It's this type of analysis that's most instructive and most interesting. If I were 20 years younger reading this post, I'm confident I'd have avoided open    heart surgery I went through this past April.

I couldn't find another place to give you general feedback, so it goes here:  thanks for what you do.  

I've been an insulin dependent diabetic for 6 years now with a family history of CAD.  While I have moderately good scores (59 for HDL, triglycerides below 60), I've been concerned about getting a better picture.

I had a CT Heart Scan Wednesday, which resulted in a wonderful 0 reading.  While I plan to push my family practitioner for NMR tests in the future, it's nice to get some validation now.  At $125, the price was a major bargain, as well.

Again, thanks for sharing what you know.

Well, then, more to come!

Interestingly, given a LDL particle count of 2139, Rudy would have been better off with a LARGER standard LDL cholesterol value, as this would imply his particles were larger and hence less atherogenic.

Yes, ironically.

It's all about UVB exposure and amount of pigment and cholesterol in the skin.

Just to clarify, I assume therefore, that, even if sunshine exposure does not guarantee adequate vitamin D levels as one ages, dietary vitamin D through D-rich foods or gel capsules do?

Still another factor is that tanning lotions and sunscreens selectively block UVB rays, which are the higher-energy rays our bodies need to synthesize Vitamin D.  The lower-energy UVA rays that cause tanning but don't help with Vitamin D are permitted through in much higher quantities by all sunscreen chemistries.

Like many things in this world, when we humans interfere with the natural, we tend to screw it up.  Just like we're better off with whole milk, whole eggs, whole meats (leave the skin on the chicken, it's the best part!), etc.  We also benefit most from the whole spectrum of sunlight.  Not so much that we burn, but definitely not filtered of the best and most useful components.

If you want a tan to count towards your Vitamin D, repeatedly get outside for short periods of time without sunscreen.  I'd still recommend a supplement, since your body has all sorts of ways to manage too much, and very few ways to manage not enough.

Dr. Davis, thank you for reminding us of the importance of vitamin D supplementation.   When addressing vit. D supplementation, please, we need to keep on stressing that it needs to be D3 in GEL CAPS.   There are lots of people who are hearing the vit D supplementation message, run to the drugstore and buy D tablets (often 1000 IU D2).  Their doctors and pharmacists are saying they are doing the right thing.  But from what I understand it is rather useless.  Oil based D3 in the right, larger, quantity, is what matters, because that is what the digestive system can absorb.

Could you provide a medical research reference that clearly shows why D3 in gel caps is the only way to go?  I would like to print lots of copies to give to my friends, parents, etc....

A test comparing D2 to D3:

http://www.nutraingredients.com/news/ng.asp?id=82331

Check out the Vitamin D Council for a wealth of research on Vit D supplementation:  http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

I was so impressed with this non-profit's work that I added them to my list of charitable causes.

Dear Dr Davis,

I just got back from my holidays in France and am catching up with your blogs. This one interested me. I just received the results of my vitamin D test taken before I went away, the 25(OH)vitamin D3 test, and my levels are 384 nmol/L (153 ng/ml) which I understand is much, much too high.

I am mystified at this result as I live in the UK where there isn't usually much sun and I don't sunbathe anyway and I've been taking 4,000iu D3 only since January. Obviously I am stopping the supplements right away but am very concerned.

Anne

Use of sunscreen seems to very significantly blunt the creation of vitamin D.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/80/6/1678S/F4

I get really annoyed sometimes when grocery shopping by all the food manufacturers trying to manipulate us into buying their product by trumpeting whatever health angle they can get away with. "Only 100 calories!" "Good source of fiber!" "Low-fat!" Only 1g carb per serving!" "25% less sugar!" They sniff the air for whatever the latest health trend is and see how they can get their product modified a little while still remaining junk to cash in on the trend. They don't care about our health, they just want our money.

There is one thing I am unsure about regarding all of the 'omega-3' products -- is it even healthy for men to use omega-3 products derived from non-fish (flax)? ALA has been shown to raise the risk of prostate cancer, although some studies also show other aspects of flax decreases the risk (making it all nice and confusing). I've also read, that for some people, who can't convert ALA to omega very well in their bodies,  flax can also raise inflammation levels.

