On the medical front . . .

I had some follow-up blood work done in early January and spoke with my "vitality and longevity" doctor about the results.

Good news: my cholesterol numbers are great. The standard LDL/HDL ratio put me at half the normal risk for cardiac disease--about an eighth of what it was last August.

The number of cholesterol-carrying molecules is down to almost half of what it was last August. But last August I was at very nearly double what my doctor told me was high acceptable. . . . So though I'm close to being at the high acceptable range, I'm not "even" quite there. Wonderful progress, but he wants the number of molecules per deciliter of blood reduced still further.

Most worrying: my fasting blood sugar level has risen even higher than it was (and it was already at the upper edge of acceptable). . . . I'm not sure if my numbers (blood glucose and HgbA1c--glycosylated hemoglobin) place me in the range of pre-diabetic, but they are certainly not optimal.

But my doctor told me he believes part of the reason my blood sugar is off is because of some of the things he is having me take for my cholesterol: specifically, the large quantity of Niacin and, if I recall accurately, Vitamin D as well.

So to drive my cholesterol down even further, he has upped my dose of Simvastatin to 30mg a day (50% more than I was taking), and he's pushing me to cut back on my carbs even more.

I was pleased, two weeks ago, to read in our local paper what Dr. Andrew Weil had to say about cholesterol. He confirmed much of what my "vitality and longevity" doctor was saying about the size and number of cholestorol-carrying particles:

You may not know that LDL ("bad") cholesterol comes in two main forms -- small, dense particles and large, fluffy ones. [Stephen R.] Devries[, director of the Integrative Program for Heart Disease Prevention at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Cholesterol,] explains that the small [cholesterol particles] are the dangerous ones: Because of their size, they're much more likely to get stuck in coronary arteries while the big, fluffy ones roll on through. The size of your LDL particles has a strong genetic basis.

This all sounds right. It accords with what my "vitality and longevity" doctor was telling me (though it is totally outside the knowledge of my regular, insurance-covered doctor).

However, Weil goes on to say,

If your LDL particles are small, Devries says you can change their size and number with simple lifestyle changes including weight control, a low-glycemic-index diet (www.glycemicindex.com), fish oil supplements and regular exercise.

I find that harder to believe . . . primarily because, while the number of particles in my blood has decreased dramatically under the regimen my doctor has given me--a regimen that, I would say, is not "simple" and includes far more than mere "lifestyle changes" (i.e., it includes statins)--the size of my cholesterol particles has hardly budged. And I have made the lifestyle changes . . . plus taken the additional steps. . . .

To top it all off, I get reports like this one I just read this morning (from Dr. Russell Blaylock's The Blaylock Wellness Report:

Statins Found to Increase Cancer Risk

A new 41,000-patient study reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology
found that taking statins to lower LDL-cholesterol was associated with a significant increase in cancer risk. Researchers were not certain if the increase was due to the dramatic lowering of the LDL-cholesterol or to taking statins.

My studies indicate both may be at fault. We know that statins significantly impair the immune system and that immune surveillance, a system whereby the body’s immune system continuously scans the body for newly appearing nests of cancer cells, is also impaired.

Great!

And my mom didn't die at 55 from heart disease; she died from cancer. Of course, her brother died at a relatively young age (not as young as she was, but still relatively young) from heart disease. But she didn't. And my dad is still alive. And heart disease hardly looks as if it's going to be the problem that "does him in."

. . . So I begin to wonder: What should I do?

Kind of the "same old" questions I keep running into with respect to theology: Whom does one believe? Everyone seems to focus on a different issue. . . .

Oh. And then this last note that our paper printed last week:

Vitamins don't prevent disease, new study says

. . . The eight-year study of 161,808 postmenopausal women echoes recent disappointing vitamin studies in men.

Millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on vitamins to boost their health. Research has focused on cancer and heart disease in particular because of evidence that diets full of vitamin-rich foods might protect against those illnesses. But that evidence doesn't necessarily mean pills are a good substitute. . . .

The study appeared in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. Co-author Dr. JoAnn Manson said that despite the disappointing results, the research doesn't mean multivitamins are useless. The data is observational, not the most rigorous scientific research. And it's not clear if taking vitamins might help prevent cancers that take years to develop, said Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Harvard's Brigham & Women's Hospital.

