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Dr.

Crandalls

Heart Health Report


For a Symptom, Drug & Stress Free Life

By Chauncey Crandall, M.D.

First Issue

Take the First Step Toward


a Life Free of Heart Disease

elcome to my newsletter, Dr. Crandalls


Heart Health Report! Congratulations on
reaching out for information that will enable you
to guard your hearts health and live the life God
intended. I hope youll find this newsletter an
invaluable resource.
No doubt you are reading this because you
have concerns. Maybe youve already had a heart
attack. Or youve been suffering from angina
and are wondering about new and improved
treatments. You may be overweight, plagued by
a smoking habit, or your doctor has just told you
that your cholesterol counts are through the roof.
Its natural to worry.
As a heart patient myself, I know what its like.
(Ill tell you more about my own experience later.)
Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in America, not
only for men but women as well. In fact, heart
disease kills more women every year than all
cancers combined yes, including breast cancer.
Nearly a third of all deaths are from heart disease.
Thats why cholesterol counts have become a
national obsession. Even cereal boxes now carry
banners touting their cholesterol-reducing effects.

doctor, but he or she has a waiting room crammed


full of patients and too often reaches for the
prescription pad rather than teaching us and
leading us to better health.
I love and honor my calling as a doctor and
appreciate more than I can say the countless
medical professionals whose only concern is their
patients welfare. I know, however, that doctors
can fail to take proper account of the person
before them. Ive experienced this as a patient, and
Im a doctor myself.
On top of that, medicine as its currently
practiced is far more attuned to treating illness
than reversing or curing it. Thats the unhappy
truth.
I take a different approach.
I meet my patients where they are and use
everything in the medical arsenal conventional
medicine, emerging treatments, lifestyle changes,
even alternative therapies to get the patient

In This Issue...

Most of us doubt that eating oatmeal is going


to prove a magic cure. On the other hand, we
desperately want to know what will work our
life may be depending on it!

Heart Disease Comes from Many Causes................2

Its not as if theres not enough information.


Theres almost too much: Internet sites, shelves of
books on the topic, and advertisements for every
treatment imaginable.

Case Study: A Traders Story....................................4

Understandably, many of you suffer from


information overload. Wed like just to trust our

Changes for the Better, Living a Full Life.................7

My Journey From Tribal Life to Modern Doctor.....3


The Wake-Up Call: My Own Heart Battle...............3
The Tools You Need to Win the Heart Fight............5
An Important Heart Test; Tobaccos Real Cost........6
Ask Dr. Crandall......................................................8

well. I want my patients to live symptom-free,


drug-free, and as stress-free as possible.

Heart Disease Comes


From Many Causes
I wish I could say that theres one silver bullet
that will cure heart disease (as the infomercials
claim), but there just isnt. Heart disease often is
described as a lifestyle disease because a life with
little exercise and a diet high in fat and sugar
contribute to the build-up of plaque in the arteries
simply put, thats the cause of heart disease.
Yet we all know people who live to a ripe old
age eating fried everything and doing little more
than puttering around the house, while others die
in their 30s from massive coronaries. What makes
the difference in their health?
Chronic stress often plays a major role, as do
genetics and inflammatory conditions resulting
from viruses and infections. Hormonal imbalances,
thyroid conditions, over-production of insulin, and
many more factors can trigger heart disease. These
triggers help bring on cardiac events heart
attacks, embolisms, aneurysms, and stroke.
Thats why I assess everything thats going
on with my patients and prescribe a course of
treatment geared to each. Often this involves
thinking outside the box, as my life story, which
Ill discuss in a minute, has uniquely equipped me
to do.
With every new patient, I seek to stop the
disease in its tracks and reverse it. Whether
immediately or down the road, I know that will
entail the kind of re-education, retraining, and
constant vigilance this newsletter will provide and
promote. Im here to help you help yourself get
better for good, for life.

