I could see this might be a problem if gut health was compromised; exogenous AGEs would then have a pathway to get into our tissues.  Assuming someone is on a low carbohydrate paleolithic style diet, what evidence is there that the exogenous AGEs do anything other than merely pass through the digestive system?

Hi August, I echo the same question. Is there any research on exogenous AGE's absorbing in to our bodies?

Dr. Davis,

Are palm oils/hydrogenated oils a significant source of AGE's like butter?

What about clarified butter (ghee)?

Dr. Davis, now you're delving into the unknown with your suggestion of an anti-AGE diet. You don't know. You're suggesting we eat that diet but you haven't any data to support such a suggestion. Don't do like they did with saturated fat. Think of the alternative we adopted then that brought us here. Think of the alternative we will adopt now that will bring us who knows where.

If the advice of the day is to avoid AGEs in food, what kind of food will we eat then? Since meat contains a boatload of AGEs, that's out but what will replace it, soy? See how your advice is already turning on itself?

Stick to what works on the TYP program as a good doctor should and leave the speculation to the speculators.

Martin, there have been numerous studies connecting the association of AGEs with various health issues. There is nothing novel or or new about this.

Avoiding AGEs doesn't mean you can't eat meat. All you have to do is eat good fresh meat and don't over cook it until it is well done or overbrowned. If you like your meat chared and well done, then you may have to make a sacrifice.

Yes even properly prepared meat has some AGEs in it. But no one food or diet is perfect. You just do the best you can and try to avoid the big mistakes. Just my opinion for what it is worth.

Doc - with regards to exogenous AGEs, it sounds like this could be the new cholesterol-is-bad-for-you theory. My apologies if I have overlooked something in your post, but I don't see any logical argument leading to the conclusion that exogenous AGEs affect your health. Your previous post on butter also makes you sound like an alarmist. Of course, if you have a diet coming up, this is understandable.

what do stomach acid and bile do to ingested ages?? ...and the rest of the digestive process? sss

One of the primary AGE components of milk products is pyrraline:

Glycation in food and metabolic transit of dietary
AGEs

Here are some quotes from this study:

"Given the data for pyrraline excretion, it
can be concluded that dietary pyrraline is nearly completely
released and resorbed during digestion, followed by rapid
elimination via the kidneys, thus leading to nearly complete
recovery of dietary pyrraline in the urine. This indicates that,
in contrast with Amadori products, of which only up to 5%
are recovered in the urine [24,25], pyrraline obviously is not
metabolized within the body."

"Above all, however,
it has to be realized that the term ‘AGE’ comprises a large
number of individual amino acid derivatives, of which only a
minority have been identified and quantified either in foods
or in vivo."

Now that everyone is speculating in the last two posts, is it possible that some AGEs are much more harmful than others? (As the previous study indicates?)

Are we distinguishing the types of AGEs when we measure them? (Or are we lumping them all together like what was done with cholesterol?)

Are food derived AGEs eaten as part of a meal less harmful then analogues produced in a lab and fed in isolation? (Like most AGE studies I've read?)

Again, if butter is as bad as these measurements indicate, why hasn't it been identified epidemiologically as such a bad food? Those with the highest butter consumption tend to be the healthiest (although I suppose because it displaces margarine).

I can understand why all AGEs might be harmful to someone with compromised kidneys, but I agree with Martin Levac that we're really delving into the unknown.

"Martin, there have been numerous studies connecting the association of AGEs with various health issues. There is nothing novel or or new about this."

Please give us a study. This sort of broad statement is hard to counter argue otherwise!

I'm not really convinced AGEs you eat are a problem. But if you're enamored of low temperature cooking, looking into Sous Vide cooking. It yields delicious results by cooking at much lower temperatures than normal.

Speaking of endogenous AGEs, caused by high blood glucose levels, here is an interesting factoid - blood glucose levels in birds are very high yet their HbA1c levels are low:

http://healthcorrelator.blogspot.com/2010/10/blood-glucose-levels-in-birds-are-high.html

There are a few possible reasons for this. One of the most interesting mechanisms is vitamin C synthesis. Not only is vitamin C a powerful antioxidant, but it also has the ability to reversibly bind to proteins at the sites where glycation would occur.

All humans cook food and have done so for thousands of years. This is natural for us. If you've ever cooked meat on a camp fire, you know that the some of the meat becomes very crisp. Paleo people didn't have temperature gauges so I'm very sure there were plenty of exogenous AGE's. In fact, I would suggest, since these pieces of foods tend to taste very good to humans that they are an important piece of our nutrition not the opposite.

"High blood glucose (any blood sugar above 100 mg/dl) will permit glycation"

I would love to know some research that backs this claim. I have seen it numerous times but have not been able to find any research that specifically deals with it.  Also, just guessing, but I would bet that damage occurs at considerably lower blood sugar levels for those eating a conventional, nutrient sparse diet as compared to those replete w/ vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients etc who eat a diet containing very large amounts of "real food" particularly non-starchy vegetables

Has anyone ever taken an A1C of a grain-feed cow?  Maybe that high AGE butter was from a diabetic cow!

I don't know if AGEs are harmful either, but a pressure cooker is great for low-temperature cooking. It's also much faster and keeps in the juices better than oven roasting.

Re: sausage (from the last post), the list of ingredients from the chorizo I eat is pork, water, salt, paprika, spices and garlic powder. "No nitrates, MSG, preservatives, sugar or soy," reads the label. I don't understand why this is worse than any other meat.

Sausage could be a problem because,

1)The meat is ground up so more of the surface area was exposed to oxygen. More of the meat is oxidized.

2)Sausage unlike unground cuts of meat must be cooked through because of bacterial contamination. The more you cook meat the more you get AGEs.

3)Some sausages as with hot dogs are pre cooked. Then you cook them again. This should also increase AGEs.

There are indeed studies that 1) measure serum levels of AGEs in humans after consumption of exogenous sources, and 2) relate AGE levels to biologic effect, e.g., endothelial response.

There is no question that the exogenous AGE conversation requires more exploration. I've followed this conversation for some years, but I believe it is gathering real momentum and looks and feels like a genuinely meaningful issue.

We need more info, no doubt. The notion of endogenous AGEs already fits quite nicely into our observations of the benefits of a low-carb diet. But  exogenous AGEs have potential for taking us one step farther in crafting an ideal diet. Recall that the "Paleo" approach is one reconstructed to mimic ancient behaviors, not necessarily one to achieve a new set of modern goals, such as reversal of coronary disease or osteoporosis.