You can find a few more scraps of data on the subject in the original article.

More about cholesterol

I have been pretty exercised about the issues I mentioned last week concerning cholesterol.

I wrote to Dr. Leonardi, my "vitality and longevity" doctor to get his reply. He wrote back:

I’ve read all this before. If this information overshadowed the dozens of studies connecting LDL-C with heart disease and its reduction to reduced heart disease, the medical profession at large would embrace it. The truth is the overwhelming data clearly demonstrates the association of LDL (and more particularly, LDL particle number) to coronary risk.

So today I finally decided to write to Dr. Douglass:

Dr. Douglass and Staff:

I am particularly concerned about the scientific grounds for your attacks on the entire anti-cholesterol movement. . . .

My doctor gave me the marketing sheet for the NMR LipoProfile test which includes the following claims:

• "The number of LDL particles interacting with the artery wall is what drives the disease, not the cholesterol within them." --Contemporary Diagnosis and Management in Preventive Cardiology, March 2006
• "In seven diagnostic outcome trials . . . The number of LDL particles (LDL-P) was proven to be a better predictor of CHD risk than LDL cholesterol (LDL-C)." --Specific studies cited:
  • Kuller at al. NMR spectroscopy of lipoproteins and risk of CHD in the Cardiovascular Health Study. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 2002;22:1175-80.
  • Blake et al. LDL particle concentration and size as determined by NMR spectroscopy as predictors of cardiovascular disease in women. Circulation 2002;106:1930-37.
  • Otvos et al. LDL and HDL particle subclasses predict coronary events and are changed favorably by gemfibrozil therapy in the Veterans Affairs HDL Intervention Trial (VA-HIT). Circulation. 2006;113:1556-63.
  • Rosenson et al. Relations of lipoprotein subclass levels and LDL size to progression of coronary artery disease in the PLAC I trial. Amer J Cardiol 2002;90:89-94.
  • Mackey et al. Lipoprotein subclasses and coronary artery calcification in postmenopausal women from the Healthy Women Study. Amer J Cardiol 2002;90(8A):71i-76i.
  • Mora et al. LDL particle subclasses, LDL particle size, and carotid atherosclerosis in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis. 2007; 192:211-7.
  • Cromwell et al. LDL particle number and risk for future cardiovascular disease in the Framingham Offspring Study – implications for LDL management. J Clin Lipidol 2007;1(6):583-92.

Book cover via AmazonMeanwhile, my daughter handed me the book that appears to provide the full basis for all of your claims about cholesterol (at least all the claims you and/or your copywriter make in your The Biggest Medical Lie of the Last 50 Years booklet--many of which you seemed to repeat in your latest [October 2008] newsletter). I am referring, of course, to the Introduction to Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions.

I am distressed to find that all of Fallon's references pre-date every one of the studies cited by my doctor and/or NMR LipoProfile--most of them by decades. Is the "old science" of the '60s, '70s and '80s really better than the "new science" of the 2000s?

Thanks so much!

I look forward to receiving some kind of reply, hopefully.

And now the other side . . .

I get all this bad news about my cholesterol levels and then . . . I receive a little advertising booklet by Dr. William Campbell Douglass II, M.D., called The Biggest Medical Lie of the Last 50 Years.

More than 50 years of evidence involving thousands of patients PROVES that your cholesterol count isn't your biggest worry. . . .

Cholesterol is so important that every cell in the human body needs it. And which of your organs has the highest concentration of cholesterol? Your brain! That's right, your brain is loaded with this supposedly deadly stuff. But when it comes to making cholesterol, your liver is the main "factory."

In fact, your own liver makes most of the cholesterol that's detected by blood tests. That's why changing what you eat causes almost NO change in your cholesterol count. Your liver just produces more cholesterol to make up for what you don't get in your diet.

When people try strict diets, a small number, called "high respondent" can lower their blood cholesterol by about 10 percent. The rest of us can totally give up saturated fat and cut calories like crazy, but we'll see only a 5 or 6 percent drop in cholesterol.

