Is Berberine Bad for Your Gut Long Term? A Cardiologist Looks at the Data
I often hear health influencers say that berberine is OK for the short term but long term is bad for the gut. I couldn’t disagree more. Berberine has poor absorption, so most of it stays in the gut, which is exactly where it does its work. So, how does it do with standard gut markers? […]
Why the Antioxidant Trials Failed (and What They Don’t Tell You)
As a holistic cardiologist, I am often questioned about the antioxidant trials… HOPE, HPS, the Physicians’ Health Study. Thousands of patients studied, no benefits. So are antioxidants a waste? Well, there are a lot of issues with the trials but two in particular merit attention. 1. They tested isolated (usually synthetic) compounds. 2. Even if […]
Vegan With a Normal CRP? Check Your Oxidative Stress Markers
In a recent post I said that all the vegans I had seen had high inflammatory markers. What I should have said was that they had high OXIDATIVE stress markers. We screen patients using a urinary oxidative stress panel examining malondialdehyde and vegans come out terribly. While high oxidative stress GENERALLY goes along with inflammation, […]
Lead and Your Heart: Why “Normal” Isn’t Optimal
Let’s talk about Lead….everyone knows it damages children’s brains but what about adults? In 2018 Bruce Lanphear’s group followed over 14 thousand Americans for 19 years and found those with high concentrations had 70 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and about twice the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease compared to […]
Giving Blood to Lower PFAS: Answering the Objections
A lot of people read my post about donating blood or plasma to reduce PFAS. A few of the comments caught my eye. Comment 1: Aren’t you just handing your PFAS to the person who gets your blood like a hot potato? Well, the thing is…. Everyone already has PFAS. In the NHANES study, PFAS […]
Can Donating Blood Lower Your Forever Chemicals? What the Only Randomized Trial Found
Patients ask me about toxins more than they used to. Mold, heavy metals, microplastics, and increasingly the forever chemicals called PFAS. The key is avoidance of these, eating fiber and taking regular saunas. Now, we have a new option for PFAS. What PFAS are Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances are a family of several thousand synthetic […]
Is LDL the Wrong Target? What FOURIER and SPARCL Really Showed
Maybe LDL is the wrong target. Look at the curve from the FOURIER trial, we reduced LDL from 92 to 30. If LDL were the villain everyone thought then why are the results so….weak? FOURIER primary endpoint, evolocumab vs placebo. The y axis runs to 100 percent. What FOURIER showed 11.3 percent had a heart […]
The Triglyceride-to-HDL Ratio: The Heart Risk Number Your Lab Doesn’t Report
If you have had a cholesterol test, you already own the single most useful number in preventive cardiology. You just have to calculate it yourself: triglycerides divided by HDL cholesterol. As a cardiologist, I check the triglyceride HDL ratio before I look at LDL, and in this article I will explain why, how to interpret […]
The Anti-Fatigue Factor: What a 1951 Liver Experiment Teaches Us About Whole Food Supplements
In 1951, a nutrition researcher gave rats every vitamin science knew about and then dropped them into cold water. They quit in thirteen minutes. The rats that had been fed liver were still swimming two hours later. That experiment is the best answer I have to the question patients ask me constantly: why don’t you […]
Can Persistent AFib Convert Without Ablation? A Case From My Practice
“Is ablation my only real option?” It’s the question I hear most often in second-opinion consults for persistent atrial fibrillation. For most of my career as a cardiac electrophysiologist, my honest answer was that once AFib becomes persistent, the realistic choices are the conventional ones: control the rate, suppress the rhythm with medication, or ablate. […]