Lets consider more closely what meeting you


where you are means.
If you were my patient and you were having a
heart attack or were about to have one, I would
put you in the hospital and use every tool modern
medicine possesses to get you on the road to
recovery. Thats what doctors do.
But I wouldnt stop there. Once you had
recovered sufficiently, I would use medications
to help you meet my initial targets important
indicators of your improving health.
Then I would use changes in your diet, exercise
regimen (assuming you have one!), and alternative
therapies to help you live a long and productive
life, disease free.
The good news is this: You dont have to die
or have your life impaired by heart disease. Most
people these days can live well into their 90s. I
have more than a few patients in my practice who
are older than 100.
I want you to live a full and healthy life because
I have a profound belief that God has given
everyone a role to play on this Earth. Thats why I
must get you the help you need!
As a committed Christian, I have found that
people of faith often are more prepared than
others to follow their path to true wellness. They
typically have more self-discipline as a result of
their powerful belief in having something to live
for a purpose larger than themselves.
So I talk and even pray with my patients about
their relationship with God. I treat hearts, but we
have souls, too, and both must be healthy in order
to live a full life.
Ive found that spiritual disciplines, such as
prayer and fasting practices common to many

Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report is a publication of Newsmax Media, Inc., and Newsmax.com. It is published monthly at a charge of $54.00 per year and is offered online and in print
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The owner, publisher, and editor are not responsible for errors and omissions. Rights of reproduction and distribution of this newsletter are reserved.
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Author Chauncey Crandall, M.D.
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First Issue

religions have aided my patients in their


recoveries and enriched their lives.
Who am I? Im a Yale Medical School-trained,
board-certified, interventional cardiologist
(F.A.C.C., F.C.C.P.). I practice in Palm Beach,
Fla., and many of Americas most powerful and
wealthy people, including five billionaires, are
among my patients. In fact, people fly in from all
over America and from abroad to see me. I take
care of people of modest means, too.
But this summary hardly tells the story,
especially when it comes to why I look at things
differently than most doctors.
From an early age, I was interested in medicine,
but during my college and early graduate years, I
also was fascinated by anthropology the study
of men and women and their cultures. This interest
endures and has enabled me to see things other
Western physicians often cannot see.

My Journey From Tribal


Life to Modern Doctor
As an undergraduate, I traveled to the West
African nation of Togo to study the Kabre tribe.
The Kabre live on a diet of cereals, fruits, and
vegetables, consuming meat only on feasting
occasions. Heart disease is almost unknown
among them. The same is true of many other
cultures Ive investigated that live on a diet thats
largely plant-based. Long before books such as
The China Study, which showed how consuming
animal proteins causes disease, I knew that heart
disease wasnt a necessary part of the human
condition.
I became interested in specializing in cardiology
during my medical training, so I volunteered to
assist in cutting-edge research. This added to the
workload, but it was well worth it.
I spent many days in the basement laboratories
at Yale actually creating heart disease on purpose.
We fed our test subjects mostly pigs different
diets, exposed them to chronic stress, and
manipulated their hormones. I saw how fast heart
disease could be produced. I also realized that my
research meant that it could be avoided.
From 1989 to 1993, I was on the clinical research
First Issue

faculty at the Medical College of Virginia in


Richmond, Va. There I ran the heart-transplant
program. This involved assessing every transplant
candidates eligibility.
This was truly holistic medicine, in the sense
that the patients prior behavior, the presence or
absence of other health conditions, the ability of
his family to support his recovery everything
had to be considered before a candidate received
the green light for (or was denied) a new heart.

