A Biochemist Reversed His Own Heart Plaque - Here’s How He Did It

He said, you've got 4 years to live. A stent ain't going to work because your pipe's already large. The wall's going to get thinner and thinner and thinner, and it's going to burst. And this is the exact quote that I said to him, my body got me into this mess, my body can get me out of this mess. And he said to my friends, this guy's in denial.

Alright, here's a doozy of an episode. This is a throwback to my conversation with Patrick Thute. He was 48, he was winning 5Ks, he was playing ice hockey, He went to Mayo Clinic for a full physical. He passed every test they gave him. On the way out, he asked for one more. You're going to find out what that is. They told him he didn't need it. He got it anyway. And, what came back sent him down the road that ended with him reversing his own coronary artery disease and regressing plaque. I went through something very similar myself, so this one really stuck with me. I'm still on a plaque regression journey that I'll continue to share with you guys as we go. Super important when it comes to cardiovascular disease management. All the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/HealthyHeart. Enjoy. So, Patrick, welcome to the show. And, I would just love to hear your story about what happened to you and your heart to get you interested in this in the first place.

Well, it all happened by accident in 2001 when I was getting my Tier 1 MBA at the University of Minnesota Carlson School. One of my classmates was the vice chair of psychology and psychiatry at the Mayo Clinic. The class in front of us had the head of cardiology. And, the 3 of us got to talking and they convinced me to get what's called an executive physical. And, it's a 3-day physical. Now, mind you, at that time, I was 48 years old. Running 5Ks, 10Ks, still playing ice hockey. I'm doing fine. Yeah. Well, one thing leads to another. They conjoled me and teased me and all that. So, I went there for a 3-day physical. Honest to freaking God, 3 days. Boy, that was something. And, I passed everything with flying colors as I pretty much assumed I would. But, what was really crazy Was my last afternoon— well, my last morning there, my attending personal care physician said, is there any other tests that you would like run? And, I had heard about these calcium score tests while driving through Chicago almost 6, 8 months earlier. And, I had said, hey, do you have something to do a calcium test or calcium score? They said, yes, we do, but we don't recommend it. Oh. I said, why? They said, because you passed all your tests without a problem. I said, Okay, but don't you have to give me what I ask for? Oh, yeah, we do. I says, okay, I want one. Well, she reluctantly gave me one at 11 o'clock in the morning. That took 5 minutes. It was an EBT scanner, very, very accurate. So then, I go to lunch and that's when it all freaking changed. I had pot roast. Potatoes, gravy, some green beans, and a shooper of beer. I'll never forget that. It was kind of my last meal before— I was going to say, were you trying to game the test? My exit interview was with all the attending physicians. And, I want to say one thing. If it wasn't for the Mayo Clinic, I'd be dead. So, hats off to them. They did a great job. They really did. So, I go into the 1:30 meeting and there's my 2 friends and the other attending physicians based on my various things. Like, the kidney guy was there and the heart guy was there and the this, that, the other thing. I sat down and I said, boy, it looks like somebody just died. My friend, Donny, goes, Pat, boy, you really don't underestimate things or understate things. So, they put on my calcium score on the flat screen. So, they're going through the sagittal sections of my heart and they get to my left main and it's glowing like a rib. And I'm like, that don't look good.

Yeah.

So, one thing leads to another and they say, well, we want to see you next week to do some more detailed testing. I said, as an engineer, good idea. Yeah. It's just how bad bad is. So, that's going with a 337. Only and all in my left main. My left main was completely calcified from the wall of the heart to the branch. Wow. Good Lord. But, my background, I was a pre-med back in another life. So, I knew all human physiology, human anatomy, and all that stuff. I'm pretty good at it. So, I go back the following week, they do a big workup, and they said 10% of the people who have calcium buildup in their arteries, their arteries expand. And, rather than contract. And, that's what we think is going to happen to you based on the genetics of my mother's side of the family because they all died of arterial blowouts, every one of them.

Wow.

Well, he says, the attending cardiologist, great guy, I still keep in touch with him every now and then. And, he said, you've got 4 years to live. Wow. At the progression, at the rate of progression and how bad your left main is and it's the main pipe. And, I said, well, can't you just fix it right now? And, they said, no, can't do that. A stent ain't going to work because your pipe's already large. So, the wall's going to get thinner and thinner and thinner and it's going to burst. I said— and, this exact quote that I said to them, my body got me into this mess, my body can get me out of this mess. And, and he said that to my 2 friends, and they said— and he said to my friends, this guy's in denial. I shouldn't have told him in the first place. And my 2 friends says, oh, we talked to Pat when he left, and he's got that look in his eye. Uh, he'll figure this out. And so, I got back to home. Well, this— well, first time I got back home, I started Really digging through the internet. Back then in the early 2000s, it was all geeky stuff. And, I've got a biochemistry background, a chemistry, physiology, all that background in engineering. So, I could read all that geeky stuff and I could read it pretty quick. And, I started diving into it and diving into it and diving into it and diving into it. And, by the middle of January of 2003, now remember, this is about 8 weeks after all this stuff happened, I wrote a found in Tiburon, California. Now, remember, this is January of 2003 and I said, heart disease is a gut bacteria problem. And, I've got a background in anaerobic bacteria and I kind of know how those little critters work. And, I said, given what happens to people, it's got to be a gut bacteria problem. Wow. He said, what else? Yeah, I says, vitamin D plays a big role. And, in the middle of February, thyroid, free T3 has a huge role in your heart disease. So, by April, I had a game plan. I basically had a game plan that I'm going to fix this and this is how I'm going to fix it.

