Dr.Garber’s Blog

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A March 30, 2009 article in the Los Angeles Times sited a new poll by the National Sleep Foundation. It found that 27% of Americans say “anxieties about personal finances, the economy or a job loss kept them awake in the previous month.” Even in the best of times, sleep disorders affect as much as 34 percent of the U.S. population - a virtual epidemic. But when times are trying, as they are in this economy, one of the first symptoms people tend to experience is insomnia.

In recent years studies have begun to link chronic sleep deprivation to serious physical health consequences. Regularly catching only a few hours of sleep can hinder metabolism and hormone production in a way that is similar to the effects of aging. Chronic sleep loss may speed the onset or increase the severity of age-related conditions such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and memory loss. Researchers have shown that just one week of sleep deprivation altered subject’s hormone levels and their capacity to metabolize carbohydrates.

The list of side effects from prescription sleep drugs is long, with the most common being headache, drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, muscle and joint pain. The most commonly prescribed class of sleep drug has been shown, in addition, to produce some pretty bizarre behavior. People have been arrested while “sleep-driving” as a result of having taken these drugs and some people have reported “sleep-eating,” sleepwalking into their kitchen, consuming thousands of calories with no memory of it in the morning!

The same LA Times article quoted a sleep specialist at a well regarded medical center in NY as saying that “strange sleep behavior can occur naturally and it’s wrong to blame the pills… .” This doctor also just happens to be a consultant for Sanofi-Aventis, the maker of Ambien (the top selling sleep drug) and commented at the their request. These bizarre side effects are so significant that the FDA in 2007 ordered the makers of Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata and ten others to issue strong new label warnings.

It is because of the prevalence of sleep disorders, the terrible effect sleep deprivation has on the body and the even more terrible side effects produced by prescription sleep drugs that I developed Dr. Garber’s Natural Solutions® for Sleep. This unique, all natural homeopathic formula helps you achieve a restful night’s sleep without the unpleasant and often dangerous side effects of prescription sleep drugs. Some people find that taking Dr. Garber’s Natural Solutions for Anxiety and/or Depression during the day and the Sleep formula before bed produces an even better result, depending on their particular circumstances.

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• One-third of Americans lose sleep over economy (scienceblog.com)
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In the first part of this series I discussed a bit about cholesterol in general, how important cholesterol is to health and the fact that high cholesterol, in and of itself, is not necessarily bad. I want to touch briefly now on the different types of blood fats (lipids.) By now pretty much everyone has heard about “good” cholesterol and “bad” cholesterol. Well, it’s not quite as simple as just good versus bad but for our purpose here let’s use those terms. The so-called “good” cholesterol is HDL, which stands for “high density lipoprotein” and the so-called “bad” cholesterol is LDL, which stands for low density lipoprotein. A lipoprotein is simply a molecule that contains a fat and a protein together and it is in this form that fats move around through the blood stream. There are several other lipoproteins besides HDL and LDL, which is why, if you have a blood test that measures HDL and LDL as well as the total amount of cholesterol, the numbers don’t add up. It’s these other lipoproteins that make up the difference. As with everything in the body, it’s really about balance. So it’s not so much the absolute amount of these fats that’s important as it is the ratio. What we want is the HDL to be higher and the LDL to be lower, relative to the total amount of cholesterol. The lower the ratio of LDL to total cholesterol, the lower your relative risk of cardiovascular disease.

Another important class of lipids, called triglycerides, also play a role in cardiovascular health. Triglycerides are where the energy from food goes when you take in more calories than you need at the time. It is different than cholesterol and can be high when your cholesterol level is normal or even low. High triglycerides can play a significant, and independent, role in the production of cardiovascular disease.

As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, the real culprits that allow high cholesterol levels to become problematic are factors found in the blood that create inflammation and damage the inside of the blood vessels. It is when the lining of the blood vessels are damaged in this way that excess cholesterol may accumulate and form the plaques that can block blood flow. The two most important of these factors that I look at are homocysteine and C-reactive protein, often abbreviated as CRP.

Coming up in the third and final installment of this series I will tell you why I feel that statins, the drugs that are prescribed to reduce cholesterol, are harmful and how you can bring your lipid profile into a healthy balance through dietary and lifestyle changes and specific nutritional supplementation.