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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Real men don't eat carbs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Real men therefore avoid carbs.

Real men don't eat carbs

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

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

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

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

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

Why do the Japanese have less heart disease?

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

What are they doing right?

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

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

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

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


One study trying to find some answers:

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

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


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

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

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

Niacin: What forms are safe?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction to the New Track Your Plaque book, version 2.0

18. April 2011 William Davis (0)

Out with the old,
in with the new  



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

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

George Elliot
Middlemarch, 1871





Old notions in medicine have a peculiar way of lingering.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What are "normal" triglycerides?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

1985: The Year of Whole Grains

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

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

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


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

You think there's a relationship?

Have some more

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

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

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

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

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

The myth of small LDL

28. qershor 2006 William Davis (1)
Annie's doctor was puzzled.

Despite an HDL cholesterol of 76 mg (spectacular!) and LDL of 82 mg, her CT heart scan showed a score of 135. At age 51, this placed her in the 90th percentile.

Not as bad, perhaps, as her Dad might have had, since he died at age 54 of a heart attack.

So we submitted blood for lipoprotein testing. Surprise! over 90% of all her LDL particles were small. (By NMR, they're called "small". By gel electropheresis, or the Berkeley Lab test, or VAP (Atherotech) technique, they're called "HDL3".)

What gives? Traditional teaching in the lipid world is that if HDL equals or exceeds 40 mg/dl, then small LDL will simply not be present.

Well, as you can see from Annie's experience, this is plain wrong. Yes, there is a graded, population-based effect--the lower your HDL, the greater the likelihood of small LDL. But small LDL is remarkably persistent and prevalent--regardless of your HDL.

We've seen small LDL even with HDLs in the 90's! I call small LDL the "cockroach" of lipids. If you think you have it, you probably do. Getting rid of small LDL requires a specific bug killer. (Track Your Plaque Members: Read Dr. Tara Dall's interview on small LDL.)

Don't let anybody blow off your request for lipoprotein testing just because your HDL is high. That's just not acceptable. Loads can be wrong even with a favorable HDL.

My stress test was normal. I don't need a heart scan!

28. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
Katy had undergone a stress test while being seen in an emergency room, where she'd gone one weekend because of a dull pain on the right side of her chest. After her stress test proved normal, she was diagnosed (I believe correctly) with esophageal reflux, or regurgitation of stomach acid up the esophagus. She was prescrbed an acid-suppressing medication with complete relief.

But Katy also had coronary plaque. Three years ago, her CT heart scan score was 157. She'd made efforts to correct the multiple causes, though she still struggled with keeping weight down to gain full control over her small LDL particle pattern.

I felt it was time for a reassessment: another heart scan. After three years, without any preventive efforts, Katy's score would be expected to have reached 345! (That's 30% per year plaque growth.) It's a good idea to get feedback on just how much slowing you've accomplished.

But Katy declared, "But I didn't think another heart scan was necessary. My stress test was normal!"

What Katy was struggling to understand was that even at the time of her first scan, a stress test would have been normal. Plaque can be present with a normal stress test.

Plaque can even show explosive growth all while stress tests remain normal. Just ask former President, Bill Clinton, how much he should have relied on stress tests. (Mr. Clinton underwent annual stress nuclear tests. All were normal and he had no symptoms--all the way up 'til the time he needed urgent bypass surgery!)

Of course, at some point even a crude stress test will reveal abnormal results. But that's years into your disease and a lot closer to needing procedures and experiencing heart attack.

So, yes, Katy would benefit from another heart scan despite her normal stress test.

The message: Don't rely on stress tests to gauge whether or not plaque has grown, stabilized, or reversed. Stress tests can be used to gauge the safety of exercise, blood pressure response, and the potential for abnormal heart rhythms. Stress tests can be used as a method to determine whether blood flow in your coronary arteries is normal through an area with plaque.

But a stress test cannot be used to gauge whether plaque has grown. It's as simple as that. Gauging plaque growth requires a heart scan.

Patient-napping: Yet another reason to stay clear of hospitals!

26. qershor 2006 William Davis (1)
When I started practicing medicine around 20 years ago, it was common practice to alert a physician when their patient was seen in an emergency room.

If John Smith, for example, went to the emergency room with chest pain, the physician who had an established relationship with the patient--knew their history, had managed their health and illnesses, etc.--was notified, even if the hospital ER had no relationship with the physician. It was not uncommon for the patient to then be transferred to the hospital where their own doctor practiced.

Though cumbersome at times, it preserved the relationship of the patient with their doctor.

Over the past few years, this practice has crumbled. Nowadays, hospitals and their employed physicians (and other unscrupulous physicians acting in the name of profit) "fail" to notify the physician with an established relationship.

Guess what happens? The patient all too often ends up being put through the gamut of testing and procedures.

Why? For hospital profit, of course. If failure to notify a doctor who's had a 10-year long relationship with the patient is "overlooked" or, even more commonly, it's "unsafe" to transfer the patient because the patient is too "unstable" to be transferred, then this patient becomes ripe for picking--heart catheterization, stents, bypass surgery, etc. Ten's, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars can be reaped by this deception. I call it "patient-napping".

I see this at least several times every month. As hospitals are becoming increasingly competitive, and as they put pressure on their physicians to churn patients for revenues, you're going to see more and more of this.

As always, what is your protection from this expanding influence of hospitals and the doctors too meek to stand up to them? Education and information. Arm yourself with an understanding of what is accomplished in hospitals, when you truly need them, and when you don't.

Take it one step further. At least from a heart disease standpoint--the #1 profit-maker for hospitals--aim to 1)identify your coronary plaque, then 2) seize control over your coronary plaque and reduce your risk for heart attack and heart procedures as much as humanly possible. That's the goal of the Track Your Plaque program.

Don't believe the negative press on fish oil

25. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)


A British Medical Journal study released in March, 2006 has prompted a media flurry of reports on the worthlessness of fish oil. (Hooper L, Thompson RL, Harrison RA et al. Risks and benefits of omega 3 fats for mortality, cardiovascular disease, and cancer: a systematic review. BMJ March,2006)

Don't believe it for a second.

First of all, the study was a re-analysis of the existing published scientific literature. It was not a new study. It included a wild conglomeration of different clinical observations, as the studies examining fish oil over the years have been extraordinarily heterogeneous--in populations examined, omega-3 supplement (e.g., fish vs. capsule), period of observation, endpoints measured.

The results were skewed by inclusion of a moderate-sized British study by Burr et al in men with angina. In this study, no benefit was demonstrated and, in fact, a negative effect--more heart attack and death--was observed with fish oil. This was not news, since the study was published in 2003. It's results have been a mystery to everyone, since its unexpected negative result for fish oil was so starkly different from virtually every other study that preceded it (suggesting a study flaw or statistical fluke).

Nonetheless, the Burr study served to throw off the overall analysis. It diluted the dramatic and persuasive outcome of the GISSI-Prevenzione Study of 11,000 people in which a 28% reduction in heart attack and 45% reduction in cardiovascular death was observed. Note that the substantial numbers of the GISSI make the study's outcome nearly unassailable.

