I just found out I have a calcium score of 1005 with most of the calcium in the LAD (so called Widowmaker artery). Dr. told me stay off of anything with processed meats, processed sugars, or processed grains. So, that wipes out a lot of stuff. Said pork and beef were ok (surprised at this). I am wondering if things like 100% whole grain bread are OK. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Good Heart Healthy Diet Tips
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Last: 21 days ago by MAROON
If I'm you, food has officially gone from something I indulge in, to medicine.Bonfire97 said:
I just found out I have a calcium score of 1005 with most of the calcium in the LAD (so called Widowmaker artery). Dr. told me stay off of anything with processed meats, processed sugars, or processed grains. So, that wipes out a lot of stuff. Said pork and beef were ok (surprised at this). I am wondering if things like 100% whole grain bread are OK. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I wouldn't touch anything you have to "wonder" about
I'm sticking with lean meats (chicken, fish), veggies (focus on greens), fruit, and nuts/healthy fats
I say this having recently gotten a FH diagnosis along with NA fatty liver disease and currently am partaking in this exact diet (have been for 2 months)
May be worth looking into high powered statin
Good luck
What kind of test did you take? Some kind of imaging like ultrasound? I think I am doing a text for that soon.
Eat foods with one or two ingredients, shop around the perimeter of the grocery store, eat real foods.
It's simple but not easy
It's simple but not easy
I had a calcium score CT, carotid artery ultrasound, echocardiogram, nuclear stress test, and a bunch of blood work. The blood work included an "LDL Lipoprotein Fractionation, Ion Mobility" test which showed my cholesterol issues are genetic. He doubled my blood pressure medicine and added Rosuvastatin (cholesterol med). I passed the nuclear stress test.
Bonfire97 said:
I had a calcium score CT, carotid artery ultrasound, echocardiogram, nuclear stress test, and a bunch of blood work. The blood work included an "LDL Lipoprotein Fractionation, Ion Mobility" test which showed my cholesterol issues are genetic. He doubled my blood pressure medicine and added Rosuvastatin (cholesterol med). I passed the nuclear stress test.
Is this something you just decided to do on your own? Recommend by your primary? And is this something you do through a cardiologist?
No sugar means no bread.
You are trying to avoid inflammation.
Maybe some sourdough??
You are trying to avoid inflammation.
Maybe some sourdough??
If it says "heart healthy" on the label, it probably isn't
Watch:
Dr. Ken Berry
Dr. Nadir Ali
Dr. Robert Lustig
Dr. Anthony Chaffee
Dr. Ken Berry
Dr. Nadir Ali
Dr. Robert Lustig
Dr. Anthony Chaffee
anaggieshusband said:
Watch:
Dr. Ken Berry
Dr. Nadir Ali
Dr. Robert Lustig
Dr. Anthony Chaffee
This right here. Time to go carnivore
Thanks for all the replies. Jtr- both of my parents had open heart bypass surgery in their 50's. They both had smoked at one point in their lives, so I always assumed it was that and that I would be ok (I have never smoked and am otherwise healthy). I had an episode of waking up in the middle of the night with chest pain. That subsided and I went back to sleep. 30 min later I woke up short of breath. Went to the cardiologist and he ran all these tests. At my follow up he wanted to do a catheterization to see if there was significant blockage in that LAD artery since the calcium CT does not show blockage percentage. He said that since I passed my nuclear stress test he knows it's not over 70% blocked. He said the catheterization would just just be for information to see how aggressive to treat with cholesterol meds and that he would not stent anything under 70% blockage. I just asked to go ahead and put me on the med and let's skip the catheterization and he was OK with that.
I'd just like to be an alternate voice and suggest that if you already have demonstrated coronary atherosclerosis, then going carnivore will very likely not improve this situation, and likely will make it worseJbob04 said:anaggieshusband said:
Watch:
Dr. Ken Berry
Dr. Nadir Ali
Dr. Robert Lustig
Dr. Anthony Chaffee
This right here. Time to go carnivore
100% this.True Anomaly said:I'd just like to be an alternate voice and suggest that if you already have demonstrated coronary atherosclerosis, then going carnivore will very likely not improve this situation, and likely will make it worseJbob04 said:anaggieshusband said:
Watch:
Dr. Ken Berry
Dr. Nadir Ali
Dr. Robert Lustig
Dr. Anthony Chaffee
This right here. Time to go carnivore
Are you basing this belief on the idea that diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of heart disease?
Get the YUKA app and scan everything. It is shocking how much additive crap is in even foods labelled as "natural".
As mentioned just shop around the middle of the store. It costs more and is hard to do but worth it with your genetics.
