Track Your Plaque reduces healthcare costs 35%

29. May 2010 William Davis (12)
Allow me to wear my Track Your Plaque hat for this post.

Mr. Richard Rawle is CEO of Utah company, Tosh, Inc. Mr. Rawle has been an avid follower of the Track Your Plaque program and has introduced the program to company employees. Here's what he has to say about the experience:

“Our company has been utilizing the principles of TYP [Track Your Plaque] for over a year and has experienced great results that have positively impacted the lives of our employees and our health care costs.

Since we began our wellness program, we have presented the TYP diet and lifestyle guidelines to all of our employees and their families. Although the overwhelming majority of our employees do not have cardiovascular issues, the preventative nature of TYP is too important not to be utilized. The TYP principles along with our increased focus on healthy living have already changed our group’s blood chemistry. HDL levels in particular have increased significantly and resulted in a large percentage of our employees having HDL levels of 60 or higher. Vitamin D levels have substantially increased and LDL levels have significantly decreased in the majority of our employees. Subsequently, in the 12 months just ended, our health care costs are some 35% less than other groups of comparable size and age.

I believe the TYP program has been an integral part of the success of our company's vast improvement in employee health/wellness, resulting in significant health care cost reductions."

Richard Rawle
CEO Tosh Inc.

Track Your Plaque saves lives. Track Your Plaque also saves money . . . lots of it. Despite the upfront costs of some additional blood testing and a heart scan, the dramatic reduction in need for medications, reduced heart attack, diabetes, and many other chronic conditions add up to a huge cost savings, much as Tosh, Inc. employees have enjoyed.

The Federal government has been looking towards large hospital systems to lead the way in healthcare delivery, systems that employ their physicians and possess economies of scale. But I say the answer to reducing healthcare costs will NEVER be found in hospital systems. Healthcare cost savings will be realized by delivering truly effective health solutions directly to people themselves, much as we do in Track Your Plaque.
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Comments (12) -

  • Jim Purdy

    5/29/2010 1:14:10 PM |

    QUOTE --
    "Healthcare cost savings will be realized by delivering truly effective health solutions directly to people themselves"

    Very true. Empowering the individual is powerful.

  • Anonymous

    5/30/2010 12:04:34 AM |

    Congratulations to you, Dr Davis!

  • Anonymous

    6/1/2010 3:21:20 AM |

    I just had my first heart scan done this week for $99 at a local hospital. I've been following a low-carb eating plan for several years. My score was 0 in three of my arteries and 18.38 in the left circumflex. Since this is my first scan, I don't know how it compares to before I began eating low-carb, but I'd like to think this is not a bad starting score and probably better than it would have been back when I was eating that "healthy" diet that is slowly killing so many. I will have another scan in a year, and see if I can tweak the diet a little to eliminate the small build-up I have. I am very motivated to avoid the prescription-drug, expensive procedure path that so many take as they age.

  • Cheers to empowerment!

    6/9/2010 8:16:28 AM |

    Wow Brilliant blog Dr. Davis i stumbled on it 3 days back and took time off from work and went through all your articles from april 2006 till now in 3 x 16 hour shifts. Stupendous stupendous work. By the way im a 25 year old attorney. I lost my father and grandfather to inexplicable health issues and your blog has lifted the veil on the cause - low fat high carb and high sugar diet, nutritional deficiencies especially k2 us being strict vegetarians. My mom is showing arthritic symptoms very young in her early 50s. For my parents (being high up in the government) there is no medical facility or procedure out of reach, but curative medicine is a huge drag when prevention is possible. Being bed ridden for years is hugely taxing on nuclear families whatever be the status or financial pull of a person. I Being the only child of my parents and having gone through all the trauma of attending law school caring for my father and moving houses simultaneously, your blog is endlessly empowering and valuable.

  • Indian Surgical Industries

    7/19/2010 8:12:26 AM |

    Best surgical instruments medical supply in all India- Delhi based surgical medical manufacturer and suppliers company provide all kinds of medical equipment on wholesale like Sterilization Equipment, hospital furniture, suction unit, baby care products and many more.

