Compounding Wisdom
Grief & Love
Love empties and fills your heart
Grief
Grief is to the measure of the love you have in your heart.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Kona, our adorable, loving puppy, looked longingly at me for a pet on the head. It was one of the highlights of my day to pet her on the head. That evening, it was just her and me. I pet her a little longer before I prepared to head to a church meeting last Wednesday.
When I arrived at church, I saw a text on my phone from my daughter. “I’m so sorry everyone. Kona was hit by a car. She didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.” My heart stopped. What? Stunned, I called my daughter. She was too upset to talk, just tears.
Then, photos of Kona were shared by the kids.
O My Heart
Oh this ache in my heart, inexpressible and irremovable!
Dr. Kevin Ham
When I saw Enoki, our older dog, the next morning, I could not help the tears bottled up in my heart to rush out as I held him tight, saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Enoki.” When I let the two dogs out of their room, Kona would immediately be kissing and playing with Enoki and eagerly awaiting our morning walk.
That morning walk was very different. When I saw Kona’s leash at the door, tears welled up again. When Enoki pooped, I thought, I would give anything to be able to pick up Kona’s poop again. I had vowed that when we first got Enoki, I would never walk him and especially never pick up his poop. And here I was … wishing I could pick up poop. When I got home, I had to write the inexpressible feelings in my heart, and so while I was planning to write about Reversing Diabetes this week, I decided to write about what is in my heart to help my heart heal from the sudden loss and void left by our puppy.
How can a puppy fill a part of our hearts so much? This is what amazed me most.
Pride
The swell of pride is the invisible water that floods our hearts and spills over into our lives, as we feel that we have risen high above the world and others.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Right before I left the house, I looked at all that I have been blessed with and felt such overwhelming gratitude to God for such wonderful blessings. I looked to the heavens and prayed silently, “God, all that I have has come from You, and all that I have is for You. Thank you. Let me honour You and praise You for the days You give me on this amazing Earth.”
Reflecting on the past week, I realized that at that moment, the above prayer was in my heart. I had felt like I had reached a great pinnacle in my life: my heart was open, full of joy, love, and peace, open to whatever God would send my way. I have pondered, if while I felt I was at my humblest moment in life, when I prayed to God at that time, when God looked into my heart, did He see selfish pride? I had been reading and studying how even the good Kings of Judah lifted their hearts in pride before both men and God and fell deep into sin, disease, war or death. I wondered how a king so blessed could suddenly fall.
Before destruction a man's heart is haughty,
But humility comes before honor.
Proverbs 18:12
Right after I read the text, my first response was a curse word, which I hardly ever say, and my fists slamming against the countertop, asking, “Why?” Part denial and disbelief, part shock, and part anger. Grief had started to pierce my heart. Was I proud and haughty in my heart or was I humble? What does it mean to be humble?
Love
Without love, the world stops spinning and my heart stops beating.
Dr. Kevin Ham
The greatest humility is the heart that is in love. For love, what would you do for someone you love? What would you not do? Paul writes of this perfect love. It is often recited at weddings.
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
Love never ends. But the things and people we love … they will come to an end someday. The love never ends, but the object of our love can and will. In that moment of loss of love, an emptiness, a hole that feels like a black hole, draws in every emotion of your humanity into that void.
Filling that void is the wound from the piercing revelation of the sword that the thing you loved or the person you have been so accustomed to in your life is now gone.
There is sage advice to live each day like it’s your last day. YOLO (You Only Live Once). I’ve also heard that you should treat each person as if it's the last time you might see them again. Just imagine if we were able to live with this heart.
I reflected on my grief. For instance, when I lose material things I love, or when I lose large sums of money, versus when I lose people I love, like my mother, my relatives, my friends. The closer and deeper the love is, the more the grief. To remind ourselves of our loved ones, we set up memorials and images. And if we are fearful, we bury everything so that we are not reminded of the deep loves of our lives.
Express Your Heart
While the feelings of the heart are inexpressible, they still need to be pumped out as they wallow around in your heart.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I like to process my feelings and my thoughts by writing. And so I wrote that next morning with tears streaming down my face. I’d like to share it with you.
Grief & Love
To Kona, our beloved puppy, whose love and joy were boundless.
Love is boundless, yet it lives within the many fragmented chambers of our hearts.
When we see the wholesome and limitless love of God reflected in people, pets, and nature, our hearts cannot help but open wide to receive it endlessly.
Grief is always in proportion to love. Its depth only matches the depth of the love that carved it into our hearts.
The measure of grief, when turned inside out, becomes gratitude — for the time we shared with those we loved, for the memories that remain, and for the wish that we had more time together. Such love fuels our hearts for the rest of our days.
Grief arrives in stages: shock and disbelief, anger and regret, sadness and loss. Then it turns outward into affection for those still around us, followed by gratitude for what we once had — and what we still hold now.
In grief, we feel powerless. Loss robs us of control, leaving us overwhelmed. Memories return in waves — sometimes we hold them tighter, other times they slip beyond our reach.
We search for reason, purpose, and meaning. Sometimes answers stay hidden. Sometimes they spark new life, birthing new purpose from pain.
One must let the heart grieve and express. That is why we hold ceremonies — not only for closure, but also to honour love and to release grief.
In this life, loss is inevitable. It is what makes each moment so precious. Every day is a gift — even a day of sorrow, for only hearts that truly know grief can fully see and embrace joy.
As Proverbs reminds us:
“Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.”
Mercy is love. Mercy is compassion.
A dear friend, Dr. Azra Raza, told me that in Islam, the death of a beloved animal spares its owner from a greater misfortune. My neighbour Tamara said the same; in Russia and Ukraine, the death of one’s animal means she spared us from some bad event.
I thought of the animal sacrificed to clothe Adam and Eve with garments of skin to spare them from death, and of the lambs that died for the sake of people’s sins. And then, with tears streaming down my face, I thought of the greatest sacrifice of all:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” — John 1:29
In this short time we have on earth, grief itself becomes the vessel that holds our deepest love, dreams, and compassion. When we reflect, we find this reservoir of love is boundless. It is with this heart that we must continue each day — with gratitude, with love, with joy.
For it is truly better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
We will forever miss you, Kona. We will forever love you and remember you. Each day, we will carry the love you gave us, and we will love others as you loved us.
In much love is much grief.
In much grief is much wisdom.
In much wisdom is much life.
From your beloved Ham Family
Reflection
Grief allows you to pour out your heart in love and gratitude, after the inflamed wounds of disbelief, anger, and regrets calm down in your heart.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Losing Kona so young has broken my heart — not only for me, but for my children who lost their special joy. Kona was not just a pet. She was family.
I even saw tears streaming down my 90-year-old father’s face. Kona had also touched his heart deeply. She was so small, but her heart and energy were boundless.
I kept remembering what Azra and Tamara told me. Then, the shortest verse in the Bible struck me anew:
“Jesus wept.”
The Son of God moved with compassion at the death of Lazarus and the grief of his family. Compassion for the poor, the sick, the blind, the widows, and the outcast. Compassion even for Jerusalem itself, which would reject him and have him nailed to the cross:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”
The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Including mine.
As I think of Kona, I remember how she loved to chase cars. We always held her back on her leash, but that day she was free. A white Range Rover sped past, and she ran in front of it…
Was she sparing us from some greater harm? Perhaps. The thought brings a little comfort. In that moment, I also realized how often I, too, have rushed headlong toward danger.
Just days earlier, on September 6, I had foolishly ridden the Whistler Gran Fondo — 122 km with 2,000m of elevation — through wildfire smoke measuring 73 ppm. Advisories warned against even light outdoor activity, yet I rode on, knowing my heart vessel is 77% blocked, my heart beating and circulating this smoky air for just over four hours. I told myself I was being careful, holding back, but in truth, I was being reckless.
I was humbled. What I thought was a strength was actually a weakness. What I thought was wisdom was actually folly.
