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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!
  We’ve
been busy at Track Your Plaque!
Over the last few months, a lot has happened in the Track Your Plaque
program:
• The Track Your Plaque Member Forum has exploded, with nearly 14,000
posts by our Members!
• Our Data Tracking software tools have been launched. This allows
Members to enter data, such as heart scan scores, lipids and
lipoproteins, vitamin D, blood sugars, etc. Data can be graphed and
viewed over time. Members can view the data of other Members (if
permission is provided by the Member).
• New experiences with thyroid, iodine, vitamin D, vitamin K2 and other
important plaque-control strategies have developed.
Our most recent new service is at-home laboratory testing. You can now
get blood tests, including thyroid tests (free T3, free T4, TSH),
vitamin D, c-reactive protein, testosterone, progesterone, and lipids
(total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides, but no HDL yet—to come in
future), by performing a simple finger stick (device provided) at home.
This really great service will help people who’ve struggled to get
proper lab testing, or desire more frequent lab testing.
This is yet another facet of what I call self-directed healthcare, a
powerful and emerging trend that I predict will change the face of
healthcare in the coming years.
Track in health!
Dr. Davis
Another Track Your Plaque Success Story:
What to do when plaque doesn’t stop growing!
What should you do if a 2nd heart scan fails to show a
decrease in score, but instead shows an increase in score?
Let’s discuss Randall’s case. Randall is a slender, 46-year old dentist
who’d been only casually involved in his health. A heart scan score of
129, placing him in the 87th percentile (higher score than 87% of men
his age) changed that, confirming substantial coronary risk even at his
relatively young age.
Randall’s doctor drew a blank when asked why this had happened, since
basic cholesterol values were favorable without medication (LDL
cholesterol 118 mg/dl, HDL 64 mg/dl, triglycerides 88 mg/dl) and there
were no obvious causes like smoking or high blood pressure. So Randall’s
doctor prescribed Lipitor® and patted him on the back.
A second heart scan score two years later yielded a score of 197,
representing a 23.5% per year rate of plaque growth - too much. That’s
when Randall sought out the Track Your Plaque program.
We identified several unaddressed causes of coronary plaque, including
an increased level of lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), at 144 nmol/L; profound
deficiency of vitamin D with a starting level of 10 ng/ml; and very low
testosterone level. We initiated treatments for all, though Randall
struggled with the niacin we usually start with, along with
testosterone, to reduce Lp(a). Randall’s Lp(a) stalled at 98 nmol/L,
short of our goal of <75 nmol/L.
One year later, another heart scan on this new program: score 210, or an
annual rate of plaque growth of 6.5% - substantially better, but still
room for improvement.
That brings us to the present. All Randall’s plaque-causing measures
were at ideal levels - except for Lp(a). We therefore talked about our
unique strategies for Lp(a) reduction, such as high-dose omega-3 fatty
acids and thyroid strategies.
Will that be enough to finally bring Randall’s plaque growth to a stop
or even achieve a reduction of score? Time will tell.
Dr. Davis:
Randall’s case provides a great example of how heart scan scores provide
useful feedback on the adequacy of your plaque-control program.
Can you tell whether plaque has grown or been reduced just by looking at
someone? Or looking at their cholesterol values? No. Nobody can. That’s
why we resort to heart scans - a measure of total coronary plaque.
I’d only wished that we’d met Randall after his first scan and had
instituted a more intensive plaque-control program from the start.
Nonetheless, Randall, now age 49, is finally on a great program, one
likely to completely stop any future plaque growth.
Thyroid and coronary plaque: The unexpected connection
At what point does thyroid dysfunction, low thyroid in particular,
impact on risk for heart disease?
Traditional thinking was that it required flagrant, advanced low thyroid
function to increase risk for heart disease. After all, years ago, when
people died of low thyroid function, they’d have extraordinary degrees
of coronary plaque uncovered at autopsy. Turn-of-the-last-century
records of these unfortunate people were filled with descriptions of
extravagant quantities of plaque in multiple arteries.
What was not appreciated was that even early thyroid dysfunction added
to coronary plaque growth, even with thyroid blood tests in the normal
range.
A new look at thyroid reveals that:
1) Low thyroid is rampant, affecting at least 25% of the adult
population.
