Friday, February 25, 2011

Corvalen & CorvalenM New Product Label

We recently learned that Bioenergy is no longer selling these products directly to patients and have given up control of the distribution of these products to Douglas Laboratories. They have new packaging but this is still the same product as before when under Bioenergy. Corvalen Ribose and CorvalenM can still be purchased through health care practitioners or on the internet.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Relief from Fatigue

Buy Corvalen Ribose at best lowest price FREE shipping.

Corvalen is a non-prescription medical food that specifically addresses a nutritional deficiency associated with particular diseases that result in fatigue and pain. Using GRAS-approved Corvalen, with the active ingredient ribose, patients can overcome this fatigue and pain more quickly.

Corvalen aids patients suffering from compromised heart function, Fibromyalgia (FMS) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) by restoring depleted energy reserves at a cellular level. Clinically-proven studies have shown a reduction of fatigue, muscle soreness, stiffness and pain with patients that use Corvalen.

Scientific and clinical studies have repeatedly shown that Corvalen, with the active ingredient ribose, can restore energy and improve function in ischemic, hypoxic, and failing hearts. Oxygen deprivation causes hearts to use energy faster than it can be replaced through normal processes of tissue energy turnover. The result is a depletion of cellular energy reserves translating to loss of heart function.

Millions of Americans suffer the affects of coronary artery disease, and the prevalence of congestive heart failure is reaching epidemic proportions. Recent research has also proven that high-intensity endurance exercise places a considerable strain on the heart, leading to a loss of diastolic heart function that persists for several weeks to months following an event. Other research, conducted at the Mayo Clinic and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that an average of 26% of the population, male and female, have symptoms of cardiac diastolic dysfunction. More than half of those affected are unaware of their condition, but all are at risk for developing congestive heart failure.

When hearts lose energy, they first suffer a loss of diastolic function. The diastolic phase of the heartbeat is the relaxation phase, during which the heart fills with blood for the next heartbeat. A loss of diastolic capacity means less blood will circulate to the body during each beat, and frequently leads to a thickening and expansion of the heart muscle, known as hypertrophy. The result of chronic diastolic dysfunction can be congestive heart failure. For patients, the progressive consequence of the disease is shortness of breath, loss of exercise capacity, overwhelming fatigue, etc.

Corvalen increases cardiac energy to help fuel the heart. For patients, this can mean more energy and a higher quality of life. For athletes, it can enhance recovery following strenuous exercise.

Corvalen Ribose - How it Works

Buy Corvalen Ribose at the best lowest price with free shipping.

Corvalen energy supplement and clinical nutrition products contain D-ribose (or simply ribose). Ribose is vital for your body to make the primary energy compound, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP gives your body the energy it needs to stay healthy, overcome fatigue, and regain the vitality you need to live a normal, active life. That is why ATP is called the "energy currency" of the cell.

D-ribose, or simply ribose, is a five-carbon monosaccharide that is made in every cell in your body. Ribose stimulates the metabolic pathway used by the body to make a class of compounds called purines and pyrimidines. These compounds are essential for the body's production of many vital constituents, including the genetic material DNA and RNA, and the vital energy compound ATP.

The ribose in Corvalen helps energize your heart and muscles by increasing energy on a cellular level. Aging, strenuous exercise or overexertion, and many metabolic or physiological conditions can drain ATP from your tissue and affect how well your body makes and uses energy. Science has proven that ribose is a necessary ingredient for rebuilding energy in our bodies. So, without ribose we cannot make the energy we need to stay healthy.

Unfortunately, hearts, muscles, and other vital tissues in the body cannot make ribose very quickly, and ribose is not stored in our cells and tissues. That's why supplementing with Corvalen as directed will help your cells make energy quickly, safely, and naturally. This means you can feel more energetic, stronger, and healthier every day.

When a Complement is not a Compliment: The Role of C3a and C4a Complement Proteins in Chronic Lyme Disease

When a Complement is not a Compliment:
The Role of C3a and C4a Complement Proteins in Chronic Lyme Disease
by Ginger Savely, DNP

Readers of this publication are well aware of the controversies surrounding the diagnosis and treatment of Lyme disease. When the disease is missed in its early, easier-to-treat stage, it goes on to become a complex, multi-system disease that eludes diagnosis, mimics many other diseases, and requires aggressive, long-term treatment. Because the testing methods for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases are insensitive, many true cases of infection go undetected. Even when the diseases are detected, the unreliability of the testing makes it difficult to track treatment progress and test for cure.

