You've heard of "beer bellies," the protuberant, sagging abdomen of someone who drinks excessive quantities of beer.

How about "wheat belly"?

That's the same protuberant, sagging abdomen that develops when you overindulge in processed wheat products like pretzels, crackers, breads, waffles, pancakes, breakfast cereals and pasta.

(By the way, this image, borrowed from the wonderful people at Wikipedia, is that of a teenager, who supplied a photo of himself.)

It represents the excessive visceral fat that laces the intestines and triggers a drop in HDL, rise in triglycerides, inflames small LDL particles, C-reactive protein, raises blood sugar, raises blood pressure, creates poor insulin responsiveness, etc.

How common is it? Just look around you and you'll quickly recognize it in dozens or hundreds of people in the next few minutes. It's everywhere.

Wheat bellies are created and propagated by the sea of mis-information that is delivered to your door every day by food manufacturers. It's the same campaign of mis-information that caused the wife of a patient of mine who was in the hospital (one of my rare hospitalizations) to balk in disbelief when I told her that her husband's 18 lb weight gain over the past 6 months was due to the Shredded Wheat Cereal for breakfast, turkey sandwiches for lunch, and whole wheat pasta for dinner.

"But that's what they told us to eat after Dan left the hospital after his last stent!"

Dan, at 260 lbs with a typical wheat belly, had small LDL, low HDL, high triglycerides, etc.

I hold the food companies responsible for this state of affairs, selling foods that are clearly causing enormous weight gain nationwide. Unfortunately, the idiocy that emits from Nabisco, Kraft, and Post (AKA Philip Morris); General Mills; Kelloggs; and their kind is aided and abetted by organizations like the American Heart Association, with the AHA stamp of approval on Cocoa Puffs, Cookie Crisp Cereal, and Berry Kix; and the American Diabetes Association, whose number one corporate sponsor is Cadbury Schweppes, the biggest soft drink and candy manufacturer in the world.

As I've said many times before, if you don't believe it, try this experiment: Eliminate all forms of wheat for a 4 week period--no breakfast cereals, no breads of any sort, no pasta, no crackers, no pretzels, etc. Instead, increase your vegetables, healthy oils, lean proteins (raw nuts, seeds, lean red meats, chicken, fish, turkey, eggs, Egg Beaters, low-fat yogurt and cottage cheese), fruits. Of course, avoid fruit drinks, candy, and other garbage foods, even if they're wheat-free.

Most people will report that a cloud has been lifted from their brains. Thinking is clearer, you have more energy, you don't poop out in the afternoon, you sleep more deeply, some rashes disappear. You will also notice that hunger ratchets down substantially. Most people lose the insatiable hunger pangs that occur 2-3 hours after a wheat-containing meal. Instead, hunger is a soft signal that gently prods you that it's time to consider eating again.

You will also make considerable gains towards gaining control over your risk for heart disease and your heart scan score, a crucial step in the Track Your Plaque program.

As part of our ongoing effort to educate everyone about the value of heart scans and how they can serve to start a program of heart disease prevention (or elimination), we occasionally distribute press releases on one facet of this discussion or another.

Here's the one we released on our Cost Calculator, the one we developed that showed that $20 billion would be saved annually just by applying the program to men, ages 40-59.

Accurate Detection and Prevention of Heart Disease Can Reduce Healthcare Costs, According to New Cost Analysis

A new cost analysis developed by cardiologist Dr. William Davis and his colleagues suggests that healthcare costs can be reduced by billions of dollars with the application of a simple program for heart disease detection and prevention.

Milwaukee, WI (PRWEB) July 23, 2007 -- Billions of dollars in healthcare could be saved every year by applying a simple program of heart disease detection and prevention on a wide scale in the U.S., suggests a new cost analysis developed by cardiologist Dr. William Davis and colleagues. Davis and his colleagues are the developers of the Track Your Plaque program for heart disease detection and prevention.

In the next 24 hours, 10,000 major heart procedures will be performed in hospitals across the U.S. The tab for this bill will top $400 billion in 2007 alone, nearly twice the sum spent on the war on cancer.

As costs escalate at an alarming rate, tools for prevention of disease are also advancing. While drugs like Lipitor® make headlines and dominate direct-to-consumer TV ads, a quiet revolution is taking place among physicians and the public eager to find better answers, some of which also pose opportunities for stretching the healthcare dollar.

“We’re essentially throwing away billions of dollars each and every year by ignoring the savings power of preventive strategies for heart disease,” proclaims Davis, a Milwaukee cardiologist. Davis is author of several books on heart disease detection and prevention, has been a vocal advocate for preventive strategies and is founder of www.cureality.com.

Davis and his colleagues developed a cost model to predict how much money could be saved by the adoption of new preventive strategies on a broad scale in the U.S. “The cost savings are startling. If males in the 40–59-year-old age group, for instance, were to undergo a simple CT heart scan for early detection of coronary heart disease, followed by a purposeful yet focused program of prevention using widely available tools, our cost model shows that we would save the American public over $20 billion annually. Extending this calculation to the broader population would multiply savings several-fold.”

Heart care is already the single largest healthcare category in the U.S. As costs go up by double-digit percentages, fewer people can afford healthcare. Those who can afford it spend an increasingly greater portion of their disposable income to maintain it. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality predicts that, at the current rate of growth, healthcare costs will balloon to absorb 20 percent of American Gross Domestic Product (GDP), about $4 trillion, in the next 10 years.

Davis points out that reducing the annual U.S. expenditure for heart disease by 20 to 30 percent could save between $80 and $120 billion each year. That marginal savings exceeds the sum the U.S. spends on the domestic war on terror.

Davis and his group have dubbed the conventional procedure-based approach to heart disease management the “crash and repair model” because of its focus on urgent procedural intervention that takes place in hospitals.

The crash and repair model is costly. According to the American Heart Association, a heart catheterization (performed 3,553 times per day, seven days a week) costs an average of $24,893; a coronary bypass operation (performed 1,170 times every day, seven days a week) costs an average of $67,823 (hospital costs, 2004, the latest year for which data are available). These figures don’t incorporate long-term costs incurred in the years following the procedure or time lost from work.

The relatively high payment to physicians and hospitals for performing high-tech heart procedures provides a disincentive to redirect patients to a less costly prevention model. The exceptional costs of high-tech, high-ticket heart procedures would become increasingly unnecessary if better heart disease preventive practices were delivered on a broad scale. “Like seatbelts, preventive measures for heart disease are more cost effective and extract a far lower toll in human suffering than the ‘crash and repair’ approach. Our cost calculations bear out the enormous savings possible. In fact, all of the tools necessary to deliver a method of early heart disease detection and prevention are already available throughout the U.S. We’ve just got to encourage physicians and the public to take advantage of them.”

The cost calculator program can be found at http://cureality.com/library/fl_hh005bankrupt.asp on the cureality.com Web site.

Track Your Plaque is an informational and educational Web site devoted to showing people how CT heart scans can be used as a starting point for a program of heart disease prevention and reversal.

A frequent question in the Track Your Plaque program is whether taking calcium supplements to reduce risk for osteoporosis adds to calcium in arteries and raises CT heart scan scores.

No, calcium supplementation does not add to coronary calcium. Thankfully, there is some wisdom to calcium metabolism. Calcium deposition or resorption is under independent local control in bone, as it is in the artery wall. Taking calcium has no effect on calcium deposition in your coronary arteries.

However, there's a lot more to it. Taking calcium has only a modest effect on bone health. Most women can only hope to slow or stop calcium loss from bone by taking calcium supplements. Calcium supplements do not increase bone calcium. The reason why calcium supplementation works at all is, when calcium is absorbed into the blood, it provides a feedback signal to the parathyroid gland to shut down parathyroid hormone production, the hormone responsible for extracting calcium from bone. But the calcium itself does not end up deposited in bone.

Likewise, calcium supplements have essentially no effect on the artery wall. But vitamin D controls calcium absorption and, curiously, appears to exert a dramatic effect on calcium depostion in coronary arteries. In fact, I would credit vitamin D as among the most important factors in regulating arterial health that I've encountered in a long time.

Thus, bone health and arterial health do indeed intersect via calcium, but not through calcium supplements. Instead, the control exerted by vitamin D connects the seemingly unconnected processes.

Vitamin K2 provides another unexpected juxtaposition of the two processes. Deficiency of K2, which is proving to be a lot more common than previously thought, permits an enzyme in bone to exert unrestrained calcium extraction. Deficiency of K2 in artery walls allow another enzyme to deposit calcium and grow plaque without restraint. Yet another intersection between bone health and coronary health that involves calcium, but as a passive participant.

Stay tuned for a comprehensive Track Your Plaque Special Report on these topics coming in the next couple of weeks. I'm very excited about the emerging appreciation of calcium as an active ingredient in plaque, not a dumb, passive marker as previously thought. Vitamins D3 and K2 are among the keys to this phenomenon.

Beware of the media reports now being issued that warn that "CT heart scans" pose a risk for cancer.

One report can be viewed at
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20070717/ct-heart-scan-radiation-cancer-risk.

This was triggered by a Columbia University study of risk for cancer based on the dose of radiation used in CT coronary angiograms. Theoretically, exposure to the radiation dose of CT coronary angiography can raise risk for cancer by 1 in 143 women if radiated in their 20s just from that single exposure.

If you've been following the Track Your Plaque discussion, as well as my diatribes in the Heart Scan Blog, you know that the media got it all wrong. The "heart scans" they are referring to are not the same as the heart scans that we discuss for the Track Your Plaque program.

A conventional heart scan (of the sort we refer to) exposes the recipient to 4 chest x-rays of radiation if an EBT device is used, around 8-10 chest x-rays of radiation if a 64-slice CT scanner is used. For the quality of information we obtain from these screening heart scans, we feel that it's an acceptable exposure.