Another important fact: fish oil is among the most powerful tools available to correct elevated triglycerides. Drops of 50% are common. Recall that triglycerides are a necessary ingredient to create the nasty LDL, as well as VLDL, Intermediate-density lipoprotein, and an undesirable shift from large to ineffective small HDL. Reducing triglycerides is therefore crucial for your plaque control program.

This re-analysis serves to prove nothing. Such analyses can only pose questions for further study in a real study like GISSI: a randomized (random participant assignment), controlled (treatment vs. placebo or other treatment) study.

The weight of evidence remains heavily in favor of fish oil, not only as helpful, but fabulously beneficial, particularly for anyone aiming to reduce coronary plaque.

How important is high blood pressure?

24. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)

Control of blood pressure is crucial for coronary plaque control and stopping your heart scan score from increasing.

Dr. Mehmet Oz (of Oprah fame and a cardiac transplant surgeon at Columbia University) made graphic point of this on the ABC TV news show, 20/20, last evening on an episode called "Our Bodies: Myths, Lies, and Straight Talk". (See a summary on the ABC News 20/20 website at http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2109291&page=1)

Although I believe he somewhat overstated the case for hypertension (proclaiming "If you're going to remember one number, if you're going to focus and fixate on one number in your entire health profile, it better be your blood pressure"), he made the point that a blood pressure of 115/75 is what you should have for optimal health.

I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, the old advice that desirable blood is 140/90 or less is absolutely wrong. At this level, we see flagrant increases in heart scan scores. We also progressive enlargement of the thoracic aorta, the large vessel that leaves the heart and branches to provide the major arteries of the body. Growth of the aorta to an aneurysm is also common at these formerly acceptable blood pressure. (The diameter of your aorta in the chest is an easily obtainable measure on your CT heart scan.)

The blood pressure you need for halting and reversing plaque growth on your heart scan is indeed 115/75 or less. (Not so low, however, that you're lightheaded.) This is the blood pressure that you were meant to have evolutionarily. It's also the blood pressure that helps tremendously in keeping your aorta from enlarging.

Watch for an upcoming exhaustive report on blood pressure and its plaque-raising effects and how to reduce it using nutritional strategies on the www.cureality.com membership website.

Is your doctor in cahoots with the hospital?

21. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
I got a call from a doctor about a patient we've seen in past.

"I've got Tricia in the office. She's been having some kind of chest and abdominal pain. I think it's esophageal reflux, but just to be safe I'm sending her to the hospital."

I advised this physician that, given Tricia's low heart scan score, she was unlikely to be having a coronary "event" like heart attack or unstable symptoms. It wasn't impossible, but just highly unlikely.

As the patient was without symptoms at the moment and had driven herself to his office, I offered to perform a stress test immediately. (Though stress tests are of limited usefulness in people without symptoms, they can be useful provocative maneuvers in people with symptoms of uncertain significance.)

The doctor declined. Tricia was, after all, in his office and he was responsible for any decisions despite any objections I voiced. Well, Tricia was directed by her doctor to go to a local hospital, though one with an especially notorious reputation for putting virtually anyone they can get their hands on through as many procedures as possible.

As you might guess, this doctor was closely associated with this hospital. He and his colleagues obtain incentives (or are penalized) if they do not generate revenue-producing procedures for the hospital.

So, guess what? Tricia ended up with several procedures, all of which yielded nothing--except $30,000 in revenues from Tricia's insurance company.

I harp on this deplorable state of affairs because it is utterly, painfully, and shamefully TRUE. Just look at the hospital and you'd better brace yourself for a series of tests that could cost you the equivalent of a nice 3 bedroom home. If they were truly necessary after the failure of preventive and other simple efforts, fine. But, all too often, they are driven by profit motives.

Could I have stopped this somehow from occurring? After all, Tricia was reasonably aware of the way we do things around here. I fear that even this failed to serve Tricia well. But I remain hopeful that, as we build broader awareness of these issues, that more and more people and physicians will stand up and refuse to tolerate the status quo.

Where is the Track Your Plaque program going?

21. qershor 2006 William Davis (1)
I spend a lot of time worrying about how people can be helped to navigate through this program.

Take, for instance, the man in rural Texas who, while traveling in Dallas, got a heart scan on a whim. His score was 990. When he took the report back to his doctor, he got a smirk--and that's all. When he came to the Track Your Plaque program, he lacked a physician advocate to help him.

Or the woman from Florida who sought opinions from two reputable cardiologists for her heart scan score of 377. Both advised her that she needed a heart catheterization--despite her lack of symptoms, her 5-day-a-week exercise program, and normal stress test. She also lacks a physician advocate who acts on her behalf, helping her achieve success, rather than just churning her for money from hospital procedures.

For people like this and for others, I see the Track Your Plaque program evolving in several directions:

1) An online clinic--You enter and we take your "hand" and lead you step by step through the process, not only at the beginning, but over the months and years. This would help clear up some of the confusion and zigzags that some people experience trying to navigate through the program.

2) Develop physician and non-physician partners--The woman in Florida, for instance, could be referred to a doctor nearby who understands the program and is able to assist her. At present, this is virtually impossible because of the bias towards heart procedures, drugs as the sole treatment for heart disease risk, and the superficial physician-patient relationship. The majority of practicing physicians just don't understand the program despite the fact that it is based on sound clinical and experimental data. But it will in time.

Looking back, we've come a long way. I remember first having patients undergo heart scans 10 years ago. My colleagues laughed or called it "silly". The general public didn't know what they meant.

Now we're talking about how to broadcast the most powerful heart disease prevention program available in the world to a larger audience, but making it easier and more accessible. Mass media like Oprah's two hour-long spots helped, but we need to make the next leap. Not just identifying hidden heart disease to feed the hungry cardiovascular hospital procedure monster, but to educate/inform/empower the public on what to do with the scan once they've had it.

Who cares about triglycerides?

19. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
Walter's triglycerides were 231 mg. His LDL cholesterol was "favorable" at 111 mg, HDL likewise at 49 mg.

"Everything looks good," his doctor declared.

"Do you think the triglycerides are okay, too?" Walter asked.

"Well, the guidelines do say that triglycerides should be less than 150, but I believe you're close enough. Anyway, triglycerides don't really cause heart disease."


When I met Walter, I made several comments. First of all, in light of his heart scan score of 713, none of his numbers--HDL, LDL, or triglycerides-- were acceptable. But the triglycerides were glaringly and terribly too high.

Why? What exactly are triglycerides?

Triglycerides are a basic fat particle that, though they do not cause heart disease directly, trigger the formation of an array of abnormal lipoprotein particles in the blood that are among the most potent causes of heart disease known.

These abnormal lipoprotein particles include small LDL, VLDL, and IDL (intermediate-density lipoprotein--a really bad pattern). Excess triglycerides also cause HDL to drop. They also cause a distortion of HDL structure, causing the particles to become abnormally small. Small HDL is also useless HDL, unable to provide the protection that HDL is designed to do.

So Walter's elevated triglycerides are, in reality, a substantial red flag for an entire panel of abnormal particles that contribute to the growth of his coronary plaque.

So, if you get this kind of commentary on your triglycerides, ask for another opinion. (Track Your Plaque Members: Also see Triglycerides: Mother of meddlesome particles at http://www.cureality.com/library/fl_dp002triglycerides.asp.)

Total cholesterol and heart scans

19. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
Andy was fearful of heart disease in his life. At age 52, he'd already had four CT heart scans--one each year on or near his birthday.

