophisticated Hemex Test, clearly show that the so called “protection” patients thought they were getting from these standard allopathic prescriptions are in fact providing precious little benefit and always at great risk. For further information on going off Coumadin please see my website, www.gordonresearch.com and look for TAKE CHARGE, STOP COUMADIN ON YOUR OWN. We can all readily learn from well-controlled, published studies that simply utilizing eicosapentaenoic acid—the Omega-3 oil found in salmon—has been shown to do better than aspirin.

I augment these benefits with gingko, garlic, Vitamin E and other natural anti-platelet/anti-coagulant factors in my Beyond Chelation formula, which contains 9 capsules, to be taken twice daily. Three of those capsules are the EDTA/Garlic containing Essential Daily Defense, which taken twice daily is adequate for prevention purposes, but an extra 1-3 capsules with each meal are recommended when therapeutic benefits are needed, as in treating symptoms of angina, leg cramps, high cholesterol or hypertension.

Over the past 10+ years I have been privileged to bring my patients’ risk of heart attack and stroke to as close to zero as I believe is possible. This is due to the control of all risk factors that I can accomplish with a basic anti-inflammatory program of FYI or Wobenzym, an all-natural, safe, anti-inflammatory aspirin substitute from Germany and Beyond Chelation. Now that lowering of C- reactive protein levels has become identified as perhaps the single most important goal in preventing heart attacks, I am pleased to report that FYI-MED (For Your Inflammation) lowers C- reactive protein levels by an average of 55%, which really means this product also treats anything related to Chronic Inflammatory Diseases including Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cancer, and Heart disease, and will significantly help lower the incidence of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases as well as cancer of the colon. These will all predictably either respond dramatically to FYI MED, or at least help be prevent, while enjoying a heart attack free life.

Of course, only by controlling all measurable risk factors can we expect to have complete success against any heart attack, or cancer for that matter. This list of risk factors for heart disease, cancer, aging, etc. continues to grow, but we can always find a nutritional product to help control these risk factors. Accordingly, there are other nutritional supplements that I would recommend for Dick Cheney based, of course, on the results of some of the other specific risk factor tests.

We recognize that, had Mr. Cheney undergone bypass surgery, the probability is that he would have shown chlamydia in the removed tissue and had antibodies in the serum. I state this since eighty-nine percent of all patients in his category and ninety-four percent of cardiovascular patients in general show such results. A recent report in April’s Scientific American revealed that the more chronic infections we show antibodies to, the greater the risk becomes of a fatal heart attack. Thus, I continue to lecture and train doctors world-wide that just because there is no obvious fever in most of their heart patients does not mean that infection is not the main thing they should be focusing on if they want to avoid heart attacks.

As an expert in the non-pharmacological control of cardiovascular risk factors, I treat my patients for the chronic inflammation that is associated with the low-level of the infections found in most patients today. These infections include Cytomegalic Virus (CMV), Chlamydia and other infections coming from the mouth, mycoplasma and HHV-6. We find these infections not only in cardiovascular disease patients, but also in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and most of the other chronic degenerative disease states. (Please see Plaque Time, by Paul Ewald.)

Thus, depending on the results of an entire workup, we may want to utilize some oxidative therapies for a period of time to gain control of the level of infection in the patient. By adequately controlling the patient’s risk factors, they remain asymptomatic.

For Vice President Cheney, I would like to go beyond this approach and determine other potential risk factors in which more aggressive nutritional therapies may be warranted. These therapies may include the use of RM-10 (an exciting potentized broad spectrum mushroom product for immune support in conditions like cancer and chronic fatigue), and/or one of the two forms of Immuni-T that I have developed, containing transfer factor and ten other immune support products such as ASTRAGALUS, arabinogalactan, mushroom complexes for Beta Glucan etc.

Some patients may warrant a short course of antibiotics, but that never has controlled Chlamydia for any length of time. On the other hand, long-term continued use of Wobenzym and/or the anti-inflammatory product FYI-Med has provably kept C-reactive protein in safe ranges. These become elevated without warning in anyone partially because of the underlying infections like chlamydia, CMV, Herpes etc. These elevations of C-reactive protein then increase the likelihood of developing a fatal blood clot. Antibiotics routinely fail to adequately control these infections and c-reactive levels go up again in most patients shortly after the antibiotics are discontinued. This makes taking either Wobenzym or FYI-Med on a daily basis an extremely important part of my heart attack and stroke prevention program.

I also strongly recommend to all of my patients that they consume at least 1 teaspoon, containing four grams of a new, well tolerated Vitamin C (Beyond C) morning and night. If my patient has any elevation of triglyceride levels, I also recommend carnitine (500mg at least once daily). Of course, since we all suffer the same level of environmental toxin overload and degraded food supply, my patients also are put on my life-long program for low-level detoxification. This is based on my oral chelation program, which not only prevents the formation of blood clots but also helps to remove toxic metals from our body each day. In addition, I would advise essential fatty acid supplementation of Omega-3 oils, Eicosapentaenoic acid, as well as some Omega-6 oils which we get in its most active and needed form from Primrose Oil, to help keep our fatty acids in balance. These essential fatty acids are a standard and necessarily expensive part of the Beyond Chelation formula that I have used as the basic foundational approach for every patient contacting me with respect to a program to prevent heart attacks.