The "heart scan" this study and subsequent reports refer to is not truly a screening heart scan, but a CT coronary angiogram, or CTA. CTAs are performed on the same CT or EBT devices, but involve far more radiation. CTA exposes the recipient to about 100 chest x-rays of radiation on a 64-slice device (more or less, depending on the way it is performed.) Just a couple of years ago, some centers were performing CTA on 16-slice devices, a practice I and the Track Your Plaque program vocally opposed, since up to 400 chest-rays of radiation were required! I even called a number of centers advising them that they were putting the public in jeopardy. CTAs also require injection of x-ray dye, just like any conventional angiogram.

CTA on 64-slice CT scanners require the same radiation exposure as a conventional heart catheterization, an issue glossed over in most conversations. In other words, the test that many of my colleageus so casually recommend poses a similar risk.

The message: the test I advocate for screening for coronary heart disease is a CT or EBT heart scan, not a CT coronary angiogram. CTA is a useful test and will get better and better as the engineers discover ways to reduce radiation exposure. But, in 2007, CTA is a diagnostic device, not a screening device. If you require an abdominal CT scan because your doctor suspects pancreatic cancer, or a CT scan of the brain because you might have a life-threatening aneurysm causing double-vision or seizures, it would be silly to not undergo the scan because of long-term and theoretical cancer risk.

But undergoing a CT coronary angiogram for screening purposes is ridiculous with present technology. I've said it before and I will say it--shout it--again:

CT coronary angiograms are not screening procedures; they are diagnostic procedures that should be taken seriously and do indeed pose measurable risk for cancer, a risk that is presently unacceptable for a screening test.

You wouldn't undergo a mammogram to screen for breast cancer if it exposed you to 100 chest x-rays of radiation, would you? Screening tests should be safe, reliable, accurate, and inexpensive. CT coronary angiography is none of these things. Genuine heart scans--the kind the Track Your Plaque program talks about and relies on--is all of those things.

A German study just reported in Circulation showed a graded response of EBT heart scan scores and proximity to traffic.

Living 50 meters (around 150 feet) from traffic increased the likelihood of a higher coronary calcium score by 63% compared to those living 200 meters (around 600 feet or two football fields) away from traffic.

A sample news story can be found at http://healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=606431.

The German investigators speculated that either the heightened exposure to exhaust fumes and/or the increased stress triggered by the constant noise might be the culprits behind the phenomenon.

I think the study is interesting in a number of ways from the Track Your Plaque viewpoint:

--Sometimes, there are factors that extend beyond lipoproteins, vitamin D restoration, optimism vs. pessimism, etc. that influence heart scan scoring. Are these factors powerful enough to overcome the adverse effects of traffic or other environmental effects? Can your proximity to traffic make or break your heart scan score-controlling efforts? This remains to be established.

--How much of a role does the stress issue play? Is this just a variation of the optimism vs. pessimism theme? I know when I'm in traffic in a car or on a bicycle, it often feels like I am at the mercy of hordes of people in a hurry, the soccer Moms on cell phones, applying makeup and eating, the hormonal teenager, the occasional drunk. Living in the midst of it must be demoralizing, a sense that you are lost in a sea of uncaring humanity stripped of individuality. When I look outside my den window right now, I see the lawn that I cut and water and the flowers and evergreen trees I've planted over the years. It provides a sense of life, belonging, and earth. What if instead I saw anonymous cars buzzing by, dozens of unfamiliar faces every minute, none of which plays any palpable role in my life?

--This simple observation will add to the healthy-consciousness and Green movements, since it is just one more piece of evidence that congestion and urbanization do indeed take their toll. In an obtuse way, I think this is one step closer to increasing disillusionment over the "over-processing" of human experience: processed foods, depersonalization and alienation in neighborhoods and homes, the dissolution of the American family.

Lastly, notice how the conversation about CT (in this case, EBT) heart scanning has seamlessly worked its way into conversation? Just ten years ago, a long-winded explanation would have been required in press reports on just what CT heart scanning was. Now, the information is presented and--well, we all know what heart scanning is, right?

A small study but one that comes at an important time. Good things will come from this one study. It will work its way into discussions about where to locate schools, how to situate homes in relation to heavy traffic, it will help "legitimize" this wonderful tool called heart scanning. How many medical tests beyond blood work can be easily performed in 4500 study participants?

I always like to take some simple observation and see how it fits into developing trends. Few studies or other human-generated experiences by themselves change the world. Instead, it happens in little incremental bits and pieces.

I remain continually amazed how difficult it can be to gain an understanding of what is true and what is not true. I am particularly worried about the messages provided by agencies that stand to make enormous gains by persuading us to believe their version of the "truth".

For a moment, let's strip away the charitable covers of some financially-motivated organizations and see what they really look like:

Hospitals: The dream of hospitals is to shift the proportion of patients towards those with the most profitable diseases in well-insured patients. Heart disease is among the best paying diseases. HOSPITALS WANT YOU TO HAVE HEART DISEASE.

Doctors: Many (though not all) want to deal with diseases that pay well. Implanting a stent can pay several thousand dollars. Putting in a defibrillator can likewise pay handsomely, even better than stents. DOCTORS WANT TO STEER YOU TOWARDS PROCEDURES THAT REIMBURSE GENEROUSLY. Talk is cheap and pays poorly. Heart scans? Useless, since they're cheap. CT angiography? Now we're talking! $1800 dollars is a lot more interesting than $200 or so for a simple heart scan. CT angiograms also lead to catheterization, stents, hospitalizations.

Drug manufacturers: The holy grail for drug manufacturers is a chronic condition that is present in large numbers of people. An antibiotic, for instance, is a drug manufacturers waste of time: Short courses of treatment in relatively few people. Cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, drugs to modify personality or some aspect of behavior--these you take for years, decades, or a lifetime, and millions are persuaded they need them. DRUG COMPANIES WANT CHRONIC CONDITIONS (WHETHER OR NOT THEY'RE DISEASES) IN PEOPLE WHO SURVIVE FOR A LONG TIME, NOT SICK PEOPLE.

Supplement manufacturers: What don't we need in the eyes of sellers of nutritional supplement? While a program like Track Your Plaque makes liberal use of supplements in a focused and, I believe, rational way, supplement sellers want you to take dozens or preparations of dubious value: milk thistle, hawthorne, ribose, hoodia, silymarin, hydroxycitric acid . . . Unlike the larger ambitions and bigger money of the pharmaceutical industry, the supplement industry is often driven by the momentary craze and the quick payoff. THE SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY IS LOOKING FOR SUCKERS.

Food manufacturers: The holy grail for the food industry are foods that have high markups, are convenient (e.g., eaten right out of the box or package), and are purchased repeatedly. Even better, if a health claim can be added, it can ride the current wave of the public's health consciousness. Thus, Cocoa Puffs can be labeled "Heart Healthy". How about foods that have addictive potential and virtually ensure repeat sales? Eat some and you want more within 2-4 hours! As nutritionist Marion Nestle says, the mantra of the foods industry is "Eat More". It is my firm conviction that the epidemic of obesity in the U.S. is not due to laziness, video games, and computers. It is the fault of food manufacturers. FOOD MANUFACTURERS WANT US FAT AND HUNGRY AND WANT US TO STAY THAT WAY. What pays better, a 110 lb vegetarian woman who shops at the farmer's market and buys locally produced foods, or the 260 lb glutenous and always-hungry woman who fills her supermarket shopping cart with 15 cents worth of flour and sugar priced at $4.59 (cleverly disguised as a healthy breakfast cereal), instant mixes, convenient meals, energy bars, and chips?

Government agencies: User fees for the FDA paid by drug companies have caused the FDA to be beholden to drug company pressures. The USDA, charged with crafting the food pyramid, was created to support the farm industry and distributors of their products, not to disseminate public health. The food pyramid is the watered down end result of food industry lobbying and threats, not the scientific advice of nutritionists. GOVERNMENT AGENCIES SERVE INDUSTRY FIRST, THE PUBLIC SECOND.

Health websites: Read popular websites like WebMD for information and the conversation quickly steers towards drugs. "Natural treatments for cholesterol" talks about reducing saturated fat and then gushes about the wonders of statin drugs. Guess where 80% of WebMD's revenues come from? Yup, the drug industry. The same goes for many magazines, TV shows, and other media. MEDIA IS OFTEN THE TOOL OF BIG INDUSTRY.

I'm sounding like a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that I am, but I am skeptical of the messages we often receive from the media, advertisements, news reports, websites, etc. It's left to you and me to use our judgment and decide what is truth and what is someone's version of a message crafted towards their hidden agenda.

I am hoping that the real truth will grow through a wiki-like phenomena driven and supervised by a collective knowledge that we all contribute towards. That will happen, most likely, on the internet. Just as Wikipedia overtook the revered Encylopedia Britannica in the blink of an eye at far less cost yet with greater depth and equivalent accuracy, so will it happen in health information. I'm uncertain of the eventual form this health-wiki will take, but it will shatter many smug and deeply-entrenched powers that at present continue to profit from mis-information.

Stress can booby-trap the best efforts at reducing your CT heart scan score.

But Amy, our newest Track Your Plaque record holder, defied the effects of an overwhelmingly life stress to drop her heart scan score from 117 to 43--an amazing 63% reduction.

Amy beat our previous record holder, Neal, who achieved a 51% reduction. Though Neal had dropped his score from 339 to 161, a drop of 178 and more than Amy's 74 point drop, on a percentage basis Amy holds the record.

I'm also especially gratified that a woman now holds our record. I'm uncertain why, but the ladies have been shy and the men remain the dominant and vocal participants in our program. Speak up, ladies!

Amy's complete story can be found in our latest Track Your Plaque Newsletter to be released later this week, as well as an upcoming feature on the www.cureality.com website. (We've got to toot our horn about successes like this!)

I got that kind of question today that tempts me to roll my eyes and say, "Not again!"

"If I want to reverse my heart scan score, should I do the Ornish diet?" You know, the one by Dr. Dean Ornish: Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversal of Heart Disease.

I personally followed the Ornish program way back in the early 1990s. I reduced fat intake of all sorts to <10% of calories; eliminated all fish and meats, vegetable oils, and nuts; ate vegetables and fruits; and upped my reliance on whole grains. I used many of his recipes. I exercised by running 5 miles per day. (Far more than I do now!) I avoided sweets like candies and fruit juices.

