Genes and preventing heart disease, part 2....

Today's Post:  Tuesday, 2-17-2015

Recap from part one on Thursday, 2-12-2015:

These things are true regarding the effect of genes on heart disease:

1.  Even with bad genes if you do enough of the more powerfully protective things, you can lower your risk of heart disease to very low or extremely low.

(My heart indicator blood tests show I've done just that. This time we cover what I did to do that.)

(2. Genetic tests exist for whether or not you will find a lower fat diet protective.)

(3. Genetic tests exist that show statins are not only very harmful for everyone but for the majority they are almost not heart protective at all.  However some at least get a bit of protection.  You can tell which group you are in for a $150 genetic test.)

    The first part of what I did to protect my heart as well as I have and why was in part one:

4.  Even with "bad genes" from a strong family history of heart disease I slammed down my risk to extremely low.  Studies on the things I happened on show results such that if you do them all too, you are very likely to get the same effects,

When I was younger I ran for exercise because it was found it was a good stress reliever and resilience builder by Kenneth Cooper who researched for the US Air Force if that was true as was commonly believed and what the minimum weekly requirement was.

He found the most effective and time efficient way to do that was to run about 6 miles a week at about an 8 minute per mile pace or faster.

Then some runners who ran a good bit longer than that began to die while running or just afterwards.

(We now know that while running it's critical to have periods where you coast or slow a bit when you need a rest break when running longer than few minutes because constant high level stress on your heart for over a few minutes is directly harmful.)

At the time though I realized I'd best find out what to eat that was protective for your heart.

I was already doing shorter runs without pushing myself too much with bursts of speed at the end of each quarter mile.  I ran four mornings a week.)

And, except for using sugar on my oatmeal, I ate a relatively heart protective diet after I read up on it.

I already avoided packaged treats and snacks and didn't drink soft drinks which, looking back on it, was the most protective thing I did.  It included oatmeal and oat bran which are high in soluble fiber.

Plus I took niacin of 300 mg a day from Whole Foods.

Then I added chromium of 200 mcg and cut way back on sugar and switched to no sugar applesauce when my doctor said my fasting glucose of 115 was way too high.  (It certainly was!  But I didn't know that then.) That worked and dropped my fasting glucose to 89 likely due in part from cutting way back on sugar plus my regular exercise.

My triglycerides were about 150 and my HDL was about 55 and my LDL was about 130.

Since there was a good bit of family history of heart attacks in my father's side of our family, quite possibly a genetic trait I'd inherited, and I found out 130 was still moderate rather than the very low risk I wanted.  Given the family history, I decided to drive my risk down to very low and have succeeded enough to reach an extremely low risk!

I already avoided packaged treats and snacks and didn't drink soft drinks which, looking back on it, was the most protective thing I did.  It included oatmeal and oat bran which are high in soluble fiber.

Plus I took niacin of 300 mg a day from Whole Foods.

Then I added chromium of 200 mcg and cut way back on sugar and switched to no sugar applesauce when my doctor said my fasting glucose of 115 was way too high.  (It certainly was!  But I didn't know that then.) That worked and dropped my fasting glucose to 89 likely due in part from cutting way back on sugar plus my regular exercise.

My triglycerides were about 150 and my HDL was about 55 and my LDL was about 130.

Since there was a good bit of family history of heart attacks in my father's side of our family, quite possibly a genetic trait I'd inherited, and I found out 130 was still moderate rather than the very low risk.  Given the family history, I decided to drive my risk down to very low and have succeeded enough to reach an extremely low risk!

Here’s what I’ve done since then that I ran out of time to cover last time:

Here’s what I did to lower my LDL from 130 to 106 after that:

1.  The first thing I did was to double my niacin intake from one tablet of 300 mg of niacin from Whole Foods to two a day. 

(I already know niacin lowered LDL cholesterol.  I’ve since learned that it also boosts HDL and lowers triglycerides; so it cuts the amount of small particle LDL that causes heart disease!  As a result, taking niacin cuts the rate of deaths from heart disease and deaths from all causes goes down by as much as 19%.  Statins do neither!

And, I found that by taking the 300 mg each day after breakfast and one after lunch minimized or eliminated flushing!)