And so I resolve to walk by faith, not by sight.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
If God does not forget the sparrows, He surely knows how much Kona meant to us. And though we may not understand why now, there must be a greater purpose we do not yet see.
Kona has left a void in our hearts. It will take time to grieve and heal. I pray God will fill that space with His own joy, wisdom and love, uniting us as one heart, one mind, one body — and drawing us closer to Him.
God, have mercy on her soul. And have mercy on ours, too.
Ceremonies
Ceremonies allow you to move to the next phase of your life either as a foundation, a step, or to allow you to move on and reflect upon and honour what you are leaving behind, without being held back.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Ceremony to process grief and love is also important. It is the reason why we have engagements, weddings, graduations and funerals. Think about the ceremonies you have in your life. With each ceremony, you leave something behind while entering a new phase of your life. That gap is the wilderness that you must traverse to the next journey of your life.
We will have a memorial so that our family can express the grief and love in our hearts this Saturday.
Life-Changing Question
Who should you be grateful for today and each coming day?
Let them know by a hug, a phone call, a text, an email today.
Next week—
Reversing Diabetes in 3 months
Diabetes is even easier to reverse than heart disease.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Reversal: How I Reversed My Clogged Arteries in 3 Months
You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
Genesis 2:15
But the woman looked upon its fruit and saw that it was
Good for food
A delight to the eyes and
To be desired to make one wise.
In our world today, so many of our so-called foods are processed, genetically modified and polluted with herbicides and pesticides. These foods eventually cause disease as they are toxic to our bodies. These foods are decorated and marketed to be a delight to our eyes, they look like delicious foods and give one enjoyment, status and belonging. They are convenient, cheap, accessible and fast. But also right beside this tree of knowledge of good and evil that brought death was the tree of life.
I asked my 71 year old church friend, “Fred, what caused your diabetes?” He looked a little perplexed. I said, “The answer is quite simple.” He then clued in and replied, “Oh, sugary foods.” What kind of sugary foods? White rice, white flour - processed of its bran covering (fibre), oils and many vitamins. Added refined sugars as well as sweeteners. Also, most desserts, fried foods, heated oils, and sugary drinks. The simple answer: Food caused his diabetes.
We face the same choice that Adam and Eve faced in Eden daily and the cells in our bodies record these decisions over decades and manifest as disease.
Nitric Oxide: The Spark of Life
Oxygen is life-giving. Nitric oxide rejuvenates.
Maimonides
In the 1970s, vascular scientists noticed that when the endothelium, the one-cell lining of the blood vessels, was intact, the arteries relaxed. Remove or damage the endothelium, and the vessels hardened in spasm. Something invisible was being released by the endothelial cells. They named this unidentified compound, EDRF - endothelium-derived relaxing factor.
Ferid Murad — 1977: Showed that nitrovasodilators (e.g., nitroglycerin) release nitric oxide, activating guanylate cyclase and relaxing smooth muscle, relieving chest pain. NobelPrize.org
Robert F. Furchgott — 1980: Discovered a mysterious substance which he named endothelium-derived relaxing factor (EDRF) was made by endothelial cells.
Louis J. Ignarro — 1986: Deduced that EDRF is nitric oxide, at that time considered a toxic gas that came from car exhausts, a smog pollutant, and an unstable chemical that lasted only seconds.
In 1998, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to these three: Murad, Furchgott, and Ignarro, for the discovery of nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system.
Nitric oxide relaxes arteries, lowers blood pressure, prevents clotting, calms inflammation and signals endothelial repair. It’s your own body’s spark of life. It is produced in the blood vessels, brain cells and the skin.
When someone has chest pain from a blocked artery, they can spray nitroglycerin under their tongue and get relief as it turns into nitric oxide in the heart and expands the vessels. Ironically, Alfred Nobel made a fortune with the nitroglycerin used to make dynamite. However, dynamite was not only used for his original intent for mining and railroads, but also in war and destruction. He became known as the merchant of death.
Lauder Brunton, a distinguished British physician, had found in 1867 that nitrates were effective in relieving pains in angina pectoris. When Nobel’s physicians recommended nitroglycerine as a remedy for his heart pain (angina) in 1890, he declined it, most likely as he believed the industrial nitroglycerin he was working with was causing his headaches..
In order to leave a good legacy, he bequeathed his fortune to fund the Nobel Prizes in 1895 and one of those prizes was to be in Physiology or Medicine. He passed away a year later from a hemorrhagic stroke at age 63.
Nitric Oxide: The Fork in the Road
The body has its miracle gas but the fork can supply it with a dietary backup system.
Dr. Kevin Ham
This nitric oxide is produced in the body but it also has its backup supply from the diet. The power of nitric oxide is its ability to do many things but in particular to widen the highways and roads to deliver the life-giving blood you have, which consists of not only red blood cells but also your white blood cells which make up your immune system as well as platelets, nutrients and hormones. If the highways are constricted like a traffic jam, the delivery trucks, emergency services cannot get to every cell in your body. Only one cell or one organ needs to be compromised to affect one’s health.
1. The Internal Pathway
The body converts the amino acid, L-arginine into nitric oxide through an enzyme in the endothelial cells, eNOS (endothelial nitric oxide synthase).
This enzyme is stimulated by:
Shear stress from exercise: High intensity interval training (HIIT), and deep nasal breathing
Antioxidants called polyphenols: Found in berries, cocoa, green tea, red wine
L-citrulline and L-arginine. Watermelon, legumes (beans) and nuts
Omega 3s. Fish, algae
Sleep. Nighttime nitric oxide pulses
eNOS is inhibited by:
Smoking
Diabetes
Oils and Lipid Peroxidation. Heated and processed oils (fried foods) oxidize lipids, which damage endothelial membranes, consume NO and destabilize eNOS
Glycation (from high sugar). High glucose glycosylates proteins to create advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), which damage endothelial cells and create oxidative stress
Oxidative stress. Free radicals, processed meats, excess fat especially visceral fat around the organs, heavy metals, high blood pressure, make eNOS produce superoxide instead of nitric oxide, causing further damage. This is called eNOS uncoupling. eNOS under oxidative stress becomes harmful rather than helpful.
Aging. eNOS activity declines with age
Inflammation
When your body is in a state of inflammation, (measured by such blood markers as hsCRP, homocysteine and in the heart, myeloperoxidase and Lp-PLA2), instead of making nitric oxide, eNOS makes super oxide which creates a vicious cycle of endothelial damage.
So first thing is to focus on getting your inflammatory markers down by eliminating the foods and environment that cause the above lipid peroxidation, glycation, oxidative stress and inflammation and replace them with foods, exercise and rest (including sleep) that can restore an anti-inflammatory body chemistry that can heal the endothelial cells.
So largely lifestyle habits in diet, exercise and sleep regulate good nitric oxide production that allows blood vessels to expand and allow your life-giving blood to flow with its delivery trucks of oxygen and nutrients and garbage trucks to take away your metabolic waste products.
2. The Diet Pathway
The diet pathway bypasses damaged endothelium. It’s like a jumpstart charge to a battery (eNOS) that is low in energy. It’s especially important in diabetes and cardiovascular disease when eNOS is impaired. It’s a 5 step process.
Step 1: Eating Foods Rich in Nitrates (NO₃⁻)
Where from? Leafy greens (spinach, arugula, lettuce), beets, celery, and other vegetables.
How much? 300 mg of nitrate in one meal seems to be the threshold to create enough nitric oxide effect (see below for list of nitrate-rich foods)
What happens? Dietary nitrate is absorbed from the gut into the bloodstream → plasma nitrate levels rise.
Inhibitors: Low-vegetable diets, high processed foods, and cooking/boiling (can leach out nitrates).
I try to eat salad greens in every meal, even putting arugula toppings on my sourdough bread, and my steel-cut oatmeal as nitric oxide is provided for about 90 minutes after chewing these leaves thoroughly.
Step 2: Concentration in Salivary Glands
About 25% of circulating nitrate is actively taken up by the salivary glands.
