Customer Reviews

Track Your Plaque: The only heart disease prevention program that shows how to use the new heart scans to detect, track and control coronary plaque

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Finally a cutting edge book that answers all the questions your doctor or cardiologist either didn't have the time to tell you in a short office visit, or much more likely had no idea about themselves. I had ordered about a dozen different books on heart disease from Amazon before I got to this gem. Certainly a long road to get here, but I probably wouldn't have appreciated this book as much until I read all the others!

This book ties everything together, the correct diet, supplements, exercise, prescription drugs, and explains everything so it is easy to understand and why each are important to your lipid makeup, plaque deposition potential, and the health of your endothelium (I never even knew what this was before).

In the two months I have been following the recommendations outlined by Dr. Davis I have lost over 20lbs and have much more energy and mental focus. My blood pressure has gone down (even while exercising) and I am able to exercise much longer and more intensely. Most importantly my good protective HDL cholesterol has gone up 25% in two short months!

People with active heart disease or family risk factors need to read this rather than living with the uncertainty of what their future will hold for them. Believe me when I tell you, I understand the feeling of not knowing everyday when I awoke if the "ticking time bomb" was going to go off soon. Get educated and pro-active in your heart health. This is the perfect book and starting point. I was finally frightened enough to research the topic and stick with the solution. You can too!

I am living proof that the program outlined in Dr. Davis's book really works! Eight years ago I was diagnosed with coronary disease through an EBT heart scan, despite low cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, and ratio, plus a "health nut" lifestyle. I have been a patient of Dr. Davis's for the last five years. Following his program, I have been able to slow the development of plaque to the point that my risk of having a heart attack is very low. My family tree is filled with heart attack victims - my father had his first at 40 and was dead by 52 - and it is quite probable that I would have followed in his footsteps without the guidance of Dr. Davis and his Track Your Plaque program. As a registered nurse, I believe this program will change the course of medical treatment of coronary patients. As a patient, I'm extremely grateful that it came along before I ended up like my father. Cudos to you, Dr. Davis!

Every doctor and every conventional test I took said my cholesterol was low (under 100) and my heart was fine even though my close relatives were dying of heart attack. Finally, my doctor put me on Lipitor just to shut me up. I had a heart scan out of curiousity and found I had plaque but nobody could tell me why. I followed the book's advice and had my lipoproteins tested along with my brother and son. Sure enough, we all had the same genetic blood disorder, something called Lp(a), that was causing heart attack in our family. Now we simply take niacin (a B vitamin) and it has greatly reduced the problem. I hate to accuse anyone of malpractice but every doctor and cardiologist should read this book. Perhaps my mother would still be alive if they did!

This book and its author are at the forefront of a revolution in heart health care. It contains an incredibly extensive and thorough discussion of the state of the art of preventive cardiology as of 2004, when it was written. (The author maintains a web site with even more up-to-date information as well as a blog with almost daily postings on new developments.) Most of the explanation and advice is still way ahead of the way cardiology practitioners interact with patients today in most major medical centers.

The book is written in plain English and an engaging style, and makes the technical concepts easily understood, even to people (like me) with no medical background.

The author advocates the use of non-invasive, low-radiation, widely available heart scans to determine the extent of coronary plaque. If plaque is found, he next explains the use of new cholesterol tests that analyze cholesterol in more detail than standard tests. Finally, he explains what to do to correct the abnormalities the detailed analysis may uncover.

The book will be of most interest to people who are willing to take control of their health and who may even be willing to challenge their doctors to catch up with recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease. The book is bluntly critical of the traditional cardiology strategies employed today in most hospitals and cardiology practices. As noted by another reviewer, he does advocate taking some supplements, but also tells you which supplements he thinks are worthless, based on reviews of numerous studies and his own experience treating hundreds of patients.

I found this book in my post-stent implant procedure investigation of the state of the art in heart disease treatment (I'm 50 years old). I wish I had found it and read it years earlier. I might have avoided having had the stent implanted to begin with. Thankfully, it's not too late to start applying the strategies he advocates.

If you want to see the future of preventive heart medicine today, explained in understandable, practical terms and concepts, this is the book to get.

I found this book very interesting and an easy read despite it's topic, heart disease. Anyone who has had heart disease touch their family will find this book hard to put down.

My grandfather, father and uncle all died from heart disease. My grandfather and father were diagnosed with the disease only AFTER suffering a heart attack. My uncle was found dead on the golf course, despite passing a stress test and being in "perfect health" just weeks prior to his death.

Track Your Plaque shattered many of the myths associated with heart disease and answered several questions that have bothered me for years; How can you pass a stress test and then die from a heart attack? How can your cholesterol be normal or "under control" and still have a heart attack? Do I have to suffer the same fate as my father?

This book is packed with information regarding the early detection of heart disease and it's hidden causes. This book was written for patients, but should be required reading for doctors.

