Throw away total cholesterol!

17. May 2006 William Davis (1)
Richard's total cholesterol without treatment was 186 mg/dl. "That's great!" his doctor declared, referring to the conventional dictum that total cholesterols less than 200 carry low risk. Several fingersticks in a mall kiosk set up by a local hospital to check total cholesterols confirmed Richard's low number.

But after Richard's unexpected hospitalization and two stents for severe coronary blockages, he demanded better answers.

Tragically, the answer was there all along: Despite a "favorable" total cholesterol, his HDL ("good") cholesterol was a miserable 32 mg (ideal >60 mg).

Total cholesterol is actually the sum total of HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, with a contribution from triglycerides. That's why a low total cholesterol can conceal a low HDL.

This situation is quite common. And low HDL is accompanied by a constellation of other undesirable causes of heart disease, most notably small LDL.

Don't accept total cholesterol as your sole measure of risk. It's nearly worthless. If you live in Bangladesh or a third world country, well perhaps that's the best you can get. But if you live in the U.S. or developed world, it's absurd to rely on total cholesterol.

Smart Start not so smart

15. May 2006 William Davis (2)



Kellogg's has crafted a campaign to support the American Heart Association featuring acress Sela Ward. Her attractive face, familiar to many TV and movie viewers, does add a comforting face to their efforts.

What's in this cereal made by the manufacturers of Pop-Tarts, Cheez-It, Rice Krispies, and Chips Deluxe cookies?

There are, indeed, some healthy ingredients: oat bran, potassium; you can even get a version made with soy protein. But there's sugar listed as the second ingredient. High-fructose corn syrup is also listed prominently. (Remember this issue? High-fructose corn syrup causes overwhelming sugar cravings, causes your triglycerides to skyrocket, and is probably among the principal food ingredients that make you obese.)

Upon detailed questioning of my patients struggling to lose weight, this and products like it are often among the "healthy" foods they've gravitated towards. We spend a great deal of time dissuading them of this idea.

A one-cup serving of Smart Start is low in fat (1 gram) but contains 43 grams of carbohydates, of which there are 14 grams of sugar. There are a meager 3 grams of fiber. To me, this sounds like a cupcake.

The Kellogg's people are exceptionally clever marketers. Partner with the American Heart Association and movie stars? Brilliant!

You should trust food manufacturer advertising about as much as you trust drug manufacturer advertising, which is to say not at all.

Kellogg's sold $10 billion dollars of food products last year. They are the world's leading producer of breakfast cereals. They are a leading producer of convenience foods: cookies, crackers, cereal bars, and frozen waffles under the brands Keebler, Pop-Tarts, Eggo, Cheez-It, Nutri-Grain, Rice Krispies, Famous Amos, and Kashi.

Can they cash in on healthy trends? They'll certainly try.

Does anybody have a normal vitamin D level?

15. May 2006 William Davis (0)
We now routinely check everyone's vitamin D blood level at the start of the program. (The measure to obtain is 25-OH-Vitamin D3. This is not to be confused with 1,25-OH2-vitamin D3, which is a kidney function measure.)

Of the 10 people with levels drawn today, none were even close to normal levels (which we define as 50 ng/ml)--not a single one.

The majority were in the range of severe deficiency (<20 ng/ml). Only two had levels in the 30s. None had higher. (Remember: I'm talking about people in Wisconsin, a terribly sunlight-deprived area much of the year. This might not apply quite as vigorously to Florida residents or others in sun-exposed regions.)

Curiously, I've also seen several people this week who had extraordinary quantities of coronary plaque on their heart scans (scores >1000), all of whom had extremely low vitamin D levels. One of these people had fairly unimpressive lipoproteins, with very minimal abnormalities identified. (This is quite unusual, by the way.) It makes you wonder if a profound deficiency of vitamin D is sufficient to act on its own as an instigator of coronary plaque.

The more we examine the issue of vitamin D deficiency, the more fascinating it gets. I suspect we've just scratched the surface and there's a lot more to learn about this tremendously interesting nutrient. Nonetheless, with what we're seeing in our experience, I'm urging everyone to get a blood vitamin D level.

Don't believe your LDL cholesterol!

14. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Harry's case is typical. For years, his doctor told him his LDL cholesterol of 123 mg was okay. But a heart scan score of 490 (90th percentile at age 52) made him question just where his coronary plaque came from.

