Wheat-free pumpkin bread

25. December 2010 William Davis (5)
Try this recipe for a wheat-free, gluten-free yet healthy "bread." Unlike many gluten-free foods that send blood sugar skyward, this will not.

Ingredients:
2 cups ground almond meal (Buy it from Trader Joe's--70% cheaper than other grocery stores.)
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
1/2 cup sour cream (full-fat, of course)
15 oz canned pumpkin (Trader Joe's is bisphenol A-free)
2 medium to large eggs
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
4 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg or allspice
Dash of salt
Choice of non-nutritive sweetener (I used 3 teaspoons Trader Joe's stevia extract powder, the one mixed with lactose. Two tablespoons of Truvia, 1/2 teaspoon of the more concentrated stevia extract, or 1/2 cup Splenda are other choices. You can taste the mixed batter to gauge sweetness if in doubt.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease baking pan (e.g., 10 x 6 inch). The pan should be big enough so that the mix will not be more than 2 inches deep, else it will require much longer to bake. (If you have only smaller pans, you will need to cook longer while the pan is covered with aluminum foil.)

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in large bowl. Pour mix into greased baking pan.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake for additional 30 minutes or until inserted toothpick or knife comes out dry.

Serve with cream cheese or as is.

(I'd have some pictures, but the kids and I ate it up before I thought to take any photographs.)

Vitamin D: Deficiency vs optimum level

19. December 2010 William Davis (20)
Dr. James Dowd of the Vitamin D Cure posted his insightful comments regarding the Institute of Medicine's inane evaluation of vitamin D.

Dr. Dowd hits a bullseye with this remark:

The IOM is focusing on deficiency when it should be focusing on optimal health values for vitamin D. The scientific community continues to argue about the lower limit of normal when we now have definitive pathologic data showing that an optimal vitamin D level is at or above 30 ng/mL. Moreover, if no credible toxicity has been reported for vitamin D levels below 200 ng/mL, why are we obsessing over whether our vitamin D level should be 20 ng/mL or 30 ng/mL?

Yes, indeed. Have no doubts: Vitamin D deficiency is among the greatest public health problems of our age; correction of vitamin D (using the human form of vitamin D, i.e., D3 or cholecalciferol, not the invertebrate or plant form, D2 or ergocalciferol) is among the most powerful health solutions.

I have seen everything from relief from winter "blues," to reversal of arthritis, to stopping the progression of aortic valve disease, to partial reversal of dementia by achieving 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels of 50 ng/ml or greater. (I aim for 60-70 ng/ml.)

The IOM's definition of vitamin D adequacy rests on what level of 25-hydroxy vitamin D reverses hyperparathyroidism (high PTH levels) and rickets. Surely there is more to health than that.

Dr. Dowd and vocal vitamin D advocate, Dr. John Cannell, continue to champion the vitamin D cause that, like many health issues, conradicts the "wisdom" of official organizations like the IOM.

Large LDL counts, too

15. December 2010 William Davis (0)
Chad is a 43-year old father of five kids.

Earlier this year, he developed chest pain that got worse and worse. He ended up with a total of five stents in all three coronary arteries. After a devastating experience with Lipitor that resulted from a ruptured tendon, he came to me for an option.

Chad's lipoproteins:

Slow Burn works

14. December 2010 William Davis (55)
I have been impressed with the results I've been obtaining with Fred Hahn's Slow Burn strength training technique.

Because I have limited time to hang around the gym, any technique that provides outsized results in a limited amount of time, I have to admit, appeals to me. In past, I'd be lucky to squeeze in one or two strength training sessions per week, devoting the rest of the time to biking outdoors, biking on a sedentary bike (while playing XBox), jogging, or doing strenuous yard work like digging trenches and planting shrubs.

Over the years, I've gradually lost muscle, since the strength training effort suffered with my time limitations.

