Dr. Michael Eades on the Paleolithic diet

18. February 2009 William Davis (16)
Dr. Michael Eades has posted an absolutely spectacular commentary on the Paleolithic diet concept:

Rapid health improvements with a Paleolithic diet

The post was prompted by publication of a study that tried to recreate a Paleolithic-like diet experience over a brief study period:

Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic, hunter-gatherer type diet.

Dr. Eades discussion is wonderfully insightful and comprehensive and there's little to say to improve on his discussion.

I'd make one small point: From what I see in my experience, the improvements in lipid patterns seen in the brief period of this study are very likely to have been primarily due to the removal of wheat. Followers of this blog know that wheat elimination is among the most powerful cholesterol-reducing strategies available.

What vitamin D form?

15. February 2009 William Davis (36)
In response to questions regarding why don't vitamin D tablets work, here are my observations.

When I first started correcting vitamin D levels around 3 1/2 years ago, people would begin with starting 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood levels of around 20 ng/ml.

Taking, say, 6000 units vitamin D as tablets over 3 months yielded blood levels of 24-30 ng/ml. Taking 6000 units in an oil-based form, and blood levels would commonly be 60-70 ng/ml.

In other words, tablets are very poorly absorbed. I also saw very erratic absorption with tablets, with tremendous variation in blood levels.

I witnessed this effect many times. I finally began telling patients to avoid the tablets altogether. It's simply not worth it. Taking dose X of tablets, you cannot predict what the blood level of vitamin D will be.

Now, you can sometimes make the tablets get absorbed by either taking with a teaspoon of oil (e.g., olive, flaxseed) or taking with an oil-rich meal. However, I am uncertain just how consistent the absorption is under these circumstances, not having done this enough times to know.

Oil-filled gelcaps are no more expensive than tablets (or perhaps a dollar more). Health food store employees and pharmacists don't know this. I have had many patients come to the office claiming they changed to tablets because that's all their health food store or pharmacy carried and the person behind the counter assured them it was the same. Blood level of vitamin D to confirm: right back down to the starting level or near it--little or no absorption.

The only way to know whether a preparation is absorbed is to check a blood level. But, in my experience, having checked vitamin D blood levels thousands of times, gelcaps never fail; tablets fail over 80% of the time.

Vitamin D for the pharmaceutically challenged

14. February 2009 William Davis (20)
Most Heart Scan Blog readers already know:

Your doctor has been brainwashed by the pharmaceutical industry.

Your doctor more than likely has spent the better part of his or her career in the Guantanamo Bay of healthcare, water-boarded by seductive sales representatives, enticed with promises of fame and riches, threatened with ostracism from the clubby internal halls of healthcare if--gasp!--he or she didn't subscribe to the "rule" that only drugs are good, anything else is bad.

The same FDA-approval-is-necessary-to-be-good brand of nonsense is gaining popularity among my colleagues who, having caught some mention (on the Today Show, Oprah, or similar source of medical information), hope to join the vitamin D hoopla.

People will proudly declare that they are taking a high dose of vitamin D: 50,000 units once per week.

No. They are taking a barely useful form: D2, ergocalciferol.

Studies examining the reliability of the D2 form differ:

There's the Heaney study suggesting that D2 is less effective than D3:
Vitamin D2 is much less effective than vitamin D3 in humans

Then there's the Holick study showing they are equivalent:
Vitamin D2 is as effective as vitamin D3 in maintaining circulating concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D.

My experience is more in line with the Heaney study: Little or no real effect with D2.

One particularly illustrative case I witnessed was a woman who was mistakenly prescribed D2 at 50,000 units per day. She told me that she'd been taking it for a year. I fully expected to see clear-cut signs of toxicity (e.g., high blood calcium levels). Curiously, she showed no signs of toxicity. Nor did she show any vitamin D at all in her blood: 25-hydroxy D level of zero--literally zero.

I've witnessed similar phenomena several times: plenty of vitamin D2 . . . very little vitamin D in the blood.

All in all, I suppose that D2 is better than No-D at all. But you are far better off joining the ranks of the pharmaceutically challenged and go with the stuff that really works: D3.

D3, or cholecalciferol, yields confident increases in blood levels. It is inexpensive, safe, and an exact copy of the human form of vitamin D. (Of course, gelcap or drops only, NEVER tablets.)

There is absolute NO reason to take vitamin D2, the form that sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, the facsimile plant form issued by the drug industry.

Why don't stents prevent heart attack?

12. February 2009 William Davis (11)


No study has ever documented that stents prevent future heart attack. But, in day-to-day practice, stents are frequently implanted for just this reason.

A little clarification. Stents do prevent heart attack--if the heart attack is already underway, either as an "acute myocardial infarction" or "unstable angina."

In other words, a plaque in a coronary artery can rupture just like a little volcano. Rather than spewing lava, the underlying plaque contents--fibrous tissue, inflammatory cells, cholesterol crystals, fatty material, debris--are exposed to flowing blood and trigger spasm of the artery and blood clot formation. A ruptured plaque is typically found in people who go to the emergency room with severe chest pain or have difficulty breathing.

A heart catheterization is performed, a severe (e.g., 90-100%--completely closed) is found. A stent in this situation is of clear-cut benefit.

What is not clearly beneficial is someone with no symptoms, symptoms only with physical activity that has been present for at least several months, or someone with a high heart scan score and no symptoms. In these circumstances, stent implantation does not reduce risk for future heart attack.

Why?



Take a look at this angiogram of a right coronary artery. You can seen plaque all along the artery (represented by areas that appear pinched off. There are at least 4 visible.)

Putting one 15 millimeter stent in the artery will only affect the area of artery stented. (Stents vary in length, but typically are 12-18 millimeters in length.) The right coronary artery is about 10 times or more this length. There are also two other arteries of similar length. A stent at one location will do nothing to affect the potential for rupture in any of the other plaque-laden areas.

Say a stent is implanted in the "worst" blockage in this right coronary artery, the plaque located at around 9 o'clock. What about all the other plaques? They can still rupture.

Why not put in many stents, say, 4 or 5, and stent all the visible plaques?

Two reasons: 1) Plaque you can't even see on an angiogram can still rupture, and 2) it is very costly (easily $30,000 at the very least), 3) incurs greater procedural risk, and 4) messes up the artery for future procedures, since a steel-lined artery that develops more disease in future will be more difficult to re-implant stents, bypass, or perform other procedural manipulations.

The point: Putting in stents does not reduce potential for plaque rupture in the entire artery.

What can prevent plaque rupture? That's the whole point of following an effective prevention program: prevent plaque rupture.

(Of course, this discussion cannot encompass the wide variety of potential situations that may cause your doctor to individualize your approach. Nonetheless, when advised to have an elective heart procedure, a healthy dose of skepticism and is clearly a good practice.)

Top image courtesy National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Low thyroid: What to do?

8. February 2009 William Davis (25)
I've gotten a number of requests for solutions on how to solve the low thyroid issue if either 1) your doctor refuses to discuss the issue or denies it is present, or 2) there are government mandates against thyroid correction unless certain (outdated) targets are met.

Oh, boy.

While I'm not encouraging anyone to break the laws or regulations of their country (and it's impossible to generalize, with readers of this blog originating from over 30 countries), here are some simple steps to consider that might help you in your quest to correct hypothyroidism:

--Measure your body temperature--First thing in the morning either while lying in bed or go to the bathroom and measure your oral temp. Record it and, if it is consistently lower than 97.0 degrees (Fahrenheit), show it to your doctor. This may help persuade him/her.(You can still be hypothyroid with higher temperatures, but if low temperatures are present, it is simply more persuasive evidence in favor of treatment).