Work by Drs Stricker and Winger identified CD57 positive natural killer cells as immune markers that tend to be low in chronic Lyme patients and increase with clinical improvement. An earlier article that I wrote for this publication explained how the measurement of CD57+NK cells in the blood has helped Lyme-literate health care providers in making the diagnosis of Lyme disease when tests are inconclusive. It has also provided a convenient marker to assist in following treatment progress and determining treatment end.

Although the CD57 marker has been a helpful tool, it has not been without its problems. We don't yet understand what confounding variables can skew the results. Some very sick patients start out with normal or above-normal CD57 levels. Other patients' levels stay low and never increase with treatment, despite the fact that they are symptom-free and otherwise seem completely cured. There may be large day to day variation in the CD57 level as I observed in a study looking at twice daily blood draws over 3 days for both Lyme patients and well patients. The level can increase or decrease as much as 50% within the same day. So the CD57 level can be a useful marker for some patients but it is not always reliable and consistent.

Enter C3a and C4a, the new kids on the block in the world of Lyme diagnosis and treatment. The "C" in C3a and C4a stands for complement. Complement proteins work with antibodies to destroy pathogens. They activate immunity through control of inflammation, phagocytosis (ingestion of pathogens by white blood cells) and cell death by lysis (breaking of the cell membrane). There are about 30 of these complement proteins that circulate in the bloodstream making up complement "cascades", so called because activation of one protein initiates activation of the next, etc.

Dr. Ritchie Shoemaker and his colleagues published a study in 2008 reporting elevated C3a and C4a levels in acute Lyme disease. Many patients who contract Lyme disease do not develop the diagnostic "bull's eye rash", and Lyme tests are frequently negative shortly following a tick bite when prompt diagnosis is crucial for effective treatment. Shoemaker et al. suggested that elevated C3a and C4a levels can serve as early markers in the diagnosis of acute Lyme disease.

Because CD57+ NK cell levels are not always reliable markers for chronic Lyme, there is an ongoing search for new biomarkers to aid in the diagnosis of chronic, disseminated Lyme disease and to follow treatment progress. Dr. Stricker and I recently published a study in the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology comparing C3a and C4a levels of chronic Lyme patients to those of healthy controls, AIDS patients and patients with systemic lupus. The C3a complement protein level was normal in the AIDS patients, the healthy patients and the chronic Lyme patients. So, although C3a was shown to be elevated in a cohort of early, acute Lyme disease patients, it appears to be normal in chronic Lyme patients.
In our study, only the systemic lupus patients had elevated levels of C3a. Other published studies have associated elevated C3a with autoimmunity as well. Therefore, the C3a may prove to be a useful marker in differentiating ongoing symptoms due to an autoimmune process versus an ongoing infectious process.

For purposes of our C3a/C4a study, Dr. Stricker divided the chronic Lyme patients into two groups: 1) those with primarily musculoskeletal symptoms (MSK) and 2) those with neurological symptoms severe enough to warrant treatment with intravenous antibiotics. Interestingly, C4a levels were significantly elevated in the MSK group, but only slightly (and not statistically significantly) elevated in the neurologic group. C4a levels were also elevated in the AIDS and systemic lupus groups, but not in the healthy controls. In Lyme patients with elevated C4a, the levels decreased in those who responded well to antibiotic treatment. Those patients who did not improve on antibiotics (more often than not, the severe neurological group) had no statistically significant reduction in their C4a levels.

Keep in mind that almost all chronic Lyme patients have some degree of neurological involvement. The neurological Lyme patients in the study who did not have elevated levels of C4a were those with severe cognitive dysfunction as evidenced by abnormal blood flow to areas of the brain noted on their SPECT brain scans. Examples of these patients are those who presented with symptoms mimicking Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, or Autism Spectrum Disorder. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients do not have cognitive deficits and, in fact, Lyme patients with this type of severe neurological presentation did have elevated C4a levels.

The normal range for the C4a is zero to 2830. In my chronically ill Lyme patients I have seen C4a levels as high as about 26,000. However, most of my patients start with a pre-treatment level between 6000 and 12,000. In the two years that I have been using the C4a test to track treatment progress, reduction in C4a levels has consistently correlated with clinical improvement.