Salivary glands concentrate nitrate 10× higher than plasma in blood.
Inhibitors: Dehydration (reduces saliva flow), certain drugs (e.g., proton pump inhibitors may alter salivary nitrate handling).
This highly concentrated nitrate is slowly released by the salivary glands into your saliva for the next 90 minutes. Just consider the steady stream of nitric oxide coursing from mouth to blood to cells. This is the difference between chewing your veggies and just blending them and drinking it without mixing with your saliva. Also by chewing you increase the blood flow to your head and brain.
Step 3: Reduction to Nitrite (NO₂⁻) by Oral Bacteria
In the mouth, commensal anaerobic bacteria (on tongue and in crypts) reduce nitrate → nitrite.
This is essential: humans don’t have the enzyme for this conversion — we rely on bacteria.
Inhibitors:
Antibacterial mouthwash (kills bacteria that perform this step).
Chlorinated water (tap water) can reduce bacterial activity.
Poor oral microbiome health (antibiotics, lack of diversity).
Some toothpastes alter the oral bacteria
Again chewing here allows the bacteria to break down the nitrates in your veggies into nitrites which can then be turned into nitric oxide in the stomach below.
Step 4: Swallowing Nitrite & Stomach Conversion
Saliva rich in nitrite is swallowed.
In the acidic stomach, nitrite → nitric oxide (NO) + other reactive nitrogen species.
This NO diffuses locally (helping with gut defense) and into circulation.
Inhibitors:
Low stomach acid (hypochlorhydria, PPIs) → less conversion to NO.
Alkaline antacids.
Proton pump inhibitor drugs for ulcers
Step 5: Circulation and Tissue Conversion
Remaining plasma nitrite can be converted to NO in tissues, especially low-oxygen environments (like exercising muscle, ischemic heart tissue).
This provides a “backup system” for NO when oxygen or eNOS is limited.
Inhibitors: Oxidative stress rapidly degrades NO, smoking (scavenges NO), high-fat processed diets (increase superoxide).
Exercise enhances nitrite conversion to nitric oxide in tissues due to lower oxygenation as you exercise, which then expands your blood vessels for more blood and oxygen as you breathe faster and blood circulates more thoroughly in the muscles that require oxygen and nutrients to produce energy.
Highest Nitrate Foods
Foods targeted for heart health must be chewed and digested as nature intended.
Dr. Kevin Ham
How Long Dietary Nitrate Powers NO
15–30 minutes after eating a nitrate-rich meal (e.g., beet juice or leafy greens), plasma nitrate levels start rising.
Within ~1–3 hours, plasma nitrates and nitrites peak significantly. In one beet juice study, nitrates rose about 6-fold; nitrites 4-fold.
The half-life of elevated plasma nitrates is 5–10 hours, meaning enhanced NO availability persists over several hours. MDPI
Approximately 25% of plasma nitrate is recycled via the salivary glands, becoming up to 10× concentrated in saliva versus plasma. Oral bacteria then reduce it to nitrite, which converts to NO in the stomach.
Food as Medicine
Food is not merely pleasure, hobby or calories.
Food is chemistry. Food is pharmacology. Food is medicine.
So not only blood vessel rejuvenation but also a symphony of foods work together to lower all the various offenders that produce disease. Reminder from last week’s Reversing heart disease protocol.
Pomegranate juice: reduced carotid IMT by 30% in one year
Garlic (aged extract): lowered coronary plaque volume by 8% in diabetics over 12 months
Oats & flaxseed: soluble fiber binding cholesterol, lowering LDL, calming inflammation
Berries: antioxidants halting LDL oxidation
Natto & vitamin K2: pulling calcium out of arteries and back into bone
Leafy greens & beets: nitrate reservoirs for nitric oxide
Each food targets a different mechanism.
Together, they form a multi-targeted cocktail without side effects.
Drugs vs Foods
We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it useful.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching 11
Drugs
Statins: LDL ↓50%, plaque regression ~1% after 2 yrs (ASTEROID).
PCSK9 inhibitors + statins: LDL ↓60%, plaque regression ~1% in 18 mo (GLAGOV).
Foods
Lifestyle (Ornish): LDL ↓37%, angiographic regression in 1 yr, sustained for 5 yrs.
Esselstyn: LDL <80 mg/dL (↓60-70%), total cholesterol <150 mg/dL, disease arrested or reversed, 95% no recurrent events.
Triple Therapy Reversal (Food, Exercise, Fasting)
My results: LDL ↓ 64% in 12 weeks (168 → 61); CIMT reversal 1.8mm to 0.86mm (full reversal in carotids in 3 months)
Drugs change numbers. Food, exercise, and fasting heal the system.
The Stomach Constraint
Every system has a bottleneck. In business, it’s production capacity. In the body, it’s the size of the stomach and the amount of blood to supply nutrients and remove metabolic waste.
You can only eat so much. Every bite displaces another.
Why fill the stomach with endothelial toxins — refined oils, sugary desserts — when the same constraint could be used for healing foods?
The stomach becomes the site of choice. The constraint forces a decision: the Tree of Life or the toxic fruit.
Do We Eat for Taste or for Health?
We’ve been conditioned to desire to eat food that is marketed as delicious, for taste. To try food as an experience by visiting top reviewed restaurants, with Michelin stars or rave reviews by food critics. To enjoy the convenience of simple, fast, cheap crunchy, sugary delight in fast foods.
It is perhaps only our parents who emphasize that we should eat for health, but for the most part this sage advice is ignored but their words may echo in our hearts when we receive the diagnosis of a disease.
What do you eat for?
For taste and pleasure or perhaps status and experience?
Or for life and health?
If both could be true, even better.
I am working with artisans and food companies to create wholesome, healthy, tasty, pleasure-filled experiences. Check out 123dough.com and 123dough.ca (but we have yet a long way to go to reach our ideal vision).
Reflection
The whole is a symphony of parts that all work together in a rhythm that is marvelous and profound.
Dr. Kevin Ham
How can such simple foods with no ingredient labels cure our number one disease killers, if we replace the foods that industry promotes by enticing marketing, accessibility, speed and cost but very low quality?
Life-Changing Question
What nitrate rich foods can you add daily to each meal and replace with foods that causes inflammation?
Literally can be life-saving in a matter of years.
Next week—
Reversing Diabetes in 3 months
Diabetes is even easier to reverse than heart disease.
Appendix
Foods that have high nitrates.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Shock of Death
How I Reversed My Clogged Arteries in 3 Months
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
King David Psalm 90:12
My friend Rob Thompson, 58, passed away suddenly from a heart attack while on his elliptical trainer at home in San Francisco on February 10, 2025. His wife, a physician, asked everyone at his memorial on March 9 to get a Calcium CT heart scan. I got mine done on May 5, 2025. A few days later, I looked at my results. A shocking score of 500 indicated severe atherosclerosis, clogging of my heart arteries. On June 17, I underwent a Cleerly CT angiogram, which revealed multi-vessel plaques obstructing multiple vessels: 77%, 55%, 45%, 29%, 25%, and many others. This was absolutely shocking to me because just earlier this year, I felt great. I thought I was in the best shape of my life, and my heart was in excellent shape.
Death by heart disease is the #1 killer in North America and #1 globally. Cancer is fast rising to eclipse it in developed nations. 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women will get this disease.
Heart disease will manifest in males starting at age 40 and heart attacks in the early 60s.
Females will manifest heart disease in their 50s and heart attacks in their early 70s due to the protective effects of estrogen and menstruation. This disease will affect you or someone you know and may already be occurring silently within you. The first appearance for those who harbour this disease is death by heart attack.
Making a Life Decision to Change
No disease that can be treated by diet should be treated with any other means.
Maimonides
The morning after I read my results, on May 9, I started on a 10% low-fat vegan diet, eliminating all oils, nuts, and any vegetables high in saturated fats like avocados and coconuts.
