Ornish Program

In November of 2014 I was doing blood test at a Quest Lab and I saw a poster that listed 50 different problems that Celica could cause. The following week I was at the same lab with my wife and I asked her about it and she had no idea of what it was. So when I got home I started reading about it and found out that Celica was caused by eating the gluten that is found in wheat, barley, and rye. One of the tested that they did was an upper GI test of the stomach and small intestine. If the small intestine was bright red they would do a biopsy to find out if it was Celica. In 2013 I had an upper GI done and my small intestine was bright red but no biopsy was done as my doctor told me he thought it cause by my anti acid pills.
At the time I went gluten free I was suffering from the following problems. Chronic fatigue, explosive diarrhea, brain fog, sores in my mouth, and rashes on the elbows. After starting the gluten free diet I saw my first results in about 5 days. My chronic fatigue disappeared and my physical strength almost doubled. It took another week and the diarrhea, sores in my mouth, and rashes on my elbows disappeared. Other things that happened were my memory improved, and my vision improved to where I was seeing bright colors in HD. From March to September I worked 16 to 18 hours a day commercial fishing, and as a Charter Captain and felt great. I normally wear wrist braces but this year I did not as my wrist and hands where stronger that they have ever been.
I am a type II diabetic so I am used to watch what I eat as far as sweets and carbs go. Doing blood test and righting down what you gives to a pretty good idea of what is going on in your body. I was really disappointed with myself when my PSA went up from 5.1 to 9 over the summer and I started looking for reasons why. So I cut off all red meat and dairy from my diet. In October my PSA was 10.4 so I cut out chicken, turkey, and eggs. In December I had my second biopsy and all the core samples came back negative for cancer.

RCS it's great that you can the scoring done early. It's ine fnthe things I regret, I wish my Dr had ordered the test years ago. I might have been a bit more ahead of the curve. But it's only about the last 3 years or so, I believe, that the score has been proven to be predictive of CAD. So it is what it is.

Triglycerides are have always been my problem as well. Is like to take fish oil, it's helped my TGL in the past, but Dr said not to as I'm on Plavix and Fish oil has blood thinning effects.

The wine thing always confused me RCS. I know the reservitrol is supposedly good for the heart. But it's got lots of sugar, not good for triglycerides. Another question for the nutritionist.

RCS said...
Yeah, but it's good for the stress.

Plus, it is a bit of pleasure possibly helpful and hopefully hardly any harm, and I am allowed to have(or able to have) so few pleasures these days! Plus, over in that other thread I started on vegetarian diets, one of the tables I looked at controlled for alcohol intake. Mind you, they started with a health conscious bunch, so probably very few alcoholics. But even the highest quintiles showed no harm- often actually some help- from the alcohol.

You are very welcome for the calculator links, Prato and RCS, always happy to find out I was actually helpful.

I remember when my doc- at my 1st physical post RP- wanted me to get that Calcium scoring test(CST) because my blood lipids(LDL et all) had spiked up a good bit from just barely OK to kind of bad. I really did not want it at all. I figured they will find something, and then they would want to do something(had just traveled down that road with PC). I'm pretty sure he wanted it to help convince me to get on statins, which he said any other doc would have already had me on. But my argument was: no family history, low BP, low TGLs, never the 1st symptom despite regularly getting my pulse up to 160-170+ during strenuous exercise like hiking up steep hills with heavy pack(sometimes starved for O2 at 10,000-12000 ft elevations), or doing interval training on my Nordic Track. But if they found a little something then I would have to fight off the drugs and/or treatments they were bound to want me on, all with possible significant SEs, and I already had too many SEs thank you very much.

I think he was even more shocked than I was when it came back at zero. How could a guy that eats as much meat and saturated fat as I have over a lifetime (done versions of Atkins more than a few times over the years) have a zero? Go figure. And I know some of these heart rehab diet plans are zero oils, not even olive or avocado. (I can't imagine, sounds miserable) But on top of meat, I very often start my day with a tablespoon of olive oil. How has my heart not become completely clogged?

Post Edited (BillyBob@388) : 1/2/2016 1:38:38 PM (GMT-7)

Prat:

Just order the steak with onions and mushrooms and tell them to hold the guilt.

Now, isn't that simple.

Wow -- I think this thread is the longest on HW in terms of the LENGTH of some of the responses.
Pretty informative! Lots of depth.

Mel

compiler said...

Wow -- I think this thread is the longest on HW in terms of the LENGTH of some of the responses.
Pretty informative! Lots of depth.

Yes, and its a shame that the Heart & Cardiovascular Disease board on HealingWell is a sleepy backwater by comparison.

