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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!
  If
you haven’t joined me on my Heart Scan Blog, you should! In the last
month, I’ve discussed topics like:
- Heart disease "reversal" by stress test—An
interesting case of heart disease “reversal” by stress testing
(reprinted below).
- Annual physical—The folly of the annual physical examination. You can
pass only to fail the test of life!
- A curious case of regression—The more experience accumulates in
coronary disease reversal, the more fascinating lessons we learn. A
woman drops her heart scan score by more than 20%―contrary to our
expectations.
- Heart scan score drops like a stone—23% drop in heart scan score!
- "You don't have a uterus. You don't need progesterone"—The mis-guided
advice of many conventionally-thinking gynecologists. “If you’re not
sick, why bother?”
- Take a niacin "vacation"—The longer you take niacin to correct
lipoprotein patterns, the more a break from your niacin should be
considered.
Go to www.trackyourplaque.com and click on Blog with Cardiologist Dr.
William Davis. You’re welcome to post your comments and participate in
the conversation.
Track in health!
Dr. Davis
Another Track Your Plaque
success story:
Diabetes is not a death sentence from heart disease!
Tim’s diabetes hit him like a truck. At age 62, Tim’s
weight dropped unintentionally 25 lbs. over two months. Although he
liked the weight loss, he felt awful: exhausted, even when he first got
out of bed; lightheaded; and urinating large volumes. He was barely able
to function in his job as CEO of a small manufacturing company.
Tim’s primary physician diagnosed diabetes and put him on two
medications, one of which was Actos® (pioglitazone) . Within days, Tim
felt normal again, though a good deal thinner. But his doctor warned him
that the episode he suffered could have become very dangerous, sometimes
even resulting in a condition called “hyperosmolar coma”, a state of
profound dehydration so severe it results in coma.
Tim took the advice to heart. He got himself a heart scan to see if
hidden heart disease was also lurking. His score: 318, in the 80th
percentile compared to other men in his age group (approximately 3%
annual risk for heart attack).
Tim’s primary physician put him on a statin cholesterol drug (Vytorin®).
LDL cholesterol was reduced by the drug to a favorable level of 66
mg/dl, verified by a LDL particle number of 813 nmol/l (Track Your
Plaque target <700 nmol/l). His lipoprotein analysis (NMR, Liposcience)
on both Vytorin® and Actos® (an unusual diabetes agent in that it
partially corrects lipoprotein patterns) also revealed:
• HDL 43 mg/dl, with only 3 mg/dl of effective large HDL
• Small LDL representing 80% of all LDL particles, a severe pattern.
Vitamin D supplementation increased 25-OH vitamin D3 from 22 ng/ml to 54
ng/ml.
We also counseled Tim on reducing processed carbohydrates, wheat
products, and increasing reliance on lean proteins, especially raw nuts,
and oat products to improve his profile, particularly small LDL.
One year later, Tim’s heart scan was repeated. His score: 244, a 23%
reduction.
Dr. Davis: Last month, we profiled another Track Your Plaque
participant who also had adult diabetes yet dropped his heart scan
score. Tim is another diabetic who beat the odds.
Conventional medical wisdom is that diabetes represents a profound risk
for heart disease. Rates of plaque growth of 50% per year are not
uncommon when causes remain uncorrected. These two Track Your Plaque
participants are examples of how this is not necessarily true if the
proper steps are taken. Not only did they diminish risk, they reversed
coronary atherosclerotic plaque―dramatically.
Tim’s case is somewhat more complicated in that he was taking a diabetes
medication that may have influenced lipoprotein patterns. This is, of
course, not a strategy that should be used by non-diabetics.
But the lesson learned from Tim’s case is that diabetes is not
necessarily a death sentence from heart disease, as conventional
medicine dictates. Tim’s substantial reduction in heart scan score will
translate into a profound reduction in his risk for heart attack, as
well as dramatically slashing likelihood of ever needing a heart
procedure.
Calcium: “Hard” or “Soft”
Plaque?
“My doctor said that heart scans are worthless because
they only measure calcium. He says that calcium only tells you if
there's hard plaque, and that hard plaque is stable. He says that
calcium won't tell you anything about soft plaque, and soft plaque is
what really that causes heart attack."
Is that true? Is calcium only a reflection of "hard" plaque? Is hard
plaque also more stable, less prone to rupture and cause heart attack?
Does calcium scoring provide only part of the picture?