That's because your body needs cholesterol and your liver fights back when you try to take it away. All the diet does is make you deficient in a nutrient you need. Study after study proves high cholesterol is associated with longer life.

Yes, that's right. You can live longer if you have high cholesterol. . . .

If your cholesterol is too low, you could be in trouble. Low cholesterol is one of the most accurate signs of bad health ever found. . . . Because in the government's own Framingham study, older people with the lowest cholesterol levels had some of the highest death rates. . . .

Mainstream doctors tell us we should try to get our cholesterol below 200. Their advice is absolutely crazy. Here's the truth . . .

Elderly people with low cholesterol die more often from a heart attack compared to old people with high cholesterol. That's what a Yale University doctor found. His name was Harlan Krumholz. . . . His findings were even published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The truth is even more shocking
if you look beyond heart disease
A recent study shows that death from all causes--not just heart disease--is lower among elderly people with high cholesterol.

It's not just old people, either. Among people of all ages, low cholesterol is connected to a higher risk of death from gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases. That discovery came out of 19 studies involving 68,000 people.

You want more proof? I've got it.

Another research team kept track of 100,000 healthy people for 15 years. They discovered that folks with low cholesterol were more likely to catch serious infections— the kind that send you to a hospital.

And University of Minnesota scientists found that low cholesterol actually INCREASES your risk of certain infections like pneumonia or AIDS.

Low cholesterol is a death warrant
An article in the European Heart Journal confirms that low cholesterol is dangerous to your health. Examining 11,500 patients, they found those with cholesterol below 160 were more than twice as likely to die than those with high cholesterol.

And here's something very interesting: The number of deaths from heart disease was the same in both groups--but the low-cholesterol group had far more cancer deaths. . . .

Low cholesterol is linked to cancer
The medical community has known for years that low cholesterol is linked to cancer. A big French study in 1980 revealed that the cancer rate climbs steadily as cholesterol levels fall below 200.

But, this is exactly the range the heart experts tell us to aim for! We're supposed to take drugs till we get our cholesterol below 200. . . .

Way back in 1987, the National Cancer Institute was intrigued enough to back a big study of 12,488 men and women. They found that men with the lowest cholesterol levels were more likely to get cancer than those with the highest levels. The article appeared in The Lancet, one of the world's most prestigious medical journals.

The guys behind this study were basically right across the hall at the National Institutes of Health from the heart "experts" who were telling the world to take cholesterol drugs.

The heart researchers ignored the evidence
They were too proud to change their minds. And maybe—just maybe—money had something to do with it. (Gosh! You think?) Cholesterol reduction is now a $20-billion-a-year industry.

The whole cholesterol scare was cooked up by a tiny handful of powerful doctors at prestigious institutions. They crammed it down the throats of the whole medical profession, over the objections of their own advisors and a majority of practicing doctors.

And leading cholesterol "experts" collected fat payments from drug companies all the way.

Yeah.

And, of course, Douglass keeps going.

Now I have to follow through on his references, cryptic as they may be.

*******
While I'm on the subject, I might as well reference some additional articles that seem to advocate the same positions as Dr. Douglass.

For example: The Truth About Cholesterol:

Only 7% of cholesterol is in the blood. The other 93% is located in every cell of the body, where its unique, waxy soapy consistency provides the cells with their structural integrity. Because cholesterol’s unique structure makes it impossible to dissolve in water, it forms a crucial component of the membrane surrounding every cell. Cholesterol acts to interlock lipid molecules, which stabilise our cell walls. The presence of cholesterol in the fatty double layer of the cell wall membrane adjusts the fluid level and rigidity to the proper value needed for both cell stability and function. Therefore, cholesterol is a vital building block and structural component for all bodily tissues.

