Calculus of the cardiologist 2. November 2006 William Davis (1) I call this the "calculus of the cardiologist":Heart procedures = big moneyMore procedures = more big moneyYou do the math. If you do more procedures, you get more money. What if your patients don't need more procedures? That's easy. You lower the bar on reasons to do procedures. You scare the pants off people and lead them to think that all heart disease or questions about heart disease are potentially life-threatening. You could even appear to be doing the patient a big favor. "My Lord! This is potentially dangerous. We need to perform a procedure without delay!"There are incentives beyond direct cash payment. A patient of mine today showed me a memo to employees in his company that showed why certain hospitals are targeted for care. The criteria for choosing centers was based on number of procedures performed. In other words, the more procedures performed at a hospital, the more procedures will be directed there. Of course, this makes sense at some level. More procedures can also mean greater skill. But have we lost sight of the fact that the mission is not more procedures and more money, but to get rid of a disease? If the intensity of effort devoted to heart procedures were re-directed to early detection, prevention, and reversal of disease, we'd have half the hospitals we now have. We'd also chop a huge chunk out of the national healthcare budget.
Lipoprotein(a) treatment alternatives 1. November 2006 William Davis (2) A question from a reader:Two years ago, my doctor recommended a comprehensive lipid screening because both of my parents had heart disease. My only blood component way out of line was LP (a) [lipoprotein(a)]. It was 130. According to the lab that conducted the screening, Berkeley Heart Lab, a level above 30 should be cause for concern. I was stunned that mine was more than quadruple the danger level.I began taking two grams [2000 mg] of niacin a day in addition to the Lipitor I was already taking. The next reading, a few months later, was 87. Over a period of about 18 months, I had a total of four readings from Berkley Heart Lab. My LP (a) fluctuated in the 80-130 range – still way above normal. My doctor said there was little else I could do to control it.That doctor has since retired. I now see another doctor who uses a different lab. My first LP (a) reading with him a few months ago was 17, which is normal. I am still taking the same amount of niacin and Lipitor and I can’t think of anything that would account for the huge discrepancy. I’m going to have another test again soon.Is one of the labs giving erroneous readings? If so, how can I tell which? If Berkeley Heart Lab is correct, is there anything I can do about my increased coronary risk due to high LP (a)?Tom D.Tom's frustration on the variation of Lp(a) is due to the fact that laboratories run the Lp(a) test by several different techniques and will generate tremendous variation in values. The key is to stick to the same measure over and over from the same lab, else you'll be terribly confused and frustrated. Tom essentially should ignore the value obtained that was unexpectedly low. Another issue: Lp(a) is a turtle. It responds very slowly. In fact, we rarely check it more than once or twice a year. Check it too soon after a treatment change and it won't fully reflect the effect. You've got to wait at least several months before re-checking. How about treatment alternatives? They are:--More niacin. Not my favorite choice, since niacin >2000 mg per day begins to generate more side-effects, but it is a choice. You can go to 4000-5000 per day, but only with your doctor's supervision due to liver effects.--Testosterone for males. We use topical testosterone from Women's International Pharmacy in Madison, Wisconson. Prescription patches like Testim are also effective. --Estrogen for females. This is less "clean" than testosterone, introducing questions about endometrial and breast cancer risk, but it is a choice.--DHEA--A small effect but every little bit can help. We use 25-50 mg per day, depending on blood levels and only if you're 45 years old or older. --l-carnitine--In my experience, a small effect. It requires 2000 mg per day, which is expensive. Sometimes, an expected large effect develops, so it's worth a try if it fits in your budget. --Fibrates--These are the drugs Tricor and Lopid. I don't like these agents very much because I think they're weak, including the effect on Lp(a) reduction. But they are choices for you and your doctor. Lastly, you can simply be guided by your heart scan score. For example, if Tom's initial heart scan score is 200, and he continues his current program and one year later his score is 300, then alternative treatments are worth considering. But what if Tom's score is 189--he's regressed his coronary plaque. Then, who cares what his Lp(a) is? Another issue to keep in mind is that, in the presence of Lp(a), keeping LDL to very low numbers (e.g., 60 mg/dl) may added value in preventing coronary plaque growth.