What happened?

I gained 31 lbs, going from 155 to 186 lbs (I'm 5 ft 8 inches tall), my abdomen developed that loose, fleshy look, hanging over my beltline. My HDL plummeted to 28 mg/dl, triglycerides skyrocketed to 336 mg/dl, and I developed a severe small LDL pattern. I experienced a mental fogginess every afternoon. I felt tired and crabby much of the time. I sometimes struggled to suppress an irrational anger and frustration over the silliest things. I required huge amounts of coffee just to function day to day.

Hundreds of my patients suffered similar phenomena.

Few of us wear bell-bottomed jeans, tie-dyed t-shirts, or say "groovy". Rowan and Martin's Laugh-in is an "oldie", it's no longer cool to hold your index and middle fingers up in the "V" sign of peace. Even Ladybird Johnson has passed.

So should go the misadventures of the ultra low-fat diet, as articulated by Dr. Ornish. His day came and went. We learned from our mistakes. Now let's do something better.

Keep your eyes open for the New Track Your Plaque Diet.

If Mary's heart scan score increases from 2 to 4 in one year, it represents a 100% increase in score.

If Jane's heart scan score increases from 1002 to 1004 over the same period, it represents <1% increase, even though the true growth is the same: 2 points.

This quirk of arithmetic needs to be factored in whenever you and your doctor try to puzzle out the meaning of an increasing CT heart scan score. Lower numbers, particularly those <100, can grow at seemingly much faster rates if viewed by percent per year increase. If no effort is taken to stop the growth in your coronary plaque, then scores of 10, 20, 30, or the like can easily grow 50-100% per year.

In contrast, scores of 1000, 1500, and 2000 tend to grow at "slower" rates of 20% or so per year without corrective efforts, even though the absolute growth may be substantial. (Obviously, this bit of confusion can be best eliminated by reducing your heart scan score, but it doesn't always work out that way.)

If we were all adept at advanced math, we should probably rely on logarithmic measures of plaque increase, rather than percent increase. Or, you can just keep in mind that the rate of plaque growth must always be viewed in the context of the absolute score.

Marathon star Alberto Salazar was just released from the hospital following a heart attack and a heart catheterization that led to a stent. The MSNBC version of the report can be viewed at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19653682/.

At 48 years old and holder of several American records for marathon times, Salazar's story is eerily reminiscent of Jim Fixx, who died at age 52 after writing a bestselling book, The Complete Book of Running. Thankfully, Salazar's story has a happier ending.

Fixx died at a time when prevention of heart disease was quite primitive. Lipoprotein analysis was not broadly available to the public, CT heart scans had not yet been invented. Even statin drugs were just a gleam in the pharmaceutical industry's eye.

But not so with Salazar. This Cuban-born marathoner experienced his heart attack at at a time when enormously useful steps can be taken to 1) document the extent of disease with a CT heart scan (the presence of a stent just means that one artery can't be "scored"), and 2) identify the causes of his disease.

I suspect that the fact that yet another marathoner in the limelight will once again prompt the (likely non-sensical) conversation about long-distance running and the increased risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, I fear that the real cause will be left unidentfied and untreated: Lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a).

It's almost certain that Fixx had Lp(a), given the fact that his dad had a heart attack at age 35. Running simply postponed the untreated inevitable.

I hope Mr. Salazar is surrounded by doctors who have his true interests in mind (not just procedural excitement) and ask the crucial question: Why?

The answer is almost certain to be Lp(a).

There is no longer any doubt that lipoprotein(a) is a major causal factor in heart disease:

Meta-analysis (combined re-analysis) of 27 prospective studies:
Danesh J et al. Lipoprotein(a) and Coronary Heart Disease: Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies

Lp(a) and "subclinical" atherosclerosis
Brown SA et al. The relation of lipoprotein[a] concentrations and apolipoprotein[a] phenotypes with asymptomatic atherosclerosis in subjects of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study.

Lp(a) and oxidized LDL
Tsimikas S et al. Oxidized phospholipids, Lp(a) lipoprotein, and coronary artery disease.

Lp(a) predicts peripheral vascular disease
Valentine RJ et al. Lp(a) lipoprotein is an independent, discriminating risk factor for premature peripheral atherosclerosis among white men.

Peltier M et al.Elevated serum lipoprotein(a) level is an independent marker of severity of thoracic aortic atherosclerosis.

Lp(a) across various populations
Gambhir JK et al. Association between lipoprotein(a) levels, apo(a) isoforms and family history of premature CAD in young Asian Indians.

Weber M et al. Metabolic factors clustering, lipoprotein cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, lipoprotein (a) and apolipoprotein E phenotypes in premature coronary artery disease in French Canadians.

Lp(a) and stroke risk
Jurgens G et al. Lipoprotein(a) serum concentration and apolipoprotein(a) phenotype correlate with severity and presence of ischemic cerebrovascular disease.

Willeit J et al. Lipoprotein(a) and asymptomatic carotid artery disease. Evidence of a prominent role in the evolution of advanced carotid plaques: the Bruneck Study.

From just about any direction, Lp(a) has been conclusively associated with atherosclerotic disease. We have more than enough data proving association.

But there are two areas of desperate need:

1) Data on effective treatments.

2) Raising awareness of this widely unknown (among the public) and ignored (among health professionals) genetic condition.

Treatment remains a real struggle. In a recent detailed Track Your Plaque Special Report, Unique Treatment Strategies for Lipoprotein(a) Reduction, we summarized the treatment approaches that have some power to reduce Lp(a) and/or its potential for causing heart disease. But, even armed with an appreciation for the world's scientific literature on this genetic condition, full control remains difficult for many people.

Track Your Plaque's HeartHawk has Lp(a) and he has struggled with this pattern for the last several years. He details some of his thoughts in a recent blog post.

More research and clinical studies are required and we need it soon if we hope to gain better control over this genetic pattern that affects up to 20% of people with coronary or vascular disease. Much of the needed research is sophisticated, background work similar to that being done by Dr. Santico Marcovina at University of Washington, Dr. Angelo Scanu at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Sally McCormick in New Zealand.

However, much of the needed research also consists of brief clinical experiences that detail whether or not there is an effect of various potential agents. Larger experiences, for instance, with potential treatment agents such as various phospholipid fractions, acetylcysteine, antibiotic regimens, some hormonal treatments, etc. could be performed quickly and simply. These studies would not require the $20 or $30 million typically spent by a drug company for a study, nor the several hundred million dollars to gain FDA approval of a new agent. They would simply be examinations of existing agents. These studies still cost money, require expertise, staff, and equipment. But the cost is a tiny fraction of the drug industry's investment in research. But it also means that investment return is nil from a drug manufacturer's perspective. Yet there are literally dozens, perhaps hundreds, of agents that hold some promise but have not been thoroughly studied.

For instance, if a specific modification of the phosphatidylcholine molecule were to generate a substantial Lp(a) reducing effect, Merck, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca would yawn--it is non-patent protectable, cannot be protected from competitors through the costly FDA approval process, and therefore is simply not worth their investment--regardless of whether it works or not.

(This is yet another example of how the drug industry, as well as hospitals and many health professionals, have lost sight of their real mission: to alleviate disease, not to profit from sickness.)

HeartHawk and I have discussed on a number of occasions whether a Lipoprotein(a) Research Foundation should be formed, an organization that seeks to fund the smaller research efforts that may accelerate productive research in Lp(a) and perhaps yield useful strategies faster than hoping for somebody to simply stumble on a treatment, or wait for the drug industry to create a unique, patentable entity that returns billions.

I'd like to propose that our Track Your Plaque program begin to fund such an effort. But a lot more help will be needed, particularly to generate the money to fund genuine, high-quality research from high-quality researchers.

If any readers of the Heart Scan Blog have any thoughts or insights into this process of creating a foundation, we'd appreciate your input.

Since we are on the topic of the ASTEROID trial and rosuvastatin, I'd make one more point before I start to sound like I'm plugging this drug (which I definitely am not).

In an informative Roundtable Discussion (open to subscribers to the American Journal of Cardiology; sorry) amongst Dr. Steve Nissen, principal investigator behind ASTEROID; and Drs. Vincent Friedewald, Christie Ballantyne, P. Shah, and William Roberts, Dr. Nissen made some interesting comments:

Dr. Shah: In ASTEROID, was the magnitude of atheroma volume change seen across different levels of LDL-C and HDL-C?

Dr. Nissen: No. There was no plaque regression seen in the 17 persons with LDL-Cs >/= 100 mg/dl, and there was little change in persons with LDL-Cs of 70 to 100 mg/dl. Only in persons with LDLs less than or equal to 70 mg/dl was there significant regression. The study was not powered to look for an HDL-C(which increased by 14.7%)-raising effect.

Interesting. In other words, ASTEROID, in a fairly internally consistent way, suggests that the lower the LDL is reduced, the more likely plaque regression is obtained. This is consistent with the Track Your Plaque experience, in which we've advocated reducing (calculated) LDL cholesterol to 60 mg/dl for the past several years.

Unfortunately, the message that the ASTEROID Trial sponsors, AstraZeneca, as well as the roundtable discussion panel (later in the discussion) try to make is that there is something magical about Crestor, that it yields benefits superior to other statin agents or other means of reducing LDL.

I disagree with this message. In the Track Your Plaque experience, we do aim for a similar LDL target. But we also employ a number of other strategies. We have also succeeded in regressing plaque without use of any statin drugs (though, admittedly, many people do require statin drugs to obtain LDLs in this range). We also witness magnitudes of reversal that often far exceed that seen in ASTEROID.

The Rountable Discussion is unfortunately tainted, as is the ASTEROID Trial itself, with deep drug industry financial involvement of the Roundtable participants. In fact, the discussion begins with a listing of the financial disclosures of the participants, a listing that occupies a full column of a two-column page. The potential biases of the participants doesn't necessarily invalidate the arguments, but to me suggests that participants are more likely to argue in favor of the sponsor's drug, or that participants were chosen because of these biases.

