Diet Debate

JC:

Its not the fish. I have a couple ounces of tuna about 4 days a week with a lunch salad, and salmon with dinner 2 or 3 times a week.


What about your anti-oxidant intake ? black pepper ? Exercise ?stress ?

Dead,That was my thinking...its not the fish but then I
don't know.Dolores/Didi will have to make a choice and go with some plan because what she has been doing is not working.

She could commit to a more strict Esselstyn diet(no nuts or fish) or she could look into using supplements to reduce the size of the LDL cholesterol like Drs Sinatra and W Davis recommend....or she could do both.

I think her exercise level is good.I know that black pepper has been shown to greatly increase anti-oxidant intake.

It cannot be fish since the food that humankind has been used to eat for millions of years cannot suddenly become by and large harmful!

Those are my thoughts guys. I usually ate 2.5 ozs of clams once a week spread out over several days and the next week six ounces of salmon spread out over six days. I do know that diabetics are much more likely to get heart attacks and strokes. My low blood sugar numbers and HbA1c values lulled me into complacency. You don't get 100% blockage in an artery over night. There is another artery with 100% blockage but does not seem to be a problem because of the collaterals. I greatly suspect that a newer plaque ruptured, produced a clot and blocked the artery that now has a stent. Perhaps vitamin K2 could have prevented that. The question is what do I do now? And how will I know I am doing the right thing. I will not have another angiogram unless I am forced to even though I have a feeling that the doc who inserted the stent is lusting after my femoral artery. And I have to ask---how complacent are you guys? Despite the pain I was in I was not diagnosed with a heart attack until the second series of tests for heart enzymes. And of course going into v fib. That is always a big clue that you are having a heart attack.

Dolores

Dolores,

They never diagnosed my chest pains prior to 1999 as having anything to do with heart either. I heard so many stories like yours from our friend, a nurse. She said that she cannot count how many times in her career she saw a patient with a chest pain being sent off back home, explained away as "stress", "ribbs", "indigestion" and similar nonsense. Only too see the same person wheeled back into the hospital on a gurney a few days later.

The only way around the incompetence of many doctors, is to scrutinize them, verify against published studies, and be skeptical to everything they say. In my case also, doing the opposite to what they advised helped a lot.

Vitamin K2 - absolutely! I think there is a very solid evidence behind it. Also it is well worth keeping track of once fasting insulin levels. It is not sugar peaks it is the insulin which seems to be one of the most important factors behind arterial plaque formation.

K2: seafood, organ meat, natto, egg yolks, butter from grass-fed cows (e.g. Irish butter), cheese.

D3 - dietary fat and cholesterol. Low cholesterol and low fat diet seem to impede D3 synthesis even under high exposure to the solar UV. (Note: D3 and K2 seem to get depleted by a high wheat consumption!)

Do not forget about vitamin A (liver, fish, carotenoids from carrots, peppers, yams etc but only in the presence of dietary fat!).

Best regards and best wishes to get better!
Stan

H, I can see why people are sent home from the ER. With me, an EKG was normal and showed no problem. A blood draw and a test for heart enzymes also was normal. If I had gone into the hospital on any of the days preceding the MI I would have had a normal EKG and the heart enzymes would have been normal. Also, I complained that the pain was worse after eating which made them think it was not heart. They gave me a maalox and lidocaine cocktail and said if the pain stopped after drinking this then it was unlikely it was heart. And the pain did stop. But four hours later, the heart enzymes showed I was having an MI and then I went into V fib. Before the v fib I was hooked up to the monitor which did not show heart attack. Fortunately they did not send me home. I would have refused to leave the ER if they had.

Dolores