Lipoprotein analysis told a very different story: His LDL particle number was 2400 nmol, meaning his trueLDL was more like 240 mg, nearly double the value of LDL obtained through his doctor. Harry had other sources of risk, too, but the LDL particle number was a clear stand-out.

Why does this happen? How can LDL cholesterol be so terribly inaccurate?

LDL cholesterols obtained in virtually all labs are not measured, they're calculated. The calculation was developed in the 1960s by Dr. Friedewald at the National Institutes of Health and therefore goes by his name (the Friedewald calculation). Dr. Friedewald derived this simple calculation to permit doctors across the U.S. to obtain LDL cholesterols, which were technically difficult to measure in those days by using measured HDL, total cholesterol and triglycerides.

Doctors were told that the only time that the Friedewald calculated LDL was inaccurate was when triglycerides exceeded 400 mg. So most family practitioners and internists still believe that calculated LDL's are, for the most part, quite accurate.

Nothing could be further from the truth. When LDL's are actually meaured, you find that LDL is rarely accurate. In fact, in our experience, inaccuracy of 30-50% is the rule, sometimes 100%. The one telltale hint that calculated LDL is wrong is when HDL is <50 mg--that's nearly everybody.

So what's your LDL? You won't really know unless it's measured. Our preferred method is NMR (LipoScience) LDL particle number, probably the most accurate of all. Second best: apoprotein B, direct measured LDL, and non-HDL. (We'll cover this issue much more extensively in an upcoming report on the www.cureality.com website in an extensive Special Report.)

Are you the exception?

14. May 2006 William Davis (0)

I read about 40 heart scans this morning. In the stack was a 41-year old man with a heart scan score of 841.

That's terribly high for anyone, let alone a 41-year old person. He's lucky to find out about this before catastrophe strikes.

People like this worry me. In general, we advise men to consider a heart scan age 40 and older; women 50 and older. If there's anything exceptional about your family history or your own history, then you might notch these numbers down another 5-10 years. For instance, if your Dad had a heart attack at age 43, you might consider a scan at age 35. Or, if you've had diabetes for several years and you're a 42-year old woman, you might think about a scan. (Men tend to develop measurable plaque by heart scans 10 years before women.)

There are no hard and fast rules. It's unusual for a male to have a score >0 before age 40. Likewise, it's very uncommon for a woman to have a score >0 before age 50. But there are occasional exceptions--but they can be very important exceptions.

Our 41-year old man with the score of 841, for instance, probably had a high score since his mid-30s. I've seen several women without any obvious risk factors with scores in the several hundred range in their early 40s.

My rule: When in doubt, opt for safety. Every day, I still read about people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s dying of heart attacks. It shouldn't happen.

When in doubt, get the heart scan. The most you'll lose is the cost of the scan and a modest exposure to radiation. If your score is zero, you know you're safe for the next 5 or more years. But if you have an exceptional score at a young age, take preventive action.

Self-empowerment in health: The new wave in health care

12. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Track Your Plaque is just one facet of the broad and powerful emerging wave of self-empowerment in health.

Hospitals, drug and device manufacturers, and the medical establishment don't like this idea. People managing their own health? That's ridiculous! Dangerous! But mostly unprofitable.

Self-empowerment means having easy access to simple, safe, and inexpensive diagnostic tests like heart scans, carotid scans, bone densitometry (for osteoporosis), cholesterol tests, abdominal ultrasound, even brain scans (e.g., CT or MRI) for people with a family history of brain aneurysm.

Opponents of this idea worry about the "false-positives" that come about with broad testing, i.e, detection of abnormalities that are artifactual. Our experience is that false-positives are only an occasional problem with any test. Instead, we find that most people have many true-positives. In CT heart scanning, for example, we find many unsuspected enlarged aortas (potential future aneurysms), valve disorders, and aortic calcium. These are all important in a preventive program. Unfortunately, your doctor's definition of false-positive often means that no corrective procedure or operation is required.

Other evidence that self-empowerment in health is growing:

--The nutritional supplement movement. What better example of power in managing your own health is there than the fabulous array of nutritional supplements available?

--Medications moving to over-the-counter status. Gradually, more and more medications are trickling into availability for you to obtain without a doctor's prescription.

--What I call "retail imaging", i.e. screening ultrasound, heart scans, full body scans, etc. that are available in most states without a doctor's order.

--The Internet. The rapidity and depth of information available on the Internet today is mind-boggling. It will fuel the self-empowerment movement by providing sophisticated information to the health care consumer previously available only through your physician.

