Better heart health & blood tests without drugs….

Today's post: Monday, 8-20-2007

A friend’s wife is about to see a cardiologist. Her most recent blood test had fasting glucose of just over 115; HDL just under 40; & LDL of somewhat over 160.

Many doctors, even some cardiologists, would simply write a statin drug prescription to lower her high LDL.

LDL of over 160 IS a risk factor for worsening vascular (blood vessel) health & heart attacks & strokes. (LDL of under 130 or even under 100 would be far safer for her.)

However, good doctors & cardiologists would also prefer she have:

fasting glucose of 110 or less; & order a test of HBA1C to be sure that’s 5.9 or less;

& HDL of over 45 or even more than 55 if it can be achieved.

And, increasingly, some of these doctors also know that statin drugs may be unnecessary.

If she immediately uses effective nondrug ways to improve these readings, it’s quite likely she can improve them enough as measured by a post test to make taking statins unnecessary.

If the post test shows little or no improvement, of course, most doctors will insist on the statin drugs to at least bring her LDL down to below 130.

Here are some key ways she can achieve all these goals enough to stay off drugs.

I. These steps lower LDL cholesterol.:

a. Recent studies have found that up to 2,000 mg a day of sterols, a food component found in vegetables & nuts, will produce strong drops in LDL cholesterol.

Products like Benecol margarine lower LDL because they have sterols added. But margarine is not that good for you. The wonderful news is you can simply buy & take sterol supplements instead. (And, eating more vegetables, & nuts if you aren’t allergic to them, also helps & has many other health benefits. They contain sterols & fiber that lower LDL cholesterol.)

One of the best & least expensive sterol supplements that produced at least 15 points of the 30 points I dropped my own LDL cholesterol is a beta sitosterol supplement called “Cholesterol Balance” by Natrol. Each tablet has 300 mg of sterols. I only took 3 a day. If his wife takes 3 a day just before lunch & 3 a day just before dinner, she may well lower her LDL cholesterol 30 points or more just from that one step.

b) If she also stays away from transfats (aka known as trans fats) totally & eats less butterfat & fatty meats, she may well do even better.

1) Extra virgin olive oil; wild caught fatty fish like & sardines Alaskan salmon; beef fed only grass, avocados, & nuts are all much better for you as sources of fats & oils than fatty meats like ham & beef from grain fed animals, butter, cream, full fat milk & full fat cheeses.

And wild caught fatty fish like & sardines Alaskan salmon; beef fed only grass, beans, oatmeal, nonfat & very lowfat dairy products, lean poultry, & nuts are all much better for you as sources of protein than fatty meats like ham & beef from grain fed animals, full fat milk & full fat cheeses.

Even better, most of the health OK sources of oils & of protein we list here have other health benefits.

Switching more completely to the health OK choices may well drop her LDL by another 5 or 10 points. (If she hadn’t already largely made that switch it would do even more.)

In addition, nuts, beans & oatmeal have both insoluble & soluble fiber that tends to lower LDL cholesterol; & beans and oatmeal are inexpensive. So, specifically increasing those from once or twice a week to closer to once or twice a day, can lower her LDL even more.

2) Staying completely away from transfats (aka known as trans fats) may be even more important. They will gradually disappear now that how horribly bad for your health they are is becoming better known.

But they are NOW in virtually all commercial baked goods, some & even possibly most fast food frying oils, some brands of commercial pizza, chili, oil roasted nuts, bread, peanut butter, candy bars, ice cream, mayo, & microwave popcorn.

If it isn’t a whole single food, like broccoli or wild caught salmon &/or it’s in a package, check the label for transfats of more than zero AND look for partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils.

(0.49 grams per serving, which can legally be listed as zero transfats, is too much transfats for good health. And, you may well eat three servings in normal use besides. So, if it lists ANY partially or fully hydrogenated vegetable oils as ingredients, it has too many transfats to be OK for your health to eat.)

My friend’s wife already eats far less of these foods with transfats than the average American; but if she stops eating ANY, transfats well enough, she may well drop her LDL by another 10 or 20 points. (Even better transfats, increase the most harmful kind of LDL, so this step will protect her health the most of any we list here.)