The Wake-Up Call:


My Own Heart Battle
Then I had the most enlightening day ever in my
lifelong study of heart disease: I became a patient.
In 2002, I was returning from a speaking
engagement on Long Island where both Dr.
Mehmet Oz, a frequent guest on The Oprah
Winfrey Show, and I gave talks on heart health.
When I arrived at LaGuardia, I pulled my suitcase
out of the car and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder.
I put the suitcase down, popped the handle,
and rolled it into the airport. As I walked, the
pain intensified. I was only 48, not a diabetic, I
dont smoke, and I have no family history of heart
disease. It simply didnt occur to me then that it
Continued on page 5

About Chauncey Crandall


Chauncey W. Crandall, M.D.,
F.A.C.C., is chief of the cardiac
transplant program at the
world-renowned Palm Beach
Cardiovascular Clinic in Palm
Beach Gardens, Fla., where
he practices interventional,
vascular, and transplant
cardiology. Dr. Crandall
received his post-graduate training at Yale University
School of Medicine, where he also completed three
years of research in the cardiovascular surgery
division. He lectures nationally and internationally on
preventive cardiology, cardiological healthcare of the
elderly, healing, interventional cardiology, and heart
transplants. Known as the Christian physician, Dr.
Crandall has been heralded for his values and message
of hope to all his heart patients.

Heart Health Case History of the Month

From Wall Street to Intensive Care and Back: A Traders Story


In each issue, I will share with you the story
of one of my patients, detailing how making
changes to your life can radically improve your
heart health. Names and some details have been
changed for privacys sake, but the problems and
their resolutions are real.
Dr. Chauncey Crandall
Tom, 54, had moved to Palm Beach after making a
fortune on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He
now worked as a day trader and enjoyed it so much that
he rarely moved from behind his computer monitors.
During the heat of one trading day, though, he started
to have left shoulder pain and mild shortness of breath.
He had no history of heart disease in his family and
had not had problems before, but he didnt exercise and
was overweight. Beyond trading, his only real activity was
going out to eat with his wife every night.
His first episode of shoulder pain passed but a few
days later he went out to collect the mail and his chest
felt tight. The symptoms worsened during the next week,
and his physician sent him to me for evaluation.
I diagnosed him as having unstable angina,
meaning that his symptoms were new and appeared to
be accelerating.
I scheduled him for an elective angiogram (heart
catheterization), and when we performed the procedure,
we found he had a blockage of 90 percent in the main
artery of the heart, the left anterior descending coronary
artery. There was disease in his other arteries as well but
nothing critical. I put in a large-diameter stent and fully
restored the arterys blood flow. His symptoms stopped
immediately, and he did beautifully.
The Wall Street trader then came to my office for a
follow-up. He was scared freaked out, in fact. He
had seen several of his New York colleagues have heart
attacks and die. (The stress of trading on the New York
Stock Exchange is so intense that defibrillator pads are
located everywhere around the floor.)
While frightened, he was highly independent and
rebellious in temperament. I made a point of asking
him to bring his wife to our appointments. I would need
her as an ally. Although the trader resisted listening to
his wife, she could read him. She told me of symptoms
that had preceded his episodes of angina poor color,
difficulty sleeping, and increased irritability.
In the hospital he had been put on a cholesterol4

lowering statin drug, a blood pressure medicine, and had


been told to cut out sweets.
Forty pounds overweight, he had what we call
metabolic syndrome, a combination of high
cholesterol, high blood pressure, hyperglycemia
(elevated blood sugar), and increased girth or belly fat.
Metabolic syndrome is a heart-disease manufacturing
machine.
I put him on our program of aggressive heart-disease
reversal. We gave him targets for cholesterol, blood
pressure, blood sugar, and weight. He was asked to
follow our heart-disease reversal diet very strictly for at
least six months. I also put him on an exercise program:
three days a week in a cardiac rehab facility and an hour
of walking on the days he did not go to rehab. Through
diet and exercise I wanted him to lose from 5 to 7 pounds
per month.
I saw the two weeks later and asked him how he was
doing. His wife told me he was still eating his ice cream
every night and not walking on his days off from cardiac
rehab.
At that point, I told him how quickly the stent could
clog up. He might die from a heart attack and it could
occur so quickly there would be no saving him. After that
talk, our trader decided to get with the program.

