Coronary Calcification and CAC with expert Professor Matthew J. Budoff MD FAAC
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
- Dr. Jeff Gerber and myself finally caught up with Professor Matthew J. Budoff in California. He was a pivotal figure in recognizing the power of the CT Scan of the Heart - and decades ago to boot. He has led extensive cardiac research efforts over the past decades, publishing an enormous amount of papers on calcification scanning and many other areas of cardiology reasearch. Here is just one example - and excellent summary of CAC's power: www.hindawi.com/journals/scie...
Did you know that 40% of heart attacks occur in the 10% of people with highest CAC Score? Or that ~60% of 'Framingham Middle Risk' people are reclassified after a CAC - into LOW or HIGH risk groups? Or that people with a yearly rising CAC score - have 6 to 8 TIMES the heart attack rate compared to those with stable CAC? That's right - the Calcium Scan is cheap, fast and unparalleled - and it is grossly underutilized.
The CAC is now recommended in the 2013 European and American Cardiology guidelines. But the majority of doctors have no idea about it. To find out more go to www.IHDA.ie for great information. And watch 'The Widowmaker Movie' (2015) with Gillian Anderson and Larry King:
vimeo.com/ondemand/thewidowma...
Millions of lives over the past 30 years have been lost due to ignorance of the scan's power (and no small amount of politics and profiteering).
Time to fix the situation.
www.thefatemperor.com/subscribe - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Self referred CAC imaging after watching one of Ivor's TH-cam talks. One year ago my husbands score was 295. Received his latest result today he is at 179! Exactly one year apart - a drop of 116 points. This was WITHOUT statins. His PA (physician's assistant) didn't even know what a CACS was a year ago when we had the results sent to her. She read about it and wanted my husband to take statins. We said no thanks. He is living proof that it can be done without them. This time next year we are shooting for under 100. If you don't measure, you can't know...and what you don't know CAN kill you! Thank you Ivor, we owe you big time for the life saving CACS knowledge!
thx C Dixon - sounds like great work there ! Perhaps u could email me at thefatemperor@gmail.com if that's ok - myself and Dr. Gerber collecting cases like this !
Ivor Cummins - Sure thing Ivor...we would be happy to share his story and his two CACS results. I will email you over the weekend. Thanks for the great work you guys do getting the word out on insulin, cholesterol and heart disease. You have saved many people a lot of misery.
Ivor Cummins - I sent you an email with his lab results. :-)
C Dixon and how did he do that?
That's great! Please share with us how you guys are reducing his score? What does he eat or take to help improve this situation? I will appreciate your experience very much!! Thanks!
For those interested in getting a CAC scan note that in most US cities you do NOT need your doctor to refer you for the scan. In Chicago there are multiple centers that take all comers by appointment, do the scan, then give you your score. The best price I've found in Chicago is $49. Best deal in medicine.
This is not true especially for Chicago, I just did it in Naperville they asked me for prescription where the test is 99$ , I was asked for prescription also in Advocate Masonic where the test is 49$ but they schedule an appointment in two months so I went to Naperville’s imaging center the next day !!! Let me know where in CHICAGO you can do a CAC scan without prescription so I know for the next year.
Fantastic interview and information Ivor as always. I asked my doc once for a CAC scan and she didn't know what it was. Will push for this again.
I had one done 14 months ago and it was 54. Plan to do one again. Advocate Samaratan in Dowers Grove did it for $49. Hope that it is the same price. You do not need a referral but they want you to have a Dr. to whom to send the results. At least that was so a year ago. Since I had a Dr. that wanted me to do it I had that covered. Lots of foods I eat have Vitamin K. Kale, greens, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, scallons, full fat greek yogurt (make my own), asparagus, basil, cucumber, olive oil.
Great interview Ivor!! Thanks!
My mother's score last year was 1970. Last week, it was 2074. Thanks to Almighty, only 5% progression. Nit bad for a 71 year old who has suffered numerous heart attacks with 4 stents.
BTW: an excellent natural source of K2 is Natto. I buy it at Asian markets and it is quite inexpensive.
Hi Ivor, have you looked into the notion of the effects of fasting on the arterial calcification?
Thanks,
Srini
I never knew about this, and will take the scan anyway. Tks for the info!
