Are humans meant to be omnivores?

28. September 2008 William Davis (24)
Are humans meant to be omnivores?

Does the ideal human diet include animal products like meat, fish, cheese, eggs, and dairy products?

Or should the ideal diet be devoid of all animal products?a vegetarian diet?

Though the argument is distorted by modern food processing methods (e.g., factory farming, long-term administration of antibiotics), convenience foods, and pseudo-foods crafted by food manufacturers, there are, obviously, proponents of both extremes.

The Atkins’ diet, for instance, advocates unrestricted intake of animal products, regardless of production methods or curing (sausage and bacon). At the opposite extreme are diets like Ornish (Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversal of Heart Disease) and the experiences of Dr. Colin Campbell, articulated in his studies and book, The China Study, in which he lambasts animal products, including dairy, as triggers for cancer and heart disease.

So which end of the spectrum is correct? Or ideal?

For the sake of argument, let's put aside philosophical questions (like not wanting eat animal products because of aversion to killing any living being) or ethical concerns (inhumane treatment of farm animals, cruel slaughtering practices, etc.). Does the inclusion of animal products provide advantage? Disadvantage?

The traditional argument against animal products has been saturated fat. If we accept that we’ve demoted the saturated fat question to a place far down the list of importance (though this is yet another argument to discuss another time), several questions emerge:

• If humans were meant to be vegetarian, why do omega-3 fatty acids (mostly from wild game and fish) yield such substantial health benefits, including dramatic reduction in sudden death from heart disease?

• Why would vitamin K2 (from meats and milk, as well as fermented foods like natto and cheese), obtainable in only the tiniest amounts on a vegetarian diet, provide such significant benefits on bone and cardiovascular health?

• Why would vitamin B12 (from meats) be necessary to maintain a normal blood count, prevent anemia, keep homocysteine at bay, and lead to profound neurologic dysfunction when deficient?


Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins K2 and B12 cannot be obtained in satisfactory quantities from a pure vegetarian diet. The consequences of deficiency are not measured in decades, but in a few years. The conclusion is unavoidable: Evolutionarily, humans are meant to consume at least some foods from animal sources.

That's not to say that we should gorge ourselves on animal products. Gout (excessive uric acid) and kidney stones are among the unhealthy consequences of excessive quantities of meats in our diets.

It pains me to say this, since I’ve always favored a vegetarian lifestyle, mostly because of philosophical concerns, as well as worries about the safety of our factory farm-raised livestock and rampant inhumane practices.

But, stepping back and objectively examining what nutritional approach appears to stack the odds in favor of optimal health, I believe that only one conclusion is possible: Humans are meant to be omnivorous, meant to consume some quantity of animal products in addition to vegetables, fruits, nuts, and other non-animal products.

The question is how much?
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Comments (24) -

  • Francis

    9/28/2008 4:55:00 PM |

    From the title I thought the debate would have been omnivore vs carnivore instead of omnivore vs vegetarian. Any solid arguments against a carnivorous lifestyle?

  • GK

    9/28/2008 6:21:00 PM |

    Hm, fingering meat as a cause of gout again?  Peter's Hyperlipid blog had some fairly convincing arguments that fructose may be worse.  See http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2006/12/which-drink-causes-gout.html and http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/2008/02/fructoase-and-gout.html

    --GK

  • Jeremy

    9/28/2008 9:09:00 PM |

    The comment about gout is not true. Loren Cordain, author of the Paleo Diet, has reviewed the literature on gout in his Paleo Diet Newsletter, Volume 2, Number 4.

    The back issues of the newsletter are products you must pay for, so I won't discuss the contents in extreme detail. But he argues the body adjusts uric acid execretion in response to purine intake. Meanwhile, he cites studies showing fructose and alcohol for increase uric acid levels in the body.

    He cites a study where a high-protein diet relieved gout in 7 out of 12 patients!

    Jeremy

  • rabagley

    9/28/2008 10:24:00 PM |

    Personally, I find the analysis of the paleolithic diet to be most compelling.  In that analysis, we were almost entirely meat eaters, with the occasional smattering of vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc.

    There have been several indigenous cultures, both modern (Masai) and in recent history (Inuit) that lived long and healthy lives almost entirely free of diseases like diabetes or heart disease while eating almost 100% animal products.  I refer to the Inuit as "recent history" because their modern diet only rarely resembles their historical (and much healthier) diet of seal and whale fat and meat.

    After reading "Good Calories, Bad Calories", I'm convinced of the merits of the position that humans are non-obligate carnivores.  We can fall back to non-animal foods if absolutely necessary, but it's a bigger compromise to our health the farther you go.

    I do agree that the biggest problem with being a modern-day carnivore is the inhumane treatment of meat animals by agribusiness.  I spend quite a bit of money on meat that I trust has come from humanely treated animals.  I know the names and faces of the people who raised those cows, chickens, pigs and lambs.  This is a luxury.  Most people don't have the food budget that I do.

