Tutti i post di william-davis

Today alone I've seen several people with severe deficiencies of vitamin D.

We're now checking everyone's blood vitamin D level at the start of the program. The measure that most accurately reflects your vitamin D status is 25-OH-vitamin D3. This is very confusing to many physicians, who traditionally have thought of 1,25-di-Hydroxy vitamin D3 as the standard test to measure. What they're failing to recognize is that this second measure is a kidney product, not a reflection of vitamin D status.

Using 25-OH-vitamin D3, several people today alone had levels of <10 ng/ml, clearly in the category of severe deficiency (generally regarded as <20ng/ml).

The majority of people we see in the office are Wisconsin residents. It's no wonder they're deficient. Although it's mid-May, we've seen the sun only a handful of days this year. And most of the days have been too chilly to wear short sleeves and shorts to permit sufficient surface area for UV exposure.

Living in a sunny climate, however, is no guarantee that you have sufficient blood vitamin D levels. Two recent studies have shown that 30-50% of the residents of sunny southern Florida and Hawaii are also deficient. (Why, I'm not sure.)

Although our experience thus far is anecdotal in several hundred people, my impression is that people who have normal blood levels of vitamin D (we regard normal as 45-50 ng/ml) have a far easier time of halting or regressing coronary plaque.

Vitamin D is among the most exciting nutritional tools we've come across in a long time. The conversation is making the media, which impresses me tremendously, given the fact that nobody stands to profit financially to any significant degree through vitamin D supplementation.

For a wonderful collection of discussions on vitamin D, go to Dr. John Cannell's website, www.vitaminDcouncil.com. You'll find a huge quantity of scientific background and conversation on the whole idea. I believe you will be thoroughly impressed with just how powerful the argument in favor of vitamin D has become.

Imagine if anything made of wheat were illegal: bread, bagels, crackers, pasta, pretzels, donuts, Shredded Wheat cereal, Raisin Bran, pastry, cookies, cakes, cupcakes. . . Your grocery store would then be unable to carry any of these products.

How empty would the grocery store shelves be?

There would be very little. The stores would be filled instead with vegetables and fruits, meats, and dairy products. But aisle after aisle would be empty. There'd be no cereal aisle. There'd be no snack chip aisle. The ordinarily overcrowded bread shelves wouldn't be there.

Bakery? Nope, not there either. Pasta and noodles? Empty. How about cakes and pastries? Also gone.

Getting the picture? American groceries are dominated by wheat products. What would happen to your health and the health of your family if wheat were abruptly removed from your choices? Would you be less healthy?

No. In fact, your health would be hugely improved. You'd lose a significant quantity of weight. Extraordinary numbers of people would lose diabetic or pre-diabetic tendencies. Feelings of sluggishness, sleepiness, and moodiness would dissolve. Blood pressure would be reduced. The incidence of cancer, skin disease, and inflammatory diseases would plumet.

From a plaque control perspective, your HDL cholesterol would rise, triglycerides drop. Small LDL would improve dramatically.

The message: Slash wheat products from your diet. Yes, you'll miss the smell and taste of freshly baked bread. But you'll do it for many more healthy years. And you may do it without a 14 inch scar in your chest.

Every day, I learn to respect small LDL more and more.

Small LDL particles, and its evil partner, low HDL, is among the most common reasons why someone fails to fully gain control of coronary plaque and heart disease risk.

Just yesterday, I saw a slender businessman (6 feet 1 inch in height, 186 lb.) whose small pattern persisted despite niacin, fish oil, oat bran, and raw almonds. We generally think of small LDL as an overweight person's pattern, but in some people the genetics are quite powerful and it can be expressed even in slender people.

The solution: More physical activity and exercise; cut back on processed carbohydrates, particularly wheat products like breads, pasta, crackers, breakfast cereals; think about magnesium (see our two recent reports on magnesium on the www.cureality.com membership website, the latest report to be posted this week); be sure sleep is adequate (gauge this by whether you're energetic during the day and don't fall asleep watching TV or movies). Lack of sufficient physical activity in people with sedentary jobs is probably among the most common reason the small LDL pattern persists.

Ignore small LDL and it can be like a hidden cancer in your body, growing and metastasizing (not literally, of course), fueling coronary plaque growth. Be sure your doctor assesses whether you have small LDL if you hope to gain control of your coronary risk.

If you've ever wondered just how many calories you're burning with various activities like yard work, driving, climbing stairs, etc. go to this great website that will calculate it for you: http://www.caloriecontrol.org/exercalc.html.

Here are some examples:

Dancing for 30 minutes(fast, e.g., tango): 193 calories
Yoga for 30 minutes: 204 calories
Washing the car for 30 minutes: 173 calories
Vacuuming for 30 minutes: 88 calories

(All are for a 170 lb person.)

