Man walks after removing wheat

9. May 2010 William Davis (27)
No, this isn't some National Enquirer headline like "Woman delivers alien baby."

Tom is a 26-year old man with a complex medical condition, a malformation he was born with and has had reconstructed. Aside from this, he leads a normal life: works, is married, and is, in fact, quite intelligent.

He came to me for an opinion regarding his overall health. Tom was worried that his congenital condition would impair his long-term health and longevity prospects, so he wanted to optimize all other aspects of his health.

But, when I examined Tom, he could barely get himself up on the exam table without wincing in pain. When I asked him to walk, he hobbled a few steps, again clearly in pain. When I asked him what hurt, he said "everything." He said that all his joints hurt just to move.

He told me that his several doctors over the years didn't know why he was in such pain: It wasn't rheumatoid arthritis, gout, pseudogout, or any of the other inflammatory joint diseases that might account for virtually incapacitating this 26-year old man. Even the rheumatologists were stumped. It was also unrelated to his repaired congenital condition. So Tom went on with his life, barely able to even go for a walk with his wife without pain, slowing him down to the pace of an 80-year old.

So I suggested that he eliminate all wheat products. "I don't know for a fact whether it will work, Tom. But the only way to find out is to give it a try. Why not try a 4-week period of meticulously avoiding wheat? Nothing bad will come of it."

He and his wife look perplexed, but were so desperate for a solution that they agreed to give it a try.

Tom returned 6 weeks later. He walked into the room briskly, then bounded up on the exam table. He told me that, within days, all his joint pains had completely disappeared. He could walk, stretch, do all the normal physical things with none of the pain he had suffered previously.

Tom told me, "I didn't think it could be true. I thought it was just a coincidence. So I had a sandwich about 2 weeks into it. In about 5 minutes, I got about half my pains back."

Tom now remains wheat-free and pain-free, thankfully with no discernible joint impairment.

So, yes, Tom walked freely and without pain simply by eliminating wheat from his life.

Is it an immune phenomenon? Does wheat gluten trigger some inflammatory reaction in some people? There is surely something like this underlying experiences like Tom.

Wheat contains far more than gluten. Modern wheat is a collection of hundreds of different proteins, though gluten is the most plentiful, the one that confers the "viscoelasticity" of dough. But there's plenty more to wheat than gluten or celiac disease.

AGEing gracefully

5. May 2010 William Davis (32)
Advanced Glycation End-products, or AGEs, have the potential to change our entire conversation about diet.

AGEs come from two principal sources:

1) Endogenous--Glucose-protein interactions that arise from high blood glucose levels

2) Exogenous--From diet

The first is sensitive to glucose levels: the higher the glucose level, the greater the AGE formation. The second depends on the quantity of AGE in the food consumed.

A compelling body of evidence points towards AGEs as an agent of aging, as well as kidney dysfunction, dementia, and atherosclerosis. Some of the observations made include:

--If AGEs are infused into an experimental animal, it develops atherosclerosis, kidney disease, and other "diseases of senescence" within weeks to months.

--In endothelial cells (cells lining arteries), AGE induces expression of adhesion molecules and inflammatory signals. In fibroblasts, AGE provokes collagen production. In smooth muscle cells, AGE triggers migration and proliferation. In monocytes and macrophages, AGEs induce chemotaxis and release of inflammation mediators. In short, AGEs have been implicated in just about every step leading to atherosclerosis.

--In humans, greater quantities of AGEs are present in diabetics, pre-diabetics and people with insulin resistance. We all know that these people develop atherosclerosis, kidney disease, cataracts, and other conditions at an accelerated rate.

--Foods containing greater quantities of AGEs cause endothelial dysfunction, i.e., artery constriction via blockade of nitric oxide and other mechanisms.

Short of taking agents that block AGE activity, how can you minimize the absorption or production of AGEs? There are two general strategies:

1) Keep blood glucose low--The Whitehall study demonstrated increased cardiovascular mortality with a postprandial (actually 2-hour post- 50-gram glucose challenge) blood sugar of 83 mg/dl. Lower blood glucose, less glycation. Less carbohydrates in the diet, the lower the blood sugar, the less the glycation. Studies like Whitehall demonstrate that glycation begins with glucose values within the normal range. Thus, aging occurs even with normal glucose levels. It occurs faster with higher glucose levels.