2) Low thyroid is an effective means to reduce cardiovascular risk.
Why? The earliest, subtle, and often asymptomatic degrees of thyroid
dysfunction increases LDL cholesterol, lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a), increases
triglycerides, and adds to coronary plaque growth).
Correcting subtle levels of low thyroid:
1) Makes LDL reduction much easier
2) Facilitates weight loss
3) Reduces Lp(a)
The recent HUNT Study, an important observational study in 25,000
people, recorded increased heart attack and fatal cardiovascular events
starting well within the normal range of TSH values, the most common
blood test used to diagnose low thyroid function. (The higher the TSH,
the poorer the thyroid function.) While a “normal” TSH is usually
regarded as 5.5 mIU or greater, HUNT Study data suggest cardiovascular
risk begins with a TSH as low as 1.5 mIU.
This and similar data opens a whole new world of possibilities regarding
the intimate relationship of thyroid function and heart disease and what
can be achieved with correction of low thyroid function.
I find it fascinating that many of the most potent strategies we are now
employing in the Track Your Plaque process are hormonal: thyroid
hormones, T3 and T4; vitamin D (the hormone cholecalciferol);
testosterone; progesterone; DHEA, pregnenolone. Omega-3 fatty acids,
while not hormones themselves, exert many of their beneficial effects
via the eicosanoid hormone pathway. Elimination of wheat and cornstarch
exert their benefits via a reduction in the hormone insulin's wide
fluctuations.
Thank you, Crestor®
I'm sure everyone by now has seen the Crestor® ads run by drugmaker
AstraZeneca. TV ads, magazine ads, and the Crestor® website all echoing
the same message:
“While I was busy building my life, something else was busy building in
my arteries: dangerous plaque.”
While previous drug trials with Mevacor®, Pravachol®, Zocor®, and
Lipitor® have focused mostly on examining whether the drugs reduced
incidence of cardiovascular events, Crestor® studies have also focused
on effects on atherosclerotic plaque volume. The best example is the
ASTEROID trial that demonstrated approximately 7% reduction in plaque
volume by intracoronary ultrasound.
So the AstraZeneca decision makers took the leap from cholesterol
reduction to plaque reduction.
I'm sure this switch wasn't taken lightly, but was the topic of
discussion at many meetings before the decision to make plaque reduction
the focus of hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising. After all,
billions of dollars are at stake in this bloated statin market.
Ordinarily, I couldn't care less about how the drug manufacturers
conduct their advertising campaigns. But this one I paid attention to
because the Crestor® ads are helping fuel a new way of thinking about
coronary heart disease: It's not about the cholesterol; it's about the
atherosclerotic plaque that accumulates in arteries.
It's not cholesterol that grows, limits coronary blood flow, and causes
angina. It's not cholesterol that "ruptures" its internal contents to
the surface within the interior of the blood vessel and causes blood
clot and heart attack. It's not cholesterol that fragments from the
carotid arteries and showers debris to the brain, causing stroke. It's
all plaque.
I took the same leap years ago, though not backed by hundreds of
millions of dollars of marketing money. When I first called my book
Track Your Plaque, some of the feedback I got from editors included
comments like "I thought this was a book about teeth!" Even now, the
word "plaque" in the book title and website is responsible for
confusion.
But AstraZeneca is helping me clear up the confusion. As the word plaque
gains hold in public consciousness, it will become increasingly clear
that cholesterol reduction is not what we're after. We are looking for
reduction of plaque.
If you are trying to develop an effective means to reduce or reverse
coronary heart disease, then there are two simple equations to keep in
mind:
Plaque = coronary heart disease
Cholesterol ≠ coronary heart disease
Plaque is the disease, cholesterol is not. Cholesterol is simply a crude
risk orf plaque.
While I'm no friend to the drug industry nor to AstraZeneca, some good
will come of their efforts.
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 new and upcoming Features and Special Reports on:
Track Your Plaque
University
Watch for this series of online courses
on reversing heart disease. Earn your Track Your Plaque "degree"
and become your own expert!
Thermoregulation
and the Track Your Plaque
Program
Internal temperature regulation,
"thermoregulation," can reveal important insights into your body's
thyroid and adrenal status. Learn how and why you should consider this
simple parameter as part of your plaque-control effort.
Copyright 2009, Track Your Plaque
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