Why bother to even mention the ASTEROID Trial in a venue (the Heart Scan Blog, that is) that purports to seek unvarnished, unbiased truth in coronary plaque reversal? Because useful information can sometimes be found in unlikely places. Just like the four-year old child who blurts out an unexpected pearl of wisdom, so it can happen with the gobbledy-gook that emerges from the drug industry.

Every once in a while, they are worth paying attention to.

The ASTEROID Trial reported in 2006 examined the effects of LDL cholesterol reduction using the statin drug, rosuvastatin (Crestor), with coronary atherosclerosis quantified and tracked with intracoronary ultrasound. The Track Your Plaque report, New study confirms: LDL of 60 mg reverses plaque, on the ASTEROID Trial provides commentary on the results.

Though I remain skeptical that a statin-only treatment strategy can reverse coronary plaque in the majority of people, I do believe that the AstraZeneca-sponsored ASTEROID Trial does add to the wisdom on heart disease management. More importantly, it has served to raise awareness among both the public and my physician colleagues that atherosclerosis is indeed a potentially reversible condition.

Specifically, the ASTEROID results confirm that, either directly or indirectly, LDL cholesterol reduction achieved with statin agents does correspond to increasing degrees of plaque reversal. The mean (calculated) LDL cholesterol achieved in ASTEROID was 60 mg/dl, the same as the Track Your Plaque suggested LDL target.

Though the ASTEROID Trial is not news, I stumbled on a chart posted on the ASTEROID Trial website that clearly highlights how a number of other studies beyond ASTEROID have fallen into this pattern:

The graph reveals a linear relationship: The greater the reduction in LDL cholesterol with statin drugs, the greater the plaque regression ("change in percent atheroma volume"). (Several other studies not included in the graph also cluster into the same linear relationship.)

I am no supporter of drug companies, nor a defender of their policies and practices. But I do believe that their data can serve to teach us a few lessons. For instance, here is an (cherry-picked, to be sure) example of intracoronary ultrasound cross-sectional images before and after two years of rosuvastatin, 40 mg daily:

The color-coded/outlined atherosclerotic coronary plaque is shown shrinking, while the "lumen," or the path for blood to flow, enlarges. The reduction in coronary plaque is irrefutable. (The small circle within the lumen with the white halo surrounding it is the ultrasound catheter.)

If you and I were to choose a single treatment approach to coronary disease reversal, then 40 mg of rosuvastatin is probably at the top of the list. However, in the Track Your Plaque program, we do not advocate a single treatment strategy. While the Crestor-only approach is relatively straightforward--one pill a day--few people, in my experience, can tolerate this dose for any length of time. Patients invariably have to stop the drug or reduce the dose severely due to muscle aches when I've had patients try it. Contrary to the ASTEROID results, in my experience the majority of people, perhaps all, eventually give up with this improbable "one-size-fits-all" scheme.

The Track Your Plaque approach, while more complicated and involves several nutritional supplements and strategies, in my view addresses more causes of coronary plaque, is better tolerated, and provides health benefits outside of just LDL cholesterol reduction. It also minimizes or eliminates the need for prescription medication.

Studies cited in graph:

1.Nissen S et al. N Engl J Med 2006;354:1253-1263.
2 Tardif J et al. Circulation 2004;110:3372-3377.
3 Nissen S et al. JAMA 2006;295 (13):1556-1565
4 Nissen S et al. JAMA 2004;292: 2217–2225.
5 Nissen S et al. JAMA 2004; 291:1071–1080

One ounce of raw almonds (about 23 nuts) contains:

6 grams protein

14 grams fat

6 grams carbohydrate

3.5 grams fiber

For a total of 163 calories per ounce.

(From the USDA Nutrient Database)

Calorie content of foods is determined by summing up the calories from each constituent: 1 gram of fat = 9 calories; 1 gram protein = 4 calories; 1 gram carbohydrate = 4 calories. Calorie content can also be directly measured using a device called a burn calorimeter, in which the amount of energy released from a specific food is measured by literally burning it and gauging precisely how much energy is released.

The problem with both of these methods is that it is assumed that all foods are digested with equal efficiency. That is, it assumes that a potato chip is as readily digested and absorbed as energy from table sugar, a pretzel, oatmeal, a piece of steak, or a handful of nuts. In real life, of course this is not true. Different foods are absorbed with varying efficiency.

For a long time I've suspected that some foods are very inefficiently absorbed. I've particularly suspected that raw nuts are relatively poorly absorbed and thus yield only a fraction of the calories ingested.

Among the studies recently reported at the Federation of the Association of Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) meetings I attended in San Diego this past week were several devoted to almonds.

One study, to my surprise, documented this phenomenon. In Manipulation of lipid bioaccessibility of almonds influences postprandial lipemia in healthy human subjects, it was determined that, of 100 calories ingested from the fat fraction of almonds, only about half was actually absorbed. The remaining half passed out in the stool. (They did this by collecting stool samples and comparing the fat composition after eating the different almonds prepartions. This is not discussed in the limited text of the abstract.) In addition, postprandial (after-eating) surges in triglycerides were much less with whole almonds compared to the oil separated from the nut (i.e., broken down into almond oil + defatted almond flour). The researchers attributed the difference to the inhibitory effects of the almond nut's "food matrix," or the structural properties of chewed foods.

Add to this the fact that, of 6 grams of carbohydrate per ounce of whole almonds, 3.5 grams are indigestible fibers. This means that 6 - 3.5 = 2.5 grams of digestible carbohydrates are present per ounce (assuming 100% release).

If we follow the reasoning that only about half the fat fraction of almonds are absorbed, and assume that the protein and carbohydrate (minus the indigestible fibers) are absorbed efficiently (100%), then we would re-calculate the calorie content of almonds to be 97 calories per ounce, or 40% less than calories calculated by composition or measured with a calorimeter.

If we were to assume that protein and carbohydrates were, like fats, inefficiently absorbed because of the effects of the food matrix, then one ounce of almonds yields 88 calories per ounce, or 46% less. This is, in fact, a likely scenario, since the food matrix is largely created by the cell wall and should impede digestive access to fat, protein, and carbohydrate equally.

My point? Almonds and other nuts at first appear to be calorically dense due to fat composition. However, this simplistic view of nuts is misleading because of the confounding effects of the food matrix. Stated differently: Whole foods yield less calories. And, judging by the postprandial triglyceride effects: Whole foods yield less undesirable effects, such as postprandial rises in triglycerides.

Some other observations with almonds included:

The effect of almonds on plasma lipids in persons with prediabetes This study confirmed the LDL-reducing and modest HDL-raising effects of almonds.

Almonds (Amygdalus communis L.) as a possible source of prebiotic functional food This curious observation suggests that almonds modify the bacterial flora of the intestinal tract in a positive way (like the cultures in yogurts).

Copyright 2008 William Davis, MD

An extraordinary thing happened about 2 1/2 years ago.

While we have been following the Track Your Plaque program for coronary plaque regression for nearly 10 years, about 2 1/2 years ago we witnessed an extraordinary surge in success--bigger, faster, and more frequent drops in heart scan scores.

Up until then, we did witness significant reversal of coronary plaque by heart scan scores. We were planning to publish the data to validate this approach, but then . . .

Heart scan scores starting dropping not just 2%, or 8% . . . but 24%, 30%, 50% and more. Why? I attribute the surge in success to the addition of vitamin D.

Unfortunately, it also meant that the preceding 8 or so years of data lacked experience with supplementing vitamin D. The hundreds of participants in the Track Your Plaque program had not, until then, included vitamin D in their program.

So I decided to start from scratch (from the standpoint of data collection, not for the participants). That also meant that the preceding years of experience went unreported, though even that data far exceeded the results of what is achieved in conventional heart disease prevention.

Thus, the data I presented at the Experimental Biology Proceedings (FASEB 2008) in San Diego this week included only experiences in the group of participants that included vitamin D in their program, with data collected until mid-2007. The number of experiences is therefore modest.

However, the Track Your Plaque experience, as reported, far exceeds any prior experience in coronary plaque regression.

The full abstract will be published in the Track Your Plaque website.

Copyright 2008 William Davis, MD

Many people complain about the size of fish oil capsules. Let's face it: They're usually big and kind of smelly.

Women in particular struggle with big capsules. This becomes a real problem when somebody requires high-dose fish oil for treatment of post-prandial (after-eating) abnormalities, high triglycerides, or lipoprotein(a), when 6 or more--occasionally up to the equivalent of 20--standard fish oil capsules are required.

I came across a small capsule alternative for people who struggle with the big capsules. It's a product called Learn from PharmaOmega, a source of super purified fish oil.

The Learn product is actually made for children, since omega-3 fatty acid supplementation has been linked with improved intellectual performance. But the small capsule size is convenient for women and other people who would like to avoid the big standard-sized capsules.

Each capsule is about 60% of the size of a standard fish oil capsule (the smaller capsule in the photo, next to a standard size fish oil capsule), yet contains 375 mg EPA + DHA per capsule, 25% more than standard capsules (which contain 300 mg per capsule). The ratio of of EPA:DHA is a little more heavily weighted towards EPA with a 5:2 ration, compared to 3:1 of standard capsules. The capsules are also faintly orange flavored and non-fishy.

Disclosure: I receive no compensation for discussing or promoting this product.

Copyright 2008 William Davis, MD

Jenny provided permission to reprint her very excellent introduction to low-carbohydrate eating for people with diabetes. You can also view the original version on her Diabetes 101 website.

Jenny is a stickler for monitoring the effects of blood sugar. We might take some lessons from her experiences for improving management of people with metabolic syndrome or borderline blood sugars. In other words, monitoring the blood sugar-raising effects of various foods and food portions can provide great feedback on what foods are preferable, what undesirable, given your physiology.

Even if you are not a diabetic, Jenny's discussion is must reading to gain a better understanding of food choices, particularly carbohydrates. Along with seizing control of health, she has also gained deep wisdom in how to best manage this disease and its physiology.

Introduction to low-carb nutrition for diabetics

It's carbohydrates that raise blood sugar.