As mentioned just shop around the middle of the store. It costs more and is hard to do but worth it with your genetics.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full Medical Disclaimer.
Thanks KidDoc. Will definitely get the app. Yeah, my Doc basically said the same - eat *real* food. - edge of grocery store. I guess I was surprised by him saying red meat and pork were OK. But, that does agree with reputable docs I found online (like from NIH, etc.).
Edit: Wow Kiddoc. This app is really impressive. I just downloaded it and it is really spot on!
Edit: Wow Kiddoc. This app is really impressive. I just downloaded it and it is really spot on!
What has your diet been like in the past?
I never eat out and always eat fairly healthy home cooked meals. However, that has included pasta, breads, etc. that I am now stopping. Occasional soft drinks and some alcohol use on Friday and/or Sat night (like 4-6 drinks each night). I have always mentioned my drinking to my GP during my physical and he never said that much was an issue. I am stopping that, too.
It's frustrating when you know folks who are overweight, eat out all the time, and say "my cholesterol is always good". If I would have known I was genetically predisposed, I would have gotten on this when I was 40 and not 50. I always assumed my parents' issues were from previous smoking.
It's frustrating when you know folks who are overweight, eat out all the time, and say "my cholesterol is always good". If I would have known I was genetically predisposed, I would have gotten on this when I was 40 and not 50. I always assumed my parents' issues were from previous smoking.
Not a "belief", but based on the collective amount of evidence that consistently high saturated fat is still linked to increased LDL. And consistently high LDL is linked to increased atherosclerosis. And over time, increasing atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries does lead to clinically significant heart disease.MRB10 said:
Are you basing this belief on the idea that diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of heart disease?
To put it another way…having a HIGHER saturated fat diet does not LOWER your risk of coronary atherosclerosis .
So even if you "believe" the evidence to be "mixed" at best, I'd still err on the side of lower amounts of saturated fat if I had documented coronary atherosclerosis
You can still have beef and high fatty stuff, but you just need less of it.
True Anomaly said:Not a "belief", but based on the collective amount of evidence that consistently high saturated fat in a normal American dietis still linked to increased LDL. And consistently high LDL in a normal American diet is linked to increased atherosclerosis. And over time, increasing atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries does lead to clinically significant heart disease.MRB10 said:
Are you basing this belief on the idea that diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of heart disease?
To put it another way…having a HIGHER saturated fat diet does not LOWER your risk of coronary atherosclerosis .
So even if you "believe" the evidence to be "mixed" at best, I'd still err on the side of lower amounts of saturated fat if I had documented coronary atherosclerosis
You can still have beef and high fatty stuff, but you just need less of it.
It has a lot less to do with higher saturated fat and way more to do with eliminating the inflammation from the processed carbs and sugar.
This.
harge57 said:True Anomaly said:Not a "belief", but based on the collective amount of evidence that consistently high saturated fat in a normal American dietis still linked to increased LDL. And consistently high LDL in a normal American diet is linked to increased atherosclerosis. And over time, increasing atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries does lead to clinically significant heart disease.MRB10 said:
Are you basing this belief on the idea that diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of heart disease?
To put it another way…having a HIGHER saturated fat diet does not LOWER your risk of coronary atherosclerosis .
So even if you "believe" the evidence to be "mixed" at best, I'd still err on the side of lower amounts of saturated fat if I had documented coronary atherosclerosis
You can still have beef and high fatty stuff, but you just need less of it.
It has a lot less to do with higher saturated fat and way more to do with eliminating the inflammation from the processed carbs and sugar.
Is there clear evidence that saturated fat is not linked to increased risk of heart disease?
Are you a cardiologist? Because that goes against the collective amount of evidence regarding coronary atherosclerosisharge57 said:True Anomaly said:Not a "belief", but based on the collective amount of evidence that consistently high saturated fat in a normal American dietis still linked to increased LDL. And consistently high LDL in a normal American diet is linked to increased atherosclerosis. And over time, increasing atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries does lead to clinically significant heart disease.MRB10 said:
Are you basing this belief on the idea that diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of heart disease?
To put it another way…having a HIGHER saturated fat diet does not LOWER your risk of coronary atherosclerosis .
So even if you "believe" the evidence to be "mixed" at best, I'd still err on the side of lower amounts of saturated fat if I had documented coronary atherosclerosis
You can still have beef and high fatty stuff, but you just need less of it.
It has a lot less to do with higher saturated fat and way more to do with eliminating the inflammation from the processed carbs and sugar.
