Say what? APoB

 Listening to Dr. Peter Attia on a podcast today (he has a new book so he's been on several), he was discussing the 3 most important things for preventing heart disease--the #1 cause of death.  1.  Blood pressure (he recommends 120/80)--check.  2.  No smoking--check.  and 3. APoB.  Say what? Had to look that one up.  I don't see it on my lab reports.  Apparently, neither have most people--even doctors.  Here's what I found on a website called Levels.   https://www.levelshealth.com/blog/why-apob-may-be-a-better-cholesterol-marker

What is the ApoB Test?

"The ApoB test measures your body’s level of Apolipoprotein B-100 (also simply known as ApoB). ApoB is a protein that helps carry cholesterol and other important compounds through your bloodstream to the tissues that need them. Testing for this protein helps doctors quantify the number of potentially dangerous cholesterol-carrying particles in your body, thus giving insight into your risk of heart disease. . . 

"To understand how ApoB predicts heart disease risk, we first need to step back and understand cholesterol. Cholesterol is a waxy substance, a type of fat (lipid) that’s essential for human life. It’s used by cells as a structural material (to build cell membranes and insulate nerve cells) and as a building block for important hormones (e.g. cortisol, estrogen, and testosterone). Every cell can make its own cholesterol, but it’s produced in the largest quantities by the intestines (which absorb and repackage some cholesterol from dietary sources) and the liver. These organs then export cholesterol to other cells and tissues via the bloodstream. But this step presents the body with a challenge: Cholesterol is hydrophobic. It does not disperse easily in the blood but instead clumps together like oil in water. The solution is a particle called a lipoprotein—a molecule that encases cholesterol in a hydrophilic shell so that it can travel through the blood in small, discrete parcels.

There are many different types of lipoproteins that sequentially change into each other as triglycerides are offloaded. At the beginning of this chain is the Very Low-Density Lipoprotein (VLDL) molecule. VLDLs are formed when your liver bundles cholesterol along with triglycerides (another fatty substance that stores energy) into a large, protein-wrapped molecule. This molecule is “low-density” in the sense that it floats in blood—it is buoyant. The VLDL is then sent out into your bloodstream, where it circulates until it encounters a cell with an open receptor (typically a smooth muscle cell or fat cell). The VLDL then deposits its triglycerides into the cell, which can store them or use them for immediate energy." continues at web site. Important to read.

. . . "ApoB can give you critical information about your long-term heart health. This may be especially important for people with a personal or family history of heart disease, as well as people with a current heart disease diagnosis who are monitoring their condition."

More on orange peel from World’s Healthiest Foods

I’ve written about orange peel before. And here’s some more information that appears in a long article about the health benefits of oranges for cholesterol at World’s Healthiest Foods.

Compounds in Orange Peel May Lower Cholesterol as Effectively as Statin Drugs

A class of compounds found in citrus fruit peels called polymethoxylated flavones (PMFs) have the potential to lower cholesterol more effectively than some prescription drugs, and without side effects, according to a study by U.S. and Canadian researchers that was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In this study, when laboratory animals with diet-induced high cholesterol were given the same diet containing 1% PMFs (mainly tangeretin), their blood levels of total cholesterol, VLDL and LDL (bad cholesterol) were reduced by 19-27 and 32-40% respectively. Comparable reductions were also seen when the animals were given diets containing a 3% mixture of two other citrus flavonones, hesperidin and naringin.

Treatment with PMFs did not appear to have any effect on levels of beneficial HDL cholesterol, and no negative side effects were seen in the animals fed the PMF-containing diets.

Although a variety of citrus fruits contain PMFs, the most common PMFs, tangeretin and nobiletin, are found in the peels of tangerines and oranges. Juices of these fruits also contain PMFs, but in much smaller amounts. In fact, you'd have to drink about 20 glasses of juice each day to receive an amount of PMFs comparable in humans to that given to the animals. However, grating a tablespoon or so of the peel from a well-scrubbed organic tangerine or orange each day and using it to flavor tea, salads, salad dressings, yogurt, soups, or hot oatmeal, buckwheat or rice may be a practical way of achieving some cholesterol-lowering benefits. The researchers are currently exploring the mechanism of action by which PMFs lower cholesterol. Based on early results in cell and animal studies, they suspect that PMFs work like statin drugs, by inhibiting the synthesis of cholesterol and triglycerides inside the liver.

How smart is WiseWoman?

In common parlance, the words "wise woman" mean someone who depends on cards and herbs and pagan rituals to heal or help someone. But not so in the federal government.

The WISEWOMAN program (Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for WOMen Across the Nation) is administered through CDC's Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention (DHDSP). The WISEWOMAN program provides low-income, under-insured or uninsured women with chronic disease risk factor screening, lifestyle intervention, and referral services in an effort to prevent cardiovascular disease. The priority age group is women aged 40–64 years.

CDC funds 21 WISEWOMAN programs, which operate on the local level in states and tribal organizations.

The current budget for this program which essentially screens women for health problems is $16 million and change. So I was browsing through the screening pie charts and was more than a little shocked to see that 84% with hypertension, 84% with high sholesterol and 88% with diabetes had previously been diagnosed.

It seems we have an awful lot of programs to meet the needs of the uninsured, but wasn't that the reason we needed to rush Obamacare through without reading it--because so many didn't have these things, which are clearly right under their noses, plus screening women previously diagnosed. A screening or a diagnosis or a counseling moment doesn't mean treatment, doesn't mean research. Actually, doesn't mean diddly squat if the patient doesn't follow through.

You can look at the list of accomplishments, but you'll find nothing about mortality or extended life for those participating.

Buy real food

I've started buying butter. It's because of the ingredients list on the package: cream, salt. Have you ever worked your way through the list of ingredients on margarine? Oh sure, it has zero cholesterol, but what's that other stuff? How do we know it isn't going to gum up the works down the road a few generations. The latest thing I saw at the market was "spreadable butter by Olivio" which was more expensive than butter but had about 1/3 the cholesterol. In recent years one of the problems with margarine was increasingly the fat content was reduced--that's done by adding water and that affects cooking and baking. I've seen margarine with a fat content as low as 35%.

My grandmother's butter churn, Superior, 1910 . It could make 5 lbs of butter, and that would last about a week. Grandma didn't care much for meat, but obviously liked rich cream sauces, soups, and baked goods. Although the farm house had no rural electricity, they had a generator, and that wheel on the side, although it could be hand cranked, had a belt to attach to the generator.

I remember when Mom started buying margarine. There was a huge advertising campaign for it, and it was cheap--and white. Yes, I think it was against the law (dairy lobby) to make it look like butter. So you got this white blob and added a little packet of color. It was the job of the youngest daughters of America to stir that mess up and then it was scooped into a dish. It had no flavor as I recall--just greasy. Then there was a big improvement. The white stuff came in a bag with the yellow dye inside. Squishy, squishy twist and shout. This was also a kid's job. Eventually, margarine came in blocks like butter, then tubs and somehow it was made to taste better. I still prefer butter, and since it actually tastes good, I think you use less.