THANK YOU I LIKE YOUR VIDEOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So glad I was prompted to ask for a score(it's low) thanks to Ivor and others.
Jenny Weyman So Jenny, you asked to be referred for a CAC test and they did it ? Did you have to do it Privately or done via NHS (assuming you live in UK)
Nick I'm in Australia and it was done at the local larger hospital, cost me nothing. I have strong family history of early heart disease and I had a problem with rhythm(dysautonomia) and some indications. It can be done in clinics in Australia for a few hundred dollars, GP referral. Cheap!
I asked my cardiologist did she do them and she said yes all the time. I had the right Dr!
doctors didn't like it the patient would skip the doctor and become knowledgeable to take it's health in it's own hands. MD' s have been treated like high priest and they fear being tipped over from their statues, soon it will be the politicians. POWER TO THE PEOPLE
In Australia, even after convincing him/her, the GP insists on sending you to the cardiologist in order to get the test - which is all about money! The specialists have tied things up better than the most militant trade union. In the US you can just make your own appointment with no intermediate payments and just for US$100 or so rather than the $250 or more we are charged in Australia. .
Is there a link to "the guidelines" so I can bring the document into my Dr?
I had to self-pay. My insurance refuses it. It was $99 at CDI.
After knowing our score, is it important to find out if the calcium is on the inside or outside of the coronary artery? Is that imperative to know?
Note that there really is no preventive therapy for a high calcium scan score other than perhaps the referenced use of vitamin K2 but it is a rare MD who will even know what K2 is. And K2 supplementation is a therapy even those without a high score should be participating in anyway. The most you will get out of a physician is a high dose statin (which may have some valuable anti-inflammatory effect, though). So basically all the test is going to tell you is whether you are a likely candidate for future bypass surgery. Plus, you have now defined yourself as having a pre-existing condition. Its real use is as a filter for those in high risk vocations such as the mentioned astronauts.
Not correct garza. But relatively little explored with correct interventions. One example here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19092644 And even Davis isn't aware of the other plays. "Call us legion, for we are many." Many root-cause resolutions, only now coming to light. #Engineering.
...although yes a statin is often the only intervention. This situation will be resolved in the coming years. Watch this space.
Thanks for the link. I will see if I can link to the full text at the library. It does seem that the participant responses to the combination therapy as noted in that abstract are too varied for me to have made such a blanket statement about inevitability, especially since there were such a large percentage with an outright improvement of score.
No prob Garza - note that the orthodoxy very much agreed with your original thought however (but they are missing vital pieces of info on root cause in fairness :-) : www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25062951
Garza - I agree that all you will get from most physicians is a statin if your CAC comes back high. That was all that was offered to my husband as well. There are numerous things beside K2 (which is good) that can and will help lower a high CAC score. My husband dropped his number over 100 points in one year. No statins. It can be done! Look into using distilled water exclusively - (it pulls minerals from soft tissues where it isn't supposed to be), curcumin, garlic oil, fish oil, D3, magnesium, boron, fiber (grind flaxseed) eat a lot of greens, (blend and chug them if you don't like to eat them!) and of course, watch your fasting glucose levels and stop eating sugar. Sorry, unsolicited advice...but I get excited...I could go on and on. Ha ha. Good luck and best wishes on your journey - whatever it may be.
I've had high cholesterol score above 8!!! HDL 2.1 - averaged to 5.5 - for 30 years - refused to take statins when 1st prescribed 30 years ago - now my CAC score =1 - ha ha statin industry and ill-informed doctors
A HDL of 2.1 is massive. No wonder your score was so low
Does statin medicine helps at all for those with calcification?
Hello :) are there any other ways to test coronary artery on calcium deposits. I am just not sure what kind of test could be done , there were done few and one of them was inserting stuff in left leg to check vessels, and vessels were clear , no plaques, and yet does that mean that there are no deposits of calcium as well then.
The CAC is non-invasive and cheap.
Ivor, have you seen Dr Shawn Baker's recent CAC scan results of zero on a carnivore diet?
Oooh yeah !
So meat isn't the cause??
