What role cholesterol medication?

10. April 2006 William Davis (0)
A frequent conversation point among my patients, as well as participants in the www.cureality.com program, is "Are cholesterol medications really necessary?"

No, they are not. What IS necessary is to correct all manifest and hidden causes of coronary plaque. Among these causes, in my view, is LDL cholesterol of 60 mg/dl or greater. There are many other causes of coronary plaque--e.g., small LDL particles, unrecognized hypertension, Lp(a), hidden diabetic patterns, etc.--but reducing LDL to 60 mg is still an important part of a plaque-reversing effort.

Insofar as we wish to get LDL to this goal, the statin cholesterol drugs like Lipitor, Zocor, Crestor, etc. may play a role. However, they should only be considered after a full effort dietary program is pursued. Don't follow the American Heart Association's diet unless you want to fail. It's nonsense.

For a more detailed discussion of how to use nutrition and nutritional supplements to reduce LDL cholesterol, go to www.lef.org, the website for the Life Extension Foundation. I wrote an article for their magazine called "Cholesterol and Statin Drugs: Separating Hype from Reality". You'll find the article at http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=1295&query=davis%20cholesterol%20natural&hiword=CHOLESTEROLA%20CHOLESTEROLS%20DAVI%20DAVID%20DAVIE%20DAVIES%20DAVIN%20DAVIO%20DAVISON%20DAVISS%20DAVIT%20NATURALBASED%20NATURALES%20NATURALIZED%20NATURALLY%20NATURALS%20NATURE%20NATURES%20cholesterol%20davis%20natural%20.)

Can your plaque-reversal efforts succeed without statin drugs? It depends on your causes. For instance, someone with small LDL and Lp(a) only may do great on our basic program and then add niacin. Unfortunately, another person with a starting LDL cholesterol of 240 mg/dl--sky high--will have more success with these drugs.

Believe me, I am no blind supporter of drug companies and their flagrantly profit-seeking practices which, in my view, are cut-throat, shoving anyone and anything out of their way to increase profits and market share. I share many of Dr. Dave Warnarowski's views on how vicious their tactics can be; see his recent Blog post at http://www.drdavesbest.com/blog/ called "I smell a rat".

Nonetheless, the deep and well-funded research of the pharmaceutical industry does yield some useful tools. You don't have to love the insect exterminator, but if your house is being eaten by termites, his services can be useful. Same thing with these drugs. Useful--not the complete answer, not even close, but nonetheless useful in the right situations. Sometimes antibiotics are necessary, even life saving. That's how cholesterol drugs are, too.

Take it all in the proper perspective. Your goal is not cholesterol reduction, per se, but plaque control, preferably reversal.

Supplement Mania!

9. April 2006 William Davis (3)
Ever hear of "polypharmacy"? That's when someone takes too many medicines. People will have lists of 15-20 prescription medicines, for instance, with crazy interactions and oodles of side-effects.

Well, how about "poly-supplments"? That's when someone takes a large number of nutritional supplements.

Let me tell you about a 45 year old man I met.

In an effort to rid himself of risk for heart disease that he felt was likely shared with his family (brother and father diagnosed with heart attacks in their late 40s), Steve followed a program of nutritional supplementation. You name it, he took it: hawthorne, anti-oxidant mixtures, vitamins C, E, B-complex, saw palmetto, 7-keto DHEA, velvet deer antler, gingko biloba, policosanol, chronium picolinate, green tea, pine bark extract, St. John's Wort, CoEnzyme Q10, papain and other digestive enzymes...He became a distributor for a nutritional supplement company to allow him to afford his own extraordinary program.

To satisfy himself that he had indeed "cured" himself of heart disease, he got himself a CT heart scan. His score: 470, in th 99th percentile. Steve's heart attack risk based on this score was around 10% per year. High risk, no question.

For weeks after his scan, Steve admitted walking around in a daze, not knowing what to do. Years of telling himself that he had effectively dealt with his heart disease risk, now all down the drain.

When we met, I persuaded him that to think that this collection of supplements would reverse heart disease was magical thinking. We trimmed his list down to the essentials and got him on the right track.

Heart disease is controllable and reversible, but not this way. Don't fool yourself into thinking that some collection of supplements will be enough to stamp out your heart disease risk. Just like taking an antibiotic when you don't have an infection achieves nothing, so does taking the wrong supplements.

What does heart scanning mean to you?