I am one of the people in my mid 50's whose father had by-pass surgery in his 70's. I had low cholesterol, low blood pressure, exercised and ate very healthy food. I started to have unstable angina, and no one would believe that it was my heart, they said that was impossible. I ended up in the ER, had a stent put in and Re-stenosed (re-blocked) from the stent, then was forced to have Bypass surgery. No one could tell me why these things were happening. They put me on Lipitor even tho my cholesterol was not very high. It dropped down to 102, and I started to feel really strange, sort of out of it. After I read this book, I paid to have the blood test he recommends (it was too late to have the scan once you have had surgery), and found out I had 3 times the number of Small Dense LDL particles than you are supposed to have, which put me in the top risk category for another blockage. And guess what, there is only ONE thing that will change this number - it is plain old Niacin. Not only that, but my HDL went from the 30's to 88 on my last blood test! Please do not take the Sustained Release or Slow Release, I had liver problems from this (you have to have your liver enzymes tested periodically if you are going to take Niacin). I take 500 mg. after each meal, and had to work up to that amount. I eat a Mediterrean diet, but then I always have.
My doctors are amazed by these numbers, and still do not recommend the blood tests. cardiologists are in the Dark Ages - I have had 3 of the top ones in my city, it's a shame. Oh, its been 3 years and I feel great, but it took me 2 years to get back. One thing I notice is that when I go to my cardiologist's office, it is full of older, pretty out of shape people. Maybe its just a different population, and maybe they wouldn't be able to follow the recommendations in this book.

This is the best book I have read for preventing heart disease disasters.
It is well written, comprehensive and gives you an easy, life long method to keep your heart healthy, so you never have to have a heart attack.
I read a lot of books on this subject, and this is the best by far. It is about time that the medical community embrace Dr. Bill Davis's program.
His adage is perfect: Old ways die hard, but you do not have to!!!

As a registered nurse clinician working in cardiology, I read Dr. Davis' book with much interest. So many of our patients who have had coronary events in their lives have never been educated as to the root cause of their illness, or the approach to dealing with it. Finally, there is a tool that can be used in clinical practice and personal use that is easy to read, informational and inspirational in dealing with the questions that we as health care workers and consumers have in regard to the ravages of heart disease. I find myself frequently referring my patients to this book as a useful tool that demystifies this illness and gives a step by step approach to making the changes in one's life that will improve one's lot, hopefully before they become another statistic. I am truly grateful to Dr. Davis and the people whose stories he shared. Everyone in this field can learn much from his knowledge and wisdom. Thank you, Dr. Davis!!!

Dr. Davis has written the most intelligent and easy to understand book on coronary artery disease that I have ever read. This book answered all the questions I had about coronary artery disease that I had been seeking for many years. Even as a nurse educator and lecturer on the topic, I had only a superficial understanding of the multiple causes and treatments. The information in the book is revolutionary, cutting edge medical treatment that most physicians aren't even aware of.

I have ordered at least a dozen books on preventing, diagnosing, and correcting heart disease. 'Track Your Plaque' is my personal favorite of all of them and clearly one of the best and most up to date around.

A former follower of the Dean Ornish's Diet Plan for reversing heart disease, Dr. Davis (a cardiologist himself) builds from where Ornish left off and offers his own system for diagnosing and reversing heart disease. Instead of 'not a drop of any fat' like some others, Dr. Davis recommends 'low fat - good fat' instead. And even provides proof of how some fats in some foods actually can combat heart disease. Some of the dietary treatment modalities included in the book are: Oat Bran, Raw Almonds and Walnuts, Flax Seed, Psyllium Seed (fiber), fish oil, supplements such as CoQ10, l-carnitine, l-arginine, etc and how to use blood test results to determine which will work best with the causes of the heart disease which can vary with the individual.

Although it is not as exaustive on the details of diet as some others (such as Joel Fuhrman's 'Eat to Live' which is very good and recommended), Track Your Plaque does discuss at length dietary causes of heart disease and gives a very good overview of specific foods and supplement's as mentioned that help combat and reverse heart disease.

Track Your Plaque describes using a CT scan (commonly available at a low cash price for screening at heart hospitals) to diagnose the extent of your heart disease without being physically invasive. He also talks about the tests accuracy, how to interpret the results, and how to have some special blood lipid tests done to get to the root cause of the heart disease for each individual. He then proceeds to point to the dietary changes that can be implemented and directed toward reversing the heart disease for people in general and those causes which the tests indicate should be targeted.

Overall, I think 'Track Your Plaque' is a must read for those serious about combatting heart disease and avoiding, if possible, a downward spiral of declining health brought on sometimes by surgeons who understand the knife and using pills, but not bringing the body into balance naturally. If I had to choose only two books that would cover the gamit of treating heart disease naturally and offer some healthy differences of opinion, I would choose 'Track Your Plaque' and Joel Fuhrman's 'Eat to Live' (Dr. Sinatra's book would be third).