It's clear that in the US we eat lots of carbs and get lots of heart disease and diabetes.  But there are lots of traditional cultures that eat even higher percentages of carbs (cassava, beans, rice and others) but that don't get those diseases.  How does the AGE theory explain that?

Dear Dr Davis,

I know your opinion against butter, but disagree, based on a lifelong experience, as a skin chronic healed by milkfats and (land)animal fats.

For the first 40 years of my life I was never free of allergic reactions and imflammated skin symptoms. Raw food helped not, vegetables and salads helped not, and the official healthy lifestyle helped not either. 10 years ago, when the stsart of Zonish lowcarb (much like your style) finally helped me incredibly much... Yet my skin has healed fully only after I switched to very, very buttery and egg-yolky diet close to Jan Kwasniewski.

I live far up North, but have no symptoms of vitamin D deficiency, in spite of not eating the pills and not having much sun for the better part of the year. Furthermore, I cannot eat fish, and do no longer supplement with fish oil either, due to problems induced by it. Yet my skin has never been as good as now, fully without irritation or other symptoms. And unlike my frends and colleagues, I no longer seem to catch seasonal colds, either.

So far the only thing I can blame for the last few years of well-being is increased use of milkfat and non-muscle parts of animals (fat, marrow, liver and skin collagen). Of these the milkfats make up a major part of the daily calories, often more than 50 E%.

I'm interested to hear your thought on possible causes, which make this butter strategy work the best of all that we've ever tried; both for myself and for others in our family

With regards,
LeenaS

I am a Type 2 Diabetic with normal blood sugar who takes -0- drugs and -0- insulin.

I experienced tremendous benefits from going low carb primal. I won't detail them here but I have not been sick in 20 mos.

This summer I performed a one week dairy fast (I'd been off milk for almost a year) and then added back butter.

Butter was very inflammatory. I no longer eat it. Clarified butter or Ghee and Cheese are not inflammatory and I eat it occasionally.

So for me, I agree with butter.

Anonymous, thanks for the info on sausage. I buy raw sausage and I'm careful to avoid over-cooking any meat, mostly because it gets like shoe leather.

Another question: is cream high in AGEs? Does the churning action required for butter contribute to oxidation or AGEs?

What's the consensus on carnosine ? I've read some articles claiming it helps with AGE factors.

Dr. Davis, it's fine to have data on a diet that contains AGEs, but where's the data on a diet that avoids AGEs? Where is the justification for adopting such a diet? Avoiding something leads to adopting something else. What will that be? You can't predict. Nobody can predict. This is the danger of advising to avoid something just like that was the danger of advising to avoid saturated fat and pretty much all animal fat altogether in one big swoop.

If we can't eat fat, we must eat sugar. There's no other alternative. If we can't eat meat, we must eat some other form of protein. What will that be, soy, wheat, any other grain, legumes? If we can't eat meat, we must eat some other form of those essential nutrients like B12 and EFAs. But where can we get such a high quality source of those nutrients but in animal flesh? The quick answer is nowhere.

When you advise to avoid AGEs without giving us a safety threshold, the safe course is to avoid all AGEs, not just a little bit. When you give a safety threshold, it doesn't matter because the substance has been declared bad entirely anyway so the safe course is the same.

We can see this with animal fat and pretty much any kind of fat. Fat is bad, so any fat is bad, so less fat is good or better, but no fat is best. That's how it works in spite of having some form of safety threshold we can abide by like say 10g of saturated fat per day maximum. Why is that? The safety threshold is declared as a maximum with no minimum.

So tell us Dr. Davis, what is the maximum and the minimum amount of AGEs you advise we eat? But more relevant to the discussion, how can we find out exactly how much AGEs is in the food we eat every day so that we can make an informed decision on exactly how much AGEs we eat every day? Is there a tool that will allow me to find that out? The point is that even if you give us a precise number on how much AGEs we can and cannot eat, we can't even control how much AGEs we eat. Accordingly, the best course of action is to avoid all AGEs and not just a little bit just to be safe because the contention is that lots of AGEs is worse than none.

With endogenous AGEs production due to high blood glucose and other simple sugars like fructose, the problem is much simpler. That's because this AGEs aspect of sugars is merely the last installment of How Sugars Kill Us Slowly. We already know that sugars kill us slowly and we already know just how much of it will do it and how long it will take and etc. But until you find out exactly how much exogenous AGEs we must avoid and exactly how much we can get away with and how to measure the AGEs in the food we eat, this problem will remain unresolved and unresolvable.

In other words, the best course of action with exogenous AGEs is to just ignore them outright. After all, we've been ignoring them outright for the past couple million years without so much trouble.

Bill,

Butter is high in AGEs? Wow - why? What about Ghee?

Do you know what the AGEs are in smoked meats like smoked trout?

Does the canning process increases ages as in canned wild caught salmon?

Hi, Fred-

I believe that smoked fish tend to be moderately high in exogenous AGEs.

One of the difficulties with quantification of AGEs in foods is we have limited data on the AGE content of various foods. It's not like grams fats or carbohydrates listed in plain sight on the label.

I find the AGE conversation a fascinating new potential insight into helping us decide how to best manage food choices, as well as food preparation.

As with all new ideas, it will cause upheaval in preconceived notions.

Given some of the previous blog posts, the largest preconceived notion might be yours toward butter. So, it's no big deal if you aren't up to the challenge of defending what you posted. That's okay. Trying to be coy about it, not so much.

Count me as a skeptic on this one.

Very good review on AGEs. Dr. Davis is 100% right to be concerned.

http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/65A/9/963.full#ref-109

Chris Masterjohn has the skinny on AGEs in butter:

The Daily Lipid: Is Butter High in AGEs?

People are confusing exogeneous AGEs which are generally harmless compared to the dangerous endogenous AGEs.

Endogenous AGEs are created by proteins in our bodies reacting with reducing sugars.  Practically the only sources of dietary reducing sugars are fructose (table sugar, HFCS) and  cooked starches. The obvious solution is to eat far more meat and butter and drastically reduce carbohydrates.

Humans have been eating cooked food for 1.8 million years and are very well adapted to them. The novel foods in the human diet are large quantities of plant proteins, starches and sugars.

