Cutting Your Risk of Heart Disease

By Gailon Totheroh - CBN News Science & Medical Reporter CBN.com

BOCA RATON, Florida - Can you name the number one killer not mentioned    on the FBI's most-wanted list? The answer would be heart disease.

Recently that disease nearly took the life of former President Clinton.        And that raises the question -- is there hope for any of us, when the       best doctors in the world cannot keep a former chief executive from      bypass surgery?

Clinton had surgery in September to replace four arteries that feed the    heart. All had major blockages from plaque in the vessels. With that        much disease, Clinton's quadruple-bypass surgery was a last-ditch effort     to save his life.

Cardiologist Dr. Arthur Agatston says President Clinton should have           had a heart scan to identify those blockages 10 years ago.

“In fact,“ Agatston asserts, “President Bush -- they did a heart             scan  recently and it was reported that they found a little plaque,       nothing  like President Clinton had, and they started him on medication."

Heart scans are one newer tool available to detect heart disease long    before it gets to the dangerous stage. And the newest scans of the heart     are incredible.

Radiologist Claudio Smuclovisky is a leader in this field. He is developing     use  of scans that gather an incredible amount of information from inside    the body in under 30 seconds.

Dr. Smuclovisky said, "We're able to manipulate and obtain               exquisite reconstructions of a person's coronary arterial tree, to be able       to give definitive answers on how much disease they have – [and]      whether they don't have disease. And really [to] have that therapy for       the patient that's appropriate."

Apparently, because he thought he was okay, President Clinton          stopped taking his cholesterol-lowering medication, one of the                   so-called statin drugs.

Cardiologist Dr. Seth Baum recommends statins as his first choice         against harmful forms of cholesterol in the blood. Those varieties                of cholesterol damage the blood vessels.

That damage creates sores called plaques within the walls of the            blood vessels, and the plaques can block blood flow, or break open and     start a blood clot. If a sizable clot travels to the heart, you have a         heart attack. If the clot circulates to the brain, you have a stroke.

But Dr. Baum says the standard cholesterol test most people get does        not give the most crucial information. A more detailed test can be done       on the bad, or LDL cholesterol.

From standard total cholesterol numbers, LDL cholesterol, called               "bad cholesterol," can be separated out. Dr. Baum says it is more important   to know how many LDL particles there are and how big they are.

Why? Because the smaller and the more numerous the LDL particles are,     the greater trouble you are in. 

So Dr. Baum, author of "The Total Guide to a Healthy Heart," has     abandoned the standard cholesterol test and uses the more detailed          LDL blood test.

Dr. Baum remarked, "Say a person has a large number of LDL and they're   very small; he's at great risk and needs to be treated aggressively. And     that may be the reason there's this disconnect between LDL number          and coronary disease--because we're not looking at the right number."

So what can be done to reduce heart disease and perhaps save your        life? You should take:

• The statin drugs

• Vitamin D

• The B vitamin Niacin

• Garlic

And increase your physical activity, lose weight, and go on a                  low-carbohydrate diet like the South Beach Diet. That diet was written by   Dr. Agatston after he discovered that diet was a key to heart health.          He recommends more fruits and vegetables, good fats, lean protein,          plus avoiding sugar and sugar-like starchy, refined carbohydrates.         Sugary carbs produce bad fats in the body.

And then there is the vitamin C question. For 50 years, some              medical mavericks have suggested that low vitamin C as the               primary cause      of heart and circulatory disease. According to the     theory, and a growing body of evidence, vitamin C can prevent the        plaque formation and help reduce already existing plaques in most people.

British medical researcher Steve Hickey is the author of "Ascorbate:         The Science of Vitamin C." He says about 1,500 milligrams is the right     amount for heart health.

Hickey said, “But in the past half-century, the medical establishment has    not performed a single experiment to refute that hypothesis."

Dr. Baum recommends a combination of approaches, depending on what     works for the individual. He also advocates refined fish oil. The oil helps     fight damaging inflammation involved with plaque.

Dr. Baum also sees faith in God as significant in patients such as           Esther Mitch, who is still leading Bible studies at age 88.

And through his combined approach, Dr. Baum has also been able to     improve Marilyn Schrager's very bad cholesterol numbers. Her heart    difficulties appear to stem from genetics, indicated by a family history         of heart disease.

Another Dr. Baum patient, James Jannotta, is a retired doctor              himself. Jannotta feels medications, diet, supplements and weight loss      have helped him begin turning the corner on coronary risk.

Dr. Agatston said, "The later in life you discover that there's problems,       the more you have to depend on medication. If we all started with a        great lifestyle and diet, we'd need very few medications and almost             no interventions."

More and more doctors are realizing that an appreciation for God's        creation, faith, and including good medicine and good nutrition, can make     for a healthy heart.