Yet, when I looked at Andy's scans, his scores had been increasing 20-24% per year. Each and every score was greater by 20% or more over the previous.

So I asked Andy what steps he had taken to stop this relentless progression. "Well, I've always been real health conscious. But ever since my first scan, I really started sticking to a healthy diet, exercising nearly every day, and I take a bunch of supplements."

"What did your doctor advise?" I asked.

"Well, Dr. ---- said that nothing needed to be done, since my total cholesterol was always below 200."



Men's Health magazine's fabulous story about the folly of using total cholesterol to gauge heart disease risk.




Aaaauuuggghhh!! Wrong!

This man was, in fact, at rapidly escalating risk for heart attack. This rate of growth simply can't continue forever without igniting this bomb.

A total cholesterol below 200 is meaningless, as Andy's increasing coronary plaque proved. For instance, you can have a total cholesterol of 165 mg but with an HDL cholesterol of 27 mg. This would constitute very high risk for heart disease despite the low total cholesterol. The low HDL pattern is among the most common reasons for a misleading total cholesterol. Small LDL, high triglycerides, and lipoprotein (a) are other frequent reasons.

Andy, run the other way! Do not heed this doctor's advice! You need a solid answer to the question: Why exactly do I have coronary plaque in the first place?

Then, agree on a treatment program that corrects your specific causes.

Cardiologists out of touch

17. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
This weekend, I'm fulfilling some responsiblities I have every so often to some of the local hospitals. It gives me a chance to interact with many of my colleagues who are likewise "on call" for the weekend.

I tried to strike up several conversations with colleagues about how they were managing heart disease prevention. I received blank stares, puzzled looks, indifference. One colleague declared that 80 mg of Lipitor is all you need to know.

These same colleagues are the ones scrambling for the heart attack patients in the emergency room, climbing over one another for consultation in the hospital for patients with chest pain and heart failure. They're consumed with expanding the range of procedures they can perform.

Carotid stenting is hot. So is stenting of the leg arteries. Defibrillators have been a financial bonanza. Opportunities abound on how to add these procedures to a cardiologist's abilities.

But heart disease prevention? How about heart disease reversal?

Frankly, I'm embarassed by my colleagues' lack of interest. Imagine we had a cure for breast cancer--not a palliative therapy that just slows the disease down or prolongs life, but actually cures it once and for all. I would hope that all physicians and oncologists would learn how to accomplish this. What if instead they focused on learning new ways to remove breasts, administer new toxic chemotherapies, etc. but ignored the whole idea of cure?

This is what is happening with coronary plaque reversal. The answer is right in front of them, but the vast majority (99%) of cardiologists choose to ignore it. After all, prevention and reversal simply don't pay the bills.

That means that, in 2006, you simply cannot rely on your cardiologist to counsel you on how to achieve regression or reversal of coronary plaque. How about your internist, family physician, or primary care doctor? Well, they're busy doing pneumovax injections, Pap smears, managing knee and hip arthritis, low back pain, diarrhea, headaches, sinus infections and . . yes, dabbling in heart disease prevention.

And, for the most part, doing a miserable job of it. What you generally get echoes the drug manufacturers pitch: Take a statin drug, cut the fat in your diet.

Until the majority of doctors catch on, you're going to have to rely on sources like the Track Your Plaque program for better information.
All posts by william-davis

What if your lipoproteins are perfect?

16. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)


Sandy is a 56-year old woman--fit, slender, physically active, with no bad habits. A retired teacher, she has time to devote to her health. She bikes several days per week, mountain bikes, walks, and takes fitness classes. In short, she's the picture of perfect health.

Her heart scan score was not terribly impressive: 41. However, at her age, this modest score placed her in the 77th percentile. This suggested a heart attack risk of around 2-3% per year.

So we measured Sandy's lipoproteins. They were shockingly normal. In fact, Sandy is among the very rare person with absolutely no small LDL particles. All other patterns were just as favorable, including an HDL in the 80s.

This may seem like good news, but I find it disturbing. People are often initially upset by seeing multiple abnormal lipoprotein patterns. But lipoprotein abnormalities are the tools that we use to gain control over coronary plaque.

So what do we do when there are no abnormalities?

There are several issues to consider:

1) Your heart scan score reflects the sum total of your life up until that point. What if you were 20 lbs heavier 10 years earlier and your lipoproteins were abnormal during that period? Or you smoked until age 45 and quit? As helpful as they are, lipoproteins and related patterns are only a snapshot in time, unlike the heart scan score.

2) You have a vitamin D deficiency. This is unusual as a sole cause of coronary plaque. Much more commonly, it is a co-conspirator.

3) The heart scan is wrong--highly unlikely. Heart scans are actually quite easy, straightforward tests. (The only time this tends to happen is when scoring that appears in the circumflex coronary artery is actually in the nearby mitral valve. This really occurs only when there's very minimal calcium in the valve.)

4) There's a yet unidentified source of risk. Probably very rare but conceivable. For instance, there's an emerging sense that phopholipid patterns may prove to be coronary risks. One clinically available measure that we've not found very useful is phospholipase A2, known by the proprietary name "PLAC" test. (See http://www.plactest.com for more information from the manufacturer/distributor of the test.) But there's probably lots of others that may prove useful in future.

How often does it happen that someone fails to show any identifiable source for their coronary plaque? I can count the number of instances on two fingers--very unusual. (Thank goodness!)

Sandy's case is therefore quite unique. How should we approach her coronary plaque? In this unusual circumstance, lacking a cause, we tend to introduce therapies that may regress plaque independent of any measurable lipoprotein parameters. But that's a whole new conversation.

Fly to India for a bypass operation?

16. qershor 2006 William Davis (1)

In the June 19, 2006 issue of People Magazine, there's an article called "The Doctor is in . . .INDIA". The report talks about how, with health care costs in the U.S. spiralling out of control, more and more Americans are leaving the country to have their procedure performed.

They tell the story of Mr. Carlo Gislimberti of New Mexico and cite these numbers:

Heart Surgery
Cost in U.S.: $200,000

Cost in India: $10,000

Mr. Gislimberti opted to have his coronary bypass operation in India for cost reasons.

But the People magazine report left out one other option: The Track Your Plaque program: $39.00

Do your part to save ballooning health care costs: Engage in a truly powerful program of heart disease prevention like the Track Your Plaque program. The cost difference is laughably huge. And you won't require a 12-inch chest incision.

Follow conventional guidelines and guess what? You're going to have a heart attack. Follow the American Heart Association diet and you'll have heart disease.

Cut to the chase. The only program that is able to detect, track, and control coronary plaque better than any other process I know of is this program.

Note: I am not proposing that a heart disease prevention program like Track Your Plaque can replace a procedure like coronary bypass when a dangerous situation has developed. The Track Your Plaque program is designed to be implemented in the years before heart surgery is required. That's when you have the greatest control over your fate.

Surprise: Heart scan score reversal

14. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
Gene is a jovial, fun-loving railroad worker who didn't take anything too seriously--including his heart scan score of 767.

This score placed Gene solidly in the 99th percentile (in the worst 1%). It came as no surprise to Gene. After all, his father died at age 36 of a heart attack and Gene's brother died at 60 of a heart attack. So Gene took life as it came and long ago decided not to fret about his fate.