On August 19, I did a CT Heartflow to measure the blood flow of my coronary arteries as well as my 3-month bloodwork. I also had a Carotid Intima Media Test (CIMT) to assess the thickness of my carotid arteries in my neck, which serves as an indirect measure of plaque. A year prior, my right carotid had a thickness of 1.8mm and my left 1.6mm. This indicated severe atherosclerosis, worse than that of a normal 85-year-old. The ultrasound tech told me I had a lot of plaque, more than normal, but I didn't take it too seriously.
The day before the CIMT, I did a modified exercise stress test for athletes at UBC Sports Cardiology. The last three minutes of the 12-minute period were extremely hard. I do weekly 80 km bike rides up hills and mountains, and gran fondos of 122 km from Vancouver to Whistler at average speeds of 31 km/hr, and yet I was surprised how hard the last minute of this stress test was. My cardiologist said I passed, and he cleared me for no limits on exercise. Whew! I had no symptoms at all from my clogged arteries… yet. I kept him for an extra half hour, peppering him with questions and sharing my hypothesis on how to reverse all plaque, including my 77% blockage.
Full Reversal of My Plaques
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
Ezekiel 36:26
I received the results of my CIMT, which showed 0.86mm in my right carotid and 0.83mm in my left, with no plaque visible. This is high normal for a 55-year-old, which is how old I will be in just 3 weeks. So, a drastic decrease in vascular age from worse than an 85-year-old to normal for a 55-year-old in just three months! And no plaque visualized!
Even the best studies with high-dose statins show only 0.01mm to 0.03mm changes in 12 to 36 months. These drug studies are among the few that achieved a slight reversal, in the hundredths of mm, a reversal that most studies fail to demonstrate, even when comparing to controls that show a 0.01 to 0.03mm increase in thickness per year.
Pomegranate juice, in a small study of 10 non-randomized people vs control, however, showed a remarkable 13-30% decrease in thickness in 12 to 36 months, whereas controls increased 9% in thickness. It also decreases systolic blood pressure by 8 mmHg. How is it possible that pomegranate juice can reverse atherosclerosis better than even the best drugs?
The Power of Healing Food
Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.
Hippocrates
I realized the answer with my first hypothesis that drugs manage symptoms and numbers, but do not do much to treat root causes and tap the healing power of the human body and immune system. I began by postulating from fundamental health and body principles how to enable the body to heal itself, much like a fractured bone, which can heal in just 6 to 12 weeks, provided it is in a cast and, in the case of a compound fracture, supported by pins and screws. The cast and pins don't heal; they only prevent further damage so that the body can heal the fracture. So I set about pondering what the cast for my fractured arteries and my fractured retina. I was diagnosed with wet macular degeneration in May 2020, which I believe to have common root causes with my heart vessel disease.
If I set the right cast for my blood vessels and optimized my lifestyle, that is my diet, exercise, fasting and sleep, I could achieve amazing healing in just a few months and certainly under a year. So while I am amazed and delighted at my almost miraculous CIMT results, I am not too surprised.
Amazing Blood (Results)
For the life of the flesh is in the blood.
Leviticus 17:11
Then I received my bloodwork. I had already remarkably halved my LDL cholesterol from May at 168 mg/dL (4.34mM) to 84 (2.17mM) in just five weeks and then 75 (1.9mM) in 8 weeks. Now it has declined to just 61 (1.58mM) in 3 months, a 64% decrease! My goal is to get it to the low 40s by year's end so my HDL can pull lipids out of my plaque to reduce them in size, including the calcified plaques.
My other hypothesis was that if I were to have a higher level of HDL (the lipoprotein that carries cholesterol from tissues and arteries back to the liver) than LDL (the lipoprotein that carries cholesterol from the liver to tissues and arteries), then HDL would pull the lipids and cholesterol from my arterial plaque.
My LDL was 168 and HDL 60 just three months ago and now my HDL was stable at 62 and my LDL had dropped to 61.HDL was now higher than LDL. Wow!
This would mean that instead of adding to my existing plaques by LDL, the HDL would now export cholesterol out of my plaques to reduce them. I knew this was possible because my friend Raz has an astonishingly high HDL of 129 and LDL of 84. He increased his HDL by 30 in just a couple of months by fasting three days twice over a 5 week period and walking and swimming daily. I was now in plaque regression chemistry. Now my exercise regimen and weekly fasting strategy will work even better.
A few more specific markers for heart disease are Apolipoprotein B (ApoB) which measures this protein in all lipids that can induce atherosclerotic plaque and lipoprotein a (lpa), which is mostly determined by genetics and not modifiable by diet and lifestyle.
My ApoB dropped from 75 to 45 (40% decrease) and my lipoprotein a dropped from 40 to 25, an astounding 37.5% decrease in just two months! These results astounded me. They confirmed that these were better than a high-dose statin drug that all my doctor friends advised me to go on right away.
And lp(a) is not supposed to be modifiable by lifestyle, and even niacin and the most potent targeted drugs reduce this modestly in the 10-20% range, but they have side effects. My only side effect was that I lost 12 pounds in 3 months. In the past week, I ate double portions and gained back 5 pounds. I went from 146 lbs to 133.4 lbs and am now at 138 lbs. I am fitter, stronger and now 'clearer' than three months prior.
I am greatly looking forward to my results in the next three months. Studies show that the most amazing results are frontloaded in the beginning and then improvements decline, but I am thinking that now that my body chemistry is cholesterol efflux from my plaques, I will continue to get great results in the coming year.
I am fully expecting 100% blood flow in all my coronaries within two years. Now, I am even wondering if I can heal my wet macular degeneration and perhaps even my tinnitus (ringing in the ears), which I am postulating is an issue due to atherosclerosis in the vessels going to the ear. The smaller the blood vessel, the greater the impact plaques will have.
Size and Shape Matters For Life
We mold clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it useful.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching 11
Carotid arteries in the neck are 6-7mm.
Coronary arteries are 3-4 mm, and smaller branches are 1.5-3 mm.
My biggest block in my diagonal artery is 2.5-3mm, so quite large and prominent for a branch. CT shows it is actually larger than my left anterior descending artery, which is one of the three big coronary arteries. So the 77% obstruction in my diagonal is very significant!
The carotids can heal faster due to the laminar shear stress from exercise when the conditions are right to reduce plaque (low LDL, low apoB, low lp(a) and high HDL). They are larger and straighter. I think of it like pressure washing my clogged arteries, which will revive the inner lining of my arteries, the endothelial cells, to produce nitric oxide. Nitric oxide is the magical gas that dilates and strengthens the arterial walls. I deduced that my optimal heart rate to induce such pulsatile intermittent (1-5 minutes) laminar shear stress to activate the endothelial cells is 130-160 beats per minute (bpm).
So, when I exercise now, I do high-intensity interval training, repeating this 10-20 times. This involves 3-5 minutes of high intensity, followed by a period of rest when I let my heart rate drop back to 100 for a few minutes, and then repeat. It's like water chipping away at rock. I have 300 cubic metres of plaque, comprising 200 cubic metres of hard calcified plaque, which is safer as it won't burst and cause heart attacks, and 100 cubic metres of soft lipid plaque, which is easier to remove.
The worst kind of plaque is low attenuation plaque, which causes heart attacks when it bursts and clots the entire vessel. I only have 0.1% of this risky plaque, so I exercise very prescriptively to remove all the dangerous and soft plaque. That would reduce 33% of my plaque. This reduction yields greater blood flow because the soft plaques sit within the lumen of the vessel, whereas most of the calcified hard plaque is located in the wall of the blood vessel and does not obstruct the lumen. The volume area increase for blood flow is exponential as I reduce the soft plaque.
