When we had ours done St Joseph in KC was running a special. $40 CAC scan walk in or appointment. Took longer to fill out the paper work than the time the scan took.

You are right about cholesterol being a poor indicator. Very poor actually.

In the case of my wife and I, I am the one that should have had high calcium buildup. Diabetic for  twenty five or thirty years. My CAC was 1.9 and hers was mid 100's. So for being diabetic that long my test was excellent compared to hers which was moderate risk.

Got the results in a week or two by phone then mail follow up. They wanted to talk to my wife about taking a statin, but she said "no thanks". After what I have learned about statins I would not wish them on anyone. There might be some benefit to someone who has already had a heart attack, but for everyone else the potential benefits are not worth the potential risks. Through statistical hocus pocus they claim big heart risk reduction but when you look at the absolute risk reduction compared to the reported relative reduction, the statins do hardly any risk reduction for heart attack. And all cause mortality they do not help at all. So even if they prevent the heart attack you die from something else that the statin may have increased the danger????? What the H! That is right, no difference in all cause mortality taking a statin.

Here is the way "relative risk reduction" works. Say you have 10,000 people and 5 of them die of heart disease in the control group. But the 10,000 of the statin group only 4 die of heart disease. The advertisements boldly pronounce "20% reduction in heart attacks by taking the wonder drug statin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". But who would take a drug for 10 years if they knew that by doing so their chances for not having a heart attack had been reduced by 1 in 10,000? Relative risk vs absolute risk. It is the way drugs on TV are advertised. Not technically lying but definitely not being very straight forward in their claims. But wait. Go on to look further into the study and look at "all cause mortality". And in both groups 5 out of 10,000 died. No difference. Dead is dead, so who wants to take a drug for ten years to not improve their potential death outcome?????

It is a big racket.Most doctors are blind to the drug companies promotions. Some are no doubt complicit. Yes the statins lower cholesterol. No they don't improve outcomes (based on randomized controlled trials).

Diabetic drugs same way. Yes they lower blood sugar. But diet change will do it better and reduce insulin levels at the same time correcting the root cause of hyperinsulnemia and insulin resistance.

It is a big racket and an easy out for people wanting to take a pill instead of correcting their lifestyle. But most people do not know that so do not even get the chance to make the changes. I did not know till I did the research. And made the changes needed.

John