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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Bradley Bale
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May 8 - May 17, 2017
Bale/Doneen Method doesn’t rely solely on indirect ways of evaluating heart health, such as stress tests and risk calculators,
This book also reveals hidden causes of heart attacks, surprising red flags that can signal heart attack risk, even when everything else seems fine, and potentially lifesaving action steps, including simple but powerful lifestyle changes.
Larry King Cardiac Foundation, a charity launched in 1988.
genes play a role in at least 40 percent of heart attacks.
Very often, the first symptom is a heart attack.
Heart Attack & Stroke Prevention Center in 2003,
When we looked for experts in preventing cardiovascular disease, we couldn’t find any—even
the Framingham Risk Score (FRS).
Still employed widely as part of standard care today, the FRS system uses a formula to predict the risk of heart attack in the next 10 years based on the patient’s age, gender, cholesterol level, blood pressure, and smoking status.
heart disease, which develops silently over many years. In many cases, the first symptom is a heart attack.
the two-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT)—the results would have revealed that she was prediabetic, tripling her risk for a heart attack.
it often takes decades of being insulin resistant before someone becomes diabetic. And
state-of-the-art genetic assessment, which would have shown that she’s a carrier of two dangerous genes: 9P21—also known as “the heart attack gene” because it powerfully increases the threat of cardiovascular events—and of the KIF6 gene variant, which not only magnifies risk for heart attack, stroke, and sudden cardiac death, but also influences which particular statin could provide benefit.
exercise stress test.
his persistently high levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol. “My LDL had been high for nearly twenty years, but I never took medication to lower it,” says the dad of six kids. “I didn’t think I needed a drug, when everything else was so right and I felt great.”
including coronary artery calcium score (CACS), which we’ll discuss in more detail in Chapter Six. This test involves a CT scan to check for calcium in the coronary (heart) arteries. The score is based on the amount of calcium found in each major artery, with a separate score for the total amount. Since healthy arteries don’t contain calcium, finding it is a major warning sign of atherosclerosis (plaque buildup in the arteries). In general, the more calcium the arteries contain, the greater the patient’s risk is for a heart attack. “My coronary artery calcium score (CACS) identified me as
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We recommend screening for everyone older than 40
One of safest ways to check for plaque in your arteries is an ultrasound exam of the major blood vessels in your neck.
If you don’t have plaque in your arteries, you won’t have a heart attack or stroke, even if you have lots of other risk factors. Conversely, if your arteries are diseased, you could have a heart attack or stroke, even if you have few or no other risk factors.
blood clot, not cholesterol buildup. This potentially lethal clot occurs when a cholesterol deposit (plaque) inside an artery wall becomes inflamed, like a pimple, and causes a tear in the inner lining of the artery.
stroke (if the clot blocks an artery supplying the brain).
Stents are prone to clogging over time and patients often need repeat procedures.
A simple measurement most healthcare providers don’t check—your waist circumference—is a more accurate predictor of heart attack and stroke risk than your weight or body mass index (BMI).
Most patients don’t know that in order to “fail” a stress test, their coronary arteries would have to be at least 70 percent blocked in some areas.
In fact, studies show that the stress test is such an inaccurate screening tool that the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force recommends against using it to check asymptomatic patients for coronary artery disease.
Periodically monitoring and measuring the plaque in your arteries is an important way to tell if your treatment is working.
what fuels these catastrophes is chronic inflammation, a manifestation of other abnormalities in the body such as obesity, stress, high cholesterol, poor diet, arthritis, insulin resistance, and infection. Most of the time, inflammation, which we call fire, is a lifesaver and combats diseases such as bacterial and viral infections.
identifying and treating the root cause of the inflammation, along with determining genetic predispositions, is crucial to preventing a recurrence.
AIC blood test. Since this test doesn’t require fasting before the blood is drawn, it’s convenient for busy patients. However, it frequently yields misleading results,
have unhealthy gums, which can nearly double the risk of a heart attack—and
two-hour oral glucose tolerance test, as should anyone over age 40, regardless of family history.
schedule this
red flags that signal increased risk for a heart attack or stroke, including migraine headaches, psoriasis, and even snoring.
women often receive less-aggressive care for CVD, because women themselves—and many doctors—underestimate their risk.
elevated levels of lipoprotein (a), a subtype of LDL (bad) cholesterol that’s also known as Lp(a).
People with periodontal disease—a bacterial infection of the gums, connective tissue, and bone supporting the teeth—have double or even triple the risk of a heart attack or stroke, recent research suggests.
With the right tests and evaluation, there’s no such thing as a medically unexplainable stroke or heart attack. However,
however, to get too much of a good thing, since nine hours of slumber a night is also tied to higher risk of CVD. Seven to eight hours is optimal.
other warning signs to watch for include often waking in the night for no apparent reason and unexplained daytime drowsiness.
Women with a neck diameter of 16 inches or more, or men with a diameter of 17 inches or greater are at increased risk for having it.
If a blood test shows that you are deficient in the sunshine vitamin, it can easily be treated with supplements, reducing your risk for both CVD and type 2 diabetes.
Here’s the real heartbreak of psoriasis: It hikes risk for heart attacks, stroke, and peripheral artery disease (clogged vessels in the legs) as much as smoking does. Marked by red, sore, flaky, and often itchy patches, and in some cases, painfully swollen joints, psoriasis has also been linked to increased risk for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
but there was a doctor and nurse practitioner in Spokane who had success in reversing this disease. She said she was planning to send her own mother to these specialists because the standard treatments weren’t helping her.’”
waist circumference is actually a better predictor of heart attack and stroke risk than weight or BMI (body mass index, a number calculated from height in inches and weight in pounds, using a mathematical formula: weight is divided by height squared, then multiplied by 703).
And a big belly is also the number-one warning sign of insulin resistance.
two-hour oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT)—to
Essentially a prediabetic condition, IR is the hidden cause of most heart attacks and most cases of cardiovascular disease. It’s also the condition that leads to type 2 diabetes if it goes undiagnosed and untreated.
What are the telltale signs of metabolic syndrome? Like Henry, Joe had a wide waist, the ringleader of the gang of five metabolic villains that define the syndrome.
high blood pressure is the leading risk factor for stroke and also a major contributor to heart attacks.
Joe’s lipid levels revealed two more metabolic red flags: Specifically, his level of HDL (good) cholesterol was abnormally low, while his level of blood fats called triglycerides was too high. The fifth red flag was his fasting blood sugar, which was in the prediabetic range.
wrapping a tape measure around the top of your pelvic bones, found where love handles grow. Take the measurement at the end of a normal expiration. Do not assume your belly button marks your waist, as its position can vary significantly from one person to another.