2) Choose and prepare foods with lower AGE content. Food content of AGEs is a major determinant of blood AGE levels. Fats and meats are the primary dietary source of AGEs, particularly if cooked at high temperature (broiling, frying). While this does not mean that meats and fats need to be avoided, it can mean that limiting serving size of meats and fats, while being selective in how they are prepared, are important. This can mean cutting your meats in thinner slices or smaller pieces to permit faster cooking, eating rare when possible (not poultry, of course), avoiding cooking with sauces that contain sugar (which enhances AGE formation). Is this an argument in favor of sashimi?

Minimizing exposure to AGEs, endogenous or exogenous, has the potential to slow the aging process, or at least to lessen the likelihood of many of the phenomena of aging.

More on this to come.

Small LDL: Simple vs. complex carbohydrates

4. May 2010 William Davis (17)
Joseph is a whip-smart corporate attorney, but one who accepts advice at his own pace. He likes to explore and consider each step of the advice I give him.

Starting (NMR) lipoprotein panel on no treatment or diet change:

LDL particle number 2620 nmol/L (which I would equate to 262 mg/dl LDL cholesterol)
Small LDL 2331 nmol/L--representing 89% of LDL particle number, a severe dominance of small LDL

I advised him to eliminate wheat, cornstarch, and sugars, while limiting other carbohydrate sources, as well. Joseph didn't like this idea very much, concerned that it would be impractical, given his busy schedule. He also did a lot of reading of the sort that suggested that replacing white flour with whole grains provided health advantages. So that's what he did: Replaced all sugar and refined flour products with whole grains, but did not restrict his intake of grains.

Next lipoprotein panel with whole grains replacing white refined flour:

LDL particle number 2451 nmol/L
Small LDL 1998 nmol/L--representing 81.5% of LDL particle number.

In other words, replacing white flour products with whole grain products reduced small LDL by 14%--a modest improvement, but hardly great.

I explained to Joseph that any grain, complex, refined, or simple--will, just like other sugars and carbohydrates, still provoke small LDL. Given the severity of his patterns, I suggested trying again, this time with full elimination of grains.

Next lipoprotein panel with elimination of whole grains:

LDL particle number 1320 nmol/L
Small LDL 646 nmol/L--48.9% of total LDL particle number, but a much lower absolute number, a reduction of 67.6%.

This is typical of the LDL responses I see with elimination of wheat products on the background of an overall carbohydrate restriction: Big drops in precisely measured LDL as LDL particle number (i.e., an actual count of LDL particles, not LDL cholesterol) and big drops in the number of small LDL particles.

You might say that wheat elimination and limitation of carbohydrate intake can yield statin-like values . . . without the statin.

Is Cocoa Puffs no longer heart healthy?

29. April 2010 William Davis (17)
Until recently, Cocoa Puffs enjoyed the endorsement of the American Heart Association (AHA) as a heart-healthy food.

For a price, the AHA will allow food manufacturers to affix a heart "check mark" signifying endorsement by the AHA as conforming to some basic "heart healthy" requirements.

Odd thing: The list of breakfast cereals on the check mark program has shrunk dramatically. When I last posted about this, there were around 50-some breakfast cereals, from Cocoa Puffs to Frosted Mini Wheats. Now, the list has been trimmed down to 17:

Berry Burst Cheerios-Triple Berry
Cheerios
Cheerios Crunch
Honey Nut Cheerios
Kashi Heart to Heart Honey Toasted Oat Cereal
Kashi Heart to Heart Oat Flakes & Wild Blueberry Clusters
Kashi Heart to Heart Warm Cinnamon Oat Cereal
Multi Grain Cheerios
Oatmeal Crisp Crunchy Almond
Oatmeal Crisp Hearty Raisin
Quaker Cinnamon Life
Quaker Heart Health
Quaker Life
Quaker Life Maple & Brown Sugar
Quaker Oat Bran
Quaker Oatmeal Squares - Brown Sugar
Quaker Oatmeal Squares - Cinnamon


According to sales material targeted to food manufacturers, the American Heart Association boasts that "The American Heart Association’s heart-check mark is the most recognized and trusted food icon today . . . Eighty-three percent of consumers are aware of the heart-check mark. Sixty-six percent of primary grocery shoppers say the heart-check mark has a strong/moderate influence on their choices when shopping."