  • JD

    9/29/2008 1:13:00 AM |

    I think a better question is what diet was mankind's genetics formed from over 2 million years. Agriculture is only 10,000 years old. If you read Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, there were cultures such as the Inuit and the Masai who basically only ate meat and did not suffer from the diseases of civilization including heart disease, cancer, etc.

  • Stephan

    9/29/2008 3:26:00 AM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    I agree there are many animal nutrients that seem important to human health: you mentioned long-chain n-3s, vitamin K2 MK-4, and vitamin B12; I'd also add preformed vitamin A and heme iron to the list.

    I read a paper a while back in the AJCN that analyzed the diet composition of 229 historical hunter-gatherer groups (Loren Cordain's group).  The average percentage of calories from animal foods was about 70%.  Many groups were completely or almost completely carnivorous, while none ate less than about 15% of calories from animal foods.  

    That being said, the diets varied widely, from complete carnivory to plant-rich omnivory.  By all accounts, none of them suffered from the modern diseases of civilization such as cardiovascular disease.  I posted on this study a while back:

    http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/08/composition-of-hunter-gatherer-diet.html

  • Peter

    9/29/2008 12:23:00 PM |

    Hi Dr Davis,

    Great post. I have to agree with your concerns about modern meat production techniques and animal welfare as serious issues which need addressing, but we humans have always been pretty awful to our prey. Just thinking of traditional "harvesting" of marine mammals in the Faroes and subsistence whaling techniques here. No excuse for any of us to feel comfortable with these practices or to support factory farming, but humans are humans and we are top level predators after all. Lions are not exactly kind to their prey either.

    To be driven to omnivory acceptance by logic and evidence, against ones basic inclination, shows a great respect for facts and evidence that is seriously thin on the ground in both conventional and more alternative cardiological circles.

    What else can anyone say? Great post.

    Peter

  • Jeanne Shepard

    9/29/2008 3:00:00 PM |

    Vegans say that if the walls of slaughter houses were glass that noone would eat meat. I'm inclined to think that instead, there would be demands for humane animal handling.
    Agriculture kills many small mammals and ground nesting birds, with heavy farm machinery and fertilizers/pesticides. If you want to eat, there is no free lunch, in terms of animals losing their lives.
    As someone who is humane but feels that being a carnivore is essential to my health, I buy locally grass fed beef that is is humanely slaughtered.

  • Anonymous

    9/29/2008 3:32:00 PM |

    I wonder how it would be possible to gather 2000 to 2500 calories' worth of wild plant foods every day to survive.  It would amount to something like a bushel-basket full of stems and leaves and fruits -- every single day, for every member of the group. Maybe 20 pounds a week per person.  The only way around this is to include relatively large amounts of high-fat nuts, or high-starch tubers, or high-starch grass seeds, such as wheat.  And to have to do that ALL YEAR LONG.  Nuts and seeds aren't always available year round.

    Leaf-eating vegetarians, such as the gorilla, have HUGE guts amounting to some 70% of their body volume to process the vast amounts of leaf matter needed to survive.  And they eat pretty much constantly.

    That isn't us.

    If

  • Anonymous

    9/29/2008 5:03:00 PM |

    Man evolved eating lots of animal products, with some vegetation thrown in seasonally for hundreds of thousands of years. Then about 10,000 years ago we began introducing agricultural products into our diet. So rationally, we have evolved to process animal products much better than vegetation.

    Speaking for myself, gout runs in the family (among other things). Eating high animal products/low vegetation, relieves all my pains (gout and arthritic) and solves dozens of my other health complaints. And my bloodwork is the envy of people 1/2 my age.

    My only concern is how the animals are treated and raised. I only buy organic free-range eggs and try to buy organic meats and wild fish.

  • Anonymous

    9/29/2008 5:57:00 PM |

    I think we don't lose the abilities formed as evolving.  We evolved to eat nuts and bugs, then fish, then plants and finally meat. We're a true omnivore with the ability to choose.  I choose not to eat meat because I'm a veterinarian with 25 years experience dealing with unwholesome meatpacking industry.

  • stephen_b

    9/29/2008 7:38:00 PM |

    In my opinion any conversation about vegetarian vs. omnivore diets or low-carb vs. low fat diets need to take into account how the food is prepared. Any diet with high advanced glycation endproduct (AGE) content will be unhealthy.

    StephenB

  • Jeff Consiglio

    9/29/2008 9:11:00 PM |

    Holy synchronicity Batman! This is the exact question I've been mulling over for a long time and have just recently resolved the issue in my own mind, to my satisfaction. Having done and advocated low carb diets for a long time, I no longer do.

    There are numerous traditional cultures that live on a high carbohydrate intake - WITHOUT obesity, diabetes etc. So that inarguable fact always bothered me, when it came to trying to justify extreme low carb.

