OT - Cardiologists recommend wider use of statin drugs

Yes, a 63 year old male with the optimal values of a 50 year old will have a 10 yr risk factor of 7.5%. Lucky for him (or big pharma), Medicare Part D is just a short wait.

Well, I think that calculator is going to eventually put EVERYBODY above the 7.5% rate as they age. It seems crazy to treat people who have made it to their 80's without heart disease, but I'll bet they now "qualify" for statins.

Read this: http://authoritynutrition.com/grass-fed ... the-heart/

Sounds to me that Grass-Fed butter is a whole lot more effective than statins!

Found this cartoon that in my opinion perfectly sums up the situation.

I'm going to print this and send to our Cardio, he'll love it! When I called his office the other day to ask about Mike's test results, before the regular message came on there was a pre-recorded message that said Dr. B is not recommending any statin changes at this time. These poor docs must be getting swamped with calls about this nonsense.

I hope he "loves it" for the reasons you think. [Maybe you don't want to print this part for him!]. In my experience, most cardiologists are arrogant SOB's who think statin medication and surgery are the ONLY hope for their patients. I've listened to a few podcasts BY cardiologists talking about their profession, and they scoff and laugh at people who get their medical information from the internet. I've had friends be laughed at when they take statins and ask their cardiologist if they should also take CoQ10 (see the Zoe Harcombe piece I posted above).

OTOH, there are dedicated CARDIOLOGISTS like Dr. Mark Houston and Dr. William Davis who stopped blaming their patients for their heart disease and started looking at WHY the heart disease wasn't responding to the accepted treatments.

I was listening to Dr. Davis' interview on the Gluten Summit today. You have to understand that he is an interventional cardiologist--they are the ones that do angioplasty to remove coronary artery plaque. He saw his patients continue to have plaque buildup and go on to have heart attacks and strokes despite "best practices". But when he stepped back and reviewed the literature, he realized that coronary artery plaque was related to BLOOD SUGAR, not fat intake. And one of the worst offenders to raise blood sugar is "healthy" whole grain (yes, you read that right!). The glycemic index of sugar is 50, the glycemic index of whole wheat is 72--which is higher than white bread, and higher than a Snickers Bar! So he started to tell his patients to stop eating wheat. And to his great surprise, he began to see REVERSAL of heart disease. Now, he has his patients on a low carb, grain free, HIGH fat diet (saturated animal fats, olive oil, coconut oil are encouraged, while "heart healthy" oils like soy and canola are NOT permitted), has them supplement Omega 3's and Vitamin D, and said that not one of his patients has had a heart attack in a couple of years. He used to see several per week! He no longer practices interventional cardiology, because HIS PATIENTS NO LONGER NEED IT.

BTW, the William Davis interview is available for free today only (Sunday, 11/17/13). If you're interested in hearing it, you can go to http://www.glutensummit.com and sign up for FREE access. After today you'd have to pay for access to the entire Gluten Summit program (7 days of 5 podcasts/day), but there are other interviews with Davis on various podcasts if you look on iTunes, and he has two good websites: http://www.wheatbellyblog.com and http://www.blog.trackyourplaque.com. Today's interview was very good, clear, and understandable if you're not "in to" this stuff very much.

Janknitz wrote: BTW, the William Davis interview is available for free today only (Sunday, 11/17/13). If you're interested in hearing it, you can go to http://www.glutensummit.com and sign up for FREE access. After today you'd have to pay for access to the entire Gluten Summit program (7 days of 5 podcasts/day), but there are other interviews with Davis on various podcasts if you look on iTunes, and he has two good websites: http://www.wheatbellyblog.com and http://www.blog.trackyourplaque.com. Today's interview was very good, clear, and understandable if you're not "in to" this stuff very much.

Thanks for the links!

Janknitz,

For the most part I do try to have an open mind on the whole issue of whether high (whole grain) carb or high fat is more unhealthy for you and whether the real "fix" for the American diet is to cut back on carbs or fat.

I suspect the real answer is that Americans simply need to cut back on both carbs and fats (and not worry too much about cutting out either category completely) while at the same time increasing fruits and veggies that are notoriously lacking in many American's diets (including, alas, my own preferred diet, but not the one I'm working hard on eating.

But I do have to comment on this statement:

Janknitz wrote:The glycemic index of sugar is 50, the glycemic index of whole wheat is 72--which is higher than white bread, and higher than a Snickers Bar!

Gylcemic index is only part of the puzzle. If you go by nothing more than glycemic index, then most of the fruits that are healthy would be tossed into the same "bad" category as the grains---watermelon's glycemic index is a whopping 72 for example.

The more more realistic measure of how "bad" a particular carb/sugar heavy food is is the glycemic load, which depends on both the concentration of the carb/sugars in the particular food and the typical serving size of the food. Glycemic load is a more direct measure of how much a typical serving of the food will increase the blood glucose levels. And when it comes to glycemic load, wheat bread is less bad for you than white bread.

For those interested in such things, there's a useful on-line glycemic load calculator at: http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/

And according to http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/, the glycemic load for one typical slice of commercially made whole-wheat bread is 5 while the glycemic load for one typical slice of commerically made white bread is 8. The glycemic load of a full size Snickers bar is estimated at 5, and the glycemic load of a single teaspoon of white sugar is 5.