I'm surprised you think kale and spinach are so wonderful. Renowned toxicologist Dr Bruce Ames says that there are considerable amounts of natural toxins and carcinogens present in all food plants.
http://www.fortfreedom.org/n16.htm

Any potential benefits from eating kale is likely to be due to hormesis.

In fact there is absolutely nil direct scientific evidence that eating fruit and vegetable has any health benefits whatseover. The benefits of vegetables have only been found in a few poorly designed population studies. Any observed 'benefits' of eating vegetables are probably just due to confounding variables - people who eat vegetables smoke less, drink less alcohol, are more active and eat less sugar and junk foods.

Gary Taubes is skeptical of the claims about exogenous AGES

http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/36758/17729/gary-taubes

Hi Apra,

In 'The Diet Delusion' Gary Taubes says that the natural diet of humans is almost purely carnivore with a few berries. Taubes studied physics at Harvard and aerospace engineering at Stanford before becoming a journalist. Because he was properly trained in using rigorous scientific methods he can readily see the flaws in nutrition research.

I've read the sole paper that lists butter as a high-AGE food: "Advanced Glycoxidation End Products in Commonly Consumed Foods" (2004, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, via Google Scholar cache).

The data is in Table 1, which refers to "foods prepared by standard cooking methods" (these include frying), but the table says nothing specific about how the butter was processed. I am willing to bet that the butter in question had been treated at high temperature (maybe used in frying).

Consider these values:

Milk, cow, whole .... 0.05 kU/mL
Butter .............. 265 kU/g

Expecting high AGEs in uncooked butter -- over 5000 times the level in milk! -- would make little sense.

Would you consider revising your post in light of this?

The data table lists butter as 100 gm serving, or over 3 ounces (23,000 - 26,000).  In the serving size database, the amount of AGEs normalize a bit, at 1100 - 1300.  I wish they had done organic vs commercial butters, but maybe next time we can see that data.  No surprise on pan fried bacon at 91,577 for 3 ounces and 11,905 for the serving size (2 slices is the norm).   As with all foods, moderation.  And thank you for your blog - it is very informative!

Unbelievable!  When are doctors going to get a clue?  Thank you, Dr. Davis for giving us the truth.

Dr. Davis, somehow I've managed to get my Vitamin D, 25-hydroxy level to 90 ng/ml! It's the first time I've had it tested since taking your advice. Is this too high? Or about right?

I take about 8000 IUs per day (in the form of drops) and get 20-40 minutes of daily sun (in Florida, that's pretty easy to do). That's year-round.

Nota bene: My HDL/TC ratio was 0.241 (64/265), and TRGS/HDL ratio was 1.4 (94/64), which are pretty good numbers, I think. My LDL was mostly Pattern A (large bouyant), which is also good, I think. Since my doctor said my TC of 265 was still too high, he recommended statin therapy, which I declined.  I've lost ~80 pounds in the past 12 months eating a low-carb paleo diet (and no freakin' WHEAT!), and I've heard that a large weight loss can screw up cholesterol levels for a while.  Could that be the reason the TC is still "high." Should I be concerned? I think my good ratios and large bouyant LDL trump TC, but my doctor thinks otherwise.

Thanks!

I have a question for you as a cardiologist. Does a ketogenic diet affect an edema associated with a heart failure?  I understand that congestive heart failure is a very serious condition, one of my husband's coworkers wife is in a hospital right now with such condition, they removed one gallon of fluid from her legs there, and I am just curious. I had a pitting  edema  at 46 when my pre-menopause issues started, and it got cured with a carb. restriction (together with the rest of pre-menopause issues and asthma). What about edemas associated with other health conditions? Does carb restriction could help to some degree?

This is interesting info. I am not a big fan of wheat for a number of reasons, the obvious being lack of nutrition and evidence of negative response in celiacs.  Those issues seem fairly certain and I am also open to other arguments.  However, I would like to see some of the research on these particular accusations against wheat, specifically the evidence that wheat is a addictive and that wheat makes you hungrier.  

If it were merely addictive, then we could just eat more wheat and less other foods.  But then, wheat has lack of nutrition so maybe the desire for nutrition drives us to eat more food in addition, thus leading to more overall food consumption.  In that nutrition is probably somewhat 'addicive' as well, ie the body craves it.  Seems to me that pure addiction could account for a lot.  

If were were addicted to sugar and addicted to wheat, we'd eat a lot of them both, which on average is what Americans are doing.  Then on top of that, the body might still try to get some scraps of nutrition, so that means yet more food is consumed.  Seems to me, the prob could be a simple issue of being addicted to foods that pack a lot of calories but do not give nutrition in return.  Then you have to eat even more on top of that just to survive and get at least minimal nutrition.  

So I guess what I am pondering is a subtle variation on the theme of 'hunger' in that  perhaps wheat addiction drives the desire for more wheat consumption (at least in some), sugar consumption drives the desire for more sugar consumption (at least in some), and lack of nutrition drives the desire to eat more in general until nutritional needs are met.  The solution would be that as we have already seen, eating healthy foods and avoiding sugar and wheat naturally returns hunger to normal levels in most people.    

Another interesting issue is to look at meth users who often become very skinny.  My understanding is even if food is available, hunger is stunted by meth, which implies that meth is able to override all food drives, perhaps even those of sugar and wheat?  I wonder what might be found if that is studied!  (not that I am suggesting we take meth of course for obvious reasons, but the mechanism itself is interesting)      

I am somewhat familiar with on study that showed rats packed on 25% more fat when fed wheat, which is interesting because rats are seed eating creatures by nature, but that one study by itself is not enough.  I am guessing you have put a lot of time into gathering a lot more research and would be so appreciative if you could list a tad of it if possible.
-Eva

[...] Opiate of the masses Although it is a central premise of the whole Wheat Belly argument and the starting strategy in the New Track Your Plaque Diet, I fear that some people haven’t fully gotten the message:  Modern wheat is an opiate. And, of course, I don’t mean that wheat is an opiate in the sense that you like it so much that you feel you are addicted. Wheat is truly addictive. Post your 5RM total working time to comments [...]

Your book said that only 1/3 of people experience withdrawal symptoms when giving up wheat.  If it's as addictive as you say in this article then why do only a third have withdrawal symptoms?
Perhaps I misread what you said in your book?