And, by fix it, you mean specifically going after gut bacteria, vitamin D, and thyroid?

Yeah. Yeah. That and magnesium.

Quick question though, just to backpedal briefly. The gut bacteria piece is interesting. As a matter of fact, in a couple hours, I'm flying down to Phoenix to meet with my dentist, Dr. Eniko Loud down there, who does among other things for my oral health, an oral microbiome test to determine risk for plaque accumulation and cardiovascular disease based on the oral biome. which is tied to heart disease. But, what's the link between the gut bacteria and heart disease?

Well, your body is always talking to your gut bacteria. Case as an example, women who are pregnant, they have these urges to eat certain foods. That's the gut bacteria telling the brain by way of the vagus nerve, hey, we need some nutrition that has to be just like this. To feed the baby. The older you get, the less hormones you have. Case in point, premenopausal women typically don't have coronary disease. Postmenopausal women do. Why? Because their gut bacteria express themselves different because the hormones are expressed differently. So, in addition— In addition to Not getting enough sunlight, a few other things, then vitamin D is basically a hormone. Your gut bacteria start expressing themselves a very certain way. And, that sets the clock in motion to basically, I call it the salmon effect. After about 3 years, salmon just up and die because their bodies change. So, your gut bacteria are constantly talking with your body and your oil gut bacteria, your oil bacteria, Most of those bad boys end up in your gut. And, in working with holistic dentists, when you have D, K, mag, and C together, your oral bacteria are really, really happy and you don't get cavities. I haven't brushed my teeth in 12 years.

Yeah. I mean, what you're saying is a little bit reminiscent of Dr. Weston A. Price's initial research on the so-called mysterious cofactor that he identified amongst a host of people who had really great bones and jaws and teeth and turned out to be vitamin K. But, for the gut bacteria, I'm guessing that if someone were to go out and do a stool analysis and they were to find just general dysbiosis, that that's what you'd be looking for essentially bacterial imbalances in the gut?

That's correct. One of the things that induces it is ticlosiboril. Which is a common antibiotic. Cipro selectively kills the gut bacteria that liberate the K out of your diet or make the K that you need from your diet.

Oh, okay. So, what we're talking about here with dysbiosis is specifically poor absorption or bioavailability of vitamin K based on bacterial imbalances in the gut.

Absolutely correct, Ben. That's exactly it in a nutshell. So, let's say you eat a— I'll just call it, say, tart red cherries. So, what makes tart red cherries cherry-colored is a benzene group attached to a long string of chemical stuff. Your gut bacteria would make K out of that. They know how to do it. But, if you kill the bacteria that do that, now all of a sudden, you don't have K. It'll also liberate the K from the food that you eat. For instance, in the mitochondria of all cells is MK-4. So, if you eat, I'll just call it a carnivore diet, you're bathing your gut bacteria with CoQ10 and MK-4. CoQ10 can be rejiggered into MK-4, MK-13, MK-9, MK-6. But, if you don't have the bacteria that are able to do it, Yeah, that's interesting.

And, by the way, I should throw in here, I interviewed Dr. Barrie Tan 3 weeks ago. Turns out that annatto, the tocotrienols from annatto, can act very similarly to the CoQ10 that you just described, arguably based on his research, possibly better while simultaneously for people taking statins keep levels of CoQ10 and statin-associated muscle soreness balanced based on the tocotrienol and the elements of the annatto plants. So, I'll link to that interview with Dr. Barrie Tan in the shownotes if people want to hear that. But, you also mentioned, just to make sure we establish terms here for people listening in, MK-4. Now, there's a few different forms of vitamin K, right? Yeah.

There's K1, which is phylloquinone, which is basically what you find in broccoli. And then, you have the various MKs called menaquinones with numbers 4 through 13. The common places for MK-4s is in red meat that you eat, and MK-7 is in sauerkraut. And, surprisingly enough, the research from Tufts University Is old, wrinkled sausages that have been hanging in the butcher shop for a month or so. They're loaded with various MKs because gut bacteria will convert that stuff into MKs. But anyway, so getting back to my story. So, I dive into this and I come up with a whole laundry list of all the foods that make a difference in your heart disease. So, I tackled it. And, within 2.5 years, I cleaned out my entire left main. Completely cleared it out.

You mean based on a follow-up calcium scan score?

Yes. To date, I've had 28 of those little bad boys.

Wow.

And one day, I did 2 calcium scans within 2 hours of each other. One was an EBT scanner and the other one was a normal CT scanner. I just wanted to see. I've heard all the stories about what's more accurate. We'll test them both.

Okay. So, At that point when you saw those effects, that was primarily achieved by focusing on gut bacteria, sauerkraut and other fermented sources, magnesium, vitamin D, and thyroid care?