Trapped in a low-fat world 1. November 2006 William Davis (2) If you would like to...--Reduce (good) HDL--Raise triglycerides, sometimes by hundreds of points--Raise blood sugar into the pre-diabetic range--Raise blood pressure --Accelerate coronary plaque growththen go on a low-fat diet like the one promoted by long-time super low-fat advocate, Dr. Dean Ornish. Every day I have to educate patients that a low-fat diet as advocated by Dr. Ornish is a destructive, counter-productive process that makes coronary plaque grow and increases your heart scan score. If you want to gain control over coronary plaque, do not follow the Ornish program or anything resembling it. The Ornish program is a dead end. Instead, the crucial components of a healthy diet for plaque control are:--Low saturated and hydrogenated fat, but not low all fats. --High monounsaturated and omega-3 fats--Low glycemic index (i.e., slow sugar release)--High fiberThat simple. An excellent program to put these limits to practical use is the South Beach Diet. Or, follow the more detailed guidelines on the Track Your Plaque website (open content section).
Blame the niacin 31. October 2006 William Davis (7) Despite the fact that niacin is:1) A vitamin--vitamin B32) One of the oldest cholesterol-reducing agents around with a long-standing track record of effectiveness and safety3) Available as a prescription drug as well as a variety of "nutritional supplements"most physicians remains shockingly unaware of its benefits, effects, and side-effects. Most, in fact, are either ignorant or frightened of advising their patients on niacin use. As a result, I commonly have to tell my patients to resume the niacin that their primary care physician has (wrongly) stopped because of itchy feet, grumpiness, groin rash, urinary tract infections, nightmares, diarrhea, hair loss, runny nose, etc. All of these are REAL reasons doctors have advised patients to stop niacin (though none were actually due to niacin). Is niacin really that troublesome? No, it's not. In fact, if used properly, it's among the most effective and safe tools available for correction of low HDL, small LDL and other triglyceride-containing lipoproteins, lipoprotein(a), and dramatic reduction of heart attack risk. If added to a statin agent, the heart attack risk reduction can approach 90%.Statins are just too easy for doctors to prescribe. Niacin, on the other hand, requires a good 15-20 minutes to describe how to use it. It could generate an occasional phone call from a patient who struggles with the annoying but largely harmless and temporary "hot-flush" feeling, a lot like a hot blush. Given a choice, most doctors would simply choose not to be bothered. For this reason, I'll commonly see many, many people with uncorrected low HDLs and other patterns. Have a serious discussion and press for confident answers if you find your doctor reflexively telling you that the wart on your thumb should be blamed on niacin. Here are the steps we advise that really make taking niacin easy and tolerable:1) Take with dinner. 2) Take with 2 extra glasses of water. If you experience the hot-flush later on, drink an additional 2 8-12 oz glasses of water i.e., a total of 16-24 oz). Extra hydration is extremely effective for blocking the hot-flush.3) Take a 325 mg, uncoated aspirin. This is only necessary in the beginning or with any increase in dose, rarely chronically for any length of time. This is not to say that there aren't occasional people who are truly and genuinely intolerant to niacin. It does happen. But those people are a small minority, less than 5% of people in my experience. Niacin is far more effective and safe than most physicians would have you believe.