I Feel 25 Years Younger


Two months later, he had lost significant weight and
was excited about the progress he was making. This is
working, doc! he told me. He noticed how much more
energy he had and how much sharper he was mentally.
Instead of resisting his wifes help, he was actually letting
her order for him at restaurants, since she did a better
job of picking his foods.
In another month he was taking his own salad
dressing to restaurants to ensure he stayed fat free. He
was exercising on his own one to two hours a day, often
riding his bike. His sexual function had improved, which
particularly delighted him. At the six-month mark, he
was near his ideal body weight. His blood work showed
that he not only had met but also exceeded our targets,
so I was able to reduce his medication, using natural
supplements where possible.
At cocktail parties people started asking the former
Wall Street trader where he had found the fountain of
youth. I do feel 25 years younger, hed say. This doctor
put me on this amazing program. He was playing tennis
every day at his club. He was enjoying life and felt like a
new person. Thats what I want for all my patients.

First Issue

Continued from page 3

might be my heart. I boarded the plane, and the


pain went away. When I arrived in Palm Beach,
I picked up my bag, and the pain in my shoulder
came back, now with a little pressure in my chest.
But I was fine by the time I arrived home.
It was late fall and the kids wanted to go
to the beach that night to hunt for sea turtles.
That sounded like lots of fun. So we went to the
northern end of the island and my two boys, Chad
and Christian, went racing around with flashlights.
I walked along in the sand, or at least I tried:
I could not go a dozen steps without severe pain
in my chest. It was as if I had run laps around a
track and had that liver ache that makes you stop,
only this was far more intense. It was the most
unbelievable pain imaginable. I would stop and
rest, feel better, try to catch up with the kids, and
then immediately feel the onset of pain once more.
I didnt want to tell my wife, Deborah. I kept
going through possible diagnoses in my head, try
to convince myself that it couldnt be heart disease.
At the end of the night I managed to make it
back to the car. I drove home and the pain went
away. I took a bunch of aspirin and went to bed,
resolving to forget about the episode.
I felt fine the next morning. I thought what I
experienced might have been a fluke or brought on
by stress. But I decided to test it.
Deborah runs in the morning. I thought Id walk
along behind her. (If I collapsed, I was sure she
would see me on her way back to the house.) But I
didnt make it to the end of the driveway without
severe pain. I sat on the entryway steps and waited
until she returned.
It was hard to admit, but I finally said it out
loud: Deborah, you have to take me to the
hospital. Ive got a heart problem. I dont know
why, but I do. By the time the medical team had
me on the table, I was screaming in pain.
I had whats called a widow-maker lesion.
Three major arteries feed the heart, and the main
one is called the LAD. It runs down the middle of
the heart and feeds the bulk of the muscle. The
widow-maker lesion is a blockage in medical
terms, a stenosis at the very beginning of the
First Issue

artery. It shuts off the whole arterial bed that feeds


most of the heart, and it usually results in death.
Thats why the ache was so severe. My whole
heart was crying out for blood, and it couldnt get
any my LAD was 99 percent blocked! I had an
emergency angioplasty and received two stents. I
spent the night in the intensive care unit.
The next day, I felt fantastic, and in the
afternoon I pulled out the IVs, dressed, and
prepared to leave. The nurses came running. You
cant do this, they cried. But I insisted I was fine
and left. (Doctors truly are the worst patients.)
I learned from this episode that, if I wanted to
continue making a significant contribution to this
world, I had to take care of my health. I had to
approach the matter like a Green Beret or Navy
SEAL someone who is always prepared to go
into battle because life often is a battle, as heart
patients quickly learn.
I had to get serious about exercise, stay on a
restricted diet, get a periodic stress test, and pray
for the healing of my body, for my and my familys
sake. Lord, heal my heart; keep it strong so I can
go the distance, I whispered.