Sugars and starches, not the fats that dietitians have been warning you about for so long. If you've been testing your blood sugar after meals, you've probably noticed that already and you are starting to understand why a healthy diabetes diet will have to be one that limits carbohydrates to an amount that doesn't push your blood sugar up over the level where you are damaging your body.

But if your previous experience with restricting carbohydrates involved doing a weight loss diet like Atkins or Protein Power, which worked well for you until you crashed off it entirely and gained back all the weight you'd lost, you may be hesitant to embark on another course of dieting that requires some carb restriction.

I've been there myself. I've done the extremely low carb diet Dr. Richard Bernstein recommends for months on end. I did Protein Power for 3 years. And I've gone on the "Eat all the carbs you didn't eat over the past three years all at once" diet, too. The following observations grew out of my 8 years of experience with learning how to make carb restriction work long-term.

Unlike much of what you've read before, there are no scholarly references for this section. It's based entirely on my own observations and the experience of many dozens of people who have participated in online discussion groups devoted to low carb dieting and diabetes.

Weight Loss Diets Usually Fail but Diabetes Diets Can't Afford To Fail

People who adopt a low carb diet to lose weight tend to start out with great enthusiasm, adapt extreme dieting strategies, swear they will never eat another piece of bread or french fry for the rest of their lives, lose some weight, stall out, burn out, and slink back to their old diets, where they gain back all the weight they lost and more.

This is not a surprise. People on any diet, including low calorie and low fat, do the same thing. The body is very resistant to weight loss and deeply buried instincts in our brains do everything they can to maintain our weights, no matter how unhealthy they might be.

But while this pattern of dieting may be tolerable for those who are dieting to shed a few pounds before their class reunion, it spells disaster for those who must change their diet in order to prevent the high blood sugars that result in amputation, blindness, kidney failure and heart attack death.

Low carbing for diabetes means low carbing for life, long after the thrill has worn off of eating that runny brie and steak. Despite the hype in the diet books, it is not easy, simple, and fun. I know only a handful of people who have been able to sustain a low carb lifestyle for more than five years. And that is after years of online participation in low carb groups.

What you'll find below is what I've found works for me. I used a low carb diet to control my blood sugar for more than five years and have gone through the whole cycle, from enthusiasm, to boredom, to burnout, to saying "To hell with it, we've all got to die some time!" to starting all over again determined to avoid the mistakes that sent me round the bend the first time.

How Many Grams of Carbs to Eat? As Many as Allow You to Reach Your Blood Sugar Targets

When people think about adopting a lower carb diet, their first question is almost always, "How many grams of carbs can I eat at each meal?" Most of the diet books will answer that question with a hard and fast number. Atkins, for example, tells you to start out with 20 grams a day. Protein Power starts you at 30 grams. And Dr. Bernstein suggests 6 grams for breakfast and snacks and 12 grams at lunch and dinner.

Adopting these very low carbohydrate limits will control your blood sugar very nicely. But over time, many people find that sticking to a diet this low in carbohydrate becomes impossible. That's why I'm going to ask you to throw away all those diet books and try a new approach to restricting carbs.

What you will do is to try the strategy used by the people from the alt.support-diabetes newsgroup who informally call themselves "The 5% Club" because their A1c test results fall in the 5% range which doctors consider normal: use your blood sugar meter after each meal to determine how many grams of carbs you can eat and still meet a healthy blood sugar target.

You will start out by measuring your blood sugar one and two hours after each meal. Write down what you ate and observe what it did to your blood sugar. If a meal allows you to reach your blood sugar targets, try eating it again on a different day and test it test again, possibly at a later time, to make sure that your good numbers weren't just a result of slow digestion.

If you end up too high after a meal, the next time you eat it, cut back on the portion size of the carbohydrate elements in the meal and test again. Do this until you can hit your targets, or flag the carbohydrate-containing foods in that meal as ones your body can't handle.

What you're doing here is creating what newsgroup activist Alan S. calls, "a low spike diet" rather than a low carb diet. He can achieve normal post meal blood sugars by eating as many as 30 or 40 grams of carbohydrates at a meal. Others will find that they need to eat a lot less than that amount to hit safe post-meal blood sugar targets.

Usually how much carbohydrate you can manage has something to do with your body size. The more you weigh, the less each gram of carbohydrate you eat will raise your blood sugar. Those of us whose weight is less than 150 lbs often find that we can eat between 12 and 20 grams of carbohydrate and still reach normal blood sugar targets without the help of medications, and that we can add perhaps another 10 or 20 grams more, with medications. People who are much heavier can often eat 30 or 40 grams per meal and still reach their blood sugar targets. In general, men can eat more carbohydrates and still reach their targets than can women, again, because of their larger body size.

How to Learn How Much Carbohydrate is in Your Food

To make this system work, it helps if you start to learn how many grams of carbohydrate are in the foods you eat. That way you won't have to test hundreds of foods once you've learned how a representative sample affect you.

The best way to learn how many grams of carbohydrates are in the different foods you eat is to read food labels carefully, invest in a nutritional guide like one of Connie Netzer's books of nutritional information, download nutrition software like LifeForm (http://www.lifeform.com) or use online calculators like Fit Day (http://www.fitday.com). Software and online sites will compute the amount of carbohydrates and other nutrients in your meal for you as long as you know the portion size.

Learn about Portion Sizes!
This brings up an important point: When you estimate how many grams of carbohydrate there are in a portion of food, it is very important to find out if the amount of food on your plate corresponds to the amount in the "one serving" listed on a label, in a book, or in your software.

The best way to do this is to invest in an electronic food scale and to weigh your foods for a few weeks until you get the hang of estimating portion size. You can get a good food scale at a gourmet kitchen shop for $25 to $40 dollars. This food scale may be the best nutritional investment you'll ever make.

Once you start using your scale, you will find that the muffin you bought at the coffee shop weighs 8 ounces, which is fully four times the 2 ounces that most food databases give as "one serving" of a muffin. When you read that a mythical 2 ounce portion of muffin contains 27 grams of carbohydrate you will realize why that 8 ounce coffee shop muffin with its 108 grams of carbohydrates sends your blood sugar into the psycho zone!

With ice cream, when you weigh your ice cream on a food scale, you'll quickly see that the "one portion" listed on the package turns out to be only a few teaspoons' worth. That bowl you've been considering as one portion of ice cream weighs in as four servings or 72 grams of carbohydrate and 600 calories, which may explain its damaging effect on both your blood sugar and your waistline.

This may sound like a lot of work, and when you first start, it is. But after you do it for a few weeks you'll find you have memorized the carbohydrate gram counts and the portion sizes for the foods you usually eat, and once you have tested your blood after eating these portion sizes, you won't have to test every time you eat a favorite meal, because you will know what it is going to do to your blood sugar.

Eating Away from Home

The biggest challenge you'll encounter as you start learning what you can eat will be eating away from home. You aren't going to be able to weigh restaurant foods nor can you look up the nutritional values of many restaurant offerings--though many of the common fast food outlets do provide nutritional information online--though often without listing portion sizes.

That makes it a very good idea to avoid starchy or sugary restaurant foods or, if you do eat them, to eat only a small portion of what you are offered. Measure your blood sugar an hour or two hours after eating if you aren't sure about how a restaurant food will affect you.

Fat and Carbs Eaten Together will Digest Slowly

Foods with a lot of fat in them take longer to digest than those without a lot of fat. This is why pizza and ice cream often give deceptively good readings on your meter. If you test a meal and see a reading that is too good to be true, be sure you test at 3 or four hours after eating.

The Truth About Pasta

Pasta was long recommended to people with diabetes as a food that would not raise blood sugar and you will still see it starring in many cookbooks and magazines intended for people with diabetes.

However, if you test pasta 4 or 5 hours after eating, you may get an unpleasant surprise. This is true with the so-called "low carb" pastas, too. These foods give you excellent readings at one and two hours because they are resistant to digestion so they don't turn into glucose right away. But five hours later, they do break down into glucose and when they do, the 52 grams of carbohydrates found in each 2 ounce serving of pasta will hit your blood stream with a nasty wallop. (Not to mention that you almost need a microscope to see a 2 ounce portion of pasta. Most people's idea of a portion of pasta is closer to 6 ounces--and 156 grams of carbohydrate!)

If you have pasta for dinner and don't see a peak 3 hours later, be sure to check your fasting blood sugar the next morning. You may see the blood sugar rise there, too.

Sugar Alcohol and "Sugar Free" Foods

The sugar alcohol used in so-called "sugar free" foods can also show up in your blood sugar an hour or two after you'd expect to see them, especially the maltitol used in "sugar-free" candy. At least half of the sugar in Maltitol does turn into glucose in your blood stream and it can raise your blood sugar, but the rise is delayed so you may miss it on testing. So if a "sugar free" food seems to be kind to your blood sugar, try testing it an hour or two after your first tests. Erythritol is the one sugar alcohol that usually does not show up in your blood sugar.

Dealing with Limited Blood Testing Supplies

In in ideal world, we'd all have all the testing supplies we needed to control our blood sugar, but in real life blood sugar test strips are very expensive and many insurers sharply limit the number of strips people with Type 2 diabetes can get each month.

Here are some strategies that can help you if your access to strips is limited.

If you only have 50 strips to get you through a month, plan out what you are going to test ahead of time. Pick one of your favorite meals, and test at 1 hour after eating the first time you eat it and 2 hours after eating the second. Do this with a couple different meals and see if there's a pattern as to when you see the highest reading--whether it is at one hour or two. Then choose another meal and test it at the time when you saw the highest reading in the earlier meal. If you ever get a surprisingly low reading, try testing an hour later or earlier, to make sure you aren't missing the peak.

Make the goal of your testing be learning how many grams of carbs you can tolerate in one meal. If you learn that 30 grams is your upper limit, use software and your scale to find portions of other foods that will also clock in at 30 grams or less. Test one or two of these, and if you see the result you expect, you don't have to test every time you eat these foods again.

Wal-mart sells a cheap and effective blood sugar meter with strips that cost one half as much as other vendors. Some drug stores also sell store brand meters with cheaper strips. If you need more strips, consider the $50 you pay for another 100 strips an investment in your health. It's far better to spend that $50 now, than to spend it on expensive doctor bills caused by complications you don't need to develop!

