Tell me your wheat elimination story and receive a copy of my new book, Wheat Belly

6. May 2011 William Davis (68)
I'm looking for interesting wheat-free experiences.

For the past year, I have been writing my new book, Wheat Belly . After many, many late nights and soccer games missed, it's now finished. The book will be out in fall, 2011, to be published by Rodale, the Prevention Magazine people.

Wheat Belly will provide, in excruciating detail, the discussion of how wheat was transformed from innocent wild grass to incredible genetically-altered Frankengrain and why it has become such a health nuisance.

I am looking for interesting stories of wheat elimination for the online and special editions of the book. If you have an interesting tale of wheat-elimination successes, woes, or drama, I'd like to hear about it. Even better, if you would agree to be interviewed by phone (not for live use, just for comments and detail), the editors at Rodale will help tell your story.

If we use your story, I will have a free copy of the new Wheat Belly sent to you when it becomes available.

Please post your story in the comments here. I will then need to obtain your contact info, which we will do privately.

 

Real men don't eat carbs

27. April 2011 William Davis (0)
Real men don't eat carbs. At least they don't eat them without eventually paying the price.

How do carbohydrates, especially those contained in "healthy whole grains," impair maleness? Several ways:

--Consume carbohydrates, especially the exceptional glucose-increasing amylopectin A from wheat, and visceral fat grows. Visceral fat increases estrogen levels; estrogen, in effect, opposes the masculinizing effects of testosterone. Overweight males typically have low testosterone and high estrogen, a cause for depression, emotionality, weight gain, and low libido.

--Sugar-provoking carbohydrates like wheat cause visceral fat to accumulate which, in turn, triggers prolactin to be released. Increased prolactin in a male causes growth of breasts: "man boobs,""man cans," "moobs," etc. This is why male breast reduction surgery is booming at double-digit growth rates. In cities like LA, you can see billboards advertising male breast reduction surgery.

--Carbohydrates increase visceral fat that sets the stage for postprandial abnormalities, i.e., markedly increased and persistent lipoproteins, like chylomicron remnants and VLDL particles, that impair endothelial function literally within minutes to hours of ingestion. Impaired endothelial function underlies erectile dysfunction. This is why Internet spammers so enthusiastically send you offers for discounted Viagra.

--Carbohydrates increase blood sugar which provokes the process of glycation, glucose modification of proteins, that also contributes to endothelial dysfunction followed by erectile dysfunction.

Real men therefore avoid carbs.

Real men don't eat carbs

27. April 2011 William Davis (57)
Real men don't eat carbs. At least they don't eat them without eventually paying the price.

How do carbohydrates, especially those contained in "healthy whole grains," impair maleness? Several ways:

--Consume carbohydrates, especially the exceptional glucose-increasing amylopectin A from wheat, and visceral fat grows. Visceral fat increases estrogen; estrogen, in effect, opposes the masculinizing effects of testosterone. Overweight males typically have low testosterone, high estrogen, a cause for depressions, emotionality, and weight gain.

--Consume carbohydrates like wheat and visceral fat causes prolactin to be released. Increased prolactin in a male causes growth of breasts: "man boobs,""man cans," "moobs," etc. This is why male breast reduction surgery is booming at double-digit growth rates. In cities like LA, you can see billboards advertising male breast reduction surgery.

--Carbohydrates increase visceral fat that sets the stage for postprandial abnormalities, i.e., markedly increased and prolonged lipoproteins like chylomicron remnants and VLDL particles that impair endothelial function. Impaired endothelial function underlies erectile dysfunction. Eat a bagel, become impotent.

Why do the Japanese have less heart disease?

24. April 2011 William Davis (49)
We should look to the Japanese to teach us a few lessons about preventing heart disease. A Japanese male has only 65% of the risk of an American male (despite 40% of Japanese men being smokers), while a Japanese woman has 80% less risk than an American woman. While the U.S. is near the top of the list of nations with highest cardiovascular risk, Japan is the lowest.

What are they doing right?

There is no one explanation, but several. Genetics probably does not play a substantial role, by the way, as demonstrated by observations of Japanese people who emigrate to Western cultures. People of Japanese heritage living in Hawaii, for instance, develop the same cardiovascular risk as non-Japanese living in Hawaii. They also develop obesity and diabetes.