--Supplement with iodine 150 mcg per day to be sure you are not iodine deficient. This is becoming more common in the U.S. as people avoid iodized salt. It is quite common outside the U.S. An easy, inexpensive preparation is kelp tablets.

--Show your doctor a recent crucial study: The HUNT Study that suggests that cardiovascular mortality begins to increase at a TSH of only 1.5 or greater, not the 5.5 mIU usually used by laboratories and doctors.

--Ask people around you whether they are aware of a health practitioner who might be willing to work with you, or at least have an open mind (sadly, an uncommon commodity).

Also, see thyroid advocate and prolific author, Mary Shomon's advice on how to find a doctor willing to work with you. Yes, they are out there, but you may have to ask a lot of friends and acquaintances, or meet and fire a lot of docs. It shouldn't be this way, but it is. It will change through public pressure and education, but not by next week.

Another helpful discussion from Mary Shomon: The TSH Normal Range: Why is there still controversy? You will read that even the endocrinologists (a peculiarly contentious group) seethingly debate what constitutes normal vs. low thyroid function.

Also, you might remind a resistant health practitioner that guidelines are guidelines--they are not laws that restrain anyone. They are simply meant to represent broad population guidelines that do not take your personal health situation into consideration.

Which statin drug is best?

8. February 2009 William Davis (7)
I re-post a Heart Scan Blog post from one year ago, answering the question: Which statin drug is best?

I still get this question from patients in the office and online, nearly always prompted by a TV commercial. So let me re-express my thoughts from a year ago, which have not changed on this issue.


The statin drugs can indeed play a role in a program of coronary plaque control and regression.

However, thanks to the overwhelming marketing (and lobbying and legislative) clout of the drug manufacturing industry, they play an undeserved, oversized role. I get reminded of this whenever I'm pressed to answer the question: "Which statin drug is best?"

In trying to answer this question, we encounter several difficulties:

1) The data nearly all use statins drugs by themselves, as so-called monotherapy. Other than the standard diet--you know, the American Heart Association diet, the one that causes heart disease--it is a statin drug alone that has been studied in the dozens of major trials "validating" statin drug use. The repeated failure of statin drugs to eliminate heart disease and associated events like heart attack keeps being answered by the "lower is better" argument, i.e., if 70% of heart attacks destined to occur still take place, then reduce LDL even further. This is an absurd argument that inevitably encounters a wall of limited effects.

2) The great bulk of clinical data examining both the incidence of cardiovascular events as well as plaque progression or regression have all been sponsored by the drug's manufacturer. It has been well-documnted that, when a drug manufacturer sponsors a trial, the outcome is highly likely to be in favor of that drug. Imagine Ford sponsors a $30 million study to prove that their cars are more reliable and safer. What is the likelihood that the outcome will be in favor of the competition? Very unlikely. Such is human nature.

If we were to accept the clinical trial data at face value and ignore the above issues, then I would come to the conclusion that we should be using Crestor at a dose of 40 mg per day, since that was the regimen used in the ASTEROID Trial that achieved modest reversal of coronary atherosclerotic plaque by intravascular ultrasound.

But I do not advocate such an ASTEROID-like approach for several reasons:

1) In my experience, nobody can tolerate 40 mg of Crestor for more than few weeks, a few months at most. Show me someone who can survive and tolerate Crestor 40 mg per day and I'll show you somebody who survived a 40 foot fall off his roof--sure, it happens, but it's a fluke.

2) The notion that only one drug is necessary to regress this disease is, in my view, absurd. It ignores issues like hypertension, metabolic syndrome, inflammatory phenomena, lipoprotein(a), post-prandial (after-eating) phenomena, LDL particle size, triglycerides, etc. You mean that Crestor 40 mg per day, or other high-intensity statin monotherapy should be enough to overcome all of these patterns and provide maximal potential for coronary plaque reversal? No way.

3) Plaque reversal can occur without a statin agent. While statin drugs may provide some advantage in the reduction of LDL, much of the benefit ends there. All of the other dozens of causes of coronary atherosclerotic plaque need to be addressed.

So which statin is best? This question is evidence of the brainwashing that has seized the public and my colleagues. The question is not which statin is best. The question should be: What steps do I take to maximize my chances of reversing coronary atherosclerotic plaque?

The answer may or may not involve a statin drug, regardless of the subtle differences among them.

Dr. Nancy Sniderman, heart scans on Today Show

5. February 2009 William Davis (6)
While shaving this morning, I caught the report by NBC medical expert, Dr. Nancy Sniderman, about her coronary plaque and CT coronary angiogram.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy




Those of you in the Track Your Plaque program or who follow The Heart Scan Blog know that we should tell Dr. Sniderman and her doctor that:

She has done virtually nothing that will stop an increasing heart scan score! In fact, Dr. Sniderman is now following the "prevention program" that is eerily reminiscent of Tim Russert's program! We all know how that turned out.

It is pure folly to believe that a combination of Lipitor, exercise, and a "healthy diet" (usually meaning a low-fat diet--yes, the diet that promotes heart disease) will stop the otherwise relentless increase in heart scan score.

Dr. Sniderman, please consider:

1) Having the real causes of your coronary plaque identified. (It is highly unlikely to be just LDL cholesterol, though the drug industry is thrilled that you believe this.)

2) Ask yourself (or, if your doctor knew what she was doing, ask her): Why do I have heart disease? LDL cholesterol is insufficient reason--virtually nobody I know has high LDL cholesterol as the sole cause. LDL cholesterol is, at most, one reason among many others, but is insufficient as a sole cause.

3) What is your vitamin D status? Crucial!

4) What is your thyroid status?

5) Fish oil--a must!

6) Do you have lipoprotein(a)? Small LDL?

Just addressing the items on the above checklist would put you on a far more confident path to stop your heart scan score from increasing.

If you were to repeat your heart scan score, my prediction: Your score will be higher by 18-24% per year.

My personal experience with low thyroid

3. February 2009 William Davis (31)
Something happened to me around October-November of last year.

I usually feel great. Ordinarily, my struggles are sleeping and relaxing. As with most people, I have too many projects on my schedule, though I find my activities stimulating and fascinating.

I blasted through a very demanding November, trying to meet the needs of a book publisher. This involved sleeping only a few hours a night for several days on end, all after a full day of office practice and hospital duties.

But it was getting tougher. My concentration was becoming more fragmented. Getting things done was proving an elusive goal. Exercise became a real chore.

Although I usually force myself to go to sleep, I was starting to fall asleep before my usual bedtime, and I was sleeping longer than usual.

It's been a tough winter in Wisconsin. Let's face it: It's Wisconsin. But it's been tough even for this region, with weeks of temperatures consistently below 10 degrees. Even so, I was having a heck of a time keeping warm. Extra shirts, socks, soaking my hands in hot water--none of it worked and I was freezing.

So I had my thyroid values checked:

Free T3: 2.6 pg/ml (Ref 2.3-4.2)
Free T4: 1.20 ng/dl (Ref 0.89-1.76)
TSH: 1.528 uUI/ml (Ref 0.350-5.500)

Normal by virtually all standards. I measured my first morning oral temperature: 96.1, 96.3, 95.9. Hmmmm.

My experience coincided with the Track Your Plaque and Heart Scan Blog conversations about low thyroid being enormously underappreciated, with the newest data on thyroid disease suggesting that a TSH for ideal health is probably 1.5 mIU or less. (More about that: Is normal TSH too high? and Thyroid perspective update .

Could this simply be a case of medical student-oma in which every beginning medical student believes he has every disease he learns about?

Despite the apparently "normal" thyroid blood tests, I took the leap and started taking Armour thyroid, beginning at 1/2 grain (30 mg), increasing to 1 grain (60 mg) after the first week.