So Fred's time-efficient Slow Burn idea struck a chord. Having now done it with some regularity, usually 1-2 times per week since mid-September, I have gradually added back visible muscle. My Slow Burn workouts, involving 8-10 different movements, seem to have restored the muscle I've lost, with a very modest time effort.

It took a little getting used to. After Fred showed me how to do the movements--slow motion movement in both the "positive" and "negative" directions, with smooth, non-jerking transitions, one set per muscle group, each taken to muscle exhaustion--it left me unusually tired and sore the next day. This surprised me, given the limited time involved. Breathing is also very important; the usual exhale-during-the-positive, inhale-during-the-negative pattern is replaced by breathing freely during the entire set. I didn't get this at first and ended up with headaches that got worse with each set. Breathing freely relieved me from the effect.

I have strength trained since I was around 15 years old. Back in the early 1970s, I had about 2000 lbs of barbells and dumbbells in my garage in New Jersey, while also driving back and forth to the Morristown, NJ, YMCA to train with friends. The Slow Burn movements forced me to break habits established over nearly 40 years of conventional strength training.

I've also played around with mixing conventional movements with Slow Burn movements to keep it fresh. This also seems to work.

If you're interested in giving it a try, here's an animation that demonstrates what Slow Burn movements look like. Fred has also produced an excellent 3-DVD set of videos that more fully describe the practice.

Do your part to save on healthcare costs

13. December 2010 William Davis (37)
While many of the factors that drive the relentless increase in health care costs are beyond individual control, you are still able to exert personal influence over costs. Just as in political elections, your one vote alone may not count; it's the collective effort of many people who share similar opinions that results in real change.

I just got the new monthly premium for my high-deductible health insurance: Up $300 per month, putting my family's total premium over $2000 per month---for four healthy people. (My son fractured his wrist playing high school hockey earlier this year; that may explain at least some of the increase.)

I'm going to shop around for a better deal. However, shopping is likely to only stall the process. It will not address the systemic problems with healthcare that continue to drive premiums up and up and up.

So what can you do to help keep costs down? Here are a few thoughts:

Never accept a prescription for fish oil, i.e., Lovaza. Just buy far less costly over-the-counter fish oil. I treat complex hyperlipidemias, including familial hypertriglyceridemia, ever day. I NEVER use prescription fish oil. A typical 4 capsule per day Lovaza prescription adds around $280 to $520 per month to overall health costs (though your direct out-of-pocket costs may be less, since you shove the costs onto others in your plan).

Never accept a prescription for vitamin D. Prescription vitamin D is the mushroom or invertebrate form anyway. Just buy the human (cholecalciferol, D3) form from your health food store or "big box" store. They yield consistent increases in 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels, superior to the prescription form. And they're wonderfully inexpensive.

Eliminate wheat from your diet. If there is a dietary strategy that yields unexpected and outsized benefits across a wide spectrum of health, it's elimination of this thing we're sold called "wheat," you know, the genetically-transformed, high-yield dwarf mutant that now represents 99% of all wheat sold. Blood sugar drops, pre-diabetics become non-prediabetics, diabetics reduce need for medication or become non-diabetic, cholesterol values plummet, arthritis improves, acid reflux and irritable bowel symptoms improve or disappear, just to mention a few. Wheat elimination alone, I believe, would result in incalculable savings in both healthcare costs and lives saved.

Be sure to obtain iodine. In the fuss to cut salt use, everyone forgot about iodine. Lack of iodine leads to thyroid disease, usually hypothyroidism, that, in turn, causes cholesterol values to increase, weight to increase, and heart disease risk to double, triple, or quadruple. Iodine supplementation is easy and wonderfully inexpensive.

Over time, I hope that all of us can help develop the effort to self-direct more and more of our own health. Our Track Your Plaque program has shown me that, not only can people take the initiative to direct aspects of their own health, they can do it better than 99% of doctors.  

I'm sure there are many, many other ways to help reduce costs. Any suggestions?

Fish oil: What's the difference?

