Track Your Plaque is the revolutionary approach that shows you how heart scans and the latest medical and natural treatments can be combined to create the most powerful heart attack prevention program available!

In this issue:

• Another Track Your Plaque success story! Mark is an athlete to the core: a trophy winner in high school and college, now a high school track and basketball coach. Not an ounce of fat on his body, jogging 7-minute miles several times a week. Not a guy you'd think who would have hidden coronary plaque...

• Danger! This product contains high-fructose corn syrup! Watch out for this ubiquitous sweetener that can booby-trap your program.

Also, Track Your Plaque Members :

Visit www.trackyourplaque.com for a new article highlighting vitamin D -- yes, boring old vitamin D. This terribly neglected nutrient has taken center-stage as perhaps the most crucial nutritional supplement for success in your heart attack prevention program.

Also read a provocative discussion from Track Your Plaque staff expert Dr. Loren Cordain, author of The Paleo Diet. Dr. Cordain's study of primitive cultures provides unexpected lessons for modern health, including helpful insights to apply to your plaque-control program. You'll find his comments fascinating.

 Mark's story -- from disaster to success in two years

At 6 feet 1 inch and 167 pounds, Mark is a slender, fit man of 49. His responsibilities as a physical education teacher, high school track and basketball coach, as well as father of two children, more than fill his days. Nonetheless, Mark maintains a demanding exercise routine of jogging 3 to 4 miles at least three times per week He made a habit of staying clear of fast foods and insisted that his family do so, also. He ate a daily large salad using olive oil based dressings. Lean proteins comprised a major portion of his diet: baked fish and chicken, egg whites and Egg Beaters, low-fat yogurt and cottage cheese, and almonds and walnuts.

Mark's' perfect physical condition was marred by one nagging concern: His dad had suffered a major heart attack at age 51. His dad hadn't been in the same physical condition as Mark at the time of his heart attack, but Mark was much like his dad in just about every other way.

So Mark had a heart scan. The score: 151, in the 99th percentile for men in his age group. His lipid/lipoprotein analysis uncovered two causes (you sure couldn't blame lifestyle!): LDL cholesterol and lipoprotein(a). Correction of LDL using the Track Your Plaque adjunctive approaches (e.g., oat bran, phytosterols, etc.) along with a cholesterol-reducing medication, and niacin to reduce lipoprotein(a), formed Mark's initial program.

Confident of success in stopping plaque growth, Mark had another heart scan 18 months later. The score: 229, a 51% increase in score. This prompted a more vigorous approach to reducing lipoprotein(a) further, since Mark's initial program achieved only partial correction.

One year and some hand-wringing later, Mark achieved a score of 219, 10 points below the last score. Success at last!

It took over two years, but the particularly difficult lipoprotein(a) can present unique challenges. Nonetheless, Mark succeeded in stopping plaque growth before the onset of danger. Imagine what his score would have done without this approach!

More details on the Track Your Plaque approach to lipid (cholesterol) management, the use of lipoprotein testing to power-boost your program, and why lipoprotein(a) is a crucial marker to understand and control, can be found in the Member website. Click here to sign-up if you're not already a member!

Instant Health: Advice you can use right away to improve your plaque-control program

Eliminate high-fructose corn syrup

"High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a sweetener found in everything from fruit drinks to spaghetti sauce. Kids love it, adults are ingesting more and more of it—and it's making us overweight, diabetic, and causing lipoprotein abnormalities to explode. Here's how to mount a counterattack on this ubiquitous food additive.  

There is an urgent need for increased public awareness of the risks associated with high fructose consumption and greater efforts should be made to curb the supplementation of packaged foods with high fructose additives."

Dr. H. Basciano
Hospital for Sick Children
University of Toronto

High-fructose corn syrup (corn syrup highly enriched in fructose; HFCS) is hard to escape—it's a major ingredient in all sorts of processed foods. You'll find it in soft drinks, pancake syrups, sweet breakfast cereals, candies, and sweetened yogurts. You'll also find it in less obvious places like bread, low-fat or non-fat salad dressings, tomato sauce, ketchup, even beer.