Hence, by glycemic load, a spoonful of sugar, a full sized Snickers bar, and one slice of whole wheat bread are all about equally "bad" for you. And they're all better for you than the one slice of white bread.

As to which is most satisfying to eat, well that may depend on just what it is you're hungry for.

Janknitz wrote: I was listening to Dr. Davis' interview on the Gluten Summit today. You have to understand that he is an interventional cardiologist--they are the ones that do angioplasty to remove coronary artery plaque. He saw his patients continue to have plaque buildup and go on to have heart attacks and strokes despite "best practices". But when he stepped back and reviewed the literature, he realized that coronary artery plaque was related to BLOOD SUGAR, not fat intake. And one of the worst offenders to raise blood sugar is "healthy" whole grain (yes, you read that right!). The glycemic index of sugar is 50, the glycemic index of whole wheat is 72--which is higher than white bread, and higher than a Snickers Bar! So he started to tell his patients to stop eating wheat. And to his great surprise, he began to see REVERSAL of heart disease. Now, he has his patients on a low carb, grain free, HIGH fat diet (saturated animal fats, olive oil, coconut oil are encouraged, while "heart healthy" oils like soy and canola are NOT permitted), has them supplement Omega 3's and Vitamin D, and said that not one of his patients has had a heart attack in a couple of years. He used to see several per week! He no longer practices interventional cardiology, because HIS PATIENTS NO LONGER NEED IT.

And that runs 100% contradictory to what Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn (Forks over Knives) advocates. The test that led to his position was the reversal in plaque build up his patients experienced. In short he advocates not eating anything that has a face or a mother. My PCP has really tried to get me to go that way, but I can't buy the no meat concept. Besides, I believe CVD is more rooted in genes than food.

I'll say it again: Every person in the medical community who is an expert in diet and nutrition shares one common characteristic with every teacher of every religion in the world. There ain't a single one of them who has a lock on the absolute truth.

This is good place to stick in a comment about my recent medical event.

While I was on my 5700 mile motorcycle trip to the Gulf Coast I had a lot of heartburn. I started taking a couple of Zantac 150s every day as I figured it was all that restaurant food I was eating that was the cause. That pretty much took care of the heartburn. I also took a couple of nitroglycerin pills one evening with no effect. The two results together said I had heartburn, not angina. Several days after I got home I had continued having chest pains, albeit quite mild. But these occurred hours after eating so I was no longer convinced it was simple heartburn. Went to see my cardio. The EKG was perfect, but because I had two stents, one just last year, and there were some partial blockages evident then, he felt a stress test was called for. There were a couple of abnormalities in that test so he said we need to do an angiogram. Fortunately, the angiogram found no blockages and no changes from last year. But, the chest pains, even being mild, caused him concern.

But the really scary part was what the nurse/technician told me as I was being prepped for the angiogram. A guy came into an ER in some hospital with severe chest pains. The staff determined they were probably heartburn caused so they gave him an antacid cocktail and let him rest. Soon his symptoms cleared and he felt fine. They sent him home where he finished having his heart attack and died. The heartburn treatment totally masked the heart pains. They hadn't even done an EKG! Sooooo, if an ER staff can be fooled as to the cause of chest pains, how much more likely is it that we non-medical mortals can make that mistake. DON'T TAKE CHEST PAINS LIGHTLY! For women, heart blockages often cause back pains, not chest pains.

Janknitz wrote:I hope he "loves it" for the reasons you think. [Maybe you don't want to print this part for him!]. In my experience, most cardiologists are arrogant SOB's who think statin medication and surgery are the ONLY hope for their patients. I've listened to a few podcasts BY cardiologists talking about their profession, and they scoff and laugh at people who get their medical information from the internet. I've had friends be laughed at when they take statins and ask their cardiologist if they should also take CoQ10 (see the Zoe Harcombe piece I posted above).

Your secret is safe with me! Our Dr is really well trained with an excellent reputation and very involved with patient care. I'm on a very low dose of statin and when my blood test last year showed an elevated reading I asked if I should increase my dose and he told me no and to "stop eating so many carbs, translation "junk food"". He also recommends CoQ10 and Cinnamon for sugar control. But most Drs don't even want to talk about supplements.

He also recommends CoQ10 and Cinnamon for sugar control. But most Drs don't even want to talk about supplements.

Hi Dori,

That is great you have a cardiologist who is open minded like that.

But I am curious as to why doctors are so against supplements. I do realize many of them are heavily indoctrinated that drugs are the first and only solution. But I also think it is a case of many of them thinking that all supplements are part of the crazy wacko alternative medicine industry and therefore, none of them can possibly work.

No matter what, it is very frustrating.

49er

I guess it's because supplements haven't had 10yrs of trials and written up in 10 different journals. During my working career some of the Drs I worked for participated in various drug trials and some were obviously slanted towards the drug company. My son an MD who practices alternative medicine once participated in a drug trial for a certain juice that was supposed to have anti-inflamatory benefits(forgot the particulars) and when he gave a negative report on his findings after a 9month trial, he lost out on a pretty big financial windfall. He said it was junk he and wasn't sorry.

DoriC wrote:I guess it's because supplements haven't had 10yrs of trials and written up in 10 different journals.

That's because no one wants to foot the bill for those tests because there isn't a potential for lucrative financial returns.

New link about the new risk calculator:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/18/healt ... 31118&_r=0

Thought it was pertinent to this thread *smile*.