Hi Dr. Davis,

For the last 5-6 months, I switched over to a low carb (~50-75g/day) diet, mostly making up the calories with whey protein and lots of fats (olive oil, avocado, grass fed butter). It's not exactly bulletproof, but pretty close.

While a lot of clear markers improved, my total cholesterol and LDL jumped quite a bit, to levels that I believe
you've mentioned you feel are high. (I'm male and I think you mentioned 220 as a reasonable limit)

What next tests or changes would you make if you were me?

Total cholesterol: 204 --> 238 * scares me the most out of all thee numbers. Most say this should be below 220.
HDL: 60 --> 70 * very nice improvement
Triglyceride: 104 --> 84 * very nice improvement
LDL: 123 --> 151 * big jump here. most docs hate to see this, but from what i'm reading LDL doesn't mean very much - only particle size.
Triglyceride/HDL ratio: 1.73 --> 1.2 * this is considered the best predictor of cardiovascular disease. Very nice change here

Should I be worried about the total cholesterol hitting 238?  I'm obviously happy about the HDL/TGL numbers.

Dear Dr Davis

I have been asked to convey to you some intormation about heart disease and copper.  Some months ago I searched your blog for the word copper and found nothing.  Here is what copper researcher Leslie Klevay says about ischemic heart disease and copper deficiency.  

'...the Western diet is frequently low in copper. Copper deficiency is the only nutritional insult that elevates cholesterol (7), blood pressure (8), and uric acid; has adverse effects on electrocardiograms (7, 9); impairs glucose tolerance (10), to which males respond differently than do females; and which promotes thrombosis and oxidative damage. More than 75 anatomic, chemical, and physiologic similarities between animals deficient in copper and people with ischemic heart disease have been identified. Copper deficiency is offered as the simplest and most general explanation for ischemic heart disease.'
http://www.ajcn.org/content/71/5/1213.full

Yours sincerely
Jane Karlsson PhD

doc what about the stores selling organic wheat . any good?

At my local library "Wheat Belly"  has 10 holds on first copy returned of 12 copies in our libary system. Many people are becoming informed and educated!!!!!!!!

[...] DR. William Davis Dangers of MSG Dr. Antti Heikkila    Posted in Knee injury [...]

[...] closing thoughts from Dr. William Davis: Wheat is addictive in the sense that it comes to dominate thoughts and behaviors. Wheat is [...]

http://cprfordepressives.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/eating-wheat-can-cause-depression/ talks about the link between wheat and depression.

http://cprfordepressives.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/eating-wheat-can-cause-depression/ talks about the link between wheat consumption and depression.  I was interested to hear some of the same things that I hear fro you, Dr. Davis.

I never quite "got" why you were anti-wheat over-and-above the low carb thing, but this is some interesting info.  I shall have to get this book.

Thanks for the info. its really helpful.

[...] Opiate of the masses [...]

[...] Heart Scan Blog is the blog of Dr. Davis, where he often discusses wheat as the modern opiate that, instead of making us high, makes us hungry. It’s funny how often I have these [...]

[...] Heart Scan Blog is the blog of Dr. Davis, where he often discusses wheat as the modern opiate that, instead of making us high, makes us hungry. It's funny how often I have these conversations [...]

Hi Joe ~
If you read wheatbellyblog.com, you may have already seen this in a comment from JillOz. It's a very interesting and eye-opening talk (some 2hrs but I stayed focused easily) and may ease your mind regarding cholesterol. You were very wise to reject the statins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvKdYUCUca8

Thanks for interesting Blog

I haven't found any published articles about gliadin and appetite in PubMed.  Do you have any hints what are the keywords? I've tried gliadin, appetite or satiety.

[...] Opiate of the masses | Track Your Plaque Blog. Share this:TwitterFacebookDiggEmailPrintRedditStumbleUponTumblr   from → Carbs, Fitness    [...]

You might wanna revise the last statement in parenthesis about a low-carb diet causing small LDL to skyrocket   I assume you meant low-fat.

I´ve been a low fat healthy anything victim myself for over 12 years and know exactly that it is a difference to SAD - but as you said only at the beginning. But maybe it´s easier to take those first changing steps into the right direction even if it´s the wrong way.
Low fat, tons of fruits and whole grains are not the solution.
Now I´m VLC for over one year, keto the last half got rid of eczema, asthma, mood issues and much more. Laboratory always repeat the tests because they can´t believe it: HDL 199, triglyceride 35. That´s high fat.

Dr. D
You are on the mark with the last paragraph...it's more than one "magic pill" to solve the health problem. The solution appears to be a combination of many aspects of human existence...diet exercise and mental state.
Eat right, exercise right, and think right...making the right choices for a healthier lifestyle.

(something that is unlikely in Ornish, since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet)

Should this not read either

"Low-Fat" or "High-Carb" diet?

I applaud Dane--I don't know how long I'd be able to contain my frustration if I had to not only watch the Dr. Oz show, but actually receive direct advice from Ornish and Oz about low fat...

You mean "skyrocket on a *low fat* diet", right?

"since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet"

I think this is a typo that was meant to say "high-carb diet", right?  Or perhaps it was large LDL particles skyrocket on a LC diet.

"since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet"
I think you meant high-carb diet

I think you have a mistype here:

(something that is unlikely in Ornish, since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet)

Dr. Davis,

I watched Dr. Oz's show on reversing heart disease and it was interesting to read your comments.  

Regarding the reversal of heart disease, while I admittedly haven't read your publication, do you have Heart Scans/Calcium Scores, angiograms or PET Scans that show the same results Dr. Oz (and other MDs like Dr. Caldwell Esselstein or K. Lance Gould) that show the same results with your program?  

Thank you again and look forward to your feedback.

maybe I am reading into this wrong but " (something that is unlikely in Ornish, since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet)"

''something that is unlikely in Ornish, since small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet''   You surely meant low-fat diet.

Thanks as always.  Please fix third line from bottom, after skyrocket,"low-carb," to help the newbies.

See- it was an AMBUSH. They write the rules and that is that. WE, the low carb HIGH fat diet, community must be the grass roots driving force. We are like Galileo committing hiFat heresy among an antiFat, Whole grain Inquisition. Fight on and screw tv talk shows.

I will be curious to see how this goes down on the Oz show, but am afraid we'll be left wanting to bang our heads on the wall.  Does this mean that Dane did not get a chance to respond at all to their advice or that he must agree to follow their advice (maybe with a  follow up to show improvement, or NOT).

