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Webinar Replay:
The Heart: Understanding the Vascular System, Resilience & Repair

Before you watch this webinar…

Check out our introductory blog post + short video on The Heart: Understanding the Vascular System, Resilience & Repair with Dr. Zach Bush.

Introduction

In this webinar, we look at the intricacies of the heart + the vascular system. Since the 1980’s, the causes of heart disease have been oversimplified and funneled towards the pharmaceutical intervention of statin drugs. This webinar explores the necessary function of cholesterol within the body, the long-term effects of statin drugs, the impact of the new COVID vaccines on the vascular system, and much more.

“The best cholesterol number is one that has never been measured. “

– Dr. Peter Langsjoen

Key Takeaways

• We used to understand chronic heart disease as the result of multiple pathways of inflammatory toxins in the body. In the 1980’s, this narrative shifted to a dogmatic belief that cholesterol was the cause of heart disease.

• Cholesterol is a foundational component of human health and a critical feature of the immune system.

• Statin drugs, often prescribed in response to “high” cholesterol, are mycotoxins that interrupt a metabolic pathway that’s essential for life.

• Arteries need to be very elastic to withstand the trauma and demands of life. Atherosclerotic plaque is the biology’s way of attempting to repair toxicity or other arterial injury. Total cholesterol levels have very poor correlation with heart disease outcomes.

• The use of statin drugs can increase the likelihood of negative health outcomes with coronavirus.

• For a percentage of the population, the dietary intake of salt can result in hypertension.

• The neo-COVID vaccines can impact the vascular system in a number of adverse ways

• Bayer’s recent news that it’s removing Roundup from the residential market offers hope, but we should be weary of future products with similar toxicity.

“Welcome dialogue. Welcome curiosity back into the equation of science as a whole, and we’ll have a better outcome.”

– Dr. Zach Bush

Core Themes + Highlights

The problem with blaming cholesterol (25:55)

• We are all affected by atherosclerotic disease, whether we have personally experienced it or know someone who has.

• In his practice, Dr. Peter Langsjoen quickly noticed that high cholesterol levels were not a good indicator or predictor of heart disease.

• The side effects of statins — such as fatigue, mental impairment and loss of musculoskeletal strength — often occur slowly and accumulate over a long period of time.

• Stress and other forms of immunosuppression escalate chances of atherosclerosis (a buildup of cholesterol plaque in the walls of arteries causing obstruction of blood flow).

• Plaque within the arteries shows up as an adaptive response to chronic injury and toxicity.

• In a study of women over 60, women who had high exposure to antibiotics were at the greatest risk for heart attack.

Is there “good” and “bad” cholesterol? (46:45)

• Dr. Peter Langsjoen takes his patients off of statin drugs immediately.

• Though the metabolic pathway usually recovers within a few weeks, it’s unpredictable if musculoskeletal or mental impairment will recover.

• Dr. Ali Langsjoen did a study on herself where she increased her dietary intake of cholesterol, and her cholesterol levels remained unchanged.

• Rather than being “bad cholesterol,” LDL is extremely important for immune function.

• LDL is the primary anti-inflammatory made by the liver to treat the vasculature, and it has an antioxidant effect. Because of this, LDL levels rise when there is an injury.

• Without cholesterol, cells become less resilient and less elastic.

• In his studies, Dr. Peter Langsjoen noted a dose-dependent increase between statin use and calcification of coronaries.

The role of salt in hypertension (1:08:10)

• Caveolin is a molecule that carries cholesterol around the body

• One of the big functions of the kidney is to regulate salt via your sodium intake.

• If we block cholesterol production, this leads to salt sensitive hypertension, which is a primary risk factor for cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, cerebrovascular disease and stroke.

• When new research contradicts current medical dogma, it can be difficult to secure funding.

• About 25% of the population is salt-sensitive. They don’t have high blood pressure normally; but if on a high salt diet, they are susceptible to hypertension.

• About 15% of the population is the opposite and experience high blood pressure on a low salt diet.

• In our current world of technology and understanding of physiology, everybody should be looked at individually and not grouped into generalizations.

Cholesterol + neurological health (1:23:57)

• In his autopsy findings, Dr. Peter Cummings says that the presence of cholesterol is a correlation with heart disease and not necessarily the cause of heart disease.

• Instead, the severity of disease can be linked to how narrow the blood vessels are.

• Cholesterol levels can be normal; however, there is almost total occlusion in the arteries, which results in a heart attack.

• Cholesterol is very important for neuron development, for synapse connection, and for the prevention of neurodegenerative diseases.

COVID vaccines + spike proteins (1:32:24)

• When the spike protein is expressed through the vaccine, it turns on the production of this protein and your body starts making a lot of it.