Mr. Cheney has the additional problem of a metal stent that was placed in his coronary artery to help keep the vessel open after it is dilated. Fortunately, I have found this procedure unnecessary in ninety-nine percent of my patients who, from the very onset of symptoms, choose to aggressively follow my total cardiovascular nutritional support program suggestions. But since we have the stent, we have to consider the potential of a nickel-induced sensitivity in his body depending on the exact type of metal that was in the stent that they utilized. According to the latest research, there is also a possibility that there is a genetic variance in which there is a higher than normal incidence of a hyper proliferative reaction to the stent. Fortunately, most genetic susceptibilities can usually be controlled with a more targeted and more aggressive nutritional support program.

Mr. Cheney’s blood group type, as well as his food sensitivity, is very influential. So, we would need to know if the Vice President is consuming foods to which he is sensitive and if his diet is compatible with his blood type. This would also assist in weight loss, which would aid in managing his heart situation. We would want to test him for fasting hyperinsulinemia. Since so many today are either prediabetic or already have Diabetes, I commonly add special nutrients to improve glucose metabolism, and then I use things like extra Lipoic acid supplementation, more aggressive levels of chromium, possibly vanadium and other trace mineral supplementation programs, as well as specialized forms of fiber to help maintain optimal gut function and improved bacterial flora (INUFLORA) and a probiotic such as Primal Defense.

With his heavy schedule, we would assume that he would have a tendency toward some elevated levels of cortisol. These, of course, depress thymus-1 mediated immunity and therefore, he would be given immune suppport products, possibly including our Super Sterolin. This is a specialized fat derived from the oils found in plants and has a tremendous ability to help balance thymus-1 mediated immunity. Since we now recognize that heart disease involves chronic infection, it is critical that we maintain optimal function of the immune system in all patients. These infections have significantly contributed to everyone’s hypercoagulability, which, with eighty-five percent of deaths from heart attacks being due to a blood clot, infection/inflammation, becomes an obvious and important part of management of cardiovascular disease.

Clearly, we want his homocysteine levels to be kept in the ideal ranges, which means a level of seven or below. Today we know that a minimum of forty percent of patients, even if they are taking the best possible multiple vitamin mineral supplements, will have sub-optimal levels of either Vitamin B12 or folic acid, with both often being deficient. Since these are vital to managing the disturbed methylation that is associated with homocysteine elevations, I would Dick Cheney to add to his protocol supplemental levels of B-12 and folic acid in a special sublingual tablet that we have formulated with ribose to enhance its assimilation and acceptance.

Please note that only through testing either homocysteine or methyl malonic acid can we hope to identify the forty percent of our population that are suffering from sub-optimal levels of these vital B nutrients which are so critical not only for maintaining cardiovascular health, but also in avoiding needless colon, breast, lung, or other cancers, neural tube defects, memory loss, and depression. Therefore it is more cost effective to simply recommend a therapeutic trial of Sublingual B12.

We routinely enjoy dramatic success in dealing with seriously advanced cardiovascular disease. This includes patients with ninety percent blockages of up to all three vessels, as well as patients with unstable angina who are told they have as much as a fifty percent chance of dying within a week if they do not undergo bypass surgery. We are quite confident that the program we have outlined above would be of immense assistance to Vice President Cheney. We are confident it would keep him out of the hospital and off the operating table.

In conclusion, we believe that the described program can keep him alive in spite of his workaholic nature. Of course, being alive is not enough for the task that he has. Since we want him in optimal health, I strongly advocate the anti-aging benefits of intravenous chelation therapy for every patient who is able to afford this magnificent therapy. I would advocate intravenous chelation treatments for the Vice President to help him maintain a high level of useful vigor. We have seen that there is no limit to the benefits of intravenous chelation when viewed from the standpoint of making a patient younger.

We have physicians who have taken over two and three thousand IV chelations over ten to fifteen years and who have, at age ninety, better health than many people thirty years their junior. Since we now know that the more chelation we give, the more benefits we see, therefore I have developed a new protocol for rapid IV 1 minute chelation combined with my recommended continuous lifetime of oral chelation in the form of Essential Daily Defense, taken as 1-3 capsules 2-3 times each day, along with a good Therapeutic multiple vitamin mineral product such as Beyond Longevity Multiple. Of course, the total nutritional support program I have recently utilized to cancel a patient’s heart transplant is far more comprehensive than the brief program that I have described herein. This program is more in tune with the facts of Mr. Cheney’s health as we know them—primarily, a case of coronary artery insufficiency. Nonetheless, if I were Dick Cheney’s physician I would be discussing with him oral growth hormone secretagogues and numerous other nutritional based strategies to keep him young and vigorous for many years.

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