Dr. Reinhold Vieth on vitamin D

5. February 2007 William Davis (4)
A Track Your Plaque member brough the following webcast to our attention:

Prospects for Vitamin D Nutrition
which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/f93vl

Despite the painfully dull title, the webcast is the best summary of data on the health benefits on vitamin D that I've seen. The presenter is Dr. Reinhold Vieth, who is among the handful of worldwide authorities on vitamin D. In 1999, Dr. Vieth authored the first review to concisely and persuasively argue that vitamin D nutrition was woefully neglected and that its potential for health was enormous.
(See Vieth R, Am J Clin Nutr 1999 May;69(5):842-856 at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10232622&query_hl=1&itool=pubmed_DocSum.)

I predict that, after viewing Dr. Vieth's hour-long discussion, you will be as convinced as I am that vitamin D is crucial for health. Unfortunately, Dr. Vieth doesn't delve into the conversation about the potential effects on heart disease, since his audience was primary interested in multiple sclerosis, a disease for which vitamin D replacement promises to have enormous possibilities. Even in 2007, the data suggesting that vitamin D has heart benefits is circumstantial. Nonetheless, from our experience, I am thoroughly convinced that, with replacement to blood levels of vitamin D to 50 ng/ml, heart scan scores drop more readily and faster.

If you view Dr. Vieth's wonderful webcast, keep in mind that when he discusses vitamin D blood levels, he's using units of nmol/l, rather than ng/ml. To convert nmol/l to ng/ml, divided by 2.5. For example, 125 nmol/l is the same as 50 ng/ml (125/2.5 = 50).

Vitamin D on Good Morning America

1. February 2007 William Davis (9)

Positive comments about vitamin D made it to a discussion on Good Morning America today about the new and exciting developments in nutrition and "functional foods".

I'm thrilled that the media is conducting these conversations. It sure is making my job easier, not having to persuade patients that taking vitamin D is truly and hugely beneficial for health. I still have to struggle with my colleagues, who tell patients to stop the "poisonous" doses we use.

But I worry that many of the details behind vitamin D don't quite make it to the media conversation. These are crucial, make-it-or-break-it issues, such as:

--Vitamin D must be vitamin D3 or cholecalciferol, not D2 or ergocalciferol. D2 is virtually worthless. Little or none is converted to the active D3, despite the fact that D2 is the form often added to some foods.

--Vitamin D3 supplements must be oil-based capsules, or gelcaps. Tablets are so poorly or erratically absorbed that it's simply not worth the effort. (We get ours from the Vitamin Shoppe.)

--The dose should be sufficient to eliminate the phenemena of deficiency, which is around 50 ng/ml. I take 6000 units per day. Dr. John Cannell of www.vitamindcouncil.com takes 5000 units per day. I give my wife 2000 units per day (she's not as deficient as I was), each of my kids 1000 units per day, except for my 180 lb. 15 year old who takes 2000 units.

I fear that, when people hear that vitamin D packs fabulous effects for health, they will take a 400 unit tablet--nothing will happen. They will not obtain the benefits such as reduction of blood pressure and blood sugar; increased bone density, reduction of arthritis, dramatic reduction in risk for fractures; reduction in risk for colon, prostate, and breast cancer; reduction in risk for multiple sclerosis; reduction in inflammatory processes such as those evidenced by C-reactive protein; and facilitation of reduction of heart scan score.

Would you bet your life on chelation?

31. January 2007 William Davis (1)

Hugh's heart scan score was 1751, an awful score. Recall that, at this level of scoring, Hugh's heart attack and death risk is 25% per year.

Obviously, serious efforts need to be taken. In this situation, much as I despise drug companies and what they represent and their heavy-handed ways, I'm more inclined to resort directly to prescription agents, as well as our nutritional supplements and other strategies. The price of dilly-dallying could be his death.

Hugh and his wife asked about chelation. Now, there are five studies I'm aware of that have tried to examine the value of chelation. None showed any measurable benefit, though all were rather weak in design and small in number of participants. One study, for instance, looked at whether anginal chest pains were provoked any later after chelation. Another looked at whether calf claudication, or calf cramping while walking due to artery blockages in the leg arteries, was delayed on treadmill testing after chelation. No benefit was observed: no delay in provocation of angina, no delay in provocation of claudication.

However, the adherents of chelation have been vehement enough that the NIH has funded a large, multi-center study to settle the question once and for all. Best I can tell, the study has not been contaminated by any drug company involvement. It is meant to be an unbiased, objective study of whether chelation has any value.

My personal experience in patients who underwent chelation is that, despite spending hundreds or thousands of dollars, plaque grew at the expected rate--no effect at all.

None of this constitutes proof of efficacy nor proof of lack of efficacy. We will need to await the NIH trial to have better information.

Should Hugh bet his life on chelation? I advised him strongly against it. At this point, the only reason I can see to pursue chelation would be faith--that is, expectation based not on fact, but on hope.

The powerful forces preserving the status quo

31. January 2007 William Davis (1)

An interesting quote from the book, Critical Condition: How health care in American became big business--and bad medicine:


Politics and Profits

To protect its interests and expand its influence, the health care industrial complex has done what all successful special interests do: It's become a big donor and a high-powered lobby in Washington. In the last fifteen years, HMOs, insurers, pharmacuetical companies, hospital corporations, physicians, and other segments of the industry contributed $479 million to political campaigns--more than the energy industry ($315 million), commercial banks ($133 million), and big tobacco ($52 million). More telling is how much the health care industry spends on lobbying. It invests more than any other industry except one, according to the nonpartiisan Center for Responsive Politics. From 1997 to 2000, the most recent year for which complete data is available, the industry spent $734 million lobbying Congress and the executive branch. Only the finance, insurance, and real estate lobby exceeded that amount in the same period, with a ttoal of $823 million. In contrast, the defense industry spent $211 million--less than one-third of the health care expenditure.


These telling statistics indicate just how vigorously profit-seeking forces in heart care are trying to preserve the status quo. Hospitals want to protect their valuable procedure-driven enterprise, the pharmaceutical industry wants to protect its enormous though little-known niche of procedure-based medications (like $1200 a dose ReoPro), and the medical device industry wants to maintain the multi-billion dollar-generating machine aided and abetted by the FDA's 501k rule (that makes entry to market a breeze).

The current procedure based formula for heart disease profits so many and they are desperate to preserve it. Resistance to the deep-pocketed efforts of industry and hospitals will come from people like you and me, trying to propagate a better way.

Remember: hospital procedures for coronary disease represent the failure of prevention. They are not--any longer--successes in and of themselves.

Read a scathing insight into some of these practices by reading investigative journalists' Donald Barlett and James Steele's book, Critical Condition. I found their descriptions painfully accurate. (But don't get too angry! Remember: only optimists reverse their plaque! We need to turn the conversation in a positive direction, not just in this Blog or the Track Your Plaque website, but nationwide.)

One of the new missions for the www.cureality.com website is to help you understand just how powerful, insidious, shrewd, and pervasive the efforts to maintain the current system truly are.

Do stents prevent reversal?

27. January 2007 William Davis (3)
I've seen this phenomenon several times now: A highly-motivated Track Your Plaque participant with a stent in one artery will do all the right things--lose weight, achieve 60:60:60 in basic lipids, identify and correct hidden lipoprotein disorders, take fish oil, correct vitamin D, etc.

Follow-up heart scan shows dramatic reduction in scoring in the two arteries without stents--30% per artery. But the artery with the stent will show marked increase in scoring above and/or below the stent. (It's impossible to tell what happens in or around the stent itself from a calcium scoring standpoint, since steel looks just like calcium on a CT heart scan.) In other words, there is marked plaque growth in the vicinity of the stent, despite the fact that dramatic reversal of atherosclerosis has occurred in other arteries without stents.

Should we take this to mean that a stent destroys the opportunity for atherosclerotic plaque reversal in the stented artery? I don't know, but I fear this may be true. What dangers does this different sort of plaque pose? Is it the result of the injury imposed at time of stent implantation, some modification of flow or biologic responses as a result of the presence of the stent?

These are all unanswered questions. But I believe that it is yet another suggestive piece of evidence that the best stent is no stent at all.

At what score should I have a heart cath?

25. January 2007 William Davis (0)
This question comes up frequently: At what specific heart scan score should a heart catheterization be performed? In other words, is there a specific cut-off that automatically triggers a need for catheterization?

In my view, there is no such score. We can't say, for instance, that everybody with a score above 1000 should have a catheterization. It is true that the higher your score, the greater the likelihood of a plaque blocking flow. A score of 1000 carries an approximately 25-30% likelihood of reduced blood flow sufficient to consider a stent or bypass. This can nearly always be settled with a stress test. Recall that, despite their pitfalls for uncovering hidden heart disease in the first place, stress tests are useful as gauges of coronary blood flow.

But even a score of 1000 carries a 70-75% likelihood that a procedure will not be necesary. This is too high to justify doing heart catheterizations willy-nilly.

Unfortunately, some my colleagues will say that any heart scan score justifies a heart cath. I believe this is absolutely, unquestionably, and inexcusably wrong. More often than not, this attitude is borne out of ignorance, laziness, or a desire for profit.

Does every lump or bump justify surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy on the chance it could represent cancer? Of course not. There is indeed a time and place for these things, but judgment is involved.

In my view, no heart scan score should autmatically prompt a major heart procedure like heart catheterization in a person without symptoms.

Niacin makes NY Times

24. January 2007 William Davis (0)
In the wake of the crash and burn of Pfizer's torcetrapib, media attention has turned up the miracles of . . .good old niacin. The NY Times carried a well-written report on niacin in its recent report, An Old Cholesterol Remedy Is New Again.


(Read the entire report at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/health/23consume.html?em&ex=1169701200&en=670fa84ae2ea648c&ei=5087%0A)

Among their comments:

...torcetrapib worked primarily by increasing HDL, or good cholesterol. Among other functions, HDL carries dangerous forms of cholesterol from artery walls to the liver for excretion. The process, called reverse cholesterol transport, is thought to be crucial to preventing clogged arteries.

Many scientists still believe that a statin combined with a drug that raises HDL would mark a significant advance in the treatment of heart disease. But for patients now at high risk of heart attack or stroke, the news is better than it sounds. An effective HDL booster already exists.

It is niacin, the ordinary B vitamin.

In its therapeutic form, nicotinic acid, niacin can increase HDL as much as 35 percent when taken in high doses, usually about 2,000 milligrams per day. It also lowers LDL, though not as sharply as statins do, and it has been shown to reduce serum levels of artery-clogging triglycerides as much as 50 percent. Its principal side effect is an irritating flush caused by the vitamin’s dilation of blood vessels.