Eat fish three times a day 29. October 2006 William Davis (1) Patients commonly ask, "Why can't I get vitamin D from food? I drink milk and eat fish." They're absolutely right: both vitamin D and some oily fish contain vitamin D. However, it's a matter of quantity. An 8 oz. glass of milk contains 100 units of vitamin D (at least it's supposed to; this is not always true). A serving of oily fish like salmon or herring may contain up to 400 units. Thus, if you ate fish three times a day like the Eskimos or the Inuit, you might obtain sufficient vitamin D to prevent the broad and alarming spectrum of phenomena associated with deficiency.I suspect that most people don't want to eat fish three times a day, nor drink the 20 to 50 glasses of milk per day that would be required to obtain a truly healthy quantity of vitamin D. The vocal and outspoken Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council (www.vitamindcouncil.com) has written eloquently on the potential relationship between influenza and vitamin D deficiency. He and his co-authors on a recently published paper point out that the peculiar and unexplained seasonality of influenza corresponds to vitamin D levels. Read his eloquent discussion in Medical News Today at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=51913. In the article, Dr. Cannell explains:"The vitamin D steroid hormone system has always had its origins in the skin, not in the mouth. Until quite recently, when dermatologists and governments began warning us about the dangers of sunlight, humans made enormous quantities of vitamin D where humans have always made it, where naked skin meets the ultraviolet B radiation of sunlight. We just cannot get adequate amounts of vitamin D from our diet. If we don't expose ourselves to ultraviolet light, we must get vitamin D from dietary supplements...Today, most humans only make about a thousand units of vitamin D a day from sun exposure; many people, such as the elderly or African Americans, make much less than that. How much did humans normally make? A single, twenty-minute, full body exposure to summer sun will trigger the delivery of 20,000 units of vitamin D into the circulation of most people within 48 hours. Twenty thousand units, that's the single most important fact about vitamin D. Compare that to the 100 units you get from a glass of milk, or the several hundred daily units the U.S. government recommend as “Adequate Intake.” It's what we call an “order of magnitude” difference."Humans evolved naked in sub-equatorial Africa, where the sun shines directly overhead much of the year and where our species must have obtained tens of thousands of units of vitamin D every day, in spite of our skin developing heavy melanin concentrations (racial pigmentation) for protecting the deeper layers of the skin. Even after humans migrated to temperate latitudes, where our skin rapidly lightened to allow for more rapid vitamin D production, humans worked outdoors. However, in the last three hundred years, we began to work indoors; in the last one hundred years, we began to travel inside cars; in the last several decades, we began to lather on sunblock and consciously avoid sunlight. All of these things lower vitamin D blood levels. The inescapable conclusion is that vitamin D levels in modern humans are not just low - they are aberrantly low." Like Dr. Cannell, I am absolutely convinced that vitamin D deficiency plays an important role in a number of illnesses, including coronary disease. The more we mind our patients/participants vitamin D status (blood levels of 25-OH-vitamin D3), the more easily we gain control over LDL cholesterol, pre-diabetic patterns, blood pressure, blood sugar, and coronary plaque. In fact, I am becoming rapidly convinced that vitamin D deficiency is an extremely important coronary risk factor.Because I live in Wisconsin (bbrrrrr!) where seeing the sun is a cause for celebration and sun exposure is possible three months a year, I take 6000 units per day vitamin D. This is the amount necessary to raise my blood levels into the true, physiologic range of 50-70 ng/ml. My wife takes 2000 units per day, and each of my kids takes 1000 units per day, though I believe that my 14-year old son (my size now) should take more. We'll judge by blood levels.If there is a little-known secret to reducing heart scan scores, vitamin D is that "secret". To read more from Dr. Cannell or to subscribe to his free and very informative newsletter, go to Vitamin D Council
What if I had a cure for coronary disease? 29. October 2006 William Davis ection> Are Your Beauty Products Toxic? 10. August 2014 Lisa G (0) As a nutritionist and self-care advocate, I am very careful about what I put in my body. Health benefits experienced through proper nutrition are well understood. We avoid highly processed foods, wheat-based products, and sugary snacks because we know that are “unhealthy” for us. But what about what we put on our skin?An important piece of the health and wellness puzzle is not only what is on the end of our fork but on our toothbrush, slapped on our bodies and rubbed into our hair. Skin is the largest organ and what we place on it on a daily basis penetrates the skin, enters the fat stores and contributes to the toxicity and adiposity of our bodies. According to the Environmental Working Group, the average woman uses 12 beauty products per day, containing about 168 ingredients. Yikes!I’ve often held a high suspicious that endocrine disruptors such as parabens, triclosan, fragrance, and other punitive chemicals are a key suspect in the root cause of my endocrine disruption. Interestingly, scientific evidence is now emerging to support this suspicion.A few months back, I took a look at my hair, skin, and cosmetic products. I was shocked and horrified. Parabens, an estrogen-mimicking preservative linked with endocrine disruption, was in dozens of products. It reminded me of how I felt on that day years ago when I threw out all the products in my kitchen that contained wheat. What are parabens not in? Why was it in so many products?In our next episode of Cureality Connections we will discuss key skin and beauty product chemicals to avoid along with other steps to take to attain beauty from within.