What'll it be: Olive oil or bread?

21. March 2011 William Davis (0)
We frequently discuss the advisability of consuming fats, carbohydrates, and various types within each category.

But what's the worst of all? Combining fats with carbohydrates.

Putting aside the wheat-is-worst form of carbohydrate issue and treating bread as a prototypical carbohydrate, let's play out a typical scenario, a make-believe feeding study in which a theoretical person is fed specific foods.

John is our test person, a 40-year old, 5 ft 10 inch, 210 lb, BMI 27.7 (roughly the mean for the U.S.) He starts with an average American diet of approximately 55% carbohydrates and 30% fat. Starting lipoproteins (NMR):

LDL particle number 1800 nmol/L
Small LDL 923 nmol/L


(The LDL particle number of 1800 nmol/L translates to measured LDL cholesterol of 180 mg/dl, i.e., drop last digit or divide by 10.)

Also, calculated LDL cholesterol is 167 mg/dl (yes, underestimating "true" measured LDL), HDL 42 mg/dl, triglycerides 170 mg/dl.

We feed him a diet increased in carbohydrates and reduced in fat, especially saturated fat, with more breakfast cereals, breads and other wheat products, pasta, fruit juices and fruit, and potatoes. After four weeks:

LDL particle number 2200 nmol/L
Small LDL 1378 nmol/L

Note that LDL particle number has increased by 400 nmol/L due entirely to the increase in small LDL particles triggered by carbohydrate consumption. Lipids show calculated LDL cholesterol 159 mg/dl--yes, a decrease, HDL 40 mg/dl, triglycerides 189 mg/dl. (At this point, if John's primary care doctor saw these numbers, he would congratulate John on reducing his LDL cholesterol and/or suggest a fibrate drug to reduce triglycerides.)

John takes a rest for four weeks during which his lipoproteins revert back to their starting values. We then repeat the process, this time replacing most carbohydrate calories with fats, weighed heavily in favor of saturated fats like fatty red meats, butter and other full-fat dairy products. After four weeks:

LDL particle number 2400 nmol/L


Let's
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Can procedures alone keep you alive?

Can procedures alone keep you alive?

29. August 2006 William Davis (0)
My days in the hospital remind me of what heart disease can be like when no preventive efforts are taken--what it used to be like even with my patients before taking a vigorous approach to prevention (though over 12 years ago).

Several cardiologists in my hospital, for instance, express skepticism that heart disease prevention works at all. Yes, they know about the statin cholesterol drug trials. But they claim that, given their experience with the power of coronary disease to overpower an individual's control, statin drugs are just "fluff". Coronary disease is a powerful process that can only begin to be harnessed with major procedures, i.e., a mechanical approach.

So these cardiologists routinely have their patients in the hospital, often once a year, sometimes more, for heart catheterization and "fixing" whatever requires fixing: balloon angioplasty, stents, various forms of atherectomy. Year in, year out, these patients return for their "maintenance" procedures. Their cardiologists maintain that this approach works. The patients go on eating what they like, taking little or no nutritional supplements, and medications prescribed by their primary care physicians for blood pressure, etc. But no real effort towards heart disease prevention beyond these minimal steps.

Can this work? Very little at-home, preventive efforts, but periodic "maintenance" procedures?

It can, perhaps, for a relatively short time of a few years, maybe up to 10 years. But it crumbles after this. The disease eventaully overwhelms the cardiologist's ability to stent or balloon this or that, since it has progressed and plaque has growth diffusely the entire period that maintenance procedures have been performed. In addition, acute illness still occurs with some frequency--in other words, plaque rupture is not affected just because there's a stent in the artery upstream or downstream.

Not to mention this can be misery on you and your life, with risk incurred during each procedure. It's also terribly expensive, with hospitalization easily costing $25,000-$50,000 or more each time. (Compare that to a $250 or so CT heart scan.)


As people become more aware of the potential tools for prevention of heart disease, fewer are willing to submit to the archaic and barbaric practice of "maintenance" heart procedures in lieu of prevention. But it still goes on. If you, or anybody you know, are on this pointless and doomed path, find a new doctor.




Bloodletting, another antiquated health practice
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