After he was revived and his heart started beating on its own, Bayan started what would become a long recovery process. He was put on a typical cardio-rehab program: mild exercise to strengthen his damaged heart and a low-fat diet. Then he surprised people again. Despite his low-fat diet, his blood cholesterol results started to get worse. In fact, they indicated he was well on his way to another heart attack, he says.

Based on his healthy habits, Bayan says his heart attack didn't make sense. And when his bloodwork came back, he realized he needed to become his own best resource. He started to do some reading. What he discovered is that plenty of research exists about healthy people on low-fat diets who have heart attacks at a young age. What he also found was that very few doctors actually know about the gene that causes this life-altering change-the so-called heartstopper effect gene. Even more disturbing than that, however, was that one in four Americans carry a heartstopper gene, which triggers our bodies to produce a bad form of cholesterol when we're on low-fat diets. Four years and much reading later, Bayan has published a book to warn others about this potentially deadly gene, Eat Fat, Be Healthy: Understanding the Heartstopper Gene and When a Low-Fat Diet Can Kill You (Scribner, 2000).

What the heartstopper gene does is cause the body to produce smaller and more dangerous particles of bad LDL cholesterol from your regular food intake, Bayan says. Because these particles are more easily absorbed into the blood and can attach to artery walls much better than larger particles, they can glom together to build arterial plaque faster than you could imagine. They also can break away from the wall, causing small tears and tricking your body into thinking there's a massive injury that needs more blood. When that blood is dispatched to the site of "injury," it can form a clot that can block a coronary artery and then travel to your heart or even your brain, causing a heart attack or even a stroke, according to Bayan.

That's where the irony of this gene lies. When a person without the heartstopper gene goes on a low-fat diet, it results in lower blood fats and can actually reverse blockage that already exists. But when someone with the heartstopper genes goes on a low-fat diet, it can kill them if they don't know they possess the gene. Want some more bad news? It only takes 10 days for the body to switch into cholesterol-producing gear once someone with the heartstopper gene starts a low-fat diet. This means someone who just wants to lose 20 pounds and plans to cut down on fat might unsuspectingly be building up more cholesterol and putting themselves at risk, Bayan says.

The good news is there is a test to determine if you carry one of the four heartstopper genes. And because it is the genes that trigger the cholesterol buildup, the other good news is you need to be tested only once. If you have a family history of relatives having heart attacks at a relatively young age, you might want to ask your doctor about this test, Bayan says.

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