The Mayo Clinic is stating the Importance of Genetic Testing for Long QT Syndrome, a problem with the heart where an electrical disturbance causes sudden cardiac death- and is most well known for the sudden death that occurs in athletes. And the BBC is reporting that Doctors Want to Take Tissue Samples of Sudden Death Victims for research- whether their family wants the tissue samples taken or not! All of this in order to find out the ‘genetic causes’ of this sudden cardiac death that occurs most frequently from Long QT Syndrome.

Magnesium For Long QT Syndrome

But even the Mayo Clinic states “Our research shows that genetic testing is just one piece of the information a physician needs to look at,” What this means is that they are going to pour a ton of money into finding out what the genetics are of Prolonged QT Interval and, like most of these other genetic studies, find out that a certain number of people WITH the genetics to have a particular disease get it, while a certain number DON’T and that environmental factors have more to do with getting whatever disease they happen to be studying than their $200 million genetic studies are showing.

But what neither of these studies mentioned is the connection between sudden cardiac death, Long QT Syndrome and Magnesium Deficiency. Magnesium is an electrolyte that is vitally important in the electrical activity of the heart and there is a HUGE connection between sudden cardiac death and magnesium deficiency. In fact, The American Heart Association states that Sudden Death From Congestive Heart Failure “…may be entirely the result of potassium and magnesium depletion…”, yet the conclusion of the AMA was that these patients needed SURGERY to correct their tendency towards the electrical disturbance!

Surgery to correct problems caused by Magnesium Deficiency!?

Interestingly, ER Doctors are WELL aware of this connection between Sudden Cardiac Death and Long QT Syndrome. When someone comes into the ER with Prolonged QT Interval and is in cardiac arrest- the answer is to give them an Intravenous Infusion of Magnesium. In many cases, this is the ONLY treatment that will bring these patients back from the verge of death. But while magnesium’s use is VITAL to bring these people back from death, virtually no cardiologists are suggesting that this Sudden Cardiac Death could be PREVENTED with the same magnesium that is used for its treatment in an emergency.

Back in 2001, the study Magnesium: Its Proven and Potential Clinical Significance, however, lamented the lack of studies using Magnesium as prevention for these heart problems. The few studies that HAVE been done on the subject DO show value in the use of Magnesium to prevent Long QT Syndrome.

The 1981 Study, The effect of slow releasing oral magnesium chloride on the qtc interval.. studied people who were PRETREATED with oral magnesium before open heart surgery. Those who took magnesium had NO electrical disturbance and a shorter qt interval (that’s a good thing) after surgery than those who didn’t.

The 1978 study The Effect of Oral Magnesium Chloride Therapy on the
QTc and QUc Intervals. states,

So the people in the above study showed COMPLETELY NORMAL electrical activity in their heart after daily supplementation with magnesium.

One of the problems with using magnesium for the prevention and treatment of these problems is that Magnesium Levels in the Blood do not accurately reflect the NEED for magnesium, and people can be severely magnesium deficient and have NORMAL magnesium levels. But the doctors who rely on these tests for treatment, see these normal levels and believe that these patients who go on to die later, had normal magnesium levels.

But cardiologists are simply not paying attention to these studies and even though magnesium has few Magnesium Side Effects and has absolutely been shown to be the ONLY treatment of sudden cardiac death from Long QT Syndrome, because studies haven’t “Conclusively Proven” that magnesium will help to prevent this problem, it is ignored entirely. And when people’s lives are on the line, in my opinion, this is just irresponsible.

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com

The severe mental condition called schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder is NOT the ‘multiple personality disorder’ that many think of when they hear the term, but is an entirely different mental illness characterized by bizarre behaviors like paranoia, hearing voices, and having hallucinations. It is often acquired after a stressful life event and occurs swiftly and unpredictable in what is known as a ‘psychotic break’. This is devastating for the patient and their family who suddenly have to live with a diagnosis of mental illness. And that is just the first step in a life filled with doctors, psychiatric facilities, medications and psychiatrists- with little hope to ever really have a normal life again.

Schizoaffective Disorder and a handful of anti psychotic drugs..

There is no ‘cure’, in traditional medicine, for Schizoaffective Disorder; and a prescription for one or more anti psychotic drugs with names like Haldol and Risperdal, along with a cocktail of other drugs often prescribed for anxiety, depression and sleep are frequently on the menu. But what these people are rarely, if ever, told about are the long term side effects of these drugs. While doctors are ever prescribing anticholesterol ‘statins’, aspirin and blood pressure medications in order to achieve a 1 – 2% reduction in heart disease, they are knowingly giving those with schizoaffective disorder, who generally get their first psychotic break as a teenager or young adult, a shortened lifespan from the anti psychotic drugs that they are prescribing.