I made sure my iodine levels were normal. My iodine levels were low, but I got them to the normal level. You're just taking— eat more iodized salt. Okay. And, I lost about 30 pounds.

And, were you doing anything else for the thyroid besides iodized salt?

Not a thing.

Okay.

My free T3 was like 3.8, 3.9, which is fine. Yeah. And then, now, I'm not an anti-vaxxer to a To within reason. Well, I was also taking high-dose vitamin C at the same time. I was finally kind of doing the Pauling protocol.

Uh-huh.

And, everything was going fine. My blood pressure was fine. I lost my weight. Scans are looking good. I'm feeling great. So, I'm going to Russia with my son, Eric, So, we could train with the Russian Olympic team between his freshman and sophomore year of high school. Which sport? Track and field.

Track and field.

Okay. Track and field. And so, before I left, my personal care physician, good guy, not a problem. And he said, Pat, why don't you get an MMR? I said, why? He says, well, you're going to what could be possibly called a third-world country. Why don't you just do this, be on the safe side? At that time, I didn't know any better. I said, fine. So, I got it. Well, I get back, my insulin was now just a fuzzled 50. My glucose, my sugar was in the high 200s.

Oh, wow.

My HbA1c was like 8 or 9. And, I was doctoring with Dr. Bill Davis at the time. Great guy. The stuff that Bill Davis has done is just fantastic.

He's been on the podcast 3 times already. He's the first guy I talked to about the calcium scan score, Dr. William Davis.

Yeah, he's a good guy. Top, top track. So, Bill says to me, he looked at my blood work, he said, have you been idle on a cruise ship for the last 3 months? My God, what's wrong with you? Well, I went home and again, my calcium score just went from basically 20 Oh, man. Wow. And, it's like, what the heck? So, my Aunt Phyllis and I, at the time, she was in her late 70s, early 80s, she says, did you do something really stupid? She was a 3rd grade teacher. So, you know, what'd you do? I said, I didn't change a thing. I'm an engineer. I do everything by the book. And, she says, you don't inject yourself with anything? I said, well, I got an MMR vaccination, but what's that? Well, she says, why don't you research that now that you're researching things? So, I started. Oh my God.

Really?

Talk about a Pandora's box. Well, make a long story short, the MMR shut off my thyroid because my TSH went to 7.

Oh, wow.

My insulin was off the charts. My Chronic disease went right through the freaking roof. And, more I researched, the more I realized some vaccines have the propensity of inducing your immune system to attack your gut bacteria. Okay, lovely. So now, I had to get my pancreas fixed. And, at the time, God love him, Dr. Bill Davis was right there standing with me to help me. It just—

And, you had to get your pancreas fixed due to insulin dysregulation that could have been a result of thyroid dysregulation or was the insulin dysregulation separate from that?

They're both separate. What had happened upon further investigation up to that point before I got the NMR, I was at 15 grams of vitamin C a day. I was like 20,000 IUs a day on my immune system. The way it was described to me, my immune system— and I saw it on my blood work. My vitamin, just before I went to Russia, my white blood cell count was ungodly low. And, another personal care physician said, are you okay? I says, I'm fine because I've got the chemistry killing critters. That doesn't mean that I need to get my immune system Well, the way it was described to me was your immune system was like lying on a chaise lounge next to the— right on the beach in St. Thomas or St. Kitts, and somebody walked up and poured a bucket of ice water on it. So, my immune system panicked, in so many words, and it just started attacking things. It went, you know? Because your body is designed to take Viruses and bacteria, molds and funguses and yeast, either through your lungs or through, let's say, cuts and bruises and stuff like that. It's not designed to be injected with stuff, especially if your immune system is sleepy. Well, I started researching on how to fix my pancreas. It takes about 3 years for your body to regenerate itself. All of your organs are regenerated in 3 to 5 years.

And, you're specifically in this case talking about pancreatic beta cell regeneration?

Yep, exactly. So, I did have some— my pancreas was working at a very low level. So, I knew I have some stuff that I could make grow, which is great. Okay. So, I put myself, and I'm not recommending this to your listeners because this is really out there, but I was desperate. My calcium scores were going through the freaking roof. So, I put myself on a diet of, well, chelated vanadium because vanadium used to be what people were given if they had diabetes 80, 90 years earlier.

Well, I know this, by the way, vanadium and secondarily chromium because that's actually— I own a supplements company and we have a blood sugar control product. And, 2 of the primary ingredients are Well, 3 of them are vanadium, chromium, and bitter melon extract for the reasons you're stating. Yeah.

Yep. Ran out of money. That's the way to do it. So, I basically got on vanadium for 3 years, shut my pancreas off basically, and I let my pancreas regrow itself. I got on iodine with thyroid because my thyroid was shot. No doctor would prescribe it for me, so I eventually found some on On the web, ordered up there. And basically, I was in a holding pattern and my calcium score was going at about 5% per year. And, by July of 2010, I'll be very blunt, I was pretty depressed. I'm not depressed, just plain bummed out. It's like, Jesus, what more can happen? So, I locked myself into my house for a week. And, all I did was re-go over my blood work and re-go over all of the research papers that I had read up until that point. I went through everything. I think I got about 3, 4 hours of sleep every night. And, unbelievably, 2 things happened. I looked at some blood work done by my personal care physician out of Traverse City, Michigan, Dr. Katherine Roth, phenomenal doctor. And, she, as an, oh, by the way, did a K1 test on me. By that point, I wasn't really taking K. I'm trying to minimize my variables. And, my K1 was really low. I mean, dangerously low.