Among the factors that likely contribute to reduced risk in Japanese people:

--A style of eating that does not include a lot of sweet foods. No breakfast cereal or donuts for breakfast, for instance, but miso soup with tofu, fish, green onions, and daikon (as takuan, or pickled radish).
--Seaweed--It's probably a combination of the green phytonutrients and iodine. Typical daily iodine intake is in the neighborhood of 5000 mcg per day from nori, kombu, wakame, and other seaweed forms. (The average American obtains 125 mcg per day of iodine from diet.)
--Seafood--Fish in many forms not seen in the U.S. are popular.
--Green tea--Consumption of green tea has been confidently linked to reduced cardiovascular risk, probably via visceral fat-reducing, anti-oxidative, and anti-inflammatory effects. Although tea in Japan is often the less flavonoid-rich oolong tea, softer benefits from this form are likely.
--Soy--Tofu, miso, and soy sauce are staples. It's not clear to me whether soy is intrinsically beneficial or whether it is beneficial because it serves to replace unhealthy alternatives. (Genetic modification may change this effect.)
--Reduced exposure to cooked animal products (except seafood). This is not a saturated fat issue, but probably an advanced glycation end-product/lipoxidation issue that result from cooking.
--The lack of a "eat more healthy whole grain" mentality, the advice that has plunged the entire U.S. into the depths of a diabetes and obesity crisis (along with high-fructose corn syrup and sugar). Noodles like udon and ramen do have a place in their diet, as do some dessert foods. But the overall wheat exposure is less--no bagels, sandwiches, and breakfast cereals.
--Less overweight and obesity--The above eating style leads to less weight gain.

Japanese foods have a unique taste, consistency, and mouth-feel that go well with saltiness, thus the downside of their diet: salt consumption. On a broad scale, high salt consumption has been associated with hypertension and gastric cancer. But the tradeoff has, on the whole, been a favorable one.


One study trying to find some answers:

Dietary patterns and cardiovascular disease mortality in Japan: a prospective cohort study.

Shimazu T, Kuriyama S, Hozawa A et al.
Division of Epidemiology, Department of Public Health and Forensic Medicine, Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan.


We prospectively assessed the association between dietary patterns among the Japanese and CVD mortality. Dietary information was collected from 40 547 Japanese men and women aged 40-79 years without a history of diabetes, stroke, myocardial infarction or cancer at the baseline in 1994.
During 7 years of follow-up, 801 participants died of CVD.

Factor analysis (principal component) based on a validated food frequency questionnaire identified three dietary patterns: (i) a Japanese dietary pattern highly correlated with soybean products, fish, seaweeds, vegetables, fruits and green tea, (ii) an 'animal food' dietary pattern and (iii) a high-dairy, high-fruit-and-vegetable, low-alcohol (DFA) dietary pattern. The Japanese dietary pattern was related to high sodium intake and high prevalence of hypertension. After adjustment for potential confounders, the Japanese dietary pattern score was associated with a lower risk of CVD mortality (hazard ratio of the highest quartile vs the lowest, 0.73; 95% confidence interval: 0.59-0.90; P for trend = 0.003). The 'animal food' dietary pattern was associated with an increased risk of CVD, but the DFA dietary pattern was not.

The Japanese dietary pattern was associated with a decreased risk of CVD mortality, despite its relation to sodium intake and hypertension.

Niacin: What forms are safe?

20. April 2011 William Davis (52)
Niacin, or vitamin B3, remains a confusing issue for many people. It shouldn't be.

It doesn't help that most physicians and many pharmacists also do not understand the basic issues surrounding niacin. The only reason why there is any level of prevailing knowledge about niacin is that Kos Pharmaceuticals managed to "pharmaceuticalize" a niacin preparation, prescription Niaspan, that provided the revenue to fund professional "education."

Niacin can be helpful to increase HDL, reduce small LDL particles and shift them towards the more benign large particles, reduce triglycerides, and reduce lipoprotein(a).

So here's a brief description of the various forms that you will find niacin:

Immediate-release niacin--Also called crystalline niacin or just niacin. This is the original niacin that releases within minutes of ingestion. Because it releases rapidly, it triggers the most intense "hot flush." While this form of niacin works wonderfully well, is the safest, and is dirt cheap, the majority of people are simply unable to tolerate the intense flush. It also works best taken twice a day, generating two intolerable flushes per day.

Slow-release niacin--These preparations were popular in the 1980s, since the slow 12 to 24 hour pattern of release minimized the annoying hot flush. But, with prolonged use, it also became apparent that an unnaceptable frequency of liver toxicity developed. Unfortunately, this means that any niacin preparation that trickles niacin out over an extended period, including many of the slow-release preparations now sold in health food stores and pharmacies, have potential for liver toxicity. These preparations should be avoided.