Quote:
Summary
The idea that saturated fats cause heart disease, called the diet-heart hypothesis, was introduced in the 1950s, based on weak, associational evidence. Subsequent clinical trials attempting to substantiate this hypothesis could never establish a causal link. However, these clinical-trial data were largely ignored for decades, until journalists brought them to light about a decade ago. Subsequent reexaminations of this evidence by nutrition experts have now been published in >20 review papers, which have largely concluded that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular mortality or total mortality. The current challenge is for this new consensus on saturated fats to be recognized by policy makers, who, in the United States, have shown marked resistance to the introduction of the new evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9794145/#:~:text=Summary,to%20reflect%20the%20current%20evidence.
Also from that white paper…
" The diet-heart hypothesis was first proposed in the 1950s by Ancel Keys, a physiologist at the University of Minnesota with an interest in nutrition [1].
…
Throughout the 1950s, the AHA had resisted giving advice on heart disease prevention, citing a lack of evidence, yet in 1960, Keys was appointed to the group's nutrition committee, and one year later, although no greater evidence could be cited, he had convinced his colleagues to recommend his idea as official AHA policy. Thus, from 1961 on, the AHA recommended that all men (and subsequently women) decrease their consumption of saturated fat, replacing these fats whenever possible with polyunsaturated vegetable oils, as the most promising measure of protection against heart disease [6].
The 1961 AHA advice to limit saturated fat is arguably the single-most influential nutrition policy ever published, as it came to be adopted first by the U.S. government, as official policy for all Americans, in 1980, and then by governments around the world as well as the World Health Organization. It is worth noting that the AHA had a significant conflict of interest, since in 1948, it had received $1.7 million, or about $20 million in today's dollars, from Procter & Gamble (P&G), the makers of Crisco oil [2]. This donation was transformative for the AHA, propelling what was a small group into a national organization; the P&G funds were the 'bang of big bucks' that 'launched' the group, according to the organization's own official history [7]. Vegetable oils such as Crisco have reaped the benefits of this recommendation ever since, as Americans increased their consumption of these oils by nearly 90% from 1970 to 2014 [8]."
" The diet-heart hypothesis was first proposed in the 1950s by Ancel Keys, a physiologist at the University of Minnesota with an interest in nutrition [1].
…
Throughout the 1950s, the AHA had resisted giving advice on heart disease prevention, citing a lack of evidence, yet in 1960, Keys was appointed to the group's nutrition committee, and one year later, although no greater evidence could be cited, he had convinced his colleagues to recommend his idea as official AHA policy. Thus, from 1961 on, the AHA recommended that all men (and subsequently women) decrease their consumption of saturated fat, replacing these fats whenever possible with polyunsaturated vegetable oils, as the most promising measure of protection against heart disease [6].
The 1961 AHA advice to limit saturated fat is arguably the single-most influential nutrition policy ever published, as it came to be adopted first by the U.S. government, as official policy for all Americans, in 1980, and then by governments around the world as well as the World Health Organization. It is worth noting that the AHA had a significant conflict of interest, since in 1948, it had received $1.7 million, or about $20 million in today's dollars, from Procter & Gamble (P&G), the makers of Crisco oil [2]. This donation was transformative for the AHA, propelling what was a small group into a national organization; the P&G funds were the 'bang of big bucks' that 'launched' the group, according to the organization's own official history [7]. Vegetable oils such as Crisco have reaped the benefits of this recommendation ever since, as Americans increased their consumption of these oils by nearly 90% from 1970 to 2014 [8]."
Appreciate the article- will be reading through it and reviewing some of the cited sources myselfharge57 said:Quote:
Summary
The idea that saturated fats cause heart disease, called the diet-heart hypothesis, was introduced in the 1950s, based on weak, associational evidence. Subsequent clinical trials attempting to substantiate this hypothesis could never establish a causal link. However, these clinical-trial data were largely ignored for decades, until journalists brought them to light about a decade ago. Subsequent reexaminations of this evidence by nutrition experts have now been published in >20 review papers, which have largely concluded that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular mortality or total mortality. The current challenge is for this new consensus on saturated fats to be recognized by policy makers, who, in the United States, have shown marked resistance to the introduction of the new evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9794145/#:~:text=Summary,to%20reflect%20the%20current%20evidence.
harge57 said:Quote:
Summary
The idea that saturated fats cause heart disease, called the diet-heart hypothesis, was introduced in the 1950s, based on weak, associational evidence. Subsequent clinical trials attempting to substantiate this hypothesis could never establish a causal link. However, these clinical-trial data were largely ignored for decades, until journalists brought them to light about a decade ago. Subsequent reexaminations of this evidence by nutrition experts have now been published in >20 review papers, which have largely concluded that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular mortality or total mortality. The current challenge is for this new consensus on saturated fats to be recognized by policy makers, who, in the United States, have shown marked resistance to the introduction of the new evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9794145/#:~:text=Summary,to%20reflect%20the%20current%20evidence.