But Gene's wife prodded him and prodded him to get the heart scan. That's when I met him.

Of course, Gene had been prescribed Lipitor by his doctor for a somewhat high LDL cholesterol. Our assessment uncovered several additional patterns including lipoprotein (a), small LDL, a pre-diabetic tendency, and a severe deficiency of vitamin D.

At 224 lb and 5 ft 6 inches in height, I felt that Gene was at least 40 lbs overweight.

One year later and with reasonable correction of all his patterns except weight loss and Gene's heart scan score was 590--a reduction of 23%!

Gene was thrilled, as was I. But, frankly, I was also surprised. Dramatic regression of coronary plaque tends to not occur so readily as long as pre-diabetic patterns persist and weight is not controlled.

The lesson: Often the only way to tell if you've achieved control or regression of coronary plaque is to have another heart scan. The tremendous variation in human responses never ceases to amaze me.

Call me when you're having chest pain

13. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)

I met a patient, Anna, yesterday. She was quite frustrated and frightened.

At age 50, Anna suffered a heart attack and received a stent to her left anterior descending coronary artery. What she found upsetting is that, because several members of her family had suffered heart attacks in their 40s (Dad--heart attack at age 45, paternal uncle--heart attack age 40, and even another uncle with heart attack in his late 20s), she had repeatedly asked her doctor whether she was okay.

She received the usual array of false assurances: "You're feeling fine, right? Then don't worry about it." "Look. Your cholesterol is in the normal range. Even your cholesterol/HDL ratio is fine." "Women don't get heart disease until later in life."

All proved absolutely false. As we talked, Anna exclaimed, "I think what I've been told all along is that we'll take you seriously when you finally have a heart attack!"

She's exactly right. The vast majority of times, heart disease is discovered by accident, usually because of an "event" like heart attack. This is like changing the oil in your car when it finally breaks down--it's too late.

CT heart scan, followed by lipoprotein testing and associated values, then correction of your specific causes. It's that simple.

Self-empowerment is coming!

11. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
I've discussed this before: The coming wave of self-empowerment in health. Health that is driven by you, not a hospital, not a doctor, not by procedures, but by information and access to tools that are powerful and effective.

The seeds are being planted right now and won't take full root for many years or decades. But it's going to happen.

I previously cited several broad trends that are examples of this emerging wave:

--The nutritional supplement movement. Contrary to the media's ill-informed bashing, nutritional supplements are getting better: improved quality, better substantiation of when/how to use them, new agents that appear rapidly, since introduction is not slowed by the molasses of the FDA.

--Medications moving to over-the-counter status. Health insurers are driving this one. OTC means not paid for by insurance. That also means access to you.

--What I call "retail imaging", i.e. screening ultrasound, heart scans, full body scans, etc. that are available in most states without a doctor's order.

--The Internet. The mind-boggling rapidity and depth of information available on the Internet today is fueling the self-empowerment movement by providing sophisticated information to health care consumers. Information here is uneven at present. But, as consumer sophistication increases and the system of checks and balances evolves, internet-driven information will be often superior to what you get from a doctor or other health professional.

--High-deductible health insurance plans. If health care consumers bear more and more of the costs of health care, they will seize greater responsibility for early identification and prevention and minimize long-term costs.

This trend does not mean treating your own infection, taking out your own gall bladder, repairing your own broken leg. It means that conventional routes of health delivery will recede into providing only catastrophic care.

It means that you and your family will take a larger role in learning how to eat and exercise properly, use foods to maintain and promote health (the "designer food" and "nutraceutical" movement), take supplements that have real benefits, use medications for treatment of many everyday ailments.

It also means seizing control of diseases that previously were only treated in hospitals, like coronary heart disease. This, of course, is where our program, Track Your Plaque, is an example of how you can have a powerful and effective role in your heart health. Track Your Plaque goes so far beyond the "eat low-fat, exercise, and know your numbers" media mantra that it's like comparing a brand-new Mercedes to a rusted, run-down '87 Ford Escort. There truly is no comparison. (Sorry if you're an Escort driver!) But you get the idea.

Another option for lipoprotein testing

9. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)

For those of you who have been frustrated in trying to get your lipoprotein analysis performed, here's another option.

The Life Extension Foundation at www.lef.org provides access to the VAP test, or Vertical Auto Profiler. This is the lipoprotein test run by the Atherotech company in Birmingham, Alabama. The name refers to the method used, a form of centrifugation, or high-speed spinning of your blood (plasma) to separate the various components by density.

This is a fine technique that works well. Though our preferred method is NMR (www.Lipoprofile.com, Liposcience Inc.), the Atherotech VAP is a reasonable alternative.

If you go through the Life Extension process, they will direct you to blood draw sites in your area. They charge $185 for Life Extension members, $247 for non-members. (Membership in Life Extension costs $75.) Drawback: No billing for health insurance reimbursement.

A full description of the significance of lipoproteins can also be found in my article posted on-line at the www.lef.org website at http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2006/may2006_report_heart_01.htm

Weight and lipoproteins

8. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
Tom, an accountant, came into the office eager to know what his 2nd heart scan score showed.

A year ago, Tom's view of himself as a healthy, middle-aged man was shattered when he found out his heart scan score: 1236. Tom had severe coronary plaque with a heart attack risk of 25% per year (without intensive preventive action).

In the way of lipoprotein abnormalities, he had several: low HDL, deficient large HDL, small LDL, high triglycerides, IDL (the after-eating inability to clear dietary fats), and a high blood sugar in the pre-diabetic range. In addition, Tom was hypertensive, with blood pressure so high it even landed him in the emergency room last winter.

In addition to our approach to correct all these patterns, Tom was urged to lose a significant quantity of weight. Starting at 225 lb., at 5 ft 7 inches, Tom was clearly at least 40 lbs over his ideal weight.

I stressed to Tom that the entire spectrum of causes of coronary plaque were weight-related. I likened his patterns to throwing gasoline on a fire: As weight increased, his lipoprotein and other abnormalties flared dramatically.

But each time Tom came back to the office over the ensuing year, he'd gained another 3 to 6 lbs. And each time he had an explanation. "My daughter just got married. I couldn't turn down wedding cake, now could I?" Or, I just survived another tax season. I was working day and night--no time for exercise!" "It's getting too hot to walk anymore."

Well, despite multiple treatments, Tom's repeat heart scan showed a score of 1677, a 35% increase. That's a dangerous rate of growth that virtually guarantees that plaque is building up momentum to "rupture", which results in heart attack.

I therefore stressed to Tom that weight loss was crucial. Control of coronary plaque was simply not going to occur without weight loss to our target. Alternatively, we could add several new prescription medicines and hope that they could achieve the same effect, though at a price (side-effects, expense).

I tell Tom's story to highlight again just how important weight loss can be for a number of lipoprotein abnormalities.

What measures specifically are sensitive to weight? They are:

--HDL cholesterol
--Triglycerides
--Small LDL
--VLDL
--Blood pressure
--Blood sugar and insulin
--C-reactive protein
--LDL

Weight exerts profound influence on these patterns. In Tom and people like him, weight can be a "make it or break it" issue.

If you, like Tom, have any of the above patterns, consider weight loss as a potent tool you can use to gain control of coronary plaque.