I agree with you that their diet advice is probably better than what most of their featured patients eat.  And you probably can show improvements to a degree that way in many people.  Just cutting the enormous glycemic load in conjunction with omega-6 rich oils should help a lot.  But that doesn't make it optimal for health.

What's it going to take to shut up the low fat dogmatists?  A class action lawsuit?

Why don't you have a show of your own?  I think it would be a good thing.

BTW, I think you meant to say "small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-FAT diet" in your penultimate sentence.

Cynthia

Dr. Davis,
Should the next-to-last sentence read "...small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-fat diet..."?  I thought low-carb diets reduced small LDL.

Typo should be fat
"small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-carb diet"

I've enjoyed reading your blog.

Other ideas...
Niacin and phosophorous suppression causal for insulin resistance?

Fibrates?

Ooops!

Thanks, all for catching the typo.

The sentence should have read:

. . . small LDL particles skyrocket on a low-FAT diet.

I guess everyone is paying attention!

not every body agrees ....

Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Mar;91(3):578-85.

Lack of suppression of circulating free fatty acids and hypercholesterolemia during weight loss on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Little is known about the comparative effect of weight-loss diets on metabolic profiles during dieting. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of a low-carbohydrate diet (< or =20 g/d) with a high-carbohydrate diet (55% of total energy intake) on fasting and hourly metabolic variables during active weight loss. DESIGN: Healthy, obese adults (n = 32; 22 women, 10 men) were randomly assigned to receive either a carbohydrate-restricted diet [High Fat; mean +/- SD body mass index (BMI; in kg/m(2)): 35.8 +/- 2.9] or a calorie-restricted, low-fat diet (High Carb; BMI: 36.7 +/- 4.6) for 6 wk. A 24-h in-patient feeding study was performed at baseline and after 6 wk. Glucose, insulin, free fatty acids (FFAs), and triglycerides were measured hourly during meals, at regimented times. Remnant lipoprotein cholesterol was measured every 4 h. RESULTS: Patients lost a similar amount of weight in both groups (P = 0.57). There was an absence of any diet treatment effect between groups on fasting triglycerides or on remnant lipoprotein cholesterol, which was the main outcome. Fasting insulin decreased (P = 0.03), and both fasting (P = 0.040) and 24-h FFAs (P < 0.0001) increased within the High Fat group. Twenty-four-hour insulin decreased (P < 0.05 for both groups). Fasting LDL cholesterol decreased in the High Carb group only (P = 0.003). In both groups, the differences in fasting and 24-h FFAs at 6 wk were significantly correlated with the change in LDL cholesterol (fasting FFA: r = 0.41, P = 0.02; 24-h FFA: r = 0.52, P = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Weight loss was similar between diets, but only the high-fat diet increased LDL-cholesterol concentrations. This effect was related to the lack of suppression of both fasting and 24-h FFAs.

PMID: 20107198

If I'm correct, the study cited in the comments section fails to reflect LDL particle size. IOW, your total LDL can go up and still result in a superior outcome.

Also, weight loss isn't the issue - fat loss is. We want to know which group lost the most fat, not weight.

Additionally, A calorie restricted, low fat diet that places carb intake at only 55% (FAR lower the the USRDA recc's) is still a relatively low carb diet.

Gys de Jongh,

I've seen that study before. I can't access to the whole study but did they use NMR lipid test or traditional lipid test? Huge difference! I'd bet the study was flawed.

@ Gys de Jongh
In this study Subjects were told that polyunsaturated fats
and monounsaturated fats were healthier sources of dietary fatty acids than were saturated fats,
readers here know Dr Davis makes his recommendations on the basis every effort is made to improve omega 3 status while avoiding omega-6-rich sources like corn oil, vegetable oils, sunflower or safflower oils.

Similarly New Atkins devotes a lot of time explaining the importance of raising omega 3 while reducing omega 6 sources.

It is a pity these researchers didn't make similar recommendations.

I would also like to point out that  in this study, concentrations of LDL cholesterol were estimated by using the Friedewald equation
You may be interested in Dr Davis's  previous comments on Making Dr. Friedewald an honest man

The point is that in the context of  high omega3 ~ low omega6 intakes, we would normally expect to see a low carbohydrate diet produce a beneficial effect on triglycerides and free fatty acids without reducing TOTAL cholesterol but this may seriously throw Friedewald off target.

Without any positive recommendations to address the omega3<>omega6 ratio, the low carb diet used in this research is not a low carb diet that either Atkins proponents or Dr Davis would support.

Gys--

So how much did the high carb group eat? The abstract only says that calories were restricted, it doesn't say to what extent.

What was the composition of the weight loss?

"There was an absence of any diet treatment effect between groups on fasting triglycerides or on remnant lipoprotein cholesterol, which was the main outcome."

Triglycerides at the same level probably means different things, depending on the overall picture.

A particular triglyceride level in a high carb diet might be a measure of the continuous production of triglycerides in the liver. In a low carb diet,  triglycerides might be at a similar level, and if this comes alongside a higher level of free fatty acids, those free fatty acids will be in competition for takeup with the triglycerides; so the same level of serum triglycerides could be reached, even though triglyceride production itself might be decidedly lower.

Gys,

It would be interesting to see if it was the large, fluffy LDL or the small, dense LDL that increased. Were the high fat diets consisting of a lot of Omega 6 or PUFAs? Or did the high fat come from coconut, grass fed meats, and omega 3 fatty acids?

I know lots of folks on a low fat high carb diet who flourish and do not have your experience. I know folks who are on a diet you recommend who also flourish. This whole subject must be more complex than currently understood. Either folks are different or we are missing some variables. The oriental cultures flourish on a high carb diet and they do well (until the SAD influences them).

It's not uncommon for LDL to increase with a high-fat diet. This increase however is in the large fluffy LDL subparticles and not in the small, dense type LDL.
Small LDL is the real "bad guy" in the cholesterol story.

