Years ago I heard Dr.Mark Houston, a cardiologist say that 50% of heart attacks are caused by the ingestion of gluten. This makes sense to me as up to 40% of the population is undiagnosed gluten sensitive and gluten is tremendously inflammatory to those people. And heart disease is extremely common. Not just heart attacks, but autoimmune cardiomyopathy, and heart failure and heart arrhythmias.
With the right lifestyle changes, I haven't seen a patient with a heart attack in years.
The one interview in the summit I would like to highlight is the one with Dr. William Davis, cardiologist and author of Wheat Belly called: The Impact of Wheat on Heart Disease and Health. It is on tomorrow.
What is not well know is how damaging gluten and grains are to heart health. The focus of his treatment of his heart patients is: no grains, added fish oil, proper gut flora, proper vitamin D levels, and addressing low thyroid!
Thanks to Trudy Scott from "Food, Mood and Gal Stuff" for sharing some excerpts of the interview with Dr. Davis:
One of the earliest solutions was a very, very common abnormality in people with coronary disease - an excess of small oxidation prone LDL particles. So I used the data published by people like Ron Krauss in UC Berkeley and some others and took all the grains out of people's diet. And lo and behold it works like a charm. That became a cornerstone of what I was doing for coronary disease.
People were starting to tell me that the rheumatoid arthritis was going away and that their glaucoma had gone away, and their leg edema, hypertension, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, bowel urgency, funny skin rashes, rosacea, rosacea-eczema, seborrhea, belly fat. All of these conditions reversed with elimination of grains.
When I added vitamin D to the mix about eight, nine years ago, that's when we saw dramatic reductions
I published some of these data, by the way. [Here is one of his studies: Effect of a combined therapeutic approach of intensive lipid management, omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, and increased serum 25 (OH) vitamin D on coronary calcium scores in asymptomatic adults. It doesn't get much attention because you know prevention doesn't get the headlines. But lots of robotic surgery and things like that get the headlines.
Fish oil, of course. Not a huge effect, but it does help. I love it because it reduces the after meal, postprandial flood of lipoproteins. It has a big effect on subduing that effect. Heart disease, as you know, develops in the after-eating few hours, not so much while you're fasting.
Thyroid normalization. I started paying attention to thyroid based on the Norwegian data suggests that a TSH of 1.4 or greater (in the presumed normal range) could as much as double or triple cardiovascular death. Lo and behold, it became a critical part of the management of coronary disease.
And then lastly, most recently this notion of cultivating bowel flora. So we use so-called prebiotic fibers or resistant starches to purposely cultivate healthy species of bowel flora. And I'll be darned. This has proven to be a critical piece.
I'm sure my experience is similar to yours. I haven't seen a heart attack in years. I used to see a couple of heart attacks a week when I was younger - just telling people to take the statin drug and cut their fat and exercise and eat everything in moderation and all that nonsense.
If you think this is profound you should read the rest of Trudy's summary of what Dr. Davis shares: he explains how wheat flour, even whole wheat flour and table sugar all have the same glycemic load and blood sugar and consequent insulin (bad) response. Increasing inflammation but also leading to hypoglycemia and mental health issues like anxiety.
Thanks to Trudy Scott from "Food, Mood and Gal Stuff" for sharing some excerpts of the interview with Dr. Davis:
One of the earliest solutions was a very, very common abnormality in people with coronary disease - an excess of small oxidation prone LDL particles. So I used the data published by people like Ron Krauss in UC Berkeley and some others and took all the grains out of people's diet. And lo and behold it works like a charm. That became a cornerstone of what I was doing for coronary disease.
People were starting to tell me that the rheumatoid arthritis was going away and that their glaucoma had gone away, and their leg edema, hypertension, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, bowel urgency, funny skin rashes, rosacea, rosacea-eczema, seborrhea, belly fat. All of these conditions reversed with elimination of grains.
When I added vitamin D to the mix about eight, nine years ago, that's when we saw dramatic reductions
I published some of these data, by the way. [Here is one of his studies: Effect of a combined therapeutic approach of intensive lipid management, omega-3 fatty acid supplementation, and increased serum 25 (OH) vitamin D on coronary calcium scores in asymptomatic adults. It doesn't get much attention because you know prevention doesn't get the headlines. But lots of robotic surgery and things like that get the headlines.
Fish oil, of course. Not a huge effect, but it does help. I love it because it reduces the after meal, postprandial flood of lipoproteins. It has a big effect on subduing that effect. Heart disease, as you know, develops in the after-eating few hours, not so much while you're fasting.
Thyroid normalization. I started paying attention to thyroid based on the Norwegian data suggests that a TSH of 1.4 or greater (in the presumed normal range) could as much as double or triple cardiovascular death. Lo and behold, it became a critical part of the management of coronary disease.
And then lastly, most recently this notion of cultivating bowel flora. So we use so-called prebiotic fibers or resistant starches to purposely cultivate healthy species of bowel flora. And I'll be darned. This has proven to be a critical piece.
I'm sure my experience is similar to yours. I haven't seen a heart attack in years. I used to see a couple of heart attacks a week when I was younger - just telling people to take the statin drug and cut their fat and exercise and eat everything in moderation and all that nonsense.
If you think this is profound you should read the rest of Trudy's summary of what Dr. Davis shares: he explains how wheat flour, even whole wheat flour and table sugar all have the same glycemic load and blood sugar and consequent insulin (bad) response. Increasing inflammation but also leading to hypoglycemia and mental health issues like anxiety.
How the gliadin protein of wheat, rye, corn and barley causes an opiate like reaction: hallucinations which can be mild or it can be severe depending on the individual's susceptibility.
Gluten can cause an increase in appetite and in some people it can cause the eating of hundreds of calories more per day everyday.
Or better yet, listen to the whole of the Dr. William Davis interview by registering at the following link:
There is a great line up of speakers.
Here are the speakers for Day 1:
Here are the speakers for Day 2:
Here are the speakers for Day 1:
Here are the speakers for Day 2:
You can prevent most of your risk of heart disease with lifestyle changes!
Start today!
To Your Health
Dr. Barbara