--High-deductible health insurance plans. If health care consumers will bear more and more of the costs of health care, they will seize greater responsibility for early identification and prevention to minimize long-term costs.

There are more. But the movement is powerful and broad--and unstoppable. Let the establishment with vested interests in preserving the status quo fuss and complain, just like horse and buggy manufacturers did in the early 1900's when the autmobile came along.

Vitamin D deficiency is rampant

12. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Today alone I've seen several people with severe deficiencies of vitamin D.

We're now checking everyone's blood vitamin D level at the start of the program. The measure that most accurately reflects your vitamin D status is 25-OH-vitamin D3. This is very confusing to many physicians, who traditionally have thought of 1,25-di-Hydroxy vitamin D3 as the standard test to measure. What they're failing to recognize is that this second measure is a kidney product, not a reflection of vitamin D status.

Using 25-OH-vitamin D3, several people today alone had levels of <10 ng/ml, clearly in the category of severe deficiency (generally regarded as <20ng/ml).

The majority of people we see in the office are Wisconsin residents. It's no wonder they're deficient. Although it's mid-May, we've seen the sun only a handful of days this year. And most of the days have been too chilly to wear short sleeves and shorts to permit sufficient surface area for UV exposure.

Living in a sunny climate, however, is no guarantee that you have sufficient blood vitamin D levels. Two recent studies have shown that 30-50% of the residents of sunny southern Florida and Hawaii are also deficient. (Why, I'm not sure.)

Although our experience thus far is anecdotal in several hundred people, my impression is that people who have normal blood levels of vitamin D (we regard normal as 45-50 ng/ml) have a far easier time of halting or regressing coronary plaque.

Vitamin D is among the most exciting nutritional tools we've come across in a long time. The conversation is making the media, which impresses me tremendously, given the fact that nobody stands to profit financially to any significant degree through vitamin D supplementation.

For a wonderful collection of discussions on vitamin D, go to Dr. John Cannell's website, www.vitaminDcouncil.com. You'll find a huge quantity of scientific background and conversation on the whole idea. I believe you will be thoroughly impressed with just how powerful the argument in favor of vitamin D has become.

What if wheat products were illegal?

11. May 2006 William Davis (3)
Imagine if anything made of wheat were illegal: bread, bagels, crackers, pasta, pretzels, donuts, Shredded Wheat cereal, Raisin Bran, pastry, cookies, cakes, cupcakes. . . Your grocery store would then be unable to carry any of these products.

How empty would the grocery store shelves be?

There would be very little. The stores would be filled instead with vegetables and fruits, meats, and dairy products. But aisle after aisle would be empty. There'd be no cereal aisle. There'd be no snack chip aisle. The ordinarily overcrowded bread shelves wouldn't be there.

Bakery? Nope, not there either. Pasta and noodles? Empty. How about cakes and pastries? Also gone.

Getting the picture? American groceries are dominated by wheat products. What would happen to your health and the health of your family if wheat were abruptly removed from your choices? Would you be less healthy?

No. In fact, your health would be hugely improved. You'd lose a significant quantity of weight. Extraordinary numbers of people would lose diabetic or pre-diabetic tendencies. Feelings of sluggishness, sleepiness, and moodiness would dissolve. Blood pressure would be reduced. The incidence of cancer, skin disease, and inflammatory diseases would plumet.

From a plaque control perspective, your HDL cholesterol would rise, triglycerides drop. Small LDL would improve dramatically.

The message: Slash wheat products from your diet. Yes, you'll miss the smell and taste of freshly baked bread. But you'll do it for many more healthy years. And you may do it without a 14 inch scar in your chest.

The sobering tale of small LDL

10. May 2006 William Davis (0)
Every day, I learn to respect small LDL more and more.

Small LDL particles, and its evil partner, low HDL, is among the most common reasons why someone fails to fully gain control of coronary plaque and heart disease risk.

Just yesterday, I saw a slender businessman (6 feet 1 inch in height, 186 lb.) whose small pattern persisted despite niacin, fish oil, oat bran, and raw almonds. We generally think of small LDL as an overweight person's pattern, but in some people the genetics are quite powerful and it can be expressed even in slender people.