Variation in vitamin D requirements

7. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)

For Track Your Plaque followers, you know we are very concerned about vitamin D blood levels. My prediction is that, in 10 years, vitamin D will be regarded as an important item on the list of coronary artery disease risk factors.

In our experience of trying to stop or reverse heart scan scores, restoration of vitamin D to a blood level of 50 ng/ml appears to have increased our success rate dramatically.

As we've talked about before, on the bell curve of vitamin D dosing in a northern climate, the majority of women require 2000 units per day, men require 3000 units per day to achieve a level of 50 ng. However, there are "outliers" on this bell curve, i.e., people who require much more or much less.

This week, I saw two people who were very instructive cases of extreme requirements on the high end of vitamin D dosing. Both started with unmeasurable blood levels, i.e., essentially zero ng/ml. On 5000 units of vitamin D per day, both raised their blood levels to around 17-18 ng/ml--in the range of severe deficiency (defined as <20 ng/ml). I advised both to increase their oral dose of vitamin D to 8000 units per day.

Notably, both people avoided sunlight and lived in Wisconsin, a terribly sun-deprived locale 10 months a year. Both were also substantially overweight (around 300 lbs each).

The vitamin D issue continues to be endlessly fascinating in all its nuances and twists.

Heart attacks in your own backyard

7. qershor 2006 William Davis (0)
Two men from my community just died of heart attacks. Both were in their 40s.

What bothers me most about these all too frequent stories is that it is so preventable. You can bet that both had little or no symptoms prior to their deaths. You can also bet that they've had cholesterol panels taken by their doctors.

Followers of the Track Your Plaque program know that these are sure-fire paths to failure. The absence of heart disease symptoms should provide no reassurance whatsoever. High cholesterol, in-between cholesterol, low cholesterol--none are confident indicators in a specific individual.

Stress test? How about the patient I saw today who, until I met him, had been undergoing stress test after stress test, every year--all while the quantity of coronary plaque tripled. False reassurances provided by his cardiologist led him to believe that all was well--while this stack of oily rags was just waiting for the spark to ignite.

Too little time, too much money, too far away--there's a hundred excuses for not getting a heart scan. Or, you've had a heart scan and no one can tell you what to do about it. If you're reading this, however, you've found the most intensive source of information available on how your heart scan can serve as the start of a program of heart attack prevention for a life free of dangers.

It's not that tough. But it won't just go away on its own. I just have to look around me in my own community, watch the local news, talk to friends, and I'll heart about all the people just in my neighborhood who should be learning these lessons. I rant and rave about this but some people need to hear it from a friend, colleague, neighbor, rather than some crazy doctor bucking the standard line.

You, too, should be telling anyone who will listen about how heart disease can be identified and controlled.

Pilot lands safely after heart attack, then dies

6. qershor 2006 William Davis (1)
That was the disturbing headline on a report from MSNBC, also reported nationally on all the major news networks.

The story goes on:

"A pilot suffering a heart attack made an emergency landing on a highway, saving his three passengers shortly before he died...He landed the single-engine Cessna 185 on Utah 30 near Park Valley and was taken to Bear River Hospital in Tremonton, where he died."

We track these sorts of stories and it's frightening just how common they are. A school bus driver recently had a heart attack while driving 30 children; the bus crashed but no one was hurt. A 52-year old commercial bus driver suffered a heart attack while transporting 49 conference attendees; the bus plunged 400 feet down a ravine. Remarkably, 17 passengers suffered only minor injuries and there were no deaths.

There have even been incidents where the pilot of a jet liner suffered a heart attack in-flight. In 2000, the 53-year old pilot of a Northwest Airlines DC-10 died while in-flight from a heart attack while landing in Minneapolis. The 290 passengers were landed safely by co-pilot.

Most incidents where the driver or pilot has been incapacitated or died resulted in the deaths of only a handful of people. No major catastrophe has yet occured. But--mark my words--it will. These incidents just happen too frequently.

Virtually all of these and similar incidents could have been prevented. If the FAA, for instance, would insist that all pilots have a simple CT heart scan, it would become immediately obvious which pilots should be grounded and who should fly. Similar requirements could easily be applied to persons in charge of the welfare of many people, most notably school bus drivers.

It's not that tough! The FAA currently requires stress testing and cholesterol testing. Well, guess what? Followers of the Track Your Plaque program know that these tests do not effectively identify the person at risk for heart attack in the majority of individuals. Just ask former President Bill Clinton how helpful his stress tests (five in a row!) were. Or how valuable his cholesterol monitoring was--all prior to his emergency bypass surgery.
All posts by william-davis

Increased blood calcium and vitamin D

21. June 2010 William Davis (50)
Conventional advice tells us to supplement calcium, 1200 mg per day, to preserve bone health and reduce blood pressure.

Here's a curious observation I've now witnessed a number of times: Some people who supplement this dose of calcium while also supplementing vitamin D sufficient to increase 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood levels to 60-70 ng/ml develop abnormally high levels of blood calcium, hypercalcemia.

This makes sense when you realize that intestinal absorption of calcium doubles or quadruples when vitamin D approaches desirable levels. Full restoration of vitamin D therefore causes a large quantity of calcium to be absorbed, more than you may need. In addition, two studies from New Zealand suggest that 1200-1300 mg calcium with vitamin D per day doubles heart attack risk.

We have 20 years of clinical studies demonstrating the very small benefits of supplementing calcium to stop or slow the deterioration of bone density (osteopenia, osteoporosis). These studies were performed with no vitamin D or with trivial doses, too small to make a difference. I believe those data have been made irrelevant in the modern age in which we "normalize" vitamin D.

Should hypercalcemia develop, it is not good for you. Over long periods of time, abnormal calcium deposition can occur, leading to kidney stones, atherosclerosis, and arthritis.

Until we have clarification on this issue, I have been advising patients to take no more than 600 mg calcium supplements per day. I suspect, however, that the vast majority of us require no calcium at all, provided an overall healthy diet is followed, especially one that does not leach out bone calcium. This means no foods like those made with wheat or containing powerful acids, such as those in carbonated drinks.

Heart health consultation with Dr. Joe D. Goldstrich

20. June 2010 William Davis (3)
Cardiologist, nutritionist, and lipidologist, Dr. Joe D. Goldstrich, is a frequent contributor to the Track Your Plaque Forum, where we discuss the full range of issues relevant to coronary health and coronary plaque reversal.

I have come to value Dr. Goldstrich's unique insights, especially in nutrition. Formerly National Director of Education and Community Programs for the American Heart Association and a physician at the Pritikin Center, his dietary philosophy has evolved away from low-fat and towards a low-carbohydrate focus, much as we use in Track Your Plaque. Like TYP, Dr. Goldstrich is always searching for better answers to gain control over coronary health. His unique blend of ideas and background has helped us craft new ideas and strategies. Dr. Goldstrich has proven especially adept at understanding how to incorporate new findings from clinical studies in our framework of coronary atherosclerotic plaque management strategies.

Dr. Goldstrich is offering to share his expertise with our online community. If you would like a one-on-one phone consultation with Dr. Goldstrich, you can arrange to speak with him at his HealthyHeartConsultant.com website.