The highest concentration of cholesterol is found in the brain and nerve cells. Most notably, cholesterol is an essential part of the myelin sheath, which allows neurons to conduct impulses necessary to communicate with each other. The myelin sheath, similar to the coating on copper wire, ensures that the nervous system functions properly by aiding the passage of electrical impulses. Cholesterol is the ‘synaptogenic factor,’ responsible for the development of highly specialised contact sites between adjacent neurons in the brain, known as synapses. (Announced in 2001 by researchers from the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science)

The formation of synapses is necessary for learning and the formation of memory. Cholesterol has been found to be the rate-limiting factor in the formation of synapse, Cholesterol not only helps guide the connecting parts of neurons to the right places, but is necessary for their ability to grow in the first place. The brain cannot tap the cholesterol in the blood, since lipoproteins, that mediate the transport of cholesterol, are too large to pass the blood-brain-barrier. The glial cells in the brain therefore produce their own cholesterol, to provide nerve cells with this vital component.

Cholesterol has beneficial effects on the immune system. Men with high cholesterol levels have stronger immune systems, than those with low cholesterol, as can be seen by the fact that they have more lymphocytes, total T-cells, helper T-cells and CD8+ cells. Researchers have also identified cholesterol as an inactivator/neutriliser of multiple bacterial toxins.

Further, many strains of disease-causing bacteria, are almost totally inactivated by Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (Ravnskov 2003; Quarterly J of Medicine; 96)

Cholesterol, or more precisely 7-dehydrocholesterol, is the precursor to Vitamin D. Vitamin D has long been recognised for its role in maintaining calcium balance and promoting bone health. More recently it is becoming known for a wide range of other functions, including the maintenance of mental health, a strong immune system, blood sugar regulation and the prevention of cancer.

Cholesterol also acts as an anti-oxidant, protecting cell membranes from free radical damage. . . .

Where does one get truth?

Lost a large portion of the sight in one eye . . .

Last Thursday, as I drove up to Denver International Airport, I sensed something was wrong with my right eye. I wasn't sure what, but something was bothering me.

Friday morning, the "something wrong" continued. I got the sense that there was some kind of grayness in the lower right corner of my vision out of the right eye, but I couldn't be sure.

Saturday, my sense that something was wrong grew stronger. Saturday night, as we were heading to bed, I was standing in the semi-dark of our bedroom when Sarita turned off the lights in the hallway. Suddenly, it appeared to me, that the edge of my vision that had been dark was now glowing.

By Sunday evening, I had committed myself to call my optometrist to get the eye checked.

I finally got to see him yesterday at noon. As I described my symptoms, he said, "It sounds as if you have a detached retina, and I can't help you with that. You need to see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible."

As soon as I got home, I called Kaiser Permanente and asked for an appointment ASAP. They had to do some heavy schedule juggling, but they got me in yesterday afternoon.

After thorough testing, the doctor said, "Based on everything you told me, I was sure you had a detached retina. But your retina looks fine. However, I noticed your optic nerve is swollen. . . ." He then said something about neuropathy or neuritis, and then asked me a series of questions about experiences I may or may not have had. In every case, I said I had not had those particular experiences. . . .

To cut a longer story short, the doctor said he needed to do a bit of additional research on the computer, went out of the office and came back a few times, asking me a question or two at each reappearance, and finally offered his diagnosis: "non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy" -- what I have since discovered is "affectionately" known as non-arteric AION or NAION . . . to distinguish it from AAION -- or arteritic AION: in layman's terms, the equivalent of a (relatively mild) heart attack or stroke to the optic nerve. The blood vessels feeding my optic nerve have been occluded, and so my optic nerve, starved for the nutrients it needs (including oxygen), has been damaged.

[Difference between arteritic and non-arteritic AIONs: the one variety involves arteries -- producing the equivalent of a major heart attack or stroke; the other involves smaller blood vessels and not the arteries, so the damage is less. Another major difference: arteritic AIONs destroy central vision; non-arteritic AIONs can produce the (relatively rare) loss only of peripheral vision. --Indeed, it was this matter that it was only my peripheral and not my central vision that caused my doctor his consternation and need to do additional research "on the spot." He has seen many patients who have lost central vision; I was the first he had seen who had lost "only" the bottom half of peripheral vision due to something other than a detached retina.]

"Can I get my sight back?" I asked.

"No," he said. "The portion of your optic nerve that has been affected has actually died. . . . And just as with a heart attack or a stroke, where the portion of the heart or brain affected actually dies and does not regenerate, so it is here. Your vision will not return."

