saturated fat confusing

[shacherry]

Hi all,

I recently found out I'm a 3/4. Diagnostic tests revealed my left anterior descending artery is 40% blocked. I've lost 70 pounds and have been on a statin for over a year now.

I've dramatically reduced my saturated fat intake but after mulling around this website I began to eat egg yokes again, butter and shrimp. I'm wondering if maybe eating those things are for nonsymptomatic E4 carriers who know they don't actually have a clogged artery. My last labs with consuming no butter, only egg whites and no shrimp are as follows: Do I keep indulging in those fats or go back to my low saturated fat days?

Cholesterol 155
Triglycerides 58
HDL 103
LDL 40
ratio 1.5
CRP <.29
Homocysteine 9
Hemoglobin A1C 5

Thank you,

Your Cousin Shari

[slacker]

Hi all,

I recently found out I'm a 3/4. Diagnostic tests revealed my left anterior descending artery is 40% blocked. I've lost 70 pounds and have been on a statin for over a year now.

I've dramatically reduced my saturated fat intake but after mulling around this website I began to eat egg yokes again, butter and shrimp. I'm wondering if maybe eating those things are for nonsymptomatic E4 carriers who know they don't actually have a clogged artery. My last labs with consuming no butter, only egg whites and no shrimp are as follows: Do I keep indulging in those fats or go back to my low saturated fat days?

Cholesterol 155
Triglycerides 58
HDL 103
LDL 40
ratio 1.5
CRP <.29
Homocysteine 9
Hemoglobin A1C 5

Thank you,

Your Cousin Shari

Hi Shari -
Yes, saturated fat is confusing!
Other than your homocysteine, your reported labs look beautiful. (What ratio did you report? Total chol to HDL?) You are also on a statin, which is helping your LDL and total cholesterol, but not doing much to your other lipid numbers. Your trigs and HDL are excellent and need no help. Your HgbA1C is enviable. What did your cholesterol results look like while on egg yokes, butter, and shrimp? ApoEs are at higher risk of both Alzheimer's and cardiovascular disease, as you know. You already have CVD, manifested by your LAD artery blockage.

Several of our members follow Dr Gundry, who is a cardiothoracic surgeon who now focuses on lifestyle changes to help people. He allows more plant saturated fat than animal saturated fat. Information about his approach abounds on our website; you may want to start with our wiki entry, or Dr Gundry's book "The Plant Paradox." This is just a suggestion; it may not appeal to you. Consider starting with his approach to fats.

Elevated homocysteine is associated with coronary artery disease. At some point you may want to learn a bit more on how to lower yours. You could start in the "supplement" section of Primer to start learning more. It's a subject that can get complicated pretty quickly.

One step at a time...

[Tincup]

From what I know as a Gundry patient, the egg yolk and shrimp are not an issue (Gundry recommends shellfish and also eggs for E4's). Butter may be another issue and it and other sat fats from animals as well as coconut may be best avoided, at least according to Gundry.

Personally, I think insulin is a huge issue and the labs look excellent. However, Dr. Bredesen would like your homocysteine to be lower. That is a different issue from cardiovascular disease.

[MarcR]

I think saturated fat from animal sources is totally fine. It comprises a large portion of my caloric intake. If you want to consider this alternative perspective, I recommend these topics:

Chris Masterjohn on saturated fat
Rethinking the etiology of CAD

[Tincup]

I don't contest Marc's perspective. I know that Gundry has observed that animal saturated fat (& especially cheese) has increased sdLDL in many (but not all) E4's. Without running a trial with and without on myself, I don't know what my results would be. I choose to follow Dr. Gundry's advice as I pay for his advice and my (and my 4/4 wife's) labs look stellar following it. We plan to repeat a CAC (coronary artery calcium scan) in May after 3 years to see what has changed, however we were low risk to begin with.

[shacherry]

Thank you all so much for your thoughts. I think this cleared things up for me, if my labs looked good without yokes, shrimp and butter I’d be silly to start pigging out on that stuff now. Considering it’s not a question about me maybe developing heart disease since I know I’ve got it. My calcium score fell in the 98 percentage for a woman age 50. So my cardiologist dug deeper with the cat scan angiogram and got a good picture of my heart.