8. April 2006 William Davis (0)
CT heart scans can mean different things to different people.


What does a heart scan mean to you? There are several possibilities:

1) A way of reducing uncertainty in your future.

2) A tool to crystallize your commitment to health.

3) A device to help you track how successful your heart disease prevention program is.

4) A trick to get you in the hospital.

5) A moneymaking tool for unscrupulous physicians hoping to profit from "downstream" testing, particularly heart catheterizations.


Like anything, heart scans can be used for both good and evil. How can you be sure that your heart scan is put to proper use--for your benefit and not someone else's profit?

Simple: Get educated. Understand the issues, be armed with informed questions.

If, for instance, you're a 55-year old female with a heart scan score of 90, active without symptoms, and you're told to have a heart catheterization right off the bat---run the other way. This is bad advice. A heart procedure like catheterization at this score in an asymptomatic woman is very rarely necessary. That decision can only be made after a step-by-step series of decisions are made by a truly interested, unbiased party. (A stress test is almost always required in this situation before the decision can be made to proceed with a catheterization.)

Unfortunately, in 2006, getting unbiased advice from your doctor is still a struggle. That's why we started Track Your Plaque---unbiased information, uncolored by drug or device company support, with an interest in the truth.

Coronary disease is drying up!

7. April 2006 William Davis (1)
I had an interesting conversation with a device representative this morning. He was a sales representative for a major medical manufacturer of stents, defibrillators, and other such devices for heart disease.

Since I'm still involved with hospital heart care and cardiac catheterization laboratories, this representative asked me if I was interested in getting involved with some of the new cardiac devices making it to market over the next year or two. "The coronary market is drying up, what with coated stents and such. We've got to find new profit sources."

Well, doesn't that sum it up? If you haven't already had this epiphany, here it is:

HEART DISEASE IS A PROFITABLE BUSINESS!

Why else can hospitals afford billboards, $10 million dollar annual ad campaigns, etc.? They do it for PROFIT. Likewise, device and drug manufacturers see the tremendous profit in heart disease.

The representative's comments about the market "drying up" simply means that the use of coated stents has cut back on the need for repeat procedures. It does NOT mean that coronary disease is on the way out. On the contrary, for the people and institutions who stand to profit from heart care, there's lots of opportunity.

Track Your Plaque is trying to battle this trend. Heart disease should NOT be profitable. For the vast majority of us, it is a preventable process, much like house fires and dental cavities.

Mammogram for your heart

6. April 2006 William Davis (0)
With the booming popularity of "64-slice CT scans", there's a lot of mis-information about what these tests provide.

These tests are essentially heart scans with added x-ray dye injected to see the insides of the arteries. However, to accomplish this, a large quantity of radiation is required. In addition, the test is not quantitative, that is, it is not a precise measure that can be repeated year after year.

It is okay to have a 64-slice CT coronary angiogram. It is NOT okay to have one every year. That's too much radiation. However, a heart scan can be repeated every year, if necessary, to track progression or regression. Once stabilization (zero change) or reduction is achieved, then you're done (unless your life takes a major change, like a 20 lb weight gain).

The tried-and-true CT heart scan is the gold standard--easy, inexpensive, precise, and repeatable. Not true for 64-slice angiograms.

Is your doctor using "leeches"?

4. April 2006 William Davis (0)
What if you went to your doctor for a problem and he/she promptly placed leeches on your body?

Yeccchhhh! Would you go back? I'd bet that you'd run the other way as fast as your bleeding legs could take you. Outdated health practices like "bleeding" are outdated for good reason.

Then why would you allow your doctor to approach your heart disease prevention program by checking cholesterol and then waiting for symptoms to appear? That miserable approach leads to tragedy and death all too often--ask Bill Clinton! He might as well have had leeches!

Don't allow your doctor's ignorance or disinterest impede your prevention program. Get your coronary plaque measured, then attack it from all sides by knowing all causes, hidden and obvious. That's why Track Your Plaque is such an effective program.

I often wonder why more doctors aren't using this unbelievably powerful approach to deal with heart disease. But when I see colleagues implanting stents, defibrillators, and the like for many thousands of dollars per patient, the answers are obvious. Given a choice of a rational, effective program of prevention that pays the doctor a few hundred dollars for his time, versus $2000 to $10,000 for a procedure, you can see that the temptation is irresistible for many physicians.

