and he is doing well, he got treatment very quickly and they put in a stent within an hour of onset of pains. He is after less than one week within 8% of full heart function. It was really a freak thing.... he passed his recent stress test, but from what the doctors can summize is that he had a small bit of occlusion, but well within normal range for his age ( he is 60) but that some plaque broke away and formed dam, creating the blockage.

He went in Monday evening and was out by Friday feeling great. And when they sent in the dietician he told her that he does not need advice,and sent her away. But wow the food they fed him, high fructose corn syrup in italain salad dressing, and we could not reason with them.

But here is my question, when we have face off with is doctor I know we are going to have an issue over statins and the cholesterol issue and the way we eat. The nurse was chirping....cheese goes right to the viens ( I just rolled my eyes) He is on quite a few meds right now and I know the plavix and such are for the stent but really wonder about some of the othe stuff. I really want to armed with as much info when we step into the doctor's office. And I know about changing doctors, but he does need to have cardiologist for now, and we are in a medical group, but the lsit of doctors is long, but I do not want to spend moths interviewing them.

Any advice?

Oh my... I am so glad he is hanging in there. It is really hard to talk to them, I know. I'm going round and round myself with my cholesterol and HBP. HBP runs on both sides of my family, so I'm probably screwed there..
How is his iron? I was reading a site that said iron can contribute to cholesterol problems. High cholesterol is really more a symptom than a "problem". Kinda like a fever is to an infection. I was also just reading where fiber is helpful, as is exercise. I know, he can't excercise yet. But, several short walks a day can add up to big benefits..

check out this site if you haven't already...
http://www.ravnskov.nu/cholesterol.htm

My best advice would be for you to immediately buy and read Protein Power Lifeplan by Dr. Eades. EDIT OOPS, after I wrote this I noticed PP as your plan and checked. So I see you have both books. GREAT!! GOOD for you!!. So now you have the biblio. which you would not have otherwise. I think it's size alone will "knock the socks off" of any but the most callous doctor. Point out that the journals are the top tier ones, like JAMA, Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

PPLP has over 400 scientific research articles as its basis. It is the best book to read to understand the whys and science behind low carb eating. But it is written for the layman so you should have no problem reading it. [EDIT but you should know that! ] Here are two places you can find the bibliography for the book.
http://www.intergate.com/~berts8nfo..._PubMed_IDs.txt
This is just a list and will be easier to print, which you should do and take with the book when you visit the Doctor. Here is a place where you can look for references for a particular chapter a little easier since it is broken up into several posts on the board it is located at.
http://www.intergate.com/~berts8nfo..._PubMed_IDs.txt
They are at the bottom of the page and on the next page.

What are his triglycerides, HDL and LDL? I know that for me LC has dropped my tri’s and raised my HDL. The LDL just does it’s thing and seems to have no rhyme or reason to it’s ups and downs. Here is a link to my lipid graph to show you how LC has worked for me.
http://www.intergate.com/~berts8nford7/LipidsGraph.JPG
Note, I have never been over 155 pounds so never even just heavy. So my total cholesterol has not changed much like others that do LC but start from much higher weights.

Statins are known to inhibit coenzyme Q (also called Ubiquinone) which is a part of the "electron chain" that creates energy in the cell. TOTALLY essential for the heart muscle, which NEVER rests. I would use PPLP as a shield against having statins prescribed. Dr Eades make quite a point of saying there are NO valid studies that link high cholesterol with heart disease. He even wrote a blog about Dr. Lynn Smaha, former president of the American Heart Association, who died suddenly of a heart attack at age 63. Go here to read (and you should also print this one) it because it shows that lowering cholesterol is not the answer.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=240

Here is a selected set of his blogs you might like to read.
Credibility lacking in the scientific literature
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...fic_jour_1.html

Reporting bias and medical studies
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...rting_bias.html

The lipid hypothesis
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...ipid_hypot.html

Scientific journal credibility
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...tific_jour.html

Most scientific articles are false
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...scientific.html

