Genes and preventing heart disease....

Today's Post:  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. Next time we cover what I did to do that.)

2. The Berkeley Heart Lab many years ago found that some genetic types gained little from a low fat diet while some other genetic patters found a low fat diet was protective. 

(We now know that this is complicated by the fact that diets high in omega 6 oils and/or hydrogenated fats are quite heart harmful!

But, oils and fats otherwise that are high in omega 3 oils such as are in walnuts and wild caught salmon and omega 9 oils such as extra virgin olive oil and such saturated fats as found in organic coconut oil and dark chocolate and fats from animals fed their natural diets and ZERO grains, even butter, are all OK in moderation.)

But even without controlling for that they found that people with a certain genetic type DID do better on lowering their heart risk while eating less fat while everyone else showed little such effect from just having their diet be low in fat.

A recent Medical News Today story announced that you can now test for the three key genes that determine where you are on that measure can be tested for $300 or less.

(The full spectrum Berkeley Heart Lab test, if you could get it today, would cost from $1200 to $1800.)

3.  Similarly for statins they found that most people got very little if any protection by taking statin drugs!  But a for a minority of people with a different genetic make up did get decent protection.

Then in an article, cardiologist, Dr Arthur Agatson said that testing to see if you are in the protected group or not by itself just cost, $150.

Statins still have unacceptably harmful side effects such as preventing exercise from making you more fit or protecting your heart and causing permanent muscle damage if you do the very kind of more intense exercise that is otherwise most heart protective.

And eating 6 servings a day of organic vegetables cuts the death rate from heart disease by more even for this one group than statins do.

Lastly, you can do as I've done and lower your LDL from 130 to 59 using other methods that have other health benefits instead of harmful side effects.

But that having been said, if your doctor is pressing you to take statins, you can get this $150 test; And if you are in the majority group genetically, the data shows statins are far less beneficial than justifies the side effects and dollar costs giving you a good reason to turn down statins.

(Of course if your triglycerides ARE way over 100 &/or your LDL is way over 160 or your HDL is way under 50 or all of the above, you need to stop doing the things that cause it and start doing the things that reverse each of these horrible readings that work without using drugs and which have other health benefits.  

Since I found many of these and because of how spectacularly effective doing all of them has been has been for me the rest of this post and our next one describe what those are and a bit about how I found them.)

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 minute 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.

Given the family history, I decided to drive my risk down to very low and have succeeded enough to reach an extremely low risk!

What I've done since then will be in our next post.