II. This step lowers LDL cholesterol AND boosts HDL.:

Taking real niacin, NOT niacinimide which has separate health benefits but doesn’t affect HDL & LDL, boosts HDL lowers LDL; AND it makes the LDL you do have change into a less harmful kind. (This is virtually the reverse of what transfats do.)

Some studies even suggest it protects your health & reduces your risk of death BETTER than statin drugs. It definitely does more for you.

However, it does have some side effects in larger doses.

I took one 300 mg niacin tablet after breakfast & only rarely experienced any niacin flush symptoms. And, I took one 200 microgram capsule of chromium polynicotinate a day. And despite a family history of high LDL cholesterol was only at 130 while my HDL was consistently over 60.

I’ve heard some people say that inositol hexaniacinate, marketed as no flush niacin, is ineffective. But I found a publication on PubMed that suggested it was effective. When I added a 300 mg capsule of inositol hexaniacinate at lunch & one at dinner, my HDL went up about 15 points & my LDL went down 15 points. To be fair, this may have been due to other things I did right. But that was the change that seemed to make the difference. And, I made little or no others then.

The other way to avoid the niacin flush & get the heart protection is to take 500 mg of time release niacin three times a day with meals.

But that can cause liver problems in some people. So you have to do that in cooperation with your doctor so you can have the liver function blood tests regularly to be sure your liver stays OK.

III. Boosting HDL

Here’s a list of things that seem to boost HDL besides the things in the other two lists above.

1. Do strength training at least two days a week for half an hour.

2. Get a total of 1500 calories a week or more of exercise.

3. Be sure you get a good intake of choline every day. Lecithin & choline supplements work. And, wheat germ, liver, & egg yolks are high in it.

If she does the other things listed here, eating two to four eggs a week for the choline in their yolks & their high quality protein looks like it boosts HDL cholesterol much more than it boosts LDL cholesterol.

And, lecithin supplements are inexpensive.

4. Taking 400 to 600 mg a day of magnesium (if you aren’t already taking Milk of Magnesia every day) increases HDL; tends to reduce or prevent high blood pressure; & tends to prevent constipation.

5. Using extra virgin olive oil raises HDL & lowers LDL. Unfortunately oils like soy, corn, safflower, & to some extent canola, lower BOTH HDL & LDL. So if she uses only extra virgin olive oil & virtually eliminates taking in corn oil, soy oil, & safflower oil, she may find that boosts her HDL as well.

6. You have to be careful with drinking red wine as a health aid. But it does boost HDL cholesterol; & tends to reduce blood clotting & benefit heart health.

For women, drinking more than one a day can do more harm than good. (Men can get away with up to two a day.)

Also, if she winds up taking larger amounts of niacin, she needs to be extra careful to avoid drinking more wine than that to protect her liver.

But, if she does it safely & takes no medicines that mix badly with alcohol, if she drinks one glass of red wine each evening rather than just a few times a week, it will raise her HDL, possibly from 5 to 12 points.

IV. lowering fasting glucose:

These things tend do that:

1. Taking 200 to 600 micrograms of chromium polynicotinate a day.

2. Taking 200 to 600 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid.

3. Cutting back or eliminating added sugar in her food. And, making sure to switch to a non sugar added version of foods that come with sugar added.

4. Getting enough regular exercise.

5. Eat very little bread, even whole grain, & eat NO refined grain foods. And, eat no packaged cereals besides oatmeal, shredded wheat, & wheat germ.

6. Drink NO soft drinks & eat NO foods with high fructose corn syrup added.

(Despite doing # 1. & #4 & # 5 & 6 above, my fasting glucose was 115; & my doctor told me I would be wise to lower it. Bless him for that.

I switched from sugar added applesauce to no sugar added; I cut my intake of sugar in almost exactly half; continued to take chromium & exercise regularly; & added 200 mg a day of alpha lipoic acid. I was lucky that so little worked. But I was doing enough things right already that making these small changes dropped my fasting glucose from 115 to 87.

If she does what I was already doing & adds what I added, she may not lower her fasting glucose to less than 90; but it’s virtually certain she will drop to below 110.

Then if her post test shows HDL of 48; LDL of 128; & fasting glucose of 102, her health protection will be far better; & her doctor may well hold of on prescribing statins.

And, that kind of change IS doable with these nondrug steps.