Despite its effectiveness, niacin has been the ugly duckling of heart medications, an old remedy that few scientists cared to examine. But that seems likely to change.

“There’s a great unfilled need for something that raises HDL,” said Dr. Steven E. Nissen, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic and president of the American College of Cardiology. “Right now, in the wake of the failure of torcetrapib, niacin is really it. Nothing else available is that effective.”

In 1975, long before statins, a landmark study of 8,341 men who had suffered heart attacks found that niacin was the only treatment among five tested that prevented second heart attacks. Compared with men on placebos, those on niacin had a 26 percent reduction in heart attacks and a 27 percent reduction in strokes. Fifteen years later, the mortality rate among the men on niacin was 11 percent lower than among those who had received placebos.

'Here you have a drug that was about as effective as the early statins, and it just never caught on,' said Dr. B. Greg Brown, professor of medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle. 'It’s a mystery to me. But if you’re a drug company, I guess you can’t make money on a vitamin.'


Of course, you and I don't have to wait for the media to endorse something. I'm nonetheless thrilled that this hugely helpful vitamin is gaining greater recognition. My preferred form nowadays is over-the-counter SloNiacin (Upsher Smith). Weve seen no liver side-effects and a minimal quantity of flushing. It's also reasonably priced, $13.99 for 100 tablets of 500 mg at Walgreen's. That's a lot cheaper than prescription Niaspan at $130 for 60 tablets.

Perhaps the notoriety will cut back on the silly responses from some physicians that I still hear about from patients: "My doctor said to stop the niacin because it's going to destroy my liver."

Wheat: the nicotine of food

24. January 2007 William Davis (1)
Yes, we know that wheat contributes to creating small LDL, drops HDL, raises triglycerides, and VLDL. We also know it indirectly slows the clearance of after-eating fats from the blood (curious, I know). Wheat products also increase inflammation (C-reactive protein), raise blood sugar, and contribute tremendously to diabetes.

What many people don't know is that wheat products also have an addictive quality: have one donut and you want another. It's true for bread, breakfast cereals, pretzels, cookies, etc. How many times have you had just one Oreo cookie?

Curiously, elimination of wheat products, unlike elimination of nicotine, usually causes the cravings to disappear. In other words, if you stop smoking cigarettes, the desire to smoke doesn't go away. With wheat products, the often overwhelming desire for more wheat products often just goes away.

But most people are simply unable to dramatically reduce or eliminate wheat products from their daily diet and therefore struggle each and every day with excessive cravings for bagels, donuts, cookies, breads, etc.

Try this useful experiment: Eliminate wheat products for a month and see what happens. Most people drop blood pressure, lose the tummy excess, feel more alert, see a drop in blood sugar, experience improvements in lipoproteins, and regain control over appetite.

Good time for a heart attack?

22. January 2007 William Davis (0)
Man Has Heart Attack At Right Place, Right Time

If Robert Ricard had picked the wrong restaurant for lunch, he might have died.

The 71-year-old Michigan man suffered a heart attack shortly after ordering a glass of wine with friends at Bentley's Roadhouse on Saturday.

Luckily, a disaster medical team was sitting nearby.


A TV station in Michigan reported the above story. You've heard these "if it wasn't for ___, so and so would have died" stories. They're reported in all cities at one time or another.

What amazes me about these common local stories is that they're accepted at all. The question that comes to my mind is "Why couldn't the heart attack have been averted in the first place?" Early identification then, as close as humanly possible, elimination of risk would have been a preferable path.

Of course, it may not be the role of the media to cast judgement on why and how the entire episode could have been completely prevented from occurring. But you shouldn't fall into the same trap of complacency. We cannot expect others to save us when the "big one" hits. Your best assurance is to never have one in the first place.

How good is the South Beach Diet?

21. January 2007 William Davis (2)
I'm a fan of the South Beach Diet.

Though it is billed as a program for weight loss (for which it is very effective), it is really a program for health. The basic approach of South Beach involves:

Eat good fats — Choose good fats from olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, flaxseed oil, walnut oil, avocados, nuts, and fish. Omega-3 (fish oil) supplements are also fine.


Eat good carbs — Good carbs include high-fiber, nutrient-dense fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains.

Eat lean protein — Good sources include eggs, low-fat dairy, nuts, seeds, legumes, skinless white-meat poultry, fish, shellfish, lean cuts of meat, and vegetarian options such as tofu.

(From The South Beach Diet, Dr. Arthur Agatston)


There's no doubt that South Beach can yield dramatic weight loss. In my experience, the success in weight loss depends on 1) how unhealthy your diet was in the first place, and 2) how long you can stick to Phase I, the inital phase during which weight loss is most dramatic. Some people have to periodically cycle back to Phase I to break a "plateau" or to lose faster.

But South Beach is also healthy. It has all the ingredients of a healthy eating program: Low saturated and hydrogenated fats, rich in monounsaturated fats, high fiber, low- to moderate- glycemic index, vegetables and fruits, lean proteins.

The Atkins' diet, in contrast, while very effective for weiglht loss, is an unhealthy process. I've seen lots of bladder infections, constipation, skin rashes, and kidney stones. That's just in the short term. If you stick to the "induction phase" (the no carbohydrate, low fiber, indiscriminate fat initial phase) for an extended period, I suspect that other adverse internal phenemena also develop that might not show for years, like cancer. But--it does work for weight loss!

South Beach's Phase I is also carbohydrate restricted, but steers you towards healthier foods, such as healthy oils from olive and canola, raw or dry roasted nuts, and lean proteins and vegetables.

What really makes South Beach special, however, are its clever recipes. Dr. Arthur Agatston (the author) involved chefs from the restaurants in the South Beach area of Miami to help create healthy yet delicious recipes. We've tried many of them and, while they are different from traditional fare, are delicious and satisfying for the most part.

Criticisms? None, really. But, when my patients choose South Beach (which I often encourage), I often have to impress on them that the Track Your Plaque program is not about weight loss. It is about seizing control of a potentially life-threatening disease. It is a far more important goal with greater implications. Weight loss is just one aspect of a coronary plaque control effort. For this reason, we sometimes have to make changes in the South Beach program to allow for correction of specific lipoprotein patterns.

The most common modification is in people with small LDL particles. This pattern often does indeed respond to weight loss and/or niacin. However, it occasionally persists despite these efforts. We then will ask the patient to continue to restrict the re-introduction of wheat products, though it is allowed after Phase I in South Beach. In other words, for this specific and sometimes difficult to control lipoprotein pattern, a spedific modification of the off-the-shelf South Beach program is sometimes necessary. Of course, the diet is created to suit everybody. Lipoprotein analysis permits detailed insight into your patterns and it's only to be expected that specific modifications might be needed.

But, as written, you can do quite well in your plaque control program by sticking to South Beach.
Do you eat wheat? I thought so.

Do you eat wheat? I thought so.

2. September 2011 William Davis (85)
I'm itching to say that face-to-face to anyone from the wheat industry--agribusiness, baking, retail distribution . . . anybody. Because it's obvious; it's written on the face . . . and belly, and brain, and knees, and hips. And I believe I will soon have the opportunity.

Taking such a controversial stand in my new book, Wheat Belly, i.e., that wheat products, whole or refined, have NO ROLE IN THE HUMAN DIET whatsoever, was bound to provoke criticism and counterattacks. The wheat world has already taken a blow to the chin with the growing popularity of the (misguided) gluten-free movement and they're going to have to get into the business of media damage control.

Take a look at this press release from the Grain Foods Foundation:

RIDGWAY, COLO. — The Grain Foods Foundation has unveiled plans to counter media publicity attracted by “Wheat Belly.”

“Mullen, working with key members of the Grain Foods Foundation’s scientific advisory board, is addressing ‘Wheat Belly’ through proactive media outreach and its ongoing rapid response program,” said Ashley Reynolds, a Mullen account executive. “In particular, the public relations team will be contacting health and nutrition reporters at print and on-line media outlets, as well as editors at major women’s magazines to influence any diet-related stories that may be published in the coming months.”

. . . Ms. Reynolds, a registered dietitian, noted the author relies on anecdotal observations rather than scientific studies; wheat elimination “means missing out on a wealth of essential nutrients;” six servings of grain-based foods are recommended daily in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans; healthy weight loss depends on energy balance rather than elimination of specific foods; and elimination of wheat products makes sense only for those with medical diagnoses such as celiac disease or gluten sensitivity.

She said the group will lean on its scientific advisory board members to “discredit the book and ensure our messages are backed by sound science. “

Here's some of their starting salvos on their Six Servings Blog.

This reminds me of the fight with Big Tobacco in the '70s: "No, sir, we in the tobacco industry know of no research demonstrating that smoking is bad for health," complete with shots of tobacco executives puffing away on cigarettes.

So brace yourself for a fight. These people are protecting a multi-billion dollar franchise, not to mention their livelihoods and incomes. It could get ugly.
Tags :

Comments (85) -

  • Peter Silverman

    9/2/2011 3:32:14 PM |

    I don't eat wheat, at your suggestion.  But while it's clear to me that processed foods are a huge health problem, it's not clear to me if the biggest problem is wheat, or sugar, or processed meat, or processed vegetable oils, or some other problem due to factory food production.  It does seem like cultures with traditional diets are better off before they start eating American processed foods, but I don't know of any research that pinpoints the problem.

  • Linda

    9/2/2011 3:57:05 PM |

    @Peter
    Good point, however, I feel that if a person DOES give up all wheat products and then sees/feels a dramatic change in their body or the control of a particular disease or just a feeling of improved over-all well being, then something is definitely going on.

    The older I get, the less confidence I have in either the majority of physicians I see or in the advice/guidelines from my government.

  • Amy

    9/2/2011 4:23:17 PM |

    This reaction just means you're onto something important.  Keep fighting the good fight!  Loved your interview on The Paleo Solution this week.  I ordered your book and can't wait to read it.

  • Melissa

    9/2/2011 4:37:46 PM |

    On the Six Servings blog they write, "Cutting out one specific food is not only unrealistic, it’s dangerous. Omitting wheat entirely removes the essential (and disease-fighting!) nutrients it provides including fiber, antioxidants, iron and B vitamins."

    . . . um, yeah . . . because you can't get fiber, antioxidants, iron or B vitamins *anywhere* else. How uninformed do they think people are?

  • Chowstalker

    9/2/2011 4:52:35 PM |

    Dr. Davis, I'm really curious, what do you mean by the "misguided" gluten-free movement?

  • Mike

    9/2/2011 5:09:08 PM |

    I am looking forward to reading your book and adding it to my growing health-related library of books. I just visited that blog you referenced and here is something they stated,
    “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the gold standard of scientifically-sound nutritional advice…”

    That is laughable...if it wasn't so scary when you think about it's implications.
    Keep up the good work!

