Cayenne cardiology

Natural Health, March-April, 1998 by Ed Addeo

A red-hot pepper took care of a life-threatening condition that stumped doctors.

Without emotion the cardiologist said, "The treadmill test turned up an abnormality. There's a problem...."

The words "abnormality" and "problem" were not what I had hoped to bear. After all (to paraphrase Woody Allen), my heart is my second favorite organ.

The doctor reached for a prescription pad. I zoned out as I heard the words "medication ... Cardizam ... thallium tests ... T-waves ... reduced activity"

My only thought was, "Is this it? I'm now an old man?" That was in November of 1991. I was 55. Because that was my father's age when he suffered a series of heart attacks, I had decided it would be smart of me to take a stress test and check the condition of the old ticker.

For the most part, I'd been relaxed about the outcome. After all, except for a bout of viral pneumonia in 1972, my health had always been near-perfect. I'd been athletic all my life, usually in better shape in pick-up games than men ten years my junior. I had only been in the hospital once, in 1954, and then only for some cosmetic work on a broken nose. And while I've had my weaknesses for wine and pizza, my diet generally has been good.

Still, my father's history pushed me to see the doctor for a complete heart checkup. During my annual birthday physical, I had asked my family physician if he thought the test was a good idea, and he did. He referred me to Dr. Vincent Gilardi, who had an excellent reputation in the area and had done some pioneering research work. I called and made the appointment with Dr. Gilardi.

I was totally surprised when I flunked the test. On the tread 'mill, Dr. Gilardi later told me, I lasted far longer than the typical 55-year-old; my blood pressure behaved properly; for all intents and purposes, nothing appeared dramatically wrong.

But there was something erratic about the ST-segments of my EKG, which make up a specific section of that wavy line we've all seen in EKG tests. It seems that under heavy exercise, my ST-segments didn't go back to zero before starting to rise again. On the EKG, they were one millimeter away.

I groaned. In lay terms, this meant that some part of my heart muscle wasn't getting any oxygen when my heart rate was elevated (we got it up to 172 beats a minute). Although Dr. Gilardi was only mildly concerned, he thought the symptom justified a thallium test.

The "Dark Spot"

This meant going into the lab in the morning and getting an intravenous shot of thallium (a radioactive isotope that illuminates the path of blood through the heart), spending the day in normal activity, and coming back at five o'clock to sit perfectly still for forty minutes on a cold table while a clicking, whirring robotic contraption rotated around me taking 3-D pictures of my heart. I flunked that test, too.

Back in his office, Dr. Gilardi showed me the mysterious four-color pictures and pointed out a "blot" near the surface of my heart. It was a "dark spot," he said, but that was as far as his explanation went. He said neither he nor any of his six associates could determine what the "blot" was. However, he assured me that he was only mildly concerned and that it simply bore watching.

He suggested I continue with the beta-carotene that I'd been taking ("although the evidence is soft," he said) and told me that there was nothing wrong in taking half an aspirin regularly, which I'd also been doing. Then he gave me the diet-and-smoking lecture (though I had quit smoking in 1969). Finally, he encouraged me to come back on my next birthday for another stress test.

I should point out that after my pneumonia nineteen years earlier, I had looked into the nutritional aspects of health. I read books by Linus Pauling and others, and these writings convinced me to take a daily dose of 1000 mg of ascorbic acid, 400 units of vitamin E, 10,000 units of emulsified vitamin A, and a high-dose vitamin and mineral formula. Maybe this regimen explained my overall good health, but it evidently wasn't enough to keep my heart in top order.

Medically speaking, it was a long year. I couldn't get the Essential Muscle in my chest off my mind. In my normal routine, I would play softball, run occasionally, play tennis, chop wood, toss grandsons in the air--things demanding a certain amount of exertion. A normal person my age would engage in these activities without once thinking about his heart--how many times have you rounded first base and thought about your heart as you headed for second?

On my next birthday, I flunked the test again.

This time, explained Dr. Gilardi, the EKG showed that my ST component turned upward at two millimeters before zero. Also, the "blot" hadn't changed. "Obviously progressive" was his verdict. He gave me a prescription for Cardizam and cautioned me to let up on the heavy exercise, something I had thought I would never hear. For someone who had always considered himself something of a jock, this was depressing.

It was early November. just before Thanksgiving, I received a book in the mail from my mother-in-law. It was about the benefits of cayenne in preventing and treating cardiovascular disease.