Track Your Plaque: The only heart disease prevention program that shows how to use the new heart scans to detect, track and control coronary plaque

How often do we come across news wherein a friend or a relative suffered a heart attack and had to die all of a sudden?Do you know that the conventional tests (HDL, LDL, Triglycerides, Total Cholesterol, Treadmill test) for assessing whether a person has a risk for future heart attack are woefully inadequate? Meaning, even after all the above are performed on time (with results are considered normal range) - still that person can experience a fatal/non fatal heart attack?Very often we hear that an apparently otherwise healthy individual suffering from heart disease had to undergo bypass surgery or had to operate with stents etc.If you want to find answers for this and to educate how to protect yourself - you have to read Track your Plaque book. Dr. William Davis addresses heart disease and what causes heart attacks, how we can identify the risk one has against heart disease, how we can improve upon those parameters through life style changes, diet and medicines.Why this book? Don't we have hospitals for cardiovascular care and incase if someone has heart disease - he/she can get better treatment in the hospital, why read this book and make changes to life style among other things?From Dr Davis's own words - Cardiac care is big business. As a nation, US spent $59 billion on cardiovascular care per year (American Heart Association, 2002). Annual hospital revenues for bypass surgery total $25 billion. Thirty percent of hospital revenues and 50% of profits are from cardiac care. Heart care to a hospital is like the Accord is to Honda, or Windows is to Microsoft--it's a hot seller.We live in an age when hospitals measure their success by the number of coronary bypass surgeries they perform. Incredibly, it is still easier to get a bypass operation than it is to get good information on heart disease prevention. There are even billboards on the highways advertising bypass surgery.Second - this book explains that plaque take decades to grow (for most people) in the arteries and by taking right steps and actions at the right time (not when taken to ER) - we can successfully regress it. This is not big money to you or for the hospital. You can achieve this at much lesser cost than a bypass or an operation involving stents etc. So hospitals are not going to be advertising preventative things to you and me over TV and media. There is no money for them in this. It is your responsibility to protect yourself.This book explains that - non-invasive 10 min scanning of the arteries for calcium deposits using an Electron Beam Tomography (EBT) Scanner. Based on the scan results, the cardiologist will assign a risk score to the patient, and will order additional blood tests least of which is LDL, HDL, triglycerides and Total cholesterol. Not that they are not important. There are more "definitive" tests that can/need to be done today and identify our current state of Cardio parameters rather than relying on the same old LDL, HDL and triglycerides. A good result in LDL, HDL test does not mean that one is not going to have heart attack.Based on those results - the patient can work with the Doctor and identify what needs to be done for improving the odds.One thing I wanted to mention - in the changes that need to be done to improve health - food/fats - the Dr and the author Dr. William Davis argues against saturated fat. He castigates that saturated fat is unhealthy and is not required for the body. In fact it is just the opposite. Second he also says you can consume Canola oil which I do not agree. Vegetable oils (Corn oil, cottonseed, rapeseed etc) are a menace and humans are not evolved to consume that in industrial quantities, which we do . Third he also mentioned that Oat bran can be consumed - I am against it. Oats raise blood sugar and it cannot be good for anyone's health including Cardio parameters. Recently William Davis wrote in his blog that he has changed his mind on Oats.Dr. William Davis also runs a program called Track your Plaque. All of the concepts explained in the book - you can also have it done thru this program.The key takeaway is - artery plaques can be identified in humans using non-invasive techniques, additional blood tests will need to be done to identify what caused the plaque, adopt life style including medicines, supplements and diet and you can regress the plaque.A must read for anyone who is interested in staying healthy and not wanting to give a surprise to oneself or family.I would rate the book 4.5 of 5.

I ordered this book the very same day as I in the book written by Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue, BSc., ND: "Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox", (KRB), was reading its recommendation; even though it showed up to be printed way back in 2004. And buying this book both because my mother, when told to be very healthy, in the age of 72, was hit by a heart attack, and besides also because I now during 4 years have been fighting with doctors concerning the cholesterol. But now, in one hospital, they have turned around, and now are saying the same as me, that is, that's better with the HDL > 60, opposite to their earlier saying that HDL < 60, and therefore told that my wife would die if she didn't get drugs, as she had 114 in HDL!As a side remark. To me it is strange to read the customer review from in the month of February last year, in which the person gives the lowest character to the book because we don't read about the vitamin K2! I now own 265 doctor and health books, and it's only in the book by KRB that the K2 is mentioned, even in the "Mosby's Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing & Health Professions", printed in 2009, which is 5 years later than the actual book, we don't get a single word about K2. And I've been searching much after other good books concerning the K2, since I was reading the book by KRB, but until now without luck. And concerning the book, "Track Your Plaque", the crux of the matter is concerning how to find the chance of being hit by a heart attack!And besides, concerning the knowing about K2, and the importance of K2, it's so new that for example, out here in Thailand, the K2 don't even exist! And I haven't yet met pharmacists or doctors (even professors) that know about the K2!.And to me the point number 1 of importance in this book is that we have to look in our hearts arteries, that is to by scanning, finding how much plaque we in them are having. Of course, exceptional healthy if having no plaque at all, but else, as the point number 2 of importance, we are getting very detailed information about how to calculate on the cholesterol. Looking closer on the cholesterol numbers, instead of, as most doctors still are doing, by only saying "Total cholesterol have to be less than 200, and the HDL less than 60!".To me this book is one of the few that go deepest into looking on the hearts arteries, and it's the only one that go deep concerning the cholesterol, when among other by looking at the particle numbers, for the HDL and LDL, and besides also talking about the particles size. And that's probably the reason for KRB recommending the book, and resulting in my buying a copy.And among other, the book is also good by showing many actual cases, by which we, again, learn that only looking on HDL, LDL and the Total, don't tells us what's the probability in getting a heart attack. Just as during the years many persons have told that the chance being 50/50 either having too high or too low a total cholesterol number.To me, the only thing which I in the book am missing is the calculation of the actual cholesterol formula used. Because if I either use the Friedewald formula form 1972, or the Iranian formula from 2008, neither of these gives the same results as those we have in the book.But all together it's a very important book of which I will inform a doctor in the RAM hospital, and after this, then find out if I, and my wife, there can have made the same heart arteries scanning, and in case showing bad results, then cholesterol measures like in the book. But concerning these cholesterol measures, I highly doubt that the RAM hospital (the Chiang Mai hospital used by foreigners) can help me.

I came across William Davis' Hearscan blog and have read lots of the posts. There he focusses on heart scan tests, eliminating wheat, supplementing omega 3, Vitamin D3 and a few other bits. I bought the book hoping for more detail on the tests. I know he's busily updating his book, but I didn't realise how far behind the content was here compared to the blog. It's still interesting and useful, though I'd recommend that you wait for the new edition.He provides good detail on why Dean Ornish's work is so limited, with specifics on the outcomes from that famous study.This guy is doing great work on empowering people to look after their health (inexpensively) and reverse coronary heart disease. If you want to avoid heart attacks and live a long and healthy and happy life, follow his guidance. If you smoke and don't ever want to give up, then he's not for you.

Brilliant book to get an understanding of the cause and effect of Plaque

This book is very useful for anyone who has a family history of heart disease, especially young men. Indeed, even if your family has been free of heart disease you would be wise to read it. It tells you not only how to discover how much plaque is in your coronary arteries but how you can slow and even stop the accumulation of plaque and perhaps even reduce the amount of existing plaque. I gave copies to my son and to my son-in-law.