  • Patty Amidon

    9/2/2011 5:09:15 PM |

    I received my copy of  "Wheat Belly"  yesterday. It is even better than I expected Dr. Davis. Very readable and amusing too. You have really started a fire storm and you have alot of people behind you including me!

  • Tyler

    9/2/2011 5:10:07 PM |

    I am doubting this comment will make it past the moderation on the SixServings.org website, but here is what I posted (all of which I believe is absolutely true):

    I haven’t read Wheat Belly, but this quote strikes me as odd:

    “Omitting wheat entirely removes the essential (and disease-fighting!) nutrients it provides including fiber, antioxidants, iron and B vitamins.”

    What about the lectins, phytates, gluten, and blood-sugar elevation?

    Please correct me if I’m wrong, but can’t you simply get more fiber, more antioxidants, more iron, and more B vitamins (amongst others) from fruits and veggies? Without them being fortified and bound up with the anti-nutritious phytates in our digestive system?

  • Daren

    9/2/2011 5:10:53 PM |

    Chow -- Dr. Davis has talked a lot about most "gluten-free" foods are almost as bad as wheat.  In other words, the replacement grains they use to make "gluten-free" baked products (pizza, bread, cereal, etc.) are just not good for you.  Of course, if you just stick to whole foods - fruit, veggies, nuts, meat - primarily found in the outer supermarket aisles, you can be gluten free and healthy.
    I also loved the assertion that cutting classes of food is "unrealistic."  Huh?  it is very easy to do, provided you want to.  I quit cold turkey on a dime last year after following the Paleo movement (primarily Art Devaney) and once I noticed how much better I felt -- especially with no wheat and grains -- I was motivated to continue to quit.  I don't feel "cheated" or "deprived".  I feel liberated.  Keep up the great work, Dr. Davis.

  • Dave, RN

    9/2/2011 5:27:25 PM |

    Yup. Next door neighbor works for one of the largest bakeries in the US here in Fort Worth Texas.  And yes, it shows.

  • Dave, RN

    9/2/2011 5:43:25 PM |

    I'll bet my comment on their website doesn't make it either. Funny how their post was days ago yet there are no comments. I wonder how many they've removed? All of them... either that or people aren't jumping in to sing the praises of grains.

  • fredt

    9/2/2011 5:59:22 PM |

    If there was no evidence, the grain lobby would be in a legal process to shut you down, not a media process of discrediting. Keep up the fine work.

    No sugar, no grain, no omega 6 oil.

  • Chowstalker

    9/2/2011 6:10:29 PM |

    Thanks Daren, I thought that might be it, but wasn't quite sure.

  • Princess Dieter

    9/2/2011 6:12:23 PM |

    I put a review up as fast as I could at Amazon, convinced 3 folks already (they bought the book). Last night my sister calls me that she read about Wheat Belly in Woman's World and is gonna try the wheat free thing to see how she feels, as she looked back at her life and realized whenever she gave up bread, she felt BETTER. (This after weeks of me pleading with her to try gluten free, as she and my other sister both have lupus, I have Hashimoto's and asthma/allergies, and our family is riddled with auto-immune stuff. She'd been tested "allergic" to wheat ages ago.) So, hopefully, the message really branches out. I just want my family to get better. As the third of three sisters, two with lupus, and a mom dead from auto-immune aplastic anemia, and a niece sans hair with alopecia, if we can tame the autoimmune beast, we'd do ourselves a huge service.

    Thanks for the good word.

  • cancerclasses

    9/2/2011 6:14:28 PM |

    @Tyler @Melissa,  Fruits and vegetables aren't much better than grains for mineral bioavailability again because they are locked up by phytates, and vitamin content of fruits & vegies is lower today than 50 years ago because of the nutrient depleted soils they are grown in.

    Just Google 'Phytates are Mineral Magnets', here's a cut & paste:    "Iron and other minerals required for cellular respiration aren’t usable by humans if they are ingested in plant or vegetable foods, because plants contain phytates. Phytates biochemically lock up the minerals with the plant fiber, rendering them unusable. This makes minerals, as well as the fiber, UNUSABLE BY HUMAN cells. That’s why it was shown, and reported in the “Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000,71:446-471,” that WOMEN EATING THE MOST FIBER AND THE LOWEST AMOUNT OF FAT HAD 20% LOWER CALCIUM RETENTION.

    Eating meat did NOTHING to increase colon cancer risk. Yet this shocking result hasn’t been reported in the popular press. “Fiber fiction” has run rampant in America for many years.

    An exceptional article was written for the general public in 1997 by “Albion Research Notes – A Compilation of Vital Research Updates on Human Nutrition”, Albion Laboratories, Clearfield, UT (Vo.. 6, No. 2, June 1997). Here is what it said:

    “Natural sources of fiber, such as cereals and fruits, generally have a DEPRESSING EFFECT on absorption of minerals such as calcium, iron, zinc, and copper.” Imagine taking mineral supplements and still going into a negative balance for the very minerals that are being supplemented! Too few of us saw this important paper.

    Minerals can’t be separated from the fiber in human digestion so, because you aren’t a cow with four stomachs designed to accomplish that difficult task, you can’t make effective use of the minerals in plants. “Consumer Reports on Health” reported on this – in fact, the magazine actually published the statement that eating spinach was worthless for obtaining necessary iron. It’s “in there” but not usable for a human being.

    We keep getting misled with what sounds good, but isn’t based on science.

    Phytates TAKE OUT MINERALS (the respiratory co-enzymes Dr. Warburg speaks of) – JUST THE OPPOSITE of what we desire and require to avoid contracting cancer.

    Think of fiber as bad “mineral magnets”, removing the precious minerals from your body and inhibiting oxygen transfer through the blood, whereas Essential Fatty Acids  are the good “oxygen magnets” helping bring an abundance of needed oxygen into your cells."

  • Dave, RN

    9/2/2011 7:01:21 PM |

    Huh, that's funny. All my comments on the sixservings grain website got deleted. Must be a technical glitch.

  • Rob K

    9/2/2011 7:11:55 PM |

    It's called "Reasoned Discourseâ„¢". It's what happens when organizations make claims on their blog, and the other side shows up with overwhelming logic and scientific evidence that pounds them into the ground. It's pretty obviously broken out there.

  • cancerclasses

    9/2/2011 7:30:23 PM |

    @Peter Silverman;  There's plenty of research out there if you know how to look for it or if you have  sources you can trust to give you the real truth and scientifically solid references.  

    Also you must realize that the term "biggest problem" is relative to time and degree of disease progression, in other words it depends on how fast and how bad you want to get sick or suffer the effects of an industrial foods diet.  For my money the "food" that is the biggest problem in having the most immediate negative effect on humans is the nutrient depleted & stripped white flour used in ALL processed "foods" that is known to cause severe dental decay and physical degeneration and under development as was clearly established by Weston Price in his 1938 book "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration."  To see the entire book for free just google 'nutrition and physical degeneration online', it's the first result, and at least look at the pictures and read the captions to see how the effects of processed "foods" can be seen with the outcome of just the next pregnancy!  Both wheat flours and sugars are carbs, and as ALL carbs reduce to glucose molecules they are essentially one and the same, which is why a diet high in just breads even from the much lauded whole grains can quickly rot your teeth.  In the section about the Arctic Inuit in his book, Weston Price details how the Inuit eating their native diet would go their entire lives and only get maybe one or two dental cavities, and their teeth would eventually repair themselves and get even harder as the people got older.  

    As bad as the almost immediate physical degeneration effects of industrial flours are, the other "biggest problem" has to be the toxic, adulterated, pre-oxidized trans molecule fats in partial & fully hydrogenated vegetable oils that are KNOWN to be a direct cause of cancer and arterial plaque formation.  Can't find it now but I once saw a chart somewhere overlaying the use of trans fat vegetable oils & margarines with the incidence rates of cancer & heart disease since the introduction of the bad oils into processed "foods" around 1920 and the curves matched almost exactly.  The problem with industrial oils is that the latency period of cancer and heart disease progression due to trans fat intake is measured in decades, so people tend to not see the association of those diseases with those oils until they are shown the facts, such as the fact that at the turn of the century in 1900 when most people subsisted on a pre industrial  "farm style" diet of eggs, butter & whole milk & cream, cancer and heart disease affected only 3 percent of the population and obesity was only 5 percent (google 'margarine vs. butter newsflash' see the top hit).

    As for processed meats just google ' avoiding nitrates in foods is unnecessary', you'll see this:  "No one mentions that nitrate is naturally occurring in greens such as lettuce and spinach. The article, “Bad Rap for Nitrate: Infamous Preservative Maj Help Defend Against Bacteria,” by J.R. Minkel, Scientific American Biochemistry Section, September 2004, page 24, details that “they” were wrong again and sets the record straight. It was known in 1994, that the stomach contains lots of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide kills germ in the bloodstream. Therefore, it is obvious that nitrate is a helpful substance. Why this has taken ten years to be publicized is astounding, Here are some key points from the article:

    ” … [D]ietary nitrate is actually part of the body’s inherent defense against infection ….

    “Bacteria in the mouth convert nitrate to nitrite, which gets swallowed, so the stomach can naturally produce nitric oxide …. “

    ”’We’ve gone from considering all of these things to be toxic and carcinogenic to realizing that [nitrates are] playing a fundamental homeostatic role [safe and required, and NOT cancerous],’ says microbiologist Ferric Fang of the University of Washington.” (Emphasis added.)"

    Hope that answers your question and helps round out the nutritional picture.  Live long and prosper.

  • Renfrew

    9/2/2011 7:32:44 PM |

    "Wheat Belly" arrived today at my door (in Germany). Great reading and a real eye opener. I am distributing the message here as well and will loan the book to others. Would make a good candidate for translating into other languages. How about Nihongo?
    Renfrew

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/2/2011 7:55:08 PM |

    Thanks, Amy! Be sure to come back and share your impressions.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/2/2011 7:56:22 PM |

    Hi, Chow--
    I was referring to the terrible practice of replacing wheat/gluten with cornstarch, rice starch, tapioca starch, and potato starch that make you diabetic, give you cataracts, arthritis, and heart disease. We should be eating wheat-free and low-carb.

  • Gary

    9/2/2011 8:08:05 PM |

    Dr. Davis, is it true that there are no sound scientific studies referenced in the book that support your case?

  • Steve Brecher

    9/2/2011 8:17:09 PM |

    I haven't looked at the book, but I have the same question.

    I've been a subscriber to this blog for a while, and I recall when Dr. Davis solicited reader experiences, along the lines of, "if you stopped eating wheat and it helped your health let me know!" I don't recall any solicitations along the the lines of, "if you stopped eating wheat and nothing happened, let me know!"  In sum, I suspect that the grains marketing group's criticism of the book's advice being based on anecdotal evidence may be substantially correct.