Doing the Impossible
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Once I have accomplished this, I will think from first principles about how to possibly reduce the calcified plaques, which everyone is telling me is impossible. I am asking God for wisdom in this. I believe this is possible when I think about bones becoming osteoporotic via osteoclasts, so why not calcified plaques that generally shouldn't be there but formed to protect us from harm when the endothelial cells of our blood vessels were damaged due to oxidized, inflammatory foods, heated oils, high blood pressure, smoking, alcohol, stress, etc. I believe a combination of high HDL and low LDL with high natural Vitamin K2 (takes calcium out of tissues and into bones and teeth) from foods like natto and frequent laminar sheer stress plus autophagy via fasting could possibly do it. Let's see in the coming year or two.
It's incredible to me that what took decades to build up and make plaque can be reversed by food, exercise and fasting in a matter of months to years.
Heal Thyself Physician
The best physician is also a philosopher.
Galen
I am an avid reader of the Bible. These days, I am reading the books of Kings and Chronicles. One king, King Asa, was a very great and good king, but late in the 39th year of his reign of Judah, he had a severe disease in his feet. "Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians." Then he died in the 41st year of his reign. I pondered this. How much must he have suffered. How much he must have relied on the physicians. But he did not enquire or seek the Lord in his illness. I am a physician myself. The proverb, "Heal thyself, physician," comes to mind. Can I heal myself? Can drugs heal me? Can a stent heal me? These will delay or slow down the progress of the disease or give me more years but they will not heal me.
All of my physician friends were saying what I contemplated doing was impossible. One older doctor friend, Dr. Barron, out of genuine concern, came to convince me to get a stent, just as he had, and go on statins and baby aspirin. I presented him with my CIMT and CT Heart Flow results, which showed 0.75 effective blood flow in my 77% obstructed Diagonal branch. Additionally, I highlighted the significant decreases in my lipids and low inflammatory markers, including an hsCRP of 0.2 and all other cardiac-specific inflammation markers, all of which were remarkably low.
I had decided when I received my diagnosis that I would dedicate my heart to seek the Lord's wisdom and His guidance in all things and glorify the Lord with all my healings.
When he saw my remarkable results and progress in just three months, he said he would like to learn more and do what I am doing.
Healing Myself to Heal Others
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
Rumi
I have a 90-year-old father with high blood pressure: 180/80. A year ago when I measured it, it was 220/120, a hypertensive emergency. I asked him what he was eating and drinking, and found out he was adding a tablespoon of salt to his water 4-5 times a day. I wondered whether I should bring him to the ER or get a prescription right away.
I decided to remove the salt from his drinks first and monitor him. It came down over the next month to 170/85. I then asked him to skip a meal in the morning, as he had gained a lot of weight, particularly around his abdomen. He was perhaps 30 pounds over ideal weight. He lost about 16 pounds. But his blood pressure remained high. I got my brother to bring him to his doctor to get a prescription for hypertension, but he has been resistant. He is about to start a new bp med.
I asked him if he wanted to try my healing reversal protocol, but my prescription is food, exercise and fasting. I explained to him the principles of how food can not only reduce blood pressure but also heal the blood vessels to naturally expand again. Exercise would enhance this, and fasting would accelerate this.
I explained why fasting, starting with limiting the same meals within a time window of 8 hours, will have the same effects as a BP drug, which is what he had.
He had a stroke in 2014, which left his right side paralyzed for a month. I found two food supplements that were miraculously able to help him regain 80% of his mobility. The rehab doctor said that this was impossible, and he was a miracle: green tea tablets and Smooth (omega 3s from anchovies and sardines).
So I knew he had blood vessel disease, and high blood pressure was a byproduct of a malfunctioning endothelial cell layer. Now that he is 90, his blood vessels are like steel pipes and are unable to dilate effectively. BP meds are not going to be able to cure his high blood pressure and underlying root causes.
Simple Healing Meals
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food
I gave him my morning breakfast of steel-cut oatmeal with chia seeds, ground flax seeds, berries, natto, some greens, beans, fermented black garlic, all neatly displayed on top like dressings. I also added some seaweed (nori) that had no oil or salt. I added some aurum mineral salt. This is my advanced breakfast.
The easy breakfast version would be:
Steel-cut oatmeal (boil under low heat for 20 minutes) topped with
1 tablespoon of chia seeds and 1 tablespoon of ground flax seeds
Berries (blueberries, strawberries, blackberries) / sliced apples/grapes
Greens such as arugula or salad mix
Pinch of quality mineral salt
He mixed it up, ate, and said he could eat this for breakfast. The taste was decent. The berries give it that flavour. I also added 5 tablets which contain spirulina, chlorella (algae) and green tea powder, which can reduce LDL by 20% and the steelcut oatmeal with chia/flax another 20% plus the greens, beans and berries another 10%. That's how I cut my LDL in half in 5 weeks, and ten of those days I was travelling in Korea when I couldn't fully adhere to my prescribed food diet.
Then I gave him the choice: my food diet prescription or the new blood pressure medication. He had a dry cough as a side effect of his first ACE inhibitor BP med. He chose my food diet. So I gave him half a grapefruit.
Consuming one red grapefruit daily can decrease LDL levels by up to 20% (with caution when taken with statins, as it increases the statin's duration in the body) and triglycerides by 17% over 30 days in patients with hyperlipidemia. White/blond grapefruit had half these results, so opt for red, whole, organic grapefruits. I eat half to one a day.
Then a cup of green tea, then 50 ml of pomegranate juice (later I will either add beet juice or beetroot powder to accelerate lowering of his bp).
On my biking days, I add 2-3 slices of ancient grain sourdough bread topped with balsamic vinegar, sliced apples and salad greens, like open-faced sandwiches.
My lunches are:
Salad greens, topped with
Berries, apples or oranges
Beans (lentils, black, kidney) for protein or
Chilli with beans
+ Sourdough bread with balsamic vinegar.
My dinners are:
Whole-grain pastas (no white flour) with low-fat tomato sauce or
Whole rice (brown rice) (no white rice) with
Variety of vegetables
Fermented foods
Variety of fruit
Variety of beans
It's so simple that I can even make my own meals.
I'm also going to help Fred, a 71-year-old church friend, reverse his long-standing diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and obesity, which requires multiple drugs. I believe I can help reverse all his comorbid diseases in three months, and it might take longer, by six months. I have been simplifying my Heart Reversal Protocol to make it easier to implement, as my version is the Advanced Protocol. I am excited to start experimenting to see such results in others. I believe both my 90-year-old father and Fred are at high risk for a cardiovascular event in the next 3-5 years, so I want to help reverse their diseases.
Reflection
Have you pondered the wisdom of medicine that prescribes medication to fix your symptoms and labs, but not the root causes?
Dr. Kevin Ham
Why do people develop insulin resistance and eventually diabetes as they get into their twilight years, when this disease was almost non-existent when our food supply was more 'normal'?
The same goes for atherosclerotic heart disease, autoimmune disease, cancers and allergies.
Life-Changing Question
What disease might be silent inside of me before it becomes outwardly apparent?
If modern day disease is chronic and only manifests itself when it clogs arteries 70% or more, or when it is over a billion cells (0.5 cm on CT scans) for cancer, shouldn't we examine what we eat, how we eat, how we move and exercise and how we give our bodies rest through not eating all the time, having peace of mind and good sleep?
Next week—
Why Triple Therapy of Food, Exercise and Fasting (Rest) Resets You Rapidly
How to change your health paradigm through health principles
See you next Thursday!
Appendix
Foods that decrease LDL cholesterol.
Imagine just having 10 of these in your meals. That would be 50-60% reduction in LDL.
The other side of the coin is that you get efficient healing if you remove the foods that increased your LDL in the first place. Ie. heated oils, transfats, refined sugars, any foods that spike your blood glucose, too much saturated fats, unfiltered coffee…
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
My Heart Is Clogged 77%! And You?
Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.
King Solomon Proverbs 4:23
A Korean War study examined the coronary arteries of American soldiers who had died in their 20s and found that 70% of them had atherosclerosis, with 5% having up to 90% narrowing of the arteries.
The Law of 70s
<70% obstruction doesn't give symptoms of chest pain (angina), shortness of breath or fatigue. Most likely will have a negative stress test with <70% obstruction.