Within 10 days, I experienced:

--Dramatic restoration of the ability to concentrate
--A boost in mood. (In fact, the last few blog posts before I replaced thyroid reflect my deepening crabbiness.)
--Large increase in energy, now restored to old levels
--Need for less sleep
--I'm warm again! (It's still <20 degrees, but I get easily stay warm while indoors.)

I am absolutely, positively convinced of the power of thyroid. I am further convinced from the clinical data, patient experiences, and now my own personal experience, that low levels of hypothyroidism are being dramatically underappreciated and underdiagnosed.

I shudder to think of what my life would have been like 6 months or a year from now without correction of thyroid hormone.

Now, the tough question: Why the heck is this happening to so many people?

Speaking availability

3. February 2009 William Davis (5)
Just a quick announcement:

If you would like to hear more about the concepts articulated in The Heart Scan Blog or in the Track Your Plaque program, I am available to speak to your group.

Among the possible topics:

Return to the Wild: Natural Nutritional Supplements That Supercharge Health
Why this apparent "need" for fish oil and other heart-healthy supplements? I discuss why some nutritional supplements make perfect sense when we are viewed in the context of primitive humans living modern lives, while other supplements do little.


Shrink Your Tummy . . .or, Why Your Dietitian is Fat!
Weight loss doesn't have to involve calorie counting, deprivation, or hunger pangs. But the conventional "rules" for weight loss and health have to be broken.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Extraordinary Heart Health
Heart health is something that you can seize control over, something identifiable, correctable, and . . . reversible. Much of this can be achieved with little or no medication, nor procedures. I detail all the enormously empowering lessons learned through the Track Your Plaque program.


I can also present in-depth yet entertaining discussions on the power of vitamin D, natural cholesterol control, screening for heart disease, and similar topics covered in the blog.

To learn more, just e-mail us at contact@trackyourplaque, or call my office at 414-456-1123.

Learn how to eat from Survivorman

31. January 2009 William Davis (22)

Look no farther than Discovery Channel to learn how humans were meant to eat.

The Survivorman show documents the (self-filmed) 7-day adventures of Les Stroud, who is dropped into various remote corners of the world to survive on little but ingenuity and will to live. Starting without food or water, the Survivorman scrapes and scrambles in the wilderness for essentials to survive in habitats as far ranging as the Ecuadorian rainforest to sub-arctic Labrador.

What does Survivorman have to do with your nutrition habits?

Everything. The lessons we can learn by watching this TV show are plenty.

Survivorman plays out the life we are supposed to be living: slaughtering wild game with simple handmade tools and his bare hands, identifying plants and berries that are safe to eat, trapping fish, scavenging the kill of other predators. He's even resorted to eating bugs and caterpillars, particularly following several days of unsuccessful hunting and scavenging.

What is notable from the Survivorman experience is what is absent: In the steppe, desert, tundra, or jungle, you will not find bread, fruit drinks, or Cheerios. You won't find farm-fattened, corn-fed livestock with meat marbled with fat.

Imagine the result of such an experience for us, drawn out over 6 months. Even an obese, diabetic, gluttonous, XXX dress size 350-lb woman would return a lean 105 lbs, size 0, non-diabetic, fully able to run miles in the wild tracking game.

Survivorman's quiet desperation of living in the wild, preoccupied with worries over where his next meal might be found, is a stark contrast to the bloated, shelves stacked floor-to-ceiling supermarkets, and our modern society's all-you-can-eat several times per day lifestyle.

Am I advocating selling the car and house and chucking modern society for the "safety" of the jungles of Borneo?

No, of course not. I am advocating taking a lesson from the clever experiment conducted by Mr. Stroud, a return-to-the-wild experience that should teach us something about how perverse our modern nutritional lives have become.
All posts by william-davis

Niacin scams

12. January 2009 William Davis (0)
In the Track Your Plaque program, we often resort to niacin (vitamin B3 or nicotinic acid) to:

--Raise HDL cholesterol
--Reduce the proportion of small LDL particles
--Shift HDL towards the healthy larger fraction (HDL2b or "large")
--Reduce lipoprotein(a), the most aggressive risk factor known


But niacin comes with a crazy "hot flush," a warm, prickly feeling that usually envelops the upper chest, neck and face that is, without a doubt, annoying. Around 1 in 20 people simply cannot tolerate any amount of niacin >100 mg, while others have no problem even into the 3000 mg per day or more range. (Tolerance to niacin is genetically determined, governed by the rapidity of metabolism to the niacin metabolite, nicotinuric acid.)

The niacin flush has spawned an entire panel of niacin-like scams, agents that sound like niacin or may even contain niacin, but exert no beneficial effect whatsoever:

Flush-free niacin--I have previously posted on this useless but ubiquitous preparation that often costs several times more than conventional niacin. Flush-free niacin, or inositol hexaniacinate, does indeed contain niacin, but it is not released in the human body. You simply pass it out down the toilet, where this preparation belongs in the first place.

Nicotinamide--Also called niacinamide. While the nicotinamide/niacinamide forms of vitamin B3 can be used to treat B3 deficiency ("pellagra"), they do not reproduce the lipid and lipoprotein effects of niacin. For our purposes, they are useless.

Niacin-containing heart-healthy supplements--These are the multi-supplements that contain a little of everything that might be beneficial for the heart, but none at a dose that provides genuine benefit. Don't throw your money away.


There's also a prescription niacin, Niaspan, that costs 20-fold more than the best over-the-counter preparation, Sloniacin. Niaspan has yielded hundreds of millions of dollars for the pharmaceutical industry. Your money, in my view, is far better spent on Sloniacin (around $12-14 per bottle of 100 tablets of 500 mg).

For more on niacin, here's an article I wrote for the Life Extension Magazine people a while back: Using Niacin to Improve Cardiovascular Health.

Deja vu all over again?

10. January 2009 William Davis (8)
HeartHawk brought a report and debate on The Heart.Org website to my attention:

Screening for risk factors or detecting disease? Debate divides the CV community. After landing on theheart.org, paste this onto your URL address:article/883239.do. (Full address: http://www.theheart.org/article/883239.do. I don't know why, but I couldn't go there directly.)

Some interesting comments:

Dr. Jay Cohn (University of Minnesota):

"They're saying that we can't identify disease very effectively so let's just stick with risk factors, which we know are very poorly predictive and nonspecific. It boggles my mind as to why they won't open up their minds to the importance of moving forward in finding better strategies to identify the disease that we are treating. It's very strange. They criticize these disease markers because they are not predictive of events, but they are looking at very short-term outcomes. We're interested in lifetime risk. We're screening people in their 40s who are concerned about morbid events in their 60s and 70s, and no trials are going to track them that long."

"You have to accept the pathophysiologic reality that heart attacks don't occur in the absence of coronary disease, and coronary disease doesn't occur in the absence of endothelial dysfunction and vascular disease, all of which now can be identified."

". . . Can we as a society and as a profession accept the idea that there is a link between the vascular abnormalities and the events? "And that that linkage is tight enough that it should allow us to accept slowing of progression of the vascular abnormalities as an adequate marker for slowing disease progression, without waiting for events to occur? As soon as you use the word surrogate, people jump up and say we have all these markers that we know don't work well—things like premature ventricular contractions [PVCs] on the electrocardiogram, LDL, HDL—but those are not the markers we're talking about. We're talking about structural and functional changes in the blood vessel and in the heart."


Wow. The idea may be starting to catch on.

