Can you share some more color on what this is? Can that be done without a lot of radiation?
You might imagine that like drugs, the medical device wars we never see many good technologies because the inventing company didn’t have the “in” with the FDA process or it got back burnered and something else was in favor… In this case what won out early was x-ray CT scanners. What was being looked at but took longer to get into patient facing facilities is a newer Electron Beam CT scanners. EBCT exposes the patient to 100th the radiation and 10x the resolution to x-ray CT (just what I was told).
Search your area for EBCT, the exact machine I was tested on was EBCT C300 scanner, developed by Imatron technologies.
Our Ca scores;
We’ve been eating paleo for 10yr, carnivore for 2, go to 3x Metabolic Health conferences (AKA low carb confs) / yr; all the research is pointing to carnivor is an ancestrally consistent diet with largely meat/fish diet, few vegies and maybe just asparagus / crusiferous (low/no oxalates - important - google high oxalate foods - another area we’ve been lied to re), Both my wife and my full body calcium scores are zero, big fat zero!!! At 69 yro that is pretty unheard of least in USA. Which was from a high fat and protein diet. Exactly opposite of American Heart Assoc (Duh) and American Diabetes assoc and toss in American Kidney assoc. All are wrong all are bought off by the low fat, statin, drug industries since low fat completes the circle of profitable American high inflamation state based diseases.
Sorry for the going off on low fat / allopathic medicine!!! Grrrr
Search for EBCT and get scanned. They often offer a loss-leader pitch, come in for a free heart scan. 
We paid $7k for life time per both of us to get every other year re-scans.
1 thing is better then 1 calcium scan, its 2 (or more scanns) separated by meaningful time. IE a bad score of 1000 is less bad if in 6 mo its stable and still 1000 (is the thinking). So we’ll get scanned every other yr. But watch youtube on dropping your calcian score there’s a protocol. It does include dropping your carbs (dropping inflammation via dropping insulin). Both of us wear CGMs for health monitoring. Not necessary! But a CGM is like this forum, its for serious and extreme practitioners. At least wear a CGM for 2 weeks and see your glucose variability (or hopefully not). Good luck to all, curt
8 Likes
Very interesting. Thanks so much for sharing Curt.
Will def look into this.
Wonder why none of the imaging heavy longevity/specialist groups like Human Longevity/Health Nucleus, Fountain Life, Stanford spin-out Q-Bio or Prenuvo seem to offer this? They all operate outside of insurance and succeed or fail based on whether their offering is what their clients most like/perceive they get value from.
I did see that more and more people seem to think that this is a big leap forward vs traditional CAC/CT;
(Btw, I totally agree on CGM and totally love my Dexcom G6, though it does need some manual calibration for optimal measurements (haven’t tried G7 though))
Here are the providers that offer imaging in longevity context that I mentioned above in case of interest for anyone who was not aware (most here might already be aware of them given how well up to speed everyone is):
2 Likes
There are some comments on Reddit which indicate some people think G6 is better than G7. I still have a couple of G7 sessions to use, but I want to time that around taking Rapamycin again. I have not yet scheduled another dose of Rapamycin.
1 Like
Just wanting to help bring the important point for this group back;
- If you have total cholesterol over 200 say. The level that age-irrespectively Drs will want you on statins.
the take aways we learned from 2 yrs of 3x Low Carb confs Dr/MD speakers who are on the leading edge of healthful practices are:
-
Its healthier to have elevated cholesterol as you age. Covid stats where; folks with higher cholesterol had less, less severe, got less total diseases!! This is key!!! Its so frustrating to hear the anti fat, low cholesterol, pro statin practitioners. A friend; 70 yo femail, thin, healthy, cholesterol = 200, recently came home from her Dr getting ridiculed for not accepting a statin prescription. BTW Google side effects of statins (includes dementia and neurodegenerative symptoms).
-
Cholesterol is the feed stock in the body for; Vit D, Testosterone and other steroid hormons. Not infering causation … but; fertility clinics are a booming business. Soy etc is not doing having babies any good either.
-
Even hereditary super high cholesterol when studied through end of life does not (largely or as bad as current anti cholesterol thinkers would have us believe) predict early death or heart problems, Especially when negated by low calcium score.
-
The punch line; Applogies for being tediously long winded. Low calcium score negates virtually all other risk factors and latest studies doubt any association with high LDL even small particle with much chardiac risk. Apo-B is much higher assoc with risks as high calcium (>600). A few Drs even saiid ignore high Apo-B if your calcium is low.
-
That said; high Small particle LDL, high triglicerides / glucose / insulin to me is more an indication of a less then ideal diet that does have non-heart affecting negative consequences. JMO.