As you see, physical activity does not necessarily have to consist of exercise. It doesn't require fancy equipment or expensive outfits. But it does require you to keep moving. Sedentary work is among the most common reasons I see in my patients for failing to control weight and its associated lipoprotein patterns, like low HDL and small LDL.

If your work is sedentary, then a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity per day is necessary to begin to correct weight-related patterns. If you gauge by calories burned, then a useful goal is 500 calories per day in physical activity--at a minimum.

How long should it take to stop or reverse coronary plaque growth? How long will it require to stop your heart scan score of, say, 350, from increasing at the expected rate of 30% per year, slow it down (we say "decelerate") to less than 30%, or stop it altogether? Or, actually reduce your score?

It can vary widely. Several simple patterns do seem to emerge, however. Our experience is that lower scores, particularly less than 100 at the start, are easier to gain control over. Scores of 50 or less, in fact, commonly can return to zero.

Higher scores, particularly those >1000, are more difficult to slow or reduce, though we've done it many times. You'll generally have to try harder and it may take longer. It's not uncommon to not stop plaque growth with a starting score this high until your 2nd or 3rd year of effort.

Sometimes it may take even longer. An occasional person requires four or five years to gain control. And there are, unfortunately, some people who never really gain complete control. They slow plaque growth compared to what it would have been with conventional efforts, but never completely halt growth. Why? Sometimes it's a matter of less than full commitment. Other times, we just don't know. Thankfully, these especially difficult cases are few and the majority enjoy substantial slowing or reversal.

Since, in some people, success may take time, you've got to stick it out. Have you ever gotten lost in a strange city only to find out later that the place you were looking for was right around the corner? It can be the same way with stopping coronary plaque growth. If you start with a score of 1000 and, after two years of effort, you've only slowed growth to 11% per year and then give up in frustration, you may have missed the opportunity to have stopped growth entirely in your third year.

All we can do is tip the scales heavily in your favor. We provide you with the best tools known. You've got to provide the commitment, the consistent effort of taking your supplements or medication, making the lifestyle changes, choosing the right foods and avoiding the wrong ones. But you've got to go the distance and not give up too easily.

Where can you find an expert in health?

In my experience, they're hard--very hard--to find.

Your hospital? Certainly not the hospitals I know. The hospitals I know are experts in disease, but not in health. Hospitals are helpful when you're sick. But if you're well and would like to stay that way, there's no reason to hang around a hospital. Prevent cancer, prevent heart disease, stay well? There's no place for this conversation in a hospital.

In fact, hospital staff are among the most unhealthy people I come across. Obesity is a nationwide problem affecting millions of Americans. But it's especially a problem among people who work in hospitals. I shudder in horror when I go to a hospital cafeteria and witness the sorts of food they serve in hospitals and see what the staff eat. Should they be regarded as experts in health?

How about doctors? If you associate with physicians like the ones I know, most have lots of knowledge about disease, but little understanding of health. A rare one has insight and interest in health.

I went to a recent meeting with my cardiology colleagues. Food served: pizza, Coca-Cola, spaghetti, fried onion rings, white bread with butter. They all dug in without hesitation. Over half were miserably overweight. Several were, in fact, diabetic; several more, pre-diabetic. I know that at least several are smokers. Experts in health?

Drug companies? Well, they're interested in health only as far as it provides profits. But health for its own sake? Ask anybody from a drug manufacturer about their views on the nutritional supplement movement and watch them sneer.

Food manufacturers? You mean like Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Nabisco, and General Mills? How about fast-food operations like McDonald's, Pizza Hut, and KFC?

The message: Know where to look for genuine information on health. You won't get it from hospitals. You won't get it from drug company marketing. For the most part, you can't even get it from your physician.

Instead, you're going to witness a broad movement towards self-empowerment in health, fueled by the internet and services like ours (Track Your Plaque). These are information resources that are not driven by profit, intent on providing truth, and not afraid to reject prevailing views.

It does not mean that hospitals are unnecessary, or that food manufacturers are evil, or that fast food should be legislated out of existence. We live in a capitalistic society, driven by supply and demand. Hopefully, demand is borne from educated choices from informed consumers. That's where information that's reliable, credible, and not profit driven come in.

It's been my suspicion for some time that the combination of lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), in combination with small LDL particles is a really bad risk for heart disease. People with this combination seem to have much higher heart scan scores for age than others. This seems to be a pattern that we'll see in the occasional woman less than 50 years old who already has a high heaert scan score. (It's unusual for women to have detectable coronary plaque before age 50.)