    For instance, here's a link to a Men's Health article on a tribe in Mexico that thrives on about an 80% carbohydrate diet.

    http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?conitem=3b4b1ca01e91c010VgnVCM10000013281eac____&page=1

    Also, I believe the science is pointing more and more toward fructose being the primary "bad carb" as opposed to starches which are chains of glucose. It is the fructose half of sucrose causing the problems, rather than the glucose.

    Not that eating pure glucose is a good idea. Nor starches that convert too rapidly into glucose.

    But I can tell you from my personal experience that as someone who once was sure that I was "carb intolerant" I now thrive on a high carb diet of WHOLE FOODS.
    I eat legumes, sprouted grain bread, slow cooked rolled oats etc. And yes I eat lean, and minimally processed meats as well.

    And my grocery bill is MUCH cheaper than it was when my wife and I were both living the low carb lifestyle. By the way, I used to suffer from reactive hypoglycemia, yet I thrive on plenty of UNREFINED carbs now.

    Here's a link to an amazing interview with a Dr. Lustig who discusses how fructose causes de-novo lipogensis, insulin resistance and high uric acid levels. he also discusses the Atkins diet and why Asians are able to thrive in spite of high intake of white rice. Ties in very nicely with this topic.

    http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2007/2104024.htm

    And here's just one more link that I think ties all this together. it's an seminar by Micheal Pollan who wrote  "In Defense of Food."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-t-7lTw6mA

    Having read literally thousands of books and scientific papers on the topic of nutrition, I feel Micheal's is the all time best. It exposes the fallacy of nutritional reductionism - what he calls "nutritionism - the idea that we should study individual macro or micro nutrients, rather than looking at overall eating patterns. He makes a brilliant case for the notion that to discover the "secret" to what constitutes the ideal human diet we need look no further than what traditional healthy cultures eat. Traditional, healthy cultures have all kinds of varying macro-nutrient ratios. But they all eat REAL FOOD.

    And I now believe that explains why totally "opposite" diets like Atkins and vegetarian can both work. Because they are both based on real food!

    Sure, some folks don't do well on high carb intake. Some don't seem to tolerate a lot meat very well. But I do not believe most people need to go to extremes in regards to high/low carb. Forget about macronutrient ratios and just eat real food and avoid sugar and refined carbs.

    And probably take a vitamin D3 supplement since most of us do not get enough sunshine to make it on our own these days.

    Sorry to make this so long, but I just had to get this off my chest.

    Keep up the good work. I enjoy your blog very much.

  • Stephanie

    10/1/2008 12:31:00 AM |

    Just to concur with your findings, at a recent 'food aid' symposium at Columbia University, sponsored by Doctors Without Borders, and a WHO conference in Geneva, it was concluded that animal proteins must be included in international food aid in order to save the millions of children who die each year of malnutrition. The standard emergency food distributions of grain-based flours (corn-soya blend) are not working. The milk powder seems to be the essential ingredient that prevents both wasting and stunting in children under 5.

  • Anonymous

    10/1/2008 6:33:00 PM |

    As a vegetarian this sort of thing interests me. I used to think it necessary to supplement with lots of nutrients (such as omega-3 fats) and be careful in order to be healthy. However I'm lately beginning to wonder if a plant-based diet is actually the key to health.

    According to several studies such as the China study, cultures who eat a plant-based diet very low in fat and animal products (even if not expressly vegan very close to it)  tend to be protected from "diseases of civilization" such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.  Certain doctors who've researched this like Dr. Ornish have used this type of diet to reverse heart disease. This idea certainly has been attacked, but I'm sure it hasn't been actually refuted.

    If this is true maybe nutrients like K2 and fish oil become less important, (assuming you're getting the required amount of essential fatty acids and other nutrients). Afterall, if you don't have atherosclerosis to begin with you don't need large amounts of special nutrients such as vitamin k2 that fight against it. Still, I guess vitamin B12 is an issue.

  • Anonymous

    10/2/2008 2:43:00 AM |

    I think it's very telling about who stands to profit if Americans embrace a vegetarian or vegan diet.  Soy, rapeseed, and cereal grains are all much easier to make high profits from than factory farmed chickens, cows, and pigs, not to mention properly, humanely raised animals.  I've noticed the push to dissuade Americans from beef, and cattle are some of the hardest animals to fit into a factory farm model, because the calves must live on grass in a field for a while - they can't be jammed up eating grain the whole time.

  • donny

    10/2/2008 1:28:00 PM |

    They did a study in rats where they either fed the rats a certain amount of vitamin k alone, or a certain amount along with Nadh, and then measured gamma-carboxylation of certain proteins. Increased levels of Nadh increased the levels of gamma-carboxylation just as if more vitamin k had been administered.
    Exercise, alcohol, and niacin all increase levels of Nadh. It's possible that something about our modern lifestyles is exaggerating our need for vitamin k2.
    The same goes for b12. Other vitamins like folic acid, b6, etc., either help in the b12 cycle, keeping it in the system, or spare it like b6 which cycles homocysteine into cysteine instead of back into methionine. People with low thyroid who receive replacement therapy have their homocysteine levels go down as well as their triglycerides, almost as if a b vitamin deficiency had been corrected.