All in the family--What to do if there's heart disease in your family

3. April 2006 William Davis (0)
What should you do if a close relative of yours is diagnosed with coronary disease?
This question came up recently with a patient of mine. The patient--a strapping, 47 year old businessman who looked the absolute picture of health--was undergoing bypass surgery. Although I'd met him for the purposes of plaque reversal, he was already having symptoms and his stress test was flagrantly abnormal, all discovered after a heart scan score of 765. On the day after the patient's bypass, the patient's brother came to me. Understandably concerned about his own health, he asked what he should do. The answer: get a heart scan.
Measure the disease with the easiest test available. If his heart scan score is zero, great--he's at exceptionally low (near zero) risk for heart attack. A modest program of long-term prevention is all that's necessary. What if his score is like his brother, should he get in line for his bypass? No, absolutely not! But he will need two things: 1) a stress test to ascertain whether or not he's safe (60% likelihood a stress test would be normal), and 2) an effort to determine how the heck he got so much plaque. (We favor lipoprotein testing, of course, for greatest diagnostic certainty.)
Message: Learn from the lessons your own family provides. Don't let this valuable information go to waste.
1985: The Year of Whole Grains

1985: The Year of Whole Grains

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

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

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


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

You think there's a relationship?
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Comments (30) -

  • Gabriella Kadar

    4/9/2011 7:30:55 PM |

    The World Health Organization changed impaired fasting glucose levels from 6.9 to 6.1 in 1999.  The curve used to illustrate the incidence of diagnosed type 2 diabetes indicates a steepening at this time.  If data would have been collected for all patients prior to 1999 and utilized as a retrospective for type 2 diabetes in the population, the incidence rate prior to 1999 would likely have been significantly higher.

  • Anonymous

    4/9/2011 8:00:57 PM |

    Very true, Dr. Davis.  Wheat consumption is up since 1970.  The strange thing is, it was much higher in the 19th century...something like 225 pounds per capita.

    historical wheat consumption

    Maybe we were eating fewer total carbs then, or expending more energy, if in fact the recent increase in diabetes is wheat-related.

  • Peter

    4/9/2011 8:11:56 PM |

    I think since so much wheat is eaten in products that are mixtures of wheat, sugar, and vegetable oil, there's no way to know what the culprit is.

  • Botiquin DE Primeros Auxilios

    4/9/2011 9:37:29 PM |

    Well the reason is that wheat is the most important factor for our lives.

  • Dr. William Davis

    4/9/2011 11:59:26 PM |

    Hi, Anon--

    Yes, indeed. Human life was different for at least rural people.

    Also, wheat has changed. This is a crucial, crucial point that explains much of this phenomenon, I believe.

  • Gretchen

    4/10/2011 1:00:56 AM |

    It would be interesting to plot diabetes rates against various possible culprits (pointing out on the graph when diagnostic cutoff changed): wheat, all carbohydrates, size of sodas, computer ownership, average size of restaurant meals, bicycle ownership, hours spent commuting, population older than 65, exposure to Agent Orange, service in Gulf War, and some really silly things like hair length and popular nailpolish colors.

    If only wheat consumption seemed correlated, this would be suggestive.

  • Anonymous

    4/10/2011 4:35:15 AM |

    Wre there ads for All Bran bars and wheat links on this site?

  • Anonymous

    4/10/2011 5:04:08 AM |

    Wheat is ingrained in us, beginning with bread as the "staff of life."

  • Anonymous

    4/10/2011 8:15:51 AM |

    correlation does not equal causation.

    I don't eat wheat, I suffer from all of the problems you describe and it's also related to my psoriasis.  Good hypothesis with all your measurements of post consumption measurement of blood sugars, but someone needs to do a mass study.

  • O Primitivo

    4/10/2011 9:54:59 AM |

    The graph on this post is also very educational:
    http://www.gnolls.org/1086/the-lipid-hypothesis-has-officially-failed-part-1-of-many/

  • Dr. William Davis

    4/10/2011 2:20:27 PM |

    Hi, Ted--

    Great find!

    I wasn't aware of these data. Yet another way that increased yield comes at a price.

  • Anonymous

    4/10/2011 3:19:02 PM |

    Dramatic changes in the slope of a curve are easy to see if you're looking for them, but you've displayed an arithmetic, not a logarmitic axis.  Your point would be better made if you could switch the axis and if we still see the association between the variables.

  • Helen

    4/10/2011 5:39:22 PM |

    Gretchen - Well said.

    I think many things in our modern environment play a role in tipping the scales toward diabetes - including disrupted circadian cycles and environmental toxins, such as fire retardants, plasticizers, and pesticides.  (I don't have time right now to find links from stuff I've read on this - but try Googling these things - the research is there.)  