Very little data exists to support this idea and we are in the process of performing a small study to see whether it's true or not. My gut sense: it's among the most potent causes of coronary plaque around.

Case in point: Even though I spend a great deal of my time and energy advocating heart disease prevention, I still maintain my hospital privileges and skills. I had to cover one of the emergency rooms in town this past weekend (a requirement to maintain my hospital privileges).

One of the patients I saw was a 40-year old man--we'll call him Roland-- suffering a very large heart attack, a so-called "anterior myocardial infarction", or a heart attack involving the most important front portion of the heart. Thankfully, he came to the ER within 45 minutes after his chest pain started. The situation was immediately obvious and I was called to the ER. We quickly took him to the cardiac catheterization laboratory and put a stent in the left anterior descending artery and flow was restored. His chest pain dissipated over the next few minutes.

Nonetheless, Roland was left with a large area of reduced contraction of his heart muscle. Only time will tell how much recovery he'll have.

Roland was extremely lucky. The majority of people with closure of the artery that he'd experienced die within minutes. He did, in fact, "arrest" briefly, i.e., his heart became electrically unstable, though he recovered promptly.

Along with the multiple tubes of blood we required to run tests for his heart attack management, we had Roland's lipids and other measures sent off, as well. Wouldn't you know: Lp(a) and small LDL. This may have accounted for a heart attack at age 40.

Keep a lookout for this when you have lipoprotein testing. Conveniently, niacin can be used to treat both patterns, though higher doses are generally required for the Lp(a) part of the pattern. It's also my belief that the sort of Lp(a) measurement performed by the Liposcience laboratory (www.liposcience.com) is superior. They use a particle number based measure, not a weight-based measure. It is therefore independent of particle size, which can vary. Further work will, I believe, reveal some very important insights into the dreaded Lp(a).

I overheard this recent conversation between a CT technologist and a 53-year old woman (who I'll call Joan) who just had a scan at a heart scan center:

CT Tech: It appears to me that you have a moderate quantity of coronary plaque. But you should know that this is a lot of plaque for a woman in your age group. A cardiologist will review your scan after it's been put through a software program that allows us to score your images.

Joan: (Sighing) I guess now I know. I've always suspected that I would have some plaque because of my mother. I just don't want to go through what she had to.

CT Tech: Then it's really important that you discuss these results with your doctor. If you wrote your doctor's name on the information sheet, we'll send him the results.

Joan: Oh, no! Don't send my doctor the results! I already asked him if I should get a scan and he said there was no reason to. He said he already knew that my cholesterol was kind of high and that was everything he needed to know. He actually got kind of irritated when I asked. So I think it's best that he doesn't get involved.

This is a conversation that I've overheard many times. (I'm not intentionally an eavesdropper; the physician reading station at the scan center where I interpret scans--Milwaukee Heart Scan--is situated so that I easily overhear conversations between the technologists and patients as they review images immediately after undergoing a scan.)

If Joan feels uncomfortable discussing her heart scan results with her doctor, where can she turn? Get another opinion? Rely on family and friends? Keep it a secret? Read up about heart disease on the internet? Ignore her heart scan?

I've seen people do all of these things. Ideally, people like Joan would simply tell their doctor about their scan and review the results. He/she would then 1) Discuss the implications of the scan, 2) Identify all concealed causes of plaque, and then 3) Help construct an effective program to gain control of plaque to halt or reverse its growth. Well, in my experience, fat chance. 98% of the time it won't happen.

I think it will happen in 10-20 years as public dissatisfaction with the limited answers provided through conventional routes grows and compels physicians to sit up and take notice that people are dying around them every day because of ignorance, misinformation, and greed.

But in 2006, if you're in a situation like Joan--your doctor is giving you lame answers to your questions or dismissing your concerns as neurotic--then PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE take advantage of the universe of tools in the Track Your Plaque program.

People tell me sometimes that our program is not that easy--it requires reading, thinking, follow-through, and often asking (persuading?) your doctor that some extra steps (like blood work) need to be performed. The alternative? Take Lipitor and keep your mouth shut? Just accept your fate, grin and bear it, hoping luck will hold out? To me, there's no rational choice here.

I see a great many people in my practice who come for a 2nd opinion regarding their coronary disease.

When I ask patients whether they ever asked their primary doctor or cardiologist why they have heart disease in the first place, I get one of several responses:

1) My doctor said it from high cholesterol.

2) My doctor said it was "genetic" or "part of your family history" and so unidentifiable and uncorrectable. Tough luck.

3) I didn't ask and they didn't tell me.

Let's talk about each of these.

Can heart disease be only from high cholesterol and, if so, can taking a statin cholesterol drug be a "cure"? In the vast majority of cases, in my experience, cholesterol by itself is rarely the only identifiable cause of coronary disease.