This is interesting. So, essentially, we are saying that everything we have been taught and info provided by most MD's, including cardiologists who specialize in heart health, regarding saturated fat, is completely wrong. I'd be very interested to hear any responses to this by any MD's / Cardiologists on the board.
I also think this is an interesting article. It basically explains why my cardiologist is saying it is OK to eat red meat and pork, I guess. If the saturated fat argument is true and this is not being fanned out to the general public, you can bet that there is one reason behind it - money.
Isn't capitalism greatBonfire97 said:
I also think this is an interesting article. It basically explains why my cardiologist is saying it is OK to eat red meat and pork, I guess. If the saturated fat argument is true and this is not being fanned out to the general public, you can bet that there is one reason behind it - money.
https://a.co/d/iuk4kKf
This is worth a read if that white paper strikes a chord. We significantly modified our family's food decisions based on the information in it.
This is worth a read if that white paper strikes a chord. We significantly modified our family's food decisions based on the information in it.
This has been posted already on other threads but i strongly encourage listening to this interview. The title suggests it is about big pharma but there is plenty of discussion on big food as well.
I'm an MD (not a cardiologist though) and taking this paper as gospel would be ill advised, ESPECIALLY if you're the OP and already at risk. The linked paper is not saying that saturated fat is necessarily good for you, or that there is evidence that increasing the daily recommended limit of saturated fats is advised. The primary takeaway is that further research should be done on this topic and taken into consideration in future recommendations. I also skimmed the 2020 paper by Krauss that she referenced and seemed to hold in high regard, and that paper also didn't come away with that conclusion. If anything, there's the possibility that specific saturated fats are bad for you and others aren't as bad, but since that information isn't included on nutrition labels it wouldn't be super actionable information at the moment. The gist of Krauss' recommendations seems to be focusing on eating a balanced diet of whole, healthy foods and understanding that some of those foods may be high in saturated fat.jtraggie99 said:harge57 said:Quote:
Summary
The idea that saturated fats cause heart disease, called the diet-heart hypothesis, was introduced in the 1950s, based on weak, associational evidence. Subsequent clinical trials attempting to substantiate this hypothesis could never establish a causal link. However, these clinical-trial data were largely ignored for decades, until journalists brought them to light about a decade ago. Subsequent reexaminations of this evidence by nutrition experts have now been published in >20 review papers, which have largely concluded that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular mortality or total mortality. The current challenge is for this new consensus on saturated fats to be recognized by policy makers, who, in the United States, have shown marked resistance to the introduction of the new evidence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9794145/#:~:text=Summary,to%20reflect%20the%20current%20evidence.
This is interesting. So, essentially, we are saying that everything we have been taught and info provided by most MD's, including cardiologists who specialize in heart health, regarding saturated fat, is completely wrong. I'd be very interested to hear any responses to this by any MD's / Cardiologists on the board.
There isn't one perfect diet that works for everyone, likely due to differences in genetics, activity levels, exposures, stressors that lead to epigenetic changes, etc., as well as our evolving understanding of nutrition's impact on health. However, there are certainly diets for you in particular to avoid (e.g. the carnivore diet, keto diet) and I would encourage you to take anything the general public (friends, family, random people on the internet) tell you about dietary choices with a grain of salt and to discuss this with your physician and take their advice. I'd encourage you to follow the advice of KidDoc and others who recommended you show on the outer edge of the grocery store.
Just stick to the standard American diet and food pyramid. Meat and fat are the devil.
Right… who would ever question that? The science is settled.
Medicine, like nutrition, is not black and white. People who see it as black and white don't survive long working in those fieldsJbob04 said:
Just stick to the standard American diet and food pyramid. Meat and fat are the devil.
There is scant evidence that the carnivore diet has greater long term health than other dietary patterns. Now that's mostly because the idea of carnivore has only been around for a handful of years, and long-term randomized controlled trials with definitive comorbid endpoints just aren't there yet.
But at the same time, there are plenty of people with valid credentials who promote the carnivore diet above ALL OTHERS, and I do think there are more than a few guys who take that advice and believe that they can ONLY eat animal products with purely saturated fat with absolutely no health consequences. However- some of these proponents are backing away from saying "just eat purely carnivore"- the most obvious of which is Paul Saladino, who finally dropped his "carnivore MD" title to show he wasn't purely carnivore anymore.
I actually understand why dudes want to eat carnivore. It sounds cool as an idea. I just have significant concerns about its effect on cardiovascular health, and the paper written by Nina Teicholz definitely doesn't fully alleviate those concerns, especially when you read the sources yourself.
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