And, that's a simple blood test, right? K1?

That's a simple blood test. Okay. So, I looked at my K1. And then, it struck me something that Dr. Bill Davis told me in 2004. Well, his mother was from Japan. And, people from certain areas of Japan have all vitamin K in their diet because they ate natto. And, it's like, what's that?

When I used to race triathlons in Japan, I'd have for breakfast every morning a giant heap of natto with rice wrapped up in a seaweed wrap. I love that stuff.

There you go. So, since I have kind of— I've been accused of having a didactic memory, I kind of Well, I'll be damned. So then, I got on the web and started looking up K1 or phylloquinone. What did I find? A 1999 podcast, YouTube video, whatever, from Dr. Mercola talking about how K1 is implicated in heart disease. I said, well, I'll be damned. So, that's what got me really diving into K. I was desperate. I mean, you know, this thing is still growing and I got to stop it. I got to stop it somehow. So, that's when I first started really doing the K thing. So, I looked at the research and realized how much K I needed, looked at what was available on the internet at the time, and there wasn't any. So, I figured out what I needed to get And then, I needed to find out where to get it. And, that's when I learned about SupplySide West, which is the big vitamin show in Las Vegas. I go there, discover a key of K1, a key of MK-4, and a key of MK-7, and score a couple of keys of magnesium and a couple of keys of D. And, I take that home based on the literature, making my own little pills. To save my life. And, what I did was, if this is right, and now, this is how an engineer looks at things, I deliberately took Crestor, deliberately took it, and drove my LDL down to 70, which is dangerous really. But, I drove it down there. And then, if the Chemistry is correct. And, the statement was your body loves K. Okay. And, since K is carried on the LDL and the HDL and the VLDL particles, if you take K while you're on Crestor, that's the theory, you should see your LDL and HDL go up and with VLDL go up. Even though you're taking Crestor.

And, the mechanism of action for that again would be what?

The mechanism is simple. The liver loves K. The liver will take K that comes through the hepatic portal from the small intestine or the small intestine. It will attach it to the LDL. It will attach it to the HDL. It'll attach it to the VLDL and send it out into your system after it makes sure your clotting and anticoagulating factors are okay.

Okay. So, basically, by increasing the number of passengers necessary to be on the boats, you are initiating an increase in the number of boats in the bloodstream.

Precisely. That was the logic. Well, guess what? 3 months, that's exactly what happened. My LDL doubled, went from 70 to 140. My HDL went up about 20%. And, my VLDL went up 20%. And so, the next step was, okay, now what? Cut out the Crestor and see what happens. So, I cut out the Crestor. And, if everything is correct, my LDL will stabilize. And, it did to this day.

Meaning, it would quit elevating.

That's right. It stayed right there. And then, being me, Good lab rat that I am. What happens if you double your K? Will you then double your LDL and HDL? In theory, that answer is no because your LDL, HDL is a function of hormonal demands in your body and also the demands of your brain as an example for K1 to make the sheathing material for your brain and the sheathing material for your nerves and all that other stuff. So, I doubled my K for 3 months. Nothing happened.

LDL and HDL did not increase when you doubled your K? No.

Everything stabilized. It's just rock solid.

Based on endocrine system regulation of your lipids?

Correct. Because your body makes a hormone called pregnenolone. That's the grandmother hormone. All our hormones are made from pregnenolone. When your pregnenolone level is stabilized, And you have a demand for, let's say, testosterone or estradiol or whatever, it's made out of LDL using pregnenolone, which happens in the kidneys. Okay. My pregnenolone levels stabilized. My hormone levels all stabilized. It was like, well, wow. Now, get your heart scan. So, I got my heart scan, leveled off, didn't change. Yes. I think I figured this out. So then, on top of all of that, now I'm going in the right direction. I'd been divorced at that point for 3 years. And, I run into a lady I start dating. She's a PhD clinical psychologist. And, she says, I found something for you. I said, what? There's a vitamin K conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is June of 2011. Okay. I said, really? She says, let's go meet the experts. I said, sounds good to me. So, off we go to Scottsdale, Arizona, and I meet the top K experts in the world. It was great because I'm a perpetual learnaholic. I love to realize how much I don't know because it keeps me humble.

I can tell.

And then, it allows me to share with people how I learn things and so help out other people. So, I got to meet Sugars and Ramirez and Sebbis and Booth and Sato. And so, I started asking them, if we were going to make a capsule of this stuff because I'm trying to do it for myself, what's enough? And, while they all said you can't take too much of it, okay, they all said—

Vitamin K in any form?