    Dean Ornish shows increased bloodflow on his diet, but what is that diet's effect on calcium scores? Just eating a cup of sugar should increase blood flow, in the short term; vasodilation is an acute action of insulin.

  • rabagley

    10/2/2008 4:38:00 PM |

    First, the China Study authors didn't read the China Study data, or they would have noticed that the Chinese only eat about 12g/day of soy (almost entirely of one fermented form or another).  It is far from a dominant staple.  They also might have noticed that only those extremely close to starvation ate a nearly vegan diet.  Anyone who could afford to eat meat, ate meat.

    Second, Ornish is the master of selectively paying attention to study data.  Any study which can be spun to support his goals is blown all out of proportion to its actual significance.  Those studies that directly contradict his goals?  No mention...

    Personally, I know three people who've tried Ornish.  They were incredibly hungry all the time and gained all of the weight back within six months.  Their blood sugars and cholesterol numbers were even worse afterwards than before.  I and one other friend tried paleo (carnivory) instead.  Now one year into our meat-centered diet, we're both stable with moderate BMI's (me 22, him 23), normal hunger, few or no cravings, my blood sugar is way down, HDL is up, triglycerides are down...

    Ornish is a vegetarian activist claiming to be an authority on diet.  Too bad his diets are counter-productive for real people in the real world.

  • ganeshan

    10/3/2008 8:23:00 PM |

    not exactly ,humans can be carnivores too but they must go through the exact working so as to avoid any disease.being an omnivores will make us much safer.
    --------
    ganeshan

    Sreevysh Corp

  • Diana Obesity News Watcher

    10/16/2008 12:02:00 PM |

    Canadian consumers have different dietary needs depending on the end-goal they want to achieve, such as disease prevention, weight control or overall healthier dietary lifestyle. On this principle, the Compliments Balance program was developed in partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check program to provide consumers with healthier options for managing their personal diets. http://www.phentermine-effects.com

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    11/3/2010 9:51:49 PM |

    Though the argument is distorted by modern food processing methods (e.g., factory farming, long-term administration of antibiotics), convenience foods, and pseudo-foods crafted by food manufacturers, there are, obviously, proponents of both extremes.

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    2/16/2011 9:06:11 AM |

    No I am not agree with this statement whatever character should be possessed by omnivores is not observed in human being so human beings are vegetarian animal.

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Why not just get "perfect" lipids and call it a day?

5. September 2006 William Davis (0)
What if you achieved the Track Your Plaque lipid targets: LDL cholesterol 60 mg/dl, HDL 60 mg/dl, and triglycerides 60 mg/dl?

After all, these are pretty stringent standards. Compared to national guidelines (the ATP-III Guidelines of the National Cholesterol Educational Panel), the Track Your Plaque 60-60-60 goals are laughably ambitious. There's a lot of wisdom hidden in those numbers. The triglyceride level of 60, for instance, is a level at which triglycerides become essentially unavailable for formation of triglyceride-containing lipoprotein particles such as small LDL and VLDL.

If you get to the 60-60-60 target, isn't that good enough? What if you just held your values there and went about your business? Will coronary plaque stop growing and will your CT heart scan score stop increasing?

Sometimes it will. But, unfortunately, many times it will not. The experience generated through clinical trials bear this out. Studies like the St. Francis Heart Study and the BELLES Trial both showed that just reducing LDL cholesterol is insufficient to stop plaque growth. Beyond the Track Your Plaque experience, there's no clinical trial experience that shows whether the 60-60-60 approach does any better.

In our experience, achieving 60-60-60 is indeed better than just reducing LDL. That makes sense. Just raising HDL from the average of 42 mg/dl for a male, 52 mg/dl for a woman adds advantage. Compound this with triglyceride reduction from the plaque-creating equation, and you've doubled success.

But there's even more. What if you had hidden patterns not revealed by conventional lipids? How about lipoprotein(a)? Small LDL? Postprandial (after-eating) abnormalities? Hypertensive effects (more common than you think)!

In 2006, stopping the increase in your heart scan score is, for most of us, not just a matter of taking Lipitor or its equivalent and sitting back. For nearly all of us, stopping the progression of your score is a multi-faceted effort.

Hospitals: Then and Now

2. September 2006 William Davis (0)
It's 1920. The hospital in your city is a facility run by nuns or the church. It's a place for the very ill, often without hope of meaningful treatment, but nonetheless a place where surgeries take place, babies are born, the injured and chronically ill can find care. No one has health insurance and there's no Medicare. Everyone pays what they can. The hospital is accustomed to doling out plenty of care without compensation. For that reason, they welcome donations and sometimes will build new additions or other facilities in honor of a major donor.

