The perfect Frankengrain

4. February 2011 William Davis (25)
Pretend I'm a mad food scientist. I'd like to create a food that:

1) Wreaks gastrointestinal havoc and cause intractable diarrhea, cramps, and anemia.
2) Kills some people who consume it after a long, painful course of illness.
3) Damages the brain and nervous system such that some people wet their pants, lose balance, and lose the ability to feel their feet and legs.
4) Brings out the mania of bipolar illness.
5) Amplifies auditory hallucinations in people with paranoid schizophrenia.
6) Makes people diabetic by increasing blood sugars.
7) Worsens arthritis, such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis.
8) Triggers addictive eating behavior.
9) Punishes you with a withdrawal process if you try to remove it from your diet.

I will develop a strain that is exceptionally hardy and tolerates diverse conditions so that it can grow in just about any climate. It should also be an exceptionally high yield crop, so that I can sell it cheaply to the masses.

Now, if my evil scheme goes as planned, I will then persuade the USDA that not only is my food harmless, but it is good for health. If they really take the bait, they might even endorse it, create a diet program around it.

Dag nabit! Such a plan has already been implemented. Another evil food scientist already beat me to the punch. The food is called wheat.
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Comments (25) -

  • Anonymous

    2/3/2011 9:03:26 PM |

    Interesting story from the UK:

    How can a fit, clean-living 32-year-old have a heart attack? For Martin the answer was in his genes. Like thousands he suffers from INHERITED high cholesterol

    "He was diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolaemia (FH), an inherited condition where the body cannot clear ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol from the blood."

    His arteries were so clogged that he needed a triple heart bypass — where blood vessels are taken from elsewhere in the body, usually the chest and legs, and used to create a new route for the blood to flow around the blockages.

    An estimated 100,000 people in Britain are living with FH but don’t know it, according to a report published last week by the Royal College of Physicians.

    The condition could kill them at any moment.

    So how could an apparently healthy man have such dangerous levels of cholesterol? Cholesterol is a waxy ­substance produced by the liver from the saturated fat we eat.

    It plays a vital role in the function of cells and production of hormones and vitamin D.

    Once it has done its job in the body, it’s also the liver’s job to remove it. In healthy people, this happens automatically.

    ‘The liver has “finger receptors” that reach out and grab hold of “bad” LDL cholesterol particles as they pass,’ says Professor Steve Humphries, the new report’s author and director of the Centre for Cardiovascular Genetics at University College London.

    ‘Good’ HDL cholesterol travels to the ­arteries to help unblock them before it also goes back to the liver to be removed by another set of receptors.

    ‘Once inside the liver, the cholesterol gets broken down, sent to the intestines and is then passed out of the body,’ says ­Professor Humphries.

    ‘But in people with FH, these receptors don’t work properly, so the cholesterol builds up in the blood.’

    (With the more common form of high cholesterol, the problem is that the patient has too much LDL for the receptors to cope with.)

    Over time, cholesterol deposits build up in the arteries, restricting blood flow to the heart and increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

    By the age of 55, if left untreated, half of men with FH will have developed heart disease, while a third of women with it will develop heart disease by 60.

    While most FH sufferers have heart attacks in their 50s and 60s, some, such as Martin, can be affected in their 30s and 40s — with no warning signs."

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1352284/How-fit-clean-living-32-year-old-heart-attack.html

  • chaim

    2/3/2011 9:35:02 PM |

    Dr
    what is better to use regular glutten bread or whole wheat?

  • Anonymous

    2/3/2011 9:55:31 PM |

    Doc Davis,

    I am a fan of your blog, follow it religiously and have commented many times. You provide great advice and we are all thankful for it.

    That being said it, the content has become repetitive. Wheat is unhealthy. It has many negative side effects. It hates puppies and kittens. And babies. We get it.

    I'd love to read more content about other health subjects.

    Please take this in the spirit it was intended.
    -WheatFreeSince2003NotReallyButItRhymes

  • chaim

    2/3/2011 10:09:57 PM |

    Anon

    there are new ppl in this blog like me ,that did not reed all the posts

    For me ,it is a new thing as for many newcomers

    I never liked wheat, but I thought that was healthy

    We eat challah every Friday, my wife wanted to change it for whole wheat challah


    I dunno if to keep the same challah or to change for whole wheat

  • Dr. William Davis

    2/3/2011 11:47:58 PM |

    Hi, Chaim--

    Makes no difference. All the same.


    Hi, Anonymous--

    I hear you. However, as Chaim points out, there are usually several hundred new people here per day who still ask questions like "why no wheat?" So I re-explore some of the most common concerns.

  • terrence

    2/3/2011 11:56:37 PM |

    Dr Davis - I read your blog regularly, and have for a year or two now.

    I do NOT find your posts about the ills of wheat to be at all repetitive. What you have to say is always informative and often very funny.

    Please do NOT stop posting about wheat.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    2/4/2011 12:18:28 AM |

    Bedside manners may not be Doc's strong point. Once he almost   insulted Frankengrain's Aunt Butter (newbies can scroll blog's Labels, click "butter" & view comments).