Any form. Any form. They said it's contraindicated with people on warfarin or Coumadin. But, that's a whole other sidebar we can talk about. But, they said, this is what you do. I talked with Sato, Mr. Osteoporosis, from Japan for 3 hours talking about this stuff so I could learn from him. He's the Yoda of osteoporosis. And, in studies, he's since passed, but he was Mr. Vitamin K1. He was Mr. Phylloquinone. So, He's from Madison, Wisconsin. He loved talking to a Yooper. And, you know, we shot the breeze for hours on end. And, he explained to me all the stuff that was never published and the stuff that, through his research, was so intuitive but no one's ever followed up on it. And then, I told him what I'd been doing with what I've been doing. And, they thought that was great that somebody has got the guts to, you know, be the doctor error, like a modern-day doctor error, like to say, hey, let's see what works. So then, I talked to the Schuders and Vermeers about MK-7 and they told me all about that stuff. Great guys, really knowledgeable people. So, when I got back, I started making my own little concoction. And, one of the things that was sidebar that came out of this was if you take enough vitamin K, it'll boost your endurance if you're an athlete. So, if you take a high amount of MK-7, you bind up your peroxides. When you bind up your peroxides, guess what? You don't get tired. And, 2017, North Texas State did a great study on MK-7 and athletic performance. And, being a triathlete, how would you like to have your endurance boosted by 12%? Yeah.

It's like a negative feedback loop. Peroxide buildup will reduce the shuttling of electrons on the electron transport chain because you don't want to build up more peroxides. So, you're essentially sweeping up the garbage more quickly so you can produce ATP without having the mitochondrion, in a word, become exhausted more quickly.

Precisely, man. So, if you're binding up the reactive oxygen species, what's going to happen? You can go for it. You can go for it a lot longer than anybody else can. And, it only turns out it's less than a milligram Less than a milligram of MK-7 will do that. And so, you would say, well, okay, what's the objective evidence? Well, I was a speed nutrition coach for a pole vaulter named Jeremy Scott. He's now finishing up his orthopedic residency. And Jeremy, I had him on a concoction of the Ks, the D, and the magnesium, and the Citrulline and lysine. And, he realized— now, his undergraduate degree is in biophysics. So, this guy was a smart dude. He found that he could train instead of like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, take the weekends off, he could train every day at the same level. In 2010, he was considered an also— I don't want to say also-ran, but he wasn't in the top 10 in the world. In fact, he was not given a shot to even make the UST for 2012. Well, he didn't and he made it to London because he could train every day.

I wonder how much of that was the peroxide mitigation versus how much of that might have been an increase in testosterone or endocrine system function due to more pregnenolone around because vitamin K was being replenished. Could be both.

What he did was he experimented with the K. So, he'd take it and then he would get off it for— well, he tried to get off it for a week. And, he found that after about 3 days, he just couldn't train. He just couldn't train at the level he was training at. Then, he'd take the K again, a 2 or 3-day run-in, boom, he's right back to where he needed to be. So, you could say, well, okay, that was Jeremy. Well, there's another pole vaulter getting ready for Paris, Austin Miller, And, Austin's doing the same thing with the same results. You can train every day.

That's weird after 3 days because I thought vitamin K was a fat-soluble vitamin, so you'd have more than that stored in your system.

Well, that phrase is a misnomer. Vitamin K stays in your system at the most 5 days, at the very most. And, fat-soluble means it rises in your LDL, HDL, and VLDL.

Okay, got

it. It's really, really a misnomer. You can't take too much of it. So, it's kind of like that. So anyway, I started taking a K. And then, in 2012, a number of people said, you should start marketing this stuff. And I said, I don't want to. I'm just having too much fun just kind of helping out my athletic buddies.

At that point, what was in it? What was the amount and the different forms of K that you were taking?

Following the advice of the experts, it had 25 milligrams of MK-4. 5 milligrams of K1 and 0.5 milligram of MK-7 and 2 milligrams of astaxanthin, but it's microencapsulated astaxanthin. It's microencapsulated so it makes it through your gut, through your stomach juices, so it can be bioavailable in your small intestine.

Yeah. That's important, by the way, with astaxanthin. If you are going to take microencapsulated, take it with a meal that contains fats.

That's right. Well, that's really— we launched the business in May of 2013, my girlfriend and I, and we've been curating our site for just all the peer-reviewed literature on K. And, you've been there. There's really no real market. It's all geeky stuff. People complain it's too geeky.

No, it's good. It's good. The name of the product, by the way, that's the Concentrated K. Concentrated spelled with a K, right?

Yeah.

Okay. And, that is the MK-1, MK-4, MK-7, and astaxanthin?

Yes.

Okay. Got it. MK or K1, by the way, that's phylloquinone, right?

Phylloquinone, right.

Okay, got it.

Now, phylloquinone, most people don't— when you ask a doctor and say, if I magically took all the K out of your body, what would happen to your body? A tertiary doctor would say, oh my God, you'll bleed out. You clot up.

Yeah. That's why you're not supposed to take it with blood thinners like warfarin or Coumadin, right?

Well, as it turns out with the warfarin and Coumadin, the latest, I'll just say anecdotal research is out there. People are taking 100 to 300 micrograms in divided doses of MK-7 to stabilize their INR. Because people on warfarin and Coumadin, they die of hardening of the arteries.