10. December 2010 William Davis (27)
Ultra-purified, pharmaceutical grade, molecularly distilled. Over-the-counter vs. prescription. Gelcap, liquid, emulsion.

There's a mind-boggling variety of choices in fish oil today. A visit to any health food store, or any "big box" store for that matter, will yield at least several, if not dozens, of choices, all with varying and often extravagant claims of purity and potency.

So what's the real story?

Given the analyses conducted over the years, along with my experience with dozens of different preparations, I believe that several conclusions can be reached about fish oil:

Fish oil is free of contamination with mercury, dioxin, PCBs, or furans. To my knowledge, only one fish oil preparation has been found to have a slight excess of PCBs. (This is different from cod liver oil that has been found by one source to have a slight excess of PCBs.)

Oxidative breakdown products differ among the various brands. Consumer Lab (http://www.consumerlab.org/), for instance, has found that several widely available brands of fish oil contained excessive oxidative breakdown products (TOTOX). You can perform you own simple test of oxidative breakdown products: Sniff it. Your fish oil should pass the "sniff test." High quality fish oil should smell non-fishy to lightly fishy. Rancid fish oil with excessive quantities of oxidative breakdown products will smell nasty fishy.

FDA approval does not necessarily mean greater potency, purity, or effectiveness. It just means that somebody assembled the hundreds of millions of dollars to obtain FDA approval, followed by lots of marketing savvy to squash the competition.

This means that there are a number of excellent fish oil products available. My favorites are the liquid fish oils from Pharmax, Nordic Naturals, and Barleans. Capsules from Carlson, PharmaNutrients, and Fisol have also performed consistently. The "big box" capsules from Sam's Club and Costco have also performed well and are wonderfully affordable.

Wheat-free pie crust

9. December 2010 William Davis (17)
I've been working on wheat-free yet healthy recipes these past two months.

You can buy wheat-free, gluten-free foods at the store, of course. But the majority of these products are unhealthy because cornstarch, rice starch, potato starch, or tapioca starch are commonly used in place of wheat. Recall that these are among the few foods that increase blood glucose higher than even wheat.

Here's a simple recipe for wheat-free pie crust that works best for cheesecake, pumpkin pie, and cream pies, but not for berry or other fruit pies like apple.

You will need:
?
1½ cups ground pecans
6 tablespoons melted butter?or melted coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract?
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 medium egg
2 tablespoons Truvia™ or ½ teaspoon stevia extract or ½ cup Splenda®

Mix all ingredients thoroughly in bowl. Pour mixture into pie pan and press onto bottom and sides.

Fill pie crust with desired filling. You can fill it with your favorite cheesecake recipe (e.g., Neufchatel or cream cheese, sour cream, eggs, vanilla, and stevia; add pumpkin for pumpkin cheesecake) and bake, usually at 350 degrees F for one hour. 

Yes, the butter provokes insulin and artificial sweeteners can trigger appetite. But, for the holidays, a slice or two of pie made with this crust will not increase blood sugar nor trigger the uncontrolled impulse eating that wheat crust will trigger.

Have a cookie

9. December 2010 William Davis (0)
Here's a great insight dating all the way back to 1966 from one of the early explorations in lipoproteins from the National Institutes of Health lab of Levy, Lees, and Fredrickson:

The nature of pre-beta (very low density) lipoproteins

The subject is a 19 year old female (among the total of 11 in the this small, diet-controlled study) who was first fed a low-carbohydrate (50 grams per day), low-cholesterol diet; followed by a high-carbohydrate (500 grams per day), low-fat (5 grams per day) diet.






To B or not to B

5. December 2010 William Davis (11)
Apoprotein B (apo B) is the principle protein that resides in LDL particles along with other proteins, phospholipids, triglycerides, and, of course, cholesterol.

There's a curious thing about apo B. Just like one child per family in China or one television per household in 1950s America, there is only one apo B for every LDL particle.