The Tools You Need


to Win the Heart Fight
Heres what you can expect from this newsletter
and how we are going to fight the battle
together.
In each issue I will explain a major heart health
issue. The next newsletter, for example, takes
up the question of whether heart disease can
be reversed and, for practical purposes, cured.
I believe it can, and Ill be detailing the strong
evidence in support of this view. This is the right
Continued on page 7

Exclusive to Current Subscribers


Current subscribers have instant access to any and
every past edition of
Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report.
Simply go here: drcrandall.newsmax.com

Check your e-mail inbox for this months password.


(Please remember to use lowercase letters.)

Quick Takes: Tips for Better Heart Health Now


Whats the Real
Cost of 100 Cigarettes?
Many of us smoked in our
younger years, before we realized
its devastating effects on our
health. Fortunately, the body has
the capacity to clean the lungs of tar
over time and get rid of other toxins
smoking builds up in the body.
Some effects may linger,
however. The U.S. government just
approved ultrasound screening at
entry into Medicare for anyone who
has smoked 100 cigarettes in his
lifetime to ensure that the patient
doesnt have an aortic abdominal
aneurysm. The more we learn about
smokings long-term effects, the
worse the picture.

Popularity of C-Reactive
Protein Tests
Cardiologists are seeing heart
disease more and more as an
inflammatory condition. Cholesterol
that builds up in the arteries creates
inflammation. Hypertension
distorts the arteries in such a
way that it allows cholesterol to
embed itself, forming inflammatory
irregularities in the arterial lining
thats especially dangerous.
Then there are inflammatory
mediators of heart disease such
as rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune diseases like scleroderma,
pneumonia, systemic sepsis and
even common infections. Infection
anywhere causes a cascading effect
throughout the body.
A serious infection can then
cause the build-up of plaque within
the arteries to rupture, causing a
thrombosis the creation of a
blood clot. Blood clots traveling
through the circulatory system
cause heart attacks and strokes.
It might be the case, then, that
someones heart attack might
be triggered indirectly by a badly
infected tooth. Thats right, a tooth!
Its so important to address the
6

lifestyle factors that result in the


build-up of plaque in the heart.
This build-up can be prevented, but
opportunistic infections are much
harder to guard against.
For this reason heart patients
and others ought to have C-reactive
protein (CRP) tests run with their
blood work. CRP indicates levels of
inflammation within the body.
It cannot identify the source
of the inflammation, but a high
reading should prompt a search for
possible triggers of heart attack and
stroke. We know that those with
chronically elevated CRP readings
have a greater incidence of heart
attack.
The topic of inflammation and
heart disease is so important that I
will explore the subject in detail in a
future newsletter.

Why You Cant Eat


What Grandma Ate
Genetics plays a role in heart
disease. For example, specific
genetic conditions, such as familial
hypercholesterolemia, result in
very high counts of LDL, the bad
cholesterol.
Two scientists, Michael Brown
and Joseph Goldstein, were given
the Nobel Prize for discovering the
cholesterol receptor. The number
of cholesterol receptors a person
has can vary, which is why your
grandmother might have lived to
103 on fried chicken and chocolate
pie, but the same diet could be
lethal for you.
The good news is that almost
everyone has an adequate number
of cholesterol receptors, and if you
give your body a chance through
diet and exercise, they will start to
eliminate the excess cholesterol in
your blood.
Even those with an underlying
genetic defect that causes their
cholesterol counts to soar often
can turn that genetic switch off

through diet and exercise. Genes


dont determine everything. There
are epigenetic tags that toggle
genes on and off, given different
circumstances. This is why identical
twins, for instance, whose DNA
is exactly alike, can have different
characteristics and different
cholesterol counts.
The same is true, by the way, of
adult-onset diabetes. Even if your
father and grandfather or mother
and grandmother had diabetes later
in life and your genetic inheritance
mirrors theirs, you can keep from
turning on the diabetic switch if
you follow the right diet and keep
your weight down.

