Food Bar Targets Heart Disease

Courtesy of MedServ Medical News. The original story may be found here.

SACRAMENTO, Calif., Dec. 10 (UPI) - A Stanford University researcher is lining up cardiologists for the test marketing of a nutritional bar for people who suffer from heart disease. Dr. John Cooke, a vascular medicine specialist, says the trademarked HeartBar he developed through 10 years of research is intended for some 13 million Americans who have coronary artery and vascular disease. Backing him up at a Sacramento interview was Dr. Joseph Kozina, who has used Cooke's bar to relax blood vessels and boost circulation, physical performance and reduce the chest pain of patients.

Cooke told UPI he developed the HeartBar after his own clinical tests found its soy derivative L-arginine increased the production of nitric oxide, which boosts blood flow. Nitric oxide is deficient in heart patients. He says eating two of the 50-gram HeartBars a day improves circulation and increases pain-free walking distances by 66 percent. While it resembles other nutritional bars and has a similar balance of carbohydrates and protein, it has less fat than others and eight times as much of L-arginine. Cooke says soy, butternuts, peanuts and red meats have significant amounts of the amino acid but are too high in fat. Similar research on nitric oxide led to the award of the Nobel Prize for Medicine from Sweden's Karolinska Institute to three Americans last October.