Keep the focus on Achieving your Blood Sugar Goals

By testing after meals, you'll learn how many grams of carbohydrate your own, unique, body can handle. And more importantly, you'll also be able to decide if you are going to be able to control through diet alone, of whether it is time to talk to your doctor about supplementing dietary control with drugs.

Many people are so excited to learn that they can achieve normal blood sugars by cutting way back on carbohydrates that they become zealots for low carb dieting. I've been there and I've done that. But it's important not to get too carried away with a "Carbs are Evil" mentality which makes it a matter of religious zeal never to let evil carbs cross your lips again. Like all conversions this one tends to fade out in time. And as we said at the start of this chapter, your ultimate goal is to maintain your blood sugar targets for the rest of your life. So the safest approach is to get the most blood sugar benefit you can out of restricting carbohydrates, but restrict them to a level you can maintain year in and year out.

Most importantly, I have learned it is best to treat carb restriction as a strategy, one of many, which used in combination with other strategies including medications if needed, can give you normal blood sugars, rather than the One and Only True Way. If you can be flexible and find more than one tool to help you meet your blood sugar targets, you are more likely to be able to maintain those excellent blood sugars for years to come.

Eliminate "Habit Carbs" and Concentrate on "Value Carbs"
When people think about restricting their carb intake they assume this means never eating any of their favorite foods again.

But for many of us, this doesn't have to be true. Why? Because a quick look at your daily carb intake will often reveal that the bulk of the carbohydrates you are eating are what I call "habit carbs." These are the carbs you eat without a second thought because they are there. Not because they taste good. Not because you couldn't live without them. Just because you're in the habit of eating them.

Here is a list of some prime "habit carbs."

Steam table mashed potatoes

Limp french fries

Squashy hamburger buns

Cardboard toast

Cold home fries

Stale boxed cookies

How many of these flavorless, starchy foods are you consuming everyday just because they're there? Probably more than you realize. So before you lift that fork-full to your mouth, ask yourself, "Is this food thrilling me?" If not, put it down. This should go a long way towards getting your carb intake down.

What I'd call "value carbs" are those carb-rich foods that really do mean something to you. I'm not going to lie to you. You are not going to be able to make them the mainstays of your diabetes diet. But by using the strategies describe below, you should be able to eat enough of these foods to keep yourself from feeling deprived--without destroying your health.

Don't Create "Forbidden Foods!"

If you are one of those people who could live happily on Purina People Chow, you can skip what follows. But if food has been important to you, and if you have hitherto had a long and emotionally satisfying relationship with food, or if, like me, baking from scratch was one of your favorite ways to show love and express creativity, restricting your carbohydrate input will mean that a whole lot of what you've been eating (and baking) up until now is suddenly, completely, off limits. I can't eat cake and get a healthy blood sugar level. Even with two different diabetes drugs in my system. I can't eat cake even with an insulin shot before I eat it. I love cake but there is no way I can eat more than a bite or two without seeing very high blood sugars and there is no way I can eat two bites of cake and be happy. The same goes for french fries and Thai noodles.

During the first enthusiastic weeks of exploring carb restriction most people deal with this kind of discovery by coming up with new recipes and finding new, delicious and healthy things they can substitute for old, high carb standards. They appreciate the way cutting way back on carbohydrates curbs their hunger and makes food much more manageable. This is good and it is why long term low carbing is possible. But our old favorite foods do not go away that easily.

If you decide that some food you have been eating and enjoying all your life will never again cross your lips, it is almost 100% guaranteed that you'll end up pigging out on that very same food at some time in the future, hating yourself, and even beginning a binge that can throw you completely off your diet for months.

It might not happen the first month you are restricting your carb intake or even the first year. It took me three years of low carbing to get to where I crashed off my stringent low carb diet. But eventually it happens, and because after almost a decade of counting my carbs I've learned that I will never lose my love for certain foods that don't love me, I've put a lot of time into finding a way of restricting my carbohydrate intake in a way that avoids the buildup those feelings of deprivation that eventually lead to long periods of unwise eating.

The key, for me, is to build safety valves into my diet. I don't call them "cheats" or "bad foods" for reasons I'll get into later. I call them "off plan" foods because they are not food I can make an ongoing part of my daily food plan. Because my goal is life-long blood sugar control, I accept that I will occasional eat "off plan" and that this is okay as long as I am meeting my blood sugar targets most of the time. "Good enough" control that I can adhere to year in and year out beats a few months of perfection followed by crashing off the diet entirely and ruining my health. Here is one way to approach doing this:

Do the Diet Straight for a Month or Two Before You Try Off-Plan Goodies

As you learn what foods raise your blood sugar and what foods don't, you will almost certainly find that there are a lot of foods you used to love that don't work for you anymore. Waffles for breakfast, coffee cake at coffee break, three slices of pizza with crust, a burger with a bun and a side of fries are just a few of the foods that it is almost certain will not allow you to meet your post-meal blood sugar targets.

As you keep using your meter to test what you eat, if you are like most people with diabetes you'll also learn that some of the so-called "low glycemic" foods and the supposedly "healthy" whole grains that nutritionists recommend for people with diabetes won't work either. Oatmeal and whole wheat bagels raise my blood sugar far too high, so does cracked whole wheat, whole wheat bread, and brown rice.

If the dietician tells you a food is good for you, but your meter tells you it is raising your blood sugar to a level that is high enough to cause complications, you will have to listen to your meter. Your meter will tell you what is safe to eat and for the first couple of months while you are learning how to get your blood sugar under control and how bring those high blood sugars down to normal levels you will have to accept that you can only eat those foods that don't cause spikes.

If you attempt to add in off-plan foods before you are solidly on-plan you may never really get into the swing of eating a diet that controls your blood sugars and you may not get to where your body learns to enjoy the lower carb foods that don't give you blood sugar swings.

But after you've gotten your blood sugar under control, nothing horrible will happen if you make room for a small portion of some high carb treat every now and then.

How to Add Off-Plan Foods to the Plan

If you've avoided bread for a couple months, the humble roll in that restaurant bread basket may start to call out to you with an irresistible siren song. If you give in and eat it, with each bite you may find yourself feeling as if you are doing something incredibly sinful--the way you might have felt if you had eaten a whole box of chocolates in the past.

That feeling is the sign that you're heading for trouble. You've created a "forbidden fruit" and sooner or later that forbidden fruit is going to get you. You may find yourself thinking about that roll, craving another, sneaking off to eat one where nobody knows you, or, alternatively, you may declare that you will never again eat a roll ever--and then ruin your Thanksgiving holiday when you go to Aunt Glenda's and refuse to eat even a single one of those wonderful rolls of hers you've eaten every year of your life which say, "This is the family Thanksgiving" to you.

It is far better to make a bit of room in your diet for high carb treats so that they don't build up a charge. If you do this, you'll find that they almost never taste as good as you remembered, and you'll be able to leave them behind without turning them into an object of obsession.

Just knowing that you can eat some specific off-plan food at some future time, when it is scheduled, makes it that much easier to say, "No thanks" to it, and maintain your healthy blood sugar the rest of the time.

How Often Can You Eat Off-Plan?
How often you have an off-plan food depends a lot on your dietary goals, how high your blood sugar is before you eat carbs, and whether you are willing to exercise after eating. It also depends greatly on what medications you are taking for your diabetes. Whatever I eat, I try to keep my blood sugar below 120 mg/dl (6.7 mmol/l) at 2 hours after any meal.

Forty minutes of cardiovascular exercise will burn off a lot of extra carbs, so if you exercise regularly, try to eat your high carb treat before you head for the gym.

If you're trying to lose weight, you may have to keep off plan treats few and far between. When I was actively losing weight on a low carb diet without medications I ate one off-plan meal about once every two weeks.

Once I reached my weight loss goal I loosened up a bit but I found it best to cycle between weeks of eating a strict very low carb diet, and then a week of eating slightly more carbs--but I tried very hard not to ever anything that would cause my blood sugar to be over 120 mg/dl (6.7 mmol/L) at 2 hours after a meal because doing so makes me feel rotten.

Throw Away the Vocabulary of Self-Destructive Dieting

When you eat something with carbs in it, don't think of it as a "cheat." Cheating is what you do when faced with an authority figure--your 9th grade math teacher or the IRS. But you are the one in control of what you eat. So when you eat something that is off-plan, you should stop thinking of it as "getting away with something" and treat it instead as something you've decided to do--for a reason that should be clear to you while you do it.

If you keep eating things that were not what you had intended, rather than beating yourself up, it's time to reconsider your food plan and figure out why it isn't working. Are you having trouble finding foods in restaurants that don't raise your blood sugar? Maybe it's time to bring your lunch along to work for a while, or to find new place to dine.

Are you bored with what you have been eating? Google for good low carb recipes you can try at home. There are thousands of them. If you use the Google Groups search and look for messages in alt.support.diet.low-carb that start with "REC" you'll find a treasure trove of ideas to try.

Keep the vocabulary of sin and guilt for the confessional. You're going to eat a lot of things in the years to come that will mess up your blood sugar. But if you are kind to yourself and dust yourself off after you mess up and keep on going, doing the best you can to hit your blood sugar targets, you may very well end up healthier than many people who do not have diabetes. The important thing is to keep at it, doing the best you can and forgiving yourself when the best you can do isn't as good as you wish it was.

Know Your Limits
I've learned the hard way I can't eat half a blueberry muffin, so I don't even try portion control for that particular food. I know blueberry muffins are trouble and I also know that I will eventually eat one. That's just how it is, so every blue moon or so I eat a blueberry muffin, experience the miserable high blood sugars that follow, and then remember why I don't eat muffins every day any more. What I don't do is fool myself that I can buy a muffin and only eat half. Everyone has a few foods that fall into this category. Treat them with caution!

Eat Off-Plan Foods Out of the House
I've learned the hard way that if a big box of something full of carbs is in the fridge, bad things are going to happen. So I try to eat my off-plan foods away from home. I eat my muffins or cookies at a coffee house. I have a slice of pizza at a pizzeria. I don't buy a box of muffins or a whole pizza and bring them home.

