Coronary Artery Disease
Wikipedia
Hello Family and Friends!
You may have seen this synopsis earlier or even have read the book. It introduced a rigorous plant-based diet which, if followed unfailingly, could prevent and even reverse coronary artery disease. Even if you don't have angina, and even if you don't have a family history of heart disease, you probably know someone who does. So this synopsis might be useful (maybe even life-saving) for them.
Last Wednesday our dialogue event was around the topic of "growing old," and next week I'll you the handout for that evening's event, with good quotations about the experience of growing old from various observers including Jane Fonda and George Burns.
Toot sweet,
Arthur
Book: (Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.) Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure (2007)
A New York Times bestseller, this book describes how a rigorous plant-based diet reversed severe coronary artery lesions over a five-year study period. The author served for many years as a surgeon, clinician, and researcher at the Cleveland clinic. He was also recipient of the first Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine, and an Olympic gold medalist in rowing. For about two decades, he worked closely with a group of 23 patients who had essentially been told that their heart disease was so severe there really was little that could be done in terms of interventions. The life expectancy of this group of patients was short, and most were in low spirits when they entered the study.
Twenty years later, most of them were still alive and in better cardiac health than when they entered the study. Within five years of beginning the study, coronary artery lesions that had been documented on coronary angiograms had reversed, leading in at least one of the patients to total disappearance of the lesion (before and after illustrations being included in the book’s color Figures).
The author emphasizes the high prevalence and mortality rates from heart disease in western countries; and the contrast with parts of the world where plant-based diet is the norm. “Dr. Lewis Kuller of the University of Pittsburgh recently reported the ten-year findings of the Cardiovascular Health Study, a project of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. His conclusion is startling: ‘All males over 65 years of age, exposed to a traditional Western lifestyle, have cardiovascular disease and should be treated as such.’” (Lewis H. Kuller et al., Archives of Internal Medicine, January 9, 2006: “10-year Follow-up of Subclinical Cardiovascular Disease in the Cardiovascular Health Study”)
“The dietary changes that have helped my patients over the past twenty years can help you, too,” Esselstyn states. “They can actually make you immune to heart attacks. And there is considerable evidence that they have benefits far beyond coronary artery disease. If you eat to save your heart, you eat to save yourself from other diseases of nutritional extravagance: from strokes, hypertension, obesity, osteoporosis, adult-onset diabetes, and possibly senile mental impairment, as well. You gain protection from a host of other ailments that have been linked to dietary factors, including impotence and cancers of the breast, prostate, colon, rectum, uterus, and ovaries.”
Although credit is given to some of the landmark advances in cardiac medicine and surgery of the previous quarter-century, the author also emphasizes that interventional cardiac procedures are less effective than lowering serum cholesterol levels. “In 1999, cardiologist David Waters of the University of California performed a study that compared the results of angioplasty – in which a balloon is inserted into a coronary artery to widen the vessel and improve blood flow – with the use of drugs to aggressively reduce serum cholesterol levels. There was no disputing the outcome. The patients who had the drug treatment to lower cholesterol had fewer hospitalizations for chest pain and fewer heart attacks than those who underwent angioplasty and standard postoperative care.” (Bertram Pitt, David Waters, et al., New England Journal of Medicine, July 8, 1999: “Aggressive Lipid-lowering Therapy Compared with Angioplasty in Stable Coronary Artery Disease”)
WOW! So why isn’t everybody using the (vegan plus) diet recommended in this book, and thinking systematically about their health? Maybe it’s because the recommended diet is demanding. Why give up your cheeseburgers if you don’t have symptoms yet? Well okay but surely cardiologists would be urging their patients to think in terms of whole-body health and eating vegan? Or maybe not. The NEJM study “caused considerable uproar among cardiologists. As Dr. Waters observes, ‘There is a tradition in cardiology that doesn’t want to hear that.’” (Esselstyn suggests that money may be part of the reason for this, as interventional cardiology is lucrative.)
“Your house is on fire because eating the wrong foods has given you heart disease. You are spraying gasoline on the fire by continuing to eat the very same foods that caused the disease in the first place.” The idea is to stop feeding the fire. The author’s rigorous diet includes NOT eating meat, poultry or fish; dairy products; oil of any kind; and generally you cannot eat nuts or avocados. You CAN eat all vegetables except avocado. You can eat all legumes (beans, peas, all lentils); and all whole grains and products such as bread and pasta, as long as they have no added fats. “It works. …In fully compliant patients, we have seen angina disappear in a few weeks and abnormal stress test results return to normal.”
Chapter 4, “A Primer on Heart Disease,” provides basics on such terms as high- and low-density lipoproteins, a basic vocabulary for the reader determined to take this seriously. Chapter 5, “Moderation Kills,” cites studies that destroy the comfortable notion that just “doing a little better” with dietary abstinence will be good enough. Full compliance is essential. Chapter 6, “Living, Breathing Proof,” provides details of the patients who followed the author’s program, and this italicized bottom line: “Among the fully compliant patients, during the twelve-year study, there was not one further clinical episode of worsening coronary artery disease after they committed themselves to keeping cholesterol within the safe range.” In Chapter 7, “Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me?” the author describes how even the contemporary literature and the “experts” simply do not promote the rigorous dietary discipline which he insists is necessary for success.
Chapter 8, “Simple Steps,” begins: “You, too, can take control of your heart disease. This chapter – perhaps the most important in this book for those who have heart disease or people who simply never want to develop it – will tell you exactly how to go about it.” The chapter provides details of the foods that are and are not allowed and a bit about why. For example, walnuts in moderation are okay, whereas other nuts will raise cholesterol. Alcohol in moderation is also okay. Chapter 9, “Frequently Asked Questions” includes the author’s responses to such questions as “Will I have enough strength and energy?” and “Don’t my genes predetermine whether or not I’ll get heart disease?” In Chapter 10, “Why Can’t I Have ‘Heart Healthy’ Oils?” Esselstyn turns attention to the Mediterranean-style diet and the issue of olive oil, providing reasons why it too is excluded from his dietary program. Chapter 11, “Kindred Spirits,” provides some input from physicians whose views are in accord with the author’s, including T. Colin Campbell, who “directed and co-wrote ‘The China Study.’”
Part One of the book concludes with Chapter 12, “Brave New World” and Chapter 13, “You Are in Control,” which emphasize the high stakes and high rewards of the program and that it’s ours to decide. Part Two is dedicated to the food of the matter, with recipes and other essentials for implementing the program. It would take the dedication of a serious athlete to do this. Maybe with the help of Atomic Habits (James Clear)…. The results could be Olympian.
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