--Lisa Grudzielanek MS, RDN, CD, CDE Top 3 Strength Training Exercises for Runners 28. July 2014 Amber B (0) First and foremost, if you’re a runner and you’re not strength training you need to start. This in and of itself could be an entire blog article. But here I go with the synopsis. Strength training will indirectly help you run longer and faster. Strength training exercises can improve your running mechanics, so that you run more efficiently. Efficient running mechanics will lead to less wasted energy with each step and less injuries. Think about it. You will take 80 to 90 steps per foot each minute you run. If you have muscular imbalances that lead to joint mobility or stability issues you will move through an improper range of motion with each step. When you run for 30 minutes you take 2700 steps with each foot for a combined 5400 steps. That could be 5400 steps of feet rolling in, rounded shoulders, wasted side to side movement or just pure pain. Needless to say, when you are an endurance athlete it’s important that each step and every workout is adding to improved performance not to injury or fatigue. The key to becoming a better runner is consistency. For most runners, injuries are the biggest disrupter of consistent training. Runners get a few good weeks or months of training, and then they are injured. That means time off, loss of motivation, and a decrease in fitness. Strength training with proper form 2 to 3 times a week will reduce the onset of injuries and improve your running form. Here are my top 3 strength training exercises for runners. Bulgarian Split SquatYou will need a bench, chair or stepper to perform this exercise. Start by doing this exercise with just body weight and then progress. The progression could include holding dumbbells, kettlebells or a barbell. You can also make this exercise explosive. Place the to top of your back foot on. If you are having a hard time with balance, flex your back toes and place them on the bench. Stand in a staggered stance about 2 to 3 feet wide. This should allow your knee to bend while keeping your knees behind your front toes. Inhale as you begin to bend both knees. Focus on your back knee pointing straight down toward the ground and your body weight in your front heel. Keep your front kneecap inline with the 3rd toe of the front foot. Exhale as you straighten both knees to come back up to standing. Start with 10 repetitions on each leg and progress to 15. Calf LowersUse a stair or a stepper to perform this exercise. Start by doing this exercise with just body weight. The progression would include holding a dumbbell in one hand. Place the ball of your foot on the stair while holding on to the wall or railing. Rise up on the ball of your foot as high as your heel will go. Make sure you have weight evenly distributed on all of your toes and that you are not rolling onto one side of your foot. Slowly, lower you heel back to the starting position. Try counting 3 to 5 slow counts to ensure you really focus on lowering part of the movement. Do 10 reputations on each foot to start. Work up to doing 20 reputations on each foot. Band or Cable RowHow many runners do you see hunched over logging long miles. This exercise is for improved running posture, which can lead to improved respiration. To perform this exercise, use a band or a cable. This exercise can be done with both arms or with just one arm. Stand in a staggered stance with relaxed knees. Make sure your ribs on stacked on top of your hips to ensure good posture. Grab the handles of the band or the cable in the thumbs up position. Start the movement by protracting the shoulder blades.Then bend the elbows straight back so that your biceps are close to your rib care. Keep your knuckles forward. To release, begin to straighten your elbows and bring your shoulders back to the starting position. Start with 10 repitions and work up to 20. To increase difficulty, use a more difficult band or more weight on the cable system. Here’s to improving your running mechanics so that you can train more consistently. Can’t wait to hear about the PR at your next race. How did Cureality get its start? 