I recently had the Berkley Heart panel done and found out I was a 3/4 APO E carrier.  Their recommendation of a 20% low fat diet I found misguided.  Instead I went on a restricted calorie (1,700/day I'm 5' 11") diet consisting of no grains, some limited fruit (mostly berries)and lots of veggies (daily carbs 110g), lean protein (grass fed if red meat) about 125g. And I eat a ratio of fats (80g) mostly from avacado, olive oil, nuts, and yes some saturated (20g).
The Macro ratio is 46% fat/30 % protein/24% carbs.
By being high fat I am able to maintain this low calorie diet without feeling depreived.
After 2 months on this diet I lost 24 pounds my LDL went from 130 to 91, my HDL went from 45 to 54, and my triglycerides from 230 to 94.

DESPITE THESE #'S MY PHSYCIAN AND THE DIETIAN FROM BERKLEY WARNED ME THAT MY GENOTYPE DOES NOT METABOLIZE FATS WELL!
I know there are conflicting studies (Krauss). I would love Dr. D to take on this APO E subject.  I can't believe from an evolutionary standpoint that 20 % of the population can't eat high fat diets, something is wrong with this hypothesis.

Gys de Jongh, maybe you should read this interpretation of the study on Dr. Eades' blog.

@ TedHutchinson :
The Friedewald equation works fine in this case because the baseline Trig's were 117 mg/dl

If Trig's < 100 mg/dl, LDL is over estimated by 12.17 mg/dL or if you have a (very) good lipid panel your LDL might be over estimated by 10% . Nothing to worry about I would say

The article is free :
Arch Iran Med. 2008 May;11(3):318-21.
The impact of low serum triglyceride on LDL-cholesterol estimation.

PMID: 18426324

@Lou
Total cholesterol and triglycerides were measured enzymatically with a colorimetric endpoint (Roche Diagnostic Systems, Indianapolis, IN), as were HDL-cholesterol concentrations (Diagnostic Chemicals Ltd, Oxford, CT). LDL cholesterol was calculated from plasma total and HDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations

@donny
Suggested caloric intakes for women initially were set at 1200–1500 kcal/d, with the higher intakes recommended for those with a BMI > 36. Men were instructed to eat 1500–1800 kcal/d, again with the higher intakes recommended for those with a BMI > 36. Subjects were encouraged to consume about 30% of calories from fat, 15% from protein, and 55% from carbohydrate.

@Bobby
The best "diet" for you depends on what your genes do with the food after you eat it  
Int J Circumpolar Health. 2007 Dec;66(5):390-400.
Common variants APOC3, APOA5, APOE and PON1 are associated with variation in plasma lipoprotein traits in Greenlanders.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: We undertook studies of the association between common genomic variations in APOC3, APOA5, APOE and PON1 genes and variation in biochemical phenotypes in a sample of Greenlanders. STUDY DESIGN: Genetic association study of quantitative lipoprotein traits. METHODS: In a sample of 1,310 adult Greenlanders, fasting plasma lipid, lipoprotein and apolipoprotein (apo) concentrations were assessed for association with known functional genomic variants of APOC3, APOA5, APOE and PON1. For significantly associated polymorphisms, between-genotype differences were examined in closer detail. RESULTS: We found that (1) the APOE restriction isotype was associated with variation in plasma total and LDL cholesterol and apo B (all p < .0001); (2) the APOC3 promoter genotype was associated with variation in plasma triglycerides, HDL cholesterol and apo A-I (all p < .002); (3) the APOA5 codon 19 genotype was associated with variation in plasma triglycerides (p = .027); and (4) the PON1 codon 192 genotype was associated with variation in total and LDL cholesterol and apo B (all p < .05). CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results suggest that common genetic variations in APOC3, APOA5, APOE and PON1 are associated with significant variation in intermediate traits in plasma lipoprotein metabolism in Greenlanders; the associations are similar to those observed for these variants in other populations.

PMID: 18274205

@marshall
High-fat/low-carbohydrate-diet treatment
Participants in the high-fat condition were instructed to consume a diet that was low in carbohydrate and thus higher in percentage fat and/or protein (13). The central feature of this approach is carbohydrate restriction with unlimited consumption of fat and protein. Subjects were told that polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats were healthier sources of dietary fatty acids than were saturated fats, but it was clear that the primary goal was to limit carbohydrate by whatever means were required. Participants were provided a treatment manual, which described the rationale for a low-carbohydrate diet as well as numerous suggestions for meal plans. The treatment manual for the highcarbohydrate diet plan was modified to make it parallel to the high-fat (low-carbohydrate) recommendations. This substudy took place during the first phase (“induction”) of the intervention. During this phase, participants were instructed to consume ’20 g carbohydrate/d. They were told to eat until full while remaining within the carbohydrate limit.

Gys,

What about small LDL particle vs large LDL particle? Did they use vegetable oil? What kind of carbohydrates?

How do you explain this clincal study - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=17583796&dopt=AbstractPlus?

I rapidly lost a lot of viseral fat past month after cutting most of wheat flour based food AND adding more healthy fat like avacado, coconut milk, olive oil, egg yolk and plenty of various meat. I feel better. I tried low fat high carbs diet and it was not sustainable because I go hungry all the time.

Unless I have full access to that study, I'm going to write it off as flawed misleading study. The author was clearly trying to promote high carbs and low fat diet. I'll have to see where they got grants from to do the study.

Dr. Davis what brand of fish oil do you recommend? I have been taking Flameout by Biotest but am feeling it may not be the best choice. I am hopeful to find something reasonably priced that works well. When my Vit d tested at nine in December when I was admitted to the hospital, I started taking the NOW brand of Vit d 3 and mid March was at 53.....my new doctor is having me increase my dose as he wants it higher. Any brand recommendations for someone struggling on one income for the family for fish oil? Thanks for all of your articles. I am learning so much and will regain my health in time!

Did they do a full colesteral work-up and will they show the results if it shows that Dane's numbers got worse instead or better?

My total cholesterol was 236 two months ago, and my HDL was 155. My numbers have been like this for fifteen years or so (I'm 45), but when they lowered the threshold for prescribing a statin from 240 to 200, my doctor wanted me on a statin. I got a CAC scan and got a score of 42, so I knew I had to do something. I decided to try diet changes first, eating a lower fat diet but still eating moderate amounts of meat. I also took fish oil, Vitamin D, and a multivitamin/mineral supplement. Today, I got the results from my latest blood test, and my total cholesterol is 162, LDL 95, HDL 47, triglycerides 90. The doctor didn't mention taking a statin this time. I plan to get another CAC scan after a year.

I was wrong. My doctor wrote a note on my blood test - he still wants me take a statin "to reverse existing plaque."