As to " a 24,ounce cowboy rib-eye right now without the guilt LOL"...
Before I almost entirely cut out meat (Thanksgiving, Christmas, excepted) I was finding that if i cut back and cut back on size... down to less than 3 ounces.. I was still getting my "fix" on savoring those few bites of real quality meat... Instead of shoveling it down, I was focused on each bite.
Really was not missing the 8 ounce...to 16 ounce portions.
So, if one is careful...and chooses really tasty cuts, perhaps sharing with a friend or wife, they could probably still have 4 or 5 fork fulls every once in a while.
I really only do that on half a dozen occasions a year. But its nice to allow myself that pleasure now and then.

Christmas I had prime rib.. probably about 6 ounces of a 8 ounce serving, but part of that was only to prevent looking like I wasn't enjoying the host's wonderful offering.

Pratoman,

Yeah, you've hit on the Quality of life versus Quantity of life dietary decision. FYI, I have come to the conclusion that based on the spate of dietary studies dealing with cancer, that the ingestion of any food could cause cancer.

Personally, I subscribe to the "Franklen" diet and eat what I consider bad but good foods infrequently and in small quantities.

Nice thing about dealing with these dietary issues is that as long as you are alive you are never wrong, and you can always change your mind.

Mel,
This may help,
www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/av2072

RCS and Prat:

Thanks for the explanations. Good link.

I am probably at medium risk for heart disease (being male, age 69 1/2, not great choles. numbers).

But I am not going to pursue it. I have enough to deal with now (ie: PC!!)

Mel

InTheShop said...
There was a time I was afraid.
Of dying of a sudden heart attack.
Now I fear of
the long slow
wasting that is
cancer.

------
Better poetry after I've had my afternoon tea.
Andrew

You've got that right, Bro, IMO! The latter is much more worthy of dread.

Pratoman said...
This is what I'm looking for the answer to, and I have a feeling the answer is unknowable.

Bro Prato, I suspect your feeling is right on. As I have continued to read the pro-no meat book which directly contradicts all of those studies I have linked to, and directly contradicts (at least to the degree that I can know limited to known results) my own personal experience, I feel more and more that we can not know. I think we could know, but- just like with anything that does not make huge money for someone- the unequivocal studies n a large scale will never be done. I mean really, why is any of this still debatable, why don't we KNOW? Except, we can- with limitations- know, by trying whatever and seeing how it goes, hopefully not killing us first. By limitations, I mean: most of us can not have our chest cut open or have imaging done to see if our blockages have gotten better or worse due to our interventions. We can only go by the various indirect indicators, plus consider how we feel.

Correct me if I am wrong, but is it not almost written in stone that it is a good thing for heart health to lower hip to waist ratio, lower BP, lower blood insulin, reduce diabetes/pre-diabetes/metabolic syndrome, lower triglycerides and raise HDL? Is there anyone out there who claims that these are not laudable goals if we desire heart health? I have not seen anyone saying: "you need to lower your HDL and raise your TGLs and waist size", but you never know, I might have missed them.

The pro vegan book I am reading is claiming that a vegan way of eating can improve all of those parameters and actually reverse much disease. (Does dramatically improving all of those parameters reverse heart and other diseases, or is it something else that gets reversed and then leads to an improvement in those tests? I don't know, I have seen no studies. )

Here is one thing I feel I do know, based on my personal experience, my friends exp., and at least when it comes to TGLs(and maybe HDL and weight?) your experience, and many studies: a low carb diet, even if high fat and more than reasonable calories, can do every one of those things in spades. For example, lowering my TGLs from somewhere over 200 to 39, raising my HDL from about 30 to 50, systolic BP from 140 to <110, etc etc. (see next post)

Interesting thread, this (and pretty long-winded at times). IMO, the answer is moderation in all things, and do our best to cut out the sugars (particularly high fructose corn syrup) that seem to be in freaking everything.

I recall in my youth I did some large scale food service work, and at the time a "serving" of meat was considered 4 ounces uncooked. When one was ordering bulk meat to serve several hundred people, that was the rule of thumb. I think about that. I also recall when a "small" soda at McDonalds was 6 ounces (as was a standard coke bottle).

There is a LOT of data coming in from all over that ties our childhood obesity/diabetes/immune system issues directly to the high sugar high fat diet we eat. I know for myself, that when I've made the effort to cut out the junk from the vending machine at work, I feel better, sleep better, and my belt gets too long.

Complex carbs and moderate amounts of lean protein seem to work best for me. I have dairy issues, always have.

Pratoman said...
Bully bob, ...............

Gee, I'm sorry, Prato, I apologise. I know I have as always posted a lot of long winded stuff and lots of links and quotes from those links, but I never intended to "bully" you!