27. July 2014 William Davis (0) In the Cureality program, we embrace information and strategies that empower you in health without drugs, without hospitals, without procedures. We convert your doctor from director of healthcare to your assistant in health. He or she is there when you need help, but you largely direct your own health future. How did we gain the know-how, information, tools, even chutzpah to take on such an ambitious project? It started around 10 years ago with the awkwardly named Track Your Plaque program. In fact, some of the current followers of the Cureality program are former Track Your Plaque members, having learned of the wonderful list of strategies that can be adopted to gain better control over, even reverse, coronary atherosclerotic plaque and risk for heart attack. They also learned that something special happens when you engage with other people with similar interests, all sharing ideas, insights, and resources to get the self-directed health job done. Over time, what started out as simply a source of better information for coronary health evolved into a self-directed coronary disease management program. We never set out to create something as wildly ambitious as a do-it-yourself-at-home coronary disease risk management program, but that is how it inadvertently turned out. How we went from Information Provider to Health Empowerment ProgramSo we never intended to take on something so seemingly impossible as managing coronary risk on your own. But, because we armed people with such empowering, profound insights into better ways to manage their heart disease risk beyond “don’t smoke, cut saturated fat, be active, and take a statin drug”—the typical advice offered by doctors—they returned after an interaction with their doctors disappointed: doctors often declared such strategies unnecessary, or the doctor didn’t understand them—even when there were clear-cut clinical data already available to support their use. In other words, the patients—everyday people, not experts—knew more than their doctors. This flip-flop in the balance of knowledge made for some very interesting stories, like “Harold” (not his real name) who, having survived a heart attack and received a stent, was told by his doctor to cut his fat intake, eat more whole grains, exercise, take aspirin and a beta blocker drug, and reduce his cholesterol values with a statin drug. Upon learning all the additional information from the Track Your Plaque program, Harold returned to his doctor and asked “I’m not so ready to just go along with this idea of ‘reducing cholesterol’ to address heart disease risk. Because my goal is to gain as much control over coronary disease as possible, maybe even reverse it, I’d like to address some additional issues that I believe may be important. I’d like to have my advanced lipoproteins drawn to measure the proportion of small LDL particles I have, whether I have lipoprotein(a), an omega-3 fatty acid index and 25-hydroxy vitamin D level, and a thyroid assessment. Oh, and I believe I should also have an assessment of my inflammation status, perhaps a c-reactive protein and phospholipase A2, and my blood sugar status measured with a fasting glucose, insulin, and hemoglobin A1c.” Harold’s doctor was dumbfounded and speechless. Rather than reveal his ignorance, his doctor advised Harold that none of that was necessary, sending him on his way and telling him that he was fine. But this left Harold with a sour taste in his mouth, having engaged in many online discussions with people who had followed conventional advice that resulted in more heart attack, more heart procedures—the conventional answers simply did not work. He also discussed his situation with people who had successfully obtained the additional information he sought, added it to their program and enjoyed dramatically improved health, including freedom from more heart attacks, heart symptoms, and heart procedures, as well as improved overall health. So Harold found an easy way to obtain the testing on his own. Within a couple of weeks, he returned to his online community and shared all his information. Within moments, he was provided useful discussion to help him understand the values, all leading to changes in nutrition, nutritional supplement choices, how and where to get the simple tools necessary, such as iodine and vitamin D supplements. He even entered his data, choosing which values he was willing to share with others, which remained private, allowing him to compare his own follow-up values several months later. Engaged in this process, self-directed but collaborative, he witnessed marked transformations in his health. Not only did he never again—over several years—ever re-develop heart symptoms nor require any more trips back to the cath lab, he lost weight, reversed a pre-diabetic sugar profile, improved his cholesterol values without drugs, got rid of the acid reflux symptoms he endured for many years, dropped his blood pressure to normal, enjoyed better mood, energy, and sleep. Slender, healthier, all accomplished without his doctor. Harold returned to his doctor for a routine follow-up. Slender, energetic, without complaints, on no drugs except the aspirin for his stent, the basic laboratory assessment his doctor ordered in front of him, his doctor admitted,” Well, I don’t know how you’re doing it, but these values look like a 20-year old substituted his blood for yours. They’re unbelievable. What drugs are you taking to do this?” “No drugs,” Harold replied, “I’m following a program to reverse heart disease, but it means doing some things that are different from conventional solutions.” His doctor closed their meeting with the signature response of doctors nationwide: “Well, I don’t understand what you are doing, but just keep doing it.” Yes, Harold knew more about how to control heart disease than his doctor, more than his cardiologist. The cardiologist knew how