Should men even bother taking flax or products with  flax omega, at all? My own cardiologist pushes flax on me, oddly enough, even though I guzzle down plenty of fish oil. When I mention possible problems from flax, she basically drops the subject, leaving me in the dark as to why she suggested it in the first place.

I saw a commercial for baby food with added DHA being marketed at helping your baby's brain development.

I found this little article to contain very useful advice.  

How to Eat - in Seven Words

"Eat food," said Michael Pollan. "Not too much. Mostly plants."

Seven words - short ones, no less, totaling eight syllables. Easy to spell, translate, or jot on a sticky note. But really, is that all that needs to be said?

Pollan - a journalism professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of the bestselling book The Omnivore's Dilemma - admits that boiling down advice on how human beings should eat to a mere seven words is dicey. A great deal, for example, depends on how one defines "food."

But in a rousing presentation to a packed room of health professionals at the Fourth Annual Nutrition and Science Conference in San Diego, Calif., on May 2, 2007, Pollan argued that Americans have gone astray when it comes to thinking about food. While other cultures define food in terms of pleasure, sociability, religion or history, Americans are uniquely mesmerized by its scientific aspect.

We are followers, Pollan said, of "nutritionism."

"It is an ideology, a way of organizing experience," he said. "Like other 'isms' it rests on a simple set of assumptions, though we don't realize it." The connection between food, science, and health is "a real linkage," he said, "but it has overwhelmed all of the other linkages in our culture."

Only in America, Pollan said, do people care more about food components - cholesterol, saturated fat, omega 3 oils, fiber and so on - than the foods themselves. And only in America can a low-fat craze grip the country, as it did from 1977 until 2002, to be displaced within a few months by a low-carb craze.

The problem with nutritionism, Pollan said, is that it gives processed foods a huge advantage over whole foods. "A banana or potato cannot significantly change its structure. But any processed food can be changed overnight to correspond with food fads. You can even rejigger bread along Atkins lines." So the "loudest foods in the market" he said, are processed foods, touting their nutritional virtues via a $42 billion marketing industry, while "these poor whole foods just sit there silently."

Thus, the irony: Americans are "a people obsessed with eating healthily, yet they are nonetheless very unhealthy."

Nutrition science has value, Pollan said, but unbridled "nutritionism," pushed by processed food marketers has simply left people confused. In an attempt to simplify food, he came up with his seven-word, three-sentence manifesto, though he concedes that each sentence needs amplification:

Eat food. The key term here, of course, is "food." We need to make hard distinctions between real food and "food-like products," Pollan said. Some guidelines:

Don't eat food with more than five ingredients, or with ingredients you can't pronounce, or that contain high-fructose corn syrup (which serves as a 'marker' indicating that the food is highly processed).

Eat only food that you have cooked, or could cook.

Eat only food that your great, great grandmother would recognize as food.

Not too much. The chief harm of nutritionism, Pollan said, is that processed food companies seize on "good nutrients" and "push us to eat more of them." The result is a tendency for Americans to eat more generally, which is one reason why we are consuming 300 calories more daily than in 1985. In the mass of verbiage surrounding food in America, plain overeating is "the elephant in the room." Pollan's advice to reverse the trend:

Don't eat alone.

Don't eat in front of the TV.

Don't eat seconds.

Perhaps most importantly, pay more and eat less. "I believe that the better quality food you eat, the less you need to feel satisfied."

Mostly plants. "It's not that meat will kill you," he said. "I eat meat. Small amounts of meat have much to recommend them in terms of vitamins, minerals and taste. Most traditional diets - whether Mediterranean, Asian, Indian or Mexican, use meat sparingly, as a flavoring. I think that's an important lesson."

By Brad Lemley
DrWeil.com News

http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/id/ART02840

For anyone who has not read Michael Pollen's book, I would strongly urge you to read this logical and entertaining discussion that attempts to re-introduce rational thinking back into diet.