70% of heart attacks happen to those with normal LDL cholesterol levels.
70% of heart attacks are caused by early smaller soft plaques in the coronary arteries rather than the older morecalcified obstructive plaques.
My friend Rob Thompson had died suddenly of a heart attack at just 58 years old on February 10, 2025. He was fit, strong and great. His arteries were later found to be clogged 90% in the Left Anterior Descending (LAD) coronary artery, also known as the 'widow maker', and 80% in the Right Coronary Artery (RCA), a >70% chance of sudden death. At his memorial, his wife Anita, an internal medicine physician, advised everyone to get a calcium heart scan. So I did. My calcium score in my heart vessels was 500, extremely high. Only 10% of people my age have a higher score.
A few weeks ago, I went to San Francisco to get a CT Angiogram that shows the types of plaques (soft, mixed or calcified) and degree of obstructions in my coronary vessels.
I have triple vessel disease in all the main highways of the heart.
77% blockage in D1, the first diagonal branch of the LAD
48% blockage in the RCA
55% blockage in RI, branch off the Left Circumflex Artery
I've likely had these plaques progress over 30 years, with much slower progression as I improved my lifestyle over the past 20 years, and especially over the past 5 years. But the danger of a heart attack is likely not from these blockages.
70% of heart attacks occur from plaques that are more newly formed, that are not calcified. These can rupture, like a pimple, and their content can lead to a blood clot that suddenly fully obstructs the heart vessel. In these cases, a stent is life-saving as it allows blood to flow. In stable obstructions, with adequate coronary blood flow, a stent may not be as useful long term as stents have side effects.
I've been doing extensive research on how to arrest and reverse the plaques. It is possible. Many studies show not only arrest but reversal. A new drug, a PCSK9 inhibitor that reduces LDL to very low levels, has shown the reversal of plaques. I think I will be an expert on the heart over the next few years. Although I am a n=1, meaning one test subject who plans to conduct numerous experiments and data collection via blood and imaging studies, my goal is to stabilize and reverse as much as possible any and all blockages.
I believe I have developed a lot of collateral vessels below the obstruction that have allowed me to bike without any symptoms. The human body adapting to disease is amazing.
Five Principles of Healing
This solidifies more than ever for me the five principles for healing.
Prevent the cause(s)
Remove the cause(s)
Add the cure(s)
Be clear and stay clear
Understand and educate the mechanisms to others after results are clear
A New Life Mission
Reverse Heart Disease
When I was 14, I lay in the hospital bed, unable to move, unable to eat, hooked up to an IV for weeks with severe joint pain. I remember wondering if I would live and what was happening to me. I asked the universe these questions. I didn't believe in God at that time. I decided if I were to live, I would become a medical doctor. I recovered from my autoimmune disease, but while my mission to become a medical doctor remained, my lifestyle habits did not change and were very unhealthy, full of junk food and 4-6 hour sleep days.
Now, as I reflect, turning 55, I am very grateful for these past 54+ years. I am grateful for each day. I am grateful to Rob Thompson, my dear friend, without whom I would not have gotten a calcium heart scan and would not have known about my own severe heart obstructions. I am grateful to God for a new life mission to live a better and healthier lifestyle that can arrest and reverse heart disease. I am grateful to all the scientists and doctors who have spent their lives in this endeavour and shown what is possible.
I've narrowed my list down to what is actionable for me. I want to document my heart journey once each month, not only for my own records, but also in the hope that it might help save someone's life now and in the future. Heart disease, along with cancer, is the #1 killer in North America. Heart disease claimed 680,981 people in 2023, and cancer, 613,352 in the US. I'm working with Dr. Azra Raza, a good friend and an even better oncologist and cancer researcher who has found the first cell that leads to cancer. She's found a likely cure.
Most of my doctors are highly suggesting I go on a high-dose statin and baby aspirin. I am considering foods that can achieve the same effect to reduce LDL from 162 to 70 within six months. I started on the Esselstyn diet a month ago. I'll monitor my blood work monthly. I have high iron and giving blood helps reduce iron levels which are oxidative. I'll have a carotid intima-media thickness test (CIMT) every 3 months to measure plaque in my carotid arteries, where I already have documented plaques of 1.6mm and 1.9mm (<1.5mm ok) in July 2024. I'll repeat my CT calcium score and CT angiogram in a year.
My Ham Diet for Heart Disease Reversal:
My eye diet has allowed me to forego my monthly paid for $4000 Eyelea shot in each eye for wet macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness, for two years. My ophthalmologist was very concerned about even stopping them monthly initially, but I had stabilized my eyes through diet and exercise over the past five years since I first had my right eye distorted vision in May 2020, and now it seems stable and clear. I believe this eye diet of removing all seed oils, heated oils (no fried foods), refined sugars (baked goods and desserts but now also removing white flour and white rice and added natural sugars like maple syrup but allowing a teaspoon of honey with a meal), and almost all processed foods from my diet has also helped my heart these past five years.
I have reread Dr. Esselstyn's book, Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease. I am very motivated to do my best to follow his diet prescription while stacking other proven methods for lowering oxidized LDL and reversing coronary plaque. I've uncovered dozens, but I am starting with the top ten I can follow. I also plan to continue my high-intensity interval training, but reduce the intensity to Zone 3 (FTP) and some Zone 4 (VO2max) and stay out of Zone 5 (anaerobic). I will also do 24-hour fasts weekly and a 72-hour fast monthly to reset my metabolism and enhance autophagy (the process of removing toxins, weak cells, and cancer cells).
I'll update my heart journey in a month!
If you are over 40, please get a baseline calcium heart scan and carotid CIMT to rule out severe heart disease—less than $200 USD in the US and $700 in Canada.
May you live long and prosper and be in good health.
Life Question:
How healthy is your heart?
Lifespan is how long you live.
Healthspan is how long you are healthy.
Make your healthspan as long as your lifespan.
Despite my max heart rate being able to reach 195 and I am able to be in zone 4 heart rate (172 bpm) for over 2.5 hours, my arteries are clogged. My resting heart rate is 40 bpm as I am very fit. My VO2Max is over 50. Yet I am at high risk for a heart attack. I look very fit on the outside. I have started doing weights to reduce the decline in my muscles and bones, as the rate of decline accelerates after age 55.
What I desire in addition to being fit and strong is to be clear in body, mind and spirit now. I'm focused on my three biggest constraints: my heart, then my eyes, then my sleep.
See you next week! Back to business.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Is Your Heart filled with Gold or Is It Clogged?
This could save your life, or your parents or a loved one.
Is Heart Disease Stalking You?
Your heart needs to be open, for from it comes the source of life, your blood.
Just a few weeks ago, I completed my weekly 75 km ride with a hard 23-minute effort in a three-hour ride. I felt strong and fit. 200-watt average, and I thought that at my age of soon-to-be-55 years, I was in the best cardio fitness of my life.
My goal is to increase my VO2Max because it's one of the best predictors of longevity. Then, keep it up until my 80s with 30-minute high-intensity interval bike rides three times a week.
My dearly departed friend Rob Thompson died of a sudden heart attack at age 58 on Feb 10, 2025. His wife, Anita, a physician, implored their 1000s of friends at his celebration of life to get a calcium heart scan. So I got one a couple of weeks ago. My friend Jesse said he was 100% sure I would get a great result. I wasn't so sure, as I ate junk food and fried foods for decades until my mid-30s.
A score of 0 is excellent. My wife delightfully got that 0 score. Me? I was expecting a score of around 200-300--moderate atherosclerosis. I was somewhat shocked to see a score of 500, which signals possible severe atherosclerosis. This score places me in the top 90% percentile for my age group, requiring further investigation to see how much my coronary arteries are clogged.
Your Arteries Start Developing Plaque in Your 20s
The flow of life is impeded by processed foods, stress and lack of sleep.
