It was nice to know all that but I did wonder: Was I killing myself? Fortunately I could find out. A few months before my butter discovery, I had gotten a “heart scan” – a tomographic x-ray of my circulatory system. These scans are summarized by an Agatston score, a measure of calcification. Your Agatston score is the best predictor of whether you will have a heart attack in the next few years. After a year of eating a half stick of butter every day, I got a second heart scan. Remarkably, my Agatston score had improved (= less calcification), which is rare. Apparently my risk of a heart attack had gone down.
Thank you for your post, which raises some interesting questions. Of course at this point it is not known if Roberts died of a heart attack, although the smart money is on a cardio-vascular problem—heart attack, stroke, aneurism, etc.
The first question is whether the Agatston score is as good as it’s made out to be by Doctor Agatston. Another question is whether it is skillful in the case of Roberts himself. Probably none of the people who were studied were eating half a stick of butter a day, along with lots of flax seeds, extra light olive oil, and who knows what else.
I’m not a doctor, but a quick search on Wikipedia turns up that the most common cause of sudden death in people over 30 is coronary artery atheroma (arteriosclerosis), but other common causes are genetically determined or at least have a significant genetic component. I suppose some of these are easier to detect (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy perhaps?), so we can probably rule them out for somebody like Roberts who constantly monitored his health and bragged about how healthy he was. Other conditions are probably more difficult to detect with standard tests.
The puzzle has a lot of pieces missing, to be sure. Another question is whether Roberts was telling the whole truth about his health. Or about his diet for that matter. It’s even not out of the question that he has gained a lot of weight.
Seth Roberts’ last article
Some ambiguity about the Agatston score
Agatston’s overview of his test
Thank you for your post, which raises some interesting questions. Of course at this point it is not known if Roberts died of a heart attack, although the smart money is on a cardio-vascular problem—heart attack, stroke, aneurism, etc.
The first question is whether the Agatston score is as good as it’s made out to be by Doctor Agatston. Another question is whether it is skillful in the case of Roberts himself. Probably none of the people who were studied were eating half a stick of butter a day, along with lots of flax seeds, extra light olive oil, and who knows what else.
I’m not a doctor, but a quick search on Wikipedia turns up that the most common cause of sudden death in people over 30 is coronary artery atheroma (arteriosclerosis), but other common causes are genetically determined or at least have a significant genetic component. I suppose some of these are easier to detect (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy perhaps?), so we can probably rule them out for somebody like Roberts who constantly monitored his health and bragged about how healthy he was. Other conditions are probably more difficult to detect with standard tests.
The puzzle has a lot of pieces missing, to be sure. Another question is whether Roberts was telling the whole truth about his health. Or about his diet for that matter. It’s even not out of the question that he has gained a lot of weight.