So, is Cocoa Puffs no longer heart healthy?

I suspect that agencies like the AHA, the USDA, the American Diabetes Association as starting to understand that they have blundered big time by pushing low-fat, having contributed to the nationwide epidemic of obesity and diabetes, and that it is time to quietly start backpedaling.

While it's a step in the right direction, judging from the above list of breakfast cereal "survivors" of the check mark program, the criteria may have been tightened . . . but not that much.

Fractures and vitamin D

27. April 2010 William Davis (25)
This is a bit off topic, but it's such an interesting observation that I'd like to pass it on.

Over the past several years, there have been inevitable bone fractures: People slip on ice, for instance, and fracture a wrist or elbow. Or miss a step and fracture a foot, fall off a ladder and fracture a leg.

People will come to my office and tell me that their orthopedist commented that they healed faster than usual, often faster than anyone else they've seen before. My son was told this after he shattered his hand getting slammed against the boards in hockey; his orthopedist took the screws and cast off much sooner than usual since he judged that healing had occured early. (My son was taking 8000 units vitamin D in gelcap form; I also had him take 20,000 units for several days early after his injury to be absolutely sure he had sufficient levels.)

My suspicion is that people taking vitamin D sufficient to enjoy desirable blood levels (I aim for a 25-hydroxy vitamin D level of 60-70 ng/ml) heal fractures much faster, abbreviating healing time (crudely estimated) by at least 30%.

For any interested orthopedist, it would be an easy clinical study: Enroll people with traumatic fractures, randomize to vitamin D at, say, 10,000 units per day vs. placebo, watch who heals faster gauged by, for instance, x-ray. My prediction: Vitamin D will win hands down with faster healing and perhaps more assured fusion of the fracture site.

T3 for accelerating weight loss

25. April 2010 William Davis (57)
Supplementation of the thyroid hormone, T3, is an underappreciated means to lose weight.

Thyroid health, in general, is extremely important for weight control, since even subtle low thyroid hormone levels can result in weight gain. The first step in achieving thyroid health is to be sure you are obtaining sufficient iodine. (See Iodine deficiency is real and Healthy people are the most iodine deficient) But, after iodine replacement has been undertaken, the next step is to consider your T3 status.

I've seen T3 ignite weight loss or boost someone out of a weight loss "plateau" many times.

Endocrinologists cringe at this notion of using T3. They claim that you will develop atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm) and osteoporosis by doing this. I have yet to see this happen.

Adding T3 revs up metabolic rate at low doses. The idea is to push free T3 hormone levels to the upper limit of normal, but not to the hyperthyroid range. While an occasional person feels a little "hyper" like they've had a pot of coffee, most people just feel energized, clear-headed, and happier. And weight trends down much more readily.

Taking T3 by itself with no effort at weight loss generally yields only a modest weight reduction. However, T3 added to other weight reducing efforts, such as wheat elimination and exercise, accelerates the weight loss effect considerably. 5 lbs lost will likely be more like 8 to 10 lbs lost; 10 lbs lost will likely be more like 15 to 20 lbs, etc.

It's also my suspicion that more and more people are developing a selective impairment of T3, making it all the more important. I believe that you and I are being exposed to something (perchlorates, bisphenol A, perflurooctanoic acid, and others?) that may be impairing the 5'-deiodinase enzyme that converts the T4 thyroid hormone to the active T3. Relative lack of T3 leads to slowed metabolism, weight gain, and depressed mood. While avoiding or removing the toxin impairing 5'-deiodinase would be ideal, until we find out how to do this, taking T3 is a second best.

The tough part: Finding a prescriber for your T3.

