The Homocysteine Theory

Thirty years ago, Dr. Kilmer McCully discovered that cholesterol and clogged arteries are not the culprits but rather the symptoms of heart disease, the No. 1 killer of people in this country.

But powerful pharmaceutical houses, making huge profits on cholesterol-lowering drugs, scorned his controversial theories, costing him his research funding and his posts at Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Castigated by his peers, McCully began the long fight to prove his theories.

His tenacity has paid off.

His findings have recently been corroborated by large-scale studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association and other publications. In addition, McCully’s ground-breaking book The Heart Revolution: The Vitamin B Breakthrough That Lowers Homocysteine Levels, Cuts Your Risk of Heart Disease, and Protects Your Health.

In the book, McCully describes how dietary advice from the nutritional establishment and government agencies, based on what he calls the outmoded cholesterol/fat theory of heart disease, has lead to misleading and confusing guidelines about dietary prevention of heart disease, obesity, hypertension and diabetes.

Cholesterol and fat buildup are symptoms, according to McCully, not causes of heart disease. The real culprit is homocysteine– an amino acid that builds up in the body due to a nutritional deficiency of vitamins B6, folic acid and B12– the very nutrients lacking in the classic Western diet.

"Most people who get heart disease have normal cholesterol levels in their blood," said McCully, whose theory stems from his finding arterial disease in an infant who had died from a rare metabolic defect that resulted in high homocysteine.

"Even if your cholesterol goes down, your homocysteine level may be high, meaning that you are still at risk. It’s a matter of life and death that we control the level of homocysteine in our blood."

McCully’s "cure" won’t make anybody rich – least of all the pharmaceutical firms he maintains ruined his career. It calls simply for a change in diet, increasing vitamin-B-rich foods and eliminating processed ones.

"If you’re eating meat and dairy products you probably are getting enough B12," he writes. "For most people it’s harder to get enough B6 and folic acid, and even a slight deficiency can upset the body’s delicate balance inviting heart disease."

McCully concentrates on fresh foods from both plants and animals. Foods rich in B6 include bananas, beans, lentils, brown rice, fish, liver, poultry, meats, cauliflower, broccoli, and kale. Folic acid is found in fresh, leafy green vegetables, beans, citrus fruits, brown rice, and liver. Vitamin B12 is only in foods that come from animals, especially fish, shellfish, poultry, meats, eggs, milk, cheese, and liver.

To prevent heart disease, McCully recommends six to 10 servings – two to four ounces of meat or a half cup of vegetables-- of fresh fruits and vegetables, two to three servings of whole-grain foods or legumes, and two to three servings of fresh fish, poultry, meat, eggs or dairy products. It is a balance of protein (20-25 percent of calories), fat (25-35 percent), and carbohydrates (40-55 percent).

Those hooked and happy on the "Mediterranean Diet," with its research-supported claims (1998, Lyons, France) of decreasing heart disease by 70 percent, will note similarities.