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.)
Beating the Heart Association diet is child's play

Beating the Heart Association diet is child's play

21. June 2009 William Davis (19)


In response to the Heart Scan Blog post, Post-Traumatic Grain Disorder, Anne commented:


While on the American Heart Association diet my lipids peaked in 2003. I even tried the Ornish diet for a short time, but found it impossible.

Total Cholesterol: 201
Triglycerides: 263
HDL: 62
LDL: 86

After I stopped eating gluten (I am very sensitive), my lipid panel improved slightly. This past year I started eating to keep my blood sugar under control by eliminating sugars and other grains. Now this is my most recent lab:

Total Cholesterol: 162
Triglycerides: 80
HDL: 71
LDL: 75


Isn't that great? This is precisely what I see in practice: Elimination of wheat and sugars yields dramatic effects on basic lipids, especially reductions in triglycerides of up to several hundred milligrams, increased HDL, reduced LDL.

Beneath the surface, the effects are even more dramatic: reductions or elimination of small LDL particles, reduction or elimination of triglyceride-containing lipoproteins, elimination of the marker for abnormal post-prandial (after-eating) lipoproteins, IDL, reduced c-reactive protein. Add weight loss from abdominal fat stores and reduced blood pressure.

In fact, I would go so far as to speculate that, if the entire nation were to follow Anne's lead and eliminate wheat and sugars, "need" for 30% of all prescription medications would disappear. The incidence of diabetes would be slashed, the U.S. would no longer lead the world in obesity.

Anne and I are not the first to make this observation. It has also been made in several studies, such as:

The Duke University study of low-carbohydrate diets in type II diabetics. In this study, 50% of low-carb participants became non-diabetic: They were cured.

One of the many studies conducted by University of Connecticut's Dr. Jeff Volek, demonstrating dramatic improvement in glucose, insulin (reduced 50%) and insulin responses, and lipids.

Dr. Ron Krauss' early studies that hinted at this effect, even though the "high-fat" diet wasn't really low-carbohydrate.

If wheat and sugar elimination has been shown to achieve all these fabulous benefits, why hasn't the American Heart Association spoken in favor of this dietary approach and other- low-carbohydrate diets ? Why does the American Heart Association maintain its "Check-Mark" stamp of approval on Cocoa Puffs and Count Chocula cereals?
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Comments (19) -

  • Peter

    6/21/2009 3:17:36 PM |

    I stopped eating wheat and sugar after I read Gary Taubes's book (Good Calories, Bad Calories).  I haven't lost any weight, but I suspect it's still a good thing: it's not like there's a shortage of things to choose from.  But it's hard to imagine that my body was designed for refined food products.

  • Mark K. Sprengel

    6/21/2009 4:34:22 PM |

    I'm trying to explain low carb to my fiance and could use some help. I tried the Atkins diet a few years back, lost nearly 30 lbs and dropped my slightly over 200 cholesterol to 150 IIRC. I was working out a lot as well.

    The problem is that she and her dad tried Atkins and the father ended up in the hospital and she got sick. The Dr. said that since Atkins/lo carb became popular they had more problems with colon issues.

    They apparently were getting enough fiber and water. I'm thinking potassium might be an issue for her as at some point in her life they said she was low and needed to eat more potassium rich foods.

  • DrStrange

    6/21/2009 5:22:26 PM |

    In the Voleck study, low carb was 12% carbs but what was called low fat was 24% fat.  My experience and research by McDougall, Ornish, Esseltyn, etc indicates that if a truly low fat diet (10% fat; the difference made up by adding more complex carbs) were tested the results would be at least as good as if not superior to the low carb diet.

  • Ross

    6/21/2009 5:30:16 PM |

    In answer to your last question: Because the American Heart Association derives a significant fraction of it's funding from Cargill, ADM, General Mills, and other agribusiness giants.  If the AHA changed to a set of dietary recommendations that didn't help line the pockets of agribusiness by creating demand for highly processed foods (whole foods are notoriously unprofitable), it would mean the end of their funding stream.

    Follow the money and most mysteries are solved...

  • AKLAP

    6/22/2009 12:01:06 AM |

    Keep up the great work Anne & Dr. Davis!

  • ShawneeL

    6/22/2009 4:14:09 AM |

    Hi, see some of my posts at www.dailyrantingspot.blogspot.com where I talk about some of the boring science of low carb.  Anne's experiences are common for people who eliminate carbs from their diet.

  • ShawneeL

    6/22/2009 3:40:51 PM |

    This is why South Beach is a bit better, because of the emphasis on vegetables with fiber, and drinking enough.  I know my husband's triglycerides have plummeted to low normal.  A low fat diet doesn't "satiate" you enough that you can stand not to eat.  Obese people get used to eating, and that's a problem for attempting to lose weight.

