Heart Health - The Truth on Diet

Cardiologist's recommendation for anti-platelet. Preventative measure. I have 5 stents.

She also did a whole lot of walking and manual labour; so did mine!

Yes I have, earlier this month. This test along with other blood tests (see below) that are not normally requisitioned by doctors have provided me with more pieces to my heart disease puzzle. The purpose of these test and the angiodefender is to help me understand the current status of atherosclerosis and endothelial dysfunction.

I scored 'medium risk' with an FMD% score of 6.8%. A score of 5% or less places you at high risk and 9% or higher places you at low risk. Essentially, FMD measures the elasticity (degree of dilation during rapid blood flow) of your artery's endothelium. The less elastic, the more plaque that has built up. In essence you get an idea of the degree of blockages in your arteries without the need for an angiogram which is invasive and involves real risks.

I wish this had existed before my surgery so I could have taken the test then. I likely would have been 'high risk' at that time, but it would have provided me with a warning about my health and I could have taken corrective measures before the need for surgery.

Now I have a baseline for future use to see if my lifestyle changes are 'reversing' the heart disease (removing some of the accumulated plaque deposits). So next year if I score 'low risk' I'll know that my lifestyle changes are having a material impact and it will motivate me to stick to them.

Other blood tests in addition to the standard Lipid profile:

high sensitivity C-reactive protein - hs-CRP - measures inflammation in body

MPO - Myeloperoxidase - measures degree of inflammation in arteries - provides risk level of heart disease in results.

hbA1C - diabetes test - measures average level of blood glucose over the last 3 months;

Together with the standard Lipid profile: total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, Triglycerides, cholesterol ratio, these blood tests and the angiodefender (brachial artery responsiveness test) - provide a more complete picture of what's going on in your body.

I scored low risk in all tests except the angiodefender where I was rated medium risk.

I also got a professionally measured body fat score to use as a baseline for the future.

These blood tests can all be part of one visit for blood chemistry. Its just a matter of requesting these from your physician.

Good luck.

The reason I have 5 stents was because the original bypass had complications. One graft which used a harvested vein from my leg occluded completely with plaque within 30 days of surgery rendering that bypass useless. The artery it was trying to bypass had 4 blockages in it. They felt that bypass would be a better long-term solution than stenting. As it turned out, they had to stent the original artery 2 months after my surgery. They placed 3 stents to open 4 blockages, as 2 were close to each other.

The other 2 bypasses were done by re-routing my mammary arteries and attaching them to my heart directly. Although this worked, at the point of connection, the opening was constricted. They speculated either from scar tissue or tight suturing. So they placed one stent in each artery to open up them up.

Since then my pericardial blood-flow is greatly improved.

Bala, go to the start of this post and follow the link.

Some info here

everisthealth.com/images/pa...

I live in Canada. VAP tests are not available here, but they are in the U.S. The purpose of the VAP test is to determine the atherogenic portion of the LDL-C value, this includes the VLDL, IDL, and remnant chylomicrons. The ApoB measure includes all of these values so it is an accurate indicator of the atherogenic components of your LDL-C. ApoB is a better indicator of CVD risk than LDL-C from everything I have read.

I have done the ApoB and ApoA-1 tests which provide the two components for determining the ApoB/ApoA-1 ratio.