Volunteeers are common, since the wards are understaffed and generally suffering from a shortage of trained nurses and personnel associated with the church. Drugs, such as they are, are often prepared from basic ingredients in the hospital pharmacy. Product representatives hawking medicines and devices are virtually unheard of.

Though their therapeutic tools are limited, the physicians are a proud group, dedicating their careers to healing. The majority of the medical staff volunteer large portions of their time to care for the poor who come to the hospital with very advanced stages of disease: metastatic tumors, advanced heart failure, debilitating strokes, overwhelming septicemia, etc.

Hospitals are usually governed by a board of clergy and physicians who make decisions on how to apply their limited resources and continually seek charitable donations.


Fast forward to present day: Hospitals are high-tech, professional facilities with lots of skilled people, complicated equipment,and capable of complex procedures. While they still house people with advanced illnesses, the floors are also filled with people with much earlier phases of disease. In general, they do a good job, with quality issues scrutinized by a number of official agencies to police practices, incidence of hospital-related infections, medication errors, care protocols, etc.

The hospital of 2006 is a more more effective place than the hospital of 1920. But its aims and operations are different, also. Though some churches are still involved in hospitals, more and more are owned by publicly-traded companies that answer to shareholders--shareholders who want share value to increase. Though donations are still sought, much of the revenues are obtained by concentrating on profitable, large-ticket procedures. More procedures are often generated by advertising.

Because they operate to generate profits, several hospitals in a single city or region compete with one another. The 21st century has therefore witnessed the phenomenon of hospital-owned physicians: more and more practicing physicians are employees of their hospital. That way, the physician brings all his patients and procedures to his hospital, not to a competitor. The top of the funnel is the primary care physician, who tends to see all disease when it first occurs. The primary care physician then sends the patient to the specialist, who is obliged (by contract) to perform his/her procedure in the hsopital paying their salary.




Representatives from companies manufacturing and selling expensive hospital equipment and drugs are everywhere, falling over themselves to gain attention of the physicians using their equipment and the hospital buyers who make purchasing decisions. Millions of dollars can be transacted with just one sale.

The number of volunteers has dwindled. The poor and uninsured are commonly diverted elsewhere, often to a government-funded, and often second-rate, institution. Hospitals measure success by comparing annual revenues and numbers of major procedures.

The hospital of 2006 is a vastly different place than 1920. If you're expecting charitable treatment, compassion, and selfless care, you're in the wrong century. In 2006, the hospital is a business. You don't expect charitable treatment at Wal-Mart or from your car dealer. Don't expect it from your hospital. They are businesses and you are a customer. Recognize this fact, lose the nostalgia for the hospitals of yesterday, and a lot more will become clear to you.

The dreaded small LDL particle

1. September 2006 William Davis (0)
Brian is a 59-year old landscape architect whose starting CT heart scan score was 276.

Brian's food choices at the start were deplorable: a pound of sausage per week, sometimes more; butter on anything and everything; up to two pounds of cheese per week; hot dogs; etc. His lipoproteins were accordingly just as miserable: low HDL, high triglycerides, excessive (postprandial, or after-eating) IDL. Small LDL was a particularly stand-out pattern, with 95% of all LDL particles in the small category.

Brian made a dramatic turnaround in lifestyle and corrected all of his patterns--except for small LDL. After one year, small LDL still occupied 95% of all LDL particles, even though the quantity of LDL had been reduced. In order to help convince Brian that correction of his small LDL was going to be necessary to achieve control oover coronary plaque, I suggested that he undergo another heart scan. His score: 435, or a 57% increase.

Each day that passes, I gain more and more respect for small LDL as a cause for coronary plaque growth. Conventional thought among lipid experts is that small LDL should no longer be a factor if total LDL (e.g., LDL particle number) is reduced. But our experience suggests otherwise: when small LDL persists, we tend to see continued, sometimes frightening, plaque growth.

I therefore asked Brian to intensify his efforts: additional weight loss off his somewhat prominent abdomen (since visceral fat increases small LDL), further reduce wheat products and processed carbohydrates, increase niacin (to 1500 mg per day), and use more raw almonds and oat bran.

Don't let small LDL get the best of you. It is a nasty, sometimes persistent abnormality that has impressive effects on plaque growth.

Winning Through Intimidation

31. August 2006 William Davis (0)
Do you remember the book, Winning Through Intimidation by author Robert J. Ringer?



In his 1984 bestseller, author Ringer details how to succeed in business by overwhelming clients and competition by appearing hugely successful and powerful. Rather than a business card, he'd hand out an elegant book to represent himself. He'd show up in a limousine to a meeting, even when he could barely afford it. He used these tactics, even when he was a small-fry, in commercial real estate and built a successful business following such techniques.