The world according to the Wheat Foods Council and the Whole Grains Council

23. April 2010 William Davis (26)

You might get a kick out of what the Wheat Foods Council and the Whole Grains Council recommend for a sample meal plan:

Breakfast: Whole grain raisin toast
Lunch: Sandwich on whole grain
Snack: Rye bread crackers
Dinner: Whole grain pasta with your favorite sauce

Breakfast: Whole grain waffles 
Lunch: Hamburger on whole grain bun
Snack: Graham crackers
Dinner: Whole grain homemade pizza on whole grain pita crust

Remember Morgon Spurlock's documentary movie, Super Size Me? (If you haven't already seen it, Super Size Me is viewable for free on Hulu.) Spurlock conducts a self-inflicted 30-day experiment of eating at McDonald's fast food restaurants every day. In short, the results on Spurlock's weight and health are disastrous. 

How about Wheat Belly: The Movie? We would chronicle our star through a 30-day course of meals served up by the Wheat Foods and Whole Grains Councils, all featuring wonderful wheat products in every meal. We could measure blood sugar, triglycerides, LDL, small LDL, weight, etc.


Any predictions?

Why bananas increase cholesterol

21. April 2010 William Davis (0)
Anything that increases postprandial (after-eating) blood sugar will increase the number of LDL particles in the blood.

An increase in LDL particles is an important factor in causing heart disease: The greater the number of LDL particles, the more opportunity they have to interact with the walls of arteries, contributing to atherosclerosis.

Carbohydrates increase small LDL, especially if postprandial sugar is increased. Here's another way carbohydrates increase LDL particles: The duration of time LDL particles hang around in the blood stream is doubled.

When blood sugar increases, such as after the 30 grams carbohydrates in a medium-sized banana, glycation of LDL particles occurs. This means that a gglucose (sugar) molecule reacts with a lysine residue in the apoprotein B of the LDL particle. This induces a change in conformation that makes it less readily recognized by the LDL receptor. Thus, the glycated LDL particle persists for a longer period of time in the blood stream.

LDL particles are therefore cleared less efficiently, numbers of LDL particles increase.

Plant-based or animal-based?

19. April 2010 William Davis (78)
The ideal diet for heart and overall health restricts carbohydrate intake. I say this because carbohydrates:

Make you fat--Carbohydrates increase visceral fat, in particular.
Increase triglycerides
Reduce HDL
Increase small LDL particles
Increase glycation of LDL
Increase blood pressure
Increase c-reactive protein

Reducing carbohydrates reverses all the above.

But here's a common mistake many people make when following a low-carbohydrate diet: Converting to a low-carb, high-animal product diet.

It accounts for a breakfast of a 3-egg omelette with cheese and butter, 4 strips of bacon, 2 sausages, cream in coffee. Low-carb? It certainly is. But it is a purely high-animal product, no-plant-based meal.

I believe a strong argument can be made that a low-carbohydrate but plant-based diet with animal products as the side dish is a better way to go.

Consider that:

1) Animal products have little to no fiber, while plant-based products like spinach, avocado, and walnuts and other raw nuts have substantial quantities.

2) Plant products are a source of polyphenols and flavonoids--This encompasses a large universe of nutrients, from epigallocatechins in tea, polymeric procyanidins from cocoa, to hydroxytyrosol from olives, and anthocyanins from red wine and eggplant. The inflow of these beneficial compounds needs to be frequent and generous, not piddly amounts taken infrequently.

3) Vitamin C--While it's easy to obtain, the fact that you and I need to obtain vitamin C from frequent ingestion of plant sources suggests that humans were meant to eat lots of plants. While it may require a few months of deficiency before your teeth fall out, imagine what low-grade deficiency can do over a long period.

4) Vitamin K1--Rich in green vegetables, vitamin K1 is virtually absent in animal products.

5) Tocotrienols--I've been watching the data on this fascinating family of powerful oil-soluble antioxidants unfold for 20 years. Tocotrienols come only from plants. (I recently had an extended conversation with the brilliant biochemist, Dr. Barrie Tan, who is incredibly knowledgeable about tocotrienols, having developed several methods of extraction from plants, including his discovery of the highly concentrated source, annatto. Be sure to watch for future conversations about tocotrienols.)