Most people have a multitude of causes (e.g., small LDL, low HDL, vitamin D deficiency, concealed pre-diabetic patterns, etc.). This explains why many people with high LDL don't have heart disease and why others with low HDL do have heart disease. High LDL cholesterol is only part of the cause.

Does "genetic" or being part of your family's history also mean unidentifiable and uncorrectable? Absolutely not.

What your doctor is really saying is "I don't know enough to diagnose the causes because I haven't kept up with the scientific literature", or "I don't want to be bothered with this because it takes a lot of time and pays me very little money; I'd rather wait until you need a stent ", or "The drug representatives haven't told me about any new drugs". This is ignorance and laziness at best, greed and profiteering at worst. Don't fall for it. I hope that by now you recognize that the great majority of causes of heart disease are identifiable and correctable.

If you didn't think to ask, now you know that you should. If you and your doctor don't think about why you have coronary plaque in the first place, how can you develop a program to control it?

You need to ask. And you need to get confident answers. "I don't know" or "It's genetic" and the like are unacceptable.

Have you read the latest cover story from Forbes magazine? It's entitled "Pill Pushers: How the drug industry abandoned science for salesmanship".

It's great reading. (A condensed version is available at the www.forbes.com website: http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2006/0508/094a.html. They require you to provide your e-mail address though it's free.)

Drug industry advertising has raised consciousness of all the prescription therapies available for us--that's good. However, they've gone so far overboard trying to squeeze more and more revenues out of drugs that they've cost this country a huge amount in increased health care costs and even lost lives. (Forbes does a great job of summarizing some of these instances.)

Drugs like Lipitor, Crestor, Zocor; diabetes agents; anti-hypertensive agents, etc., that is, medications taken chronically, a huge financial bonanzas for drug companies. Not only do they get $100-200 per month, but they get it month after month after month. That's per drug.

Now not all medications are bad or unnecessary. There are times when they can be truly necessary and beneficial. But don't rely on drug company advertising to tell us when.

That's it: I will NEVER ever write another prescription for Lovaza.

I actually very rarely write a prescription for Lovaza, i.e., prescription fish oil. But this was the last straw.

I advised a patient that we've had good success using high-doses of fish oil to reduce lipoprotein(a), Lp(a). 6000 mg per day of the omega-3 component (EPA + DHA) from fish oil reduces Lp(a) in 60% of people after one year. (Recall that Lp(a) is the most aggressive known lipid-related cause of heart disease.)

The two preparations I generally suggest are either the very affordable Sam's Club Members Mark Triple-Strength Fish Oil with 900 mg EPA + DHA per capsule: 7 capsules per day. Another great product (my personal favorite because of its extreme purity--it doesn't even smell like fish oil): Pharmax Finest Pure Fish Oil with 1800 mg EPA + DHA per teaspoon: 3 to 3 1/2 teaspoons per day.

Both preparations work great and are quite affordable, given the high dose. For the Sam's Club preparation, it will cost around $30 per month, while the Pharmax liquid will run around $49 per month.

Well, the woman's husband insisted on a prescription for Lovaza. One Lovaza capsule contains 784 mg EPA + DHA per capsule: 7 to 8 capsules per day.

Here are some prices for Lovaza from online pharmacy discounters:
Prescription Giant: $78.99 for 30 capsules ($2.63 per capsule)
Planet Drugs Direct: $135 for 100 capsules ($1.35 per capsule)

These are lower than the prices I obtained in past by calling local pharmacies in my area, quite a bit lower, in fact.

Filling the Lovaza prescription at Prescription Giant will therefore cost $552.93 to $631.92 per month; at Planet Drugs Direct it will cost $283.50 to $324.00 per month. At local pharmacies, a similar 7 to 9 capsules Lovaza per day will cost upwards of $800 to $900 per month.

The patient's husband insisted on the Lovaza prescription because he knew that his insurance would cover it. When I pointed out that this was a large cost that would have to be borne by others in their healthcare premiums, he said that didn't matter to him.

I hesitated, but ended up writing the prescription for 7 Lovaza capsules per day. As soon as I handed to him, I regretted it. In fact, I am embarassed and angry at myself for having given in.

So I vowed: I will NEVER EVER write another prescription for Lovaza.

I do not believe that we should spread the excessive profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry around on the backs of people who pay their healthcare insurance premiums, just so that a few people, like this selfish couple, can save a few dollars a month.