    I should mention that for a variety of reasons, I don't eat wheat.

  • Don

    9/2/2011 10:11:34 PM |

    Are there studies to show the current version of wheat is safe? It would seem to me the burden is on the produce of a new food.

  • Don

    9/2/2011 10:12:38 PM |

    Make that "producer of a new food"

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    9/2/2011 11:03:07 PM |

    Hi cancerclasses,
    Maybe (?) you'd like last week's Oncogen journal's full "Dynamic epigenetic regulation of ... tumorigenesis" ,see  http://www.nature.com/onc/journal/vaop/
    current/full/onc2011383a.html

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/2/2011 11:43:16 PM |

    Hi, Don-

    Absolutely none. Of course, wheat lobby defending the status quo will quote the studies that say things like replacing white flour products with whole grains yields less diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, and colon cancer--that is indeed true. What they fail to ask is what happens when you replace wheat products with NO wheat products? The products of "traditional breeding methods" have also been assumed to be safe for human consumption, essentially no questions asked.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/2/2011 11:44:24 PM |

    Noted. However, Steve, I would reserve judgement until you read the book. It is not just a compilation of anecdotes; all the science is laid out as plain as day.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/2/2011 11:46:41 PM |

    Hi, Gary--

    No, of course not. There are several hundred relevant references over 16 pages. And that was just a partial compilation of the literature already published.

  • Serge

    9/3/2011 12:09:46 AM |

    I think you need to package your book with Tom Naughton's "Fat Head" movie.  It could be the Fat Head/Wheat Belly combo!

    (Seriously.)

  • LINDA

    9/3/2011 12:30:17 AM |

    Dear Doctor Davis,
    I'm so glad that  you've published your book. I will be buying it for myself and others. Also,my library is waiting for it to come in, 5 people are waiting for it!.  I have a calcium score of 206. I HAVE HASHIMOTO THYROID and b 12 intrinsic factor problems,,,I HAVE ALSO HAD LYME DISEASE AND BABESIA A FEW YEARS AGO ,,I have been wheat (and grain -free) since 4/11 and I'm down to 130 pound (from 150) and with a thyroid problem.....this is amazing.  MY lipids have dropped significantly .  Thank you...I hope to contact your office to look at my NMR in the future....Linda

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    9/3/2011 1:29:21 AM |

    Wheat adherents are mostly orientated to a nutritional perspective; and so miss out on Doc's point that unique byproducts of wheat digestion affect the brain, irregardless of one's intestinal and/or metabolic response. His clinical results seem to indicate that some wheat digestion byproducts acting in the brain influence the gene BDNF (brain derived neuro-trophic factor) to either encode different proteins for expression &/or down-regulate the DNF total output; BDNF is inherently related to being overweight and obesity (but not "morbid" obesity).

    BDNF experimentally  injected into the cerebral ventricle affects circulating triglycerides,  the size of adipocytes and most importantly visceral fat mass ( see Doc's recent 27 Aug post "Good Fat Bad Fat" for orientation on non-nutritional relevance of visceral fat). When there is more BDNF produced the lower the blood glucose levels go and the more peripheral insulin sensitivity improves; as well as the less visceral fat there is. The mechanism whereby BDNF expression works is  apparently via a cortico-trophin releasing hormone (CRH)-urocotin-CRH R2 pathway in the hypo-thalamus PVN (para-ventricular nucleus). Nutritional needs on a fad diet isn't the same as practicing medicine; Doc elsewhere said no one diet is right for every person (nor all life long, I'd add).

  • Kurt

    9/3/2011 2:17:32 AM |

    My comment at sixservings.org has also not appeared.

  • Tracy

    9/3/2011 2:52:59 AM |

    Dr. Davis,  What do you think of The Esselstyn diet?  They are making some of the same claims you are but with a different diet with about the only thing the same is to eat lots of fresh vegetables.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    9/3/2011 3:17:20 AM |

    2 days ago in  "Adipose Tissue Dysregulation in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome" from Sept.  Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism lead author ( I. Jialal, 34 years in endocrinology , quote) " ... some body fat may actually be toxic. .. dysfunction in the fat of people with metabolic syndrome is more than can be explained by obesity. " Report shows when fat cells outgrow their supply of blood those cells have macrophage crusts crowning them; the macrophage inflammation has cardiovascular implications. Team previously found those with metabolic syndrome visceral fat have less endothelial progenitor cells to preserve blood vessel lining functional integrity.

  • Chuck

    9/3/2011 3:25:21 AM |

    I like how Ashley at SixServings.org infers in her statement that being a vegan or vegetarian in "not only unrealistic, but dangerous." And she's their crack PR person - what a joke. Wheat Brain!

  • Helen

    9/3/2011 3:38:06 AM |

    I so need to get your book.  I test positive for the DNA that leads to Celiac disease and was diagnosed with IBS (before I went low-carb, now I'm symptom-free).

    My only concern is my kids.  They have my genes, LOL.  Is there a resource for feeding them properly so they're not getting wheat, or spelt, but still get to eat "bready" style things?  Basically I guess I mean a cookbook.

  • pam

    9/3/2011 4:17:01 AM |

    yes, this book deserved to be translated into multiple languages!
    am going to order one!
    my colleagues won't believe me that "wheat is evil" & causes "man boobs" & belly.

  • Steve L AU

    9/3/2011 5:06:23 AM |

    comments I just posted (awaiting moderation) at Six Sevings:


    No Comments
    Steve L says:
    Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    September 3, 2011 at 4:45 am
    So, cutting wheat is not a cure all for coeliac disease??

    Well, I have coeliac disease.

    Sure, there are other sources of gluten in western diets, but wheat is by far the most important source…by a country mile.

    So, maybe cutting wheat is not a cure all for coeliac disease, but it goes pretty damn close.

    Steve L AUS 20110903.14.45

    Reply
    Steve L says:
    Your comment is awaiting moderation.
    September 3, 2011 at 4:58 am
    …further to my comment (above) regarding the nonsense in this article about coeliac disease, let’s also consider the value of wheat (and other grains) for various nutrients.

    Look at nutrient density tables. Wheat is only a good/cheap source of energy/calories, especially if your government subsidises its production. Maybe fibre too, depending on how heavily its processed. As to other nutrients, its a pretty poor source compared to vegetables and meat (incl poultry and fish).

    This is without getting into more contentious issues such as whether wheat (and other grains) damage the gut of even non-coeliacs, causing leaky guy syndrome and possibly being involved in the pathogenesis of some autoimmune diseases….

    Then there is the high glycaemic load wheat provides in the diet, with metabolic consequences.

    Remember too that there is not unanimity amongst experts regarding official dietary guidelines: far from it. So, you can’t reasonably appeal to a consensus among experts.

    But leave that aside, and also the damage it does to coeliacs (I was VERY ill for 10 years because of wheat), wheat is a pretty poor source of nutrients apart from calories.

    Steve L Australia 20110902.1500

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  • Michia

    9/3/2011 10:20:56 AM |

    Challenge them on Twitter and Facebook. Ask them why they are not allowing comment on the Wheat Belly post.

  • Debbie B in MD

    9/3/2011 11:46:23 AM |

    What struck me from this post is the "concern" that those who do not eat wheat are missing out on essential nutrients, but there seems to be none of this concern for those who do not eat wheat because of celiac disease or gluten-intolerance. So does that mean that since I have celiac, I wouldn't "suffer" by eliminating that nutrious wheat? Eliminating that wonderful wheat has transformed me. I was constantly in pain, muscular and headaches, terrible heartburn, skin issues, etc. Eliminating that nutritious wheat has been amazing. I believe that everyone can take in all of the nutrients they need by eating the good stuff. I can't wait until my copy of "Wheat Belly" arrives. It will be on my 17 year od son's reading list too.

  • Debbie B in MD

    9/3/2011 11:49:18 AM |

    Sadly lots of people are that clueless.

  • Debbie B in MD

    9/3/2011 11:59:05 AM |

    Check out everydaypaleo.com. I don't know about wating "bready" things but that blog is all about getting the kids on board.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:42:14 PM |

    Hi, Debbie--

    Yes, a crucial point. Provided wheat calories are replaced with real foods like vegetables, nuts, avocados, cheese, eggs, etc., there is absolutely no deficiency that develops. Of course, Mary Q. Dietitian automatically assumes that you replace lost calories with Slurpies, Twinkies, and French fries--the default position being we're stupid.

    Be wheat-free, be healthy!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:42:38 PM |

    Yes, Michia. We should all do that and not let up!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:44:35 PM |

    Thank you, Steve. I find it incredible, also, that for every person who knows he/she has celiac disease, nine others don't know it.

    Keep on punching away!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:45:19 PM |

    Thanks, Pam. This is why I wrote Wheat Belly: to bring to light all that is ALREADY known about wheat and its relationship with human health.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:47:16 PM |

    Hi, Helen--

    The world is indeed a field of wheat landmines, especially for kids who eat at friends' houses, school cafeterias, etc. There's little to do except educate them and help them understand why they shouldn't eat the foods their friends are eating.

    Rodale has mentioned the possibility of a Wheat Belly Cookbook, but it's still pretty early, only 5 days after release of the book! So stay tuned . . .

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:47:47 PM |

    Yes, indeed: impaired, foggy, wheat-added thinking!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:48:53 PM |

    Yes, Might: a crucial issue in understanding how visceral fat is bad, bad, bad, unlike the fat, say, on the arms or backside.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 1:52:02 PM |

    Hi, Tracy--

    A strict vegetarian low-fat diet can be better than an average American diet--minus fast food; junk food; hydrogenated fats; meats from warehouse-raised livestock given corn, hormones, and antibiotics--but it is far from an ideal diet. Esselstyn and Ornish, while they have great intentions, are beating a dead horse in this diet. This is the diet, by the way, that made me diabetic 20 years (yes, 20 years! that's how long they've been preaching this nonsense), made me gain 30 lbs, and gave me lipid distortions: HDL 27 mg/dl, triglycerides 350 mg/dl. It all reversed when I stopped following their advice.

  • Mike

    9/3/2011 5:04:58 PM |

    I just checked that blog you referenced and they didn't post my comment that questioned their approach...interesting.

  • Peter Silverman

    9/3/2011 7:10:37 PM |

    Since people eat clusters of foods rather than single foods (wheat, sugar, vegetable oil; hot dogs, hot dog buns, Coke; brown rice, tofu, broccoli) it must be hard to single out individual foods as being lifesavers or villains.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/3/2011 9:31:58 PM |

    HI, Peter--

    Nope, I don't think so.