I’m pleased my cholesterol >200 and calcium = 0. What I picked up at conferences is get calcium scanned. Best to all, curt
2 Likes
@curt504 with all due respect, a lot of what you’ve said or which you’ve found from conferences is contradicted by superior evidence in mendelian randomization studies and randomized controlled trials. A positive calcium score means atherosclerosis has progressed and there is advanced disease, if you want to avoid that you need to decrease amount of atherogenic particle count. To wait until a positive or high calcium score is missing the point.
This thread has discussed this question in detail, if you find this question important I suggest spending a few hours and reading this thread from the end and back:
A 0 calcium score is rare, and above 70 it becomes even rarer.
3 Likes
@curt504 Sorry not to be up on things, could you point me to these latest studies? I thought high levels of small dense LDL was quite bad.
I have always had high cholesterol (210-260) regardless of diet or age (never tried keto). ApoB at 92. My doctor said not to worry because of the favorable ratios due to my high HDL. Never mentions statins.
2 Likes
Hi all re high LDL vs CHD risk vs studies… Tnx for asks and contradictions. Lots of fuzziness and per person variabilities in this area.
-
(My views) Finally major Med Magazines authors are finally writing that some percent of studies even Mag peer reviewed are non-reproducable or Statistical math trickery was used to find a small benefit.
-
There are alot of past studies on LDL/Statins/CHD risk. How many are “directed out come”?
-
We pay $$ to go to confs every yr and take the latest from the on stage folks who study and find the faults in past studies etc. I can’t in the 1st person discuss one study vs another. I filtered and posted the summary of what I heard from the stage (Denver Low carb 2023, Boca FL low carb 2023)
-
We are all responsible for coming to our own conclusions re best path for our health. I certainly respect anyones views that may contradict what I have summarized.
-
I apologize for not giving URLs to latest or best structured CHD / statin / LDL studies…
-
I can recommend as money and time well spent going to the Feb +/- Boca Raton FL Metabolic Health conf and March ish Denver Metabolic Health conf. I see the same speakers at San Diego in a month I think. Seen similar speakers at KetoCon but I’m less keen on public facing confs. I prefer Researchers/MDs in the audience focused.
-
Other threads mention some here are experiencing Poly-Pharma. Well that describes my kitchen sink protocol which I’m certain some percent for me; is counter protuctive and some not good or bad. All I can do is blood test and body scan. So far I havent given myself cancer, artharitis, pre mature death, knocked my hair out etc. I have decent blood tests and very good calcium.
I’m looking at that Millionaire anti aging self experimenter (??) and trying to figure what age tests he’s been taking. Since there’s a bunch of age tests some better then others. I don’t have personal data on my effective age or rate of aging (??). Lance Hitchings (a youtuber) is starting an insiders group so I should be hooking into my missing tests of effective age vs chronological and the latest metric; “rate of aging”. That Millionaire’s rate of aging is 0.71, his $$$ has successfully puts him as lowest ager on his website. Good for him!!!
My practice; test test test including multi-calcium tests and look for changes good vs bad, then possibly make changes.
Wishing all well, Curt
It’s way more than artery/heart calcium. It’s also glycation/average glucose levels and oxidative stress. Glucose and cholesterol synergize in a really bad way.
High lipids are less obviously problematic if your oxidative stress and glucose are low (but we are uncertain - it’s still unclear if this is risk-free). And it may depend on whether the lipids are oleic acid.
BTW I often wonder if rebound effect when eating too much WHILE rapamycin levels are low is a problem (+justifies carrying emergency rapamycin+metformin around when traveling). Metformin, at least, could be theoretically helpful for suppressing glycative damage from glucose spikes
3 Likes
Practically, it’s all ApoB. Impossible to develop ASCVD at neonatal/child apoB levels. Optimizing other things for this is just rearranging decks on the titanic.
5 Likes
So how do MUFAs/PUFAs affect ApoB counts, especially if one nut-binges on 2400 calories at once? [and I do nut-binge frequently]…
I sometimes have LDL of 97 and HDL of 60. Which isn’t terrible but could be better, but otoh it’s better than having high glucose… (eating more nuts means more calories and higher LDL, but if it means less glycation/glucose, then I wonder if this is a tradeoff worth making whose results are simply not observable in data seen in any other model organism simply because NONE of the commonly studied model organisms suffer from arteriosclerosis at the same rates as humans [though they may suffer from effects of high-lipid consumption in other ways - and humans will suffer arteriosclerosis on top of it])
Mammals, at least, are WAY better at dealing with excess lipids (like my epic 2500 calorie almond binges) than invertebrate models of aging are
1 Like
@AlexChen, Please search youtube for high oxalate foods, high oxalate nuts. IMHO oxalates in your almond diet have many negative consequences.
I’m concerned for the folks given bad advice and drink almond milk, eat nuts, eat alot of spinach, sweet potatoes on the basis of such items are good for you. Sally Norton wrote a book; Toxic Superfoods, recently out. We read it, now take its advice. We cut out all oxalate sources as well as most other plants. Occasional asparagus, squash.
