In response to a discussion started by Track Your Plaque Member, Rich, on the Member Forum, I tracked down Dr. Joseph Prendergast, who had posted a video on his unique experiences, both personal and professional, with l-arginine.
Dr. Prendergast describes some of this in a brief webcast. Here, I quote Rich:
“This 90-second video by a Palo Alto physician (internal/endocrine, diabetes specialist) will totally blow your mind.
http://enews.endocrinemetabolic.com/2007/08/16-12-years.html
You will see in the link below that he reversed his personal atherosclerotic disease, diagnosed in abdominal aorta at age 37—completely reversed. He's now much older."
http://www.endocrinemetabolic.com/about/press/larginine.pdf
I contacted Dr. Prendergast to find out more.
Dr. Joseph Predergast is founder of the Endocrine Metabolic Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, focused on providing care for people with diabetes. In addition to the website, he provides Blogs and newsletters, though most of his conversation is about diabetes issues. Dr. Predergast’s website is located at http://www.endocrinemetabolic.com.
I asked Dr. Prendergast several questions about his l-arginine experience. His brief answers are below.
1) What dose of l-arginine have you employed in your patients and why this dose?
The dose is 3 - 6 grams as suggested by the Stanford Cardiovascular Research Department Chairman John Cooke. http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/John_Cooke/
2) I gather that you have preference for specific preparations of l-arginine. Can you say why some preparations seem superior to others in your experience?
I started with pharmaceutical l-arginine from the pharmacy. I gradually began to add components that would augment the power of the l-arginine and have gone through 12–15 different products. I have completely reversed my own very severe atherosclerosis discovered at age 37 and there has been less than 0.05% cardiovascular disease in my endocrine practice in almost 17 years. Both my exams were evaluated with CT technology. I am now using ProArgi9 Plus that includes several anti-aging components and will likely never switch. http://www.synergyworldwide.com/synergycorp/home.aspx
3) Are you employing any other unique practices in your patients to reduce cardiovascular events?
Withdrawing as many prescription drugs as possible.
Interesting. Of course, I also advocate l-arginine as a facilitator of atherosclerotic plaque regression, though I am not as ebullient about its use as Dr. Prendergast.
Instead, I see l-arginine as a method that yields forced normalization of “endothelial dysfunction,” the abnormal constriction and other effects that develop when abnormal lipoproteins and unhealthy food by-products are present in the circulation. Endothelial dysfunction is an inevitable accompaniment of plaque.
However, unlike Dr. Predergast’s experience, despite our use of doses higher than he uses, I have never seen plaque regression just using l-arginine alone. Nonetheless, it’s good to hear that others are seeing at least some positive effects.
By the way, we have also had some positive posts on our Forum about the ProArgi9 product he uses.