to insert a stent or defibrillator. But deliver information that empowered Harold in all aspects of health from head to toe, while also dramatically reducing, perhaps eliminating, his coronary disease risk? As you now know, that is not what conventional healthcare does, nor is it interested in doing so, as it would relinquish control and threaten to cut off this hugely profitable revenue stream that drives “healthcare.” Having managed to inadvertently create a self-directed coronary risk management program with such spectacular results and in probably one of the most difficult areas of all—heart disease—it became clear that a similar approach could be even more easily applied to many other areas of health, such as weight loss, bone health, cholesterol and blood pressure issues, diabetes and pre-diabetes, hormonal health, autoimmune conditions, and others. You can do it when empowered by safe, effective information, and supported by a community of sharing and collaboration. We don’t fire our doctors; they are there when we need them when, for instance, we get injured or catch pneumonia, or as an occasional resource. But doctors should no longer be able to get away with neglect, misinformation, or blindly directing you to the next revenue-generating procedure because you are empowered by the information and support you receive in Cureality. As we get more effective in delivering this information and new tools to you, just imagine what we can accomplish in this new age of information and self-empowerment. The future for us is bright with ambitions for better interactive tools with Cureality expert staff, better ways to crowd source health answers, provide more engaging community conversation, all while the health insights that help accomplish our self-directed health goals get better and better. Each person that joins Cureality helps make this service more effective because your wisdom, insights, and experience are added to the collective knowledge. We are more powerful together than we are as individuals. If you are already a Cureality Member, please add your comments and questions to the growing conversation. If you are not a Member, consider joining our discussions, as each new voice gets us closer and closer to better answers to take back control over health.
Are Your Beauty Products Toxic? 10. August 2014 Lisa G (0) As a nutritionist and self-care advocate, I am very careful about what I put in my body. Health benefits experienced through proper nutrition are well understood. We avoid highly processed foods, wheat-based products, and sugary snacks because we know that are “unhealthy” for us. But what about what we put on our skin?An important piece of the health and wellness puzzle is not only what is on the end of our fork but on our toothbrush, slapped on our bodies and rubbed into our hair. Skin is the largest organ and what we place on it on a daily basis penetrates the skin, enters the fat stores and contributes to the toxicity and adiposity of our bodies. According to the Environmental Working Group, the average woman uses 12 beauty products per day, containing about 168 ingredients. Yikes!I’ve often held a high suspicious that endocrine disruptors such as parabens, triclosan, fragrance, and other punitive chemicals are a key suspect in the root cause of my endocrine disruption. Interestingly, scientific evidence is now emerging to support this suspicion.A few months back, I took a look at my hair, skin, and cosmetic products. I was shocked and horrified. Parabens, an estrogen-mimicking preservative linked with endocrine disruption, was in dozens of products. It reminded me of how I felt on that day years ago when I threw out all the products in my kitchen that contained wheat. What are parabens not in? Why was it in so many products?In our next episode of Cureality Connections we will discuss key skin and beauty product chemicals to avoid along with other steps to take to attain beauty from within.--Lisa Grudzielanek MS, RDN, CD, CDE
Top 3 Strength Training Exercises for Runners 28. July 2014 Amber B (0) First and foremost, if you’re a runner and you’re not strength training you need to start. This in and of itself could be an entire blog article. But here I go with the synopsis. Strength training will indirectly help you run longer and faster. Strength training exercises can improve your running mechanics, so that you run more efficiently. Efficient running mechanics will lead to less wasted energy with each step and less injuries. Think about it. You will take 80 to 90 steps per foot each minute you run. If you have muscular imbalances that lead to joint mobility or stability issues you will move through an improper range of motion with each step. When you run for 30 minutes you take 2700 steps with each foot for a combined 5400 steps. That could be 5400 steps of feet rolling in, rounded shoulders, wasted side to side movement or just pure pain. Needless to say, when you are an endurance athlete it’s important that each step and every workout is adding to improved performance not to injury or fatigue. The key to becoming a better runner is consistency. For most runners, injuries are the biggest disrupter of consistent training. Runners get a few good weeks or months of training, and then they are injured. That means time off, loss of motivation, and a decrease in fitness. Strength training with proper form 2 to 3 times a week will reduce the onset of injuries