My question is in regards to incorporating this regime into my Mom's diet. She's a congestive heart patient. I've done a little reading in the forum ( need to do a lot more ), and from what I've read, this will help her a lot.
My concern is in regards to her kidneys which are already a bit compromised. Will starting at half the recommended dosage be adequate?
I've held off starting her because right now she's retaining a bit of extra water. Her doctor has given her a stronger Lasix and I really don't want any extra stress on the kidneys.
Should I wait until the extra water is out or start with a smaller dosage?
Any and all thoughts will be greatly appreciated.
Again, thank you very much.
Here are my thoughts - but I hope johnwen and the other doctors with more experience will comment.
When I hear "congestive heart failure" I think Coenzyme Q10. Know that the statin (cholesterol-lowering) drugs most heart patients are put on deplete CoQ10, causing an epidemic of heart failure! I wrote an article about this a long time ago: http://www.internetwks.com/owen/coq10.htm )
Another thing I learned from a Linus Pauling biography is that dehydration causes the kidneys to work harder. The more water people drink, the easier it is on the kidneys. (Pauling himself suffered from a "usually fatal" kidney disease around age 40. He studied the issue, and at the time "high protein" was recommended. He did the opposite - low protein - and survived, but recommended a lot of water to reduce the work the kidneys have to do filtering waste products.)
Most heart patients restrict salt which is dangerous and causes patients to retain water. Long story, but the book SALT by David Brownstein contains the reasons why perhaps highly refined table salt may not be healthy, but an unrefined salt, such as unrefined Celtic Sea Salt not only provides the salt you body needs, but maybe 80 other minerals.
So what about vitamin C and lysine? Well, we need some to live, and there are concerns which may or may not be justified. So it is probably prudent to work the dosage up, while adding CoQ10 and increasing water intake, changing to unrefined salt and using more salt.