6-hour release niacin--Releasing niacin more slowly than immediate-release niacin but more rapidly than slow-release niacin, 6-hour release (or what the Niaspan people call "extended-release" niacin) is nearly as effective as immediate-release niacin with approximately the same low potential for liver toxicity. It is far less liver toxic than slow-release niacin. 6-hour release niacin therefore offers the best balance between effectiveness and safety. Preparations that show this pattern of release include Niaspan ($180 per month), the poorly-named Sloniacin (about $8 per month), and Enduracin (about $7 per month) for 1000 mg per day. (Some Track Your Plaque Members have also determined that several other over-the-counter preparations have been demonstrated to share a similar pattern of release.)

Then there are the scam products that have no useful effect at all:

Flush-free or no-flush niacin--Inositol hexaniacinate, or 6 niacin molecules bound to the sugar, inositol, has no effect in humans, at least not with the dozen or so preparations that I've seen used. Nor are there any data to document the effectiveness of flush-free niacin. It's also more expensive.

Nicotinamide--This niacin derivative likewise has no effect on the usual targets for niacin treatment.

While I used to prescribe Niaspan, the ridiculous pricing and aggressive marketing really turned me off. I now advise my patients and our online followers to use only Sloniacin or Enduracin, unless you can tolerate immediate-release niacin.

Introduction to the New Track Your Plaque book, version 2.0

18. April 2011 William Davis (0)

Out with the old,
in with the new  



“I believe that you are suffering from what is called a fatty degeneration of the heart.”

Dr. Tertius Lydgate to Mr. Casaubon on making a diagnosis with the new medical device, the stethoscope.

George Elliot
Middlemarch, 1871





Old notions in medicine have a peculiar way of lingering.

In 1882, Dr. Robert Koch discovered the tubercle bacillus in tissues of people with “consumption.” By connecting a bacterium with the disease, he usurped the long held notion that tuberculosis was a degenerative disease caused by lack of fresh air. But, for decades after Dr. Koch’s revelation, the “bad air” belief persisted. Surgical collapse of the lung, a painful and barbaric treatment for tuberculosis, persisted well into the 1960s, years after effective antibiotics were discovered in 1947.

The medical community of the 19th century viewed mental illness as the hereditary end-product of ancestral nervousness, alcoholism, prostitution and criminal behavior, a bias that remained widespread well into the mid-20th century. Nazi physicians invoked the theory of heritable “mental degeneration” to justify wholesale extermination of schizophrenics. Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT, or “electroshock therapy”) was widely applied to treat schizophrenia, depression, homosexuality, and criminal behavior for over 30 years, gradually abandoned (at least in its original form) after years of abusive application to subdue patients, demonized in the 1975 movie, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” depicting the author’s real-life experience with ECT.

Long after a theory or practice has been discredited, it can persist, refusing to die. The new and improved may not be adopted into mainstream practice for years, even decades.

Back to the 21st century: What if you realized that, by quirks of human nature and the uneven adoption of health information, your doctor practiced medicine appropriate for 1985? 1975?

While digital information nowadays is transmitted at the speed of light, disseminating as fast as it takes the next juicy tidbit to be “virally” reproduced via social networking websites, it’s the human factor that still operates with the inertia of human behavior. Habits and attitudes slow the adoption of new information in time measured not in seconds, but in years or decades.

A century ago, 20 years were required for the new technology of blood pressure measurement to be adopted after its introduction in the U.S. in 1910, since physicians were long comfortable with the practice of “pulse palpation” (feeling the pulse). (The arcane language of pulse palpation persists to this day, terms like “pulsus parvus et tardus,” the slow rising pulse of a stiff aortic valve; and the "water-hammer" pulse of a leaking aortic valve.)

The discovery of new, health-changing information today in the 21st century disseminates through the ranks of modern healthcare providers at much the same pace as measuring blood pressure did in the early 20th century.

It’s also tempting to paint American medicine as a fiefdom intent on maintaining exclusive rein over health information. Look back over the hierarchical relationship of medicine over nursing in the past century: When blood pressure measurement was adopted on a broad scale in the 1930s, it was practiced only by physicians, since nurses were deemed incapable. (Modern-day nurses should surely have a hearty laugh over this.) Stethoscopes, around even longer than blood pressure cuffs, weren’t permitted to fall into the hands of nurses until the 1960s, since the medical community feared that nurses might command too much control over patient care. Even after nurses were permitted to have their own stethoscopes, great pains were taken to be certain the nurses’ version was readily distinguishable from the “real” tool wielded by physicians; nurses’ stethoscopes were therefore labeled “nurse-o-scopes,” or “assistoscopes,” and were required to be smaller and flimsier.

