Matt Cook here, and aspirin is an amazing substance.

It can lower the risk of most common chronic diseases – including colorectal cancer.

One of the things aspirin does is inhibit an enzyme called COX-2.

This has led to studies showing that COX-2 inhibitors can reduce colorectal cancer.

But many other COX-2 inhibitors are not as safe as aspirin…

Studies have shown that using the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib to reduce colorectal cancer can double your risk of cardiovascular problems.

This treatment is also used for acute pain, ankylosing spondylitis, dysmenorrhea, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and migraines.

The human research was carried out at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. This paper was published in Circulation.

The researchers looked at data from trials on the ability of the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib to reduce adenomatous polyps.

These are growths in the colon or rectum, usually benign, but they can develop into colorectal cancer over time.

The researchers analyzed data from studies that used different doses of celecoxib or placebo over a long period.

The studies tracked all sorts of health metrics – including serious cardiovascular events.

The researchers found that higher daily doses of celecoxib were associated with greater cardiovascular problems.

Taking 400mg of celecoxib once a day was associated with a 30% increase in cardiovascular issues.

Taking 400mg twice daily was associated with a 240% increase in cardiovascular issues.

Taking this treatment was associated with a near doubling of major cardiovascular risk!

The researchers also found a significant increase in blood pressure in people taking these treatments.

Again, higher doses were associated with a greater increase in blood pressure.

The longer people use these treatments, the greater the increase in blood pressure.

Inhibiting COX-2 very likely decreases the risk of colorectal cancer. It's a good thing to do.

But it's important to pay attention to the method.

While low doses of the COX-2 inhibitor aspirin can be beneficial and safe, other COX-2 inhibitors like celecoxib can have major side effects.

Using this treatment regularly seems to double the risk of major cardiovascular problems.

The treatment also clearly increases blood pressure.

This can cause further problems, as doctors may try to deal with the increase in blood pressure by using other harmful treatments.**

Aspirin is a very useful treatment. But it's out of patent, extremely cheap, and not profitable.

Big Pharma is always trying to replace aspirin with patentable treatment.

But every time they do this, they come up with something that fits a narrow biochemical definition but has disastrous health consequences.

-Matt Cook / malehealthcures.com

Matt Cook here, and disease states which are usually reversible lead to the narrowing and tightening of blood vessels.

This changes blood flow – restricting its movement around the body.

Inadequate blood flow starves every part of the body – including the penis.

When blood flow becomes more difficult, the body increases blood pressure to try and force more blood to the muscles and organs.

This is one of the reasons why high blood pressure is associated with poor rockiness.

It’s not blood pressure that causes the problem – blood pressure is just a side-effect.

That’s a topic for another time – I have covered it in detail in my newsletters.

But there is another factor that can cause penis problems…

It seems that the treatments commonly used to treat high blood pressure also cause poor rockiness – or make it worse.

At least some of them do..

The human research was carried out at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. This paper was published in The Journal of Clinical Hypertension.

Rockiness problems and other sexual problems have been linked to both high blood pressure and blood pressure treatments.

This worries doctors and researchers because if these treatments affect your sex life people are less likely to take them.

The optimal solution is to solve the issue causing high blood pressure so you don’t need the treatments…

…not to suppress the symptom with treatments which cause other problems.

This research paper was written to inform doctors about the effects of different blood pressure treatments on sex life…

…so they can recommend treatments that men are more likely to take.

Blood pressure treatments can often cause sexual problems – so changing treatments can solve that issue – at least for a while.

The research involved analyzing a lot of previous studies on different blood pressure treatments.

The authors also looked at lots of reports from men using these treatments.

Numerous studies have shown that men who use blood pressure treatments often report sexual side effects – not good ones.

But some blood pressure treatments seem less harmful to libido and sexual performance.

One blood pressure treatment called losartan actually seemed to improve the sex life of men with high blood pressure.

A number of human studies showed that losartan actually improved rockiness, sexual satisfaction, and frequency of sexual activity in men.

Blood pressure treatments like losartan might actually improve sexual function – quite the opposite of most blood pressure treatments.

Losartan lowers blood pressure by acting on an enzyme called angiotensin II.

This enzyme also affects the ability to get rocky.

Losartan changes how the penis handles blood flow.

You should always work closely with your doctor regarding your treatments.

If you’re having these problems your doctor might be interested in changing your treatments to one which has fewer side effects.

I think the best solution is to reverse the problems causing poor blood flow in the first place…

Because these problems are the root cause of high blood pressure and rockiness problems.

-Matt Cook / malehealthcures.com

About 805,000 Americans have a heart attack every year.

And about 1 in 5 of these heart attacks is silent.

That means that people have the heart attacks and all the damage associated with them, but the damage is permanent.

For most people, a heart attack is their biggest risk of death and about one person dies every 36 seconds from heart disease.

Many others have permanent physical and mental effects from having a heart attack.That means that preventing heart disease and protecting your heart if you do have a heart attack are critical to good health.

It looks like vitamin E might have potential in this area.In a mice study published in Redox Biology, researchers studied whether the administration of Vitamin E at the onset of a heart attack could potentially help decrease damage from the heart attack.

"One of the most effective anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory agents is vitamin E and its derivatives."