In the original Heart Scan Blog post, This is your brain on wheat, I discussed how opioid peptides (i.e., small proteins that act like opiates such as heroine or morphine) that result from digestion of wheat cause unique effects on the human brain, particularly addictive behaviors. I also briefly reviewed how elimination of wheat has been shown to reduce auditory hallucinations and other psychotic behaviors in a subset of people with paranoid schizophrenia.

These two phenomena, addictions and schizophrenia, are most likely the result of exorphins that cross the blood-brain barrier. Exorphins--exogenous morphine-like compounds--can be blocked by opiate-blocking drugs like naloxone and naltrexone. Naloxone is used in hospitals to reverse morphine or heroine overdoses; naltrexone is being repackaged into a weight loss drug, since blocking wheat-derived exorphins reduces appetite. (Yes: The USDA tells us to eat more wheat, the drug industry sells us the antidote.)

There's another way that wheat can affect the brain and nervous system: immune-activated damage.

This is similar to the effect seen in celiac. There's even overlap with some of the antibody markers used to diagnose celiac, like the anti-gliadin antibodies and the anti-endomysium antibodies.

The most common immune neurological syndrome consequent to wheat consumption is cerebellar ataxia, a condition in which an immune response causes damage to the Purkinje cells of the cerebellum, the portion of the brain responsible for balance and coordination. This results in stumbling, incoordination, incontinence, and eventually leads to reliance on a cane or walker and wearing a diaper. Average age of onset: 53 years. A shrunken, atrophied cerebellum can be seen on an MRI of the brain.

Problem: Most people with central nervous system damage caused by wheat do not have any intestinal symptoms, like diarrhea and abdominal pain, the sort of symptoms usually associated with celiac disease. It means the first sign of wheat-induced brain damage may be bumping into walls and wetting your pants.

When I tell patients how I advise a wheat-free, cornstarch-free, sugar-free diet on the background of a low-carbohydrate diet, some people ask: "But can I live on a no-carb diet?"

Well, there's no such thing as a "no-carb" diet. Low-carb, yes. No-carb, no.

Here are the carbohydrate contents of various "low-carb" foods:

Gouda cheese--3 oz contains 1.65 grams carbohydrates
Mozzarella cheese--1 cup contains 2.89 grams carbohydrates
Walnuts--4 oz (56 nuts) contains 2.96 grams carbohydrates
Almonds--4 oz contains 1.38 grams carbohydrates
Sour cream--one-half cup contains 3.31 grams carbohydrates
Red wine--3.5 oz glass contains 2.69 grams carbohydrates
Eggplant--1 cup cooked contains 8.33 grams carbohydrates
Green pepper--1 medium-sized raw contains 5.52 grams carbohydrates
Cucumber--1 medium contains 4.34 grams carbohydrates
Tomato--1 medium contains 4.82 grams carbohydrates

(Nutrition data from USDA Nutrient Database)

In other words, foods thought to be "low-carb" actually contain a modest quantity of carbohydrates.

Such modest quantities of carbohydrates may not be enough to trip your blood sugar. But add up all the "low-carb" foods you consume over the course of a day and you can easily achieve 30 grams or more carbohydrates per day even without consuming any higher carbohydrate foods.

Imagine you have breast cancer. You go to your doctor and she says, "As your pain worsens, we'll help you with pain medication. We'll fit you with a special bra to accommodate the tumor as it grows. That's all we're going to do."

"What?" you ask. "You mean just deal with the disease and its complications, but you're not going to help me get rid of it . . . cure it?"

It would be incredibly shocking to receive such advice. Then why is that the sort of advice given when you are diagnosed with diabetes?

Say you go to the doctor. Lab values show a fasting blood sugar of 156 mg/dl, HbA1c (a reflection of your previous 60 days average glucose) of 7.1%. Both values show clear-cut diabetes.

Your doctor advises you to 1) start the drug metformin, then 2) talk to the diabetic teaching nurse or dietitian about an American Diabetes Association (ADA) diet.

The ADA diet prescribed encourages you to increase carbohydrates and cut fats at each meal and maintain a consistent intake so that you don't experience hypoglycemic (low blood sugar) episodes. You follow the diet, which causes you to gain 10-15 lbs per year, increasing your "need" for diabetes medication. You doctor adds Actos, then Januvia, then injections of Byetta.

Three years and 34 lbs later, you are not responding well to the drug combination with blood sugars rarely staying below 200 mg/dl. You've developed protein in your urine ("proteinuria"), lost 30% of your kidney function, and you are starting to lose sensation in your feet. So the doctor replaces some of your medication with several insulin injections per day.

This formula is followed millions of times per year in the U.S. So where along the way did your doctor mention anything about a "cure"?

Adult diabetes is the one chronic disease that nobody cares to cure. Treat it, maintain control over blood sugars, but cure it? Most physicians say it's impossible.