Getting this strategy to work requires that your whole family understand what's at stake. It took me a couple years of harping on what "complications" means, but by now, my family understands that if my blood sugar is too high, I'm damaging my body. They want to keep me around for a while, so they understand that there are some foods that shouldn't be brought into the house--ever.

When other family members want to have treats at home, they are kind enough to buy things I don't like. For example, if someone wants Ben & Jerry's they buy the Chunky Monkey flavor that I find revolting, not the New York Fudge. By the same token, when my kids lived at home, I didn't buy them the brands of cookies I can't resist. There are plenty of others cookies they liked that don't tempt me at all, and those were the ones in the cupboard.

Over the years the nondiabetic members of my family learned that no one is doing themselves a favor scarfing down 300 grams of fast acting carbohydrate every day--particularly not people with a family history of diabetes and heart disease!

Medications Can Help

I'm not a big fan of medications because I've learned the hard way that drug companies lie about side effects and some of these side effects are permanent and can ruin your life. But I learned the hard way, too, that some of us (like, say me) can't get normal blood sugars no matter how low our carb intake. For us, adding a diabetic drug or two to our daily regimen may be the only way we can get normal blood sugars without a life of tormenting self-denial.

Drugs I have found useful over the years include metformin, precose, and post-meal insulin shots. The new incretin drugs, Januvia and Byetta help some people make dramatic improvements in their blood sugar, but the way that they work makes it necessary to eat a slightly higher amount of carbohydrates with them because they only work when your blood sugar rises over a certain threshold. Even with these drugs (including Januvia) I've never been able to eat more than 120 grams of carbohydrates a day, but after many years of eating an extremely low carb diet--which was the only diet that would control my blood sugars--120 grams of carbs a day feels like a completely normal diet!

Be Aware of Rising Insulin Resistance

Some people may find that eating a low carb diet is not enough to control their blood sugar because they are very insulin resistant. Perhaps they have been diagnosed with PCOS, or have to take a drug, like Prednisone that increases insulin resistance. The book, Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution by Dr. Richard K. Bernstein, the distinguished diabetes doctor, recommends Metformin as an appropriate drug for patients on a low carb diet whose blood sugars are still not completely controlled. It isn't a cure by any means, just one more tool you can use to keep blood sugars under control, and if you limit your insulin resistance you may solve both weight and hunger problems that otherwise can derail your diet.

You can read more about the different drugs available to help control blood sugars HERE. Just remember that all these diabetes drugs work best when you combine them with some level of carbohydrate restriction. How much restriction? Test your meals one and two hours after eating, and your blood sugar meter will tell you exactly how much.

Top Medical Journal Publishes Landmark Study Showing Very Low Carb Diet Most Effective and Safest for Lipids etc.

In case you are still being given out-of-date medical or nutritional advice by people who tell you that a low carb/high fat diet will give you a heart attack, take a look at this recently published study, which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

This study found that an Atkins style low carb diet not only caused double the weight loss of the low fat diet at the end of one year, but it did not adversely affect cholesterol levels.

This finding, added to the Women's Health Initiative finding (after $40 million dollars of research) that low fat dieting does NOT prevent heart disease, should lay to rest any last fears you might have about the impact of cutting carbs on your health.

The findings of this study, are not news to anyone who has tried a low carb diet and stuck with it for any period of time, but they appear to amaze the entire medical community who continue to cling to their to the "Fat is Bad" religious belief long no matter what evidenced-based medical studies might come up with.

Bottom line: You can cut your carbs way down, replace carbs with fat, and await the better health this kind of eating will provide.

Comparison of the Atkins, Zone, Ornish, and LEARN Diets for Change in Weight and Related Risk Factors Among Overweight Premenopausal Women: The A TO Z Weight Loss Study: A Randomized Trial.Christopher D. Gardner, PhD; Alexandre Kiazand, MD; Sofiya Alhassan, PhD; Soowon Kim, PhD; Randall S. Stafford, MD, PhD; Raymond R. Balise, PhD; Helena C. Kraemer, PhD; Abby C. King, PhD

Here's the summary of the WHI findings:

NIH News: News from the Women?s Health Initiative: Reducing Total Fat Intake May Have Small Effect on Risk of Breast Cancer, No Effect on Risk of Colorectal Cancer, Heart Disease, or Stroke

Here's a study that documents the effectiveness of lowering carbs and increasing fat and protein consumption for the control of blood sugar in the absense of weight loss:

Control of blood glucose in type 2 diabetes without weight loss by modification of diet composition. Nutrition & Metabolism 2006, 3:16.

To Get More Help with Making a Low Carbohydrate Diet Work

My "Low Carb Facts and Figures" site, which now shares this server, has more information I collected back in the days when I used a low carb diet for both weight loss and blood sugar control.

You'll find articles there that address a few of the issues people run into while eating a very low carb diet,which are not answered in a completely honest fashion by the people who sell diet books promising you can lose weight easily while gorging on all your favorite foods--which, sadly, is 99% of all authors writing diet books.

I stumbled onto Jenny Ruhl's Diabetes Update blog after I received several very insightful comments to this blog whenever I posted a discussion on diabetes or pre-diabetes/metabolic syndrome.

Who the heck was this commenter who clearly had deep insight into diabetic issues?

It turned out to be Jenny Ruhl, a woman who learned her lessons the hard way: by receiving a belated diagnosis of (an unusual form of) diabetes, then receiving plenty of mis-guided advice from physicians on diet and treatment. Reading her many blog posts and websites, you get the clear sense of how hard this individual worked to gain the depth of knowledge she's acquired, on a par or superior to most diabetes specialists.

And she minces no words in expressing her heartfelt and carefully considered opinions. But that's what I look for: people who are unafraid to voice opinions that may not be consistent with the flow of conventional thought, but ring true and prove effective.

Dr. Davis: From your blog and websites on diabetes, it is clear that you exceptionally knowledgeable in the world of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and related disorders. Can you give us a little background on how you came to this quest?

Jenny: Though I was told I was a "classic type 2" [diabetic] by my doctors, nothing I read about diabetes corresponded to my own experience. I knew my diabetes had not been caused by obesity because I'd been a normal weight all my life until my blood sugars went out of control at which point I developed ravenous hunger and gained a lot of weight very quickly.

I also wondered at the huge gap between what Dr. Bernstein said was a normal blood sugar and what my doctors told me was a safe blood sugar for a person with diabetes. The people I met who followed Bernstein's very low carb diet had much better blood sugars and far fewer complications, but my doctors dismissed this as irrelevant. So I decided to do some research to find out who to believe. I plunged into the medical journal articles that had recently been made available on the web to see if I could answer two questions: What causes diabetes? and "What does science actually know about what blood sugar levels damage organs?"

The result was the information that became the basis for the Blood Sugar 101 site. Initially, I attempted to sell it as a book, but editors told me that though what I'd learned was "fascinating" it would be "over the head" of the typical health book buyer who wanted simple explanations and if possible, a simplistic slant towards "cure." Fortunately, the very strong response and high traffic volume to the web site proved that, as I had thought, there are a lot of people who do want more than an oversimplified overview and who, given the information they needed, were able to make huge positive changes in their health.

Dr. Davis: What do you think your life would be like if you hadn't pursued this unique course?

Jenny: Possibly a lot shorter.

People in my family die of heart attacks in their 50s, probably from undiagnosed high blood sugars. The pattern of the type of diabetes I have is to have a normal fasting blood sugar and an extremely high post-meal blood sugar after consuming very few grams of carbohydrate. When doctors diagnose using only the fasting blood test, they miss those highs, which research is now finding to be a primary cause of heart disease.

I also would have been a lot fatter. My doctors told me that I was packing on 20 lbs a year due to "normal menopausal changes" and that there was nothing I could do about it. Lowering my carbs significantly dropped all the weight I had gained and I still weigh a lot less now than I did in 1998.

Dr. Davis: You've been a keen observer of the diabetes scene for some years. Have you discerned any important trends in both the public's perception of diabetes as well as how diabetes is managed in the conventional world?

Jenny: The huge difference I see is that, over the last decade, the online diabetes community has learned the value of cutting back on carbohydrates and shooting for truly normal blood sugar levels. So people who put some time into researching diabetes online and talking with those of us who have succeeded in avoiding complications will learn that they do not have to settle for very high blood sugars and deterioration their doctors think inevitable.

Unfortunately, the media have put most of their energy into promoting the discredited idea that diabetes is caused by gluttony and sloth and to promoting the equally discredited idea that people with diabetes should eat a high carbohydrate diet and avoid fat.

So for now there is a huge divide in the quality of life of those people with diabetes who educated enough to go out on the web and educate themselves and those who get their diabetes information from doctors. Sadly most doctors still encourage patients to eat low fat/ high carb diets, and counter the very high blood sugars this diet produces with oral drugs of questionable efficacy, while assuring patients they will be safe if they maintain blood sugar levels that meet the American Diabetes Association's recommendations, though a mass of research shows these are high enough to produce every single diabetic complication possible.

Dr. Davis: I understand that you've released a new book, Blood Sugar 101. How is your book unique in the world of diabetes books? Who should read Blood Sugar 101?

Jenny: Blood Sugar 101: What They Don't Tell You About Diabetes differs from other books in that it gives the reader a much deeper understanding of what is really going on in their bodies as their blood sugar control breaks down and what sciences knows about how abnormal blood sugars cause complications. Then it gives the reader the tools they need to find what diet and/or drug regimen will brings their own, unique, blood sugars down to a truly safe level.

Unlike some books, this one does not present a one-size-fits-all solution, but recognizes that Type 2 diabetes is really a catch-all diagnosis that covers a lot of disorders that behave quite differently. That is why what works for one person with diabetes may not work for another.

Because this book provides details available nowhere else about the physiology of diabetes and the drugs available to treat it, readers will find the information they need to work with their doctors to craft a regimen that brings their blood sugar into the range that preserves and improves their health.

Dr. Davis: Before we close, tell us a little about yourself outside of your diabetes advocate role.