The Connection Between


Diabetes and Heart Disease
Diabetes and heart disease often
occur together. The two conditions
may actually derive from the same
cause: chronic inflammation.
Developing late-onset Type 2
diabetes puts someone at a high
level of risk for developing heart
disease. In fact, 80 percent of
Type 2 diabetes patients develop
cardiovascular disease.
If you have diabetes, its
particularly important that you hit
the following targets in order to
avoid heart disease: Walk an hour
per day; target cholesterol levels of
LDL under 100 mg/dL, HDL above
40 mg/dL, and triglycerides under
150 mg/dL; and keep your weight
in the healthy range. Your body
fat (BMI) should be between 18.5
percent and 24.9 percent.
If you are overweight, try to
lose 5 to 7 pounds per month until
you reach a healthy BMI. There
are online calculators for BMI and
also simple handheld BMI test
instruments.
As for blood pressure, aim for
120/80; strictly regulate your blood
sugar; and talk with your doctor
about taking a low-dose aspirin.
First Issue

Continued from page 5

topic for the next newsletter because all of the


newsletters that follow will be looking at this
central concern from various angles. After all, I
dont want merely to help in your treatment for
heart disease I want you to get well!
In writing about these major topics I will
draw on the latest studies and most advanced
thinking. Ill detail enough of the science so that
you can understand the concepts, but Ill do so in
thoroughly understandable terms. The point of the
discussion is for you to have information that you
can incorporate into your own health discipline.
Its for you to have information you can use every
day to get well and to stay well.
Every issue of the newsletter includes a
fascinating case history. These case studies will go
beyond the patients medical history to include
that persons activities after becoming well. Many
of my patients have led lives of greater significance
after diagnosis than before. Heart disease can be
not only debilitating but dispiriting. I want you to
see that there is hope. You have much to live for.
In each issue, Ill also have a section of quick
takes, short items about promising treatments,
new drugs, supplements, dietary considerations,
and exercise. These will provide you with two
or three things youll want to do right away to
support your health.
Each month, too, Ill field your letters and give
direct responses to your questions. In this way I
can address very specific concerns. So please write.
I look forward to your letters. Send your questions
to askdrcrandall@newsmax.com and be sure to
include your name and your hometown.
When I first began practicing cardiology at
Beth Israel Hospital in New York, I saw heartattack patient after heart-attack patient come
through the doors. We could help stabilize these
patients and prescribe a few drugs, but there
wasnt much else we could do. Many people in
that era had multiple heart attacks; if they didnt
die from the first one they were left debilitated.
Thats just not true anymore. We have learned
so much and are learning more every day. New
therapies not only are on the horizon but also are
being used today. The best of medicine from
First Issue

conventional medicine to alternative therapies that


work can help you get well. Its really true!
You have to do your part, too, of course. A
doctor often will remind a patient of that fact as
the patient leaves the office. The patient usually
nods and makes promises. But both doubt that its
actually going to happen, and with good reason.
Habits are hard to change, and many of the
habits that contribute to heart disease have been
developed throughout a persons life. These habits
often are associated, as well, with the best things
in life such as sitting with the family around a
table thats groaning with comfort food.

Changes for the Better,


Living a Full Life
Aristotle believed that virtue is a habit.
Unfortunately, vice is a habit, too, and those
unhealthy habits contribute so much to heart
disease. Making the transition from a lifetime
of bad habits to good ones is a gradual process.
Coaching is important. Its the key to your success.
Thats why Im not content with simply
prescribing a course of treatment for my patients,
hearing their promises, and sending them on
their way. I want to see them in my office on a
regular basis. Their progress should be monitored,
and they need to be encouraged and to remain
accountable.
Patients must re-educate themselves and retool to learn to live in a healthier way. Changing
habits is undoubtedly the most important part of
any recovery process.
Thats why Im so glad you are reading this
newsletter. Consider it a virtual visit with
one of your doctors. (It should not, however, be
considered a substitute for consulting with your
personal physician. I would never advise that.)
I believe strongly that, if you read this newsletter
every month, you will concentrate on the changes
you need to make. Youll be able to take advantage
of the latest therapies that can make the battle
easier. Youll be assured that you are up-to-date in
the re-education and retooling process.
Most of all, youll know that Im in the battle
with you as we fight together for your health.
7