Patients often ask if there are other medical conditions that may lower or raise the C3a and/or C4a. Both of these complement products may be increased in normal pregnancy and in certain types of vasculitis (an inflammatory condition that destroys blood vessels). C4a levels are elevated in adult insulin dependent diabetes. Those who suspect that chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) may actually be misdiagnosed Lyme disease may not be surprised to hear that C4a is also elevated in CFS patients. In fact the C4a is probably elevated in all sorts of infections, and therefore is not specific to Lyme.

If you would like your health care provider to order your C3a and C4a levels, it is extremely important that the tests be performed only at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center Laboratory in Denver. LabCorp has a contract with National Jewish and therefore your health care provider can order LabCorp tests # 840702 (C3a) and # 857334 (C4a). LabCorp uses two different send-out labs for the test and it is important to indicate that samples should be routed to National Jewish for most accurate results. Ask your health care provider to write on the requisition slip in large letters: "ACCESSIONING: C3a & C4a MUST BE ROUTED TO NATIONAL JEWISH". To find the LabCorp drawing station nearest you, go to www.labcorp.com and enter your city or zip code in the space provided in the lower left of the home page.

If your health care provider writes the ICD-9 (diagnostic) code of 279.3 (Immune dysregulation) on your LabCorp requisition slip, insurance will more than likely cover the C3a and C4a tests. However, if your insurance does not cover the tests, the prices are not prohibitive. Each of the tests cost $ 75.60 (valid as of 3-25-09).

Because most lab technicians are unfamiliar with the C3a and C4a tests, it is in your best interest to go to the LabCorp drawing station knowing exactly how your blood should be handled. This way you will be assured that your sample will arrive at the lab satisfactory for testing. The blood needs to be drawn into an EDTA tube ("lavender top") and immediately spun and separated. The plasma should be frozen right away and sent frozen to National Jewish.

The C4a is not as specific to chronic Lyme as the CD57+ level because it may be elevated in many types of infection, including other tick-borne diseases. However, in patients with known tick-borne infections, the C4a complement protein test can provide a useful way to determine initial degree of infection, to follow treatment progress and to aid in deciding upon treatment end. For more information about the C3a and C4a, please see the suggested readings below:

Shoemaker RC, Giclas PC, Crowder C, House D, Glovsky MM.Shoemaker, R. C., Giglas, P.C., Crowder, C., House, D. Glovsky, M.M. Complement split products C3a and C4a are early markers of acute lyme disease in tick bite patients in the United States. International Archives of Allergy and Immunology, 146(3), 255-261.

Stricker, R. B., Savely, V.R., Motanya, N.C. & Giglas, B.C. (2009). Complement split products C3a and C4a in chronic Lyme disease. Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, 69(1), 64-69.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Reducing the symptoms of fibromyalgia

According to research published over the past few months, several different energy producing and antioxidant supplements might be beneficial for reducing the symptoms of fibromyalgia.

Creatine and Co-EnzymeQ10 (Co-Q10) help provide fuel to your cells. More importantly, Co-Q10 helps power up your energy factories, your mitochondria, to produce more fuel. However, additional research shows that the mitochondria in fibro patients might be under attack from molecules causing oxidative stress, which can damage cells in your cardiovascular system, your brain, or other tissues in the body. Here is where fat-soluble antioxidants such as omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E might be beneficial.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Soothe & Relaxx™ Soft Tissue & Stress Support

Soothe & Relaxx™ Soft Tissue & Stress Support
Has anybody tried this? My doctor put me on this for Lyme disease and it works great for me. It also works great for the fibromyalgia symptoms and anything to do with soft tissue pain, stress and relaxation. Thought I would share the information with you.

Product Description
Soft tissue, joint & muscle support with Relaxx™ Complex to calm the mind. (180 capsules)

Special Dietary Usefulness:
Under a physician’s direction, Soothe & Relaxx™ may have special dietary usefulness for individuals suffering from fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses with soft tissue, joint and muscle pain.

Soothe & Relaxx™ was developed to meet the combination of needs that many chronically ill patients experience: pain and anxiety. The product addresses pain as a result of soft tissue or joint injury and the concomitant anxiety often associated with long-term health issues. The Relaxx™ Complex is designed to take the edge off versus being a sedating micro-formula. This is a favorite of patients who feel the benefit fairly quickly.

Each bottle provides a one month supply of the following complexes and health benefits:

Pro Joint Soothers™:
Proprietary blend of glucosamine sulfate, MSM, chrondroitin sulfate, hyaluronic acid which supports connective tissue, lubricates joints, promotes joint resilience, elasticity and overall strength.