So measuring apo B, in effect, provides a virtual count of LDL particles. (Actually, VLDL particles, the first lipoprotein to emerge from the liver, also have one apo B per particle but LDL particles far outnumber VLDL particles.) While apo B structure can show limited structural variation from individual to individual, the effect on measured apo B is negligible.

One apo B per LDL particle . . . no more, no less. What about the other components of LDL particles?

The other components of LDL particles are a different story. Cholesterol and triglycerides in LDL particles vary substantially. Diet has profound effects on cholesterol and triglyceride content of LDL particles. A diet rich in carbohydrates, for instance, increases triglycerides in LDL particles while reducing cholesterol. This means that measuring cholesterol in the LDL fraction will be misleading, since cholesterol will be falsely low. LDL cholesterol is therefore a flawed means to assess the behavior and composition of LDL particles. In particular, when LDL particles become enriched in triglycerides, they go through a process that transforms them into small LDL particles, the variety most likely to cause atherosclerosis.

In other words, when the worst situation of all--an abnormal abundance of small LDL particles develops--it is usually not signalled by high LDL cholesterol.

Because apo B is not sensitive to the composition of LDL particles--high cholesterol, low cholesterol, high triglycerides, etc.--it is a superior method to characterize LDL particles. While apo B doesn't tell you whether LDL particles are big, small, or in between, it provides a count of particles that is far more helpful than measuring this deeply flawed thing called "LDL cholesterol."

(Even better: Count LDL particles and measure LDL size, since size gives us insight into sensitivity to oxidation, glycation, adhesiveness, ability to trigger inflammatory pathways via monocyte chemoattractant protein, various interleukins, tunor necrosis factor and others. This is why cholesterol panels should go the way of tie dye shirts and 8-track tapes: They are hopelessly, miserably, and irretrievably inaccurate. Cholesterol panels should be replaced by either apoprotein B or lipoprotein measures.)
The battle for asymptomatic disease

The battle for asymptomatic disease

31. October 2007 William Davis (10)
The heart disease revenue pie is shrinking. So is the "serving size" being shared by competing hospitals.

In other words, as more hospitals open heart programs, there is more competition for the same heart patient. Throw into the mix the drop in "acute" presentations of disease, probably due to the now widespread prescribing of statin drugs. When I first started cardiology practice 15 years ago, for instance, days and nights spent taking care of heart attacks coming through the emergency room was a common event. It still happens, but far less frequently. (I don't mean to suggest that the actual prevalence of coronary heart disease has decreased, just the acute, catastrophic version of it.)

Throw into this mix the results of the COURAGE Trial that has put a damper on the value of stents and angioplasty vs. "optimal" medical therapy in people with stable anginal symptoms, since there was little advantage of procedures. Though it has not stopped the practice, it has reduced the enthusiasm for procedures. Though data are hard to come by, I've heard talk of 10% or greater drops in total procedural volume over the past year.

It's not uncommon for hospitals to have overbuilt heart facilities in anticipation of continued growth of this--until recently--growth industry called heart disease. However, factors are converging that may provide a new profit opportunity for hospitals.

One such opportunity is CT coronary angiography. The usual scenario: Man or woman without symptoms is persuaded somehow--an ad, primary care physician, next door neighbor with a scary event, Dr. Mehmet Oz gushing about this sexy new technology on yet another Oprah episode--to undergo a CT coronary angiogram. A "severe" blockage is found, despite the lack of symptoms, and voila! A stent patient or bypass patient is created out of nothing! Do this repeatedly and systematically, and a hospital can regain its former high-procedural volume glory.

Heart scans, though I believe deeply in them and they are the basis for the Track Your Plaque prevention and reversal program, can also be used and abused this way. Asymptomatic person has a score 150. Concerned, they go to their physician who orders a nuclear stress test. An "inferior perfusion defect" is seen, presumably representing poor flow through the right coronary artery (but often just means that the diaphragm overlaps the heart muscle and yields this apparition, a "false positive" or misleading result). "But--wink--we've got to find out if there's a severe blockage, don't we? You don't want to end up in an early grave!"