    Wheat stands apart at many levels, unique in its protein content (glutens, gliadin, and others), carbohydrate (amylopectin A), and glycoprotein lectins (wheat germ agglutinin).

    Parallel to this is allergy: You can have fatal allergy to peanuts but not to walnuts. That's a bit difference, though on the surface they seem roughly similar. Food composition is a crucial factor in human tolerance and foods cannot be lumped together willy nilly.

  • CathyN

    9/3/2011 11:48:39 PM |

    Great interview with Robb Wolf. I have been waiting for Wheat Belly to come out, so we're getting ours and several others to share ASAP. LIke many, many others, eliminating wheat (and other bad juju) from my diet dramatically changed my health (it's been almost 2 years, now).

    The Go with the Grain commentary was rubbish. And I find it very telling that they are not printing the critical comments. Not to mention that their site is sponsored by the Grain Foods Foundation. I'm sure they only have everyone's best interest at heart - yeah, right.

    Thanks for your bold move with this book. It is needed.

  • Corina

    9/4/2011 12:04:42 AM |

    I have just gotten started in your book (around 50 pages) and am really enjoying it.  Who would have thought a book about wheat and science would be such a page turner!

    I have a question though:  Why?  Why are the doctors/dieticians/nutritionists so uninformed?   Why is this seemingly such a 'fad' diet to so many?  Is it really just about money and keeping the cycle going?  I just find this concept so hard to fathom.  Do 'they' really want us sick and fat or have they just created a mess that is far too big to clean up and now they are just saving face?  

    I also posted over at that six serving's blog and thought something was a bit fishy when I didn't see any other comments.  It is clear that she/they can't take any form of reasonable, informed rebuttal.  Mostly though, my thought was: that's it?  That is all you are coming with?  That is your review?  Saying nothing would have been better than what she tried to pass off as an honest review of your book.  I would be very surprised if she even read it.  If you had, one can't remain that misguided can they?

  • Fat Guy Weight Loss

    9/4/2011 1:44:33 AM |

    Hmm, wonder if my comment will ever get approved on the sixservings.org site Smile

  • Tony Plank

    9/4/2011 3:12:54 AM |

    I was struck by the tenor of the wheat-industrialist organs in that they seem a bit defensive. If I were in charge of their message, I would have a very low key response. I would make some low level noise about the science being on our side and use some back handed compliments directed at “fringe nutritional ideas”.

    In other words, I think it is a mistake for them to act provoked. It is actually in their power to control this because in my experience, people do not want to listen to the message of wheat-belly. If the noise level stays down a bit, people will keep on eating their “healthy whole grains” and downing Twinkies when no one is looking because fundamentally they do not want to change. Everyone wants to know what I did to transform my health, but when I tell them, they look at me like someone who escaped from a mental institution and generally, they never bring it up again. I understand that completely too, because at one time, I would’ve said you’ll have to pry the baguette from my cold dead fingers.

    The best thing that can happen for you, Dr. Davis, is a full scale onslaught by the evil empire. That is the only way people like me will take note of the message in a serious way.

  • Susan Moles

    9/4/2011 4:20:48 AM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    This is my comment I left at sixservings.  I am pretty sure it will not get posted either:

    Honestly,
    If you don’t start posting some of the comments coming your way from the folks that have been commenting about their experiences regarding wheat consumption, then people are just going to think of this organization as a bunch of intellectual cowards! What is so hard about defending your position?

    Or, are you just having technical challenges?
    Susan Moles

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 1:16:23 PM |

    Thanks, Susan.

    It looks like they've censored--CENSORED--all of our comments, so I posted a challenge on their Facebook page (though I had to "Like" them to do it).

    I'm itching to engage these people. I'm not hoping to convert them, just to allow me to bring all the incredible and damning evidence against wheat out into the open.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 1:18:04 PM |

    Hi, Tony--

    You clearly understand the ways of the world! I am going to hammer away and try to embarrass and shame them into responding!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 1:18:53 PM |

    It looks like they've blocked all of our comments. I've counted 5 people who say they've posted comments, none show on their blog. Yes, I believe they are practicing CENSORSHIP.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 1:21:06 PM |

    Thank you for joining the fight, Corina! You are absolutely correct: NONE of our comments are showing up.

    They are choosing to not engage in the fight face-to-face. I suspect they will never engage in a public debate, since it will allow me and others to publicly air all the damning evidence against wheat. Instead, they will rely on the misleading and deceptive research showing that whole grains are better than white flour.

    All I want is not to convert them to our way of thinking, but a chance to articulate these ideas to the broader public.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 1:22:55 PM |

    Thank you, Cathy. "Wheat and other bad juju" . . . that made me laugh!

    I knew the fight was coming. It would be nice if they would not just say nasty things and then run away, but confront me and others face-to-face.

  • Ari

    9/4/2011 3:15:03 PM |

    Dr. Davis,

    I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Wheat Belly.  Not only was it informative, but it was fantastically well written as well.  Over at Tom Naughton's blog, I joked that your huge number of synonyms for "extreme" and "extremely" show that you must have either a massive vocabulary or the Deluxe Edition of Roget's Thesaurus.

    But in all seriousness, it is a great book!

  • damaged justice

    9/4/2011 3:43:12 PM |

    Who profits? Follow the money:

    http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/DietaryGuidelines/2010/Meeting2/CommentAttachments/GrainFoodsFndn-182REF.pdf

    ConAgra, Pepperidge Farm, various milling companies.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 4:08:49 PM |

    Yes, indeed, Damaged. And a LOT of money--hundreds of billions.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/4/2011 4:09:42 PM |

    Thanks, Ari. I'm extremely happy you like Wheat Belly!

  • Alexandra

    9/5/2011 12:49:44 PM |

    Sarah  from Everyday Paleo did a great podcast over at The Paleo Solution, here is the link:
    http://robbwolf.com/2011/01/11/the-paleo-solution-episode-62-everyday-paleo/

  • Leslie

    9/5/2011 9:10:22 PM |

    So why don't they go after vegans and vegetarians?

  • Leslie

    9/5/2011 9:23:32 PM |

    How can these people live with themselves?

    Rhetorical question, yes ... sigh.

    Looking forward to reading WB after being blown away by Dangerous Grains.  Have been eating a paleo diet for 6 months and the improvement in my health is nothing short of astonishing.  In my 50s, I look and feel 20 again, actually better.  I truly believe if everyone dumped grains from their diet for a month, you could kiss Cargill, Monsanto and ADM good-bye.

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/6/2011 12:14:15 PM |

    Hi, Leslie--

    Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Feel and look like in your 20s while in your 50s? That's great!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/6/2011 12:14:52 PM |

    I think they're worried about Wheat Belly"s head-on attack. This is the most direct attack they've suffered yet.

  • Leslie

    9/6/2011 1:03:18 PM |

    Don't take it personally  ... in looking over all the blog posts on that site there are no comments on any of them.  Comments likely encounter a script that reads, "send acknowledgement message then delete"  Wonder what happens if someone posts a positive comment?  Smile

  • Karn

    9/9/2011 12:51:31 AM |

    I posted a comment over there, I loved that 99% of the comments were anti-wheat.  This is awesome.  Great book and great interview on LLVLC.

    Thanks for all you do!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/9/2011 2:18:37 AM |

    Hi, Karn--

    The battle being waged over at Good Grains Foundation has been nothing short of an anti-wheat rally with placards reading: "We won't eat wheat!"

  • Curmujeon

    9/9/2011 11:56:01 AM |

    Read a bit of "Wheat Belly" while in the bookstore taking a break from flood traffic.  I probably won't buy it for awhile since I already have a long reading list and consider myself in the "choir" since I've been eating Paleo/Primal for almost a year.  I do have three diabetics in the family that are so stuck in conventional wisdom that I don' t think it would be much help for them.  Lent Mom my Paleo book at her request but she never got around to reading it.  I had hoped that she would take to it and become n=2 and turn their T2D and Dad's congestive heart failure around, but maybe they are two far down that path.  Time is running out and all they do now is treat the diseases and resulting symptoms and are clueless about the underlying causes.  Death by Conventional Wisdom and "Modern Medicine".   I was happy to see the book make the NYTBS list.  This may be a good shot at getting the health/healthcare situation turned around.  Unfortunately, 99.99% of people are not paying attention or are fixed on the CW way.  "Eat less fat!  More healthy whole grains!  More cardio!"  The rest just wants food thats cheap and tastes good(sweet or salty).  Just waiting for the other shoe to drop and the book get recalled from the stores and the Kindles since it presents such radical, subversive information and viewpoints.   The book will become a black market item and will only be shared in meetings of the anti-wheat cell groups in private homes of those trying to stop the Great Amirican Wheat Machine.

  • m

    9/12/2011 10:49:07 AM |

    Your book is great!
    I happened upon your blog through another blog 6 months ago.
    I am gluten free but became fat from all the new products and assumed I was eating real food.
    With a bit of reading, I connected the sugar
    being the problem. I am a 58 yr old woman who runs 5 miles 5 days a week and who by accident through trial and error happen to eat your diet and was convinced to by another doctor friend to go for the higher fats.
    My old body is back less 2 sizes in 5 mos. I feel wonderful again. I too feel like a lean machine again while jogging. It feels great!
    The body fat is so noticably gone that people in the large community I live in have asked me how I did it.
    I have directed them to read your book. Better understanding of the real reasons to get fit may change their old beliefs and give it a try.
    I am curious to see Dr. Oz's new live show today. He will be discussing how to lose belly fat. I hope you
    are his guest!!! congrats to you on your contributions to a better life!

  • Dr. William Davis

    9/12/2011 11:49:39 PM |

    Thanks, M!

    I, too, had to stumble my way to find the path to a diet that truly works. So why are given this information at the outset? Why do we all have to inadvertently commit egregious errors of dietary misbehavior to learn from mistakes?

  • Momof2Groks

    11/22/2011 7:46:58 PM |

    I agree so much Dr. Davis.  In fact, I often think that the replacing of gluten containing products with other very processed starches is the reason why so many parents and studies have concluded that GFCF diets do not work for kids on the autism spectrum.  GFCF was where we started with my son, but he did not show significant improvement until we went grain and sugar free, including severely limiting fructose.  Low carb GAPS/Paleo or Primal diets are much more helpful for kids with neurological and digestive issues, but do not get nearly the press.  Love your blog.  Keep it up.

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In heart disease prevention, shoot for perfection

12. April 2006 William Davis (0)
It really struck me today that it's the people who've chosen to compromise their prevention program who end up with trouble--heart procedures, heart attack, even heart failure.