The solution: More physical activity and exercise; cut back on processed carbohydrates, particularly wheat products like breads, pasta, crackers, breakfast cereals; think about magnesium (see our two recent reports on magnesium on the www.cureality.com membership website, the latest report to be posted this week); be sure sleep is adequate (gauge this by whether you're energetic during the day and don't fall asleep watching TV or movies). Lack of sufficient physical activity in people with sedentary jobs is probably among the most common reason the small LDL pattern persists.

Ignore small LDL and it can be like a hidden cancer in your body, growing and metastasizing (not literally, of course), fueling coronary plaque growth. Be sure your doctor assesses whether you have small LDL if you hope to gain control of your coronary risk.

Burn off the fat

9. May 2006 William Davis (0)

If you've ever wondered just how many calories you're burning with various activities like yard work, driving, climbing stairs, etc. go to this great website that will calculate it for you: http://www.caloriecontrol.org/exercalc.html.

Here are some examples:


Dancing for 30 minutes(fast, e.g., tango): 193 calories
Yoga for 30 minutes: 204 calories
Washing the car for 30 minutes: 173 calories
Vacuuming for 30 minutes: 88 calories

(All are for a 170 lb person.)

As you see, physical activity does not necessarily have to consist of exercise. It doesn't require fancy equipment or expensive outfits. But it does require you to keep moving. Sedentary work is among the most common reasons I see in my patients for failing to control weight and its associated lipoprotein patterns, like low HDL and small LDL.

If your work is sedentary, then a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity per day is necessary to begin to correct weight-related patterns. If you gauge by calories burned, then a useful goal is 500 calories per day in physical activity--at a minimum.
"Friday is my bad day"

"Friday is my bad day"

19. November 2011 William Davis (29)
At the start, Ted had a ton of small LDL particles. His starting (NMR) lipoprotien values:

LDL particle number: 2644 nmol/L

Small LDL: 2301 nmol/L

In other words, approximately 85% of all LDL particles were abnormally small. I showed Ted how to use diet to markedly reduce small LDL particles, including elimination of wheat, limiting other carbohydrates, and even counting carbohydrates to keep the quantity no higher than 15 grams per meal ("net" carbs).

Ted comes back 6 months later, having lost 14 pounds in the process (and now with weight stabilized). Another round of lipoproteins show:

LDL particle number: 1532 nmol/L

Small LDL: 799 nmol/L

Better, but not perfect. small LDL persists, representing nearly 50% of total LDL particle number.

So I quiz Ted about his diet. "Gee, I really stick to this diet. I have nothing made of wheat, no sugars. I count my carbs and I almost never go higher . . . except on Fridays."

"What happens on Friday?" I asked.

"That's when I'm bad. Not really bad. Maybe just a couple of slices of pizza. Or I'll go out for a big custard cone or something. That wouldn't do it, would it?"

That's the explanation. Your liver is well-equipped to recognize normal, large LDL particles. Large LDL particles therefore "live" for only a couple of days in the bloodstream. But the human liver does not recognize the peculiar configuration of small LDL particles, so it lets them pass--over and over and over again. The result: Once triggered by, say two slices of pizza, small LDL particles persist for 5 days, sometimes longer.

So Ted's one "bad" day per week is enough to allow a substantial quantity of small LDL particles to persist. While a fat indulgence (if there is such a thing) pushes large LDL up, the effect is relatively short-lived. Have a carbohydrate indulgence, on the other hand, and small LDL particles persist for up to a week. It means that Ted's one "bad" day per week is enough to allow his small LDL particles to persist at this level, preventing him from gaining full control over coronary plaque.

It also means that, if you have blood drawn for lipoprotein analysis but had a carbohydrate goodie within the previous week, small LDL particles may be exaggeratedly high.
Tags :

Comments (29) -

  • yuma

    11/19/2011 4:45:34 PM |

    This is scary! One bad day sets you back a week.
    I limit my carbohydrates (zero grains, no more than 25 grams of sugar) to no more than 100 per day. How low should I go?

  • Jeff

    11/19/2011 8:44:09 PM |

    Dr. Davis, I think we need some clarification on "carbohydrates" -such as which sub-group, sugars (of which there are also sub-groups), starches (more sub-groups), and fiber (more sub groups) need limits. Obviously, sugars are of top concern, with starches following close behind. But arent some of the fiber carbohydrates desirable?

  • Jeff

    11/19/2011 8:45:36 PM |

    I think your website clock is off by twelve hours.....

  • Mary Titus

    11/19/2011 10:58:44 PM |

    How would this affect triglycerides, Dr. Davis.

