I agree with you Ken. I made the decision a long time ago to never take a statin drug again after Lipitor caused me disabling joint pain. I also believe that the best things we can do for ourselves is to eat a low carb real food diet. I stick by this decision and don't even have my cholesterol checked because whatever the score I won't do anything different than what I am doing now. I tend not to like to be to dogmatic when it comes to other people although I am very dogmatic when it comes to myself. I figure that whatever damage I did to myself by my years of bad eating, known or unknown, is just what I have to live with. Right now all I can do is live the most healthy life I can in the here and now.

Jean

I have started taking vitamin K2 and plan to increase my dosage over time. K1 deals with clotting, but K2 transports calcium from the blood stream to the bones & teeth and away from the arteries. There is a little evidence that it can remove plaque.

I'll try a new CAS in a year to see if there is any change.

Thanks for the tip, Glenn. I looked into this over my lunch hour. Interesting stuff. From what I saw this needs more study, but K2 seems to show promise with arterial health, reducing calcification or even decalcifying. I'm curious. Is this something recommended by your doctor or did you pick this up on your own?

YouTube is my goto resource for this. K2 seems to be side-effect free from all reports.

Ken, you're doing everything right in terms of your eating lifestyle. I'd be very interested in the formula Janet referenced and whether that's something that can be applied with accuracy, or if it's simply taking into account all the known CVD markers to develop a risk profile. Either way, I get the sense that without a long history of many CAC scores, known influences, and changes, not everything is known regarding whether it's possible to manage the score. Some recommend periodic follow-up tests to ensure it's not going higher or is doing so at a slow rate, and that seems to be the current thinking in terms of managing one's CAC. However, recently I have read and heard of people attempting to lower their CAC score. This is something I'd like to know more about and wonder if a well tailored LCHF approach can be a true substitute for statins. I'm confident it would be a lot healthier!!!

Having a long period of dairy elimination and then getting your next NMR Lipid Panel will be very interesting. It's going to confirm how much control your diet has over your lipid health. To me, that could translate to a tempering of the perceived risk of your CAC score as well.

As for K2, I take it every day along with magnesium and D3. It is known as having an influence on calcium transport and moving it to where it belongs. Fat soluble, I take it with a meal.

My understanding is nothing will lower the CAC score, as you said Ken, its calcified, so the calcium deposits are not going anywhere.

Just playing the devil's advocate here, some doctors will now claim that the lowering of LDL cholesterol from statins is not the reason it prevents CVD, but from some unspecified lowering of inflammation. It works, but not for the reason originally thought. And with muscle and joint pain a common problem, they may be more willing to change brands, lower dose, etc until the side effects are eliminated or reduced. But as you have read in this forum, statins also increase the risk of diabetes...and that certainly isn't something you want now after all the good you have done through weight loss and diet changes.

(Comment under the film)

I found this...

How to Reverse Heart Disease with the Coronary Calcium Score

There are lots of "what to do" strategies in this article. I find it interesting that I am already doing a lot of them with my dietary changes. I also liked the sound of this..


So apparently it is possible to actually improve your score.

One (of many) things I learned from this article is that it may be wise for be to give up caffeine. It does raise my blood pressure quite a bit and according to this article that is not a good thing with calcified arteries.

My understanding is that age is a factor when assigning a score. The amount of calcium deposits is being compared with others of your age or age group. So, yes, if you can reduce the rate of calcium deposit below the average rate for your group, you can lower your score (without reducing amount of current calcium deposits).

It's too bad you can't know how much calcium was laid down before LC and since. Bottom line: chances are you are doing exactly what you should be doing to keep from growing your risk.

We agree that the calcium is layed down and cannot be reduced, but the absolute score and percentile were reported separately on mine.

Findings were a score of 14 in the Left Anterior Decending, my risk for a cardiac event is moderate. Followed by "This score is between the 25th and 50th percentile for the patient's age and sex". It went on to point out other nodes and nodules here and there, extra tidbits that were not terribly reassuring either.
Like Ken, I am doing the best diet and lifestyle wise to prevent this score from increasing.

I think it's worth highlighting the following point, following on from the posts below..