Wheat aftermath

16. June 2010 William Davis (18)
Following my 4 oz whole wheat misadventure that yielded the sky-high blood sugar of 167 mg/dl, compared to einkorn wheat's 110 mg/dl, I suffered through a 36-hour period of misery.

After I obtained the blood sugar of 167 mg/dl, I biked hard for one hour. This yielded a blood sugar back down in the 80s. I felt spacey in the ensuing few hours, as well as a little queasy. However, about 12 hours later, I awoke with overwhelming nausea along with that hypersalivating thing that happens just prior to vomiting. It did not come to that, but persisted all through the following day.

The next morning, I could barely concentrate. Trying to read a study (admittedly on the complex topic of agricultural genetics), I had to read each paragraph 4 or 5 times. Abdominal cramps and a bloated feeling also developed, though I was able to eat.

The 2nd night was filled with incredibly vivid dreams and intermittent sleeplessless. I awoke about 5 times through the night, but periods of sleep were filled with detailed, colorful dreams. I dreamt that a large corporation was secretly trying to gain control over the world's water supply, and I snuck onto a complex underwater vessel that was exploring and mapping the coastline of the Great Lakes in preparation. Weird.

I recognized these odd feelings as various facets of wheat intolerance, since they were all reminiscent of feelings I used to experience before I removed wheat from my diet. They were amplified and compressed, likely because I had been wheat-free for so long.

The odd thing is that, despite the modest blood sugar effect of my einkorn experience, none of the gastrointestinal or neurologic effects of wheat developed. So far, two other people with acute gastrointestinal wheat sensitivities have consumed our einkorn bread, also without reproduction of their usual symptoms.

Einkorn contains gluten, though the structure of the many gluten proteins of einkorn differs from that of the wheat bread I consumed, an example of modern Triticum aestivum. 14-chromosome einkorn carries what biologists call the "A" genome, while Triticum aestivum has the combines genomes of 3 plants, the combination of the A, B, and D genomes. It is the D genome that contains the genes coding for the most obnoxious, immunogenic forms of gluten.

So einkorn may not be entirely benign, but it is a good deal less obnoxious than modern Triticum aestivum.

I am awaiting the reports from a few other people on their experiences.

In search of wheat: Einkorn and blood sugar

14. June 2010 William Davis (32)
There are three basic aspects of wheat's adverse health effects: immune activation (e.g., celiac disease), neurologic implications (e.g., schizophrenia and ADHD), and blood sugar effects.

Among the questions I'd like answered is whether ancient wheat, such as the einkorn grain I obtained from Eli Rogosa, triggers blood sugar like modern wheat.

So I conducted a simple experiment on myself. On an empty stomach, I ate 4 oz of einkorn bread. On another occasion I ate 4 oz of bread that dietitian, Margaret Pfeiffer, made with whole wheat flour bought at the grocery store. Both flours were finely ground and nothing was added beyond water, yeast, olive oil, and a touch of salt.

Here's what happened:

Einkorn wheat bread:

Blood sugar pre: 84 mg/dl
Blood sugar 1-hour post: 110 mg/dl

Conventional wheat bread
Blood sugar pre: 84 mg/dl
Blood sugar 1-hour post: 167 mg/dl

The difference shocked me. I expected a difference between the two, but not that much.

After the conventional wheat, I also felt weird: a little queasy, some acid in the back of my throat, a little spacey. I biked for an hour solid to reduce my blood sugar back to its starting level.

I'm awaiting the experiences of others, but I'm tantalized by the possibility that, while einkorn is still a source of carbohydrates, perhaps it is one of an entirely different variety than modern Triticum aestivum wheat. The striking difference in blood sugar effects make me wonder if einkorn eaten in small quantities can keep us below the Advanced Glycation End-Product threshold.
 

In search of wheat: We bake einkorn bread

12. June 2010 William Davis (6)
With the assistance of dietitian and health educator, Margaret Pfeiffer,MS RD CD, author of Smart 4 Your Heart and very capable chef and breadmaker (previously, before she gave up wheat), we made a loaf of bread using Eli Rogosa's einkorn wheat. Recall that einkorn wheat is the primordial 14-chromosome wheat similar to the wild wheat harvested by Neolithic humans and eaten as porridge.

The essential question: Has wheat always been bad for humans or have the thousands of hybridization experiments of the last 50 years changed the structure of gluten and other proteins in Triticum aestivum and turned the "staff of life" into poison? I turn to einkorn wheat, the "original" wheat unaltered by human manipulations, to figure this out. While einkorn wheat is still a source of carbohydrates, is it something we might indulge in once in a while without triggering the adverse phenomena associated with modern wheat?   

Here's what we did:

This is the einkorn grain as we received it from Eli's farm. This was enough to make one loaf (approximately 3 cups).











The einkorn grain is a dark golden color. I tried chewing them. They taste slightly nutty. They soften as they sit in your mouth.





Here's Margaret putting the einkorn grain into the electric grinder.









We tried to grind the grain by hand with mortar and pestle, but this proved far more laborious than I anticipated. After about 15 minutes of grinding, this is what I got:



Barely 2 tablespoons. That's when Margaret fired up the electric grinder. (I can't imagine having to grind up enough flour by hand for an entire family. Perhaps that's why ancient cultures were thin despite eating wheat. They were just exhausted!)

We added water, salt, and yeast, then put the mix into an electric breadmaker to knead the dough and keep it warm.

We let the dough rise for 90 minutes, much longer than conventional dough. The einkorn dough "rose" very little. Margaret tells me that most dough made with conventional flour rises to double its size. The einkorn dough increased no more than 20-30%.

The einkorn dough also distinctly smelled like peanut butter.





After rising, we baked the dough at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes. This is the final product.

Because I want to gauge health effects, not taste, the bread we made had no added sugar or anything else to modify taste or physiologic effect.

On first tasting, the einkorn bread is mildly nutty and heavy. It had an unusual sour or astringent taste at the end, but overall tasted quite good.

Next: What happens when we eat it? I'm going to give the einkorn bread (I've got to make some more) to people who experience acute reactions to conventional wheat and see if the einkorn does the same. I will also assess blood sugar effects since, after all, hybridizations or no, it is still a carbohydrate.



Margaret Pfeiffer's book is available on Amazon:

Ezekiel said what?

10. June 2010 William Davis (24)
Some people are reluctant to give up wheat because it is talked about in the Bible. But the wheat of the Bible is not the same as the wheat of today. (See In search of wheat and Emmer, einkorn and agribusiness.) Comparing einkorn to modern wheat, for example, means a difference of chromosome number (14 chromosomes in einkorn vs. 42 chromosomes in modern strains of Triticum aestivum), thousands of genes, and differing gluten content and structure.

How about Ezekiel bread, the sprouted wheat bread that is purported to be based on a "recipe" articulated in the Bible?

Despite the claims of lower glycemic index, we've had bad experiences with this product, with triggering of high blood sugars, small LDL, and triglycerides not much different from conventional bread.

David Rostollan of Health for Life sent me this interesting perspective on Ezekiel bread from an article he wrote about wheat and the Bible. David argues that the entire concept of Ezekiel bread is based on a flawed interpretation.

"I Want to Eat the Food in the Bible."


Are you sure about that?