The tragedy is that diabetes is a curable condition. I've seen it happen many times. Physicians dedicated to curing diabetes like low-carb expert, Dr. Mary Vernon, have cured it countless times. Dr. Eric Westman and colleagues have been building the case for the carbohydrate-restricted cure for diabetes with studies such as this. In this last study, of the 8 participants on insulin + medications at the start of the study, 5 no longer required medications at the close of the study--they were essentially non-diabetic.

I tell patients that diabetes, in fact, is a disease you choose to have or not to have--provided you are provided the right diet and tools. Sadly, rarely are diabetics told about the right diet and tools.

That's why Cadbury Schweppes has been a major contributor to the American Diabetes Association, as are other processed food manufacturers and the drug industry, all who stand to profit from maintaining the status quo.

The cure? Eliminate or at least dramatically reduce carbohydrates, the foods that increase blood sugar.

Note: If you have diabetes and you are taking any prescription agents, such as glyburide, glipizide, insulin, and some others, you will need to discuss how to manage your medications if you reduce carbohydrates. The problem is finding a doctor or other resource to help you do this.

Here's a Q&A I stumbled on in the Forum of MedHelp, where people obtain answers from presumed health "experts."

Question:

My VAP test results in July 07 identified an LDL Pattern B.
Overall results:
Total 150
HDL 75
LDL 61
Trig 60
HDL-2 17
LP(a) 6.0
LDL Pattern B

Medications:
Lipitor 10mg
Zetia 10mg
Altace 10mg
Atenolol 50mg
Plavix 75mg
Aspirin 81mg

I had several heart attacks which resulted in CABG performed May 2000. I am a 53 year old white male , 6'1", 190 pounds, exercise every day, watch my diet and feel great. Everything looks OK except my LDL Pattern B. Is there any therapy to improve the Patten B?

Answer from CCF, MD:
Your results indicate an LDL pattern B, which generally indicates small atherogenic LDL particles which may cause increased risk for CAD. However, there are several problems with LDL patterning: 1) its unreliability (of LDL pattern testing ), 2) unclear clinical evidence regarding regarding the usefulness of LDL patterns and particle size. The majority of evidence regarding the progression of atherosclerosis is with LDL lowering and to an smaller extent HDL raising.

All available clinical evidence shows that any particles in the VLDL, IDL, or LDL range are atherogenic, and there is no evidence that whether belonging to pattern A or B one is more atherogenic than others.

Subclass studies have proliferated over the last few years, but many of these studies were funded or subsidized either by suppliers of the assays as a method to expand their use and move them into mainstream practice, or by pharmaceutical companies in an attempt to claim some advantage over other therapeutic agents.
Thus, current data on LDL subclasses are at best incomplete and at worst misleading, suffering from publication bias, and now given the recent results of the Ensign et al. study, unreliable.

Your LDL, and HDL are at goal. The Lpa level is still not clearly linked as a modifiable risk factor for CAD, although elevated levels are now know to be linked to stroke.

Continue with your present treatments: aspirin, plavix, ateonol and altace are all essential medications.

Wow. The extent of ignorance that pervades the ranks of my colleagues is frightening.

Contrary to the response, LDL particle size assays are quite reliable and accurate. I've performed many thousands of lipoprotein assays and they yield reproducible and clinically believable results. For example, eliminate wheat, oats, cornstarch, and sugars and small LDL drops from 2400 nmol/L to 893 nmol/L (NMR)--huge drops. If repeated within a short period of time, the second measure will correspond quite closely.

The data are also quite clear: Small LDL particles (i.e., "pattern B") are a potent predictor of cardiovascular events. What we lack are the treatment trials that show that reduction of small LDL results in reduced cardiovascular events. The reason for this is that small LDL research is not well-funded, since there is no prescription drug to treat small LDL, only nutritional means. Niacin (as Niaspan) is as close as it comes for a "drug" to reduce small LDL. But diet is far more effective.

Given the questioner's fairly favorable BMI of 25.1 and his history of aggressive heart disease, it is virtually certain that he has what I call "genetic small LDL," i.e., small LDL that occur on a genetically-determined basis (likely due to variants of the cholesteryl-ester transfer protein, or CETP, or of hepatic lipase and others).

Ignoring this man's small LDL will, without a doubt, consign him to a future of more heart attacks, stents, and bypass. Maybe by that time the data supporting the treatment of small LDL will become available.

Tutti i post di william-davis

Take a walking vacation

20. maggio 2006 William Davis (1)

If you're planning a vacation, why not consider a walking vacation?