and improve your running form. Here are my top 3 strength training exercises for runners. Bulgarian Split SquatYou will need a bench, chair or stepper to perform this exercise. Start by doing this exercise with just body weight and then progress. The progression could include holding dumbbells, kettlebells or a barbell. You can also make this exercise explosive. Place the to top of your back foot on. If you are having a hard time with balance, flex your back toes and place them on the bench. Stand in a staggered stance about 2 to 3 feet wide. This should allow your knee to bend while keeping your knees behind your front toes. Inhale as you begin to bend both knees. Focus on your back knee pointing straight down toward the ground and your body weight in your front heel. Keep your front kneecap inline with the 3rd toe of the front foot. Exhale as you straighten both knees to come back up to standing. Start with 10 repetitions on each leg and progress to 15. Calf LowersUse a stair or a stepper to perform this exercise. Start by doing this exercise with just body weight. The progression would include holding a dumbbell in one hand. Place the ball of your foot on the stair while holding on to the wall or railing. Rise up on the ball of your foot as high as your heel will go. Make sure you have weight evenly distributed on all of your toes and that you are not rolling onto one side of your foot. Slowly, lower you heel back to the starting position. Try counting 3 to 5 slow counts to ensure you really focus on lowering part of the movement. Do 10 reputations on each foot to start. Work up to doing 20 reputations on each foot. Band or Cable RowHow many runners do you see hunched over logging long miles. This exercise is for improved running posture, which can lead to improved respiration. To perform this exercise, use a band or a cable. This exercise can be done with both arms or with just one arm. Stand in a staggered stance with relaxed knees. Make sure your ribs on stacked on top of your hips to ensure good posture. Grab the handles of the band or the cable in the thumbs up position. Start the movement by protracting the shoulder blades.Then bend the elbows straight back so that your biceps are close to your rib care. Keep your knuckles forward. To release, begin to straighten your elbows and bring your shoulders back to the starting position. Start with 10 repitions and work up to 20. To increase difficulty, use a more difficult band or more weight on the cable system. Here’s to improving your running mechanics so that you can train more consistently. Can’t wait to hear about the PR at your next race.
How did Cureality get its start? 27. July 2014 William Davis (0) In the Cureality program, we embrace information and strategies that empower you in health without drugs, without hospitals, without procedures. We convert your doctor from director of healthcare to your assistant in health. He or she is there when you need help, but you largely direct your own health future. How did we gain the know-how, information, tools, even chutzpah to take on such an ambitious project? It started around 10 years ago with the awkwardly named Track Your Plaque program. In fact, some of the current followers of the Cureality program are former Track Your Plaque members, having learned of the wonderful list of strategies that can be adopted to gain better control over, even reverse, coronary atherosclerotic plaque and risk for heart attack. They also learned that something special happens when you engage with other people with similar interests, all sharing ideas, insights, and resources to get the self-directed health job done. Over time, what started out as simply a source of better information for coronary health evolved into a self-directed coronary disease management program. We never set out to create something as wildly ambitious as a do-it-yourself-at-home coronary disease risk management program, but that is how it inadvertently turned out. How we went from Information Provider to Health Empowerment ProgramSo we never intended to take on something so seemingly impossible as managing coronary risk on your own. But, because we armed people with such empowering, profound insights into better ways to manage their heart disease risk beyond “don’t smoke, cut saturated fat, be active, and take a statin drug”—the typical advice offered by doctors—they returned after an interaction with their doctors disappointed: doctors often declared such strategies unnecessary, or the doctor didn’t understand them—even when there were clear-cut clinical data already available to support their use. In other words, the patients—everyday people, not experts—knew more than their doctors. This flip-flop in the balance of knowledge made for some very interesting stories, like “Harold” (not his real name) who, having survived a heart attack and received a stent, was told by his doctor to cut his fat intake, eat more whole grains, exercise, take aspirin and a beta blocker drug, and reduce his cholesterol values with a statin drug. Upon learning all the additional information from the Track Your Plaque program, Harold returned to his doctor and asked “I’m not so ready to just go along with this idea of ‘reducing cholesterol’ to address heart disease risk. Because my goal is to gain as much control over coronary disease as possible, maybe even reverse it, I’d like to address some additional issues that I believe