Cholesterol Control to reduce Heart Diseases
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What is a Coronary Calcium Score?
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The topic of coronary calcium scores has come up more and more lately in the media, as studies are reported documenting their use.
Just what is a "coronary calcium score" and what does it mean?
First of all, atherosclerotic plaque is the material that, over the years, can accumulate in various arteries of the body, but especially coronary (heart) arteries, carotid (neck), aorta, and the large iliac and femoral arteries of the...
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Carbohydrates and Cholesterol
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What do carbohydrates have to do with cholesterol?
Most people believe that carbohydrates and cholesterol are completely unrelated. After all, don't fats like saturated fat increase cholesterol levels? What do carbohydrates have to do with it?
There's actually a powerful relationship between carbohydrates and cholesterol. First of all, cholesterol is nothing more than the substance measured to indirectly quantify the number of...
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Fourteen Pounds in Fourteen Days
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No, this isn't some come-on for a new weight loss program. But, it is a tale of weight loss that developed easily, immediately, and effortlessly.
Stephen had been told by his primary care physician that he needed to take a cholesterol-reducing drug for an LDL cholesterol of 212 mg/dl. Stephen didn't like that idea. He asked his doctor, "What else can I do? I really don't want to take any drugs if I can avoid it."
"Well, you can...
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Your Small LDL Action Plan
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What should you do if you suspect that you have small LDL particles (the number one cause for heart disease in the U.S.!)?
Perhaps you have one or more of the telltale features (see Who's got small LDL) that commonly signal small LDL. Maybe your doctor actually thought to check for it with a blood test.
Whichever way you come to the issue, what can you do to reduce small LDL?
Unlike large LDL particles, small LDL...
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Do You Have Small LDL?
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Small LDL particles have skyrocketed to occupy number place as the most common cause for heart disease in the U.S.
Small LDL particles are different than large particles: Small LDL particles cling to the walls of arteries more than large; they hang around in the bloodstream up to 90% longer, allowing more time to take residence in your artery walls; they induce more oxidative and inflammatory reactions once in the artery. Of the 50+...
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Oatmeal: Heart healthy. . . or Not?
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You've heard the message: Oatmeal reduces cholesterol. You'll find the message on oatmeal containers, oat-containing breakfast cereals, and anything else made with oats or oatmeal.
This is because oatmeal producers and food manufacturers have obtained permission from the FDA to use a cholesterol-reducing claim on oat-containing products. The American Heart Association also provides an (paid) endorsement of Quaker Oats.
Ask someone...
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It’s All About the Carbohydrates
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Here's a common cholesterol scenario:
Total cholesterol 221 mg/dl
LDL cholesterol 150 mg/dl
HDL cholesterol 45 mg/dl
Triglycerides 130 mg/dl
Millions of Americans have cholesterol values in this range.
Next step: Reduce fat, increase grains like whole wheat bread. A few months later a typical response would be:
Total cholesterol 213 mg/dl-down by 3.6%
LDL cholesterol 138 mg/dl-down by 8%
HDL cholesterol...
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Blood Sugar: A Cardiac Risk Factor?
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Study after study has established this fact: The higher your blood sugar, the higher your risk for heart disease. The extreme instance of high blood sugars contributing to heart disease can be found, of course, in people with diabetes. But you don't have to be diabetic for blood sugar to act as a coronary risk factor.
In fact, blood sugar can be well below the diabetic range yet contribute to increased risk. Take the 33-year long,...
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You Don’t Have to be Diabetic to Check Your Blood Sugar
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Checking your blood sugar (glucose) has become an easy and relatively inexpensive tool that just about anybody can incorporate into health habits. More often than not, it can provide you with some unexpected insights about your response to diet.
You and I can now purchase our own blood glucose monitor at stores like Walmart and Walgreens for $10-20. (You will also need to purchase the fingerstick lancets and test strips; the test strips...
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Fats vs. Carbohydrates: Which Are More Important to Reduce Triglycerides?
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In our last discussion (What foods increase triglycerides?), we talked about how fats increase triglyceride levels after eating, but carbohydrates increase triglycerides when not eating (i.e., fasting).
So should you avoid both fats and carbohydrates?
No, of course not. After all, we've got to eat something. Humans cannot survive on a diet of pure protein without fats or carbohydrates. So let's ask: Which is more important in...
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Alcohol Consumption and Heart Disease Prevention: How Much is Enough?
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The newspapers these days seem to be full of studies that tell us that alcohol may be good for certain things (like preventing heart disease and stroke) while telling us that it's bad for other things (like the liver and memory). I am often asked by my patients, their family members, or friends how much alcohol is the "right amount." As far as the cardiovascular system is concerned, there is no easy answer.
I do not counsel people to start...
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The Dos and Don'ts of Taking Prescription Cholesterol Medication
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What is the best way to take my pills?
This question is at the root of more confusion than any other question in medicine. The public wonders about which pill is best for a given disease, and we are constantly under the barrage of pharmaceutical advertising, but the fact still remains that most doctor's prescriptions are not filled. And even when the prescriptions are filled, they are rarely taken as directed. Whose fault: we all share...
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Blocked Arteries and Low Cholesterol: Now What?