The concept is really taking off. All you need is a pair of comfortable shoes and an interesting locale. More and more services are popping up to help you plan fun and interesting destinations and itineraries. One such catalog can be found at http://walking.about.com/od/tours/a/walkingvacation_3.htm

Lengthier walks may require some advance planning and toting some supplies. Don't forget the water!

From a health viewpoint, a walking vacation sure beats the heck out of a cruise that packs on 12 pounds of extra weight from the 24-hour a day buffet. If you're in the midst of a weight loss effort, several hours of walking through interesting locales and scenery can make it effortless.

There's loads of neat places to visit from a walker's perspective. One interesting website is www.waterfallwalks.com that lists trails that provide spectacular views of waterfalls.

Another variation on this theme is biking vacations. My wife and I are trying to set the time aside for a biking tour of wineries in the French countryside. That's our kind of multi-tasking!

"Expanded indications for implantable defibrillators"

19. maggio 2006 William Davis (0)

So reads the headline on a magazine I received recently (along with thousands of my colleagues) from a major hospital system.

It goes on to say: "In January 2005, indications for implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) were substantially broadened [emphasis ours] to include most patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) of 35% or less. This change translates into a 2- to 3-fold increase in the number of Medicare beneficiariries eligible for ICDs."

Ka-ching!!! Hear the money piling up in the bank?

The device manufacturers are constantly churning data and lobbying for reimbursement to expand the use of their devices to more and more people. Defibrillators in particularly are generally a $25,000 to $50,000 opportunity for the device manufacturer alone, not counting the costs incurred at the hospital for implantation.

Beware. As reimbursement for stents and other procedures diminishes, expect a sudden "demand" for more and more people to get implantable defibrillators. Better yet, stay away from the whole issue by preventing your heart attack.

Get a heart scan--but then don't delay taking action!

19. maggio 2006 William Davis (2)

I just came from one of the local hospitals after having performed a heart catheterization on a patient I met earlier this week.

Jack had gotten a heart scan a year ago with a score of 246, placing him in the 76th percentile. The "event" rate with this percentile rank is around 3% per year--not very high but enough to pose risk over a long period.

Jack chose to ignore his score. After all, the pressures of work at the University, maintaining his home and yard, etc. consumed all his energies. He came to my office--now one year after his scan--and told me about the chest pressure he was getting. Initially, his chest pains occurred with extended walking. In the past week, however, Jack was experiencing chest pressure with just walking 30 feet.

This pattern of increasing symptoms is called "accelerated angina", meaning that Jack was rapidly heading towards a heart attack. So I advised a heart catheterization in near future.

Jack's catheterization showed extensive plaque including a 50% blockage in the mainstem artery and 90% in the artery to the front of the heart (left anterior descending artery). Jack is going to have a bypass operation tomorrow.

What if Jack hadn't ignored his heart scan from a year ago? Well, I'd be very confident in saying that he would not be undergoing bypass surgery tomorrow.

The lesson: Don't dilly-dally on taking action to keep your plaque from growing. While it's not an emergency, it can easily become one if you choose to ignore your scan.

Feel that nudge in your back?

17. maggio 2006 William Davis (0)

You feel that nudge in your back? That's your local hospitals competing for your bypass surgery business.

Just this morning while watching a morning news show, I saw three advertisements for hospital bypass surgery programs. One ad featured a man in his 50s telling his story:"The cardiologist determined immediately that I needed a triple bypass operation. My family and I are very grateful to _____ hospital!"

In what other field is failure celebrated so prominently? When I see these ads, I hear "My doctors failed to provide early detection and then prevent what became a life-threatening condition, even though heart disease is a chronic process that requires decades to develop." What if our man said instead,"I had a heart scan and my score was high. So I was shown why I had so much plaque. They then showed me how to control and even reduce the amount of plaque I had. I'm living safely and symptom-free without need for surgery or procedures."

Of course, the hospital is out $60,000-100,000 for the surgery. How else could they afford ad campaigns costing several million dollars a year? See these advertisements for what they are: Marketing generated by profit-seeking businesses competing for your dollars--lots of them.

Throw away total cholesterol!

17. maggio 2006 William Davis (1)

Richard's total cholesterol without treatment was 186 mg/dl. "That's great!" his doctor declared, referring to the conventional dictum that total cholesterols less than 200 carry low risk. Several fingersticks in a mall kiosk set up by a local hospital to check total cholesterols confirmed Richard's low number.

But after Richard's unexpected hospitalization and two stents for severe coronary blockages, he demanded better answers.

Tragically, the answer was there all along: Despite a "favorable" total cholesterol, his HDL ("good") cholesterol was a miserable 32 mg (ideal >60 mg).

Total cholesterol is actually the sum total of HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, with a contribution from triglycerides. That's why a low total cholesterol can conceal a low HDL.

