I have a very high calcium score. What next?

For almost four decades, Dr. Ornish and his colleagues at the non-profit Preventive Medicine Research Institute and the University of California, San Francisco have conducted clinical research proving the many benefits of his program of comprehensive lifestyle changes. These include:

a whole foods, plant-based diet (naturally low in fat and refined carbohydrates);
stress management techniques (including yoga and meditation);
moderate exercise (such as walking); and
social support and community (love and intimacy).
In short—eat well, move more, stress less, and love more.

They used the latest high-tech state-of-the-art scientific technology to prove the power of simple lifestyle changes: eat well, stress less, move more, love more.

It remains the only program scientifically proven to reverse heart disease in randomized controlled trials published in the leading peer-reviewed journals. Angina (chest pain) was reduced by over 90% and blood flow to the heart improved significantly in just three weeks. After one year, coronary arteries became significantly less clogged, and there was even more improvement after five years.

Also, Dr. Ornish’s program has been proven to reverse type 2 diabetes and may slow, stop, or even reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer. Most people who were told that they would need to take drugs for the rest of their lives to lower their cholesterol levels, blood pressure, or blood sugar have been able to reduce or even discontinue these under their doctor’s supervision.

Changing your lifestyle also changes your genes—turning on (upregulating) protective genes that help keep us healthy, and turning off (downregulating) genes that cause oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and the genes that promote prostate cancer, breast cancer, and colon cancer—over 500 genes in only three months. Our genes are a predisposition, but are genes are not our fate.

In collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn, who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her pioneering work with telomeres and telomerase, Dr. Ornish and his colleagues found that these lifestyle changes lengthened telomeres, the ends of our chromosomes that regulate longevity—in a real sense, beginning to reverse aging at a cellular level.

Here are the latest findings from the nearly 4,000 patients who went through Dr. Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease in a study via Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield in Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and West Virginia:

Overall adherence after 1 year was 88%.
The average patient lost 13.3 pounds in the first 12 weeks and 15.9 pounds after 1 year.
There were significant reductions in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL-cholesterol after 12 weeks and also after 1 year.
Exercise capacity increased from 8.7 to 10.6 METS after 12 weeks (18% increase) and to 10.8 METS after one year (24% increase).
Significant reductions in depression and hostility (the emotions most strongly linked with heart disease) after 12 weeks that were still significant after 1 year.
Hemoglobin A1C in diabetics decreased from 7.4% at baseline to 6.5% after 12 weeks and 6.8% after one year (complications of diabetes such as blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, and amputations can be prevented when hemoglobin A1C is less than 7.0%).
95% of patients reported improvement in severity of angina (chest pain) after 1 year.
These studies show how powerful comprehensive lifestyle changes can be, how dynamic these mechanisms are, and how quickly benefits may occur.

I have a question for you or anyone. When I was told I had a score of 642, I was shocked and then determined to bring it down. My cardiologist said it's not a test to take often and suggested maybe in 10 years. Has anyone here had a test go down after making changes and how long did it take before you had another calcium test? Has anyone had more than one? And what were the results?

rochelle - you continue to post links to YouTube doctors - do you think this is wise?

There is a fb page that has a lot of material like this ... perhaps it is a better place?

I have a question for you or anyone. When I was told I had a score of 642, I was shocked and then determined to bring it down. My cardiologist said it's not a test to take often and suggested maybe in 10 years. Has anyone here had a test go down after making changes and how long did it take before you had another calcium test? Has anyone had more than one? And what were the results?

I have a question for you or anyone. When I was told I had a score of 642, I was shocked and then determined to bring it down. My cardiologist said it's not a test to take often and suggested maybe in 10 years. Has anyone here had a test go down after making changes and how long did it take before you had another calcium test? Has anyone had more than one? And what were the results?

I'm glad I found this discussion as I was diagnosed with a 108 CAC score when I was 50 and had some anxiety and worry as a result of it, I had a hard time finding any support groups for it. Anyways five years later and hundreds of hours of research I can comment on a few things:

1. A high CAC score is not a death sentence! The first thing I asked my doctor when I found out about my high score was if he had any patients in their 80s' or 90's with calcium scores in the thousands and he says he has a ton of them. And every year for my annual exam I ask the same question, and he still has many patients with scores in the 4000s who are 90 years old. Change your diet, get on a statin, quit smoking and exercise regularly. My doctor informed me that my arteries were flexible and have possibly expanded to compensate for the calcification. I took a treadmill stress test and after a few minutes the doctor actually go perturbed and asked why I was there and told me to go home, so calcification isn't not the end of the world there are many factors at play. So live a lifestyle that will keep your arteries flexible.

2. I was put on Crestor 10 mg and my LDL went down from 180 to 65. I won't post the URL's but studies have shown that lowering LDL below 65 can actually regress arterial calcification.

3. I'm a Jim Fixx case where I run every day and lead a very healthy lifestyle but have genetic issues which my father warned me about for years. Don't hesitate to get on a statin, it will calcify your soft plaque and make it way more stable. My father has been on a statin since 1989 and is now 83 years old, so the stuff must work (and he doesn't have dementia or any other issues).

4. And I see a lot of comments about quitting drinking. I have a glass of red wine with dinner almost every night and I haven't been able to find any evidence that this can cause arteriosclerosis, EXCEPT for cases where the red wine might raise one's blood pressure. In fact I've seen studies that show that moderate amounts of red wine can actually be good for your heart. So that is personal decision but I did not make that change. I did go vegetarian, stopped eating processed foods and keep an eye on my total cholesterol, LDL/HDL, tris and inflammation levels. It's pretty simple: when you go the supermarket, buy everything from the edges of the market (fruits/veggies/grains/non-fat dairy etc), don't shop for anything in the middle aisles which is all mostly junk and high in sodium.

5. I'll report back in 20 years hopefully and see if I'm still around. At this point with the stain, knowledge about the disease and lifestyle factors now I'm not concerned about my calcium score but about other things like cancer and getting in car accident or slipping in the shower.

Dr Dean Ornish showed same results with his lifestyle change plan— https://youtu.be/m7_stiXsXRc

Medicare even covers Dr Ornish’s program

FAmiliarize yourself with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifd9vWnqXYc&t=6s

All oils trash your endothelium lining.
This is a great video of Dr. Akil Taher who had stents and open heart surgery - he just wrote a book - Open Heart. Incredible story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=260F11NCUS0