  • DK

    2/4/2011 1:08:28 AM |

    Any evidence for any of this? And I mean real and solid evidence, not a bunch of anecdotes.

  • revelo

    2/4/2011 1:13:15 AM |

    You still haven't explained why the traditional people of Sardinia and Crete were so long-lived and healthy in old age (shepherds carrying heavy loads up steep mountain trails at the age of 90, etc), despite eating huge amounts of wheat (we're talking upwards of 750 grams of wheat bread per day for an active worker). For poor folk, the diet was mostly wheat, olive oil and wine, plus fruits, nuts and vegetables in season. Those with some money supplemented with dairy products, fish and meat. The Cretans and Sardinians were notoriously healthy, but the other traditional people of the Mediterranean basin plus the mountains of central Asia were also quite healthy on this wheat-based diet.

    Note that I use the past tense, because now that most of these peoples have moved to the cities, they are all becoming obese and diabetic and plagued with heart disease and other ailments.

  • Dr. William Davis

    2/4/2011 1:57:14 AM |

    Hi, Revelo--

    I don't know for certain, but I suspect that they are consuming a different genetic strain, e.g., emmer or a different, non-dwarf, variant.

    Wheat is literally 25,000+ different strains. While the majority are quite destructive, there are likely a few less destructive forms. This is one of the reasons I discuss the appeal of einkorn.


    DK and others--

    The evidence for much of this is actually overwhelming. It will be fully articulated in my forthcoming book from Rodale, Wheat Belly,

  • Jim White

    2/4/2011 2:09:07 AM |

    Thanks for the tip on Einkorn wheat. I have now added pasta back into my diet. I had eliminated it due to the huge blood sugar spikes. After eating pasta made from Einkorn wheat my blood sugar tests 100-108 just one hour after eating.  Traditional durem wheat pasta was producing 140+ even 2 hours later. Plus it is good.

  • Amy Dungan

    2/4/2011 4:31:53 AM |

    This is great! I'll be sure to share with the doubters. Smile

  • Anonymous

    2/4/2011 5:55:10 AM |

    Here's what would be more helpful: what to eat once you swear off wheat?
    What are we supposed to do for carbs? Potatoes and rice are glycemic bombs, we're told. Corn doesn't belong in a human diet either. High fructose corn syrup is in absolutely everything. Too much fruit is no good.  Short of somehow becoming a traditional Inuit or living in the induction phase of Atkins the rest of my life, I'm at a loss for ideas. I allow myself some pizza each week and a nice bowl of breakfast cereal, but I'm not extravagant with wheat, yet I have a trigylceride level of 292, HDL of 35, even with fish oil and niacin, and three days a week in the gym.

  • Anonymous

    2/4/2011 8:12:46 AM |

    Anonymous, my own Triglyceride levels came down from 214 just a year ago (at some point they were in the 300s) to 89 just before Christmas. This was by seriously cutting down on all sorts of carbs, I.e, only minimal amounts of bread, pasta, rice, etc. Hilariously, the doctor commented: “but remember, you don't need to cut fat from your diet completely!”. I just grinned. Having said that, I know exactly what you mean. If you go out for food, it is virtually impossible to avoid refined carbs in huge amounts in just about any dish. If you prepare your own food, you will have to discard the bulk of your favorite recipes from the past, and focus on stews etc. It's not easy. Regards, neuroscan.

  • majkinetor

    2/4/2011 2:30:33 PM |

    There is lot of CH in vegetables.

    For instance, 100g of brussels sprout has around 4g of CH.
    Its so delicious when cooked for few minutes in olive oil and/or butter that you can easily eat around 300g per day which gives you 16g.

    Potato is good alternative. Its hi GI (and GL) but, high GI foods in small amounts don't rise sugar. Amount is important. One boiled potato for instance.

    Other stuff: carrot, black chocolate (75%++ cocoa), oat brans, cashews, cranberries.

    Those are extremely healthy foods with good amount of slow carbs.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    2/4/2011 4:32:03 PM |

    Hi Revelo,
    Twice here I've seen mention of Crete & Sicily intake. Those islands' heat and humidity foster unique symbionts.

    Temperature will influence the varieties of soil bacteria. Based on the prophylactic gastro-intestinal affect of Japan's Natto I'd look to a local strain of Bacillus subtilis found on the drying wheat stalks.

    Humidity will influence the varieties of mycotic (fungi) strains post-harvest grain is exposed to. Rural storage isn't hermeticly controlled conditions.
    Based on human prophylactic gastro-intestinal affect of Japan's Koji (Amazake)I'd look for fungal mycellium of a local Aspergillus strain.

    Swine, whether kept as pigs or feral boars, expose country folk to non-symptomatic helminths (worms). Human immune system modulates away from auto-immune response in reaction to them. I'd look at the swine Whipworm species interaction.

    Robust rural 90 year olds are gaunt and conditioned. Carbohydrate based diets facilitate this by producing triglycerides to send out from the liver. In between the muscle cell's, and not fat, these are stored as di-acyl-glycerides.

