A Heart Risk Factor Even Drs Know Little About
 

To millions of Americans, Bob Harper was the picture of health, a celebrity fitness trainer who whipped people into shape each week on the hit TV show “The Biggest Loser.”

But last February, Mr. Harper, 52, suffered a massive heart attack at a New York City gym and went into cardiac arrest. He was saved by a bystander who administered CPR and a team of paramedics who rushed him to a hospital, where he spent two days in a coma.

When he awoke, Mr. Harper was baffled, as were his doctors. His annual medical checkups had indicated he was in excellent health. How could this have happened to someone seemingly so healthy?

The culprit, in turned out, was a fatty particle in the blood called lipoprotein(a). While doctors routinely test for other lipoproteins like HDL and LDL cholesterol, few test for lipoprotein(a), also known as lp(a), high levels of which triple the risk of having a heart attack or stroke at an early age.

For most people, lp(a) is nothing to worry about. Levels are strongly determined by genetics and the majority of people produce very little of it.

But up to one in five Americans, including Mr. Harper, have perilously high levels of it in their blood. Studies show that diet and exercise have almost no impact on lp(a), and cholesterol-lowering drugs only modestly lower it.

“People don’t know about it, physicians don’t know about it, and we have to get an education program out there, but that’s expensive,” said Dr. Henry N. Ginsberg, the Irving Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and a leading expert on lp(a). “I would say that somewhere between 15 to 20 percent of the population would clearly benefit from knowing that this is their problem.”

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/...T.nav=RecEngine

Looks like a worthy goal to get the word out about the 15-20% of the population that the article mentions might benefit.



Wasn't Bob Harper already doing these things? Dead Ornish helped him post heart attack.



His book is: The Super Carb Diet: Shed Pounds, Build Strength, Eat Real Food "Carbs don't make you fat" the book begins. He mentions later that he was on the paleo diet at one time. But he also says he stands by previous diet advice, which was what exactly? Was he eating one way and writing books advising another?

He's better get some friends to give him friendly reviews, because so far on Amazon, they're not too good.

It should be called "Carbs Don't Make You Fat If You Workout 6 Hours A Day."

He just had this massive heart attack 6-8 months ago and he wants to tell people how they should eat to be healthy...??? :daze:

Well if he isn't doing those horrendous workouts that I've since read left many of the contestants with injury because they were forced to do the work the fat off concept, while they were at full weight.

I know of a fellow who thought he would imitate that "program" and at 100 lbs overweight began running up and down football stadium and did some real damage to himself.

I guess we'll see if his "Carbs Don't make you Fat" still works without all of the workouts.
Of course they'll probably hide it from the public like they have done with the Alley lady who supposedly has regained 100+ lbs but they still keep rerunning the old shows of when she was low weight. :o
To me that's deception...

Aww that makes me sad she gained the weight back again. She's so beautiful at lower weights. I wish we could send her this forum address, or an Atkins book. I understand the fear of LC. With hypothyroidism I couldn't lose weight on any diet including fasting. I saw Dr Atkins in an interview and I decided to start the death diet out of desperation. That was 2002 and I'm healthier than ever.