Heart Cipher

I just came across a study of Track Your Plaque (TYP) program blood test results for a 3 month period for a group of, hmm, let’s see, that would be one middle aged male.

Oh, yes, yes, yes that would be me!

This was no double blind with an extra twist sort of study that you’d want to give a lot of credence. But I’m sure you can imagine that it means a whole lot to me.

I wanted to get a set of baseline numbers at my HMO at 3 months on the program. I’m also looking to raise my HDL and want to participate in the new TYP program “virtual trial” of the use of PhosphatidylCholine for raising HDL. So, I needed an HDL number before I got started with that too.

There is good news and bad news in the latest results…

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Give up wheat?

Is Dr. Davis crazy when he insists that, for many people, getting control of their coronary artery disease (CAD) requires that wheat products be driven from their diets? That’s an extreme position on the proper heart healthy diet right? Isn’t an extreme position always a bad thing? Isn’t there always greater benefit in a “moderate” approach?

In 2002, Dr. Mehmet Oz guest-hosted a Charlie Rose Show segment about heart health and low fat vs. low carbohydrate diets. The participants in the discussion were Gary Taubes, a journalist, Dr. Dean Ornish, author of many books about diet and heart disease, and Dr. Barbara Howard of the American Heart Association.

There are a number of interesting things we might discuss about this broadcast. For now, I’d just like to call your attention to a point in the discussion where Dr. Howard inadvertently slips into telling the truth when trying to explain the American Heart Association’s stance on a heart healthy diet…

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Just a quick note.

In working on some posts about Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], I came across another terrific scientific overview article about it and thought some readers may be interested in the link.

The article is entitled Lipoprotein(a): from ancestral benefit to modern pathogen?.

The article contains an interesting discussion of several theories of the usefulness of Lp(a) during the course of human evolution.

In my posts to follow (over a period of time) about Lp(a), I’ll summarize points from this article as well as the McCormick overview article referenced in a previous post.

I have a few blog posts in the queue and I’m not quite ready to go with any of them so I thought I’d try to push on a list of smaller topics that aren’t worth a post of their own.

Well, first up is news that a Life Extension Foundation (LEF) Resveratrol supplement product doesn’t contain near the level of Resveratrol claimed on the label.

ConsumerLabs.com is reporting that the LEF 20mg Resveratrol capsule only contains 26.5% of the claimed amount. You’ll notice that the LEF website is on my Blogroll list, so I find this pretty disappointing.

I like a lot of what LEF is up to and I still placed an order last evening to take advantage of their end of year sale. I guess I need to be a bit more circumspect about ordering from them. I’m looking forward to hearing what they have to say about this.

I see that the good Doc Davis over at Track Your Plaque is going to publish a Special Report which consists of an interview with Dr. Billy “TheSuddenDeathReducer” Blanchet that I wrote about last week.

Now that is going to be great. Speaking of “TheSuddenDeathReducer”…

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Well, I was feeling pretty good about the 15 pounds I’d lost since mid-September on a low carb diet I’ve been trying to do.

I promised myself that I was only going to go off the diet on the US Thanksgiving day holiday itself. Well, you know how that went…

A few weeks ago, Dr. Davis quoted me at his HeartScanBlog to the effect that as long as I kept my consumption of carbohydrates down and stayed wheat free, I didn’t really feel hungry. And that’s true.

But in going off the diet on the holiday, I found it difficult to climb back into the diet saddle the following days. And now, of course, I’m staring wide-eyed at the December holiday season just around the corner. I was hoping to lose another 10 pounds by the time the New Year started. Now I’ll have to do 15 to meet that goal.

(image courtesy of Stanford University)

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Lipoprotein(a), also known as Lp(a) and pronounced “L P little-a”, is a type of Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) that can significantly increase the risk of having cardiovascular disease (CVD).

And at least as I understand it, it is among the most difficult, if not the most difficult, of the lipoprotein risk factors to address with drugs, supplements, or diet. It is a genetic abnormality that is passed on from a parent having an elevated Lp(a) level to his or her children.

Too bad for me and two of my three kids then as well as about 25% of people living in the UnitedStates. For most of the period since I first realized the severity of the CVD I had, I sub-consciously believed that my only real problem was my high Lp(a) blood test value.

Stupid me. It wasn’t my only lipoprotein problem.

(images courtesy of Sally)

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I don’t believe any of it. You know you’re better than this !

Happy Thanksgivings day!

It can’t be any later for you than it was for me back in September (almost 10 years since I first had a heart attack at 43 years old) when I joined Dr. Davis’ Track Your Plaque program to get my heart out of a headlock.

If I can start, so can you! Oh, and I need companions for the journey.

Lyrics for Imogen Heap’s terrific song for those with heart disease (really!) on the other side of the jump.

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In my last post I wrote about a fracas going on over at a forum site for doctors.

I’ve had to toss my blog content calendar out the window because of what I’ve been reading over at the Club webMD’s TheHeart.org forum.

Drs. William Blanchet and William Davis have been explaining to other cardiologists there how cardiac events have been “reduced by 90%” and “essentially eliminated” among their medical practice patients.

What’s really amazing is the fact that they hadn’t really been aware of each other much before this last week. Dr. Blanchet was vaguely aware of the Track Your Plaque program but hadn’t seen or heard of Dr. Davis’ HeartScan blog (which I think is a must read). Dr. Davis hadn’t heard of Dr. Blanchet and when he first read one of his posts he joked about maybe he had written it himself.

They’re playing the game with their patients lives in the same way.

Following this thread has been incredibly encouraging because what’s clear is that these two doctors, who are more positive about what can be done about coronary artery disease than anyone else, are clearly the masters of the literature and have the most empathy for the risks and plight of their patients.

The best metaphor for the thread content I can think of is the kind of basketball game that the Harlem Globetrotters play. You’ve seen the Harlem Globetrotters right? The team of superior basketball players playing against a team composed of mediocre players. You have to see it to believe it.

(post images courtesy of 24sec.net)

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Sorry I’ve been away for a couple days.

Without meaning to, I got myself into a bit of a fracas over at Club webMD’s TheHeart.org forum.

You see, I’m that “John Q Public” who made a simple post at that forum about whether dramatic improvements in patient outcomes are possible for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Davis has written some about this whole mess at his blog.

My first post in that forum thread merely said (free registration required for medical professionals including media professionals. Hey, I’m a “medical media personality” aren’t I on account of this blog?):

Fascinating, isn’t it, that there appear to be two doctors, William Blanchet in this forum and Dr. William Davis, FACC, of TrackYourPlaque.com that both claim to have dramatically reduced risk of heart attack among their patients and/or actual calcium plaque score regression and BOTH are ardent proponents of CT Calcium Scoring?

Well, one thing led to another and I was asked never again to post to the forum. So, I won’t.

I must admit though, I’m kinda pissed. Not with the Club. No.

Look, the trouble maker here was Dr. William Blanchet, a doctor of Internal Medicine in Boulder, Colorado. If anyone’s to blame for the trouble, it’s him.

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After I decided to blog about my experience with cardiovascular disease and the Track Your Plaque program I thought for a couple weeks about what I might call the blog.

I came up with several names along the way that I was excited about for a day or two and then tossed out.

I finally got around to looking up the word “number” in an online thesaurus and came across the word “cipher“. I knew immediately that “Heart Cipher” was the name of a blog I wanted to write because the word cipher has several different meanings that are appropriate to my writing the blog.

(image courtesy of borderschess.org along with rules for use here).

At the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the following definition of cipher appears:

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