On the specific point of whether it is possible to reduce either Calcium Score or Plaque Volume, the linked article quoted by Khrussva, "How to Reverse Heart Disease" by Jeffrey Dach, itself contains the following quote:



Following on from Liz53's info on score being age weighted, it appears to be possible to reduce the score at the same time as the plaque and calcium volume is increasing?
There appears to be no evidence that plaque or calcium, once laid down, can ever be removed, much as I would wish that to be the case. If anyone has any hard evidence to the contrary I would be glad to her it.

Liz is right in that age is a factor. But I don't think the score is weighed. I think that the score you get places you in a different percentile of risk based on your age. With my score I'm in the 90th percentile for a 53 year old male. Yikes! But if I was 70 my score would have put me in the 50th percentile. If I was 90, that score would be well below the 50th percentile. So I don't think that the actual calcium score changes with respect to age, but the score as a "risk factor" assessment is age dependent.

The Ivor Cummins video that Janet provided the link for indicates a significantly reduced risk of a CVD event if the rate of increased calcification is less that 15% per year. The cardiologist that I saw told me that those who are increasing their calcification at alarming rates (20% to 35% per year) are those that are not making significant lifestyle changes to address their CVD risk factors. Given the lifestyle changes I've made over the past 3 years he believes that I've put the breaks on as far as increased calcification goes. He didn't expect my score to change much in one year and suggested that I wait 2 or 3 years to have another Heart Calcium Scan done. I hope he is right, but I don't think I can wait that long. I was pretty heart sick (no pun intended) when I received the news of my calcium scan. I have since learned that my risk of a heart attach may not fall in line the statistics associated with my score. I want to know if my lifestyle has stopped or slowed down the rate of calcification in my arteries. I will retest next January.

Apparently there is some small rat study that was done that seemed to indicate that artery calcification can potentially be reduced with high doses of vitamin K2. In other words, it might be possible to actually improve your calcium score. I don't know how applicable this might be to humans. It certainly needs more study. I tried to find that rat study to provide a link. I couldn't find it. But I did come across this recent article on the potential benefits of vitamin K2:

Vitamin K2: new research confirms essential role in heart health

The entire article is good, but I found this section very encouraging given my circumstances:


Improved vascular elasticity sounds good to me. That's a good enough reason for me to to make sure I'm getting enough K2 from natural sources or supplements.

Good natural sources of vitamin K2 are from sources like eggs, butter, & beef. It may be that increased carbs, BG, and insulin levels were not the only issues with the trend towards a low fat 'heart healthy" diet. Reduced consumption of the right fatty foods may have created a vitamin K2 deficiency, compounding the problem as far as CVD risk goes. Meat, butter, and eggs might actually be the "heart healthy" foods and we were eating less of them. I know I switched from eggs to cereal, butter for margarine, and less red meat for a number of years trying to eat "healthy" as I was told to. It didn't work for my weight nor my metabolic health, and more than likely increased my risk for CVD.

I was not big into taking supplements before, but since I had that calcium scan done I have added supplements to my daily regimen. Between now and my next heart calcium scan I will be supplementing with vitamin C, D3, K2 and magnesium. I will stick to my version of a LCHF + high fiber diet and I will continue my daily exercise. This is a serious N=1 experiment. I'm hoping for good results. If not, I may feel compelled to follow doctor's orders and take a statin.

Ken, just be careful with the K2 if you are taking a daily aspirin.

My doctor received the results today and had the nurse call me for an appointment ASAP. She scheduled 2 time slots for me tomorrow afternoon. Looks like I'm going to have a long conversation tomorrow. My annual is coming up in less than 2 months. I'm thinking that my latest diet tweak will have positive effects on my LDL. Unless I am convinced otherwise, I will push to hold off any prescriptions until I have the opportunity to see those new cholesterol labs. Doing them now would not be wise as I just came off of a longer fast and that would certainly impact the results.

Ken, sorry to hear about the high score after your CAC. I think your doctor is going to talk to you about more than just taking statins. Prepare yourself, he/she will probably want to send you to a cardiologist for more extensive testing.

We are here for you. I gave up caffeine, but not coffee, now I just drink decafe.

You know, all of that about how the calcium deposits never leave once they're there. Maybe that's what they say because no studies have been done with people on low-carb.
And Ken, you just reached goal months back...when? You may find that you improve over time consistently eating like this into the future. Maybe the body takes time to heal?