Ask Dr. Crandall


Dear Readers,
I will try to answer as many questions as I can.
However, because of the volume of questions, I
cannot answer each letter personally. Please include
your full name, city, and state when submitting.
If you have a question for me, please e-mail it to:
askdrcrandall@newsmax.com.
Someone told me that a large percentage of heartattack victims have none of the classic risk factors
for heart disease. Is it true that people have heart
attacks without high cholesterol or other risk factors?
Linda J., Omaha, Neb.
Im glad you asked this question. Its one I often
get, especially when a patient or someone making
healthy changes finds the going is getting tough.
It would be better to say that people with no
known risk factors sometimes have heart attacks
or other cardiovascular problems. Ive never done an
autopsy on someone who has died of heart disease
without seeing a significant build-up of plaque
in the arteries. The thousands upon thousands of
catheterizations Ive performed on heart patients
with no previous risk factors tell the same story
in 99 percent of the cases, theres significant
underlying disease.
The statistics your friend cites are off, too, because
of changing standards for risk factors, which keep
being revised as the result of greater understanding.
The classic one is cholesterol. Doctors used to tell us
we were fine if we had a combined cholesterol count
that was no greater than 280. Now the standard is
200, and for people who have had heart problems
most doctors advise a cholesterol level of 170 or
below.

as healthy children. Likewise, our targets for high


blood pressure (hypertension) and glucose have been
revised downward.
Western medicine has tried to be as forgiving as
possible when counseling people about heart disease.
Weve wanted to ask of our patients the minimum
in terms of lifestyle changes since we know such
changes are hard to make. But we havent really
done anyone any favors. Its the truth the full
truth that sets us free. I now aim for target counts
for cholesterol and other risk factors that ensure, as
much as humanly possible, that those I counsel will
not suffer from heart disease.

How seriously should I take new health foods such


as acai berries and pomegranate juice? Are these
super antioxidant foods as helpful as some claim?
Tanya L., New Orleans, La.
Acai berries and pomegranates are great
sources of antioxidants. But so are blueberries and
blackberries and other familiar fruits and vegetables.
Antioxidants protect the body from the harmful
molecules called free radicals. Free radicals may
play a role in the development of coronary artery
disease. A diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and
vegetables ones with which everyone is familiar
will supply all the antioxidants anyone needs.
Although acai berries and other exotic fruits may
contain more antioxidants than more common
berries and fruits, they are in no way so superior as
to justify the prices charged for them. Just eat a small
bowl of blueberries every day and youll be set on
your antioxidants.
To your heart health,

The full truth is that populations in which heart


disease is virtually absent, such as Chinese workers,
have a combined cholesterol count of between 118
and 124. That compares with what we all had
Please note: All information presented in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report is for informational purposes only. It is not specific medical advice
for any individual. All answers to reader questions are provided for informational purposes only. All information presented in Dr. Crandalls Heart
Health Report should not be construed as medical consultation or instruction. You should take no action solely on the basis of this publications
contents. Readers are advised to consult a health professional about any issue regarding their health and well-being. While the information found
in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report is believed to be sensible and accurate based on the authors best judgment, readers who fail to seek counsel
from appropriate health professionals assume risk of any potential ill effects. The opinions expressed in Dr. Crandalls Heart Health Report do not
necessarily reflect those of Newsmax Media.
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First Issue

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