In the research available on these drugs, it is well known that Sudden Cardiac Death is a ‘side effect’ of anti psychotic drugs. In fact, they DOUBLE the risk of sudden cardiac death. In the beginning, however, it does not give them the “heart disease” of clogged arteries that we associate with heart attacks. The immediate risk of anti psychotics drugs is that they give sufferers a high risk for a very specific disorder called ‘Prolonged Q-T interval’.

Prolonged Q-T Interval gets its name from the prolonged time that it takes for the electrical activity of the heart to return to normal after each heartbeat. But this extra time isn’t measured in minutes or seconds, but in hundredths of a second- making it difficult to diagnose. But this extra millisecond can have the devastating consequence of put the heart into an abnormal rhythm called Ventricular Fibrillation-which will quickly lead to death without emergency care. And this will come on without pain, shortness of breath or any of the other ‘warning signs’ of a heart attack because it is not clogged arteries that are the problem, but the electrical system that is the primary problem.

Even worse, anti pychotic drugs don’t just put people into regular Ventricular Fibrillation that responds well to the dramatic ‘paddles on the chest, everybody get away from the patient and shock them’ type of defibrillation that you see on ER. It puts them into a specific TYPE of Ventricular Fibrillation called Torsades de Pointes, that doesn’t change to a normal rhythm with the shocks and heart-starting drugs that are the ‘Advanced Cardiac Life Support Protocol’ for these kinds of emergencies.

Instead, ‘Torsades’ requires an immediate infusion of intravenous magnesium. As hospitals and emergency rooms have magnesium at hand, this shouldn’t be such a hard thing to do; but unfortunately, Torsades de Pointes is fairly rare and is difficult to recognize, so in many cases it is not even considered until the shocks and CPR are not working- and by then it is often too late for the magnesium to be effective.

But wait, there’s more…

Not only do anti psychotic drugs double the risk of deadly heart rhythms, but they ALSO increase the risk of getting diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity- which are risk factors for ‘regular’ heart disease complete with clogged arteries, angioplasty and open heart surgery. Fortunately, psychoaffective disorder is rare- so doctors don’t prescribe these heart stopping anti psychotic drugs unless they are absolutely necessary… right?

Unfortunately, over 200,000 people in the US are newly diagnosed each year and hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for anti psychotic drugs are written every year. And despite virtually NO studies having been done, are being given to adolescents, children and even PRESCHOOLERS as young as TWO YEARS OLD! Most of these are prescribed by PRIMARY physicians without the child having even having been evaluated by a mental health specialist. And nearly half were written for ADD and ADHD for which the drugs have never been tested, nor is there FDA approval for!

“Rates of (doctor’s office) visits that resulted in a psychotropic prescription increased from 3.4 percent in 1994-1995 to 8.3 percent in 2000-2001. By 2001, one out of ten office visits by adolescent males resulted in a prescription for a psychotropic medication.” Trends in the use of psychotropic medications among adolescents, 1994 to 2001.

While researchers who study the cardiac death risks of anti psychotic drugs are advocating “sharp reductions” in their use- doctors have been ignoring this advice and continue to increase the prescriptions written each year for these drugs.. These patients, who are often children and teens without actual schizoaffective disorder, will somehow have to deal with several chronic health conditions that will not only shorten their lives, but decrease the quality of a life already made more difficult by mental illness.

While the traditional medical world doesn’t see an alternative to dangerous drugs for mental illness, it’s my belief that mental illness is a NUTRITIONAL problem with other medical components to it such as:

Overwhelming Toxicity
Heavy Metal Buildup
Candida Overgrowth Infections
Food Allergies

Really, if you address many of these problems, then you actually can relieve, if not completely overcome mental illness. If you are suffering from any mental illness, then really, what have you got to lose. Traditional medicine has not helped you, has it. And it might have even made you even worse- as so many people tell me.

What makes me different from other ‘alternative’ practitioners, is that I can test you for problems that you never knew you had. Has your doctor ever tested you for Vitamin Deficiencies? No?What about Fatty Acid Deficiencies? Has he ever tested your liver detoxification pathways and given you recommendations for how you can relieve the liver toxicity that might be building up in your body?

If the answer to any of these questions is ‘No’, did you know that you CAN be tested for these things and much more? If you didn’t, then you owe it to yourself to check out The Organix Profile that tests all of this and much much more.

Kerri Knox, RN- The Immune Health Queen
Functional Medicine Practitioner
Easy Immune Health.com