6) Meats and dairy yield a net acid load--While plant foods are net basic. At the very least, this yields risk for osteoporosis, since acids are ultimately buffered by basic calcium salts from the bones. Tissue and blood pH is a tightly regulated system; veering off just a teensy-weensy bit from the normal pH of 7.4 to an acidic pH of, say, 7.2, leads to . . . death. In short, pH control is very important. A net acid challenge from animal products is a lot like drinking carbonated soda, a huge acid challenge that leads to osteoporosis and other health issues.

Conversely, a pure plant-based diet has its own set of problems. Eating a pure plant-based diet can lead to deficiencies of vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids (no, linolenic acid from flaxseed will NOT cut it), vitamin K2, carnitine, and coenzyme Q10.

So, rather than a breakfast of 3-egg omelet with bacon, sausage, cream, and cheese, how about a handful of pecans, some blueberries, and a 2-egg omelet made with basil-olive oil pesto? Or a spinach salad with walnuts, feta cheese, and lots of olive oil?

Fat is not the demon

16. April 2010 William Davis (36)
So my patient, Dane, generously volunteered to be on the Dr. Oz show, as I discussed previously.

What we didn't know, nor did the producer who contacted us mention, that Dane would be counseled by low-fat guru Dr. Dean Ornish on a strict low-fat diet. The teaser introduction essentially tells the entire story.

Ironically, that is the exact opposite of the dietary program that I advocate. I rejected the 10% fat diet long ago after I became a type II diabetic, gained 30 lbs, and suffered miserable deterioration of my cholesterol values on this diet. I also witnessed similar results in many hundreds of people, all following a strict low-fat diet. In fact, elimination of wheat--whole, white, or otherwise--along with limitation or elimination of all other grains has been among the most powerful health strategies I have ever witnessed.

I now regret having subjected my patient to this theatrical misinformation. Dane is a smart cookie--That's probably why he was not allowed more than a "yes" or "no" during Dr. Oz's monologue, else Dane might have pitched in about some ideas that would have tripped Oz and Ornish up.

In their defense, if we took 100 Americans all following a typical 21st century diet of fast food, white bread buns, Coca Cola and other soft drinks, chips, barbecue sauce, and French fries, converting to a plant-based, high-carbohydrate, grain-rich diet is indeed an improvement. People will, at first, lose weight and enjoy an initial response. (The occasional person with the Apo E4 genetic pattern, heterozygote or homozygote, may even enjoy long-term benefits, a topic for another day.)

But the majority of people, in my experience, after an initial positive response to an Ornish-like low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet will either plateau (stay overweight, have low HDL, high triglycerides, plenty of small LDL, and high blood sugars) or deteriorate, much as I did.

Thankfully, Dane has been a good sport about this, understanding that this is essentially show business. I believe he understands that the information was all well-intended and, after all, we are all working towards the same goal: reduction of heart disease risk.

By the way, regardless of which diet you follow, it is, in my view, absurd to believe that diet alone will do it. What about vitamin D normalization, thyroid normalization (thyroid disease is incredibly common), omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil, identification of hidden sources of risk (something that is unlikely in Ornish, since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-fat diet), postprandial glucoses, etc., all the pieces we focus on to gain control over coronary plaque? Eating green peppers and barley soup alone is not going to do it.
Self-directed health: At-home lab testing

Self-directed health: At-home lab testing

29. March 2009 William Davis (20)
I have a prediction.

I predict that more and more healthcare can and will be obtained directly by the individual--without doctors, without hospitals, without the corrupt profit-at-any-costs modus operandi of the pharmaceutical industry. I predict that, given the right tools, Joe or Jane Q. Public will have the choice to manage his or her own health using tools that are directly accessible, tools that include direct-to-consumer medical imaging (CT scans, ultrasound, MRI, etc.), nutritional supplements (a loosely-defined term, to our advantage), and direct-to-consumer laboratory testing.

Done responsibly, self-directed healthcare is superior to healthcare from your doctor. While no one expects you to remove your own gallbladder, you can manage cholesterol, blood sugar issues, vitamin D, low thyroid, and others--better than your doctor.