He hesitated a moment and then said, "Well, let me not be quite so absolute. The literature offers no reason for hope. But who am I to say it could never happen? . . ."

He turned to my medical chart and began asking me questions about my general health. In a longer conversation, when we got to the subject of cholesterol and I told them about Dr. Leonardi's discoveries, his face lit up (as much as a doctor is willing to let his face light up at a patient's misfortune): "Your cholesterol got you."

And so, though I didn't have a heart attack (praise God!), my elevated cholesterol levels -- or, more particularly, the large number of cholesterol molecules and their small size -- have caught up with me.

"The things we have all been hearing about for the last 20 years, the need for a healthy diet, exercise, no smoking, etc.: you need to pay attention to that," said the doctor.

He urged me to take an aspirin a day to keep my blood thin and, hopefully, avoid further damage.

"I want to see you back here in a month," he concluded.

A wake-up call

I spent all day Wednesday--I mean all day--at a doctor's office. Not just any old doctor, but a doctor who specializes in what he calls "vitality and longevity."

A majority of the day was spent going over a detailed blood analysis, bone scan, and body mass/fat analysis he had done for me.

What I learned shocked me.

First, I should probably give you a sense of exactly how "detailed" these analyses were . . .

• They tested 70 different . . . I'll call them "features" . . . of my blood.
• They checked for seven different substances in and two different features of my urine.
• They scanned my lower back (lumbar region) and my hips for bone density--then provided 10 specific analyses based on detailed analysis of the individual L1 through L4 vertebrae and 28 specific analyses based on detailed analysis of six different areas on each of the left and right hips.

Some of the numbers were distressing, but what really bothered me was how little I've ever heard about some of the tests that the doctor told me are extremely important. For example . . .

While my LDL (bad) cholesterol is high and my HDL (good) cholesterol is low, and both of these create what the medical profession calls a high "coronary risk ratio," my doctor told me that LDL and HDL, on their own, are not good markers or predictors for heart attack. A far more important indicator, he said, is the number of LDL cholesterol particles per unit of blood, and the particle sizes. Indeed, he said, LDL particle number is the #1 risk marker for heart attack.

Have you ever heard that before? I hadn't! And my LDL particle number is very high.

I haven't been able to learn much about this matter of particle numbers and particle sizes, but I have been able to confirm that Dr. Leonardi wasn't just blowing smoke.

There were some more surprises:

• My fasting glucose level was high.
• My HgbA1c (Hemoglobin A1c--glycosylated hemoglobin) was high.
• My testosterone was low.
• Though my hemoglobin and hematocrit levels were officially in the "normal" range, they are, said Dr. Leonardi, "low for Colorado." (When you live at relatively high altitude, as we do, your blood should have a little more hemoglobin and hematocrit then someone at sea level.)
• I don't know that I've ever heard of osteoporosis in men, but the bone density analyses were interesting as well. I have no osteoporosis, but I do have what Dr. Leonardi called osteopenia, or moderate bone loss, in portions of my hips.
• And then there is the matter of body fat. I have a BMI (body mass index) of 24.5 which is within the normal range. Most people when they look at me say they think I am almost on the slender side. But the fat analysis shows that my body is composed of 24.9% fat. The goal, Dr. Leonardi said, should be under 20% body fat, or 80+% of lean mass (bone and muscle). What's even more interesting is where the fat is located--hidden away in the middle of my abdomen. Dr. Leonardi says he wants me to lose 16 pounds of fat and gain 8 pounds of lean mass.

I listened to all of this and wondered why I have heard so little of it before. It's not as if I've been ignoring my health! I've been going to my doctor on a regular basis. But I've never heard most of these things before. Why? (Or, rather, why not?)

I thought Dr. Leonardi's answer to that question was rather interesting . . . and sobering. as his website says concerning medical insurance,

[I]nsurance companies typically don't pay for preventive care. Their job is not to keep you healthy. It is to provide standard care for covered illnesses in return for your monthly premium.

The traditional medical industry is all about treating illness. It is not about, as Dr. Leonardi would say, helping people to decelerate or even block our progress down the highway toward disease.

More on this stuff at a later date!