Thus, the battle for new patients with asymptomatic disease is getting underway in earnest. The scramble for cardiologists to learn how to use CT coronary angiograms is proceeding at breakneck speed, with new training courses being offered nationwide several times and places every month. CT coronary angiography is a useful test, but it is also subject to enormous abuse. It also provides the ticket for the unscrupulous physician and the revenue-hungry hospital eager to expand its patient volume.

Many people believe that this cannot happen commonly in 2007, given scrutiny of practices, litigiousness, and the expectation of a moral sense in medicine. However, I've witnessed such incidents several times this month alone. If you need graphic proof of just how far this can go before action is taken, read Coronary, Stephen Klaidman's chilling tale of a cardiologist and cardiothoracic surgeon in small-town northern California who built an enormous heart center based on fabricated heart disease diagnoses. You'll also find their story in Shannon Brownlee's recently released Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.





Of course, the Track Your Plaque program is meant principally for people without symptoms, also. But we are advocating that asymptomatic disease is a reason for prevention, not procedures. There's a difference.

By the way, the two practitioners who engineered the escapade detailed in these books, cardiologist Chae Hyun Moon and cardiac surgeon Fidel Realyvasquez, walked away with a monetary fine and suspension of their California medical licenses. It is likely that many people died because of their abusive practices, but the state struggled to make a sufficiently persuasive case for reasons that I still don't understand.
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Comments (10) -

  • G

    11/2/2007 6:36:00 AM |

    Poor Oprah, she's on the yellow brick road and doesn't even know it! I hope your results validating CT scans and dramatic primary CAD reduction bring on a revolution. It could not be soon enough. Personally, I find it so hard to teach my diabetes patients about wheat-elimination with the goal to improve their diabetes, reduce insulin doses and lose weight. (Not to mention, of course, other benefits like reducing early death -- esp the silent fatal heart attack kind) It's like trying to treat an obese child -- you look at the parents -- then realize you need to treat the parents first. To save lives from heart disease (which is increased five-fold in people with diabetes), I think the whole Western society needs to be educated and exposed to the TYP program!  i greatly think Oprah needs your help (at least get her out of the hands of M&M, you know, that sugar-coated pair Mehmet and Mike)  *ha haaa haa*  What a great help she would be if she was also convinced, and moved the TYP plan to the forefront?  PBS is good, but n-o-t-h-i-n-g is as good as Oprah ;)

    Your writings are mandatory reading for all my patients! Keep up the strong work!

  • Dr. Davis

    11/2/2007 10:41:00 AM |

    Thanks, G.

    Love your analogy of the obese and child and parents.

    I agree. It's a long uphill climb and one that runs against the winds of what the hospitals and powers that be tell us. Imagine how slow the climb would be without the information disseminating powers of the internet!

  • G

    11/2/2007 11:17:00 PM |

    Dr. D

    Thank God for the powers of the Internet!  I was researching estrogen (for a talk at a pharmacy school I teach at) and came across your blog under Sue Shellenbergers Wallstreet J article in March. What a fluke!! I went through all the archives almost as fast as I was hooked and addicted to watching Lord of the Rings.  You are undoubtedly the BEST health resource that I have come across -- including primary literature and cardiolgy texts.  I love your ex-interventionalist rhetoric and rants. You approach the whole body including mental health (LOVE the 'be happy' blog!) and emphasize heart prudent OPTIMAL nutrition.  Because I've lived it and I've seen health improvements with the basic low carb TYP rx on my DM patients (you know the 1-2% that actually aren't nonadherent), I know with 200% certainty IT works. Your explanations and references are always great in illustrating who they work for the heart and vasculature.

    I have faith that you will demonstrate compelling outcomes and data on how all these components work together (D replacement, nuts, vegetarianism, low GI foods, oat bran, fish oil, etc).  Without a doubht that seminal cardiology publication when it finally hits the stands will change e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. (at least it will stir the establishment up a bit *what entertainment value THAT will have!!!* the suspense...)