    Jenny Ruhl claimed a short time ago that while prediabetes has risen, actual diabetes has not.  She is a good resource and I would take her arguments on most things diabetes pretty seriously.  Check her blog if interested:  Diabetes Update.  

    As a mother of a kid with celiac disease, and for other reasons, I am hardly pro-wheat or pro-gluten, but I'm not convinced grains have caused a rise in diabetes.  My daughter's gastroenterologist, however, has Type I diabetes and says that eliminating gluten has greatly improved her glucose control.

  • Anonymous

    4/10/2011 6:54:41 PM |

    When I eyeball this figure, it looks like the change occurs around 1993-1996.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    4/10/2011 10:44:35 PM |

    Helen has a point that under counting of who is "pre-diabetic" is quite possible skewing the data. The CDC changed it's diabetes diagnosis criteria; 1985 wasn't when they did that however.

    CDC took their raw 1995 - 1997 data and in 1998 decided to only use fasting glucose, and not the old standard oral glucose tolerance test, as the CDC diabetes template. For all individuals  whose data was showing greater than ( or equal to) 126 mg/dl fasting glucose they were then counted as diabetic by the CDC.

    This methodology caused CDC to say U.S.A. diabetics went from 8 million in 1995 to 10.3 million diabetics in 1997; a statistically massive 2 year jump of diabetics. And furthermore, the number of un-diagnosed diabetics was claimed to have gone down (in same period of time); they cut out a whole slew of "pre-diabetics", so to speak.

    The other criteria CDC website shows from 1998 is, that when non-fasting glucose hits 200  mg/dl (or more) they are considered diabetic. The reproduced graph Doc posted shows an exponential climb upward right at the time CDC  began using it's altered criteria.

  • brec

    4/11/2011 12:02:06 AM |

    "Note that, from 1958 until 1985, the curve was climbing slowly. After 1985, the curve shifted sharply upward."

    As I look at the presented graph, from 1986 to about 1991 the trend decelerated slightly, then resumed its prior long-term value, then accelerated in about 1997

    However, I must admit that 1997 is "after 1985."

  • Helen

    4/11/2011 12:51:04 AM |

    Other suspects that became prevalent in the food stream in the 1980s were high-fructose corn syrup and artificial trans-fatty acids, both of which are linked to hepatic insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.

  • Daniel A. Clinton, RN, BSN

    4/11/2011 2:43:28 AM |

    I think of all the intelligent, scientifically-reasoned arguments all lead back to the commonsensical notion "Don't eat junk." To start, anything with enriched (aka processed) flour, partially hydrogenated oils, or high fructose corn syrup qualifies as junk. Which isn't to say all disease eminates from just those three ingredients, but I believe completely eliminating those three ingredients would yield a large health benefit to most Americans.

  • Mike

    4/11/2011 2:57:36 AM |

    It takes years for type 2 diabetes to develop. A shift in the rate at which people are diagnosed with it would be caused by something that happened some time before the shift.

  • justdoinglife

    4/11/2011 2:57:59 AM |

    1960 to 1970 is also the time frame that chemical fertilizer came into the mainstream. On the farm I was raised on, along with chemical fertilizers came mineral supplements for the hogs that were living on the fertilized barley. They "failed to prosper" on fertilized barley, where they did just fine on unfertilized barley. By the why, fertilized barley produced over twice the volume of grain, and I assume the same mineral absorption. You can blame the grain, but I believe it could be the fertilizer.

  • madmax

    4/11/2011 5:32:07 PM |

    The chart for the growth of the national debt looks the exact same. I wonder if there is a correlation between the advance of socialism and the cultural ascendancy of the Lipid hypothesis? I'd bet the ranch that the destruction of American health and the destruction of the American economy is not a coincidence.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    4/11/2011 6:15:13 PM |

    Duke university 2008 study fed new born rats 0.1 mg/kg body weight of the organophosphate pesticide parathion, for 4 days. When the rats were adults and fed a high fat diet they noticed a different response among the sexes.

    In the adult females the high fat diet resulted in a 30% higher weight gain ( vs. high fat fed males' 10% weight gain) over controls (according to respective sex) on the same diet. This type of pesticide exposure to young children may be part of how obesity is rising; the standard western fare is high in generic fat content.