As an interesting aside, Cohn et al use a 10-test panel to screen for vascular disease:

"Named for the center's benefactor, the Rasmussen score includes tests for large and small artery elasticity (compliance), resting blood pressure, blood-pressure response to moderate treadmill exercise, optic fundus photography, carotid intimal-media thickness (IMT), microalbuminuria, electrocardiography, left ventricular (LV) ultrasonography for LV volume and mass, and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP). Each test result is scored out of 10 for low, intermediate, or high risk, and the combined results yields a score that Cohn et al believe is more predictive than any of the existing standalone tests."


The counterarguments in this debate were provided by Dr. Philip Greenland (Northwestern University), who repeated his oft-used argument that, while he accepts that vascular disease can be identified, no one has proven that measuring it improves outcomes:

"We do have that evidence for risk-factor screening. Even though people criticize risk-factor assessment because it is not sensitive enough or not accurate enough, the interesting and curious thing is that we actually have evidence that if you go to the trouble of screening for risk factors and treating them, patients have better outcomes. We do not have that evidence for any of these other tests."


An interesting debate ensues that includes Track Your Plaque friend, Dr. William Blanchet, who characteristically argues persuasively in favor of broad screening for coronary disease with coronary calcium scoring:

"If we were doing our jobs in primary prevention, we would not need to look at improved intervention and secondary prevention to reduce coronary death."


Here's a shock: Dr. Melissa Shirley-Walton, the cardiologist who previously preached the "cath lab on every corner" argument seems to have undergone a change of heart:

"What if I walked up to a gentleman and said, "you are at risk for CAD, take a statin", to which he replies, "I'm afraid of those meds". BUT if he sees his calcium score........he is then convinced to be pro-active. What is so wrong with that? What is so wrong with allowing him to spend 250.00 US out of pocket in order to save the US 150,000.00 US later on?

No hard endpoints you say with intensive therapy for primary prevention? What about extrapolating from trials for secondary prevention like HATS? ARBITER2? And what exactly is the true definition of secondary prevention? Is it truly primary prevention if we already have intima thickness abnormalities, or fatty streaks? That would more likely fall under secondary prevention by today's new standards.

So, I'm all for any visual aid that will encourage compliance with life style change, necessary medical therapy and followup. If the patient is willing to spend 250.00$ to get a calcium score, so be it. Better yet, why not lower the price so everyone can have the option if they are motivated enough to seize an opportunity?"


I have to admit that I thought that Dr. Blanchet was wasting his time trying to persuade Shirley-Walton et al, but perhaps he is having an impact, though having hammered away at them for the last year or so.

These arguments, for me, eerily echo many previous debates I've heard. But I am encouraged by the more favorable treatment the notion of atherosclerosis screening is receiving. Just 5 years ago, all coronary calcium scoring would have received from the conventionalists is "more clinical studies are needed."

So perhaps the cardiology and medical worlds are inching slowly towards broad acceptance of screening for coronary and vascular disease.

BUT, screening is not sufficient. What do you do with the information?

Here is where the conventional-thinkers stop. The question that seems to occupy them: Perhaps we should screen people for hidden coronary and vascular atherosclerosis so we can better decide who needs a statin drug or a procedure.

I would pose a different challenge: We should screen people for hidden coronary and vascular atherosclerosis so we can better decide who needs to engage in an intensive program of disease reversal using natural means and as little medication and procedures as possible.

Well, perhaps in time.

Lead to Gold: The alchemy of transforming nutritional-supplement-to-medication

9. January 2009 William Davis (25)
Here's a recipe to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Others have done it and you can do it, too!

1) Identify a nutritional supplement that works.

Find some agent deemed to fall within the broad allowances of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act . However, because this agent is already in the public domain and is essential non-patent-protectable, you may need to develop some patent protectable aspect of its production, application, or encapsulation. This patent-protected aspect may or may not provide genuine advantage, but that's not your concern. Your concern is protecting your investment and providing the appearance of exclusivity.


2) Identify a medical indication for your product.

Choose a disease or condition that is likely to yield unquestioned efficacy, e.g., omega-3 fatty acids to reduce high triglycerides in people with familial hypertriglyceridemia (triglycerides >500 mg/dl). While this will restrict your ability to make market claims, it will not restrain your ability to sell or allow use of your agent for "off-label" applications. In fact, there are methods to surreptitiously promote the use of your product for off-label use, such as hiring experts to discuss the science behind your product with doctors who can prescribe your product. Ideally, your product's primary indication will provide a substantial market on its own to justify your investment. However, the eventual off-label sales can be substantial, even outstripping the sales generated through your primary indication.


3) Obtain at least $230 million to pay for the clinical trials required to obtain FDA approval.

You will also have to raise the capital to build the business to manufacture, distribute, and sell your product.


4) After FDA approval is obtained, your business is up and running, and distribution begins, start bashing the non-FDA-approved nutritional products that stand to compete in your market.

You could point out that only your product has actually passed through the rigorous FDA process. You could make claims regarding purity, potency, "approved by your doctor," etc., whether or not there is any truth behind the claim.


5) Buy that second vacation home in Aspen and the corporate jet you've been dreaming about! After all the risks you've taken, you deserve it!


That's it, plain and simple. It is a tried-and-true formula that has been applied many times.

It is a formula like this that brought Lovaza-brand omega-3 fatty acids to market, Niaspan brand of niacin, ergocalciferol form of vitamin D, Folbee (prescription combination B vitamins), with a slightly different spin for Synthroid (since the Armour Thyroid it is meant to replace is not a nutritional supplement, but a low-cost, generic thyroid replacement).

Whatever you do, don't EVER run a head-to-head comparative trial of your agent versus the nutritional supplement competition. For instance, NEVER compare Lovaza to supplemental fish oil capsules, matched milligram-for-milligram for EPA and DHA content. NEVER compare Niaspan to over-the-counter Sloniacin. NEVER compare Armour Thyroid to Synthroid. You never know what you might find. (Psssssttt! They might be equivalent!)

The formula is not a foolproof road paved with riches, however. There have been market failures, as well. Folbee, for instance, is hardly a household name. So there's risk involved, no question about it. But, should it all work out, the payoff can be big, VERY big, as it has been for Niaspan and Lovaza.

So, start thinking about how you might follow this formula for:

1) Cholecalciferol (vitamin D3)--e.g., for osteopenia, low HDL, or high c-reactive protein
2) Vitamin K2--also for osteopenia
3) Magnesium--for suppression of ventricular arrhythmias (especially Torsade de Pointes)
4) Iodine--for goiter and iodine deficiency
5) Vitamin C--for uric acid reduction

Who said you can't turn lead into gold?

Another interview with Livin' La Vida Low Carb's Jimmy Moore

7. January 2009 William Davis (4)
I recently provided another interview for Livin' La Vida Low Carb's Jimmy Moore.

You may remember Jimmy as the irrepressible host of the Livin' La Vida Low Carb Show who lost around 200 lbs, dropping from 410 to 230 lbs on a low-carbohydrate diet.

In this hour-long interview, we discussed some of the dietary strategies that we use in the Track Your Plaque program.

Jimmy's website is definitely worth exploring. It's loaded with great interviews, including with Good Calories, Bad Calories author, Gary Taubes.

"Millions of needless deaths"

6. January 2009 William Davis (4)
"Millions of needless deaths" is the title of an editorial by Life Extension Magazine's Bill Faloon.

". . . If vitamin D’s only benefit was to reduce coronary heart attack rates by 142%, the net savings (after deducting the cost of the vitamin D) if every American supplemented properly would be around $84 billion each year. That’s enough to put a major dent in the health care cost crisis that is forecast to bankrupt Medicare and many private insurance plans."

Although I don't agree with all the over-the-top commentary that issues from Mr. Faloon or Life Extension (although I sit on their Medical Advisory Board), I agree with virtually all of the issues he raises with vitamin D.