Old and ineffective doesn’t always give way to new and better at once; it is slowed by habit as well as an unwillingness to relinquish control.

Somehow technology marches on. But it does so unevenly, sweeping some along in its first wave, others in its wake, some never at all.

Just as effective antibiotics to cure tuberculosis were available for 20 years while surgeons continued to remove patients’ lungs, so better solutions to heart disease are already available but not yet employed by your neighborhood physician. The primary care physician may have heard about some of the newest means to prevent heart disease, but is too overwhelmed with the day-to-day of sore throats, diarrhea, and rashes. Cardiologists, intent on inserting the next best stent or defibrillator, have little but passing interest in strategies that might halt or reverse the heart disease that can be “managed,” no matter how imperfectly, with procedural solutions like angioplasty and bypass surgery. We should bear these flawed human tendencies in mind as we explore the world of heart disease prevention.

We need look no farther than the front page of the newspaper to find evidence of the failure of present-day heart disease detection and management. Over the past several years, headlines have carried the likes of Tim Russert, Bill Clinton, Larry King, Dick Cheney, David Letterman, Tommy Lasorda, Ed Bradley, Mike Ditka, Walter Cronkite, Alberto Salazar, all heart disease sufferers. Some, like talk show host David Letterman, survived their brush with heart catastrophe and underwent successful bypass surgery. Others, like marathoners Fixx and Salazar, raised none of the conventional red flags for heart disease. All received standard, “modern” medical care . . . all the way up to their heart attack, bypass surgery, or untimely death.

Like the sphygnomanometer (blood pressure) cuffs of 1910, Track Your Plaque represents an example of the new. But, unlike the simple practice of taking blood pressure in the early 20th century, Track Your Plaque represents an entirely new way to look at coronary heart disease: a new way to measure it, a new way to identify its causes, and a new way to seize control over it, often to the point of achieving reversal of the process. It also puts control over much of this process into your hands and away from hospitals, cardiologists, and heart procedures. 

I could speak of revealing “secrets,” but that’s not true. In Track Your Plaque, I simply convey information about heart disease that you were likely unaware existed, strategies that doctors fail to discuss. I assemble them into a “package” that, together, create an enormously empowering unique approach to prevent heart disease and heart attack.

Track Your Plaque also challenges the high-tech status quo, practices that occupy exalted places in the enormous cardiovascular healthcare machine that has dominated American healthcare for the past 40 years. I propose that high-tech hospital procedures should join the practice of ECT for homosexuality and insanity¾and become yet another relic of the past.

What are "normal" triglycerides?

12. April 2011 William Davis (67)
Among the most neglected yet enormously helpful values on any standard cholesterol panel is the triglyceride value.

Triglycerides traverse the bloodstream by hitching a ride on water (serum)-soluble lipoproteins, or lipid-carrying proteins. We measure triglycerides as an indirect index of triglyceride-containing lipoproteins.

Triglycerides are a basic currency of energy. While the average American ingests around 300 mg of cholesterol per day, he or she also ingests 60,000-120,000 mg (60-120 grams) of triglycerides, i.e., 200 to 400 times greater amounts, from fat intake. Zero triglycerides in the diet or in the bloodstream is not an option.

But what represents too much triglycerides in the bloodstream? There are several observations to help us make this determination:

1) When fasting triglycerides are 133 mg/dl or greater, 80% of people will show show at least some degree of small LDL particles.

2) When fasting triglycerides are 60 mg/dl or less, most (though not all, since genetic factors enter into the picture) people will show little to no small LDL particles.

3) When fasting triglycerides are 200 mg/dl or greater, small LDL particles will dominate and large LDL particles will be in the minority or be gone entirely.

4) When triglycerides are 88 mg/dl or greater after eating, then risk for heart attack is doubled. Non-fasting triglycerides in the 400+ mg/dl range are associated with 17-fold greater risk for heart attack.



From Austin et al 1990. "Phenotype A" means that large LDL particles dominate; "phenotype B" means that small LDL particles dominate.

Note that conventional "wisdom" (i.e., NCEP ATP-3 guidelines) is that triglycerides of up to 150 mg/dl are okay, a level that virtually guarantees expression of small LDL particles and increased cardiovascular risk.

Based on observations like these, in the Track Your Plaque program we aim for fasting triglycerides of no higher than 60 mg/dl and postprandial (after-meal) triglycerides of no more than 90 mg/dl.

Curiously, while fat intake (i.e., triglyceride intake) plays a role in determining postprandial triglyceride blood levels, it's carbohydrate intake that plays a much larger role. That will be an issue for another day.