ExInflame™ Complex:
Proprietary blend of White Willow Bark, Boswellin, Curcumin Extract, Holy Basil which promotes a healthy inflammation response.

Muscle & Leg Calmer™:
Proprietary blend of magnesium hydroxide and malic acid which calms muscle contractions and relaxes the body's muscles.

Relaxx™ Complex:
Proprietary blend of 5HTP, Valerian, Lemon Balm, Passion Flower, German Chamomile which relaxes & calms the mind, and promotes healthy sleep patterns.

Suggested Use:
As a dietary supplement, take two capsules three times per day or as directed by your health care professional.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Lyme Disease & Common Co-Infections

Lyme Disease & Common Co-Infections

Short Symptom List
Borrelia, Babesia, Bartonella, and Ehrlichia

The following symptoms were excerpted from Diagnostic Hints And Treatment
Guidelines For Lyme And Other Tick Borne Illnesses, by Joseph J. Burrascano Jr.,M.D. (Fourteenth Edition, November, 2002). Available online at www.ilads.org/burrascano_1102.html

Borrelia
(Borreliosis, neuroborreliosis; also known as Lyme Disease)
Spread primarily though the bite of infected ticks that live on a wide range of mammalian species; secondary human-to-human transmission through semen, breast milk, and possibly in utero.
**Bladder dysfunction
**Burning or stabbing sensations
**Cardiac impairment
**Change in bowel function
**Chest pain
**Confusion
**Depression
**Difficulty thinking
**Difficulty with concentration and reading
**Difficulty with speech, writing
**Difficulty finding words; name blocking
**Disorientation: getting lost, going to wrong places
**Disturbed sleep: too much, too little, fractionated, early awakening
**Ears/Hearing: buzzing, ringing, ear pain, sound sensitivity
**Exaggerated symptoms or worse hangover from alcohol
**Eyes/Vision: double, blurry, increased floaters, light sensitivity
**Facial paralysis (Bell's palsy)
**Fatigue, tiredness, poor stamina
**Forgetfulness
**Headache
**Heart block
**Heart murmur
**Heart palpitations
**Heart valve prolapse
**Increased motion sickness
**Irritability
**Irritable bladder
**Joint pain or swelling
**Lightheadedness
**Mood swings
**Muscle pain or cramps
**Neck creaks & cracks
**Neck stiffness, pain
**Numbness
**Pelvic pain
**Poor attention
**Poor balance
**Poor short-term memory
**Problem absorbing new information
**Pulse skips
**Rib soreness
**Sexual dysfunction or loss of libido
**Shooting pains
**Shortness of breath; cough
**Skin hypersensitivity
**Sore throat
**Stiffness of the joints or back
**Swollen glands
**Testicular pain
**Tingling
**Tremor
**Twitching of the face or other muscles
**Unavoidable need to sit or lay down
**Unexplained breast pain
**Unexplained fevers, sweats, chills or flushing
**Unexplained hair loss
**Unexplained menstrual irregularity'
**Unexplained milk production
**Unexplained weight loss or gain
**Upset Stomach or abdominal pain
**Vertigo
**Wooziness

Babesia Babesiosis)
Babesia is a protozoan spread by ticks, blood transfusion, and in utero. Despite there being 13 known forms to date, current testing only looks for two of them.
**Air hunger
**Cough
**Fatigue
**Fevers
**Headache
**Hemolysis
**Imbalance without true vertigo
**Mild encephalopathy
**Shaking chills
**Sweats

Bartonella (Bartonellosis, also known as cat scratch fever)
Spread by bites from infected ticks and in utero
**abnormal liver enzymes
**encephalopathy
**endocarditis
**flu-like malaise
**headache
**hemolysis with anemia
**hepatomegaly
**high fever
**immune deficiency
**jaundice
**lymphadenopathy
**myalgias
**myocarditis
**papular or angiomatous rash
**somnolence
**sore throat
**splenomegaly
**weakened immune response

Ehrlichia (Ehrlichiosis)
Bites from infected ticks
**elevated liver enzymes
**headaches
**myalgias
**ongoing fatigue
**persistent leukopenia
**thrombocytopenia

Printed from www.anapsid.org/lyme/symptoms/tbi-symptoms.html
More information on Lyme and other tickborne diseases:
www.calda.intranets.com
www.ilads.org
www.lymenet.org