Dr. Kevin Ham
A Korean War study examined the coronary arteries of 300 American soldiers who had died in their 20s and found that 77% had visible signs of coronary atherosclerosis (plaque buildup in arteries) and 45% had moderate to severe narrowing (≥50% luminal stenosis) in at least one major coronary artery. The soldiers were, young (early 20s), lean, physically fit and had no known symptoms of heart disease. I had a hunch from this study that the sins of my dietary past would be hard to erase. Last year, my neck arteries and carotids showed mild atherosclerosis, so I expected the same in my heart.
When I saw my score of 500, I thought the worst-case scenario was my arteries being clogged by 80%+. But logically, this made little sense to me as I had no chest pain or shortness of breath, even when riding with the fastest bike riders in the city or with pro riders. Could my arteries be that blocked? Did my atherosclerotic plaques calcify because they were older?
Here’s what I learned.
Hard calcified plaques don't cause heart attacks, even though they may narrow arteries.
Soft uncalcified plaques, which aren't detected on calcium heart scans, can cause heart attacks as they rupture into the blood stream, blocking blood flow.
A rate of calcification and soft plaque formation greater than 15% signals a high risk of a cardiac event in the next five years.
A calcium heart scan has the radiation equivalent of a year's worth of background radiation.
Women have less atherosclerosis and lag behind men by 7 to 10 years due to the protective effects of estrogen and menstruation.
Women need to be careful after 50 or when they are post-menopause because estrogen declines significantly, and they lose the protective effects.
Due to my eye condition (wet macular degeneration), which is also likely caused by the same atherosclerotic process, I've cut out almost all processed foods, heated oils, fried foods and most refined sugars. But my diet is high fat, up to 40% fat, as I drink kefir, lattes, butter, liver, fish eggs, meats, eggs, etc. My LDL is slightly elevated ("bad") but my HDL is high ("good"). My blood results are good in all other areas except that I have slightly elevated iron, which I can lower simply by donating blood.
How Much Am I Clogged? And You?
We’re all clogged somewhere because of our past. Why don’t we fix that?
Source: Kauvery Hospital
While my calcium score is pretty high, logically, with my VO2Max being high, I'd be very surprised if my coronary arteries were clogged more than 30%. However, this follows the theory of constraint—where is the most constricted area? If only one area is clogged heavily, I need to modify my lifestyle even more drastically.
I keep thinking of Rob. If only he had a calcium heart scan earlier, he would have found out his LAD was 90% clogged and his RCA 80%, giving him a risk of >70% sudden death. His gift to me may reveal issues with my coronary arteries..
I was riding my bike with my daughter, and for the first time in years, I put on my heart rate monitor. As we rode up the hill, I asked how high her heart rate was. 130. Mine was 100. At 12% grade and a harder effort, hers was 180 and mine 130. I then did my own hard max effort for a minute to see how high my heart rate would go. 220 minus your age is a standard max heart rate. My heart rate climbed slowly and steadily to 171. I pushed it harder, and it hovered there. I relaxed and then, after 30 seconds, went hard again to see … 170.
I think my arteries are under 50% clogged, but I will take it easy until I get a CT angiogram, which will disclose the degree of blockage.
Just like Rob's wife, I ask that you get a baseline calcium heart scan if you are older than 40. You can get one for as little as $100-$200 in the US. I had to pay $700 CAD for mine. I plan to buy a CT scanner one day and offer it for $100 CAD, and I hope to save or prolong many lives in Canada on behalf of Rob's legacy.
How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
Not too many doctors will advise you about diet. Doctors aren’t taught food and nutrition, only diagnosis and medical treatments.
Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease. Figure 1. Coronary angiograms of the distal left anterior descending artery before (left image) and after (right image) 32 months of a plant-based diet without cholesterol-lowering medication showed profound improvement.
In 2012, I was praying to God to reveal to me how to cure heart disease. I often liked to hang out at Regent Bible College bookstore, and as I was browsing the Specials Table, I saw a cover call to me, "Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease." What was a health book doing at a Bible bookstore, I wondered.
As I flipped through it, I looked at before and after CT angiograms of a clogged coronary artery having complete reversal in an unstentable area of the LAD. I was shocked. I never heard of clogged arteries being reversed.
The author was Dr. Caldwelll Esselstyn, who was head of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the top medical clinics in America. He was a cardiac surgeon who studied a group of 24 patients with advanced coronary artery disease. These patients could barely walk to his office without stopping for a rest.
He devised a strict low-fat (only 10%), whole food and plant-based diet based on medical studies that would keep LDL cholesterol lower than 70 (1.4 in CAD measurements). He believed that at these low levels, atherosclerosis could not take place. He followed these patients for over 12 years. At the end of the study, none of the 18 patients who followed the diet had further cardiac events (no heart attacks, strokes or deaths). The six patients who did not adhere to the diet had a combined total of 13 cardiac events among them.
When I saw my score of 500, I knew this was the perfect opportunity to measure my own progress over the next year based on diet. I decided I would follow this essentially vegan diet, minus meat, fish, dairy, eggs, nuts, avocados, and all oils for a 10% fat diet. It will be tough for me, but I only have one body and have always wanted to test this because I had assumed I had blockage myself. I will do annual calcium scans and CT Angiograms.
The other diet I want to test is Dr. William Davis's diet, which is a gluten-free, whole food diet that removes processed foods. You can eat meat, eggs, fish, vegetables, and fruits. A low-carb diet. He is a cardiologist but was getting metabolic syndrome (prediabetes, high blood pressure, 'wheat' belly). His thesis is that modern wheat and refined wheat (white bread) causes the formation of many small-sized LDLs, which readily oxidize and form foam cells when the inner lining of the blood vessels are injured by heated oils and refined sugars (processed foods and fried foods).
You can read his book Wheat Belly. He suggest that ancient grains and sourdough fermented breads are likely fine. He's prevented the progression of heart disease in 80% of his patients. He claims to have solved the 20% who were refractory by helping restore their gut microbiome and getting rid of SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), ensuring the thyroid is normal and no problems with gums or teeth. Ensure good levels of your Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Iodine, Magnesium, and omega 3s (EPA/DHA). Take a high-quality multivitamin.
Caveat Emptor
We ask patients who have chest pain what their last meal was. If it was KFC or fast food, the odds of it being a heart attack were quite high. My friend had a 'silent' heart attack with some mild symptoms. She had to have four stents in four of her coronary vessels. Early 50s. I asked her what she had before her heart attack. Five Guys.
China has 11,600 KFCs, increasing by 1350 per year, while the US has 4200. I predict the incidence of heart disease and cancer will rise rapidly in urban China and surpass the US.
If you are addicted to smoking or the Western Diet or have metabolic disease, the solution is simple, but doing it is hard because your dietary and exercise lifestyle have become a habit.
For this, I recommend two books, Atomic Habits and The Compound Effect. A third, if you really like habit-transforming books, is The Slight Edge. Start with Atomic Habits by creating a system and the tiniest version of the habit you would like to do.
Make hard decisions and lifestyle changes now so your life is healthier and easier later. Or, adopt an easy lifestyle now, and it will be hard physically and mentally later.
I pray and hope that this is helpful to you or someone in your circle. Share it with your family and friends and perhaps you too can save a life.
May you live long and prosper.
Life Question:
How long do you want to live and what can you do to make that possible?
I asked a crowd ‘Who wants to live to 100 years?’ and hardly anyone raised their hands. I then asked, how about a healthy 100 years and almost everyone raised their hands.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I do wish to live to 108. Robert Marchand, who set all the world records on the bike for 90 years and older, passed away recently at 109. He's my 'physical' role model.
When I saw my score of 500, I thought maybe I should be content with living an average age of 78. But now I'm determined to help many others because of my own health scare, and I pray that God blesses me with a long life so that I can do more good in the world.
Each day is a bonus day for me since I never expected to live past 40 years when I was younger.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, family. Thank you, everyone, for making life interesting and worthwhile.
Next week:
Another health newsletter or a Wealth Series?
