The Case for the Kinases
My patients say that their cardiologists say there is no way to effectively reverse heart disease…just take your meds which may slow things down a bit and have your heart attack and if you survive the first event (70% do and 30% don’t) they will be there to bypass you. Every cardiologist receives training that proper diet and exercise are the foundations of good heart health but how much time do they spend with you on those issues? According to the experts…less than two minutes and it’s off to the prescription closet. I think it’s likely that they just don’t think people are capable of change so why not just get right to what they can offer which is prescriptions and procedures.
I, however, have seen that people can change…they can lose weight, they can quit drinking and smoking, etc. if they have the motivation and the tools.
In my experience, and I have done hundreds and hundreds of stress tests, the stress test will only alert the cardiologist if your blockages are bad enough that you need immediate intervention with a stent or bypass operation. You can easily have 60% or 70% blockage of two or three arteries and still “pass” a stress test. That’s why I do the CT scan called the Cardiac Calcium Scan. Check out the video on youtube “Widowmaker” for details. This test allows me to measure the calcium buildup in your arteries. The more buildup the higher the likelihood of having a cardiac event. This test allows us to find blockages much earlier…when changing diet and adding supplements can make a difference in changing your score and changing your destiny.
So, I scan my patients and if they don’t have a good score we make a plan to change their diet and add supplements to see if we can’t stabilize or improve your score. Which supplements work best at this time is still being determined but Magnesium, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2 and Vitamin C have all been used in various combinations along with other substances like chanka piendra and the kinases.
A kinase is an enzyme that causes ATP to transfer a phosphate group to another molecule. They act on the body as natural anticoagulants, breaking up clots in your system. If you have a heart attack doctors will sometimes use a similar agent called TPA to break up the clot causing the blockage. So this idea is not crazy and there is commercially available forms of these agents that act to thin the blood so to speak.
There are three commonly recognized kinases: nattokinase, lumbrokinase and serrapeptase. Only the first two are recognized clinically. Nattokinase comes from natto which is a cheese-like food made of soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis, Lumbrokinase is thought to be 30 times more powerful at reducing clots and it comes, interestingly enough, from earthworms.
As Dr. Mercola pointed out in a recent article “ Fibrinolytic enzymes are antihypertensive, anti-atherosclerotic, lipid-lowering and anti-platelet agents, which also have neuroprotective effects. Much research into fibrinolytic enzymes has focused on nattokinase (NK), an active ingredient in natto, or fermented soybeans. It’s likely due to its high nattokinase content that natto consumption is linked to a decreased risk of heart disease mortality and increased longevity in the Japanese population.”
Dr. Sherry Rogers and others have long promoted lumbrokinase as a natural anticoagulant and its getting increased attention in the era of covid infections. Clearly covid infection is associated with a dramatically increased risk of clotting. I believe the covid vaccine presents the same increased risk for clotting but that science is still being elaborated.
Finally, if you prefer a more conventional source here are some articles from Pubmed “Effective Management of Atherosclerosis Progress and Hyperlipidemia with Nattokinase a Clinical Study with 1,062 Participants.” This is from Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine August 2022 PMID number 36072877. They studied the carotid artery because it’s easier to study than the coronary arteries but they found dramatic improvements in carotid intimal thickness and in the degree of plaque burden. Not a little improvement, dramatic improvement on the order of 66 to 90%. Statins cannot do this. No other medicine we have has demonstrated this type of improvement.
Also from PubMed from the Journal of Biomarkers Insights comes an article entitled “Nattokinase: a Promising Alternative and Prevention and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases.” This was published in July of 2018. PMID number 30013308.
The expanding research in both human and animal models shows that the lumbrokinase and nattokinase besides having a fibrinolytic effect, that means to break up clots and clots are what kills you, also are antihypertensive and may improve all of the cholesterol parameters including triglycerides. So these agents work on blood clots effectively thinning the blood like aspirin and have likely antihypertensive and beneficial effects on cholesterol so they look to be a triple winner.
Part of the reason for writing this article is to show you that people like Dr. Mercola and Dr. Rogers are not quacks. They’re on the frontier of medicine.
What they have been promoting for years is now being published about in conventional medical research circles. Interestingly enough one of the commercial supplements I recommend for people trying to stabilize their coronary calcium score comes from New Zealand and it’s called CX-8, and one of their 8 ingredients is nattokinase. This supplement also contains Vitamin D3, Vitamin K2, Tocotrienols and other natural ingredients that may stabilize coronary calcification. And of course never forget magnesium which is the natural antidote to calcium.
Don’t go out and just buy some nattokinase because I’ve written an article about it. Like everything else you should work in concert with your health care provider to evaluate all your supplements as well as your prescriptions on a regular basis. Go ahead and look up whatever you want on Google but don’t be your own doctor.
Until next month…get well…stay well.
JT BARRY MD