This situation is quite common. And low HDL is accompanied by a constellation of other undesirable causes of heart disease, most notably small LDL.

Don't accept total cholesterol as your sole measure of risk. It's nearly worthless. If you live in Bangladesh or a third world country, well perhaps that's the best you can get. But if you live in the U.S. or developed world, it's absurd to rely on total cholesterol.

Smart Start not so smart

15. maggio 2006 William Davis (2)

Kellogg's has crafted a campaign to support the American Heart Association featuring acress Sela Ward. Her attractive face, familiar to many TV and movie viewers, does add a comforting face to their efforts.

What's in this cereal made by the manufacturers of Pop-Tarts, Cheez-It, Rice Krispies, and Chips Deluxe cookies?

There are, indeed, some healthy ingredients: oat bran, potassium; you can even get a version made with soy protein. But there's sugar listed as the second ingredient. High-fructose corn syrup is also listed prominently. (Remember this issue? High-fructose corn syrup causes overwhelming sugar cravings, causes your triglycerides to skyrocket, and is probably among the principal food ingredients that make you obese.)

Upon detailed questioning of my patients struggling to lose weight, this and products like it are often among the "healthy" foods they've gravitated towards. We spend a great deal of time dissuading them of this idea.

A one-cup serving of Smart Start is low in fat (1 gram) but contains 43 grams of carbohydates, of which there are 14 grams of sugar. There are a meager 3 grams of fiber. To me, this sounds like a cupcake.

The Kellogg's people are exceptionally clever marketers. Partner with the American Heart Association and movie stars? Brilliant!

You should trust food manufacturer advertising about as much as you trust drug manufacturer advertising, which is to say not at all.

Kellogg's sold $10 billion dollars of food products last year. They are the world's leading producer of breakfast cereals. They are a leading producer of convenience foods: cookies, crackers, cereal bars, and frozen waffles under the brands Keebler, Pop-Tarts, Eggo, Cheez-It, Nutri-Grain, Rice Krispies, Famous Amos, and Kashi.

Can they cash in on healthy trends? They'll certainly try.

Does anybody have a normal vitamin D level?

15. maggio 2006 William Davis (0)

We now routinely check everyone's vitamin D blood level at the start of the program. (The measure to obtain is 25-OH-Vitamin D3. This is not to be confused with 1,25-OH2-vitamin D3, which is a kidney function measure.)

Of the 10 people with levels drawn today, none were even close to normal levels (which we define as 50 ng/ml)--not a single one.

The majority were in the range of severe deficiency (<20 ng/ml). Only two had levels in the 30s. None had higher. (Remember: I'm talking about people in Wisconsin, a terribly sunlight-deprived area much of the year. This might not apply quite as vigorously to Florida residents or others in sun-exposed regions.)

Curiously, I've also seen several people this week who had extraordinary quantities of coronary plaque on their heart scans (scores >1000), all of whom had extremely low vitamin D levels. One of these people had fairly unimpressive lipoproteins, with very minimal abnormalities identified. (This is quite unusual, by the way.) It makes you wonder if a profound deficiency of vitamin D is sufficient to act on its own as an instigator of coronary plaque.

The more we examine the issue of vitamin D deficiency, the more fascinating it gets. I suspect we've just scratched the surface and there's a lot more to learn about this tremendously interesting nutrient. Nonetheless, with what we're seeing in our experience, I'm urging everyone to get a blood vitamin D level.

Don't believe your LDL cholesterol!

14. maggio 2006 William Davis (0)

Harry's case is typical. For years, his doctor told him his LDL cholesterol of 123 mg was okay. But a heart scan score of 490 (90th percentile at age 52) made him question just where his coronary plaque came from.

Lipoprotein analysis told a very different story: His LDL particle number was 2400 nmol, meaning his trueLDL was more like 240 mg, nearly double the value of LDL obtained through his doctor. Harry had other sources of risk, too, but the LDL particle number was a clear stand-out.

Why does this happen? How can LDL cholesterol be so terribly inaccurate?

LDL cholesterols obtained in virtually all labs are not measured, they're calculated. The calculation was developed in the 1960s by Dr. Friedewald at the National Institutes of Health and therefore goes by his name (the Friedewald calculation). Dr. Friedewald derived this simple calculation to permit doctors across the U.S. to obtain LDL cholesterols, which were technically difficult to measure in those days by using measured HDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides.

Doctors were told that the only time that the Friedewald calculated LDL was inaccurate was when triglycerides exceeded 400 mg. So most family practitioners and internists still believe that calculated LDL's are, for the most part, quite accurate.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When LDL's are actually meaured, you find that LDL is rarely ac

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