As everyone becomes more comfortable with the notion of self-directed health, you will see new services appear that help individuals manage their health. You will see prices for direct-to-consumer medical imaging and lab testing drop due to competition, something that doesn't happen in current insurance-based healthcare delivery. People are being exposed to larger deductibles and/or draw money from a medical savings account and will seek more cost advantages. Such direct-to-consumer competitive pricing will meet those needs. Overall, the presently unsustainable cost of healthcare will decline.

To help accelerate the shift of human healthcare away from conventional paths and divert it towards the individual, we have launched a panel of direct-to-consumer at-home laboratory tests that we are making available on the Track Your Plaque website.

On your own (except in California, which requires a doctor's order or prescription; and NY, the only state in the nation that prohibits entirely), you can now test, in the comfort of your own home with no laboratory blood draw required, parameters including:

--Thyroid tests--Free T3, free T4, TSH
--Lipids
--C-reactive protein
--Vitamin D
--Testosterone
--Progesterone

and others.

As the technology improves, more tests will become available for testing at home. (Lipoproteins are not yet available, but will probably be available within the next few years. That would be an enormous boon to those of us interested in supercharged heart disease prevention and reversal.)

Anyone interested in our at-home testing can just go to the Track Your Plaque lab test Marketplace.

When I first began the Track Your Plaque program around 8 years ago, I saw it as a way for people to learn how to control or reverse coronary atherosclerotic plaque, and I'd hoped that physicians would begin to see the light and become patient advocates in this process. But I have lost hope that most of my colleagues are interested in becoming your advocate in health. They are too locked into the "call me when you hurt" mentality. I now see Track Your Plaque as a way for people to seize control over coronary plaque with minimal assistance from their doctors. Indeed, some of our Members have achieved reduction of their plaque in spite of their doctors.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what's to come. Brace yourself for a cataclysmic shift in returning health to you and away from those who would profit from your misfortune.
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Comments (20) -

  • Jenny

    3/29/2009 4:14:00 PM |

    Dr. Davis,

    As someone who has used home A1c tests and home Cholesterol tests and found them to produce results so far off lab test results as to be worthless, I wondered if you could show us the data about the accuracy of these tests, some quite expensive, compared to tests run at a hospital lab.

    For example, the home A1c tests told you that the result was accurate to between plus or minus .5%, but you didn't learn this until you'd purchased the test, and that margin made the test useless to those of us who control our blood sugars. There is a huge difference between 6.0% and 7.0% but it was possible to have an actual, lab 6.5% and get either result with that home test.

    So what are the margins of error in the tests you provide?

  • JPB

    3/29/2009 4:23:00 PM |

    Excellent post!  I totally agree with your prediction but there are several things that will need to happen for it to occur:

    1.  People will need to take responsibility for their own health and decisions regarding maintaining that health.
    2.  The correct information needs to be available.  The amount of bad info and bias in nutritional recommendations is unbelievable plus the drug companies have been busy promoting and selling products that have questionable benefits at best.
    3.  The for-profit model of medical care must be abandoned. It is obscene for someone to profit from another person's medical problems. (I am not talking about paying decent salaries to doctors and medical care workers but rather, profits to shareholders and top executives.)  

    Our current medical care system is a disgrace but there will be many howls of protest from the vested interests when these changes are even suggested.  Unfortunately this system will fail unless reforms are made.  We cannot afford the relentless rise in costs anymore nor the overall deterioration of our citizens' health!

  • Anonymous

    3/29/2009 9:59:00 PM |

    I agree that this will catch on. Costs for self-directed testing are already coming down due to laboratory competition, and will fall even further with the rise of home testing.

    I think that taking control of your diet and overall health, a la Track Your Plaque, naturally leads to a desire for more information, without the added hassle and cost (and potentially, resistance or refusal) of a doctor's involvement up-front.

    How lucky am I then, to have moved from New York, where your home testing is not available, to California, where it's also not available.

    Fortunately, there are alternatives, at least in California, such as www.directlabs.com, www.mymedlab.com and www.medlabusa.com.  You have to go through an extra step of going in for a blood draw, but at least  you can get the testing.