Health on the heart or preventing cancer risk
Investing for the long term or
How I think the world will change because of AI and how it might disrupt you and how you might leverage it in your life and at work.
Please let me know.
I really enjoy receiving feedback. I will do my best to reply.
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
7 Principles of Blood for Life
You understand life, if you understand blood.
In every drop of my blood, there is life, and in every beat of my heart, there is love.
As I studied blood, I was amazed at the lessons it offered about life. Here are 7 principles of blood that can teach us how to live more deeply and meaningfully.
In our first gross anatomy class, the smell of formaldehyde made me nauseous. For others, it was the idea of all the cadavers that we would cut open to study the parts of the body.
Thud! Thud!
A couple of medical students around me fainted. Why does blood have this effect on us? When it's inside our bodies, it symbolizes life and protection. When it's outside, we sense danger and the possibility of death.
Blood is more than life — it's also a bond. "Blood brothers." Our forefathers shed their blood for our freedom. Blood is the bridge between life and sacrifice.
1. Life is the narrow way
The road less traveled is often the one that leads to the extraordinary.
We came out into this world through a very small, narrow path from our mothers. Such is the way of life. Each is unique, each in its time. Similar but different. Don't try to be like others. Try to be more like yourself. Walk your narrow path that only you can walk. No one can walk it for you.
People can guide you, encourage you, and inspire you to walk your own narrow path. The broad path to conform and be like everyone else is a path to ordinary life without depth or genuine hardship that shapes you into who you truly are.
That narrow way was painful, full of labour and birth pangs. Your mother went through it with you as she delivered you. Mother nature will deliver you, too, if you trust her and follow your heart.
2. Life sacrifices
A life of significance is built on the altar of selflessness.
I was curious about how many red blood cells (RBC) we had.
It's 20 trillion. Wow!
They account for 80% of the cells in our bodies. Why so many? They carry the oxygen from the air we breathe. There are 270 million hemoglobin per RBC, carrying eight oxygen atoms each... Unfathomable!
But did you know that each RBC sacrifices itself for every other cell in your body? They lose their nucleus--the blueprint for life — to deliver oxygen, required to produce energy, to every other cell in our body. That's why RBCs look like donuts — no fat nucleus in the middle.
RBCs deliver oxygen in tiny blood vessels called capillaries that are 5 micrometres wide. At 8 micrometres wide, RBCs normally wouldn't 'fit', but because they have no nucleus, they are flexible and can 'bend' into the capillaries. They sacrifice to serve all the other cells in your body.
Without oxygen, we would lose our life in just 5 minutes.
Imagine giving up a part of yourself so that others may thrive. That's a sacrifice without ego, a lesson in humility and service. This is a transcending life.
3. Life flows
Success is not about speed but about consistent, steady flow in the right direction.
Blood must flow for human life to continue. Once blood stops, clots form, leading to strokes or heart attacks.
The business analogy to blood is cash. Cash flow is essential for a business's life. Like water, it flows from areas of abundance to need and then back to abundance. The rich who give to the poor and where there is need receive more in return. But cash is even more valuable with intangible wealth like health, love, and the human spirit.
For our bodies, we call the 'extreme' version of flow exercise. The 'accessible' version we call 'movement'. The 'standard' version we call walking and stretching. Move and flow to be nourished and grow. It is the same for the soul and spirit.
4. Life removes toxicity
Before you can fill your life with goodness, you have to empty it of toxins.
Imagine if we had no toilets, sewage, garbage trucks or landfills. While the life-giving nourishment of oxygen in our blood is essential, removing waste is just as essential.
A basic form of waste in the human body is carbon dioxide, which we breathe out. During the pandemic, I was running with an N95 mask. As I arrived at the restaurant to reserve a table for my family, I fainted — too much carbon dioxide built up, and I was breathing in my CO₂ for ten-ish minutes.
To remove toxicity from your mind, rid yourself of negative thoughts, regrets, and worry. Rid your spirit of sin and anger in your relationships. Purify your being from the inside out.
5. Life protects
Our immune system is the guardian of our body. Our principles are the guardians of our soul.
We also have white blood cells (WBC), which are part of our immune system. They protect us from foreign invaders like viruses, bacteria, and parasites that can infect our bodies. Some are memory cells that produce antibodies — guards who remember the 'most wanted list'. Others are natural killer cells that act like assassins, taking out dangerous intruders.
We have so many bacteria in our bodies- in our guts, skin and mouths. Our immune system has learned how to live symbiotically with other organisms inside our bodies, and the wise have learned to do so with nature.
Heed the lessons of our immune system. Can we protect and serve our fellow humans and find ways to make peace and forgive instead of exact revenge and war?
1:1 Meeting with You
I'd like to do a 30-minute 1:1 with you.
Email me your thoughts and feedback each week, and I'll choose someone each month for a 1:1. Thanks so much. I appreciate your feedback and thoughts. It fuels me to write each week, knowing it is planting seeds in your soul.
6. Life is integrity
Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940-)
Platelets maintain the structural integrity of our blood vessels so that we don't lose blood. Remember your nose bleeds? Females menstruate each month to prepare the uterus for possible life. Life requires sacrifice, preparation, and repair. The highways of life must be maintained.
For our true selves, which reside in our psyche (soul/mind) and spirit, we must maintain our character. We fall short daily, but we must aspire to repair that which is hurt and harmed in ourselves, as well as the damage which we have done to others through our thoughts, words, and actions.
Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
7. Life rests
Rest is not idleness. It is the soul’s way of recharging for its next great move.
The lungs inspire air and then relax to expire. The heart beats to move blood but then rests to fill itself. The eyes see but then blink. The body moves actively but then must rest. Even God, who created the world in six days, rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath.
There is not enough blood in our bodies to actively supply every single cell. We only have 5L of blood, like a big jug of water. That's it. Blood is a scarce resource. The air, liquids, and food we consume become our blood. We must be very careful what we allow into our blood, for it becomes our body. It affects our mind and our spirit.
We must allow our bodies to rest, but our souls, minds, and spirits also need rest.
The body needs rest to restore, the mind needs peace to think, and the soul needs stillness to feel.
My Life Questions:
To ask the right question is already half the solution to a problem.
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
1. What life lesson has blood taught you?
I write this newsletter and receive some feedback but I'd love to get more feedback so I can become better as a person, as a writer and for you.
My Life Lessons Then (from my younger self):
The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles Du Bos (1882–1939)
1. Life is so precious but I often take each day for granted.
I thought I had a lot of time, but the days, months and years have passed by quickly.
2. I mostly sought my own goals and interests, not so much others.
First is surviving, then thriving--but to transcend, one must find and know oneself so that one can be of service to others.
3. Life requires sacrifice and so many people sacrificed their lives for me and believed in me.
My parents, family, forefathers and foremothers, compatriots, friends and Lord, God, my Saviour.
I want to do the same for others.
Life Advice Now (from my present 54 year old self):
Life is short, and it’s up to you to make it sweet.
Sarah Louise Delany (1889-1999)
1. Life is short and very precious.
I wish to be extraordinary by living a life with a greater vision than just of myself. For the future generation. With the remaining time I have left on this earth, I will live it with all my heart and with all my might.
My prevailing thought: Strong body. Stronger mind. Strongest spirit.
2. Life is long and full of opportunities that must be focused and chosen.
If I find only one or a handful of things to focus on, there is a lifetime, which we think of as very long, to do all that is truly put into my heart to inspire others to be their true selves and live brightly like lights in this world.
3. Life is eternal.
We will live on into eternity, like a star that passed a while ago, but its light still shines forth for many years. This is our legacy. We build our legacy each day. It's not at the end. It's from the beginning. It's our life story. You do matter. You do have a legacy. Live it.
Next week:
The Few Things that Make you Unique
What are you a triathlete of? Explore your blend of unique abilities that make you truly unique.
Why fit in when you were born to stand out?
Dr. Seuss (1904-1991)
See you next Thursday!
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.