Ivor, do you ever talk about Lp(a) and the importance of getting it tested? I have two copies of the SNP rs10455872 variant that raises Lp(a), an Lp(a) score of 390 nmol/L (yes, 390 nmol/L), and was diagnosed with CALCIFIC aortic valve stenosis (which high Lp(a) can cause) at the age of 41. My CAC score at the time was 156 (I had to fight two docs to get the test done). If I had been warned as a child about my stratospheric Lp(a), I could have watched my weight and cholesterol like a hawk, but I was never given the opportunity. I understand that we did not know everything about the risks of high Lp(a) forty years ago, but we know now and still we fail to test children for high Lp(a). This seems like negligence to me.
Lp(a) is another ambiguous factor Werebat - yes a risk factor but contextual - I am super-high also ~170nmol but with CAC of zero at nearly 50 years old (not surprising to me) www.thefatemperor.com/blog/2015/4/22/cholesterol-health-scare-emperor-has-high-lpa-el-pee-little-a
...if you have high Lp(a) then yes make sure the primary root causes are kept really low - I view it more as a "susceptibility" factor - sometimes a very significant one.
A bit unusual, my CAC 956, very fit, thin, all blood work very good, remnant Cholesterol 11, 73yo, no family history, calcium buildup is in media and outer wall and along the artery, not globular. One cardiologist says "on statins for life, you have heart disease", another says ''very unusual (1/300 patients) but no problem, no statins." Thoughts?
In Aust. you cant get a CAC without referal via a Cardiologist who will then want an angiogram instead. The test at the local facility here $150 but you cant get it without the referral. So no use, unless you lie about your family history and symptoms, just to get a referral.
Bit confused, when you were talking about K2, he said about artery calcification '...you certainly can't reverse it once it is embedded in the arteries..' - Yet we have seen people reduce their CAC scores over time, so there must be a mechanism to remove calcium from arteries. th-cam.com/video/-wNKD6ByHzs/w-d-xo.html But according to that statement if you had a score of 500 you cant improve it, but you can stop it getting worse. So I am confused as to the facts of the matter.
Ivor, I live in London. If I asked my GP to refer me for a CAC test, 1) He's probably never heard of it and 2) He would probably mark me down as a hypochondriac on my health file.... What to do.?
your Dr. works for you. Fire him and find one who understands nutrition and hormones.
Hypochondriacs are one thing, someone who is health-motivated might be mislabeled so due to the vast indifference most people display about their health. I've heard that studies showed the ones most worried about their health lived the LONGEST, not the shortest. Be a proud health-motivated person, and the critics be damned after they're dead.
Can someone please comment on non-calcifide plaques? Those are not seen by CAC scans, so what to do about them? What about CTA scans? Thanks for clarification
...explained here - the calcium betrays the presence and extent of non-calcified plaque - CAC is the tip of the plaque iceberg: th-cam.com/video/gnq-2wRrdfw/w-d-xo.html
CTA is a diagnostic, dye-injection invasive routine for people who have high CAC, are symptomatic, or have some other clear disease issue that needs further visualisation
Ivor Cummins Many thanks for your answer.
I have had a recent calcium score count of 39. My dr prescribed Liptor which i refuse to take. My total cholesterol level is 5.3 (must to drop it down to
Kon Stance
Vitamin K2 takes the calcium from soft tissue and sends it to your bones, where it belongs.
Kon Stance
Stay away from Carbohydrates, such as pasta,rice waffles, pancakes, cookies, crackers, muffins and finally cakes. Increase protein and healthy fat such as avocado and animal fats. Animal fat does not clog arteries. That was the bullshit from the 80's and don't forget cholesterol myth from eggs. Increase lemon juice for vitamin C and after trying these recommendations, get checked 3 months and improvements for sure. Good Luck and stay consistent.
Hi Kon, I hope all is going well for you.. It sounds as though you are doing so much to rectify your health, much of which I have come across during 18 months intensive study. Good on you! You might want to revisit your take on salt... I’m not sure given your specific issues, but look up Dr Berg who has short sharp videos, and also look up Dr James DiNicolantonio just in case you need to rethink. Also, and the main reason I’ve written this is to do with your smoking history. Please look up Dr Rhonda Patrick PhD Biomedical Science specialising in biochem, mitochondria, cancer, and a focus on nutrition who talks about sulforaphane which is derived from broccoli sprouts. She has several videos going into it indepth. By far the easiest to listen to is a trimmed version of an interview by Joe Rogan m.th-cam.com/video/0UqxC2RDF64/w-d-xo.html. At 8mins in she talks about how smokers have very high benzene levels and how a study found sulforaphane increased the body’s secretion of benzene in the urine by 61% overnight. Watch her videos on how to grow them and increase their potency, and beware the pills sold will likely not work as well.