  • rabagley

    3/29/2009 9:59:00 PM |

    When will LabCorp release the subfraction data to non-doctor requested NMR lipid panels?

    Supposedly it's the best lipid test out there, but I can't get to all of the results because of a policy that I'm completely and utterly unable to get to the bottom of.

  • Dr. William Davis

    3/29/2009 10:13:00 PM |

    Hi, Jenny--

    We've had the same problem with many of the at-home tests.

    For that reason, all the testing now offered is run at ZRT Labs with data and quality essentially identical to that obtained through conventional laboratories. In other words, while the samples are obtained at home as finger stick blots on paper, the tests are not run at home but at ZRT Labs.

    Their quality control policies are listed athttp://www.zrtlab.com/Page.aspx?nid=413.

  • Rich

    3/30/2009 1:27:00 AM |

    Jenny -

    While I've heard that a number of the home tests are not very accurate, there is a least one A1C test (which you mail into a lab) which is quite accurate.

    It is from Heritage Labs, and is sold as "ReliOn A1C" by Walmart for $9.00:
    www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=10575934#ShortReviewTitleBar

    or by the name "Appraise Diabetes A1C Test" in other drug stores, such as CVS, etc. (usually around $19.00 - so Walmart is much cheaper).

    It is the same fingerprick test under both names.

    David Mendosa blogged about this test and its accuracy here:
    www.mendosa.com/blog/?p=339

    Heritage Labs is certified by the National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program (NGSP), and they have only certified 78 labs worldwide.  Only 4 Quest labs in the US are certified (none that my blood goes to) and no Labcorp’s at all. The list of NGSP certified labs can be found here:
    www.ngsp.org/prog/labs.pdf

    I did the ReliOn bloodspot test and mailed it in to Heritage Lab in Kansas, and my 5.2 result was consistent with Labcorp and Quest A1c's from the past few years.

    During my appointments in the past with Dr. Bernstein, he tested my A1C using a device in his office also, but at the time I was still relatively diabetically-uninformed, so I did not take note of model he used.

    Rich

  • Anonymous

    3/30/2009 10:01:00 AM |

    I think this collection of tests are a wonderful addition to TYP.  Thanks for offering them.  I enjoy taking control of my health and when possible staying away from the doctor's office too.  It's frustrating going to the hospital.  Medical personal all to often try to make me feel like I'm the low man on the totem pole for my health care - even though I'm the customer!  I will be taking advantage of the home test.  

    I also enjoy spreading the word about TYP and had an idea about that.  Many companies offer company shirts.  It's basically free advertising for the firm.  Just a humble idea to pass along, thought it would be neat if TYP offered shirts that listed  different main concepts of the TYP program.

  • Dr. William Davis

    3/30/2009 11:32:00 AM |

    Thanks, anonymous. Great idea.

  • Anonymous

    3/30/2009 12:53:00 PM |

    Barkeater here.

    I would like to see more patient empowerment, and availability of good patient controlled testing is crucial.  Power to you, Doc.

    But, I am concerned that the future may not be bright.  California and New York have restrictions.  We are at this moment in a postion when more regulation seems like a great answer to all problems, rather than more freedom.  Certainly, that is coming in health care.

    The other 48 states probably have not made a careful decision to not regulate, but rather they are not as "advanced" in their thinking as Cal and NY.  

    Then, of course, there is the problem of insurance.  If only I could use my health care dollars as I see fit, but right now I spend $17k per year for insurance to participate in a system that often frustrates me.

    I can afford another few hundred to buy good health, but others aren't so lucky.

    Barkeater

  • Trinkwasser

    3/30/2009 3:25:00 PM |

    I once had the thought that if I won the lottery I'd start a business called The NHS PLC with a fleet of vans set up with lab test equipment which could come round door to door in the way that you can get your car serviced in your own drive.

    Yours is probably a better plan!

    They have just announced this

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7968734.stm

    almost certainly a cut off at the knees version, in many places the tests you supply are unavailable for cost reasons already, like officially I can only get TChol when I need the Full Lipid Panel, a friend can only get TSH when she needs T3 and T4.