  • Might-o'chondri-AL

    11/20/2011 4:24:33 AM |

    Hi All-
    Got server error where this belongs, so...about lamestream media hype of vitamin D & fibrilation here is the study's own press release - they only worry about D over 100ng/ml.
    Quote:  "... Dr. Bunch and his colleagues examined blood tests from 132,000 patients in the Intermountain Healthcare database.Patients did not have any known history of atrial fibrillation, and all had previously received a vitamin D assessment as part of their routine care. Patients were then placed into categories to compare levels of vitamin D: low (less than 20 nanograms per decilter), low/normal (21-40 ng/dl), normal (41-80 ng/dl), high/normal (81-100 ng/dl), and excess (more than 100).Patients with vitamin D levels in the normal range were compared with other groups to assess their risk of developing atrial fibrillation.
    In patients with low, low-normal, normal and high-normal levels of vitamin D there was no increased risk of atrial fibrillation.  However, in those with excess levels of vitamin D there was a significant increased risk of atrial fibrillation.  Atrial fibrillation risk was two and a half times greater in patients with excess levels of vitamin D compared to those with normal levels."

  • Teresa

    11/20/2011 2:42:29 PM |

    Thanks for bringing that up, Al.  I had heard of the study, but hadn't gotten around to looking it up.  

    Two and a half times higher risk of atrial fibrillation may not be as much of an increase as it sounds.  It depends on how many people were in the group, and what the real numbers are.  I found this on WebMD:  http://www.webmd.boots.com/heart-disease/news/20111118/high-vitamin-d-levels-linked-to-heart-condition

    The risk of a-fib in those with normal levels of vit D was 1.4%.  With high levels, it was 3.8%.  It isn't that much of a difference, and not as significant as it would be if the risk went from say 10% to 25%.  It is also not as significant if the group number is very small, but we don't have that information.  

    I also found this note on a case study in which a-fib stopped after starting vit D.  Go figure.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2379840

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/20/2011 3:53:11 PM |

    Triglycerides tend to go up, Mary, though not with the same magnitude as small LDL particles.

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/20/2011 3:57:27 PM |

    Hi, Jeff--

    The problem with the fiber is that it comes with digestible carbohydrate. It means that a slice of white Wonder bread triggers small LDL, but so does a cup of quinoa, millet, or buckwheat, all fiber-rich grains.

    Got to be careful: We can't fall for the same logic that has fooled generations of nutritionists: If something bad for you is replaced by something less bad and there is apparent benefit, lots of the less bad thing is good for you.

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/20/2011 3:58:35 PM |

    Wow, that's a lot, Yuma.

    It varies with individual carbohydrate sensitivity, but most people tolerate 15 grams per meal well without postprandial rises in blood glucose or triggering of small LDL.

  • STG

    11/20/2011 4:26:57 PM |

    Dr. Davis:
    It amazes me how some nutritionists  (e.g., ADA or AHA  based) and diet book writers encourage people to cheat on their diets without considering the health impacts. Clearly a mixed message when one is told to make changes, but then told that they can ignore the dietary changes once a week or on special occasions or holidays.

  • Dr Matti Tolonen

    11/21/2011 11:44:07 AM |

    Hi doc, are you sure you have the right units (nmol/l)? Hwere in  Europe, the target for LDL is less than 3 mmol/l which would equal to 3000 µg/l (not nmol/l).

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/21/2011 1:39:01 PM |

    Hi, STG--

    Yes, it is amazing. I have done so many lipoprotein panels (tens of thousands) that I see patterns that a casual observer would not see. This is a substantial, though underappreciated, effect.

  • Jim

    11/21/2011 2:11:19 PM |

    Great post Doc! That really brings the message home.

  • Jeff

    11/21/2011 3:43:08 PM |

    Actually, I am questioning how much do we ned to be concerned about the carbohydrate content of things like green peppers or onions? Flax seed has a nearly all-fiber carb content, doesn't it? What's a safe daily target for total carbohydrate intake, and how should we do the math, if any?

  • Kent

    11/21/2011 4:18:48 PM |

    Knowing that high postprandial glucose levels cause an increase in small ldl particles. And we know that carbohydrates, especially wheat, significantly raise post prandial glucose levels. Would it make sense that Ted could cheat on Fridays with a carb load and still drop his particle score just by exercising after being bad if it kept his glucose levels from spiking?