Despite the enormously compelling observations of vitamin D potential effects in populations, the medical community's reluctance comes from the lack of treatment data. In other words, what we lack are long-term data on vitamin D supplementation vs. placebo on rate of heart attack, vitamin D vs. placebo on risk of colon cancer, etc.

The data that exists connecting vitamin D levels with cardiovascular risk originate from three population observations:

1) The NHANES data in 16,000 participants showed 20% increased risk of cardiovascular events in those with vitamin D levels <20>20 ng/ml after factoring in all standard risk factors.

Another NHANES analysis showed the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in those with cardiovascular disease.

2) A German study of 2500 participants that showed showed the lowest quartile of vitamin D levels (<13.3>28.4 ng/ml.

3) The Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study of 18,000 males showed a 2.4-fold increase in cardiovascular events in those with vitamin D levels <15>30 ng/ml.

While we lack treatment data (vitamin D vs. placebo) in a large population, we do have data that Suzie Rockway, Mary Kwasny (both from Rush University, Chicago) and I generated on the effect of vitamin D as a part of a broader treatment program on coronary calcium scores:

Effect of a Combined Therapeutic Approach of Intensive Lipid Management, Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplementation, and Increased Serum 25 (OH) Vitamin D on Coronary Calcium Scores in Asymptomatic Adults.
Davis W, Rockway S, Kwasny M. Amer J Ther 2008 (Dec 15).

The impact of intensive lipid management, omega-3 fatty acid, and vitamin D3 supplementation on atherosclerotic plaque was assessed through serial computed tomography coronary calcium scoring (CCS). Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol reduction with statin therapy has not been shown to reduce or slow progression of serial CCS in several recent studies, casting doubt on the usefulness of this approach for tracking atherosclerotic progression. In an open-label study, 45 male and female subjects with CCS of >/= 50 without symptoms of heart disease were treated with statin therapy, niacin, and omega-3 fatty acid supplementation to achieve low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglycerides /=60 mg/dL; and vitamin D3 supplementation to achieve serum levels of >/=50 ng/mL 25(OH) vitamin D, in addition to diet advice. Lipid profiles of subjects were significantly changed as follows: total cholesterol -24%, low-density lipoprotein -41%; triglycerides -42%, high-density lipoprotein +19%, and mean serum 25(OH) vitamin D levels +83%. After a mean of 18 months, 20 subjects experienced decrease in CCS with mean change of -14.5% (range 0% to -64%); 22 subjects experienced no change or slow annual rate of CCS increase of +12% (range 1%-29%). Only 3 subjects experienced annual CCS progression exceeding 29% (44%-71%). Despite wide variation in response, substantial reduction of CCS was achieved in 44% of subjects and slowed plaque growth in 49% of the subjects applying a broad treatment program.


I also summed up the data as of early 2008 in a Life Extension article:

Vitamin D's Crucial Role in Cardiovascular Protection


I do agree with Mr. Faloon: It's time to take the vitamin D issue very seriously. Personally, I think it is foolhardy to not correct vitamin D deficiency, even in the absence of long-term treatment data.

Should we subject people living in tropical climates with vitamin D blood levels of 90 ng/ml to long-term observation? Though that has not yet been done, it has been done--in effect--through observations on the prevalence of diabetes, heart disease, and various cancers by latitude: the farther away from the equator, the greater the prevalence of these diseases.

That's more than good enough for me.

Thiazide diuretics: Treatment of choice for high blood pressure?

5. January 2009 William Davis (14)
Thiazide diuretics are a popular first-line treatment for hypertension among the primary care set.

This practice became especially well-established with the 2002 publication of the ALLHAT Study (Major Outcomes in High-Risk Hypertensive Patients Randomized to Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitor or Calcium Channel Blocker vs Diuretic:The Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT)).

ALLHAT showed that an inexpensive diuretic like chlorthalidone (a weak diuretic in the thiazide class, similar to hydrochlorothiazide) as first-line treatment for hypertension achieved equivalent reductions in cardiovascular events (cardiovasular death and heart attack) as non-thiazide antihypertensives, lisinopril (an ACE inhibitor) and amlodipine (a calcium channel blocker, better known as Norvasc).

After 7 years of treatment, there was 14% death or heart attack among all three groups--no difference.

This was interpreted to mean that inexpensive thiazide diuretics like chlorthalidone offer as much benefit as other blood pressure medications at reduced cost.

On the surface, that's great. Anything that detracts from the ubiquitous pharmaceutical industry propaganda of bigger, better, more expensive drugs to replace old, inexpensive, generic drugs is fine by me.

But you knew there'd be more to this issue! If we accept that thiazides are equivalent to other single-drug treatments for high blood pressure, what do we do with the following issues:

--Thiazides deplete body potassium-This effect can be profound. In fact, built into the ALLHAT mortality rate is an expected death rate from potassium depletion. When potassium in the body and blood go low, the heart becomes electrically unstable and dangerous rhythms develop.

--Thiazides deplete magnesium--Similar in implication to the potassium loss, magnesium loss also creates electrical instability in the heart, not to mention exaggeration of insulin resistance, rise in triglycerides, reduction in HDL.

--Thiazides reduce HDL cholesterol

--Thiazides increase triglycerides

--Thiazides increase small LDL particles--You know, the number one cause for heart disease in the U.S.

--Thiazides increase uric acid--Uric acid is increasingly looking like a coronary risk factor: The higher the uric acid blood level, the greater the risk for heart attack. Thiazides have long been known to increase uric acid, occasionally sufficient to trigger attacks of gout (uric acid crystals that precipitate in joints, like rock candy). (Fully detailed Special Report on uric acid coming this week on the Track Your Plaque website.)

What about the advice we commonly give people to hydrate themselves generously? Yet we give them diuretics? Which is it: More hydration or less hydration? You can't have both.

Do thiazides exert an apparent cardiovascular risk reduction in a society due to its flagrant sodium obsession?

Thus, there are a number of inconsistencies in the thinking surrounding thiazides. In my experience, I have seen more harm done than good using these agents. While I cannot fully reconcile the reported benefit seen in ALLHAT with what I see in real life, all too often I see people having to take another drug to make up for a side-effect of a thiazide diuretic (e.g., high-dose prescription potassium to replace lost potassium, allopurinol to reduce uric acid, etc.). I have seen many people get hospitalized, even suffer near-fatal or fatal events from extremely low potassium or magnesium levels.

My personal view: ALLHAT or no, avoid thiazide diuretics like the plague. Sure, it might save money on a population basis, but I suspect that the ALLHAT data are deeply misleading.

What's better than a thiazide, calcium blocker, or ACE inhibitor? How about vitamin D restoration, thyroid normalization, wheat elimination?

"High-dose" Vitamin D

30. December 2008 William Davis (43)
I stumbled on one of the growing number of local media stories on the power of vitamin D.

In one story, a purported "expert" was talking about the benefits of "high-dose" vitamin D, meaning up to 1000, even 2000 units per day.

I regard this as high-dose---for an infant.

Judging by my experiences, now numbering well over 1000 patients over three years time, I'd regard this dose range not as "high dose," nor moderate dose, perhaps not even low dose. I'd regard it as barely adequate.

Though needs vary widely, the majority of men require 6000 units per day, women 5000 units per day. Only then do most men and women achieve what I'd define as desirable: 60-70 ng/ml 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood level.

I base this target level by extrapolating from several simple observations:

--In epidemiologic studies, a blood level of 52 ng/ml seems to be an eerily consistent value: >52 ng/ml and cancer of the colon, breast, and prostate become far less common; <52 ng/ml and cancers are far more likely. I don't know about you, but I'd like to have a little larger margin of safety than just achieving 52.1 ng/ml.