What's the INR?

The International Normalized Ratio. It's clotting factors, your prothrombin time. So, what they're finding is instead of having your INR doing one of these things, they found that— this is anecdotal, by the way, but The feedback I've gotten is it works. 100 micrograms in the morning, 100 at lunch, and 100 at dinner, and your INR just stays just steady. And also, it incrementally, from what I've been told, slows down the progression of heart disease.

Interesting. Yeah. So, a couple questions for you. For slowing down the progression of heart disease, in addition to this formula that you've described, would you still advise taking magnesium, vitamin D, and vitamin C? And also, of course, paying attention to thyroid micronutrients like iodine and selenium?

You have to. Thinking about the systems, that's why the stuff I sent you is called reverse calcium transport. The first thing that has to happen is your free T3 has to be right. That, in turn, activates some enzymes, which, in turn, activates the uncarboxylated osteocalcin, which, in turn, Activates the vitamin D, which in turn activates this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, there's what you do. So, I've had many people say, what is the minimum I can do? Because a lot of people call me up and say, well, I'm a senior citizen. I don't have any money. What's the minimum? Well, get your magnesium right. Red blood cell magnesium, get at the high end of the range. Get your vitamin D right, somewhere between— 600 to 1,000. 60 and 100 nanograms per milliliter. You don't need to go over 120, but you don't need to go below 60 either. You got to get your free T3 right. That's either taking sufficient selenium and sufficient iodine or take a supplement. Okay. Really, get your killer on and you'll see because that's part of what's called autophagy, which is a system that's designed To kill foam cells. The whole concept of foam cells, to kill a foam cell, the beta HDL goes in there and sucks the fat out of the foam cell. When it's fed, the ApoA-1 attaches to the beta HDL and that goes back to your liver and sucks the life out of the foam cell. Also, The K1, through the injection basically of messenger RNA, where we heard that before, kills the foam cell. If you don't have enough K1, the cell don't get killed. If you don't have sufficient C, the various, I'll just say, bacterial and viral and fungal insults to your arteries continue. You got to kill this stuff. So, like I said, it's a system. Now, there's one part of the system a lot of people don't talk about. It's called fetuin-A. Now, what's fetuin-A? Fetuin-A is a carrier protein for calcium. It's made in liver. So, it's interesting that you can get fetuin— the fetuin-A test is in ELISA kit. So, it's not like it's some magical thing.

Right. So, is that a blood spot or a blood draw?

It's a blood draw.

Okay.

And, you just use a spectrophotometer. So, It's a straightforward test.

And, that's fetuin? Is that F-E-T-U-I-N-A?

Fetuin-A. Fetuin-A. And, nobody tests for it unless you're a chronic kidney disease patient. But, if you're on dialysis, your fetuin-A levels drop like a brick and you die of heart disease.

Interesting. So, the mechanism of action of fetuin-A would be to limit the amount of calcium in the bloodstream?

No, your magnesium loosens up the calcium. The phetoNA grabs onto the calcium, takes it back to the liver, takes the bone for processing.

Okay, got it.

Interesting. It's the truck.

Yeah. So, probably low phetoNA levels would also be associated with osteopenia or osteoporosis, I would imagine.

That's the theory, but if nobody ever tested it, you'll never know. But, Wouldn't I ask if there's some drug companies trying to make a synthetic fetuin-A? So, what's that tell you? They're not doing it for giggles. They're doing it because they can see a market for it.

If you could do it, how would you normalize fetuin-A?

Don't know because until I get the blood work and then test, test, test, test, test, and some of the things I would try, I have no idea.

Yeah. I was just curious if there were dietary sources or anything like that.

I don't know. The first thing I would do would be to Let's say for myself, I'd work on myself first. I would take 2 milligrams of MK-7 a day for, say, 6 months and test my fetuin-A every week and see what happens. And then, go off it for 6 months and see what happens.

Yeah. Interesting.

See if that made a difference. So, I try MK-4 and K1 and D and I try a bunch of things.

Got it. Yeah, yeah. A lot of functional medicine doctors, they'll certainly endorse a protocol similar to what you've just described, although I would say with not as much emphasis on a full spectrum of vitamin K as you've noted. But, what about the fact that many of them are recommending so-called plaque, for lack of a better word, melting compounds, things like nattokinase or pomegranate or pomegranate extract? Have you come across any of that?

The issue with that is I'm not going to be a naysayer, but remember, I'm a geek. You take— let's just generically say nattokinase. You take nattokinase, it's an enzyme. How does that get through your stomach acid? Can somebody explain that to me? No. Now, if the nattokinase busted up gets through your stomach acid and gets to your gut bacteria, Or, do you have the right gut bacteria? Maybe that gut bacteria could take the— I'll just call it chemical trash of what's left over of the nattokinase and make your case from that. Maybe. Don't know for sure. But, it would make sense because the body's pretty darn tootin' creative when it comes to building things, building blocks. Give me the basics and I can make darn near anything. Now, If when people talk about nattokinase, do you test it in the blood? Do you then do stool samples to see how much goes out with the stool? Do you test? And since blood work for your MKs is virtually impossible to do, nobody does it.