• There is data reporting damage to organ systems in the body due to the overproduction of this spike protein.

• Because the ACE2 receptor becomes blocked, the body has a diminished capacity for an anti-inflammatory response, leading to vascular inflammation.

• In Dr. Langsjoen’s clinic, these reactions have shown up in very confusing ways that include increased blood pressure, decreased heart muscle function and changes in mental behavior.

• The reactions he’s observed are unpredictable, ranging from absolutely no reaction to stroke.

• Dr. Cummings is concerned with the censorship of medical experts and how it blocks scientific data and study.

• We can learn a lot from autopsies. While we learned a lot about H1N1 and West Nile encephalitis from autopsies, there is very little autopsy data from COVID-19.

• Vaccine injury reporting is underrepresented. Two of the doctors share their different experiences from receiving a COVID vaccine ranging from extreme inflammation, to illness to recovery of taste and smell.

Is shedding from the vaccine possible? (2:00:11)

• Dr. Gildea shares that generally, proteins don’t have the ability to travel through the air.

• If the proteins are able to travel via an exosome, the amount is unlikely high enough to cause harm.

• We find a correlation between heart disease, obesity, diabetes and chronic kidney disease, all of which are routinely put on ACE inhibitors and statins. These drugs also create a propensity to absorb the spike proteins from the environment around them, making them further susceptible to coronavirus.

Moving forward (2:08:08)

• Stay in a mode of growth and deepening your education, particularly in regards to your health.

• It’s important to be able to have an open discussion about adverse events without being labeled anti-vax so that you can make informed health decisions.

• We want to support the physiology of the body so that it is resilient enough to adapt + recover as it maintains a good relationship with the virome.

• Ask your physician root cause questions any time they are offering pharmaceutical interventions.

• Listen to your own intuitive sense in regards to your body and your health.

“As we sit here today, we have great potential for life on earth. And as scientists and physicians, we have to acknowledge that there is a greater health potential in humanity than ever before, if we will put ourselves in line with nature. To do that, we’re gonna have to lose our fear, we’re gonna have to stop fearing the nature that allowed us to occur here.”

– Dr. Zach Bush

Links & Resources

Panelists

Dr. John Gildea is Cell Pathophysiologist and Molecular Geneticist with 27 years of scientific research experience at the bench in both industrial and academic labs. A guiding principle of his work is to establish innovative optimized model systems and assays to investigate both normal and pathological states. He has expertise in ex-vivo, primary and immortalized cell culture systems, molecular biology, antibody based and nucleic acid-based diagnostic assay development, electron and fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. John enjoys home life with his wife who is a high school biology teacher, his two lovely teenage daughters, and playing hockey on the weekends.

Alena Machacek Langsjoen was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1954. After defecting from Czechoslovakia in August 1969 and immigrating to the United States in February 1970, she finished high school in Queens, New York in 1972 and then received her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from the University of Texas in 1975. She received her Masters of Science degree in physical chemistry from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1980. Along with her husband Dr. Peter Langsjoen, she has participated in every international symposium on coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) since 1985. She developed and operated the Coenzyme Q10 research laboratory in Tyler, Texas beginning in 2004 and has co-authored a number of publications on the clinical utility of supplemental CoQ10 and on the increasing problem of statin-associated cardiomyopathy.

Dr. Peter Langsjoen has been practicing cardiology since 1985. After five years of invasive cardiology at the University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, Texas, he set up a private cardiology practice in Tyler and for the past 31 years has worked exclusively as a non-invasive cardiologist, specializing in congestive heart failure, primary & statin-induced diastolic dysfunction, and other diseases of the heart muscle. Dr. Langsjoen has been involved with the clinical application of coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) since 1983 when he began cooperating with his late father, Per H. Langsjoen, MD, FACC, the cardiologist who pioneered clinical research with CoQ10 in the United States and who performed the first human double blind controlled study in the United States with CoQ10 in heart failure. They practiced and performed research trials together up until Per’s death in 1993. Coenzyme Q10 continues to be a major part of Dr. Langsjoen’s clinical practice as well as an ongoing research endeavor. From 2004 to 2019 Dr. Langsjoen and his wife Alena ran a research laboratory in Tyler, Texas, for the measurement of both reduced and oxidized CoQ10 in both plasma and heart muscle. Dr. Langsjoen lectures on coenzyme Q10 all over the world.

Dr. Peter Cummings is board certified in anatomic pathology, neuropathology and forensic pathology. He earned his medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland and completed his pathology training at the University of Virginia. He also earned a Masters degree in pathology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and a B.A. from the University of Maine. Formally, Dr. Cummings worked as a medical examiner at the Massachusetts Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. He was a member of the SwissAir Flight 111 identification team in 1998 and during the summer of 2002, worked on identification process of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center.

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