Some people, still wanting to be faithful to the Bible, will discard the "no grain/wheat" message on the basis of biblical example. After all, God told Ezekiel to make bread, he gave the Israelites "bread from heaven," and then Jesus (who is called the "Bread of Life"!) multiplied bread, and even instituted the New Covenant with what? Bread and wine! If you're going to live the Bible, it seems that bread and/or wheat is going to play a part.

But this is unnecessary. Sure, the Bible can and does tell us how to live, but this doesn't mean that everything in the Bible is meant to be copied verbatim. Applying the Bible to our lives requires wisdom, not a Xerox machine.

The Bible was written in a historical context, and the setting happened to be an agricultural one. Because of this, the language used to describe blessing spoke of things like fields full of grain, or barns overflowing with wheat. Had the Bible been written in the context of a hunter-gatherer culture, the language describing blessing probably would have been about the abundance of wild game, or baskets full of vegetables. Whatever is most valuable in your time and in your culture is a blessing. God accommodated His message to the culture as it existed at the time. This is done throughout Scripture.

There is a danger, then, in merely copying what the Bible says, instead of extracting the principles by which to live. Take the above example of Ezekiel, for instance. There's a whole product line in health food stores called "Ezekiel Bread" that supposedly copies the recipe given in Ezekiel 4:9. This is from the website:

"Inspired by the Holy Scripture verse Ezekiel 4:9., 'Take also unto thee Wheat, and Barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and Spelt, and put them in one vessel, and make bread of it...'"

Believing that this "recipe" has some kind of special power just because it's in the Bible is ridiculous. How ridiculous is it? I'll tell you in a moment, but first let me say that this is why it's so important not to confuse descriptives with prescriptives. Is the Bible telling a story, or is it telling us to do something? We would be well-advised not to confuse the two.

In the case of the Ezekiel Bread, what is going on in the passage? There's a siege going on, with impending famine, and Ezekiel is consigned to eating what was considered back then to be some of the worst possible food. It was basically animal chow. But that's not the worst thing going on in this passage. Apparently, when the makers of Ezekiel Bread were gleaning their inspiration for the perfect recipe, they stopped short
of verse 12:

"And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight."

Um...what? Well, there was a good reason for this. God was judging His people, and by polluting this really bad bread with dung (which was a violation of Mosaic law; Lev. 5:3), He was saying that they were no different from the unclean Gentiles.

So why would we take this story and extrapolate a bread recipe from it? Beats me. If you were going to be consistent, though, here's what you'd have to end up with:



Let that be a lesson to you. We don't just go and do everything that we see in the Bible.

Low-carb gynecologist

6. June 2010 William Davis (36)
I met infertility specialist, Dr. Michael Fox, on Jimmy Moore's low-carb cruise just this past March.

Dr. Fox is quiet and unassuming, but had incredible things to say about his experience with carbohydrate restriction in female infertility and pregnancy. While readers of The Heart Scan Blog already know that I advocate a diet free of wheat, cornstarch, and sugar for heart health and correction of multiple lipoprotein abnormalities, it was fascinating to hear how a similar approach seems to yield extraordinary benefits in this entirely unrelated area of female health. Obviously, female infertility and pregnancy are unrelated to heart health, but the extraordinary benefits witnessed by Dr. Fox in this area suggest that some fundamental lessons in human physiology can be learned. The results are so incredible that we are all sure to hear more about this approach as experience grows.

So I tracked Dr. Fox down in his busy Jacksonville, Florida practice to fill us in on some details.

WD: Dr. Fox, could you tell us something about yourself and what led you to use carbohydrate restriction in your female patients?

MF: I have been in practice as a reproductive endocrinologist for 15 years. During that time, I have seen our specialty move from a broad based practice of reproductive endocrinology to a narrow IVF [in vitro fertilization] focus, with patients being pushed through IVF in a cookie-cutter fashion without any emphasis on non-medical therapy.

Our focus has been to remain as a broad practice where we individualize care and attempt in every case to achieve pregnancy short of IVF. Five years ago, this continued quest for better care led us into the insulin resistance, low-carbohydrate metabolic world that has transformed our practice, although our practice offers all aspects of reproductive endocrinology including sub-specialized minimally invasive surgery, and all available infertility options.


WD: I have been intrigued by your comments about improved fertility with the low-carb diet. Could you elaborate on this?

MF: Yes, five years ago, as more information regarding Polycystic Ovarian Disease or Syndrome (PCOD/S) and its relationship to insulin resistance (high insulin levels) was emerging, we had a simple realization. As we've known for some time, insulin stimulates excess male hormone levels in the ovary, which disrupts ovulation and fertility. Then our job was to lower or virtually eliminate high insulin levels. Again, in simple fashion, we looked at physiology and realized that insulin is released only in response to dietary carbohydrates. Thus, elimination of carbohydrates should resolve the problem. This, in fact, is the effect that we have seen.

In our previous approaches to PCOD, we utilized oral ovulation medicines generating pregnancy rates in the 40% range overall. Now, with the nutritional approach, for those patients that follow our recommendations, our pregnancy rates are over 90%! This has dramatically reduced the need for in vitro fertilization in these patients.

To extend this idea further, we first started with relative low-carbohydrate diets, such as the South Beach diet, but quickly realized this didn't produce a metabolic effect. Over time, it has borne out that only the very low-carbohydrate diet (VLCD) approach produces significant metabolic change. Our impression then was that the current U.S. nutritional exposure probably increases insulin levels and that this has a detrimental effect on fertility.

To counter this effect, we now recommend the VLCD to all fertility patients and their spouses. The pregnancy rates do seem much better overall, as well as seeing a reduction in miscarriage rates. For the first time at our national meeting last year, there were three articles that showed improved pregnancy rates in patients without PCOD or insulin resistance in IVF when Glucophage was used. This drug decreases insulin. This supports the idea that our entire population is subjected to fertility-reducing high-carbohydrate diet.

WD: Do you see any other changes in these patients on the diet?

MF: Yes. All metabolic parameters, as well as many common complaints, improve. Cholesterol and triglyceride levels improve, while "good" HDL cholesterol levels increase. Weight drops at a pace of 12 lbs per month very steadily and we have many many patients who have experienced 50lb wt loss. Blood pressure decreases steadily in these patients and we are often able to get them off of cholesterol and blood pressure medicines. Common symptoms such as anxiety, sleep disturbances, decreased energy, migraine headaches and depression all dramatically improve. Again we can often get patients off depression and migraine suppression medications. So this approach helps in a multitude of areas.



WD: I was also interested in hearing more about your experience with morning sickness and the effects of a low-carb diet. Could you tell us more about this? Also, any thoughts on why this happens?

MF: As we continued to expand our thoughts about VLCD and fertility/pregnancy, we began to extend the nutritional approach into pregnancy. We know that pregnancy hormones dramatically worsen insulin resistance that is responsible for the condition, gestational diabetes. If insulin resistance is worsened, then reactive hypoglycemia is worsened. One of the biggest symptoms of hypoglycemia is nausea. So, in response to this, we have counseled our patients on the diet in pregnancy and have found a dramatic reduction in nausea. We recommend snacking every two hours in pregnancy.

The other "traditional" issue in pregnancy are cravings. These also likely stem from hypoglycemia. I have had many husbands tell us later that their wives, in contrast to friends etc, were calm and not moody or anxious during their pregnancies. Hypoglycemia probably is a serious issue for the fetus as well and may be the "signal" that turns on the insulin-resistant gene. Many theorists feel this might be an activated gene during the pregnancy.