    It seems these guys

    http://www.grassrootshealth.net/

    accept oversease customers, any chance of you doing the same?

  • mike V

    3/30/2009 3:56:00 PM |

    Dr Davis:
    My own doubts about the limits of curative medicine began to take root in 1962 when in hospital for six months (in the UK) with a fractured femur. There was a 13 year old boy in the ward who had in addition to polyomyelitis, a resistant Staph infection. (even then!)
    The treatment available was to cycle him through the available antibiotics of the time. He was given less than a year to live.
    My next need for a hospital came in 1993 when I needed to get rid of my gall bladder (some say this may have been one of the results of the "low fat" dietary era.)
    I realized around this time that I knew more about maintaining my high mileage cars than I did about personal nutrition and wellness, and resolved to make a change.
    I can report that since that time (1993) I have not had a single infection, and have reduced colds and flu essentially to zero. I have seen doctors only for "routine inspections".
    In my opinion, hospitals are one of society's  major health hazards, and here we all recognize that prescription drugs are a very slippery slope. (obviously one has to make exceptions for major trauma.)

    Many friends and contemporaries have been lost to or damaged by MRSA and other resistant infections in recent years.

    I very much appreciate the endorsement and weight you, your patients, and your members bring to healthy preventive measures, many learned independently over years by some of us.
    The close associations between heart disease, diabetes, auto-immune disease, Alzheimer's disease, hormonal disfunctions and lifestyle variables suggest that you are absolutely on the right track. Many of the responses to your blog posts reflect this.
    My close friend of 30 years now has simultaneous cardiomyopathy, diabetes, and AD with at times the mentality of a (terrible) 2 year old. What a difference TYP prevention might have made.

    Has it perhaps occurred to you that TYP may also be a surprisingly sensitive indicator of general health status?

    I would like you to know that your ethics and a genuine concern for your fellow man shine through, in all your writings.

    Thank You.
    Mike V

    Re: Home testing update. FYI:
    My first Grassroots Health 25(OH)D result was 50 after about 4+ months at 6000 iu Carlson's. Age 73. Location South Carolina. Winter UV exposure minimal.

  • Dawn

    3/30/2009 5:03:00 PM |

    Another option for ordering tests, where you go to a lab located near you is HealthCheckUSA. And for a few more dollars, you can also request a doc to do an interpretation of your results as well.

    http://www.healthcheckusa.com/

    BTW- LOVE LOVE LOVE your blog.

  • Dr. William Davis

    3/30/2009 6:18:00 PM |

    Thanks for the encouragement, Mike V and Dawn.

  • Anonymous

    3/30/2009 8:05:00 PM |

    Dr.
    This will never happen and will actually be illegal when this Universal Health care scheme becomes law.
    What you have described here Dr. Davis is about freedom and UH is the total opposite of freedom.

    Oh, and how long do you think it will be before nutritional supplements are illegal without government prescriptions? I predict within a year of UH as law.

  • Dr. William Davis

    3/30/2009 9:49:00 PM |

    Mike V--

    You make an important observation that we have also made in the TYP experience: Many of the strategies employed--vit D, omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, wheat elimination, etc.--lead to marvelously improved overall health, in addition to correction of cholesterol patterns and reduction of heart disease risk.

  • katherine

    4/1/2009 12:51:00 AM |

    Dr. Davis,

    I wanted to let you know about a positive experience with the Biotech brand D3 5000 IU capsules.  My latest test showed 80 ng/ml after supplementing for approximately 4 months with 10,000 IU daily (started with 5000, bumped it up to 10,000, will now go back to 5000 to maintain).  This is up from 34 ng/ml.  I know you generally recommend the gelcaps but these seem to get the job done as well.

  • Dr. William Davis

    4/1/2009 2:57:00 AM |

    Katherine--

    Thanks for the feedback. That's helpful.

  • darwinstable

    4/6/2009 4:36:00 AM |

    What a great post. I totally agree and in some respects have done that myself. I just turned against the mass media and did what I knew as an evolutionary biologist was the best thing to do. I can now see the results and this is something I could never have done with weight watchers, jenny craigs, current medical advice etc.

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  • Nursing homes chennai

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