    A genetic/epigentic determined copy number variation of an enzyme influences our ability to convert "di-" back into tri-acyl-glyceride (triglycerides). The muscle then "burns" this on site for a lot of energy. My 2000 decade co-villagers relied on tubers (carbohydrate); one reputedly closing in on 100 years regularly walked many kilometers.

  • thehurricane

    2/4/2011 6:59:00 PM |

    That pretty much sums it up...  I love this blog.

  • thehurricane

    2/4/2011 7:01:03 PM |

    Anonymous...
    It might be repetitive but he does update his blog EVERY day... this in addition to being a doctor, husband, parent.  The fact is that wheat really is so destructive and addictive for some people that it's worth repeating every day.  
    Keep at it Doc and I am looking forward to your book!

  • Patricia D.

    2/4/2011 7:50:30 PM |

    Regarding the connection between Urinary incontinence and wheat ...

    A connection has also been noted between Vitamin D3 deficiency and urinary incontinence.  There was a study from SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, N.Y from March 2010:
    http://www.webmd.com/urinary-incontinence-oab/news/20100322/low-vitamin-d-linked-incontinence

    I began to optimize my VD3 levels late in 2009 and this was one of the first benefits I realized - within a few months this situation had improved dramatically for me.  

    Then we started to cut way back on our wheat consumption in the fall of last year.

    It would be hard at this point for me to determine that having cut back on wheat is also having an impact - but there has been no obvious improvement.  Perhaps complete wheat elimination would have a more telling effect - but I do feel my situation now is near normal, whereas before it was an inconvenient problem of considerable concern.
    *

  • Patricia D.

    2/4/2011 8:02:49 PM |

    I know Dr. Davis did some baking (experiments) with Einkorn wheat.  I've found a few other sites for "heirloom wheat" flours ....
    Anson Mills:
    http://www.ansonmills.com/wheatflour.htm
    and ...
    Kamut: Ancient Grain in Modern Times:
    http://www.suite101.com/content/kamut-ancient-grain-in-modern-times-a89648

    ... and I'm sure there are more.

    These grains also predate the dwarf wheat mutant, and I wonder if anyone here has any experience with these flours?

    I now consider that cutting back on wheat consumption is a lifestyle choice for us and we won't be going back.  But I do occasionally bake a cake, or use a bit of flour to thicken a sauce, and sometimes bake bread.  

    I would like to have an alternate flour in the house that I feel comfortable cooking with.

  • paleoish

    2/5/2011 1:10:12 AM |

    Dr Davis, you have the patience of a saint to humour anonymous coward(s). I DO like reading the reminders of how bad wheat is, because people like me with ambiguous symptoms may or may not ever get a diagnosis of gluten intolerance or celiac disease. My last wheat cheat involved blood, so it's very possible that I have CD, but I dread the diagnostic process. Either way, it is emotionally draining to swim against the tide! Your posts help keep me on the straight and narrow.

    Doc, are there any references or further info on the issue of wheat triggering bipolar manic episodes? I'm having a major "a-ha" moment over this one. I'd love to read more about it. I've been reading your blog and that of Dr Emily for a while, and I don't recall seeing any info on that. Pardon me if I missed it.

  • Kevin

    2/5/2011 8:18:07 PM |

    I can't give up wheat products.  Because if this website I've drastically reduced my intake but haven't been able to make a total break.  Dr D's continual wheat-is-bad theme is pushing me toward my goal.  I do not want him to change this web's focus.  Without it I'd probably revert.  

    kevin

  • skcubrats

    2/9/2011 2:26:15 AM |

    Aren't corn and soybeans just as bad?  I thought he was going to end up with corn.  Remember, 95% aren't eating enough whole grains!  Zero is enough for me!

  • Josh

    2/9/2011 2:51:15 PM |

    Chaim -

    Shalom!  If you make your own hallah try to find some emmer or einkorn and see if that helps.

    If not try making sourdough, since at least the phytic acid is removed by the fermenation.

    It is possible that many Jews are not as sensitive to wheat since we have been eating it for a long time (of cource that was einkorn and emmer).

    Keep in mind you only need to eat a cbeya to wash with a bracha and czayit to bench on.  That's 2oz of bread - really not such a big deal if you're not eating wheat the rest of the week.

    I will also point out that Abraham served cream, butter, and organ meats to his guests.

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Vitamin D deficiency is rampant

12. May 2006 William Davis (0)
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.

What if wheat products were illegal?

11. May 2006 William Davis (3)
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.

The sobering tale of small LDL

10. May 2006 William Davis (0)
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.

Burn off the fat

9. May 2006 William Davis (0)

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.

Go the distance!

8. May 2006 William Davis (0)
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.

What you need is an expert in health!

5. May 2006 William Davis (0)
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.

Lipoprotein(a) and small LDL

4. May 2006 William Davis (1)
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).

"Please don't tell my doctor I had a heart scan!"

30. April 2006 William Davis (1)
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.

Doctor, why do I have heart disease?

30. April 2006 William Davis (0)
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.

Pill pushers

28. April 2006 William Davis (1)
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.