    OK, i know you don't do individual consults, but I have a patient that I need help on...  his cardiologists have given up -- he's had multiple surgical interventions (s/p stents about 1-2 mos ago). I've implored him to read and study the TYP book and blog (he better be reading this).  Diffuse CAD still cause DOE and SOB. Within DAYS after the last stents were put in, the symptoms returned again. (drug-coated no less *YECK*)  He's doing the whole aggressive medical management thing (with me). he's eliminating all refined processed carbs (he misses his biscotti), we've added B3 (still titrating), D3 4000 Iu/d (baseline=37 ng/ml) and 3400mg EPA+DHA, oat bran and raw nuts. he's on Vytorin 10/80 for the heck of it. I hope to obtain 60/60/60/60 in 3-6mos. his a1c is almost < 6.5% (from 8.5%).

    My question for you is -- will he ever get off of the short or long acting nitrates? (at this point it's not apparently helping anyway) will the DOE always be there?!  what dramatic reversal in CAD have you seen?  he's a fit avid soccer player, but can't play at all right now.

    When you use Slo-niacin, can you get them to therapeutic doses faster? he's on short acting right now.  I am so grateful for your generosity in sharing your compelling and honest insights. You are totally making a difference...  

    Thank you in advance for your feedback.  Take care! G

  • Dr. Davis

    11/3/2007 1:24:00 AM |

    Hi, G--

    Thank you kindly!

    Interestingly, simply articulating the concept or philosophy of obtaining reversal, of at least setting that as a goal, can truly turn someone's view of themselves and their disease completely around.

    Some thoughts for the patient you discuss:

    1) Time is crucial. It may simply require several months.

    2) Consider using therapeutic fasting for the fastest means to resolution of symptoms. There is a report on this approach on the www.trackyourplaque.com website, or see Joel Fuhrman's book,
    Fasting and Eating for Health. (Ignore the low-fat eating comments in the book, however.)

    3) Consider l-arginine to accelerate anti-inflammatory and endothelial-normalizing effects.

    4) Unfortunately, I never use immediate release niacin, but I imagine that a 500 mg increase every two weeks could be tried, similar to the accelerated course we sometimes use with SloNiacin or Niaspan.

    5) Consider doxycycline for its matrix metalloproteinase-suppressing activity. See the associated report on the website, also.

    Nitrates in my view are just Band Aids that provide little genuine therapeutic benefit beyond temporary symptom relief.

  • G

    11/3/2007 4:17:00 AM |

    No matter what the results are, I'm eternally grateful (and he will be too). I'm going to approach his doc on Monday... THANK YOU VERY VERY VERY MUCH! G

  • Anonymous

    11/3/2007 1:38:00 PM |

    Boy G you are the first dietitian I know who promos low carb for diabetes, goodonya, do you read Dr Bernsteins Diabetic Solution. His book and webcasts and TYP are my bibles.

    Is Oprah's weight gain due to following Dr Oz.

    Here;s a story for you that is scary for a pateint with undiagnsoed chest pain:

    I had undiagnosed chest pain for several months, quit Actos ( it started around time I went on Actos)but it remained after quitting for 6 weeks actually, and they did a stress test and said nada but I know from your book I need another calcium score done so am pushing for that.

    In the meantime this Dr who is new to town told me I must stay on Actos no matter what the side effects are and sometimes you just have to take risks to stay on drugs!!  

    I actually only asked for Actos to try get my A1C to a 4.5 from a 5.4 as Dr Bernstein recommends that diabetics have the same rights to normal bg as non diabetics, so then I didn't see him again and saw his wife. They are both new Dr from South Africa.

    She put me on nitro spray, didn't even see me, called me out of the blue and said maybe I should use it,would aid in her diagnosis if it worked!! yet they won't give me a repeat Rx for metphormin which I have been on for 15 yr (over the phone)!!!!