Jenny: I live in rural New England and am a passionate gardener. I've been online since 1980 when I was part of the team at IBM that developed the first commercial email program, PROFS. I got involved in online discussion groups in 1987 and have been messaging on bulletin boards ever since.

I was a professional singer/songwriter in Nashville in my youth and spent my middle years as a bestselling author of books about consulting. Right now a lot of my energy goes into managing the financial and software side of a family business that makes hand made pocket tools for collectors.

Dr. Davis: Thank you for your great insights, Jenny!

True to form, Dr. John Cannell has published yet another wonderfully insightful Vitamin D Newsletter.

One item caught my eye, a response to a question about the Marshall Protocol. I, like Dr. Cannell, was inundated with questions about this so-called protocol, which amounts to little more than the unfounded speculations of a non-physician, actually someone not even involved in health care.

In all honesty, I blew the whole issue off after I read Dr. Marshall's rants. They smack of pure quackery, though from somebody who clearly has a command of scientific lingo. To Dr. Cannell's credit, he took the time and effort to construct a rational response in the latest issue of the newsletter. I reproduce his response here:

Dear Dr. Cannell:

I understand Dr. Marshall conducted a study and found vitamin D is bad for you. What kind of study did he do?

Mary, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Dear Mary:

I have been inundated with letters asking about Professor Marshall's recent "discovery." Some have written that to say they have stopped their vitamin D and are going to avoid the sun in order to begin the "Marshall protocol." The immediate cause of this angst is two publications, a press article in Science Daily about Professor Marshall's "study" (which is no study but simply an opinion) in BioEssays. Dr. Trevor Marshall has two degrees, both in electrical engineering. Before I begin, I want to again remind you that I am a psychiatrist who works at a state mental hospital. In my duty to full disclosure, I must say that I have known a lot of psychiatrists in my life and a few electrical engineers. If I knew nothing else of a disagreement between two people but their professions, I would believe the electrical engineer, not the psychiatrist.

In reading his two articles, Dr. Marshall's main hypotheses are simple. (1) Vitamin D from sunlight is different than vitamin D from supplements. (2) Vitamin D is immunosuppressive and the low blood levels of vitamin D found in many chronic diseases are the result of the disease and not the cause. (3) Taking vitamin D will harm you, that is, vitamin D will make many diseases worse, not better. If you read his blog, you discover that the essence of the Marshall protocol is: "An angiotensin II receptor blocker medication, Benicar, is taken, and sunlight, bright lights and foods and supplements with vitamin D are diligently avoided. This enables the body's immune system, with the help of small doses of antibiotics, to destroy the intracellular bacteria. It can take approximately one to three years to destroy all the bacteria." That is, Dr. Marshall has his "patients" become very vitamin D deficient.

Again, Dr. Marshall conducted no experiment and published no study. He wrote an essay. He presented no evidence for his first hypothesis (sunlight's vitamin D is different than supplements). From all that we know, cholecalciferol is cholecalciferol, regardless if it is made in the skin or put in the mouth. His second hypothesis is certainly possible and that is why all scientists who do association studies warn readers that they don't know what is causing what. Certainly, when low levels of vitamin D are found in certain disease states, it is possible that the low levels are the result, and not the cause, of the disease. Take patients with severe dementia bedridden in a nursing home. At least some of their low 25(OH)D levels are likely the result of confinement and lack of outdoor activity. However, did dementia cause the low vitamin D levels or did low 25 (OH)D contribute to the dementia? One way to look at that question is to look at early dementia, before the patient is placed in a nursing home. On the first day an older patient walks into a neurology clinic, before being confined to a nursing home, what is the relationship between vitamin D levels and dementia? The answer is clear, the lower your 25(OH)D levels the worse your cognition.

Wilkins CH, Sheline YI, Roe CM, Birge SJ, Morris JC. Vitamin D deficiency is associated with low mood and worse cognitive performance in older adults. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2006 Dec;14(12):1032-40.

Przybelski RJ, Binkley NC. Is vitamin D important for preserving cognition? A positive correlation of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration with cognitive function. Arch Biochem Biophys. 2007 Apr 15;460(2):202-5. Epub 2007 Jan 8.

These studies suggest that the low 25(OH)D levels are contributing to the dementia but do not prove it. Only a randomized controlled trial will definitively answer the question, a trial that has not been done. So you will have to decide if vitamin D is good for your brain or not. Dr. Marshall seems to be saying demented patients should lower their 25(OH)D levels. Keep in mind, an entire chapter in Feldman's textbook is devoted to the ill effects low vitamin D levels have on brain function.

Brachet P, et al. Vitamin D, a neuroactive hormone: from brain development to pathological disorders. In Feldman D., Pike JW, Glorieux FH, eds. Vitamin D. San Diego : Elsevier, 2005.

It is true that in some diseases, high doses of vitamin D may be harmful. For example, in the early part of last century, the AMA specifically excluded pulmonary TB from the list of TB infections that ultraviolet light helps. They did so because many of the early pioneers of solariums reported that acutely high doses of sunlight caused some patients with severe pulmonary TB to bleed to death. Thus, these pioneers developed very conservative sun exposure regimes for pulmonary TB patients in which small areas of the skin were progressively exposed to longer and longer periods of sunlight. Using this method, sunlight helped pulmonary TB, often to the point of a cure. Furthermore, it is well known that sunlight can cause high blood calcium in patients with sarcoidosis. In fact, sarcoidosis is one of several granulomatous diseases with vitamin D hypersensitivity where the body loses its ability to regulate activated vitamin D production, causing hypercalcemia.

Cronin CC, et al. Precipitation of hypercalcaemia in sarcoidosis by foreign sun holidays: report of four cases. Postgrad Med J. 1990 Apr;66(774):307-9.

Furthermore, although medical science is not yet convinced, some common autoimmune diseases may have an infectious etiology. I recently spoke at length with a rheumatologist who suffers from swollen and painful joints whenever he sunbathes or takes high doses of vitamin D. As long as he limits his vitamin D input his joints are better. To the extent vitamin D upregulates naturally occurring antibiotics of innate immunity, sunlight or vitamin D supplements may cause the battlefield (the joints) to become hot spots. I know of no evidence this is the case but it is certainly possible.

However, If Dr. Marshall's principal hypothesis is correct, that low vitamin D levels are the result of disease, then he is saying that cancer causes low vitamin D levels, not the other way around. The problem is that Professor Joanne Lappe directly disproved that theory in a randomized controlled trial when she found that baseline vitamin D levels were strong and independent predictors of who would get cancer in the future. The lower your levels, the higher the risk. Furthermore, increasing baseline levels from 31 to 38 ng/ml reduced incident cancers by more than 60% over a four year period. Therefore, advising patients to become vitamin D deficient, as the Marshall protocol clearly does, will cause some patients to die from cancer.

Lappe JM, Travers-Gustafson D, Davies KM, Recker RR, Heaney RP. Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Jun;85(6):1586-91.

I will not write again about Dr. Marshall's theories. No one in the vitamin D field takes him seriously. Personally, I admire anyone willing to swim against the tide and raise alternative theories. I have done the same with influenza and autism. However, I agree with the New York Times, An Oldie Vies for Nutrient of the Decade and Jane Brody's conclusion, "In the end, you will have to decide for yourself how much of this vital nutrient to consume each and every day and how to obtain it." I agree. You will have to decide for yourself.

John Cannell, MD
The Vitamin D Council

The American Heart Association (AHA) was kind enough to send me an e-mail headlining the breaking news from the American College of Cardiology (ACC) meetings underway in Chicago:

ISAR-REACT 3
A Randomized, Double-Blind, Active-Controlled, Multi-Center Trial (ISAR-REACT 3) of Bivalirudin Versus Unfractionated Heparin in Troponin-Negative Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Interventions After Pre-Treatment With 600 mg of Clopidogrel

TRITON - TIMI 38 Stent Analysis
Prasugrel Compared to Clopidogrel in Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes Undergoing PCI With Stenting: The TRITON - TIMI 38 Stent Analysis

Percutaneous Coronary Interventions in Facilities without On-Site Cardiac Surgery (NCDR)

(And four other similar reports)

Let's meld the ACC headlines with the financial headlines:

July 2, 2007
The Medicines Company announces reacquisition of all marketing rights to bivalirudin, anticoagulant growing in use for coronary angioplasty and related procedures. 2008 sales anticipated to be in the $15-20 million range, to grow to $90-110 million, a growth rate of 50% per year.

November 20, 2007
Drug manufacturing giant, Eli Lilly, vies for a portion of the $5 billion (annual revenues) oral anti-platelet market, now occupied by Plavix, with its newer, but questionably better, agent, prasugrel.

Growth of the coronary angioplasty (percutaneous coronary intervention, or PCI) doesn't ordinarily make headlines, but the performance of specific companies within the industry does. Angioplasty and cardiac device maker (inc. the drug-coated stent, Taxus), Boston Scientific, for instance, announced record sales of $8.537 billion for 2007, an increase of $536 million. How to grow this market? We could always hope for more people with heart attacks or other unstable symptoms. Or, we could . . . increase the number of hospitals capable of PCI! Brilliant.

The money behind this push for procedures is staggering. It drives enormous marketing efforts, pays Washington lobbyists, pays for many nice dinners and trips for doctors who engage in the system, and pays for very costly research.

And the AHA and ACC are kind enough to let us know about these great pieces of news.

Wheat belly

If health won't motivate them, maybe money will

What role calcium supplements?

"Heart scans" are not always heart scans

Heavy traffic and heart scans

Digging for the truth

A new Track Your Plaque record: 63% reduction

The Ornish diet made me fat

Do lower heart scan scores grow faster?

Mr. Salazar: Check your Lp(a)

Lipoprotein(a) Research Foundation

More on ASTEROID

LDL cholesterol, statins, and plaque regression

When is a calorie not a calorie?

Track Your Plaque data abstract

Small fish oil capsules

Low-carb eating for diabetes

Interview with an outspoken advocate of truth in diabetes

The Marshall Protocol and other fairy tales

Breaking news from the American College of Cardiology meetings