And, I finally found an article that showed that 300 mg of “no flush niacin”, insositol hexaniacinate DOES slowly release 250 mg of niacin.

(Drug like time release niacin of as little as 500 mg of niacin can cause health problems. 

Because it is much more gradual and has no chemicals or plastics to slow the niacin release, insositol hexaniacinate does not.

So I added the 300 mg capsule size of insositol hexaniacinate also from Whole Foods.  I took and still take one with breakfast and one with dinner. That gives me 500 mg a day of niacin.

So, before I was taking an effective total of 300 mg of niacin a day.  After that change and ever since, I’ve taken an effective total of 1100 mg of niacin a day. 

(Above that can cause health problems in some people.

And it sometimes doesn’t go well if you take niacin with statins.  But I stopped at 1100 mg a day of niacin.

 And I know better than to take statins which are a much less effective and more dangerous substance to take!

2.  The second thing I did was to remember that Dr Kenneth Cooper found that the sterols added to margarines DID prove effective at lowering LDL.

By then I knew better than to ever eat any kind of margarine!  But I suspected you might be able to get just the sterols in a supplement.

I was already taking saw palmetto to slow BPH and reduce its effects.  And, saw palmetto contains sterols.

Then I found the Beta Sitosterol since renamed Cholesterol Balance from Natrol.  It’s inexpensive and each tablet is 300 mg.

And, I added three of those a day.

After a few weeks of that I got an LDL reading of 100 and later I got one of 106.

3.  That was much lower risk than 130; but I kept checking every few months to be sure it didn’t go back up.

Then much to my great astonishment it went down to 76 and then 73!!

I’d added a capsule of curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric each day because of it’s proven record of strongly preventing Alzheimer’s disease.

And I’d added about a half tablespoon of powdered ginger mixed into water each morning as an injury and inflammation preventing tonic without the harmful side effects of aspirin or acetaminophen or an NSAID -- and for the mild warmth after I drank it!

Then I read in Dr Dean Ornish’s book Spectrum that turmeric and curcumin ARE known to lower LDL.  And, I already knew that turmeric and ginger are botanic cousins with overlapping effects.

Not that the drop from 100 to 106 to 76 & 73 was greater than the drop from the niacin and sterols and added to it!

And, the 73 to 76 is lower than people often get to by taking statins to do it but then suffer that bad side effects!

Hooray!

4.  I knew that garlic raised HDL which is protective and that taking or eating garlic  increased the health and responsiveness of your arteries.  AND, I’d read that taking garlic along with the amount of vitamin C I already was taking, 2100 mg a day, had been shown to reduce plaque in the blood vessels.

But I’d nothing about it because raw garlic is messy and slow to mince and serve if you don’t have the tools of a chef and do it every day – plus your breath reeks of it the next day.

But then I read and posted on the study that found that the 300 mg a day of deodorized garlic capsules I was already taking did every bit of that when tested in people who took 1200 mg a day of the deodorized garlic.  So out of curiosity, I jumped my intake of Kyolic deodorized garlic from 300 mg a day to 1200 mg a day and got retested.

I’d already done so many things to boost my HDL it was 100 before; and it still was.

And, I’d also done enough other things to lower my triglycerides from 150 to 37.

But after the increase in deodorized garlic, my LDL went to an astonishing 59!

And, my triglycerides went to an equally astonishing 22!

Before I added the extra deodorized garlic my risk was already down to very low.

Much to my great shock, it’s now down to extremely low!

5.  Of course this was added to years of doing vigorous exercise most days of every week. And studies show that every year in a row you do that, your HDL goes up and your triglycerides and LDL go down.

And, I don’t smoke and avoid second hand smoke!

6.  And, I’m not done. 

Besides slashing even real sugar and even whole grains, in part for fat loss, I’m working to increase my intake of vegetables to six or more servings a day.

THAT has been shown to cut your risk of dying from all causes by 43% and 24/43 of that is from the drop in the risk of dying from any kind of heart disease!

If I can get my risk that low with my family history, genes may make a difference, but we know enough things that lower heart risk most of those genes fail to be powerful enough to keep you from protecting your heart!