Thanks for the post Dr.

In my case when I started on fish oil capsules for Omega 3, my Uric Acid increased from 5.5 to 8.0.

In this case, can I go for Cod liver oil? Does fish oil and Uric Acid have any connections based on your experience?

Thanks in advance

Venkat

Doctor Davis,

Did the patient lose weight? Belly fat specifically?

Do you ever recommend additional iodine to patients that might already be getting 100% of the RDA via a multivitamin?

JohnM

Good for you Dr. Davis for your efforts to prove that you can achieve equal or better cholesterol results by simply using nutritional supplements instead of drug therapy that comes with all the nasty side effects.

How did the iodine or Armour Thyroid affect his blood pressure? My understanding is that these can cause an increase.

How long, do you suppose, will we have to wait for a study comparing outcomes for statin use vs. a regime that includes fish oil, vitamin D, niacin, and a wheat-free, sugar-free diet? If we ever see such a study, will it make any difference?

It was just announced that in Canada we spend $2 billion a year on statins, and I can't tell you the number of times I've printed off "Evidence for Caution: Women and Statin Use" for friends whose physicians want them to take statins.

Any increase from the improved thyroid function is very likely offset by the reduction in total blood volume that follows a normalization of insulin levels.  When your insulin levels drop, your kidneys stop retaining sodium and your blood pressure will usually fall.

Dr. Davis- I'm going to try eliminating wheat for four weeks as you recommend. Is beer okay (in moderation)? What about spelt? Thank you.

I have had a remarkable reversal of my ill health, due to the diet of evolution, as you so eloquently proselytize for.  I just had to replace my Cardiologist, because he chooses to ignore your principles and practices.  My Nephrologist, Dr. Kenneth Tourgeman, who reads you every day, writes as you do, a very riveting and informative blog "nephropal.blogspot.com" stopped many of my medications including Staten's, and of course raised the hackles of my old Cardiologist.  He has since referred me to a Cardiologist with his and your same views.  You and he, along with a few other brave hearts are fighting the good fight. Health care through low carb and a healthy high saturated fat diet, supplemented with high dose Vitamin D3, high dose fish oil, and super Vitamin K2.  Keep up the great work. We out here in the medical wilderness, give thanks for you revolutionary doctors who are curing disease instead of just treating it.

Kurt - your doctor is a mindless statinator. Was your HDL originally 155 - that is astronomical (or was that LDL).  Explore Dr. Davis's trackyourplaque website and then join.  You should get HDL up above 60, and trigs down to 60 or less.  Cutting wheat and fructose out or largely so will kick the Hell out of the trigs, and there are many other things to consider for reducing plaque besides statins.  Your heart scan scores are far more important as a measure of heart health than your LDL number, and your second heart scan tells you more about the effectiveness of your program than your first or than any lipid panel.  Your 47 HDL says to me you are not taking enough fish oil -- get it to at least 3000 mg of DHA and EPA combined per day (not just 3000 mg of fish oil).

Barkeater

Barkeater-
I screwed that up. Originally, my LDL was 155, now it's 95. My HDL is 49 (not 47, as I wrote).

I have upped my fish oil 50%. I cut sugars out years ago, but I haven't tried cutting wheat out of my diet yet.

What I'd like to do is try various diet changes and get tested after each change to see what's working, but I'm in New York, where the law won't let me go out and get my own cholesterol test.

Kurt,
This device works great.
costs about $5.00 per individual test so $15.00 to test trig, total chol and hdl (ldl is calculated)

http://cardiochek.com/

An Appeal for Support and Conformation of Adverse Effects

My daughter has lived with ALS like symptoms for almost 3 years. The worst of the symptoms began when her simvastatin was increased to 80mg in 2008.
Her MRI’s show LESIONS in the brain stem, specifically in the PONS area of her brain.
Of course, her 4 physicians refuse to believe that statin is involved. They are all satisfied with the diagnosis of “Ataxia”.

My Appeal is to all those who have similar brain lesions as shown and documented in MRIs. Please reply.

To Anonymous (who left the comment above entitled Appeal For Support): You could go to www.spacedoc.net for information about ALS as a statin side effect. Print out the relevant pages and show them to your daughter's physicians. If they're not willing to consider that your daughter's debility may be linked to statins, why don't you fire them and find her a new doctor?

Matt's doctor had advised that he avoid salt, as his blood pressure had been borderline high. His thyroid assessment disclosed a TSH of 3.89 mIU/ml with thyroid hormones free T3 and free T4 in the lower half of the normal range.

Dr. Davis,
My husband, 39, has a family h/o cardiac disease which took his grandfathers life at age 45.    Now, he has 30-50% blockage in a LAD artery at the mid point, and 30% blockage at the outer portion.  With diet and exercise changes, along with chinese herbs for the past 3 months his LDL has decreased from 132 to 119.  He has not added fish oil, niacin, Vit D, or red yeast rice to his regimin yet.  He has lost 15 # so far. Dr pushing Zocor.  What do you suggest?

Thanks.
m&B

The statin-free life is real, it's just the matter of what you need more - life without statins or the regular tasty but unhealthy food that you love.  And I'm pleased to read that so many people care about this.  I was prescribed simvastatin and I've been taking it for some months as my doctors instructed although I felt fine. And only then (I know it was silly) I bothered to google for simvastatin side effects.  I was really scared  about myopathy because I often had muscle cramps even before I started to take simvatsatin and I never cared about it.  So I decided to stop with statins, even though my doctor insisted on taking them, and just excluded a number of products from my diet - meat, fat cheese, all cholocale, candy and white sugar, bread, cakes, etc, and totally switched to fruit, veggies, cereals, nuts, cottage cheese, honey, steamed potato, etc. I also used flax seed - the taste reminds me of fish, I love it. Now my cholesterol is normal, I lost many pounds and squeezed into my 10-year-old jeans. I'm not taking statins and I'm not going to get off this diet - i got used to it.  I also wrote about this (a bit outdated now) and this was not an attempt to persuade anyone in anything, just my experience. I understand that food is a real sourse of pleasure for many people and the diet is a real torture incomparable with statins.  It's just that I'not that kind of person and I hate being dependant on meds. Statins are just the price we pay for our pleasures.

