CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

Coronary Heart Disease, the most common form of heart disease in this country and the primary cause of heart attacks, is the single largest killer of American men and women. Cardiovascular disease is America's leading cause of disability and death. It results in more premature deaths than any other illness, more than cancer and accidents combined. One million people die of cardiovascular disease each year -- one every 33 seconds. More than 550,000 of these deaths are from heart attack, many occurring in the prime of life; 50 percent of first-time attacks are fatal. Heart disease costs $56 billion annually for hospital, physician, and medical-surgical costs in the United States.

Twenty to forty percent of middle aged people have early or advanced coronary artery disease due to atherosclerosis, most without symptoms or knowledge of their condition. In atherosclerosis, cholesterol builds up in pockets (plaques) embedded in the walls of coronary arteries beneath their inner lining. Coronary artery disease is a diffuse process of choloesterol deposition, scarring and calcification (hardening of the arteries) throughout the major coronary arteries supplying blood flow to heart muscle.

CONVENTIONAL TREATMENTS FOR CAD

Up to now, most treatment efforts for CAD have focused on mechanical efforts to open blocked coronary arteries such as coronary angioplasty (balloon) or bypass surgery. Medical treatments have focused on medicines to control the blood pressure and chest pain. None of these treatments address the real cause of the disease which is a buildup of cholesterol inside the walls of the arteries restricting the amount of blood that can flow through.

Strong economic incentives and traditional approaches to cardiovascular medicine incur excessive, expensive procedures and use older, inaccurate exercise testing leading to unnecessary procedures with 25% or more of coronary arteriograms being normal and therefore an unnecessary cost.

Cardiac PET and vigorous reversal treatment are powerful alternatives to traditional approaches for treating coronary heart disease at cost reductions of 20%- to 50% compared to standard cardiology practice emphasizing coronary arteriography, balloon dilation and bypass surgery.

Although current published medical literature and Dr. Gould’s personal clinical experience with many patients support the effectiveness and safety of this approach, some risk of coronary events or worsening chest pain may remain as with balloon dilation or bypass surgery.

REVERSAL THERAPY

Coronary artery disease (CAD) can be substantially reversed or its progression stopped by improving risk factors and by cholesterol lowering pharmaceuticals. The vigorous dietary and drug treatment regimen relieves pain, partly reverses and prevents additional vascular diseases, heart attacks, sudden death and the need for balloon diation or bypass surgery. It is considerably less costly than these procedures with better outcomes.

Stopping the basic atherosclerotic process, stopping heart attacks, stroke and death as prevention or as treatment of established coronary heart disease require both long-term, vigorous lifestyle changes and drug therapy as developed at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston by Dr. K Lance Gould.

Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease

Intense lifestyle and pharmacologic management have a profound benefit on well being, preventing heart attacks and longevity. These benefits have been proven in our scientific study published in the January 15,2003, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the major publication of the cardiology profession. The study compared outcomes in 3 groups of patients (1) those that followed strict diet of 10% of calories as fat with intense risk factor and pharmacologic management called Maximal Treatment( 2) those that followed the American Heart Association Diet of 20-30% calories as fat and took some lipid lowering drugs called Moderate Treatment (3) those that were not on a diet or lipid medication or were actively smoking called Poor Treatment.

This bar graph shows the profound benefit of intense lifestyle and pharmacologic treatment for improving blood flow in the heart and decreasing risk of death, heart attack and bypass surgery or PTCA. The risk of heart attack or death was reduced by more than two thirds in the Maximal Treatment subjects (yellow bar) compared to the Poor treatment subjects (red bar).

Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease

The coronary arteriogram or heart catheterization is the traditional test used to confirm the presence and severity of coronary blockages. It is an invasive test in which a small tube or catheter is inserted into an artery of the arm or leg and threaded to the coronary arteries in the heart. Contrast is injected into the artery while an X-ray picture of the artery is taken. The x-ray outlines the inside, or lumen, of the artery as a black and white picture. As seen previously, the arteriogram is good at detecting complete or severe blockages of coronary arteries. However, coronary arteriograms frequently fail to identify or measure diffuse narrowing throughout the length of the artery or may even appear normal despite extensive cholesterol deposition.

Extensive scientific data have shown that the majority of heart attacks occur in patients who have only mild to moderate or no coronary artery narrowing (50% or less) before the heart attack. This new knowledge is the basis for diagnostic cardiac imaging that detects this early build-up of cholesterol in the coronary arteries, thereby indicating vigorous treatment to prevent plaque rupture and associated heart attack.