The goal is to find an inexpensive treatment that can be given on the way to the hospital that will help prevent damage.

"Our treatment regime reflects clinical conditions, where patients could receive their first application of vitamin E in the ambulance or upon their arrival in the emergency department, before reopening and stenting the blocked vessel and the following days in hospital before discharge."

In this study, mice were subject to cardio injuries and given vitamin E for three days. Then the researchers measured the heart function of the mice.

The cardioprotective effect of α-TOH treatment compared to controls was already significant at week 1 post-I/R injury (34.6 ± 8.3 vs 48.5 ± 5.7; **p < 0.01). Similar results were obtained at week 2 (32.8 ± 8.6 vs 45.9 ± 3.7; p < 0.01), week 3 (31.9 ± 11.4 vs 46.1 ± 3.8; p < 0.001), and week 4 (30.2 ± 11.8 vs 46.1 ± 3.3

The vitamin E significantly increased the heart health of the mice almost immediately and at 4 weeks out.

The measurements of fractional shortening, cardiac output, and stroke volume also showed significant cardioprotective effects of α-TOH

Because there are no treatments that can currently protect the heart in the case of a heart attack, if these findings transfer to humans it would be quite significant.

"As there is currently no ‘treatment’ available that can reduce the cardiac damage caused by an overshooting inflammation after reopening of a blocked coronary artery, the potential impact of our finding on cardiovascular health would be signi?cant," said Dr Wallert.

Personally, I love vitamin E -- particularly those with high gamma tocopherol, and those that are fully natural rather than made from petroleum.

Some of the best vitamin E today is made from wheat germ and has all the good phytonutrients in it. And no wheat or gluten either.

Vitamin E is pretty miraculous.

I’m hoping this research pans out, because if it works the way the scientists are hoping it could mean much better outcomes for thousands of people every year who experience a heart attack.

-Matt Cook

Hey, Matt Cook here, and you probably already know that older people are more susceptible to infectious disease…

Younger people might catch the bug – but they rarely get as sick as older folks do.

And in the last few decades, we are starting to learn the reasons why this is so.

One factor I’ve written about before is the influence of zinc.

Zinc is essential for the functioning of the thymus gland – the master regulator of immunity.

**Older people tend to have lower zinc levels.

But another emerging factor is the role of hormones like DHEA, androstenediol, and androstenetriol.**

These hormones are higher in younger people, and they promote stronger immune function.

The animal experiments were performed at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. The paper was published in Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Everyone knows that stress increases the likelihood of people getting sick.

One of the reasons for this is an increase in cortisol – a corticosteroid which suppresses immune function.

The same thing happens with glucocorticoid (cortisol-like) medications.

“The anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive functions of corticosteroids have been well established and characterized.”
The authors of this study were interested in a number of hormones which they believe may act in the opposite way…

Increasing immune system function and protecting against immune suppression by glucocorticoids.

“DHEA and two of its metabolites, androstenediol (AED) and androstenetriol (AET), up-regulate immune response against infections and counteract stress-induced immunosuppression.”

In experiments, these natural hormones have been shown to protect against various different types of infections…

…showing an all-round immune protective effect.

“DHEA and particularly, AED and beta AET, have been shown to protect mice from viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections.”
The experiments showed that they protect against the immune suppressing effect of glucocorticoids.

The natural glucocorticoid in humans is cortisol.

Older people tend to have higher cortisol and cortisol is increased by all types of stress.

But many people also use glucocorticoid treatments to treat inflammatory conditions.

This research shows that these hormones could help prevent the immune suppression caused by these treatments.

“These hormones are in opposition to immunosuppressive action of glucocorticoids, suggesting a possible new immune regulation mechanism.”
DHEA is the first of these hormones.

The other two mentioned in this article are made from DHEA and they are intermediate hormones between DHEA and testosterone.

All of these hormones have specific beneficial effects on immunity.

“DHEA suppressed the proliferation of cultures activated with bacterial fragments in a dose-dependent manner.”
The authors were particularly interested in the protective effect against glucocorticoid treatments like hydrocortisone.

They found that DHEA and androstenediol had little effect.

“Moreover, the classic immunosuppressive effects of hydrocortisone were unaffected by being co-cultured with DHEA and only minimally counteracted by AED at high doses.”
But androstenetriol (AET) prevented the immune system suppression caused by hydrocortisone.

If doctors implemented this knowledge correctly they could save a lot of lives by preventing unnecessary infections in people using this treatment.

“AET significantly counteracted the immunosuppressive effects of hydrocortisone on lymphocyte proliferation and cytokine production.”
Androstenetriol looks particularly effective at improving the vitality of a weak immune system.

“Only AET could markedly potentiate the cellular response by increasing lymphocyte activation and counteracting the immunosuppressive activity of hydrocortisone on lymphocyte proliferation and cytokine production.”
Androstenediol and androstenetriol are relatively understudied hormones.

But they are made from DHEA, and we know a lot about that.

DHEA decreases with age, and this decrease in DHEA could explain much of the decreased immunity we see in older people compared to younger people.

It is possible to increase your DHEA levels by taking a DHEA supplement.

We need to be careful not to take too much, otherwise it can increase estrogen – causing unwanted side effects.