1985: The Year of Whole Grains

9. April 2011 William Davis (30)
In 1985, the National Cholesterol Education Panel delivered its Adult Treatment Panel guidelines to Americans, advice to cut cholesterol intake, reduce saturated fat, and increase "healthy whole grains" to reduce the incidence of heart attack and other cardiovascular events.

Per capita wheat consumption increased accordingly. Wheat consumption today is 26 lbs per year greater than in 1970 and now totals 133 lbs per person per year. (Because infants and children are lumped together with adults, average adult consumption is likely greater than 200 lbs per year, or the equivalent of approximately 300 loaves of bread per year.) Another twist: The mid- and late-1980s also marks the widespread adoption of the genetically-altered dwarf variants of wheat to replace standard-height wheat.

In 1985, the Centers for Disease Control also began to track multiple health conditions, including diabetes. Here is the curve for diabetes:


Note that, from 1958 until 1985, the curve was climbing slowly. After 1985, the curve shifted sharply upward. (Not shown is the data point for 2010, an even steeper upward ascent.) Now diabetes is skyrocketing, projected to afflict 1 in 3 adults in the coming decades.

You think there's a relationship?

Have some more

7. April 2011 William Davis (37)
Wheat, via exorphin effects, is an appetite stimulant. Eat a whole wheat bagel or bran muffin, you want another. You also want more of other foods. You also want something to eat every two hours due to widely-swinging insulin-glucose responses: blood sugar high followed by a sharp downturn that triggers a powerful impulse to eat (thus the cravings for a snack at 9 and 11 a.m. after a 7 a.m. breakfast).

If wheat is a stimulant of appetite, then removing it should yield reduced appetite and reduced calorie intake. That is precisely what happens.

When wheat products are removed from the diet--without calorie restriction, without counting fat or carbohydrate grams, no exercise program, no cleansing regimen, no skipping meals . . . nothing--calorie intake drops 350 to 400 calories per day. This calorie figure remains curiously consistent across multiple studies in which wheat was eliminated.

400 calories per day results in 21 lbs lost over 6 months, based just on calories. (3500 calories per pound lost.) That is what happens in wheat elimination diets: 21-26 lbs lost over 6 months.

Wheat is the processed food industry's nicotine, a means of ensuring repeat food purchases. It's also low-cost (subsidized by the U.S. government), high-yield, an ingredient that even has its very own withdrawal syndrome should you miss a "hit."
All posts by william-davis

Vitamin D deficiency is rampant

12. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Today alone I've seen several people with severe deficiencies of vitamin D.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What if wheat products were illegal?

11. May 2006 William Davis (3)
Imagine if anything made of wheat were illegal: bread, bagels, crackers, pasta, pretzels, donuts, Shredded Wheat cereal, Raisin Bran, pastry, cookies, cakes, cupcakes. . . Your grocery store would then be unable to carry any of these products.

How empty would the grocery store shelves be?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sobering tale of small LDL

10. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Every day, I learn to respect small LDL more and more.

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

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

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

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

Burn off the fat

9. May 2006 William Davis (0)

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

Here are some examples:


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

(All are for a 170 lb person.)

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

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

Go the distance!

8. May 2006 William Davis (0)
How long should it take to stop or reverse coronary plaque growth? How long will it require to stop your heart scan score of, say, 350, from increasing at the expected rate of 30% per year, slow it down (we say "decelerate") to less than 30%, or stop it altogether? Or, actually reduce your score?

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

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

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

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

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

What you need is an expert in health!

5. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Where can you find an expert in health?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lipoprotein(a) and small LDL

4. May 2006 William Davis (1)
It's been my suspicion for some time that the combination of lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), in combination with small LDL particles is a really bad risk for heart disease. People with this combination seem to have much higher heart scan scores for age than others. This seems to be a pattern that we'll see in the occasional woman less than 50 years old who already has a high heaert scan score. (It's unusual for women to have detectable coronary plaque before age 50.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

30. April 2006 William Davis (1)
I overheard this recent conversation between a CT technologist and a 53-year old woman (who I'll call Joan) who just had a scan at a heart scan center:


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Doctor, why do I have heart disease?

30. April 2006 William Davis (0)
I see a great many people in my practice who come for a 2nd opinion regarding their coronary disease.

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

1) My doctor said it from high cholesterol.

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

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


Let's talk about each of these.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pill pushers

28. April 2006 William Davis (1)
Have you read the latest cover story from Forbes magazine? It's entitled "Pill Pushers: How the drug industry abandoned science for salesmanship".

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

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

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

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