You mean you can only test for K1?

That's it. And when you test K1, if you take in other MKs, The K1 test goes through the roof.

So, K1 is an appropriate corollary to MK-4 and MK-7 on a blood test?

In theory, that's correct.

Yeah. Okay.

So, you got to start somewhere. Another test would be uncarboxylated osteocalcin, which they're going to start to do again. Another test is PIFKA-2. For bone health by surrogate heart health is Capital N, capital T sub X, which is a urine test, which is a measure of basically osteoporosis health. You're slowing osteoporosis down. But, there really isn't a test out there that says, except HPLC and stuff like that in some research lab.

What about this? It's a relatively new test. I don't know if you've heard of it before. It's by a company called Proventia, the HART panel. It is a blood panel that measures for 4 different protein markers related to plaque accumulation with the idea being that in between something like a CT angiography or calcium scan score, you could do a blood panel to at least see if there's any evidence of continued plaque accumulation. Are you familiar with that test at all?

Well, I'm not, but that's a good thing to do. Test, test, test. That's the right thing to do.

Yeah.

Because everybody has to dial in their own body. And, the more tests you have, the better fuel you have for your own body.

Do you think there is a case to be made, especially in the presence of elevated calcium or plaque for statins or even a PCSK9 inhibitor?

There is an argument for that for those people who are APOE4/fellow 3,4-4,4. There can be an argument for that. And so, from that standpoint, again, get your genetics studies done, check your folic acid metabolism while you're doing it along with your vitamin A metabolism, but get your genetics tested. That's a great, great thing to do. Now, well, how does that work? Well, when you Have an L-S-A-P-L-E-4-4. That only is a problem in— Postmenopausal. And postandropausal. So, okay, something else is going on, but that SMA. Yeah. LDL is your truck that hauls, we'll just say for conversation, your Ks, in your CoQ10s around your system. That truck gets reprocessed in the liver every 3 days. At the end of those 3 days, that particle— and this is a surface chemistry thing— has a lot of those Ks taken off of there and a lot of the CoQ10s taken off of there. But, there's still a few left. So then, the body reprocesses it. But, there's still a few Ks and whatever. Remember, we're dealing with Biochemical statistics here. So, let's say you've got an LDL particle. Let's say your brain is making some brain cells. So, you make about 400 a day. And, it sends a signal to the SXR enzyme in your artery wall and say, hey, I need some K. I need K1. So, the LDL particle comes be-bopping around. The SXR grinds the K1 off of it, rejiggers it into MK-4, and makes sheathing material for the brain. Well, that means the LDL particle is absent to the lung. Well, it's like taking chrome off a bumper. What do you think is going to happen? It's going to rust. That's where the oxidized LDL comes in.

Got it.

So now, you've got all this stuff kind of— the chrome was taken off the bumper but not all of it. Now, it goes back to the liver and you make new LDL and it gets all the stuff reattached to it and off it goes. Well, in the ApoE4 types, your LDL is reprocessed every 5 to 7 days. So now, you have a lot of naked LDL floating around and not doing you any good. So, statistically, it creates a problem. Now, I would have loved to see a study done where people are given high-dose CoQ10, high-dose K, doesn't matter what kind, And, the double-blind study was being with or without the PSK9 and see how much hap— what happens to your LDL in terms of how much is still stuck to the LDL. So, in that case, if you drop your LDL, in theory, that means you have more stuff to stick to it. Oh, what's really important is your ApoA-1 to ApoB-100 ratio. That's more important because you can't remove the farm out of a farm cell unless you've got sufficient ApoA-1. And, you get that by having good fat in your diet.

Is that ratio a particular number that you look for? 2:1. 2:1 ApoA-1 to ApoB?

Yeah, 2 ApoA-1 to ApoB. Or, if you're at 1:1,

That would mean your ApoA-1 is suppressed relative to ApoB excessively.

Right. You typically find that with people with a high amount of junk oils in their diet, junk food. It's a junk food indicator. To test for is the neutrophil-to-HDL ratio is becoming more and more important because neutrophils are typically indicative that you've got a viral or bacterial or mold or fungal insult going on in your pipe somewhere in your system. And, that's just the latest. That information is only about 12 weeks old.

Well, I'm getting another blood panel on Saturday that's pretty comprehensive down at Next Health. So, I'll be able to look at— I'll have all these values in hand by the end of next week. So, it'll be interesting. I just wrote a note to myself, That neutrophil-to-HDL ratio, are you looking for anything in particular for that, for a number?

It's still too soon to tell, but if you do a keyword search on it, it'll give you some numbers. But basically, what it says is you want high HDL and low neutrophils.

Okay, okay. Got it. Interesting. I would be remiss not to ask you in the little bit of time that we have left if you've made diet and exercise modifications.

No, I've always been a jock. So, I pole vault for fun and I'm 71 years old.

So, you exercise regularly?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I'm assuming you're still not doing like the— what was that meal you had right before you went in for your first calcium scan score, the gravy and everything? Have you changed that up?