Read The Calcium Paradox.
Is the CAC of any benefit to patients with MI, stents, etc?
less if already had MI, but can be used every couple years to verify your interventions have slowed the progression of the disease (if stents in, can't really use CAC)
Thank you. Why can't you use CAC if there are stents?
This is part 2: th-cam.com/video/TcIR5i7Se-Y/w-d-xo.html
Can anything be done if someone has a high clarification score other than surgery? Prof Budoff suggested that K2 might be helpful to stabilise plaque but not to reverse it.
More interventions are coming to light. One example here: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19092644 . Some listed in this clip here: th-cam.com/video/xiUNNJrTDRQ/w-d-xo.htmlm16s
Reversing plaque is not really necessary. Must stop the disease process. It is the process which produces the catastrophes.
Many thanks for clarification (not calcification).
they should have done it without the statins - which I am now convinced are nonsense. I stopped my statins, went on a Keto diet, added D3 and K2, Omega 3. After 4 months my Triglycerides 31 HDL 66. and there was no exercise included.
Hi All!
Can we obtain this CAC Test in the UK
Any links will be greatly appreciated 👍
UK. yes. Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) Test. I had it myself, but you can't have it free on the NHS only privately, I believe. It costs about £200 - pay it, it's worth it! However, you'll have to request it through your GP for a referral to a cardiologist (whom you'll need to see, anyway, to explain the results). The GP may be resistant to the idea but, you may have to push. If the GP won't relent change your GP.
It seems in the US you can self refer for a CAC test and it’ll set you back $99. Not so here in the UK. I enquired about having one with a well known private hospital and I was quoted £839 and I would need to be referred by a GP or Consultant. Having spoken to my own GP it would appear that unless I start getting chest pains nothing is going to happen.
twitter.com/bulkbiker/status/1032393729854693376
Have you thought about vacationing in the USA? And get it done here for under $100 😀 without involving a doctor
I have a calcium score of 226, so I know that I have some plaque buildup. I started eating Natto, an extremely high source of Vitamin K2, but then I started seeing articles and videos by some doctors that indicated that calcification can be good in that it puts a cap on soft plaque, which prevents a thrombosis, and that if you remove the calcification, you may actually remove the safety that calcium provides.
Thoughts?
There does seem to be plenty of studies showing that K2 will move calcium out of the walls, some indicate a significant decrease in Ca scores. But if you are currently asymptotic then all that calcium is NOT a problem. You can live with it. However, removing the calcium without addressing the root causes of the formation could be dangerous. The presence of soft plaque is an indication that the buildup process is still ongoing and the only way plaque can form is an excess of LDL AND an inflammation of the endothelial lining of the blood vessels. LDL normally moves back and forth through this lining without any problems. but when the endothelial gets inflamed it puts out chemicals that oxidize the LDL particles. Oxidized LDL gets stuck behind the lining and that starts a cascade of events that leads to plaque buildup. Statins work by lowering the total LDL particle count; less LDL less Oxidized LDL. Some statins also reduce endothelial inflammation. Inflammation is probably the most important factor. With an LDL below 50, and HDL above 60 and a C reactive protein below 1 your body will dry up the soft plaque and slowly move out substantial calcium.
If I were going to try to reduce my calcium with K2 I would first test my C reactive protein and get it down below 1 before messing with the calcium cap.
texas vet54, the primary cause of plaque is inflammation due to insulin resistance. Take the K2.
Where do you get Natto in US. I live in Miami areas. Thanks!
Got mine recently, score-zero!
if there are no way to reverse calcification, then why make the scan....
Vitamin k2
Like lots of TH-cam videos,they tell you whats wrong,but not how to fix it,what's the point of having the test,if doctors won't treat it?ANNOYING
th-cam.com/video/C8Xd9e4B3e8/w-d-xo.html
I think what we are discovering is that we need to be proactive and treat ourselves without resorting to pharmaceuticals and without annoying our uninformed and biased doctors.
Does the interview worry someone might hear him?