  • Anonymous

    6/22/2009 6:23:42 PM |

    I don't know if ornish, etc. is truly superior.  I think that superior would have to be sustainable.  For all but probably 5% (pure guess here) of the population, that type of very low fat, vegan, diet is not sustainable or maintainable.

    I think that wheat free, no sugar, low carb, real foods diet is much more sustainable/maintainable for a great percentage of the population.  And, a lot of Esselstyn's work was with low dose Chol. meds.  Dr. Davis appears to take the no-meds approach.

    As an experiement of 1, my labs on a very near Esselstyn diet were further from the 60/60/60 goal of Dr. Davis than they were on a very near TYP diet that included quite a few more carbs than likely recommended.

  • billye

    6/23/2009 3:37:05 PM |

    Drstrange, for 50 years I tried to eat the so called healthy diet.  My favorites were McDougal and Ornish among 25 other low fat high carb gurus.  I gained after yo-yowing, 60 pounds and along the way I developed diabetes type 2 and kidney disease.  Thanks to Dr. Davis and my kidney doctor who is an advocate for low carb diets and turned me on to this blog and now writes his own www.nephropal.blogspot.com, I have been eating low carb for 7 months now and I am down 50 pounds and now have an hbA1c of 4.7.  While I know that kidney disease can't be cured, some of my kidney disease numbers have improved.  Forget about high carb and low fat, that's what is killing us.

  • TedHutchinson

    6/23/2009 6:57:01 PM |

    We now see more and more products jumping onto Omega 3 health benefits to market fundamentally unhealthy foods.

    Kellogg’s Live Bright Brain Bars contain 100 mg of DHA which is one-third of the 300 mg of DHA/ EPA recommended by the American Heart Association.

    But if you look at the ingredients of these bars you find.
    Coating Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Whey, Nonfat Milk, Soy Lecithin, Sorbitan Monostearate, Salt, Artificial Flavor, Polysorbate 60 , High Fructose Corn Syrup , Whey Protein Isolate , Soy Protein Isolate , Maltodextrin , Semisweet Chocolate Sugar, Chocolate, Cocoa Butter , Corn Syrup , Sugar , Palm Oil with TBHQ for Freshness , Cellulose , Sunflower Oil , Cocoa , Glycerin , Algal Oil Natural Source of DHA , Natural and Artificial Flavor , Salt , Sodium Ascorbate Vitamin C , Vitamin E Acetate , Soy Lecithin , Mono- and Diglycerides , Citric Acid , Folic Acid , Bleached Wheat Flour , Partially Defatted Peanut Flour , Mixed Tocopherols for Freshness , Pyridoxine Hydrochloride Vitamin B6 , Ascorbic Acid for Freshness , Vitamin B12

    It really is outrageous that products like this are promoted as Brain Health Bars. While I am certain that no one reading this blog will be under any illusions that consuming Omega 3 rich crap is anything other than crap, I am concerned that there are people who will think that these foods are making a meaningful contribution to the omega 3 intake and will not be aware that omega 3<>omega 6 ratio will still be distorted or that omega 6 intake has to reduce to around 4% of calories before the adverse effects of omega 6 are negated.

  • DrStrange

    6/23/2009 8:07:04 PM |

    I think it is totally dependent on individual physiology.  I believe, w/ nothing to back me up, that there is a bell shaped curve and that most people (the big part of the bell), can do well on either low carb/high fat or low fat/high carb.  The tails of the bell are the few who can only do well on one or the other.  I do great on low fat!  My numbers are excellent and I feel good. On low carb I am always tired, irritable, brain fogged and feel like I am starving. My wife is the opposite.  If she eats more than a few grams of carbs per day she blows up w/ phlegm and fatigue and digestive problems.  Not just gluten grains but any carbs at all except veg.  She also must minimize fruit or pay the price.  So we are Jack Sprat and Spouse.

    I have seen this in several people.  There are a few out there who just do not process fats well and some who do not process carbs well.  And I also know people who have done both and felt great on both.  The key is that "combining the two" ie high carb/high fat is what really will kill everyone!

    So far as I know, the only way to know is to experiment on yourself as you have done and listen to your body because it never lies.  When you find one that works for you then you are home.

  • Manu

    6/24/2009 2:57:04 AM |

    Is sprouted wheat bread also to be avoided?

  • Anonymous

    6/25/2009 3:30:24 AM |

    Hi Dr. Davis,

    I wanted to let you know there is an excellent discussion on weight gain, located at
    http://www.dhslides.org/mgr/mgr060509f/f.htm

    It is a lecture at a Hospital by Gary Taubes, the author of "Good Calories, Bad Calories"

    I read the book, and really enjoyed watching this hour-long lecture.

