Recent newscasts have given a lot of coverage to Stan Hazen, MD's findings that gut bacteria metabolize foods rich in lecithin (red meat, eggs, etc) into a substance named traimeathylamine-N-oxide (TMAO).
TMAO in turn is associated with an increased rate of atherothrombotic disease (ATD) events, even in lower risk patients. (The fact that Dr. Hazen did not use ratios, however, limits his comments on "low risk" patients.) This finding has been reported by newscasters as being revolutionary and they have hinted that this may be the most important risk factor for ATD. Those conclusions are over-reaching and do not in any way interfere with all the risk factor data reported over the years in this newspaper by me and others.
No one should turn his/her back on all the research done in the field of ATD prediction and regression over the years. That would be a tragic and probably fatal mistake.
TMAO in turn is associated with an increased rate of atherothrombotic disease (ATD) events, even in lower risk patients. (The fact that Dr. Hazen did not use ratios, however, limits his comments on "low risk" patients.) This finding has been reported by newscasters as being revolutionary and they have hinted that this may be the most important risk factor for ATD. Those conclusions are over-reaching and do not in any way interfere with all the risk factor data reported over the years in this newspaper by me and others.
No one should turn his/her back on all the research done in the field of ATD prediction and regression over the years. That would be a tragic and probably fatal mistake.