I've been eating steak and eggs since the mid-'60s. Like tonight, I'm going to have a cereal-bowl-sized shelled shrimp And a non-sugar-based, I'll just say, sauce. I'll just eat that. That's dinner. I eat once a day.

Are you selective about— oh, you're doing like an OMAD diet. Interesting. Are you selective about the quality of your food sourcing?

Well, I'm lucky. I live in Upper Michigan. If you want grass-fed beef, we got it everywhere up here. So, I'm lucky in that regard. So, I have a steak every 3 days. I'll have an omelet every 5 days. But, I just kind of just keep to the 60/30/10 rule.

What's the 60/30/10?

60% fat, 30% protein, 10% complex carbs.

Okay.

That's the research from Dr. Noakes.

So, if you're eating 1 meal a day, you said tonight you're having a bunch of shrimp and what else?

Oh, I make my own hot sauce.

Oh, wow.

So, I just kind of get creative. I love cooking. Me too. So, I'll cook something really cool. And then, for a treat, I'll make my own ice cream made out of 100% cream and real raspberries and throw them in there and just call it good. And, it's delicious.

Interesting.

And, it's good for you.

So, you kind of fall into the category of essentially compressed feeding windows With a low-carb, high-fat, arguably based on your description, nearly ketogenic approach. Interesting.

But, I've been doing that since the '60s. Well, we learned playing ice hockey. I never ate a pizza until my senior year of college. But, we would observe in a dressing room somebody that would eat a pizza. They would perform like dog doo-doo the next day and nobody could figure out why, but nobody ate a pizza. So, but we ate bowls of chili like it was going out of style and bowls of stew and stuff like that. We just instinctively knew that's what you needed. And, my dad came off the farm, so he was a big steak and eggs kind of guy. So, that's what we did.

Yeah, that's interesting. I've been following a little bit more of a low-carb Mediterranean approach, pretty rich in polyphenols and flavonols, herbs and spices, a lot of extra virgin olive oil, dark chocolate, Kind of shifted a little bit more towards fish and omega-3-rich proteins. Still do grass-fed, grass-finished meat, but I'm down to about twice a week for that. Have a really nice pastured pork cut about once a week. And then, a little bit of poultry, like good pastured poultry. So, I rotate quite a bit, but I've really been careful to adhere to not something like a strict carnivore approach absent of fibers and polyphenols, but I do kind of take a little bit more of a Mediterranean approach. And, I know some people might be saying, well, Patrick's diet sounds like a heart attack diet. But, I mean, you have the blood work. I mean, you have all your data. Believe, correct me if I'm wrong, your stuff's published on your website, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, it's anecdotal, it's his genetics, but it seems to be working for you.

Yeah. Like I said, the Mayo gave me 4 years to live in 2002. So, I think I've kind of beat that by a bit.

Yeah, yeah. Wow.

It's, again, the old saying goes, you are what you eat. It's not what you eat, it's what you generate in your gut and absorb. That's what you are. So, if you give your gut bacteria a steady diet of one thing all the time at the same time of day and you don't confuse them, Your gut bacteria will be your gut buddies, on and on and on.

Yeah. You are what you eat and you are what you eat ate. That's also important. Hey, one last thing I'll share with you just because I thought of it. We were talking about fermented meat. I've been geeking out on this one company, Paleo Valley. They actually have fermented beef sticks. They have fermented pork as well. They taste fantastic, but it's about the closest thing I could find that's kind of commercially available that you could order that's similar to what they're eating on that island of Andorra. And so, I've been going through a lot of those as well. Apparently, the fermentation process also reduces the levels of the Neu5Gc sugar that is associated with some level of inflammation in response to high meat intake. And, they taste great. So, there you go. Maybe if you let me know your address, I'll send you a packet from my pantry. I got a bunch of them.

Yeah, I'll email you my address.

Yeah.

I'm here to support. Let me know how your blood work turned out. We just kick it around when you come by. And, I'm the guy that answers the phone and I talk to people typically 3 to 4 to 5 times a day just—

Wow. Oh,

I got a PhD in leadership and this is my 57th year coaching. So, I'm just coaching people on how to be healthy.

Incredible.

And, first of all, relax. You're okay. And then, just slowly but surely test, test, test. And dial your body in.

I can certainly get behind the data-driven approach. And, your website's great. I would recommend if you're listening in and you really want to geek out, read The Cardiac Manifesto Part 1 and Part 2 on Patrick's website. I'll link to that in the shownotes as well as everything else we talked about. Just go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/VitaminKPodcast. It'll all be there. And Patrick, thanks so much, man. Thanks, Ben.

Yeah. And, May 1st, we're introducing a product for athletes which will have vitamin D in it.

Incredible.

Because athletes pee as fast as they burn glucose.

Wow.

And, most athletes are vitamin D deficient.

Yeah, yeah. You're right. You're right. Alright, cool. Well, great. This has been a fantastic discussion, very enlightening. And, I'll make sure in the shownotes I'll link to other episodes that I've done with Dr. William Davis, with the thyroid doctor, with my own calcium scan. And, Clearly scan results with Dr. Shah. So anyways, show notes will be rich and juicy. And thank you everyone for listening. Until next time, I'm signing out from BenGreenfieldLife.com.

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