Take Bob, for example. Bob is 73 years old and had a bypass operation in 2000. The procedure went well and Bob enjoyed 6 years of seemingly trouble-free life. Bob had a seriously low HDL cholesterol for which he as taken a modest dose of niacin, but was unwilling to do much more. His HDL cholesterol was thererefore "stalled" at around 40 mg. (We aim for 60 mg or greater.) We talked repeatedly about the options for increasing HDL but Bob was content with his results. After all, since his bypass operation, he'd felt well and could do all he wanted without physical limitation.

But Bob underwent a stress test for surveillance purposes (which we routinely do 5 or more years after bypass surgery). The test was markedly abnormal with two major areas of poor blood flow to his heart (signalling potential heart attack in future). Bob ended up getting 5 stents to salvage two bypass grafts, both of which showed signs of substantial degeneration.

I've seen this scenario repeatedly: A person is unwilling to go the extra mile to obtain perfection in lipid/lipoprotein patterns, lifestyle changes, and taking the basic, required supplements. Compromises eventually catch up to you in the form of another heart attack, more procedures, heart failure, physical disability, even death.

The message: Don't draw compromises in heart disease prevention. Coronary plaque is a chronic process. It will take advantage of you if you ever let your guard down.

The epidemic of small LDL

11. April 2006 William Davis (0)
Of the patients I saw in my office yesterday, virtually EVERYONE had small LDL.

Small LDL is emerging as an extraordinarily prevalent lipoprotein pattern that drives coronary plaque growth. Previous estimates have put small LDL as affecting only 20-30% of people with coronary disease. However, in my experience in the last few years, I would estimate that greater than 80% of people with measurable coronary plaque have small LDL.

If you have a heart scan score >zero, chances are you have it, too.

I call small LDL a "modern" disease because it has skyrocketed in prevalence recently because of the great surge in inactivity in Americans.

When's the last time you walked to the grocery store and back, lugging two bags of groceries? How many years has it been since you've push-mowed your lawn? All the small conveniences of life have permeated further and further into our activities. Most of us spend the great majority of our day right where you are now--on your duff.

On the bright side, small LDL in most people is reducable by simply getting up and going. But the old teaching of 30 minutes of activity per day is now outdated. This was true when the other hours of your life included physical activities, like housework or a moderately active job. However, if the other 23 1/2 hours of your day are sedentary, then 30 minutes a day won't do it. An hour or more of activity, whether exercise or physical labor of some variety will get you better small LDL-suppressing results.

For most people with small LDL, fish oil and niacin are also necessary to fully suppress small LDL to the Track Your Plaque goal of <10 mg/dl.

A great discussion on vitamin D

10. April 2006 William Davis (0)
If you need better convincing that vitamin D is among the most underappreciated but crucial vitamins for health, see Russell Martin's review of vitamin D and its role in cancer prevention. You'll find it in March, 2006 Life Extension Magazine or their www.LEF.org website at:

http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=1308&query=vitamin%20d&hiword=VITAM%20VITAMER%20VITAMERS%20VITAMI%20VITAMINA%20VITAMINAS%20VITAMINC%20VITAMIND%20VITAMINE%20VITAMINEN%20VITAMINES%20VITAMINIC%20VITAMINK%20VITAMINS%20d%20vitamin%20

Our preliminary experience over the past year suggests that vitamin D may be the crucial missing link in many people's plaque control program. We've had a handful of people who, despite an otherwise perfect program (LDL<60, HDL>60, etc.; vigorous exercise, healthy food selection, etc.--I mean perfect)continued to show plaque growth. The rate of growth was slower than the natural expected rate of 30% per year, but still frightening rates of 14-18% per year--until we added vitamin D. All of a sudden, we saw dramatic regression of 7-25% in 6 months to a year.

This does not mean that vitamin D all by itself regresses plaque. I believe it means that vitamin D exerts a "permissive" effect, allowing all the other treatments (fish oil, LDL reduction, HDL raising, correction of small LDL, etc.) to exert their full benefit. So please don't stop everything and just take D. This will not work. However, adding vitamin D to your program on top of the basic Track Your Plaque approach--that's the best way I know of.

MSNBC Report: We need more heart procedures!

10. April 2006 William Davis (0)
A recent headline from MSNBC by Robert Bazell reads:

NEW YORK - Angioplasty, bypass surgery and cholesterol-lowering medications are among the many interventions that have brought a sharp decrease in heart disease deaths in recent years. But, as Dr. Sharon Hayes of the Mayo Clinic points out, there is one big problem.

“The death rates in women have not declined as much as they have in men,” she says.

The piece goes on to suggest that women are getting short-ended in the diagnosis of heart symptoms and heart attack. The solution: More testing to assess the need for procedures like bypass.

This is typical of the device and medication-dominated media consciousness: More procedures, more medication, more devices. Who's paying for advertising, after all? The money at stake is huge. But is this what you want?

Don't be swayed by media reporters with limited understanding of the real issues (at best), consciousness of who's paying for advertising (at worst). Yes, heart disese is often underestimated or misdiagnosed in women. The answer is better detection earlier in life followed by efforts to halt the process--effective, safe treatments for people's benefit, not just profit.

What role cholesterol medication?

10. April 2006 William Davis (0)
A frequent conversation point among my patients, as well as participants in the www.cureality.com program, is "Are cholesterol medications really necessary?"

No, they are not. What IS necessary is to correct all manifest and hidden causes of coronary plaque. Among these causes, in my view, is LDL cholesterol of 60 mg/dl or greater. There are many other causes of coronary plaque--e.g., small LDL particles, unrecognized hypertension, Lp(a), hidden diabetic patterns, etc.--but reducing LDL to 60 mg is still an important part of a plaque-reversing effort.

Insofar as we wish to get LDL to this goal, the statin cholesterol drugs like Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, etc. may play a role. However, they should only be considered after a full effort dietary program is pursued. Don't follow the American Heart Association's diet unless you want to fail. It's nonsense.

For a more detailed discussion of how to use nutrition and nutritional supplements to reduce LDL cholesterol, go to www.lef.org, the website for the Life Extension Foundation. I wrote an article for their magazine called "Cholesterol and Statin Drugs: Separating Hype from Reality". You'll find the article at http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=1295&query=davis%20cholesterol%20natural&hiword=CHOLESTEROLA%20CHOLESTEROLS%20DAVI%20DAVID%20DAVIE%20DAVIES%20DAVIN%20DAVIO%20DAVISON%20DAVISS%20DAVIT%20NATURALBASED%20NATURALES%20NATURALIZED%20NATURALLY%20NATURALS%20NATURE%20NATURES%20cholesterol%20davis%20natural%20.)

Can your plaque-reversal efforts succeed without statin drugs? It depends on your causes. For instance, someone with small LDL and Lp(a) only may do great on our basic program and then add niacin. Unfortunately, another person with a starting LDL cholesterol of 240 mg/dl--sky high--will have more success with these drugs.

Believe me, I am no blind supporter of drug companies and their flagrantly profit-seeking practices which, in my view, are cut-throat, shoving anyone and anything out of their way to increase profits and market share. I share many of Dr. Dave Warnarowski's views on how vicious their tactics can be; see his recent Blog post at http://www.drdavesbest.com/blog/ called "I smell a rat".

Nonetheless, the deep and well-funded research of the pharmaceutical industry does yield some useful tools. You don't have to love the insect exterminator, but if your house is being eaten by termites, his services can be useful. Same thing with these drugs. Useful--not the complete answer, not even close, but nonetheless useful in the right situations. Sometimes antibiotics are necessary, even life saving. That's how cholesterol drugs are, too.

Take it all in the proper perspective. Your goal is not cholesterol reduction, per se, but plaque control, preferably reversal.

Supplement Mania!

9. April 2006 William Davis (3)
Ever hear of "polypharmacy"? That's when someone takes too many medicines. People will have lists of 15-20 prescription medicines, for instance, with crazy interactions and oodles of side-effects.

Well, how about "poly-supplments"? That's when someone takes a large number of nutritional supplements.

Let me tell you about a 45 year old man I met.

In an effort to rid himself of risk for heart disease that he felt was likely shared with his family (brother and father diagnosed with heart attacks in their late 40s), Steve followed a program of nutritional supplementation. You name it, he took it: hawthorne, anti-oxidant mixtures, vitamins C, E, B-complex, saw palmetto, 7-keto DHEA, velvet deer antler, gingko biloba, policosanol, chronium picolinate, green tea, pine bark extract, St. John's Wort, CoEnzyme Q10, papain and other digestive enzymes...He became a distributor for a nutritional supplement company to allow him to afford his own extraordinary program.

To satisfy himself that he had indeed "cured" himself of heart disease, he got himself a CT heart scan. His score: 470, in th 99th percentile. Steve's heart attack risk based on this score was around 10% per year. High risk, no question.

For weeks after his scan, Steve admitted walking around in a daze, not knowing what to do. Years of telling himself that he had effectively dealt with his heart disease risk, now all down the drain.

When we met, I persuaded him that to think that this collection of supplements would reverse heart disease was magical thinking. We trimmed his list down to the essentials and got him on the right track.

Heart disease is controllable and reversible, but not this way. Don't fool yourself into thinking that some collection of supplements will be enough to stamp out your heart disease risk. Just like taking an antibiotic when you don't have an infection achieves nothing, so does taking the wrong supplements.

What does heart scanning mean to you?

8. April 2006 William Davis (0)
CT heart scans can mean different things to different people.


What does a heart scan mean to you? There are several possibilities:

1) A way of reducing uncertainty in your future.

2) A tool to crystallize your commitment to health.

3) A device to help you track how successful your heart disease prevention program is.

4) A trick to get you in the hospital.

5) A moneymaking tool for unscrupulous physicians hoping to profit from "downstream" testing, particularly heart catheterizations.


Like anything, heart scans can be used for both good and evil. How can you be sure that your heart scan is put to proper use--for your benefit and not someone else's profit?

Simple: Get educated. Understand the issues, be armed with informed questions.

If, for instance, you're a 55-year old female with a heart scan score of 90, active without symptoms, and you're told to have a heart catheterization right off the bat---run the other way. This is bad advice. A heart procedure like catheterization at this score in an asymptomatic woman is very rarely necessary. That decision can only be made after a step-by-step series of decisions are made by a truly interested, unbiased party. (A stress test is almost always required in this situation before the decision can be made to proceed with a catheterization.)

Unfortunately, in 2006, getting unbiased advice from your doctor is still a struggle. That's why we started Track Your Plaque---unbiased information, uncolored by drug or device company support, with an interest in the truth.

Coronary disease is drying up!

7. April 2006 William Davis (1)
I had an interesting conversation with a device representative this morning. He was a sales representative for a major medical manufacturer of stents, defibrillators, and other such devices for heart disease.

Since I'm still involved with hospital heart care and cardiac catheterization laboratories, this representative asked me if I was interested in getting involved with some of the new cardiac devices making it to market over the next year or two. "The coronary market is drying up, what with coated stents and such. We've got to find new profit sources."

