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Track Your Plaque shows how to use
CT heart scans as the 1st step in a proven program to slow, stop, even
REVERSE heart disease!
In this issue:
Hello, everybody!
  In
the month of February, we focus on the impact of attitude on your plaque
control program.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that an optimistic attitude—one that
sees the bright side in situations, seeks the best in other people,
overcomes hurdles—stacks the odds heavily in your favor of dropping your
heart scan score.
A pessimistic attitude, in contrast, almost guarantees failure. If a
why-is-everything-wrong, it-never-goes-my-way, complaining attitude
dominates your internal dialogue, then you’re making it far more
difficult, perhaps impossible, to reduce your score—even if you achieve
the same objective goals as the optimist in cholesterol, weight,
exercise, etc.
In this month’s issue of the newsletter, as well as on the Track Your
Plaque Member website, we focus on this fascinating and critical issue.
Track in health!
Dr. Davis
Another Track Your Plaque
success story: Smiles win out over frowns!
I seriously underestimated Merrill from the moment I
met her. At 73 years old, standing a grandmotherly 5 feet tall, but
weighing 230 lbs., I immediately judged Merrill to be an undisciplined
woman, not the least bit interested in health. Boy, was I wrong.
But Merrill did strike me with her big smile stretching from ear to ear.
She was, after all, here to talk about heart disease, a subject that
makes most people anxious, nauseated, even angry. Yet here was this
wonderfully upbeat woman, eager to hear what I had to say about her high
heart scan score of 822.
This was in contrast to Merrill’s husband, John. I met John just two
days after his wife, for the same reason. John’s heart scan score:1392.
But John’s reaction was entirely different from his wife’s. He was
trembling, sweating, so nervous that he was barely able to comprehend
our conversation.
Both underwent the same process: stress tests (due to their high
scores). Merrill’s was normal; John’s showed a small area of poor flow
but insufficient to prompt any further action such as heart
catheterization. Husband and wife both had lipoproteins analyzed and,
predictably, both had extensive abnormalities. (John’s pattern was
principally characterized by low HDL and small LDL, while Merrill had
small LDL and lipoprotein (a). Track Your Plaque followers will
immediately recognize that Merrill’s pattern was a more difficult one. )
Fast-forward one year. On this meeting, Merrill and John came to the
office together to discuss the results of their 2nd heart scans. John
characteristically sat nervously, anticipating bad news. Merrill sat
undaunted and unaffected by her husband’s jitteriness.
“Give me the bad news, doc,” John spat, barely able to look me in the
eye. Merrill’s smile faded for just a second. She said, “Come on, John.
Don’t be so glum.” She then looked me straight in the eye and bravely
declared, “If the doctor says it’s bad, he’s going to tell us what we
should do next.”
As it turned out, John’s 2nd heart scan score was 1533, a 10% increase.
Merrill’s score: 768, 6.5% decrease.
Granted, Merrill tried harder over the course of the year. She’d lost 20
lbs. to John’s 3 lb gain. She managed to maintain a modest walking
program, while John watched football. Merrill, though she indulged
during the holidays, for the most part made healthy food choices but
watched while John refused to change old unhealthy eating habits.
I believe that I could have predicted—right from the start—which of the
two, Merrill or John, was likely to succeed in gaining control and
reversing coronary plaque. While John struggled with the internal demons
in his head that prevented him from adopting new healthy habits, seeing
them as interfering with “his way”, Merrill openly embraced any
reasonable new idea that held promise for improving health. John’s
resentful, frightened attitude made it tough for him to get up and be
active, or to resist food temptations. Merrill’s smiling, can-do
attitude allowed her to accept change.
Dr. Davis: The results speak for themselves. After 45 years of
marriage, I suppose that even an incurable optimist like Merrill would
quit hoping that her pessimistic husband would learn from his mistakes.
I tell the story of this interesting couple to help you see what a
difference attitude makes. Is it Merrill’s willingness to change, her
energy for adopting new eating and exercise habits, or her optimism that
made the difference? After all, both Merrill and John achieved similar
values in lipoproteins after their year on the program, though Merrill
did have the tougher-to-control lipoprotein(a). Yet Merrill achieved
what previously had been thought to be impossible: she reversed her
coronary atherosclerotic plaque, while John simply managed to slow
growth.