Baboon business - Anatomy of a Scientific Article
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...n_business.html

Statistical humbug
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...stics_is_n.html


More saturated fat nonsense
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...nonsense_a.html

Dress your salads with oil
Carotenoids found in colorful fruits and vegetables, and lycopene,
found in tomatoes, require fat for their absorption.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...i_was_at_a.html


Anti-fat bias of the press
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...fat_bias_o.html

Brace yourselves for more low-fat buncombe
During the first year the women in the group that got the constant attention
lost a little over 4 pounds more than the women in the group that were ignored.
By the end of the study the weight loss difference had narrowed to less than a
pound.
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/..._yourselve.html

************
You may wonder about the first group, with things like "Most scientific articles are false" BUT for me it shows how discerning Dr. Eades is. So when he chooses an article to use as a reference, I feel quite confident that he has carefully examined the FULL article, the study methodology, the data, and the statistics used to reach the conclusion. And has then concluded the study/article is valid.

Thanks. You know though sometimes it is like talking to a wall. My own Dr likes me on PP, but when my total chol was more than she wanted ( even though I had gone from 225 tris to 74, and my HDL was even better) she did not even want to discuss anything but lipitor which I refused. I wanted to be armed with info, and I had articles at the ready, but she would not even look at them. This time I want to be ready for all of the arguments.

I did. I saw this: "5 The only effective way to lower cholesterol is with drugs, but neither heart mortality or total mortality have been improved with drugs the effect of which is cholesterol-lowering only. On the contrary, these drugs are dangerous to your health and may shorten your life."

My cholesterol was around 280 before starting the Zone Diet. This diet stresses veggies and lean meat. It dropped my cholesterol to 160. So in my case, that quoted statement is a lie. Then getting bored with it I tried the Atkins Diet. It took my cholesterol up to 280 again.

I saw something on the news that said cholesterol by itself isn't the main factor in arterial disease. More important is blood pressure. Cholesterol plugs holes in arteries. Elevated blood pressure creates enough holes to overwhelm the body's ability to seal them. Hence blood clots form that can break off and eventually plug smaller vessels downstream. Iron is also a factor, possibly forming free radicals in the blood that damage arterial cell walls. More than half of people in the U.S. and Europe will die of arteriosclerosis. An inciting cause of this is cholesterol. So controling cholesterol is a good thing, even though some will develop heart disease without elevated levels.

Myself, when presented with statins by my physician, I turned it down, knowing that I can get the cholesterol numbers down with diet. But I don't have any other critical factors at work: I don't smoke or drink, my blood pressure is normal, I'm not diabetic or have thyroid problems.

Logic suggests if high blood pressure is a factor for ischemic heart disease, then controlling cholesterol is paramount. I don't know why some on the Atkins Diet can control cholesterol so well. It just know it doesn't work for me.

BTW, I read Colpo's book, __The Great Cholesterol Con__ I think his description of atherosclerosis is specious. He admits that inflammation of arterial walls leads to atherosclerosis but says cholesterol isn't a factor, even though arterial plaques contain cholesterol. Doesn't logic suggest if there is less cholesterol in the blood, it might mean fewer plaques?

Finally, Atkins other book, __The Vita-nutrient Solution___, lists several nutrient that have been proven to lower cholesterol. Using it I got my cholesterol from 280 to 200. When talking to your physician, perhaps you can stress your understanding of the role of inflammation in heart disease and how a lowcarb diet can reduce inflammation. My 73yr old father takes Lipitor and Niacin-inositol with the hope of getting his cholesterol levels low enough to get off the Lipitor.

No, it means that the body will use something else to patch the damage. My dad's cholesterol was always really low (<130) but had a triple bypass several years ago. The doc said that the blockages were mostly calcium.

The key is to prevent the damage that leads to the blockages. Cholesterol doesn't cause that damage and clots aren't cholesterol stuck to the sides of otherwise healthy arteries. Cholesterol is used to try to heal that damage, so lowering cholesterol with drugs is like shooting the paramedics at an accident.