This reminds me a lot of what happens in conventional medical practice: The large and successful hospitals, filled with trained staff and technology, exude legitimacy and success. How can they possibly be wrong? Such overwhelming know-how and multiple levels of expertise mustbe right!

Let's be grateful that we do have access to such high-tech, capable care. Unfortunately, just as Mr. Ringer used deceptive practices to appear something he wasn't, this is also true in hospitals. Not all physicians have your best interests in mind. Their principal concern is how profitable your care can be for them--can you be persuaded to have your stent, bypass, etc.. After all, look around you: Aren't all this equipment and personnel impressive? Aren't you intimidated?

The patient that most recently drove home this issue for me recently was a smart and capable executive who came in for consultation. He had been told by his internist that a surgery (to replace his aorta, a HUGE procedure) was probably necessary. In my view, it was not--his process was simply not that far progressed. The risks for danger over the next several years was virtually nil. Unfortunately, this man, now confused and worried, sought an opinion from the chief of thoracic surgery (in the usual white coat and with professorial demeanor, I'm sure) in a major metropolitan hospital (in Chicago), who promptly rushed him off to the operating room.

The pathology report, cleverly not mentioned in any other of the hospital documentation, showed what I had suspected: this man had mild disease that wasn't even close to requiring surgery. But, with all that technology, $100,000 or so of costs, chief of surgery who looked the part, etc.--they must be right!

Robert Ringer's concepts only ring too true for hospitals and some of the unscrupulous physicians in practice. Don't allow yourself to be intimidated.

Can natural treatments "cure" or "treat" any disease?

30. August 2006 William Davis (0)
According to current FDA policy, the answer is a flat "NO!"

No natural treatment, whether it be fish oil (as a nutritional supplement), l-arginine, vitamin D, magnesium, various flavonoids like theaflavin or resveratrol, can be declared to treat or cure any disease. That's why you see the evasive and vague wording on nutritional supplements, nutraceuticals, and various foods, like "Supports heart health" or "Supports healthy cholesterol". Claiming, for instance, that taking 6000 mg per day of a standard OTC fish will reduce triglycerides and stating so on the label of a supplement is unlawful and prosecutable.

Think what you will of Mr. Kevin Trudeau (author of Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About"): visionary, consumer advocate, David vs. the Goliath of the FDA and "Big Pharma", or huckster, scam artist, and one-time felon. But Trudeau got it right on one important issue: The FDA dictates what claims can be made to treat disease. On one of his ubiquitous informercials, Trudeau states:


"...the way the system works today, you have the Food and Drug Administration—the FDA, and you have the drug industry. They really work in tandem. Unfortunately, there’s an unholy alliance there. People don’t know that the majority of commissioners of the FDA, which allegedly regulates the drug industry, and the food industry—Food and Drug Administration, the commissioners of the FDA—the majority of them—go to work directly for the drug companies upon leaving the FDA and are paid millions and millions and millions of dollars. Now in any other format, that would be called bribery; that would be called a conflict of interest; that would be called payoffs. That’s exactly what’s happening right now. So what has occurred is the Food and Drug Administration is really working in tandem with the drug industry to protect their profits. Example: The Food and Drug Administration says that only a drug can diagnose, prevent, or cure any disease."


He goes on to say that

"...the Food and Drug Administration says only a drug--nothing else--can cure, prevent, or diagnose a disease. Therefore the Food and Drug Administration continues to call more and more and more things diseases. Therefore they eliminate all-natural remedies. No one can say what a natural remedy can do if it’s been classified as a disease. So Attention Deficit Disorder is now a disease. Therefore only a drug can cure, prevent, or diagnose it. Cancer is a disease. Acid reflux is now a disease. Obesity is now a disease."

(PLEASE do not construe this as an endorsement of Mr. Trudeau's overall opinions. But I do think he's right on this one point.)

The stated purpose of this restrictive policy is to protect the public. Indeed, in years past before protective legislation, ineffective and even poisonous products were commonly sold as therapeutic treatments. (Remember cocaine and morphine in cold remedies? Lead and other toxic agents were also common.) Unfortunately, a huge gap has emerged as clinical data accumulates that support the efficacy of nutritional treatments and other non-traditional methods to treat or alleviate diseases. Any disease, or anything construed as disease as Trudeau points out, can onlybe treated by a drug.

In the FDA's defense, they have made slow progress in allowing "claims" of benefits for several supplements and food substances, such as the beta-glucan of oat products, soy protein, and most recently barley (for cholesterol reduction). The scrutiny is quite thorough and the wording of the policy is quite specific. Regarding oat products, for instance, the policy states:

"FDA concluded that the beta-glucan soluble fiber of whole oats is the primary component responsible for the total and LDL blood cholesterol-lowering effects of diets that contain these whole oat-containing foods at appropriate levels. This conclusion is based on review of scientific evidence indicating a relationship between the soluble fiber in these whole oat-containing foods and a reduction in the
risk of coronary heart disease.