WD: Do you use any unique approaches to the low-carbohydrate approach, e.g., inclusion of dairy, meal frequency, "induction" strategies (i.e., induction to the diet, not of labor!), etc.?

MF: Yes. As I'm sure everyone who works in the VLCD world does, we also have some tricks to make this work better. My biggest push, although hard to get patients to agree, is to see a counselor along with our follow-up in order to deal with "addictive behaviors" and "stress eating" that so many of our patients relate to us. Good stress management and cognitive behavioral therapy go a long way in helping this become a permanent change.

We also really push frequent calorie intake or "snacking." I think again that hypoglycemia produces an inborn drive to "cure" or "fix" starvation and leads to dramatic overeating. We have a short list of snacks that we recommend. The concept of hunger is offered as a failure of the program. We aim to eliminate hunger, as it represents hypoglycemia. The analogy I use is, if you drove your car until you ran out of gas before you ever sought to find gas, your life would be miserable. So it is the same with your metabolic engine: If you let it run out, the measures your system takes to fix it are very detrimental to life and certainly to nutritional health.

Our other big push is fat. People can wrap themselves around protein and vegetables, but they totally miss the high-fat (animal fat) part of the conversation. We have to really push that aspect. In regards to dairy, we allow for non-processed cheeses and minimal milk. An alternative is to mix about 4 oz whole milk with 4 oz of heavy whipping and 4 oz of water to create a "milk" with less sugar. Similarly, shakes and smoothies can be made with heavy whipping cream with pure whey protein powder added to create a liquid meal for those who "don't have time" to cook.


WD: Thanks, Dr. Fox. We look forward to hearing more about your approach in future.

Contact information:

Michael D. Fox, MD
Jacksonville Center
Reproductive Medicine
www.JCRM.org
Phone 904-493-2229

Track Your Plaque reduces healthcare costs 35%

29. May 2010 William Davis (12)
Allow me to wear my Track Your Plaque hat for this post.

Mr. Richard Rawle is CEO of Utah company, Tosh, Inc. Mr. Rawle has been an avid follower of the Track Your Plaque program and has introduced the program to company employees. Here's what he has to say about the experience:

“Our company has been utilizing the principles of TYP [Track Your Plaque] for over a year and has experienced great results that have positively impacted the lives of our employees and our health care costs.

Since we began our wellness program, we have presented the TYP diet and lifestyle guidelines to all of our employees and their families. Although the overwhelming majority of our employees do not have cardiovascular issues, the preventative nature of TYP is too important not to be utilized. The TYP principles along with our increased focus on healthy living have already changed our group’s blood chemistry. HDL levels in particular have increased significantly and resulted in a large percentage of our employees having HDL levels of 60 or higher. Vitamin D levels have substantially increased and LDL levels have significantly decreased in the majority of our employees. Subsequently, in the 12 months just ended, our health care costs are some 35% less than other groups of comparable size and age.

I believe the TYP program has been an integral part of the success of our company's vast improvement in employee health/wellness, resulting in significant health care cost reductions."

Richard Rawle
CEO Tosh Inc.

Track Your Plaque saves lives. Track Your Plaque also saves money . . . lots of it. Despite the upfront costs of some additional blood testing and a heart scan, the dramatic reduction in need for medications, reduced heart attack, diabetes, and many other chronic conditions add up to a huge cost savings, much as Tosh, Inc. employees have enjoyed.

The Federal government has been looking towards large hospital systems to lead the way in healthcare delivery, systems that employ their physicians and possess economies of scale. But I say the answer to reducing healthcare costs will NEVER be found in hospital systems. Healthcare cost savings will be realized by delivering truly effective health solutions directly to people themselves, much as we do in Track Your Plaque.

In search of wheat

26. May 2010 William Davis (43)
Many people ask: "How can wheat be bad if it's in the Bible?"

Wheat is indeed mentioned many times in the Bible, sometimes literally as bread, sometimes metaphorically for times of plenty or freedom from starvation. Moses declared the Promised Land "a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey" (Deuteronomy 8:8).

Wheat is a fixture of religious ceremony: sacramental bread in the Eucharist of the Christian church, the host of the Holy Communion in the Catholic church, matzoh for Jewish Passover, barbari and sangak are often part of Muslim ritual. Wheat products have played such roles for millenia.

So how can wheat be bad?

What we call wheat today is quite different from the wheat of Biblical times. Emmer and einkorn wheat were the original grains harvested from wild growths, then cultivated. Triticum aestivum, the natural hybrid of emmer and goatgrass, also entered the picture, gradually replacing emmer and einkorn.

The 25,000+ wheat strains now populating the farmlands of the world are considerably different from the bread wheat of Egyptians, different in gluten content, different in gluten structure, different in dozens of other non-gluten proteins, different in carbohydrate content. Modern wheat has been hybridized, introgressed, and back-bred to increase yield, make a shorter stalk in order to hold up to greater seed yield, along with many other characteristics. Much of the genetic work to create modern wheat strains are well-intended to feed the world, as well as to provide patent-protected seeds for agribusiness.

What is not clear to me is whether original emmer, einkorn, and Triticum aestivum share the adverse health effects of modern wheat.

Make no mistake about it: Modern wheat underlies an incredible range of modern illnesses. But do these primitive wheats, especially the granddaddy of them all, einkorn, also share these effects or is it a safe alternative--if you can get it?

I've ordered 2 lb of einkorn grain, unground, from Massachusetts organic farmer, Eli Rogosa, who obtained einkorn seed from the Golan Heights in the Middle East. We will be hand-grinding the wheat and making einkorn bread. We will eat it and see what happens.

Super-carbohydrate

22. May 2010 William Davis (18)
Wheat starches are composed of polymers (repeating chains) of the sugar, glucose. 75% of wheat carbohydrate is the chain of branching glucose units, amylopectin, and 25% is the linear chain of glucose units, amylose.

Both amylopectin and amylose are digested by the salivary and stomach enzyme, amylase, in the human gastrointestinal tract. Amylopectin is more efficiently digested to glucose, while amylose is less efficiently digested, some of it making its way to the colon undigested.

Amylopectin is therefore the “complex carbohydrate” in wheat that is most closely linked to its blood sugar-increasing effect. But not all amylopectin is created equal. The structure of amylopectin varies depending on its source, differing in its branching structure and thereby efficiency of amylase accessibility.

Legumes like kidney beans contain amylopectin C, the least digestible—hence the gas characteristic of beans, since undigested amylopectin fragments make their way to the colon, whereupon colonic bacteria feast on the undigested starches and generate gas, making the sugars unavailable for you to absorb.

Amylopectin B is the form found in bananas and potatoes and, while more digestible than bean amylopectin C, still resists digestion to some degree.

The most digestible is amylopectin A, the form found in wheat. Because it is the most readily digested by amylase, it is the form that most enthusiastically increases blood sugar. This explains why, gram for gram, wheat increases blood sugar to a much greater degree than, say, chickpeas.

The amylopectin A of wheat products, “complex” or no, might be regarded as a super-carbohydrate, a form of highly digestible carbohydrate that is more efficiently converted to blood sugar than nearly all other carbohydrate foods.