  • Renfrew

    11/21/2011 10:19:10 PM |

    Kent,
    exercising after "cheating" (eating carbs) MAY work, especially for people who still have enough residual beta cells left in their pancreas and not much insulin resistance. But often exercise is counterproductive because the exercise raises cortisol levels which in turn release blood sugar from the liver. This can only be determined by tight blood sugar measuring (pre/post exercise).
    Renfrew

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/22/2011 3:16:41 AM |

    Hi, Jeff--

    It varies, but most people can do well with around 15 grams carbohydrate grams ("net" carbs, meaning total carbs minus fiber) per meal.

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/22/2011 3:17:26 AM |

    This has never been studied, Kent, but I suspect that exercising will only partially blunt the effect, not eliminate it.

  • steve

    11/23/2011 2:36:27 AM |

    Dr Davis:
    Where do you come out regarding the "safe starch" debate on the Jimmy Moore website?

  • Lindas

    11/23/2011 2:47:10 AM |

    Can anyone (or Dr. Davis)  tell me what they include in their 15 gr. carb meals?  how many carbs per day total,,,,SNACKS ETC? does this cause ketosis?  I've been trying to eat right,  however, at 8:30 PM my blood sugar was 112. is that bad or ok?  I'm a 61 year old woman. my calcium score 4/11 was 206. thank you

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/25/2011 2:13:48 PM |

    Sorry, Steve, I'm not familiar with that term.

    If you are referring to amylose, the form of carbohydrate that is less efficiently digested, it will boil down to blood sugar consequences of a specific amylose-containing food.

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/25/2011 2:15:10 PM |

    Hi, Lindas--

    I aim for blood sugar to stay below 100 mg/dl--all the time, including after meals.

    Ketosis can occur, though usually not. Eat vegetables, nuts and nut meals, oils, olives, avocados, meats, cheese. Plenty to eat without wheat and limited carbs.

  • Chris Buck

    11/26/2011 5:09:38 AM |

    Can I add vegetables does not include potatoes, corn, and rice - just to be clear.

  • Dr. William Davis

    11/27/2011 2:16:38 PM |

    Yes, correct. They will trigger small LDL if consumed in anything but the smallest portion size (e.g., more than 1/2 cup).

  • steve

    11/28/2011 6:18:55 PM |

    Dr Davis:
    The "safe starch" discussion is related to rice and potatoes being "safe starch" according to the writers of the Perfect Health Diet, The Jaminets.

    1/2 cup serving per meal X3 = 1.5 cups per day.  If three meals consumed in a day and zero at one meal could you eat 1 cup at one meal, and 1/2 cup at another and still be ok from an overall perspective?
    Are you advocating zero rice, potatoes as well as wheat and other starches?
    How is the level of acceptable maximum small LDL?
    Which would you find more acceptable for a person with CAD with normal weight, thryroid, D?
    LDL 2200
    small 200
    HDL 69
    The above with no statins; or
    LDL 650
    small <90
    HDL 60
    The above with statins
    Both with virtually zero starch
    Is zero starch healthy?  Will zero starch induce thyroid issues?
    Meat, chesse, fish, veggie diet healthy ok for those who cannot eat nuts?

    Thanks,
    Wheat Belly sound advice; I have recommended it to several who have  gotten the book

  • STG

    11/29/2011 3:19:21 AM |

    Dr. Davis:
    What population develops small LDL--your patients, anyone who eats carbohydrates, individuals with defective glucose metabolism (e.g., prediabetic, diabetic, insulin resistant)?

  • Dr. William Davis

    12/1/2011 4:22:34 AM |

    Yes and yes. It is truly ubiquitous with few modern people escaping it.

  • Dr. William Davis

    12/1/2011 4:27:04 AM |

    Hi, Steve--

    The triggering of small LDL tends to be dependent on the contents of a single meal. It does not necessarily mean zero carbohydrates, but staying below the threshold for provocation, which can be approximated by checking a 1-hour postprandial glucose: If any rise above the pre-prandial level is seen, then there is potential for provoking small LDL.

    There is no confident answer to which is better. But, given the apo E4-driven or other abnormal metabolic pattern with the LDL particle number of 2200, I would opt for statin, much as I hate to say it.

  • Amos

    12/7/2011 7:25:33 AM |

    I'm not familiar with American blood sugar levels....what on earth would it mean to keep blood sugar under 100, in Canadian terms?  (I've been given a target of 4-7 before meals, and 7-9 after meals....)

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