Food products eligible to bear the health claim include oat bran and rolled oats, such as oatmeal, and whole oat flour...To qualify for the health claim, the whole oat-containing food must provide at least 0.75 grams of soluble fiber per
serving. The amount of soluble fiber needed for an effect on cholesterol levels is about 3 grams per day."

(Source: FDA Talk Paper which can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ANSWERS/ANS00782.html.)

In light of the boom in nutritional and non-traditional research that validate or refute efficacy, is such a policy still necessary? Or does it inhibit the open dissemination of information and result in a extraordinary monopolization of health treatment for the drug companies?

This debate will likely rage for the next two or more decades, particularly as drug companies are increasingly viewed as profit-seeking enterprises and more validation is gained by non-drug treatments.

For the moment, don't dismiss a "treatment" because it doesn't come by prescription. But don't reject a drugjust because it is a prescription. We need to strike a healthy, rational balance somewhere in between.

Can procedures alone keep you alive?

29. August 2006 William Davis (0)
My days in the hospital remind me of what heart disease can be like when no preventive efforts are taken--what it used to be like even with my patients before taking a vigorous approach to prevention (though over 12 years ago).

Several cardiologists in my hospital, for instance, express skepticism that heart disease prevention works at all. Yes, they know about the statin cholesterol drug trials. But they claim that, given their experience with the power of coronary disease to overpower an individual's control, statin drugs are just "fluff". Coronary disease is a powerful process that can only begin to be harnessed with major procedures, i.e., a mechanical approach.

So these cardiologists routinely have their patients in the hospital, often once a year, sometimes more, for heart catheterization and "fixing" whatever requires fixing: balloon angioplasty, stents, various forms of atherectomy. Year in, year out, these patients return for their "maintenance" procedures. Their cardiologists maintain that this approach works. The patients go on eating what they like, taking little or no nutritional supplements, and medications prescribed by their primary care physicians for blood pressure, etc. But no real effort towards heart disease prevention beyond these minimal steps.

Can this work? Very little at-home, preventive efforts, but periodic "maintenance" procedures?

It can, perhaps, for a relatively short time of a few years, maybe up to 10 years. But it crumbles after this. The disease eventaully overwhelms the cardiologist's ability to stent or balloon this or that, since it has progressed and plaque has growth diffusely the entire period that maintenance procedures have been performed. In addition, acute illness still occurs with some frequency--in other words, plaque rupture is not affected just because there's a stent in the artery upstream or downstream.

Not to mention this can be misery on you and your life, with risk incurred during each procedure. It's also terribly expensive, with hospitalization easily costing $25,000-$50,000 or more each time. (Compare that to a $250 or so CT heart scan.)


As people become more aware of the potential tools for prevention of heart disease, fewer are willing to submit to the archaic and barbaric practice of "maintenance" heart procedures in lieu of prevention. But it still goes on. If you, or anybody you know, are on this pointless and doomed path, find a new doctor.




Bloodletting, another antiquated health practice

Support your local hospital: HAVE A HEART ATTACK!

25. August 2006 William Davis (0)
I'm kidding, of course. But, in your hospital's secret agenda, that's not too far from the truth. Catastrophes lead to hospital procedures, which then yields major revenues.

Prevention, on the other hand, yields nothing for your hospital. No $8,000 to $12,000 for heart catheterization, several thousand more for a stent, $60,000-plus for a bypass, $25,000 or more for a defibrillator. In other words, prevention of heart attack and all its consequences deprive your hospital of a goldmine of revenue.

The doctors are all too often conspirators. I heard of yet another graphic example today. A man I didn't know called me out of the blue with a question. "I had a heart scan and I had a 'score' that I was told meant a moderate quantity of plaque in my arteries, a score of 157. My doctor said to ignore it. But I got another scan a year later and my score was 178. So I told this to my doctor and he said, 'Let's get you into the hospital. We'll set up a catheterization and then you'll get bypassed.' Of course, I was completely thrown off balance by this. Here I was thinking that the heart scan was showing that my prevention program needed improvement. But my doctor was talking about bypass surgery. Can you help? Does this sound right?"

No, this is absolutely not right. It's another tragedy like the many I hear about every day. Heart scans are, in fact, wonderfully helpful tools for prevention. This man was right: he felt great and the heart scan simply uncovered hidden plaque that should have triggered a conversation on how to prevent it from getting worse. But the doctor took it as a license to hustle the patient into the hospital. Ka-ching!

This sort of blatant money-generating behavior is far from rare. Don't become another victim of the cardiovascular money-making machine. Be alert, be skeptical, and question why. Of course, there are plenty of times when major heart procedures are necessary. But always insist on knowing the rationale behind such decisions, whether it's you or a loved one.