Well, doesn't that sum it up? If you haven't already had this epiphany, here it is:

HEART DISEASE IS A PROFITABLE BUSINESS!

Why else can hospitals afford billboards, $10 million dollar annual ad campaigns, etc.? They do it for PROFIT. Likewise, device and drug manufacturers see the tremendous profit in heart disease.

The representative's comments about the market "drying up" simply means that the use of coated stents has cut back on the need for repeat procedures. It does NOT mean that coronary disease is on the way out. On the contrary, for the people and institutions who stand to profit from heart care, there's lots of opportunity.

Track Your Plaque is trying to battle this trend. Heart disease should NOT be profitable. For the vast majority of us, it is a preventable process, much like house fires and dental cavities.

Mammogram for your heart

6. April 2006 William Davis (0)
With the booming popularity of "64-slice CT scans", there's a lot of mis-information about what these tests provide.

These tests are essentially heart scans with added x-ray dye injected to see the insides of the arteries. However, to accomplish this, a large quantity of radiation is required. In addition, the test is not quantitative, that is, it is not a precise measure that can be repeated year after year.

It is okay to have a 64-slice CT coronary angiogram. It is NOT okay to have one every year. That's too much radiation. However, a heart scan can be repeated every year, if necessary, to track progression or regression. Once stabilization (zero change) or reduction is achieved, then you're done (unless your life takes a major change, like a 20 lb weight gain).

The tried-and-true CT heart scan is the gold standard--easy, inexpensive, precise, and repeatable. Not true for 64-slice angiograms.

Is your doctor using "leeches"?

4. April 2006 William Davis (0)
What if you went to your doctor for a problem and he/she promptly placed leeches on your body?

Yeccchhhh! Would you go back? I'd bet that you'd run the other way as fast as your bleeding legs could take you. Outdated health practices like "bleeding" are outdated for good reason.

Then why would you allow your doctor to approach your heart disease prevention program by checking cholesterol and then waiting for symptoms to appear? That miserable approach leads to tragedy and death all too often--ask Bill Clinton! He might as well have had leeches!

Don't allow your doctor's ignorance or disinterest impede your prevention program. Get your coronary plaque measured, then attack it from all sides by knowing all causes, hidden and obvious. That's why Track Your Plaque is such an effective program.

I often wonder why more doctors aren't using this unbelievably powerful approach to deal with heart disease. But when I see colleagues implanting stents, defibrillators, and the like for many thousands of dollars per patient, the answers are obvious. Given a choice of a rational, effective program of prevention that pays the doctor a few hundred dollars for his time, versus $2000 to $10,000 for a procedure, you can see that the temptation is irresistible for many physicians.
All posts by william-davis

Hospital Administrators' Wish List

20. April 2006 William Davis (0)
I've known enough hospital administrators over the years to understand what most of them want.

Of course, most of them want to deliver high quality care to patients in a safe, efficient setting. They want to comply with national standards of performance, attract quality physicians to use their facilities, and appeal to patients as a desirable place to obtain care.

But one fact is hard for many administrators to ignore: 30% of a hospital's revenues and 50% of their profits come from heart services.

So, if your hospital administrator had a wish list, I believe that among their wishes would be:

--More heart catheterizations, angioplasties, stents, and bypass surgery.
--More pacemaker and defibrillator implantations.
--More heart attacks.
--More heart failure with need for intravenous infusions, defibrillators, and bi-ventricular pacemaker implantations.
--More heart valve surgery.

Highly successful hospitals do more of these procedures than less successful hospitals.

Are you getting the picture? Heart care is a business. It's not very different than Target, Home Depot, or McDonalds--businesses eager to sell more of their product. Yes, there is attention to detail, quality, and competitiveness, but the bottom line is "sell more product, make more profit."

Keep this in mind the next time you catch one of the many TV or newspaper ads, radio spots, physician "interviews", or other media pitches in your town. Does Target run ads for the public good or to generate profitable sales? Does your hospital run ads to broadcast its contribution to public welfare or to generate profitable "sales"? Pretty clear, isn't it?

Poor, neglected vitamin D!

20. April 2006 William Davis (1)
We now routinely check blood levels of vitamin D in all our patients. I am reminded everyday that, if you're a resident of a northern climate (as we are in Wisconsin and similarly in Michigan, Washington, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc.), the overwhelming likelihood is that you are deficient in vitamin D. And not just a little deficient, but severely deficient.

As humans, we're meant to obtain vitamin D through exposure to sunlight. This was how humans evolved. We are all ill-equipped to get vitamin D through nutritional sources. The average (Wisconsin) patient we see has vitamin D blood levels of 17-30 ng/dl. Most authorities would agree that a level of 30 ng or less would constitute severe deficiency. An ideal level is probably around 50 ng, what many (but not all) residents of southern climates like Florida, Texas, and Hawaii have if they get frequent sun exposure.

When vitamin D levels are normal, bone health is maximized (inhibiting osteoporosis); prostate, uterine, breast, and colon health is heightened and cancer risk diminished; pre-diabetic and diabetic patterns are suppressed and blood sugar reduced; blood pressure drops 10 mgHg, on average;and inflammatory measures like C-reactive protein are substantialy reduced. But, of greatest interest to us, coronary plaque is easier to regress.

Although our experience in the last several hundred people is still anecdotal, I believe that I'm seeing a dramatic increase in the amount and rapidity of coronary plaque regression. People we've struggled with are suddenly regressing. People with higher heart scan scores (e.g., >500) are regressing more readily.

We're accumulating our data and it will take a couple more years to develop it in a scientifically-useful format. But, in the meantime, adding vitamin D to your program or having your vitamin D level checked may be among the most important steps you can take to gain control over coronary plaque. Be sure to ask your doctor to get the right blood test: it must be 25-OH-vitamin D3. (The wrong test is the 1,25-OH2-vitamin D3; though they look and sound the same, they measure very different parts of the vitamin D pathway.) Also, Track Your Plaque members: read Dr. John Cannell's tremendous summary of the vitamin D experience on the Track Your Plaque website.

Leave the greatest legacy to your children

19. April 2006 William Davis (0)
Phyllis was dumbfounded when she learned of her heart scan score of 995. At age 56, this placed her solidly in the 99th percentile--a score that grouped her with the worst 1% of scores for women her age. Track Your Plaque followers know that scores of 1000 (just days away, given the expected 30% increase in score per year!) pose a risk of heart attack, symptoms leading to stent or bypass, or death of 25% per year.

But after Phyllis gathered her thoughts and thought it over, her first question was "What about my children?"

A natural response for a mother. Phyllis' "children" actually ranged in age from 26 to 37. We talked about how, given her high score, she'd probably been creating plaque in her coronary arteries for 20 years. This triggered her mother's concern for her kids.


This is probably the #1 most useful lesson for all of us. If we learn of our own risk for heart disease, we can pass our concerns on to our children. Imagine how much more well-equipped you could be if you started out with the advice and experience of a parent who'd identified and then conquered their heart disease risk.

Pass your awareness and knowledge on to your children, particularly if they are 30 years old or more.

Interestingly, my own personal experience with my 14-year old son taught me a lesson or two. I had previously assumed that, at age 14, how could he be even remotely interested in these issues? (I have a terrible family history of heart disease and I have a high heart scan score myself.) When my son asked that we check his lipid values (I talk about this more than I'd like to admit!), we did a fingerstick lipid panel in my office. Lo and behold, his HDL (good) cholesterol was a shocking 31 mg--exceptionally low for a teenager. His risk for heart disease over the long-term is very high.

Much to my surprise, this awareness has triggered a genuine interest in healthy eating. It's not uncommon to see him examine food labels and to report to me that "Hey, Dad. Can you believe that this yogurt has 43 grams of carbohydrates?"

Pass on the lessons you've learned to your children and to the important people in your life. This is probably the most crucial lesson you can take from the Track Your Plaque experience.

Half effort will get you half results

17. April 2006 William Davis (3)
Greg walked into the office.

"Just back from a 10-day Caribbean cruise, Doc. It was fabulous."

"Yes, but I see you're 14 lbs heavier. What happened?"

"Well, you know, a 24-hour a day open brunch. Anything and everything you wanted. But I only had dessert twice."

"Did you exercise?"

"Come on, Doc! It was vacation!"

With this serious indiscretion, Greg gained 14 lbs in 10 days. That's a total surplus of 49,000 calories Greg put in his body over that period. 49,000!

Greg had started the cruise 40 lbs overweight. Now, he's 54 lbs overweight. The pre-diabetic tendency he showed earlier was now full diabetes. All associated lipoproteins blossomed with it--small LDL, a drop in HDL of 5 points, triglycerides skyrocketing to 320.

He blew it.

Can Greg turn back? Yes, he most likely can, given a serious and rapid effort to lose the weight he gained on the cruise and more.

But can he do it? I doubt it.

Someone who allows himself to gain an extraordinary quantity of weight, completely neglects exercise, then blows it off as having some fun will never succeed.

In all honesty, this is someone who shouldn't waste his time in the Track Your Plaque program. He will fail--period. By failure I mean he will experience explosive plaque growth over the next few years and then end up with stent(s), heart attack, bypass surgery. Some people will die. He will also--should he survive--experience the long-term complications of diabetes, such as retinal disease, kidney impairment, loss of sensation to his feet and legs, and on and on. His life will be substantially abbreviated.

To me, there's no choice. But Greg and many people like him are fooling themselves if they believe that a half-hearted effort will allow them to succeed in controlling or reversing heart disease. Maybe we'll come up with some magic supplement or prescription medication that will erase his heart disease in a few days.

Don't count on it. I'll make no bones about it. Controlling and reversing heart disease requires a commitment--a full commitment to eat and live healthy, to follow the advice we give, and not engage in serious indiscretions that erode your efforts. If you believe that taking 40 mg of Lipitor is all you're going to need to regress heart disease, plan on your first stent or heart attack within a few years. And you'll hobble to the doctor's office in the meantime.

Stents, defibrillators, and other profit-making opportunities

16. April 2006 William Davis (2)
As a practicing cardiologst, every day I receive a dozen or more magazines or newspapers targeting practicing physicians, not to mention the hundreds of letters, postcards, invitations to "talks", etc. that I receive. All of these materials share one common goal: To get the practicing cardiologist/physician to insert more of a manufacturer's stents, defibrillators, prescribe more of their drugs, etc.

This is a highly effective and profitable area. Pfizer's Lipitor, for instance, generated $12.2 billion just last year alone. This kind of money will fund an extraordinary amount of marketing.

