I WISH YOU WOULD MAKE UP YOUR MIND.YOU SAY CHOLESTROL IS NOT THE CAUSE OF HEART DISEASE,YET YOU TALK ABOUT LOWERING CHOLSETROL.IS IT A PROBLEM OR NOT,MAKE UP YOUR MIND,THIS IS DRIVING ME NUTS.WHAT IF YOU ARE AT 220,AND WHERE DID THE NUMBER 200 COME FROM AS BEING NORMAL.HOW MUCH OF A FACTOR IS IT.PLEASE BREAK IT DOWN, ALL THE FACTORS FROM MOST IMPORTANT TO LEAT IMPORTANT 

While containing a wealth of information which is probably all good, one wonders - how to do all this stuff? the diet Hyman recommends is, IMO, tremendously high in fiber, and contains the usual information, which has, because of usage, become a "rubric" of nutrition, i.e., to eat five servings of vegetables and fruits, PLUS all the other stuff.

 If I ate this stuff in the amounts that Hyman describes, I'd be uncomfortable as hell in the belly - and I LIKE vegetables, especially; and I doubt that this situation w/the discomfort has taht much to do w/age.  I believe that when I was younger (I'm 56) now, I would still have experienced gastric discomfort such as bloating and gas.  Its just too much fiber.

 I can't complain about the Doctor's sincerity, but his proposed solution seems to bring w/it its own set of problems.

LHJ

Ten years ago at age 34 I discovered high cholesterol. My doctor wanted me to start Lipitor, but I insisted I could beat it with diet & exercise. I ate nothing but brown rice and brocolli for a month. If it tasted good, I spit it out. My choleterol dropped from 280 to 239. We were very encouraged, so continued the regimen. A month later I was back to 275, so I started Lipitor 10 mg/day. Soon after my parents both learned they had high numbers - above 260. A few years later I heard about Niacin, so I tried it. I quit the Lipitor and started eating Niacin in whatever quanitity was en vogue. I had the flushing, but it subsided after a couple weeks. At the same time I went on a big-time fiber diet. I ate bran muffins with every meal and loaded up on all kinds of fiber foods. After 2 months, results were negligible, so I went back on the Lipitor. Ten years later I'm still taking 10 mg/day and have never had a side effect. I do have to exercise religiously or my numbrs will rise even on the statin. I workout 5 days a week - three days of moderate weight training and 5 days of cardio work - running or using an eliptical. My cardio workouts are 30-60 minutes, and weight training takes 40. I'm encouraged that I haven't had to increase my dosage, but have learned that if I back off on the exercise my cholesterol raises and the doctor thinks I need a bigger pill. I'd like to get off it all together, but have reached the conclusion that my body makes a lot of cholesterol. At last check, my total was 188, LDL 110, HDL 70, TGL 43 and CK 346.

I've read many sites stating that Red Yeast Rice = Statins. If that's correct, should it be listed under the "supplements" section, especially if someone's already taking statins, or maybe with a note about not taking Red Yeast Rice if they're already taking prescribed statins? And if someone's not already taking prescribed statins, should they also take Coq10 to offset the side effects of the Red Yeast Rice's "natural statins"?

I didn't find any mention of Vitamin D3; do you feel it's not important in reducing heart disease? If not, please explain.

I've read in many other reliable sources about cutting sugar and processed grains helping to lower the bad cholesterols (triglycerides, LDL, LPa, ect...), since they've recently published how the liver converts the excess sugar to the bad cholersterols (unlike the last few decades of them thinking it was fatty foods). I've also read how increasing fiber helps to keep blood sugars steady because the fiber helps prevent all the sugars from being released into the bloodstream at one time, since a lot of sugar in the blood is what causes the bad cholesterols to be made. But you've listed some other things I haven't read about yet, and I'll be searching the net for them to find out more. Thanks.

I've had good luck with 3 grams (3000 mg) of niacin per day, with my doctor's consent. HDL is up to 75 and triglycerides well below 100. Doc says we have to watch the liver enzymes although to date they've been normal.

Prof.Ian Shaw Johannebsurg, South Africa

1.Is niacin in high doses (2-3 grams per day) liable to cause liver problems unless

it is monitored regularly? With this dosage, what would be a good frequency of monitoring?

2.I read that so-called flushfree niacin lacks the essential ingredient that causes flushes but also its beneficial cholesterol-reducing effect. Is this true?

Prof.Ian Shaw Johannebsurg, South Africa

What the good doctro was saying was that total choleterol  alone may not be a complete indictaor of potential heart disease. A lipid rpofiel consists of HDL (high desnity), LDL (low density) cholesterol and triglycerides. The LDL is the dangerous stuff, because it ships choelsterol from the liver to teh arteries whereas HDL ships them back. Thus a relatively high might be counterbalanced by a high HDL to keep the "shipping" balance in place. He also said that the size of the LDL molecule is very important since a large HDL molecule is less likely to get lodged into some small injuries in the inner layer of an artery than a small LDL molecule.  Further refinements are made by biochemists about various other factors such as apoenzymes some of which represent an inherited component like for example LP(a) and there is not much that we can do about a high Lp(a). He also mentioned homocysteine which is a relatively newly discovered independent factor that can cause serious heart disease, irrespective  of a good lipid profile. He seems to me very competent and so far his advice seemes impeccable, even though he cannot always go into too much detail of the medical and biochemicla jargon.l Yes, red rice yeast has worked for me, much better than polycosanol, even though you must take  Co-enzyme Q10 to accompany it. He also mentioned that, but did not mention the deeper reason.  As an aside I must mention that the body makes a lot oc cholesterol, even if one does not ingest any! It is a marvellous machine which always tries  to counterbalance that we cause with deliberate action, according to mits own needs. In one comment above, the patient refrained from eating almost anything which initially did lower his cholesterol, but his clever liver took "evasive action" and simply made more! Many years ago i went to a spa to lose weight. We were under doctors' supervision everyday.  We ate only a fruit three times a day and partook in various baths, etc. The first time I lost 12 kg in two weeks! Next year I went again and this time I lost only four kilos.  The third time I did not lose anything. "Clever liver", eh? Mind you, I was not obese, but just wanted to lose a bit more. No such luck!