Hospitals contain experts in ILLNESS

25. August 2006 William Davis (0)
Hospitals contain many experts in sickness. This seems obvious. But walk down the hallways of any hospital, and you'll quickly be convinced that hospitals contain almost no experts in health.

People (hospital staff, that is, not the patients) in hospitals are especially good at identifying and treating disease. They lack knowledge of health.

If your nurse is 100 lbs overweight and struggles to walk down the hall because of arthritis in both knees, would you entrust her with health advice?

If your doctor sits down in the cafeteria and eats his lunch of a ham sandwich with cheese on a bun, fried onion rings, and a milkshake and pastry, can you believe that he/she possesses any insight into health and nutrition?

If your physical therapist or cardiac rehabilitation counselor struggles nearly as much as you while climbing a single flight of stairs, can you accept their advice on how to regain your stamina and use exerise to full health advantage?

The answer to all these questions is, of course, no. Hospital staff are generally expert at dressing surgical wounds, stopping bleeding, identifying infections, and providing the support services for surgical and diagnostic procedures. In contrast, they are generally miserable at conveying genuine health advice. They certainly fall short in being examples of health themselves.

To hospitals and their staff, health is a temporary situation that persists only until you become ill. Illness is an inevitability in the hospital staff mindset. Health is a temporary state in between illnesses.

We need to shake off this perverse mentality. Health is the state of life that should dominate our practices and philosophies. Illness via the occasional catastrophe, e.g., broken leg from skiing, car accident, etc., is the province of hospitals. We should gravitate towards this philosphy and away from the over-reliance on hospitals that has come to dominate our present perceptions of health. Hospitals are not glamorous. They are, for the most part, profit-seeking businesses intent on portraying themselves as champions of health.

When I walk down the halls of hospitals, I am shocked and ashamed at the extraordinary examples of ill-health presented by hospital staff. Yet they falsely paint themselves as experts in both illness and health. Don't believe it for a second.

Are there still unexplored causes of heart disease?

23. August 2006 William Davis (0)
I met a woman today. She had her first heart attack at age 37. She just had her 2nd heart attack this morning, at age 40.

Several issues are surprising about her story. First, she's pre-menopausal. Heart attacks before menopause are unusual. We'll occasionally see women have a heart attack before or during menopausal years only if they're heavy smokers and/or they have had diabetes (either type I or type II) for many years. But this young woman had neither. She is slender and has never smoked.

Even more surprising are her basic lipid values: LDL cholesterol 35 mg/dl, HDL 150 mg/dl, triglycerides 317 mg/dl. This is a very unusual pattern.

Unfortunately, this is all developing acutely in the hospital. (I've just met her today--she's not a Track Your Plaquer!) Lipoprotein analysis would be extremely interesting. In particular, I'd like to see whether she has any other markers besides elevated triglycerides of a "post-prandial" abnormality, i.e., persistence of abnormal particles after eating. The high triglycerides make this quite likely.

If this proves true, the omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil will be a lifesaving treatment for her, since they dramatically reduce both triglycerides as well as persistent postprandial particles like intermediate-density lipoprotein (IDL). (Track Your Plaque Members: See the Special Report on Postprandial Abnormalities on the present home page at www.cureality.com for a more in-depth discussion of this fascinating collection of patterns that is just started to be explored.)

In the real world, especially acute care medicine, there's always a kicker: she speaks no English. Unfortunately, communicating the intricacies of a powerful program like ours that aims to identify all causes of heart disease, then corrects then and aims for coronary plaque regression, is difficult if not impossible.

I also do occasionally worry that, given this woman's extraordinary risk at a young age, and overall very unusual lipid patterns (HDL 150?!), if there are causes presently beyond our reach. We have to make use of the tools available to us for now.

Everything causes heart attack!

22. August 2006 William Davis (1)
The media are presently gushing about a recent study that associates caffeine intake with heart attack.

CBS News: That cup of coffee you're craving might not be such a good idea. Research in the September issue of Epidemiology suggests coffee can trigger a heart attack within an hour in some people.


Some reporters and their quoted sources are musing about whether it's the caffeine, cream vs. other whiteners, time of day, interaction with other risk factors, etc.

My advice: Get a grip! How many relatively benign, every day factors in life can be blamed for dire health risks?

The problem with many of these studies is that they are cross-sectional. They do not enroll participants, then "treat" with coffee (or other substance in question) vs. placebo. In other words, it is not a randomized trial, the sort of trial necessary to prove a hypothesis. That's all that can be generated by a study like this one: a hypothesis.

Perhaps there's a bit of warning for the person with uncorrected lipids and lipoproteins, has no idea that they have extensive coronary plaque because they've never had a heart scan, and have a slovenly lifestyle. Maybe that person might have exaggerated risk from a cup of coffee.

But for us, involved and intensively addressing all causes of coronary plaque to the point of stabilizing or reducing it, coffee is likely a non-issue.

For more conversation on coffee and this report, go to the www.cureality.com home page.