Angioplasty vs. Track Your Plaque

5. August 2007 William Davis (10)
What does angioplasty have over the Track Your Plaque program?

Well, first of all, the Track Your Plaque program has a lot to boast about. What other approach can claim to have reduced heart disease 30, 40, 51, and now 63%? That's as close to a cure that's ever--EVER--been achieved. Statin drug manufacturers can talk about an occasional 1, 2, or 5% reversal. We're talking 10 times more.

The Track Your Plaque program also uses as little prescription medication as necessary. Fish oil, vitamin D, coenzyme Q10, niacin--some of the frequent tools used for plaque reversal in our program. Yes, we do use prescription medications, but only when there is truly a benefit and nutritional strategies have failed to achieve the goals we're seeking. We do not endorse shotgun prescription approaches conceived of by some marketing department at a pharmaceutical company.

So what possible advantage can coronary angioplasty have? Why don't more people embrace a program like Track Your Plaque that has already proven itself enormously effective?

Because angioplasty is easy. There's little worrying ahead of time. Just wait for the symptoms or other problem to appear, go to the hospital and get your procedure. You can live the free and easy life beforehand--no exercise, no diet efforts, no nutritional supplements. Just be sure to go to the hospital when suspicious symptoms strike. (Of course, you gamble that you survive the appearance of symptoms, a process 30-50% of people fail to survive.)

That means you can eat all you want, drink all you want, save the money you otherwise might have thrown away on supplements, pocket the monthly costs of an exercise club membership, etc. Go to the hospital when you experience the sensation of an anvil on your chest or of suffocation, let the emergency room do their thing, meet your cardiologist, go to the catheterization laboratory, get two or three stents, go home the next day!

Why bother with a prevention program, especially one that requires involvement, learning, and effort like Track Your Plaque?

Because it's your way to stack the odds enormously in your favor of 1) surviving the appearance of symptoms, 2) avoiding the prospect of heart procedures, which are not as clean and easy as they often seem, 3) have a longer lasting durability than a stent which could buy you a couple of years before your next procedure or heart catastrophe, and 4) it's the right thing to do for the sake of the huge societal cost of heart disease.

Many of you have the equivalent of a cure for heart disease at your fingertips. Unless you have a soft spot in your heart for hospitals, cardiologists, or the pharmaceutical or medical device industry, there isn't a choice.
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Comments (10) -

  • Anonymous

    8/5/2007 8:25:00 PM |

    Your comment “have a longer lasting durability than a stent which could buy you a couple of years before your next procedure or heart castarophe” blew my socks off! Almost two years ago I had what was called a minor heart attack resulting in a stent. Unlike the profile you describe though (ie “free and easy life…”), I was always a keen exerciser and was careful with my diet (no meat for example) … and now even more so, following many of the regimens you recommend. So maybe my chances are better than “a couple of years”. What’s your view?

  • Dr. Davis

    8/5/2007 11:14:00 PM |

    Yes, you are not the average patient after angioplasty.

    Most remain miserably trapped in the American lifestyle and/or victims  of the Heart Association's mis-guided diet and lifestyle recommendations.

    For every one person like you, there are hundreds of people who either don't care enough to make a difference in their lives, or follow the unwise advice from conventional sources.

  • Anonymous

    8/6/2007 5:03:00 AM |

    I appreciated your quick reply. I'm wondering from your treatment experience just how long you would say a stent is expected to last trouble free, for those who are generally fit, and abide by the 'track your plaque' lifestyle. Or perhaps you know of a source that has such information.

  • Dr. Davis

    8/6/2007 10:38:00 AM |

    I'm afraid that the Track Your Plaque program has dramatic effects on the inhibiting growth of plaque in coronary arteries, not necessarily in an area with a stent, which is subject to a whole new set of rules.

    Unfortunately, there is NO health program that has any effect on growth of tissue in stents in the first year or two, thus drug-coated stents and the like.

  • Anonymous

    8/6/2007 11:37:00 PM |

    The statin or Apo A1 milano reversal studies showed regression by IVUS.  Regression as cited on this site refers to a score from a scan.  What is the correlation between the calcium scores and plaque volume as measured by IVUS.  

    While I agree with almost everything you popularize on your site and believe in the lifestyle changes I am not sure the world will accept this without a double blind trial of lifestyle changes you espouse and with endpoints measured by both hard events and indirect measures such as IVUS.

  • Dr. Davis

    8/7/2007 11:47:00 AM |

    You are absolutely right. There are no data comparing the effects of IVUS vs. CT heart scan scores.

    It can be done, obviously, but the logistical difficulties would be considerable. I have done nearly a thousand intracoronary ultrasound procedures. They are invasive procedures that carry real risk. CT heart scans are like an EKG--simple, virtually no risk. Each test would have to be done twice: once at the beginning, and then again at the end of a treatment program.

  • Anonymous

    8/11/2007 8:51:00 PM |

    Dr Davis
    I am confused. In one blog (about Mel) you are concerned his 799 score poses a real threat but in another blog ( about Grady ) his high (1000+score)
    is brought down 17% and he has little to fear,
    according to you.
    Wouldn't Grady with a still higher score than Mel
    be at a real threat also.
    Thanks
    Gene Mc

  • Dr. Davis

    8/11/2007 11:14:00 PM |

    That's absolutely right.

    When you are tracking heart scan scores, it's the relative change, not the absolute score, that assumes prime importance. I blogged about this phenomenon some time back in I wrote about this phemonenon in a previous Blog: When is a heart scan score of 400 better than 200?  at http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/
    2006_09_01_archive.html. (I know, I've got to organize these posts better.)

  • buy jeans

    11/3/2010 4:56:44 PM |

    Because it's your way to stack the odds enormously in your favor of 1) surviving the appearance of symptoms, 2) avoiding the prospect of heart procedures, which are not as clean and easy as they often seem, 3) have a longer lasting durability than a stent which could buy you a couple of years before your next procedure or heart catastrophe, and 4) it's the right thing to do for the sake of the huge societal cost of heart disease.

  • Hetal Patel

    11/9/2010 11:49:30 AM |

    There are  thousands of websites which provides information  about  
    how is angioplasty done.
    But dilseindia is one  of the websites where one can get good info about the  angioplasty.

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