I really appreciate finding this source of information.  As a health care provider, I have seen a number of patients who have suffered needlessly because they chose to follow the statin lifestyle suggested by their PCP rather than changing their diet and supplementation.  I am convinced more than a couple actually died from the complications of the drugs.  Thanks for providing this resource.  I would like to offer your readers this article for their consideration.

Dr. Charles L. Foster
chiropractor, Rutland, VT

http://www.fosteringwellness.net/doctor/chiropractor/10304S/chiropractic-Rutland/cholesterol.htm

I had a patient who developed ALS after taking the same drugs.  Funny her ALS went away every time she stopped the drugs (3 times) but returned whenever she started them again.  Her doctor insisted that she would die of heart disease if she didn't take the meds.  Well, she took them and didn't die of heart disease.  I suppose he was right.  He told her to find another doctor if she wouldn't take his recommendations.  She paid with her life.  Supposedly she died of ALS.

By the way, we were treating her for some of the other side effects, muscle weakness, joint pain, loss of balance.  During her medicated periods, she couldn't walk in her yard.  Her husband bought her a John Deere lawn tractor so she could visit her gardens and get about the yard.  When off the meds, she could ambulate on her own.  Tragic

Dr. Charles Foster
Chiropractor,  Rutland VT

Hi Dr. Davis,

I follow much of your advice.  On my NMR, I had an LDL of 50 and particle number of "less than 300".  Also, HDL was 82.  My LDL particle size was 21.1.  Large VLDL was 2.6 nmol/L (and the share of large VLDL was above the reference range), but I did the test postprandially.  My small LDL was "less than 90".  Interestingly, last year, my LDL particle number was 530 and small LDL was 120, but LDL size was larger at 22.3.  Is there anything to make of this?

I'd like to see a discussion of what you'd do for a patient who didn't eat wheat, was on a LC diet, ate a lot of fish, had high vitamin D levels, had normal thyroid tests and still had high LDL levels.

My father takes Lipitor.  He's also suffering from occasional short term memory loss (he's visiting a neurologist often to figure out why).  I'm damn sure it's because of the statins.  I've been on the "no wheat" & high good fat diet for a while and am in great shape.  I Can't get my father to ditch the drug and adopt my diet though (even if he does, I'm not sure if the memory issue will resolve itself).  Going against conventional wisdom is a constant uphill battle.

"...then the "need" and apparent benefits of Lipitor largely dissolve."

I was unaware that there was any research supporting statin use at all except maybe in one group (men under 65 with pre-existing conditions) which is still questionable. Could you further explain what this 'need' might actually be in abscence of such dietary intervention?

8 months ago my 91 year old mother was out of her mind in the hospital.  She had no idea where she was and was too weak to walk to the bathroom.  She was falling frequently.

Now that she's off lipitor she has a new lease on life.  She works in her flower garden and bathes herself.  

I'm now her caregiver and ensure that she takes 5 to 10 thousand iu of D3, Iodoral, 200 mg Ubiquinol, and a couple of grams of fishoil, but the biggest move, in my opinion, was taking her off Lipitor.

We have no family history of heart disease.

This advice works!

I know you intended "Life without Lipitor" to be for all your readers, Dr. Davis, but you might as well have written it for me (because of my earlier importunate and selfish request). Thank you.

Some things I still do not get, noted as they appear in your post:
1) Eliminate fruit?! Fruit, rich with nutrients, now is bad because fruit also comes packed with sugar (its complex carbs)? I respect the notion to eliminate carbs, especially wheat and other grains, but this notion seems rather... narrow. HELP!
2) "Conventional LDL of the sort obtained in your doctor's office": What test is this? Do you mean the phlebotomist (in the doctor's office) who sends the blood sample to Quest or LabCorp to obtain the calculated score?

Thank you for these, and all future clarifications. And for this site, of course.

Best wishes,

while you seem to recommend nuts be a part of the diet, what do you tell your patients who are allergic to nuts?  Peanuts ok?

Agree with much of the article but not sure about this:

"increasing healthy fat intake, such as the fats in lots of raw nuts, olive oil, and flaxseed oil reduce LDL."

All of these will contain unnaturally* large amounts of omega 6 (at least 9g/100g of almonds or olive oil, for example, or 12g/100 for flax oil). This will unquestionably drive up oxidised (atherogenic) LDL cholesterol. (See WholeHealthSource for details). Is there any reason at all to think that natural saturated fat isn't a far safer option (that will drive up HDL)? I can understand why one would worry at saturated fat increasing "cholesterol" back in the day before we could analyse lipid fractions, but what reason do we have to think it would have negative effects now?

Very good doc. I hope you come to the point that you will no longer subscribe statins at all.

DM Wrote:

All of these will contain unnaturally* large amounts of omega 6 (at least 9g/100g of almonds or olive oil, for example, or 12g/100 for flax oil). This will unquestionably drive up oxidised (atherogenic) LDL cholesterol. (See WholeHealthSource for details). Is there any reason at all to think that natural saturated fat isn't a far safer option (that will drive up HDL)? I can understand why one would worry at saturated fat increasing "cholesterol" back in the day before we could analyse lipid fractions, but what reason do we have to think it would have negative effects now?

----------------

Hi DM, I was the first anonymous up top.  I follow Dr. Davis' advice and eat lots of omega-6 rich nuts and, as you can see from the numbers above, my LDL and HDL look pretty good.  Also, my crp was .18 mg/L which is quite low and lp(a) was 2, so I doubt I have much inflammation/oxidation etc.

What are lipitors? Is there any substitute for lipitors?

What are lipitors? Is there any substitute for lipitors?

I've been taking off the shelf Red Yeast Rice instead of lipitor. Works great! My LDL cholesterol went down down down.

-- Boris

@ Anonymous-with-pretty-good-cholesterol.

That's good for you, but the studies show that across large groups, omega-6 will raise the amount of oxidised LDL, which is probably a *bad* thing for cardiovascular health. Stephan discusses this here: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/07/diet-heart-hypothesis-oxidized-ldl-part.html and here http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/07/animal-models-of-atherosclerosis-ldl.html

Does anyone have a sample diet that they follow that is recommended from this website. I have recently eliminated all sugars from my diet and eat 7 small meals a day, but would like some help on seeing a recommended diet that is wheat free, also interested in what supplements people are taking. Thank you!

Heart  disease is one of the most  dangerous disease which takes thousands of life every years all over the world. If we know its symptoms and Treatment for heart disease. We can prevent is to large extent.