--Young people (not older people >40 years old, who have lost most of the capacity to activate vitamin D in the skin) who obtain several days to weeks of tropical sun typically have 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood levels of 80-100 ng/ml without adverse effect.

More recently, having achieved this target blood level in many people, I can tell you confidently that achieving this blood level of vitamin D achieves:

--Virtual elimination of "winter blues" and seasonal affective disorder in the great majority
--Dramatic increases in HDL cholesterol (though full effect can require a year to develop)
--Reduction in triglycerides
--Modest reduction in blood pressure
--Dramatic reduction in c-reactive protein (far greater than achieved with Crestor, JUPITER trial or no)
--Increased bone density (improved osteoporosis/osteopenia)
--Halting or reversal of aortic valve disease

(I don't see enough cancer in my cardiology practice to gauge whether or not there has been an impact on cancer incidence.)

My colleagues who have bothered to participate in the vitamin D conversation have issued warnings about not going "overboard" with vitamin D, generally meaning a level of >30 ng/ml.

I know of no rational basis for these cautions. If hypercalcemia (increased blood calcium) is the concern, then calcium levels can be monitored. I can reassure them that calcium levels virtually never go up in people (without rare diseases like sarcoid or hyperparathyroidism). Then why any hesitation in recreating blood levels that are enjoyed by tropical inhabitants exposed to plentiful sun that achieve these extraordinary health effects?

For the present, I have applied the target level of 60-70 ng/ml without apparent ill-effect. In fact, I have witnessed nothing but hugely positive effects.

Vitamin D Home Test

29. December 2008 William Davis (13)
The ever-resourceful Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council has announced the availability of an at-home, self-ordered vitamin D test kit for $65. The Vitamin D Council newsletter is reprinted below.

(However, please note that, as wonderful as the advice Dr. Cannell provides, I don't agree on several small points, such as the lack of need for vitamin D if you use a tanning bed or obtain "sufficient" sun; I have seen many people with dark tans, virtually all over 40 years old, who are still severely deficient. I attribute this to the lost capacity for vitamin D activation as we age.)

I have not used this service. Should anyone choose to try it, please let us know how it goes.



The Vitamin D Newsletter
December 28, 2008

The Vitamin D Council is happy to announce that we have partnered with ZRT Laboratory to provide an inexpensive, $65.00, in-home, accurate, vitamin D [25(OH)D] test. The usual cost for this test is between $100.00 and $200.00.

If you read this newsletter, you know about our interest in accurate vitamin D testing. In the next few weeks, you may read about the Vitamin D Council's quest for accurate vitamin D blood tests in the national media. Before we partnered with ZRT, we verified, repeatedly, that ZRT provides accurate and reliable vitamin D tests and that their method corresponds very well to the gold standard of vitamin D blood tests, the DiaSorin RIA.

Our ZRT service is not just inexpensive, it means no more worrying about your doctor ordering the right test or interpreting it correctly. You buy the test kit on the internet or by phone, a few days later the kit comes in the mail, you or a nurse friend do a finger stick, collect a few drops of blood, and send the blotter paper back to ZRT in the postage paid envelope provided with the kit. A week later you get results back in the mail and know accurate 25-hydroxy-vitamin D levels of you and your family.

For every test you order, ZRT will donate $10.00 to the Vitamin D Council. Please read the new page hyperlinked below on our website as it both explains the procedure and how to order the test.

http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/deficiency/am-i-vitamin-d-deficient.shtml

Executive summary: keep your family's 25-hydroxy-vitamin D blood test above 50 ng/ml, year around. Most adults need at least 5,000 IU per day, especially this time of year. Most children need at least 1,000 IU per day per every 25 pounds of body weight. Bio Tech Pharmacal provides high quality and inexpensive vitamin D. Currently Bio Tech Pharmacal is providing vitamin D for numerous scientific studies. To see their prices and for ordering, click the hyperlink below.

http://www.bio-tech-pharm.com/catalog.aspx?cat_id=2

As a gift to our readers for the New Year, Thorne publications have provided a free download to a basic paper about vitamin D. I wrote it earlier this year for educated lay people as well as health care practitioners. Please read this paper carefully, your family's well-being, even lives, may depend on you understanding it.

http://www.thorne.com/altmedrev/.fulltext/13/1/6.pdf

Seasons Greetings
John Cannell, MD
vitamindcouncil.org

Where do Track Your Plaque membership revenues go?

26. December 2008 William Davis (9)
People pay about $90 per year to become Members on the Track Your Plaque website. This provide access to our in-depth Special Reports, guides, webinars, and our proprietary software data tracking tools. Members can also participate in online discussions, such as those in the Track Your Plaque Forum and chats.

Why is there a charge for membership in the program and where does the money go?

Money raised from membership fees goes towards:

1) The costs of doing business, e.g., server fees, software purchases, legal fees. Hosting webinars, for instance, costs us about $99 per month for the GoToWebinar software service.

2) Software development--Our most recent round of software data tracking tools, for instance, cost us nearly $30,000. That may not be a lot from big business standards, but it is onerous enough that obtaining membership dues really helps.

3) Graphics development--A website without graphics would be awfully dull, regardless of the quality of the textual content. Some of the newest tools on the Track Your Plaque website require photography and graphics work, which can add up very quickly.


Where membership fees do NOT go:

1) In our pockets--In fact, except for the various contractors who are paid for their services (e.g., software developers), NOBODY on the Track Your Plaque staff are paid: not me, nor any of the behind-the-scenes staff. Some of the staff overlap with my office staff, but they are paid purely out of the office revenues, not out of Track Your Plaque membership dues.

2) Towards overhead costs beyond those listed above--For example, membership fees do not pay for office lease, utilities, phones, etc.


We rely on membership fees because we have chosen to remain as free of commercial bias as possible. We host no advertising, we have no behind-the-scenes corporate or institutional agendas, we show no favoritism to any business or commercial operation. We believe this permits editorial freedom that few other health websites can enjoy. (In fact, I know of no other that is so free of commercial bias, outside of small blogs or narrow-interest websites.)

If you want to see what damage commercial bias can create, just go to a health website like WebMD. I challenge you to find information that is not flagrantly biased by commercial influence, namely that of the drug industry. (According to the WebMD SEC filings, in fact, the great majority--approximately 80%--of their $331 million revenues (2007) were derived directly or indirectly from the drug industry.) This commercial bias reaches into all of WebMD's related businesses, including MedicineNet.com, RxList.com, Medscape.com, and several others.

Preventing heart disease is not a money maker, sad to say. It is, from the perspective of conventional heart care, a big money loser. Undergo a heart catheterization, hospitalization, stent or bypass for anywhere from $14,000 to well over $100,000---or pay $90 for in-depth health information that dramatically reduces the potential need for the hospital and its procedures, minimizes need for prescription medication (statins alone, of course, are a $27 billion annual revenue phenomenon), and achieves all this by maximizing nutrition, self-purchased nutritional supplements, and inexpensive heart scans. Nobody is going to make a bundle off of this approach.

So that is why we charge a membership fee. I often get a laugh from some of the comments of people on this blog or even in my office who believe that we are rolling in money from the website from membership dues. The opposite is true: We don't pay ourselves. Virtually every penny is reinvested back into the website to better serve the Members.

Self-empowerment is coming!

11. June 2006 William Davis (0)
I've discussed this before: The coming wave of self-empowerment in health. Health that is driven by you, not a hospital, not a doctor, not by procedures, but by information and access to tools that are powerful and effective.

The seeds are being planted right now and won't take full root for many years or decades. But it's going to happen.