may be important. I’d like to have my advanced lipoproteins drawn to measure the proportion of small LDL particles I have, whether I have lipoprotein(a), an omega-3 fatty acid index and 25-hydroxy vitamin D level, and a thyroid assessment. Oh, and I believe I should also have an assessment of my inflammation status, perhaps a c-reactive protein and phospholipase A2, and my blood sugar status measured with a fasting glucose, insulin, and hemoglobin A1c.” Harold’s doctor was dumbfounded and speechless. Rather than reveal his ignorance, his doctor advised Harold that none of that was necessary, sending him on his way and telling him that he was fine. But this left Harold with a sour taste in his mouth, having engaged in many online discussions with people who had followed conventional advice that resulted in more heart attack, more heart procedures—the conventional answers simply did not work. He also discussed his situation with people who had successfully obtained the additional information he sought, added it to their program and enjoyed dramatically improved health, including freedom from more heart attacks, heart symptoms, and heart procedures, as well as improved overall health. So Harold found an easy way to obtain the testing on his own. Within a couple of weeks, he returned to his online community and shared all his information. Within moments, he was provided useful discussion to help him understand the values, all leading to changes in nutrition, nutritional supplement choices, how and where to get the simple tools necessary, such as iodine and vitamin D supplements. He even entered his data, choosing which values he was willing to share with others, which remained private, allowing him to compare his own follow-up values several months later. Engaged in this process, self-directed but collaborative, he witnessed marked transformations in his health. Not only did he never again—over several years—ever re-develop heart symptoms nor require any more trips back to the cath lab, he lost weight, reversed a pre-diabetic sugar profile, improved his cholesterol values without drugs, got rid of the acid reflux symptoms he endured for many years, dropped his blood pressure to normal, enjoyed better mood, energy, and sleep. Slender, healthier, all accomplished without his doctor. Harold returned to his doctor for a routine follow-up. Slender, energetic, without complaints, on no drugs except the aspirin for his stent, the basic laboratory assessment his doctor ordered in front of him, his doctor admitted,” Well, I don’t know how you’re doing it, but these values look like a 20-year old substituted his blood for yours. They’re unbelievable. What drugs are you taking to do this?” “No drugs,” Harold replied, “I’m following a program to reverse heart disease, but it means doing some things that are different from conventional solutions.” His doctor closed their meeting with the signature response of doctors nationwide: “Well, I don’t understand what you are doing, but just keep doing it.” Yes, Harold knew more about how to control heart disease than his doctor, more than his cardiologist. The cardiologist knew how to insert a stent or defibrillator. But deliver information that empowered Harold in all aspects of health from head to toe, while also dramatically reducing, perhaps eliminating, his coronary disease risk? As you now know, that is not what conventional healthcare does, nor is it interested in doing so, as it would relinquish control and threaten to cut off this hugely profitable revenue stream that drives “healthcare.” Having managed to inadvertently create a self-directed coronary risk management program with such spectacular results and in probably one of the most difficult areas of all—heart disease—it became clear that a similar approach could be even more easily applied to many other areas of health, such as weight loss, bone health, cholesterol and blood pressure issues, diabetes and pre-diabetes, hormonal health, autoimmune conditions, and others. You can do it when empowered by safe, effective information, and supported by a community of sharing and collaboration. We don’t fire our doctors; they are there when we need them when, for instance, we get injured or catch pneumonia, or as an occasional resource. But doctors should no longer be able to get away with neglect, misinformation, or blindly directing you to the next revenue-generating procedure because you are empowered by the information and support you receive in Cureality. As we get more effective in delivering this information and new tools to you, just imagine what we can accomplish in this new age of information and self-empowerment. The future for us is bright with ambitions for better interactive tools with Cureality expert staff, better ways to crowd source health answers, provide more engaging community conversation, all while the health insights that help accomplish our self-directed health goals get better and better. Each person that joins Cureality helps make this service more effective because your wisdom, insights, and experience are added to the collective knowledge. We are more powerful together than we are as individuals. If you are already a Cureality Member, please add your comments and questions to the growing conversation. If you are not a Member, consider joining our discussions, as each new voice gets us closer and closer to better answers to take back control over health.