    For the parathion early exposed adult male rats fed on a normal diet (ie: not high fat) the results also seem troubling. They gained weight, glucose levels rose, fat break down was inhibited and they were pre-diabetic; as compared to male controls.

    Counter-intuitively, another group of male new born rats fed parathion at 0.2 mg/kg body weight (4 days) when fed a normal diet as male adults actually weighed less than their male controls. Whereas, the female rats (fed normal diet in this case) who got both 0.1 & 0.2 mg/kg parathion (4 days) all weighed less than their female controls. Mothers, don't try this at home.

  • Helen

    4/12/2011 1:17:41 AM |

    Another culprit:

    SSRIs.  Prozac was first marketed in 1988.  (It was not the first, however - some came on the market slightly earlier that decade.)  SSRIs impair glucose tolerance and are associated with an increased risk of diabetes.  

    I think there are some modern-day smoking guns more convincing that increased grain consumption for increased obesity, insulin resistance, and risk of diabetes.  Although they are a neolithic food some of us may not be exquisitely adapted for, they have been around for 5,000 years, while the obesity epidemic is quite recent.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    4/12/2011 4:11:35 AM |

    Hi Helen,
    In 1938 there was a U.S.A. National Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists ; since 1941 the word national was replaced by "American" (ie: now is the ACGIH). 1946 the ACGIH set maximum limits on 148 compounds; which in 1956 became their "Threshold Limit Value", (TLV).

    TLV is not saying "x" level is always safe; just what is supposedly tolerable exposure for most "healthy" adults. ACGIH lays their TLV data out for industrial hygenists to use in their field, not for laymen's general use.

    2-butoxy-ethanol TLV (as a gas or evaporating vapor) is set at 20 ppm. This chemical is the favorite solvent in household spray and wipe cleaning products.

    It makes me wonder if the U.S.A. adult female house cleaner suffers metabolic syndrome at a higher rate than other individuals. If so then might not close decades of breathing 2-butoxyethanol droplets have had/has epigenetic synergy?

    1971 O.S.H.A. took 470 TLVs from ACGIH data and now calls those TLV by the phrase "Permissible Exposure Limit" (PEL). Meanwhile, as of 2010 there are 642 TLVs set out by ACGIH.

    The European Union has a registry of 143,000 chemicals in use (or used); and there are +/- 50,000,000 chemicals known to exist (as per Chemical Abstract Service Registry). The EPA has more details; for searching if you're curios: www.epa.gov/grtlakes/toxteam.
    pbtrept/pbtreport.htm

    2012 the European Union is set to report on chemical testing of all chemicals manufactured in excess of 1,000 tons annually. You'll see that as data reported from "REACH" (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical Substances).

    If you want to track down what chemical is in a product then search out the manufacturers "MSDS" (material safety data sheet). Some claim "trade secret" ingredients and then you can only guess on what is involved.

  • Ensues

    4/12/2011 1:13:53 PM |

    I love the triglyceride posts as I have been working on mine for a number of months.  Was well over 1000.  On low carb, virtually no grains, tricor (200mg), and a healthy dose of fish oil I was still at 233.  I am wondering if it will take my body/metabolism some time to heal before I can get lower.  As you might imagine I am sporting an HDL below 25.  I am working it diligently, have lost a ton of weight and get healthier by the day.  I should be sending Dr Davis a stipend for my improvement!

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    4/12/2011 3:41:28 PM |

    Dr. Davis,
    please kick out of your spam filter the post I just sent on the 12th saying "Hi Helen,". It had resources for her interest in modern chemicals.

    To Helen,
    If my 12th post doesn't show up soon (2 days?) and you request it on this thread I will try to recreate it here. Maybe you've moved on to newer threads; I don't usually monitor old threads, but I will this for a few days.

  • Medicomp INC.

    4/12/2011 4:03:13 PM |

    Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like this ascent is going to slow down anytime soon.  Even if people in recent years seem to be taking a more health-savvy approach to their eating habits, it wouldn't be surprisingly to see this trend continue regardless.

  • dextery

    4/13/2011 5:34:40 PM |

    Western countries have also seen a rise in sugar consumption along with wheat consumption over the same time period.

    Taubes has just published a piece
    "Is Sugar Toxic" and winds his way through diseases of Western cultures from sugar causing metabolic syndrome to sugar be implicated in cancer formation.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ref=magazine

    No where was there any mention of wheat..I don't think we can isolate wheat as the primary culprit in Diseases of Civilization.  Wheat Plus Sugar, the double whammy.

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