    I didn't want to use it but the pain scares me as it is harsh, bends me over and I live out of town and fear if I am having a MI I am at higher risk, so the next time  I had the chest pain, I tried the nitro once and my bp dropped to 84/58 and I almost went into shock, so I dumped her and have a new young doc who tries to practise cardiology along with her caseload.

    My Dr of 21 yr moved so its been awful living rural in small town and not enough Dr, she seems intelligent, listens and I think I can bend her ear towards TYP.

    I am going to push for advanced lipid profile again,and another EBCT, my pain is lessening as my high stress job finished, I can't believe that crippling pain was due to stress and fear the Actos set me up for something.

    I am the therapist that got the referrals for those appearing in emerg thinking they are having a heart attack and they wern't, it was anxiety induced. I tried all the relaxation techniques I taught and it didn't help my chest pain so I was scared so used the nitro much against my better judgment and won't ever again.


    The stress test showed nothing wrong, good recovery, the ecg showed no heart attack.

    I had a Pulse Wave analysis test done at a conference I went to on menopause. This conference follows the programs of Dr John Lee who also thought outside the box like you do Dr D and he had good results and not the side effects from hormone trtment like oral drugs has.

    He suggests bio identical creams only so if you search out Jackie Harvey and the workshops she does called Heart to Heart for women and the medical profession, you will learn about menopause help that is also non traditional.

    This new doc I found supports her ideas, will support the saliva test and prescribe bio identical progesterone cream if your test suggests you need it as you have estrogen dominance, and it does seem to help.

    Tell me if you think this Pulse wave analysis is right on, they recommend a liquid L arginine as say it absorbs better but boy is it pricey.

    BTW I don't have a goggle acct and don't really know how to set one up so come under anonymous so it makes a few of us, sorry.


    Thank you for this siteSmile

  • Dr. Davis

    11/3/2007 7:06:00 PM |

    Reluctantly Anonymous via Google--

    Actually, what you are describing--chest pains around the menopausal years with some gauge of "endothelial dysfunction," i.e., abnormal coronary artery constriction--is how I first came to appreciate the power of l-arginine about 15 years ago.

    Back then, research from the NIH uncovered a poorly-named entity in perimenopausal women called "microvascular angina." It is wonderfully responsive to l-arginine. That's the situation in which I also learned that arginine only works when taken on an empty stomach.

  • gc

    11/3/2007 11:42:00 PM |

    Wow thank you for that info, Smile
    RA

  • Anonymous

    11/11/2007 2:31:00 AM |

    Thank you Dr. Davis for posting about the book "Coronary," which I ordered after reading about it on your website.

    It is one of the most chilling books I have read.  One would like to think that the unnecessary angioplasties and heart bypasses that the book described were anomalies, limited to two amoral out-of-control doctors in a small Northern California town.  But you write that you have seen it in your city in the Midwest.

    It makes me cynical about the entire medical profession.  By the way, I have seen the same amoral greediness from many so-called "alternative medicine" doctors in Los Angeles.  It may not be on the same scale as Drs. Moon and Realyvasquez, since these so-called anti-aging gurus are only pushing unnecessary supplements (which they sell at great markup in their offices) and unnecessary blood work and saliva tests (I have no doubt whatsoever that they are getting illegal kickbacks from the labs), not surgery and invasive procedures.  I guess it's the difference between a little shoplifting and armed bank robbery, but still it does make one cynical about the whole medical profession.

    Thank goodness for your blog, which at least helps laypeople have a fighting chance.

  • Dr. Davis

    11/11/2007 2:51:00 AM |

    I like your analogy: shoplifting vs. armed bank robbery.

    Legislating against such excesses is an impossible task. In my view, the solution is education.

    An informed, educated consumer is one who can make his/her own choice, whether it's to pursue acupuncture, chiropractic, take hawthorne, undergo coronary angioplasty, or some other path.

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