I'm on the www.heart.org mailing list, a website for cardiologists. I'd estimate that 90% or more of their content is device-related: discussions of situations in which to insert stents, the expanding world of implantable devices, the ups and downs of various drugs. Rarely are discussions of healthy lifestyles, exercise, nutritional supplements, part of the dialogue.

How can you protect yourself from the brainwashed physician, flooded with visions of all the devices he can put in you, all the drugs that can "cure" your disease? Simple: information. Be better informed. Ask pointed questions. The idiotic lay press tells you to ask a doctor about his education. That's not generally the problem. Some of the best educated doc's I know are also the most flagrantly guilty of profiteering medicine.

Ask your doctor about his/her philosphy about the use of medications, devices, etc. If their word is God, take it or leave it, run the other way.

Will radiation kill you?

16. April 2006 William Davis (4)
Several people have asked me lately if radiation is truly dangerous. These conversations were sparked by an editorial comment made on a column I wrote for Life Extension Magazine's April, 2006 issue on "Three ways to detect hidden heart disease".

Among the methods that were discussed in this piece was, of course, CT heart scanning. Anyone who is involved with CT heart scans Quickly recognizes the spectacular power of this test to uncover hidden, unsuspected heart disease, literally within seconds. In 2006, there's really nothing like it for the every day person to have hidden heart disease detected and precisely quantified.

Yet, the "rebuttal" to my article claimed that the broad use of heart scans was only my personal view and that, in truth, radiation kills people.

NONSENSE! If an ovarian cancer is discovered by a CT scan of the abdomen, is that unwise use of radiation? If pneumonia or lung cancer is discovered on a chest x-ray with minimal radiation exposure, have we performed a disservice. Of course not. In fact, these are often lifesaving applications of radiation.

Can radiation be used unwisely with excessive exposure? Of course. The 64 slice CT angiograms are just an example of this. Dr. Mehmet Oz announced on Oprah recently that this was a test to be used for broad screening of women for heart disease. This is wrong. The radiation required for a full 64 slice CT angiogram test is truly excessive for a screening application. You wouln't want to get breast cancer from your mammogram, would you? The radiation from a 64-slice CT angiogram is similar to that of a heart catheterization in the hospital--too much for screening. This is not to be confused with a CT heart scan for a calcium score performed on a 64 slice device. I think this can be performed with acceptable radiation exposure.

Think about what would happen, for instance, if you had your heart disease undetected, had a heart attack, and went to the hospital? During your hospitalization, you'd likely get five chest x-rays, a heart catheterization, perhaps one or more nuclear imaging tests, maybe even a full CT scan (with far more radiation than a screening heart scan). The amount of radiation of a heart scan is trivial compared to what you obtain in a hospital.

So take it all in perspective. The low level of radiation required for a simple heart scan (not an angiogram) does not by itself substantially add to your lifetime risk of radiation exposure. It may, in fact, save your life or reduce your life long exposure to radiation.

Are you using bogus supplements?

16. April 2006 William Davis (0)
I consider nutritional supplements an important, many times a critical,part of a coronary plaque control program.

But use the wrong brand or use it in the wrong way, and you can obtain no benefit. Occasionally, you can even suffer adverse effects.

Take coenzyme Q10, for instance. (Track Your Plaque Members: A full, in-depth Special Report on coenzyme Q10 will be on the website in the next couple of weeks.) Take the wrong brand to minimize the likelihood of statin-related muscle aches, and you may find taking Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, etc. intolerable or impossible. However, take a 100 mg preparation from a trusted manufacturer in an oil-based capsule, and you are far more likely to avoid the inevitable muscle aches. (Though, of course, consult with your doctor, for all it's worth, if you develop muscle aches on any of these prescription agents.)

Unfortunately, you and I often don't truly know for a fact if a bottle from the shelf of a health food store or drugstore is accurately labeled, pure, free of contaminants, and efficacious.

One really great service for people serious about supplements is the www.consumerlab.com website. They are a membership website (with dues very reasonable) started by a physician interested in ensuring supplement quality. Consumer Lab tests nutritional supplements to determine whether it 1) contains what the label claims, and 2) is free of contamination. (I have no reason to pitch this or any other site; it's just a great service.) They recently found a supplement with Dr. Andrew Weil's name on it to have excess quantities of lead!

What Consumer Lab does not do is determine efficacy. In other words, they do a responsible job of reporting on what clinical studies have been performed to support the use of a specific supplement. However, true claims of efficacy of supplement X to treat symptom or disease Y can only come with FDA approval. Supplements rarely will be put through the financial rigors of this process.

If you're not a serious supplement user, but just need a reliable source, we've had good experiences with:

--GNC--the national chain
--Vitamin Shoppe--also a national chain
--www.lifeextension.com or www.lef.org--A great and low-priced source, but they do charge a $75 annual membership that comes with a subscription to their magazine, Life Extension (which I frequently write for) and several free supplements that you may or may not need. Again, I'm not pitching them; they are simply a good source.
--Solgar--a major manufacturer
--Vitamin World
--Nature's Bounty
--Sundown

There are many others, as well. Unfortunately, it's only the occasional manufacturer or distributor that permits unnacceptable contamination with lead or other poisons, or inaccurately labels their supplement (e.g., contains 1000 mg of glucosamine when it really contains 200 mg). I have not come across any manufacturer/distributor who has systemtically marketed uniformly bad products.

It really helps to have someone to lean on

16. April 2006 William Davis (0)
Among my patients are several husband and wife teams, both of whom have heart disease by some measure. Several couples, for instance, consist of a huband who's received a stent, survived a heart attack, or has some other scar of the conventional approach. The wives generally have a substantial heart scan score in the several hundred range.

There are a few couples for which the roles are reversed: wife with bypass, heart attack, etc. and husband with a substantial quantity of coronary plaque by CT heart scan.

From them all, however, I've learned the power of teamwork. When both wife and husband (or even "significant other") are committed to the effort of controlling or reversing heart disease risk, the likelihood of success is magnified many-fold. Everything is easier: shopping for and choosing foods, incorporating supplements in the budget, taking vacations with a healthy focus, following through and sticking with your program.

Several of the couples have succeeded in obtaining regression of plaque for both man and woman. Both have reduced their heart scan scores and, as a result, dramatically reduced the potential for future heart attack and procedures.

Unfortunately, I will also see the opposite situation: One spouse committed to the program but the other indifferent. They may say such things as "You can't control what happens in the future." Or, "There's no way you can get rid of risk for heart disease. My doctor says it's hereditary." Or, "I've eaten this way since I was a kid. I'm not changing now for you or for anybody else."

Such negative commentary can't help but erode your commitment to health. Most of us recognize these sorts of comments as self-fulfulling and self-defeating.

What should you do if you have an unsupportive partner? Not easy. But it really can help to seek out a supportive partner, whether it's a friend, relative, or other significant person in your life. Of course, not everybody can find such a person. Perhaps that's another way our program can help.

I'd like to hear from anyone who does obtain substantial support of someone close, or if you are struggling to do so.

Five foods that can booby trap your heart disease prevention program

14. April 2006 William Davis (0)
There are several foods that commonly come up on people's lists of habitual foods that are truly undesirable for a heart disease prevention program. Curiously, people choose these foods because of the mis-perception that they are healthy. My patients are often shocked when I tell them that they are not healthy and are, in fact, detrimental to their program.

I'm not talking about foods that are obviously unhealthy. You know these: fried foods, greasy cheeseburgers, French fries, bacon, sausage, etc. Nearly everyone knows that the high saturated fat content, low fiber, and low nutritional value of these foods are behind heart disease, hypertension, and a variety of cancers.

I'm talking about foods that people say they eat because they view them as healthy--but they're not.

Here's the list:

1) Low-fat or non-fat salad dressings--Virtually all brands we've examined have high-fructose corn syrup as one the main ingredients. What does high fructose corn syrup do? Triggers sugar cravings, makes your triglycerides skyrocket (causing formation of abnormal lipoproteins like small LDL), and causes diabetes. The average American now ingests nearly 80 lbs of this evil sweetener per year. You're far better off with olive, canol, grapeseed, or flaxseed based salad dressings.

2) Breakfast cereals--If you've been following these discussions, you know that the majority of breakfast cereals are sugar. They may not actually contain sugar, but they contain ingredients that are converted to sugar in your body. They may be cleverly disguised as healthy--Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat, etc.

3) Pretzels--"A low-fat snack". That's right. A low-fat snack that raises blood sugar like eating table sugar from the bowl.

4) Margarine--Forget this silly argument about which is worse, butter or margarine. Which is worse, strychnine or lead? Both are poisons to the human body. Who cares which is worse? Fortunately, there are now healthy "margarines" like Smart Balance and Benecol that lack the saturated fat or hydrogenated fat of either.

4) Bananas--Bananas are not all that intrinsically unhealthy. The problem is that people will say to me, "Oh sure, I eat fruit. Two bananas a day." What I hear is "I don't really eat fruit with high nutrient value, fiber, and reduced sugar release. I reach for only bananas which yield extreme sugar rises in my blood and are low fiber." Aren't they high in potassium? Yes, but there are better sources. Cut back if you are a banana freak.


Why the mis-perceptions? A holdover from the low-fat diet days and marketing from food manufacturers are the principal reasons. Of course, foods are meant to be enjoyed, but be informed about it. Choose foods for the right reasons, not because of some cleverly-crafted marketing campaign.

Breakfast of champions?

12. April 2006 William Davis (1)
I spend time every day educating or reminding patients that breakfast cereals are not health foods.

I see jaws drop in shock when I tell them that, in my opinion and despite the marketing claims, Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat, and the like do not yield health benefits. In fact, they do the the opposite: dramatically raise blood sugar and trigger an adverse cascade of events that eventually leads to diabetes and heart disease.

Why the health claims in advertising? Because these products contain insoluble fiber, the sort that makes your bowels regular. Yes, your bowels are important to health, too. But the benefits end there.

Breakfast cereals are a highly refined, processed food that are not good for your plaque control program. What they are is a highly profitable, multi-billion dollar business, deeply entrenched in American culture ("They'rrrre grrrrrreat!"--Tony the Tiger; "There's a whole scoop of raisins in every box of Post Raisin Bran!" Bet you remember them all.)

I find it particularly upsetting when I see the stamp of approval from the American Heart Association on some products. Gee, if the Heart Association says it's good for you, it must be true! Don't you believe it. The American Heart Association relies on corporate donations, just like any other charity.

If you must eat breakfast cereals, refer to www.glycemicindex.com for a full database of glycemic indexes. You can look up a specific product and it will list its glycemic index, or sugar-releasing properties. You should try to keep glycemic index of the foods you choose below 50.

For a revealing discussion of the influence of food marketers on our perceptions of food, see Track Your Plaque nutrition expert, Gay Riley's discussion The Marketing of Food and Diets in America at her website, www.netnutritionist.com.