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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:
Dear Subscriber,
  We’re changing the format of our newsletter this month. Starting with this
issue, the Scanner will be a more conversational, “one-on-one”
discussion from me, Track Your Plaque founder, Dr. William Davis.
The Scanner will continue to be a source for information that is meant
to rattle your deeply-entrenched ideas about heart disease. The
highlight of each issue will be a profile of a Track Your Plaque
participant who has used the program successfully.
Our newsletter will also continue to focus on topics relevant to anyone
interested in CT heart scans, heart disease prevention and regression,
and healthy nutrition and lifestyle. Of course, if you’re looking for
even more in-depth discussions on these topics, you’re invited to join
us on the www.trackyourplaque.com membership website.
Yours in health,
William Davis, MD
Another Track Your Plaque success story!
Physician drops heart scan score 18%!
Dr. Sam Lawrence is a 61-year old physician. Sam’s father had a heart
attack at age 55, so Sam had tracked his own cholesterol panel
religiously, up to several times a year. His LDL ranged between 130–170
mg/dl, HDL 41–48 mg/dl. Sam prided himself on remaining
slender—certainly more slender than many of his colleagues—and fit. He
felt wonderful during his three time-per-week exercise efforts. He’d
also asked a cardiology colleague to perform a nuclear stress test every
year, and he’d consistently passed all of them.
Sam was therefore pretty shaken, even shocked, to learn of his CT heart
scan score of 617. He immediately put himself on Lipitor® to reduce LDL
cholesterol. On the drug, his LDL ranged from 85–100 mg/dl.
After a year and a half, Sam got himself another heart scan score: 744,
a 20% increase. His cardiologist colleague dismissed the result. “What
difference does it make? Your stress test is still normal. I don’t think
that you don’t need a cath yet [heart catheterization]. We could do one
if it would help settle your mind.”
Sam wasn’t sure what to make of all this. So he took the easy way out:
he pushed it out of his mind and went about his busy schedule. One year
later and another heart scan: score 880, another 18% increase.
Sam sought an opinion from another cardiologist. This cardiologist
reassured him and suggested another nuclear stress test. “We want to
catch it in time!” he declared. That’s when Sam realized that his
cardiologist friends had no insight whatsoever into how to manage his
escalating score and heart attack risk. They only knew how to watch and
wait for the time when procedures were justified. So Sam enrolled in the
Track Your Plaque program.
Among the patterns Sam showed on his enrollment lipid/lipoprotein
analysis (partially corrected on Lipitor®):
• HDL cholesterol 47 mg/dl (TYP target ≤60 mg/dl)
• Small LDL particles 65% of total LDL (TYP target <10% of total) LDL)
• Triglycerides 96 mg/dl (TYP target ≤60 mg/dl)
• Excess VLDL (TYP target: 0 mg/dl)
• Vitamin D 30 ng/ml (TYP target >50 ng/ml)
We showed Sam how to raise HDL and reduce small LDL particles using diet
and niacin, drop triglycerides and VLDL using omega-3 fatty acids, and
raise vitamin D with vitamin D supplements. He also brought his blood
pressure into normal range using a combination of nutrition, modest
weight loss of 7 lbs, and one medication.
Another year later, Sam’s heart scan score: 719.9, an 18% decrease!
Since then, Dr. Lawrence has become a vocal advocate for the Track Your
Plaque approach. I suspect that he came within months of a heart attack
or truly requiring a heart catheterization (that is, a procedure
necessary for real reasons, not for the financial enrichment of his
cardiologist friend, nor just for peace of mind).
Dr. Lawrence is living proof of the limited effectiveness of
conventional answers to heart disease prevention. Taking Lipitor® and
following a “heart healthy diet” yielded 18–20% yearly increases in his
score. If that were your bank account or mutual fund, you’d be hob-nobbing
with Bill Gates within a few years. But it’s coronary plaque. That rate
of growth is simply not sustainable for any length of time without
catastrophe.
The majority of physicians regard prevention of heart disease as “fluff”
and not worth their effort. Procedures yield quick answers and lots of
financial incentive. But that approach makes no sense, particularly when
heart disease prevention can truly be powerful.
Only when he was introduced to the Track Your Plaque concepts did Sam
manage to put a halt to his rapidly growing plaque and dramatically turn
it around.
“I’ve been having pains in my chest. Should I get a
heart scan?"
What role should symptoms play in deciding whether or not to get a CT
heart scan? Should a heart scan play any role at all?
You’re having chest pain . . . or palpitations (“fluttering”), or
breathlessness, or unusual fatigue, or any number of other potential
heart disease symptoms. Are you heading for a heart attack? Should you
get a heart scan?
Although heart scans are meant to uncover hidden atherosclerotic
coronary plaque in people without symptoms, this question comes up
frequently. So when should you get a heart scan to understand the
meaning of symptoms?