According to an article in Nature, humans have eaten up 90% of all large ocean-going fish. Now you're siccing people on one species in the remaining 10%. Privileged spa-goers will certainly be able to make a dent, but once functional medicine goes mainstream, expect to see the rest of the salmon vanish almost immediately. It's like petroleum: instead of waiting until it's all gone, why not begin using alternatives right now?

"Zetia prevents absorption of cholesterol from the intestine. It can interact with the statins to increase the risk of liver toxicity."

Currently, I am taking Zetia and Zocor.  An acquaintance of mine was taking the combination pill of Zetia and Zocor.  Its name I don't recall.  She can no longer take statins anymore because she has some liver toxicity.

Thank you for the excellent article on Dr. Ornish's book. Dr. Johanna Budwig, a brilliant German scientist, healed heart disease & cancer for thousands of people with a similar plan that she proved to work with patients from 1952 to 2002. I'm glad to see her work further supported with more science.  I own a free Yahoo health group, called FlaxseedOil2 where members are self-healing from cancer and other diseases using the Budwig plan of nutrition, stress reduction, exercise & sun therapy. I also have a free video on youtube showing a delicious recipe for flaxseed oil & flaxseeds, with omega 3s, combined with other healing foods. [When I previewed my message, I saw that the link to  my youtube video was cut short and needs Os added to the end - after the WL, so to see it, add a capital O and a small s to the end of the URL. or you can find it by going to youtube and typing in the words "Budwig Sandra Olson. "]Here's the link to the youtube page & my video [but it may be missing Os at the end].http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSoddptWL0s

Thank you very much for the tips you gave us. I'm sure that not many people knew about them. Most of us take pills and after that we need addiction treatment

Of course that eating healthy is the best way to to keep you body in a perfect shape and prevent yourself from any disease. And for those who  already have this bad custom of taking a big number of pills already they should start first by considering a drug rehab program . And after that things will get better and better. Good luck!

There are many medicines these days that take on the "prevention is better than cure" approach. They do help a bit but a healthy life style is still the most important.

Thanks for your great tips!

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

If the internet sells drugs online, then Facebook would definitely be cocaine!

There are also many natural remedies that one can try to lower the risk of heart diseases. They are surely better than "drugs".

I agree. The natural remedies are better especially because they don't have side effects. I know that many Residential Treatment programs started to use natural remedies. All these pharmaceutical pills are killing us - if we look around, no one seems to get better from all these legal treatments.

Prof.Ian Shaw Johannesburg, South Africa

Since my last comment in 2007, I have learned a lot more about cholesterol and statin drugs. I was able to reduce my total cholesterol from 5.4 mmol/L to 3.4 mmol/L in five weeks by taking red rice yeast (2 x 300 mg in the morning and 2 x 300 mg in the evening. At the same time, LDL was also reduced from 3.72 to 3.00 mmol/L. Red rice yeast is an organic version of lovastatin,a perscription statin drug, but it is available without prescription.  Statin drugs inhibit the enzyme in the metabolic pathway of cholesterol synthesis, but it also inhibits coenzyme Q10 synthesis. To avoid a depletion of Q10, I have also taken 50 mg Q10 in teh mroning and 50 mg in teh evening. I did not have a similar succesas with policosanol. At the same time, I have managed to reduce my homocysteine level from 12.7 mmol/L to 8 mmol/L also within 5 weeks, by taking large doses of trimethylglycin (TMG) (1500 mg), and doses of Vitamin B6(100 mg), B12 (1.5mg), folic acid (2 mg). and zinc (20 mg) from 143 mg zinc gluconate). There is a lot of interesting biochemistry around homocysteine which msut be converted into the protein methionine or redduced to cysteine and taurine. Another important variable recently declared as an independent marker for heart disease is ultrasensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) indicating inflammation in coronary arteries. Fortunately in my acse it is less than 1 mg/L.

Prof.Ian Shaw Johannesburg, South Africa

Since my last comment in 2007, I have learned a lot more about cholesterol and statin drugs. I was able to reduce my total cholesterol from 5.4 mmol/L to 3.4 mmol/L in five weeks by taking red rice yeast (2 x 300 mg in the morning and 2 x 300 mg in the evening. At the same time, LDL was also reduced from 3.72 to 3.00 mmol/L. Red rice yeast is an organic version of lovastatin,a perscription statin drug, but it is available without prescription.  Statin drugs inhibit the enzyme in the metabolic pathway of cholesterol synthesis, but it also inhibits coenzyme Q10 synthesis. To avoid a depletion of Q10, I have also taken 50 mg Q10 in teh mroning and 50 mg in teh evening. I did not have a similar succesas with policosanol. At the same time, I have managed to reduce my homocysteine level from 12.7 mmol/L to 8 mmol/L also within 5 weeks, by taking large doses of trimethylglycin (TMG) (1500 mg), and doses of Vitamin B6(100 mg), B12 (1.5mg), folic acid (2 mg). and zinc (20 mg) from 143 mg zinc gluconate). There is a lot of interesting biochemistry around homocysteine which msut be converted into the protein methionine or redduced to cysteine and taurine. Another important variable recently declared as an independent marker for heart disease is ultrasensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) indicating inflammation in coronary arteries. Fortunately in my acse it is less than 1 mg/L.

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