So What Does Cause Heart Disease?

Actually in our case we do Protein power which in my eyes is the best when comparing the zone, SB and atkins. My chol when I was not cheating was rapidly falling and true also for my husband, but his family has a history of high numbers something that I think can be lightly brushed off. But as for myself I am going back to the basics and I also take no flush Niacin, and I am going to suggest that when we go.

And those of us who frequent the Eades board for PP, know about the sub types of LDL, the dense which sticks and fluffy which does not. I want his tested for this. My BIL does atkins, he does not like veggies ( we do eats lots of them on PP) and his numbers dropped like lead balloon when he was on it.

As published in the CDPHP Medical messenger, May 2004 (I need to find the URL if you want to see it online, I printed it.)

The VAP Test, or Vertical Auto Profile Test, is the test you want to have done.

I've been reading lately about the combination of chromium and grapeseed extract for heart health. Rats fed a high fat diet who had the chromium+grapeseed combo had significantly less arterial plaque than those on each separately and much less than those on the placebo.
It's also supposed to lower LDL and raise HDL.
I'm going to try it.

Cool! I knew low TGs correlated to fluffy particles, but I had never seen numbers. My TGs were 38 at my last test, so I'm safe.

Check out these references/articles and see if these things help.

http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/00/03cholestip.html
Cholesterol levels not necessarily indicative of cardiac health.
--They conclude that plasma cholesterol levels should not be relied on as a measure for potential heart disease. Their findings appear in two studies in the March issue of the journal Atherosclerosis.

Of the 506 men who had a bypass, only 71 (14 percent) had plasma cholesterol levels above 240; 50 percent had levels below 200. Thirty-two percent of the 244 women who had bypass surgery had levels above 240; 34 percent were below 20.

Here is Pubmed citation;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...l=pubmed_docsum
The relationship of oxidized lipids to coronary artery stenosis.
--Differences in the mean plasma cholesterol concentration for different levels in the degree of stenosis were not significant, indicating that LPX provided consistent data on the severity of stenosis while the plasma cholesterol concentration did not.

Related Article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...l=pubmed_docsum
An excess concentration of oxysterols in the plasma is cytotoxic to cultured endothelial cells.
To test if there is an excess concentration of oxysterols in the plasma of the patients with cardiovascular disease, we analyzed the oxysterol content in the plasma from 105 cardiac catheterized patients with angina and 80+/-8% stenosis in their coronary arteries. The result showed that the plasma contained a significantly higher concentration of oxysterols than did plasma from 105 age- and sex-matched, non-catheterized and angina-free controls (P<0.05).

Here is a good summary about lipids.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio104/lipids.htm
(near end)
Cholesterol is not a “bad guy!” Our bodies make about 2 g of cholesterol per day, and that makes up about 85% of blood cholesterol, while only about 15% comes from dietary sources.

Many people have hear the claims that egg yolk contains too much cholesterol, thus should not be eaten. An interesting study was done at Purdue University a number of years ago to test this. Men in one group each ate an egg a day, while men in another group were not allowed to eat eggs. Each of these groups was further subdivided such that half the men got “lots” of exercise while the other half were “couch potatoes.” The results of this experiment showed no significant difference in blood cholesterol levels between egg-eaters and non-egg-eaters while there was a very significant difference between the men who got exercise and those who didn’t.

****
I have not looked for this study, but it would be a good one to find. Maybe an email to the Prof of this course would get it.

Larry Thanks, I will go into overdrive when we get to the doctors office!
And ironically we have avery close freind who was a macrobiotic vegan and did low fat, rides a bike to work everyday, at 68 is still working and skiis every chance he can get. and yet, his cholesterol numbers went thru the roof. Only recently has he begun to add meats and fish back into his diet and is finding better results already. What better proof?

He has never had high blood pressure, but funny thing about the iron thing, he used to give blood on a regualr basis. And they say that in men this keeps the iron level down. Well we have been cruising to out of the way places and because of some of the stops he could not give blood for about 2 years, now I wonder.