  • Resume Writing Service

    7/24/2010 12:27:27 PM |

    Nice discussion very informative.

  • Indian Surgical Industries

    8/12/2010 11:40:56 AM |

    Best surgical instruments medical supply in all India- Delhi based surgical medical manufacturer and suppliers company provide all kinds of medical equipment on wholesale like Sterilization Equipment, hospital furniture, suction unit, baby care products and many more.

  • mike V

    10/4/2010 2:31:47 PM |

    FYI:
    Radiology, November 2010
    CT Scans and Cardiovascular Health

    http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?&storyid=25336

    Mike V

  • Physician in India

    10/19/2010 9:30:12 AM |

    Thanks for sharing the informative post.

  • Savion

    7/10/2011 8:42:01 AM |

    Super jazzed about gteting that know-how.

  • Dilly

    7/11/2011 7:11:56 PM |

    You know what, I'm very much inlcnied to agree.

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My heart scan was wrong!

My heart scan was wrong!

6. October 2006 William Davis (0)


Tom came into the office ready for a confrontation.

Tom's wife insisted that he see me to discuss the implications of his CT heart scan score of 459. At age 50, this was clearly bad news that placed Tom in the 99th percentile (worst 1% of men in his age group).

But Tom had already undergone a stress test. There had apparently been a small abnormality, and a heart catheterization had been performed by another cardiologist. "They told me they didn't need to do anything. No stent, no ballon, no bypass, nothing!"

I asked, "Did they tell you that there was any plaque or blockages seen?"

"Yeah, but he said it was nothing. So the heart scan was wrong!"

I've been here many times before. I explained to Tom that, no, his heart scan was not wrong. All the tests he'd undergone siimply provided a different perspective on the same disease. You could say:

--The stress test, being a test of blood flow, may have been abnormal because of the abnormal constrictive behavior of arteries containing plaque, known as "endothelial dysfunction", because the inner lining of arteries (the endothelium) control the tone of the artery. Abnormal constriction in arteries with plaque is quite common.

--The catheterization simply showed that no plaque had collected in a configuration to block flow, thus no stent, etc., since flow was normal. But there was indeed plaque.

All three tests were right; none were wrong. They all provided a little different perspective on the same process. Of course, I favor the heart scan as the means to identify, precisely measure, and track the atherosclerotic plaque in your arteries. The stress test is too crude and only measures flow, the catheterization is not something you'd want to undergo year after year. Catheterization also is too crude a measure to precisely track plaque growth or reversal.

So I explained to Tom that, even though a stent or similar procedure was unnecessary, he remained at substantial risk for heart attack due to plaque "rupture". In fact, Tom's heart attack risk was 5% per year, or approximately 50% over the next decade. That is, indeed, substantial. In fact, you might say that, of the three tests Tom underwent, only the heart scan revealed his true risk.
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Heart Scan Curiosities #6

Heart Scan Curiosities #6

27. February 2007 William Davis (0)















This is a "slice" from a normal heart scan in a 58 year old woman. Heart scan score zero. Look at the lungs, the dark areas left and right of the heart in the center. The lungs are also normal. Black represents normal density, healthy lung tissue. The white streaking is just normal lung blood vessels. This person doesn't smoke.


















This woman smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and has done so for 45 years ("45 pack-years"). She had a surprisingly low heart scan score (at age 64) of only 71, despite the smoking. However, look at this woman's lungs. It's a little tough to make out, since the computer graphics loses some of the resolution. But you can see the near absence of lung tissue on both sides. This is an advanced phase of the destructive lung disease, emphysema, from smoking. Even if she quit smoking today, the destroyed lung tissue never grows back. She literally has huge gaps or holes in her lungs where lung tissue used to be.

Smoking is among the most destructive, terrible things you can do to your body, short of swallowing strychnine or jumping off a building. Stay as far the heck away from cigarettes as you possibly can. If you are exposed to "secondary" smoke, insist that the person never smoke in your presence. It's not the smell that destroys your lungs or causes coronary plaque (though it is indeed foul), it's the actual smoke.
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