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While high cholesterol (either as a high LDL or “bad” cholesterol; or low HDL or “good” cholesterol) certainly contributes to the risk of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, it is not the only contributor. Each year it seems that I have one or two patients that have “no excuse” for having coronary artery disease but they do anyway.
In the same period of time, however, I will see hundreds of...
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Trans Fats and Your Heart: What You Need to Know
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We have all seen information in the newspapers that suggests that we should avoid trans fatty acids, but why? What does this mean? My thanks to Dr. D. Mozafferian for an explanation that permits me to understand the importance of this problem and explain it here. Partial hydrogenation (another name for trans fat) is a production method to make oils more solid at room temperature, to have oils last longer without spoiling and to give them a...
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A Lesson to Take to Heart
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_____ died last week. He was in great shape, exercised and ate right. Why should I believe that if I do all the right things the same thing wouldn't happen to me? Jim Fixx wrote the "Complete Book of Running". He was a former smoker (2 packs per day) and overweight but made himself trimmer (taking off 60 lbs.) and stopped smoking as he became concerned about the possibility of heart disease. Why? His father...
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What is LDL Apheresis?
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In my last blog concerning the genetic disorder called familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), I mentioned an invasive treatment called LDL apheresis as a potential therapy when medications do not reach target goals. Apheresis is a procedure in which whole blood is withdrawn from a person, run through various filters to remove the desired components from the blood, and then reinfused back into the person. The red blood cells remain...
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Familial Hypercholesterolemia: It’s Not All Your Fault
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In our country we are quick to blame our Western diet and lack of exercise as the main cause of high cholesterol. I suppose that by doing so, it gives us some hope that we can change our cholesterol levels by sheer will power and thus reduce our risk of heart disease. We have the sense then that high cholesterol is something that we can control and therefore cure. However, we also know that if one of our close family members develops heart...
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Cranberries and Cholesterol
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The cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon) comes from a low growing vine plant that predominantly is found on the eastern seaboard of the US from New England down as far south as the Carolinas. The US is the largest producer of commercial cranberries providing some 500 million pounds of the red berry on the world market. Cranberries are seldom eaten as a stand alone fruit unless dried and are more often found in juices, sauces, and...
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Can Tomato Ketchup Prevent a Heart Attack?
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Americans love to eat tomatoes. In fact, an average American consumes about 17lbs of fresh tomatoes annually and over 60lbs of processed tomatoes such as in tomato sauce and ketchup. Tomatoes are a rich source of essential nutrients such as vitamins A, C, E, and folate. In addition to these vitamins, tomatoes are also rich in a chemical compound called carotenoids. Carotenoids may sound familiar to some of you since they...
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Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and Cholesterol
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Can sleep affect cholesterol?
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a condition in which varying degrees of repetitive upper airway obstruction create disturbances in normal breathing patterns during sleep. The soft tissues of the upper airway can collapse as the muscles in this area become fully relaxed during sleep. Complete or partial obstruction can then occur. This triggers an increased breathing effort against a closed off airway and...
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Can Tomato Ketchup Prevent a Heart Attack?
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Americans love to eat tomatoes. In fact, an average American consumes about 17lbs of fresh tomatoes annually and over 60lbs of processed tomatoes such as in tomato sauce and ketchup. Tomatoes are a rich source of essential nutrients such as vitamins A, C, E, and folate. In addition to these vitamins, tomatoes are also rich in a chemical compound called carotenoids. Carotenoids may sound familiar to some of you since they have been...
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Cholesterol and Your Mood
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By the early 1990s, the link between high cholesterol and heart disease was well established and the era of therapies to lower cholesterol with the intent of reducing heart disease risk had begun. In this decade, hundreds of studies and tens of thousands of patients were enrolled in various trials which showed that lowering cholesterol both through lifestyle changes and pharmacologic means was beneficial. However, some scientists wondered if...
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The Primordial Cholesterol Therapy: Exercise
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Much attention concerning the treatment of high cholesterol in our present society tends to focus on the taking of medicine and the avoidance of poison. When I refer to medicine, I don't just mean prescription drugs like statins or fibric acids, but rather I am referring to any substance that we take in order to treat an illness. Therefore, the foods we choose to eat such as fruits, vegetables, fiber, unsaturated fats, and fish, for example,...
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Red Yeast Rice: A Safe Therapy to Lower Cholesterol?
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Tea is not the only ancient remedy for lowering cholesterol that has gained popularity over the past years. Red yeast rice is a food that has been a part of Asian culture for thousands of years. Red yeast rice is simply rice that has been allowed to ferment in the red yeast Monascus purpureus. This fermentation gives the rice a reddish color and spicier flavor, which is commonly used in Asian cooking. The Chinese have known about its health...
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Tea Proven to Help Lower Total Cholesterol
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Tea is an ancient drink that dates back over 5,000 years. People have not only enjoyed its distinct taste but have also used it for medicinal purposes as well. Today, tea is the most commonly consumed beverage on the planet, second only to water. Tea drinking is on the rise at a rate of 2% per year. Among the many purported benefits of drinking tea such as reduced cancer rates and promoting overall longevity, tea has traditionally been...
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