I won’t pretend to have the final answer, but I think that this couple
provides an example of how an optimistic attitude, for whatever reason,
yields distinct advantages in conquering heart disease that may not be
fully reproducible just by taking medication or supplements. Optimism
may dissolve the hurdles of resistance, provide more energy to overcome
obstacles, or there may simply be something “magical” about being happy.
I don’t know which aspect of optimism makes it distinctly advantageous,
but I have no doubt that it does indeed help you succeed.
(Track Your Plaque Members: See our February Special Report:
Optimism, Pessimism, and Coronary Plaque.) .
At what score should I have a
heart catheterization?
This question comes up frequently: At what specific
heart scan score should a heart catheterization be performed? In other
words, is there a specific cut-off that automatically triggers a need
for catheterization?
In my view, there is no such score. We cannot say, for instance, that
everybody with a score above 400, or above 1000 should have a
catheterization. It is true that the higher your score, the greater the
likelihood of plaque blocking flow. A score of 1000 carries an
approximately 25-30% likelihood of reduced blood flow sufficient to
consider a stent or bypass. This can nearly always be settled with a
stress test. Recall that, despite the pitfalls of stress tests for
uncovering hidden heart disease in the first place, they are useful as
gauges of coronary blood flow. Stents and bypass surgery do not decrease
the incidence of heart attack (unless they’re undertaken in the midst of
heart attack, or an immediately impending heart attack), but they do
effectively restore coronary blood flow.
But even a score of 1000 carries a 70-75% likelihood that a procedure
will not be beneficial. This is too high to justify doing heart
catheterizations willy-nilly.
Unfortunately, some of my cardiologist colleagues will say that any
heart scan score justifies a heart cath. Or, they may pick an arbitrary
number of, say, 400, that “justifies” need for a heart catheterization.
I believe this is absolutely, unquestionably, and inexcusably wrong.
More often than not, this attitude is borne out of ignorance, laziness,
or a desire for profit. There is not a single published clinical study
that suggests this is necessary or beneficial. Heart scans are
wonderfully useful tests, but they should not change the reasons to
pursue major heart procedures like heart catheterization, stents, or
bypass surgery. There should be no such thing as a prophylactic heart
catheterization, or prophylactic stent or bypass.
Does every lump or bump justify surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy on
the chance it could represent cancer? Of course not. There is indeed a
time and place for these things, but judgment is involved.
In my view, no heart scan score should automatically prompt a major
heart procedure like heart catheterization in a person without symptoms.
If you have a heart catheterization for your score just to “see how bad
your heart is”, or “to define your coronary anatomy”, or “prevent a
heart attack,” yet you have no symptoms and a stress test was either not
performed or was normal, you’ve been done a grave disservice.
Heart scans are primarily tools for 1) identification of long-term
risk—not risk for heart attack next Tuesday, and 2) prevention. They
should not be used as tricks to enrich your hospital or cardiologist.
Unfortunately, they are often used in this way.
Information is the protection you need to be properly armed against the
forces that view heart disease as the number one profit maker in
medicine..
Interested in becoming a Track Your Plaque Member?
If you’re interested in finding out more about becoming
a Member of Track Your Plaque, go to the
Track Your
Plaque Member Benefits page. See why more and more people are
finding out that there are alternatives to the conventional answers (or
lack of answers!) for heart disease.
Track Your Plaque Members: Watch for our upcoming
Special Reports
Watch for our upcoming Special Reports on:
Optimism, pessimism, and coronary plaque
Can an optimistic outlook affect whether or not you reduce your heart
scan score? Does a negative, pessimistic,
everything’s-wrong-in-the-world pessimistic attitude prevent your
success? Read our detailed special report on this important and
fascinating issue.
Tip the scales towards plaque reversal
There’s no one easy formula to achieve coronary plaque reversal: no
single pill, supplement, food that guarantees that you drop your heart
scan score. But there are indeed factors which can work in favor or
against the likelihood that you gain control over your coronary plaque.
Ten ways to use oat bran
The beta glucan in oat bran reduces LDL cholesterol, undesirable small
LDL particles, and inflammatory measures like CRP. But many people
struggle with ways to incorporate oat bran into their day to day
program. Nurse Carol comes up with 10 easy ways.
Are stress tests a waste of time?
If you already know that you have coronary plaque, what purpose does a
stress test play? Does it provide any advantage, any additional
information to you and your doctor? Or are stress tests a complete waste
of time, just another test to generate revenues for your doctor and
hospital?.
Copyright 2007, Track Your Plaque
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