Let’s go back to the original study that provided the basis for heart
scans, peformed by heart scan pioneer, Dr. John Rumberger. In his
now-famous study, Dr. Rumberger studied the coronary arteries of people
who had died. He found that, by examining arteries cut into dozens of
cross-sections, calcium comprised 20% of the volume of total plaque.
This held true in men and women, young and old. This simple phenomenon
led Dr. Rumberger to surmise that if calcium could be measured
precisely, total coronary plaque volume could also be measured, since
each cubic millimiter of calcium represented five (20%) cubic
millimiters of plaque.
Calcium is therefore a means of measuring total plaque, both soft and
hard. Within plaque, there may be areas that are soft (labeled "lipid
pool" in the diagram). There are also areas made of calcium (shown in
white arcs within the plaque). Even though this is just a graphic, it's
representative of what is seen when we perform intracoronary ultrasound
of a live human being's coronary artery. In other words, this cross
section contains both "soft" (lipid pool) as well as "hard" (calcium)
elements. Most atherosclerotic plaque, however, is a mixture of
structural fibers, cholesterol crystals, cellular material, and debris.
Is the artery in the diagram "soft" or "hard"? It's both, of course.
Artery compostion varies millimeter by millimeter, having more soft
elements in one segment, more hard elements in another. The artery can
also change over time in either direction. Thus, "soft" plaque may
indeed be soft today, only to be "hard" in 6 months, and vice versa.
What the CT heart scan does is provide a gauge of total plaque, soft and
hard, and it does so easily, safely, precisely. If your score increases,
the lengthwise volume of total plaque has also grown. If your score
decreases, the total amount of plaque has also decreased.
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Heart Disease Reversal by Stress
Test?
(Reprinted from the December 4, 2006 Heart Scan Blog.)
Here's an interesting example of a 71-year old man who achieved
"reversal" of an abnormality by a nuclear stress test.
 This man underwent bypass surgery around 10 years ago, followed by two stents
three years ago. A nuclear stress test in April, 2005 showed an area of
poor blood flow in the front of the heart. On the images, normal blood
flow is shown by the yellow/orange areas; poor or absent blood flow is
shown by the blue/purple areas within the white outline.
Now, I can tell you that this man is no paragon of health. He's only
accepted limited changes in his otherwise conventional program—in other
words, someone who I wouln’t expect to achieve true reversal of his
heart disease. (I didn't have him undergo any CT heart scans because of
the difficulties in scoring someone who has undergone bypass surgery and
stents, and because of limited motivation. True plaque reversal is for
the motivated.) This patient did, however, accept adding fish oil and
niacin to his program.
Nonetheless, stress testing can be helpful as a "safety check". Here's
the follow-up stress test:
You'll notice that the blue/purple areas of poor blood flow have just
about disappeared. This occurred without procedures.
Does this represent "reversal"? No, it does not. It does represent
reversal of this phenomenon of poor flow. It does not represent reversal
of the plaque lining the artery wall. That's because improvement of
flow, as in this man, can be achieved with relatively easy efforts,
e.g., statin drugs, blood pressure control, etc. True reversal or
reduction of coronary plaque, however, is tougher.
If blood flow improves, who cares whether plaque shrinks? Does it still
matter? It does.
That's because the "event" that gets us in trouble is not progressive
reduction in blood flow, but "rupture" of a plaque. A reduction in
plaque—genuine reversal of heart disease—is what dramatically slashes
risk of plaque rupture and heart attack.
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:
Fasting: Fast Track to Plaque Control
If you’re eager to gain profound control over the causes of coronary
plaque, fasting can be an extremely fast and effective method. Fasting
shouldn’t be viewed as a harsh punishment, but a positive, enlightening
experience that can supercharge your success faster than almost any
other strategy. Read our Special Report on when you can safely fast,
when you should not, what to expect, and all the variations on how to do
it.
Lipoprotein Checklists
People sometimes complain that specific efforts to correct lipid and
lipoprotein patterns are often complex and confusing. We’ve assembled
several checklists for quick reference in your efforts to gain control
over your patterns.
5 Days of Heathful Recipes from author and world-renowned chef,
Michel Nischan. Author of Taste: Pure and Simple, Nischan shares
his secrets of how he transformed a NY French restaurant into the
Heartbeat, a restaurant devoted to creating gourmet heart-healthy
dishes.
Copyright 2006, Track Your Plaque
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