D-RIBOSE by NOW FOODS - 60 capsules
$19.95
Ribose is basically a simple sugar found in all living cells. As such, practically every food you eat contains ribose, but in very small quantities. You've probably heard about compounds called RNA and DNA. THe "R" in RNA stands for ribose and the "D" in DNA is for deoxyribose. In addition to being a vital component in the blueprint for life ribose is also necessary for each cell to produce the primary souce of cellular energy, the ATP molecule. Your heart muscle requires an enormous and continuous supple of energy in the form of ATP and other adenine nucleotides. If your ribose levels are depleted problems can appear very rapidly when your heart muscle undergoes strenuous exercise or if it has a poor blood supply. Unfortunately, you can't get enough ribose from food sources to replenish a ribose deficiency. To compensate, your body "recycles" components of ATP and the other nucleotides and through a complicated process converts glucose into ribose. Not only is this conversion process complicated, it's slow. Transforming glucose into ribose can take several days. Under normal circumstances, this doesn't cause a problem. In the case of serious athletes, however, it might take three or four days of rest to recover their energy after a strenuous event. Then in the case of someone with poor circulation to the heart the problem is much more serious. Since the heart never gets to rest and constantly uses energy, recovering adequate ribose reserves can become almost impossible. Until recently, there wasn't much we could do about increasing ribose levels. Lately, however, researchers have found a way to economically produce ribose, and it's now available as a supplement. Currently it's mainly being used by body-builders in hopes of shortening recovery time between workouts. But there have been dramatic results in cardiac patiens with extreme tiredness. Being a simple sugar, ribose is nontoxic and safe. At doses as high as 60 grams a day the only ill effects have been diarrhea and symptoms of low blood sugar. The suggested maintenance dosage for someone with heart problems would be in the range of 2 to 5 grams a day. Ribose comes in capsules or powder. Don't take it with protein because there's a possibility it could bind with the proteins and lose some of its effectiveness. Keep in mind that ribose is not a cure for heart diease, nor will it help reverse the problem but it can be a useful tool in helping a person become more mobile and active and that's one of the first steps to improving circulation and getting on the road to recover. This information came from ALTERNATIVES newsletter by Dr. David Williams.