Americans are consuming more high-fructose corn syrup than ever before, an average of nearly 70 lbs per year (compared to < 1 lb in 1970).

"The consumption of HFCS increased > 1000% between 1970 and 1990, far exceeding the changes in intake of any other food or food group. HFCS now represents > 40% of caloric sweeteners added to foods and beverages and is the sole caloric sweetener in soft drinks in the United States . Our most conservative estimate of the consumption of HFCS indicates a daily average of 132 kcal for all Americans aged  2 or older, and the top 20% of consumers of caloric sweeteners ingest 316 kcal from HFCS/d.

The increased use of HFCS in the United States mirrors the rapid increase in obesity. The digestion, absorption, and metabolism of fructose differ from those of glucose…Unlike glucose, fructose does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. Because insulin and leptin act as key... signals in the regulation of food intake and body weight, this suggests that dietary fructose may contribute to increased energy intake and weight gain."

Dr. G. Bray
Louisiana State University

High-fructose corn syrup is sweeter than sugar. Manufacturers love it because it's cheap, has a long shelf-life, and even has anti-bacterial properties (so foods won't spoil easily).

Kids especially love the extra sweetness and, when permitted, will gobble down huge quantities of fructose-containing products. Food manufacturers willingly meet the escalating demand by adding it to virtually every conceivable processed food.

High-fructose corn syrup provokes several alarming health effects:

1. HFCS increases triglycerides — Often 50% or more. Recall that triglycerides are an essential ingredient for creating several undesirable lipoproteins, like small LDL .
2. HFCS fails to suppress appetite —When you ingest ordinary sugar, appetite is eventually suppressed. High-fructose corn syrup fails to stimulate appetite-suppressing hormones like leptin . Your craving for more sweets and food is therefore not “turned-off”.
3. HFCS fails to trigger an insulin response — Sugar provokes insulin release; high-fructose corn syrup does not. This leads to abnormal liver responses, including manufacture of more triglycerides. This leads to weight gain and diabetes.

Critics are blaming high-fructose corn syrup for the growing epidemic of obesity in adults and children. This product is finding its way into more and more products, while the average American is consuming greater and greater quantities.

Beyond obesity and diabetes, high-fructose corn syrup carries special implication for your plaque-control program through its triglyceride-increasing effect. Increased availability of triglycerides (levels of >60 mg on your blood work) leads to lower HDL , more small LDL , VLDL, and thereby fuels plaque growth.

How can you avoid high-fructose corn syrup? Easy: check the label. If high-fructose corn syrup is listed, particularly as one of the first ingredients, then avoid it. You will discover high-fructose corn syrup in many seemingly “healthy” products like low-fat salad dressings.

Even better, follow the Track your Plaque principle of avoiding processed foods and selecting only whole, unprocessed foods. This strategy alone will help you drastically reduce your intake of this terrible product.

Selected references:

Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia. Basciano H, Federico L, Adeli K. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2005 Feb 21;2(1):5.

Consumption of high-fructose corn syrup in beverages may play a role in the epidemic of obesity. Bray GA , Nielsen SJ, Popkin BM. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Apr;79(4):537-43.

Fructose, weight gain, and the insulin resistance syndrome. Elliott SS, Keim NL, Stern JS, Teff K, Havel PJ. Am J Clin Nutr. 2002 Nov;76(5):911-22.

New on the Member website in December 2005:

Nutritional Supplements: Fact and Fiction

Listen to the supplement industry and you can cure anything from acne to cancer with nutritional supplements. Listen to your doctor and the medical establishment, and supplements are a total waste of money, full of dangers and side-effects. Where does the truth lie? In this important report, we sift through what really works and what doesn't to boost your plaque-control program.

Inflammation: A Practical Guide

There's lots of conversation in the media about the role of inflammation in driving risk for diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. But, in a practical way, can inflammation be "turned-off"? Are there practical ways we can stop this fundamental and abnormal process? This is the Track Your Plaque guide to stopping inflammation using everyday tools already at your disposal.