I previously cited several broad trends that are examples of this emerging wave:

--The nutritional supplement movement. Contrary to the media's ill-informed bashing, nutritional supplements are getting better: improved quality, better substantiation of when/how to use them, new agents that appear rapidly, since introduction is not slowed by the molasses of the FDA.

--Medications moving to over-the-counter status. Health insurers are driving this one. OTC means not paid for by insurance. That also means access to you.

--What I call "retail imaging", i.e. screening ultrasound, heart scans, full body scans, etc. that are available in most states without a doctor's order.

--The Internet. The mind-boggling rapidity and depth of information available on the Internet today is fueling the self-empowerment movement by providing sophisticated information to health care consumers. Information here is uneven at present. But, as consumer sophistication increases and the system of checks and balances evolves, internet-driven information will be often superior to what you get from a doctor or other health professional.

--High-deductible health insurance plans. If health care consumers bear more and more of the costs of health care, they will seize greater responsibility for early identification and prevention and minimize long-term costs.

This trend does not mean treating your own infection, taking out your own gall bladder, repairing your own broken leg. It means that conventional routes of health delivery will recede into providing only catastrophic care.

It means that you and your family will take a larger role in learning how to eat and exercise properly, use foods to maintain and promote health (the "designer food" and "nutraceutical" movement), take supplements that have real benefits, use medications for treatment of many everyday ailments.

It also means seizing control of diseases that previously were only treated in hospitals, like coronary heart disease. This, of course, is where our program, Track Your Plaque, is an example of how you can have a powerful and effective role in your heart health. Track Your Plaque goes so far beyond the "eat low-fat, exercise, and know your numbers" media mantra that it's like comparing a brand-new Mercedes to a rusted, run-down '87 Ford Escort. There truly is no comparison. (Sorry if you're an Escort driver!) But you get the idea.

Another option for lipoprotein testing

9. June 2006 William Davis (0)

For those of you who have been frustrated in trying to get your lipoprotein analysis performed, here's another option.

The Life Extension Foundation at www.lef.org provides access to the VAP test, or Vertical Auto Profiler. This is the lipoprotein test run by the Atherotech company in Birmingham, Alabama. The name refers to the method used, a form of centrifugation, or high-speed spinning of your blood (plasma) to separate the various components by density.

This is a fine technique that works well. Though our preferred method is NMR (www.Lipoprofile.com, Liposcience Inc.), the Atherotech VAP is a reasonable alternative.

If you go through the Life Extension process, they will direct you to blood draw sites in your area. They charge $185 for Life Extension members, $247 for non-members. (Membership in Life Extension costs $75.) Drawback: No billing for health insurance reimbursement.

A full description of the significance of lipoproteins can also be found in my article posted on-line at the www.lef.org website at http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/may2006_report_heart_01.htm

Weight and lipoproteins

8. June 2006 William Davis (0)
Tom, an accountant, came into the office eager to know what his 2nd heart scan score showed.

A year ago, Tom's view of himself as a healthy, middle-aged man was shattered when he found out his heart scan score: 1236. Tom had severe coronary plaque with a heart attack risk of 25% per year (without intensive preventive action).

In the way of lipoprotein abnormalities, he had several: low HDL, deficient large HDL, small LDL, high triglycerides, IDL (the after-eating inability to clear dietary fats), and a high blood sugar in the pre-diabetic range. In addition, Tom was hypertensive, with blood pressure so high it even landed him in the emergency room last winter.

In addition to our approach to correct all these patterns, Tom was urged to lose a significant quantity of weight. Starting at 225 lb., at 5 ft 7 inches, Tom was clearly at least 40 lbs over his ideal weight.

I stressed to Tom that the entire spectrum of causes of coronary plaque were weight-related. I likened his patterns to throwing gasoline on a fire: As weight increased, his lipoprotein and other abnormalties flared dramatically.

But each time Tom came back to the office over the ensuing year, he'd gained another 3 to 6 lbs. And each time he had an explanation. "My daughter just got married. I couldn't turn down wedding cake, now could I?" Or, I just survived another tax season. I was working day and night--no time for exercise!" "It's getting too hot to walk anymore."

Well, despite multiple treatments, Tom's repeat heart scan showed a score of 1677, a 35% increase. That's a dangerous rate of growth that virtually guarantees that plaque is building up momentum to "rupture", which results in heart attack.

I therefore stressed to Tom that weight loss was crucial. Control of coronary plaque was simply not going to occur without weight loss to our target. Alternatively, we could add several new prescription medicines and hope that they could achieve the same effect, though at a price (side-effects, expense).

I tell Tom's story to highlight again just how important weight loss can be for a number of lipoprotein abnormalities.

What measures specifically are sensitive to weight? They are:

--HDL cholesterol
--Triglycerides
--Small LDL
--VLDL
--Blood pressure
--Blood sugar and insulin
--C-reactive protein
--LDL

Weight exerts profound influence on these patterns. In Tom and people like him, weight can be a "make it or break it" issue.

If you, like Tom, have any of the above patterns, consider weight loss as a potent tool you can use to gain control of coronary plaque.

Variation in vitamin D requirements

7. June 2006 William Davis (0)

For Track Your Plaque followers, you know we are very concerned about vitamin D blood levels. My prediction is that, in 10 years, vitamin D will be regarded as an important item on the list of coronary artery disease risk factors.

In our experience of trying to stop or reverse heart scan scores, restoration of vitamin D to a blood level of 50 ng/ml appears to have increased our success rate dramatically.

As we've talked about before, on the bell curve of vitamin D dosing in a northern climate, the majority of women require 2000 units per day, men require 3000 units per day to achieve a level of 50 ng. However, there are "outliers" on this bell curve, i.e., people who require much more or much less.

This week, I saw two people who were very instructive cases of extreme requirements on the high end of vitamin D dosing. Both started with unmeasurable blood levels, i.e., essentially zero ng/ml. On 5000 units of vitamin D per day, both raised their blood levels to around 17-18 ng/ml--in the range of severe deficiency (defined as <20 ng/ml). I advised both to increase their oral dose of vitamin D to 8000 units per day.

Notably, both people avoided sunlight and lived in Wisconsin, a terribly sun-deprived locale 10 months a year. Both were also substantially overweight (around 300 lbs each).

The vitamin D issue continues to be endlessly fascinating in all its nuances and twists.

Heart attacks in your own backyard

7. June 2006 William Davis (0)
Two men from my community just died of heart attacks. Both were in their 40s.

What bothers me most about these all too frequent stories is that it is so preventable. You can bet that both had little or no symptoms prior to their deaths. You can also bet that they've had cholesterol panels taken by their doctors.

Followers of the Track Your Plaque program know that these are sure-fire paths to failure. The absence of heart disease symptoms should provide no reassurance whatsoever. High cholesterol, in-between cholesterol, low cholesterol--none are confident indicators in a specific individual.

Stress test? How about the patient I saw today who, until I met him, had been undergoing stress test after stress test, every year--all while the quantity of coronary plaque tripled. False reassurances provided by his cardiologist led him to believe that all was well--while this stack of oily rags was just waiting for the spark to ignite.

Too little time, too much money, too far away--there's a hundred excuses for not getting a heart scan. Or, you've had a heart scan and no one can tell you what to do about it. If you're reading this, however, you've found the most intensive source of information available on how your heart scan can serve as the start of a program of heart attack prevention for a life free of dangers.

It's not that tough. But it won't just go away on its own. I just have to look around me in my own community, watch the local news, talk to friends, and I'll heart about all the people just in my neighborhood who should be learning these lessons. I rant and rave about this but some people need to hear it from a friend, colleague, neighbor, rather than some crazy doctor bucking the standard line.

You, too, should be telling anyone who will listen about how heart disease can be identified and controlled.