Oxalate toxicity/poisoning mimics many other chronic problems. Aches, pains, sniffles, rough skin etc.
Hear you re binges!!! Its a challenge keeping foods in check. I used to eat nuts frequently too. Bananas like a monkey! 50% of why CGM wearers say they wear a CGM is to be a food cop. It gamifies what we eat. – Just a sec; Lemme check my glucose. - Whew 80, glad that low sugar chocolate nibble didn’t get noticed… :> :> :>
Only a thought; read Toxic Superfoods, get a month or 2 of a CGM, it may help with nut binges.
Wishing all well, curt
Inhibiting mineral (ESPECIALLY CALCIUM) absorption is a good thing.
IDK if oxalates are problematic in other ways
Your LDL is in the 50th percentile, it’s not good if only the 5th percentile does not develop ASCVD, as evident by the fact that a 0 positive calcium scan is extremely rare in higher chronological ages (advanced disease). Easiest way IMO is just try a low dose rosuvastatin at that LDL (for example three times a week / 1 mg). And test apoB relatively frequently until its stable. Not medical advice.
2 Likes
Yeah, maybe I should just get some off of unitedpharmacies.md …
Why rosuvastatin over other statins? https://dir.indiamart.com/search.mp?ss=rosuvastatin&prdsrc=1&stype=attr=1|attrS&res=RC3 seems annoying
https://www.unitedpharmacies.md/Simvastatin-Mylan-Simvastatin.html seems easiest and cheapest to get
My LDL used to be in the 60s all the time (up to late 2020) but suddenly shifted to the 90s in 2021 and hasn’t budged since.
I know people on the keto diet who have scary-high ApoB. Luckily I avoid animal food.
Zoledronate seems hard to get damnit
It isn’t lipophilic so it has a harder time crossing the blood-brain barrier. Cholesterol synthesis in the brain is closed from the rest of the body. Speculatively reducing brain desmosterol might be bad for cognition in the long run. The point of the statins is to prevent atherosclerosis in the heart and elsewhere, not specifically the brain.
Genetic variation with chronological age is probably why, you could upload genome data in 23andme to Nebula and check your polygenic risk score (percentiles) for apoB etc. Also LDL is not perfectly correlated with apoB, that could be lower. But the important thing is apoB number.
2 Likes
I would first try ezetimib (as independent therapy / usually is used in combination with statins). It is reducing the (re)uptake of cholesterol in gut and it works mostly non systemic which is IMO better than starting statins first (which have quite a lot possible side effects). You can use ezetimib intermittently every other day. If it is not working well enough you can add for example rosuvastatin in the days in between as @AnUser suggests. I agree after researching statins that rosuvastatin might be a better option over other statins. This is also not medical advice. 
1 Like
Okay thanks for all the advice! My PRS for apoB is fine.
Are spikes in apoB almost as important as just fasting apoB?
I don’t know anything about spiking apoB, technically if it’s just short, it wont do as much damage as if it was longer. ApoB compounds risk over time, that’s where the effect is. But that’s a question for Allan Sniderman or Thomas Dayspring.
3 Likes
If “G6 / G7” comment referred to the continuous glucose monitor, my limited understanding (from my daughter’s CGM usage and my monitoring it in real-time) is that the G6 is bigger and older, but is set up (and FDA approved) to wirelessly interact with the insulin pumps. The G7 isn’t yet approved to interact with the insulin pump (although I believe this is coming soon); this could be part of what is considered “better” about the G6 although you may not need that capability. I believe the G6 is bigger simply because the electronic components are several years older, not that it has less functionality. I’m sure the software has been very slightly updated but given the general coding-laziness of medical device companies, I can’t imagine a serious functionality overhaul was done other than user-interface; even the app is minimal and less impressive than what my daughter has coded for iPhone apps. I
f I recall what we were told, the actual sensors (the wire you insert into your skin) are the same so they should be equivalent (please check this: we were told this by the trainer PA/RN, but could be wrong). Also understand that these units are installed in different locations on the same person each time (to minimize scarring) and each person has slightly different skin, and the insertion process is “easy” but clearly subject to variability, so some sensor variability is expected: we were told there is a 20% error normally, meaning if you have a blood glucose reading of 120 it could be 76 or 144: the trend is considered more accurate (and useful for diabetics). That being said, I assume errors decrease with smaller blood glucose numbers so the errors must be tighter at 120 than they are telling us (76 to 145 is a big difference while 200 to 300 isn’t that much of an actionable difference — you need more insulin!). I’d again check this because that is what we were told. However, these things are VERY cool tech and certainly would tell you a lot about your metabolism, particularly when combined with instantaneous continuous heart rate and maybe pulse/blood pressure. I understand there is a blood glucose/ketone CGM in the works as well.
1 Like