My snooping around here picked up on that homocysteine level ideally being lower and I’ve started a vetted vitamin B complex. I also started cod liver oil, yummy!

[slacker]

Good for you cousin shacherry!
And hooray to our community for their thoughtful diversity of viewpoints. Always appreciated.

If you would benefit from more protein and fat in your diet, the shrimp and egg yokes in moderation may be of value for you without causing harm. Dr Gundry would approve!

A word of caution about cod liver oil - don't go crazy on dosing. It provides a natural form of Vit A, but highly concentrated. Rare possibility of toxicity if you're taking too much over time. You can find an incredibly detailed review from the Linus Pauling Institute; scroll down to the toxicity section for dosing recommendations. Or enjoy the entire article!

[KellyS]

Thank you all so much for your thoughts. I think this cleared things up for me, if my labs looked good without yokes, shrimp and butter I’d be silly to start pigging out on that stuff now. Considering it’s not a question about me maybe developing heart disease since I know I’ve got it. My calcium score fell in the 98 percentage for a woman age 50. So my cardiologist dug deeper with the cat scan angiogram and got a good picture of my heart.

My snooping around here picked up on that homocysteine level ideally being lower and I’ve started a vetted vitamin B complex. I also started cod liver oil, yummy!

This might not be exactly something that fits here, but it is an article that popped up in my Facebook memories for today. It's from Naturopathic Doctors News/Reviews, and it's just a short blurb on homocysteine levels, low stomach acid and AD. Might be worth a look-see for you?
http://ndnr.com/mindbody/hypochlorhydri ... mpairment/
Take care!

Kelly

[Russ]

Yep - "saturated fat" is confusing, but FWIW, I still fall in the @MarcR camp.

Although it's still difficult to square the apparently conflicting evidence, I thought the link someone else shared recently about Vitamin K2 may hold an important clue? That post contained a link to one of the old "Track My Plaque" folks who claims to have actually reversed his calcium score...

http://www.k-vitamins.com/index.php?page=My_Story

The part that especially caught my attention was this...

You do want fluffy LDL. Particle size matters. (I later figured out why). It has to do with the ability of the LDL and HDL particles to carry the A,D, and K vitamins. How? My Surface Chemistry class at the Institute of Paper Chemistry helped me understand. It turns out that dropping your LDL levels makes sense, because if you don't have vitamins K and D to go around on those particles, the LDL tends to "rust". That causes a whole bunch of other issues.

As Julie may remember, I have always felt the answer had to be in surface chemistry, not concentration. Pretty good evidence elsewhere that oxidized LDL could be a risk factor, but what determines whether LDL oxidizes or not? The proposed hypothesis here is the fat soluble vitamins K2 and D.

What the post lacks in clarity, for the first time I felt some measure of coherency. Reading on, the emphasis becomes form and dose (need much higher than typically recommended), but to me this screamed that source due to production method matters. In other words, animal fats from non-pastured sources, which have low concentrations of K2 and D, may be plausibly problematic (although maybe supplementation mitigates?). But animal fats with their higher and natural balance of K2 and D may be fine?

Just a hypothesis, but perhaps might plausibly explain even Gundry's observations (i.e. very low prevalence of truly pastured meats in most people's diets)?

Russ

[Tincup]

Although it's still difficult to square the apparently conflicting evidence, I thought the link someone else shared recently about Vitamin K2 may hold an important clue? That post contained a link to one of the old "Track My Plaque" folks who claims to have actually reversed his calcium score...

http://www.k-vitamins.com/index.php?page=My_Story

The part that especially caught my attention was this...

You do want fluffy LDL. Particle size matters. (I later figured out why). It has to do with the ability of the LDL and HDL particles to carry the A,D, and K vitamins. How? My Surface Chemistry class at the Institute of Paper Chemistry helped me understand. It turns out that dropping your LDL levels makes sense, because if you don't have vitamins K and D to go around on those particles, the LDL tends to "rust". That causes a whole bunch of other issues.

I'm pretty sure the author of the linked article is Patrick Theut. I've met him at a conference. He thinks that K-2 is an answer to Alz D. He is a bright fellow with (as I recall) a biochemical engineering background.