Almost never! As much as I love heart scans, they are not very useful in
determining the source of symptoms. Let me explain.
CT heart scans are gauges of coronary atherosclerotic plaque, plain and
simple. Like measuring the rust in an iron pipe, a heart scan tells you
whether there’s any “corrosion” in the wall. But they do not tell you if
blood flow is restricted, a necessary condition to generate symptoms. CT
heart scans remain the only way that you and I can know precisely how
much plaque lines our arteries. This is helpful for gauging risk for
heart attack because the more plaque you have, the greater the risk for
plaque “rupture”.
Heart scans are not helpful in connecting plaque to symptoms—deciding
whether a left shoulder ache, breathlessness, fatigue, etc. originates
from the heart. Relating cause and effect is best addressed with a
provocative test, i.e., an assessment that attempts to re-create
symptoms. That’s what a stress test is for. A heart scan, in contrast,
is a static measure and is not provocative. You can have coronary plaque
(say, a heart scan score of 150) but it won’t tell you whether or not
the symptoms are from the plaque. A higher score can raise suspicion for
a coronary source for symptoms, but cannot prove it.
On top of this, there are many other causes of symptoms. High blood
pressure, for instance, if severe enough can cause heart-disease like
symptoms of chest discomfort, breathlessness, and fatigue. Once again, a
stress test of some variety would be a better choice to make this
diagnosis. Diseases of the heart muscle, heart valves (mitral, aortic,
and tricuspid), lung arteries originating from the heart (pulmonary
arteries), and other conditions are also potential causes of
heart-related symptoms. A heart scan does not shed light on any of these
other causes.
Why the confusion? Part of the reason is that, in the early years of CT
heart scanning, researchers tried to use heart scans for diagnosis of
coronary artery symptoms. Several studies examined the use of heart
scans in people going to emergency rooms with chest pain. These studies
showed that if a heart scan score was zero, the likelihood of symptoms
warning of a heart attack are nearly zero and other causes could be
sought. If the score was any number above zero, then symptoms could
potentially be attributed to coronary disease, and the higher the score,
the more likely symptoms were truly heart attack warnings. Someone
having chest pain, for instance, with a heart scan score of 1000, is
likely experiencing genuine angina, or warnings to a heart attack.
The problem is that too many people show up with in-between levels of
scoring. For instance, a 55-year old man has a heart scan score of 200.
Is his chest pressure due to his coronary disease or isn’t it? It could
go either way.
In coronary disease and heart attacks, we need to try and achieve
certainty. In these situations, heart scans simply don’t provide that
certainty. In acute situations and when symptoms need to be explored,
stress tests, CT coronary angiography (“64-slice CT angiograms”), blood
tests to detect “cardiac enzymes” signaling damage, and other tests are
preferable.
However, if you’re looking for a tool for early detection, prevention,
and tracking of heart disease, a method that tells you whether coronary
disease and “events” like heart attack could be in your future, then
heart scans are #1 for this purpose—far better than stress testing and
other heart testing, better than waiting for symptoms to appear, better
than cholesterol.
Like any “tool”, heart scans work best when applied to the job that they
do best: uncover coronary heart disease risk and provide a tool for
long-term tracking of progression or regression. Heart scans are
principally for people without symptoms. Ironically, critics of heart
scans disparage the test because we advocate their use in asymptomatic
people. Following their logic, we should only look for heart disease in
people with symptoms. But this is foolhardy. The vast majority of heart
disease does not cause symptoms. And too often, the first symptom of
heart disease is a catastrophe—heart attack or death.
Heart scans are best used when you’re without symptoms, no doubt about
it.
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 Benefits page. See why more and
more people are finding out that there are alternatives to the
conventional answers for heart disease.
Track Your Plaque Members:
Watch for our upcoming Special Reports In October, 2006 on:
Can you really REVERSE heart disease?
It's what we're all after. The majority of physicians tell us that it's
impossible. Many non-traditional practitioners make extravagant promises
of reversal. In our Special Report, we sift through the trash and find
the hidden gems.
Alcohol, HDL cholesterol, and your plaque control program
We hear lots of confusing reports about the benefits and the dangers of
alcohol. Is it truly helpful? Does it just raise HDL, or are there other
effects that can help you gain control over your heart scan score?
Online Chat With Dr. Davis
Also, watch for an upcoming Track Your Plaque on-line live Chat with
cardiologist and Track Your Plaque founder, Dr. William Davis, on
Wednesday, October 18th from 8–9 pm (Central). Just go to the
www.trackyourplaque.com Chat room under Member Departments and log on.
If past Chat session are any indication, we should have a lively
conversation! Bring your questions and comments about your experience in
the Track Your Plaque program..
Copyright 2006, Track Your Plaque
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