Pilot lands safely after heart attack, then dies

6. June 2006 William Davis (1)
That was the disturbing headline on a report from MSNBC, also reported nationally on all the major news networks.

The story goes on:

"A pilot suffering a heart attack made an emergency landing on a highway, saving his three passengers shortly before he died...He landed the single-engine Cessna 185 on Utah 30 near Park Valley and was taken to Bear River Hospital in Tremonton, where he died."

We track these sorts of stories and it's frightening just how common they are. A school bus driver recently had a heart attack while driving 30 children; the bus crashed but no one was hurt. A 52-year old commercial bus driver suffered a heart attack while transporting 49 conference attendees; the bus plunged 400 feet down a ravine. Remarkably, 17 passengers suffered only minor injuries and there were no deaths.

There have even been incidents where the pilot of a jet liner suffered a heart attack in-flight. In 2000, the 53-year old pilot of a Northwest Airlines DC-10 died while in-flight from a heart attack while landing in Minneapolis. The 290 passengers were landed safely by co-pilot.

Most incidents where the driver or pilot has been incapacitated or died resulted in the deaths of only a handful of people. No major catastrophe has yet occured. But--mark my words--it will. These incidents just happen too frequently.

Virtually all of these and similar incidents could have been prevented. If the FAA, for instance, would insist that all pilots have a simple CT heart scan, it would become immediately obvious which pilots should be grounded and who should fly. Similar requirements could easily be applied to persons in charge of the welfare of many people, most notably school bus drivers.

It's not that tough! The FAA currently requires stress testing and cholesterol testing. Well, guess what? Followers of the Track Your Plaque program know that these tests do not effectively identify the person at risk for heart attack in the majority of individuals. Just ask former President Bill Clinton how helpful his stress tests (five in a row!) were. Or how valuable his cholesterol monitoring was--all prior to his emergency bypass surgery.

Large new clinical study launched to study. . .niacin

5. June 2006 William Davis (3)

Oxford University has issued a press release announcing plans for a new clinical trial to raise HDL cholesterol and reduce heart attack risk. 20,000 participants will be enrolled in this substantial effort. The agent? Niacin.

How is that new? Well, this time niacin comes with a new spin.

Dr. Jane Armitage, formerly with the Heart Protection Study that showed that simvastatin (Zocor) reduced heart attack risk regardless of starting LDL, is lead investigator. She hopes to prove that niacin raises HDL cholesterol and thereby reduces heart attack risk. But, this time, niacin will be combined with an inhibitor of prostaglandins that blocks the notorious "flushing" effect of niacin.

The majority of Track Your Plaque participants hoping to control or reverse coronary plaque take niacin. Recall that niacin (vitamin B3)is an extremely effect agent that raises HDL, dramatically reduces small LDL, shifts HDL particles into the effective large fraction, reduces triglycerides and triglyceride-containing particles like IDL and VLDL. Several studies have shown that niacin dramatically reduces heart attack. The HATS Study showed that niacin combined with Zocor yielded an 85-90% reduction in heart attack risk and achieved regression of coronary plaque in many participants.

In our experience, approximately 1 in 20 people will really struggle using niacin. Flushes for these occasional people will be difficult or even intolerable. Should Dr. Armitage's study demonstrate that this new combination agent does provide advantages in minimizing the hot flush effect, that will be a boon for the occasional Track Your Plaque participant who finds conventional niacin intolerable.

But you already have access to niacin, an agent with an impressive track record even without this new study. And you have a reasonably effective prostaglandin inhibitor, as well: aspirin. Good old aspirin is very useful, particularly in the first few months of your niacin initiation to blunt the flush.

Although this study is likely to further popularize niacin and allow its broader use, it's also a method for the drug companies to profit from an agent they know works but is cheap and available.

You don't have to wait. You already have niacin and aspirin available to you.

The dark side of CT heart scans

4. June 2006 William Davis (0)
"I just got a heart scan!" declared Eric to his doctor. He handed the report to him.

"Oh my. Your score is 154." The doctor paused, then looked at Eric with a serious look on his face. "If we're going to understand whether or not you're in danger, you'll need a heart catheterization."


I've seen this happen countless times. How can I say this diplomatically? THIS IS WRONG!! In my view, it's absolutely criminal for this to happen. Physician ignorance, profiteering, whatever--it is wrong.

There's very few reasons why someone who has no symptoms should go directly to the cath lab for a procedure. (A rare exception might be an exceptional quantity of plaque in the left mainstem artery, e.g., >100. This is highly unusual.)

Even a nuclear stress test (e.g., thallium) at this level of scoring is only 10-15% likely to be abnormal. That means 85-90% likelihood of being normal. There's rare reasons to perform a heart catheterization in a person with no symptoms and an entirely normal stress test. The vast majority of people like Eric do not need a heart catheterization to discern risk.

If Eric's doctor had been up-to-date on the published literature on the prognostic value of heart scans, he could have advised Eric what the risks were--without a catheterization. Many doctors simply don't want to be bothered. Or, they opt for the more profitable method--a hospital procedure.

Always discuss your heart scan with your doctor--but be armed with information in case your doctor is uninformed or unscrupulous. Unfortunately, that's not uncommon. The Track Your Plaque program is your advocate, a source for unbiased information.

The dirty little secret about aneurysms

2. June 2006 William Davis (1)
Jake had an abdominal aneurysm identified--by accident.

While getting a CT scan of his abdomen for unexplained abdominal pain, a 4.4 cm aneurysm was discovered. Jake's abdominal pain eventually passed without explanation, but he was left with this aneurysm.

Jake's primary care doctor referred him to a surgeon. "It's too small to require surgery right now. Wait a few years and it'll probably get bigger. When it gets to around 5.5 cm, that'll be the time to operate. Let's schedule an abdominal ultrasound or CT scan every 6 months."

Jake then got himself a heart scan. His high score of 879 then led him to my office. Lipoprotein testing, a stress test, correction of his lipoprotein patterns, changes in lifestyle followed. One year later, Jake's heart scan score was unchanged.

How about his abdominal aneurysm? 4.2 cm--a modest quantity of regression. When Jake's surgeon learned of the change, he just shrugged. "Okay, we'll just watch it from here."

Shockingly, the conversation surrounding aneurysms is just like the one Jake received: Let's just watch it grow until you need surgery.

If you've every seen anyone have abdominal aneurysm surgery, you know it is an awful, painful, barbaric process with high risk for major complications like kidney failure and loss of the legs. Waiting for an aneurysm to grow is a lousy solution. Surgeons point out that, although surgery is imperfect, it's better than the alternative: rupture, which is catastrophic with a 50% chance of dying.

But what about stopping the growth of the aneurysm? Or even reversing, or shrinking, it?

Surgeons say it can't be done. Yet we've done it--many times. And it's not that difficult.

The steps to take are very similar to that in the Track Your Plaque program for coronary plaque regression, with a few different strategies. Suppression of inflammation, for instance, plays a more important role and blood pressure must be abolutely normal, even during exercise.

More to come on this important topic in the future, including an upcoming Special Report on the www.cureality.com membership website.

Heart scan scores dropping like stones!!

1. June 2006 William Davis (0)
I saw two instances of dramatic coronary plaque regression today.

John, a 53-years old mechanical lift operator, dropped his heart scan score from 479 to 323--a 32% regression of coronary plaque volume!

Eric, a 50-year consulting engineer, dropped his heart scan score from 668 to 580--a 13% reduction.

Both men did nothing special beyond the principles advocated in the Track Your Plaque program. Recall that, without preventive efforts, your heart scan score is expected to increase by 30% per year. Both men are well on their way to freedom from risk of coronary "events".

Two less people to feed the revenue-hungry hospital procedure system! We need many more like them.