  • Sifter

    6/26/2009 3:10:49 PM |

    Dr. Davis, have you seen this, posted June 25th 2009...

    "High Carbohydrate Foods Can Cause Heart Attacks!

    In a landmark study, new research from Tel Aviv University now shows exactly how these high carb foods increase the risk for heart problems.
    Enormous peaks indicating arterial stress were found in the high glycemic index groups: the cornflakes and sugar group. "We knew high glycemic foods were bad for the heart. Now we have a mechanism that shows how," says Dr. Shechter. "Foods like cornflakes, white bread, french fries, and sweetened soda all put undue stress on our arteries. We've explained for the first time how high glycemic carbs can affect the progression of heart disease." During the consumption of foods high in sugar, there appears to be a temporary and sudden dysfunction in the endothelial walls of the arteries.
    Endothelial health can be traced back to almost every disorder and disease in the body. It is "the riskiest of the risk factors," says Dr. Shechter, who practices at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center — Tel Hashomer Hospital. There he offers a treatment that can show patients — in real time — if they have a high risk for heart attacks. "Medical tourists" from America regularly visit to take the heart test.
    The take-away message? Dr. Shechter says to stick to foods like oatmeal, fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts, which have a low glycemic index. Exercising every day for at least 30 minutes, he adds, is an extra heart-smart action to take."
    ....from conditioningresearch.com

  • Sifter

    6/26/2009 3:11:39 PM |

    From ConditioningResearch.com 6/25/09

    In a landmark study, new research from Tel Aviv University now shows exactly how these high carb foods increase the risk for heart problems.
    Enormous peaks indicating arterial stress were found in the high glycemic index groups: the cornflakes and sugar group. "We knew high glycemic foods were bad for the heart. Now we have a mechanism that shows how," says Dr. Shechter. "Foods like cornflakes, white bread, french fries, and sweetened soda all put undue stress on our arteries. We've explained for the first time how high glycemic carbs can affect the progression of heart disease." During the consumption of foods high in sugar, there appears to be a temporary and sudden dysfunction in the endothelial walls of the arteries.
    Endothelial health can be traced back to almost every disorder and disease in the body. It is "the riskiest of the risk factors," says Dr. Shechter, who practices at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center — Tel Hashomer Hospital. There he offers a treatment that can show patients — in real time — if they have a high risk for heart attacks. "Medical tourists" from America regularly visit to take the heart test.
    The take-away message? Dr. Shechter says to stick to foods like oatmeal, fruits and vegetables, legumes and nuts, which have a low glycemic index. Exercising every day for at least 30 minutes, he adds, is an extra heart-smart action to take.

  • Fat Bastard

    7/4/2009 5:32:19 AM |

    Eat what ever you want. I have had 3 heart attacks. Life is short and it mostly sucks so be a glutton like me.

  • Trinkwasser

    7/14/2009 3:43:42 PM |

    I'm insanely jealous of that LDL!

    Statins knocked mine down but diet doubled my HDL and decimated my trigs (not a Heart Healthy diet, obviously, but a truly heart healthy diet of low carbs and masses of fat protein and veggies)

    Sadly my latest experiment failed - dropping the statin whacked my TChol back up, and the *receptionist* cancelled my A1c and Full Lipid Panel so I have had to see the doctor to authorise the correct tests, results in about a week. I suspect HDL will have further improved but LDL is the major culprit so I may end up restatinating myself.

    Another excellent paper from Jeff Volek looking at some more obscure cardiovascular markers

    http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/3/1/19

  • P90X

    4/9/2011 12:12:11 PM |

    It is "the riskiest of the risk factors," says Dr. Shechter, who practices at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center — Tel Hashomer Hospital. There he offers a treatment that can show patients — in real time — if they have a high risk for heart attacks. "Medical tourists" from America regularly visit to take the heart test.

  • Sten Ekberg D.C.

    5/12/2011 10:23:10 PM |

    A patient of mine recently alerted me to Dr. Davis's blog and I am delighted to read some of the entries. It is fantastic that some members of the medical community have the guts to think for themselves and tell it like it is. I've told my patients for years that the recommendations of the American Heart Association will give you a heart attack and the American diabetes association will give you diabetes. If you actually read the textbooks in medical school, it is plain to see that carbohydrades  trigger insulin which is a fat-storing hormone. After 30 years of low fat propaganda it is uplifting to see that some common sense is making the news. Whole foods is the only food your body knows what to do with. Keep it up. Dr. Davis.

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