Diet and Heart Disease
If you are a heart patient and your cardiologist has talked to about being referred for a consultation please click here.
Imagine that you were one of the most famous people in the world and had almost unlimited resources to help you deal with your atherosclerosis and heart disease including access to some of the best doctors in the world. This was the situation that ex-president Bill Clinton found himself in a few years ago.
Below is a moving 13 minute video on what his attempts to deal with his heart disease resulted in as well as an interview with Dr Ornish and Dr Esselstyn who helped him:
If you’d like to know your risk of a heart attack or stroke see here (for your life expectancy see here).
Here is a 5 minute video that explains how not to die from heart disease:
One of the earliest pioneers of this approach is Dr Caldwell Esselstyn at the Cleveland Clinic – below is a 14 minute introduction to his approach from a TEDx talk given in 2011:
To get an idea of how heart-healthy your diet is, take this 3 minute survey. I’d suggest you write your score down so that you can retake the survey in a few weeks/months and see if your score has improved.
If you are on medications (e.g for heart disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes), make sure to inform your physician that you are changing you diet so they can monitor you closely and adjust doses of medications as required. If this is not done, there is a risk of complications due to low blood pressure or low blood sugar such as fainting.
To learn more, click here to be taken to Dr Esselstyn’s website. He has also written a best selling book entitled “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” which is available in the Hamilton Public Library. He recently wrote a review article which summarises his views on current therapy for coronary artery disease (ie drugs, stents, angioplasties and surgery) versus a diet based approach. To best understand how to do his approach, see this 1 hr 55 min video (I realized this is rather long; if you would like to see it in 15 minute installments click here). A recent brief overview of Dr Esselstyn’s basic recommendations is here. To understand cholesterol and the role of diet see this article.
Below is a video by Dr Ornish (17 minutes) about healing through diet.
I came across a librarian who decided to check out Dr Esselstyn’s diet. Her website (happyhealthylonglife.com) is a great source for information. She did something I find very interesting – she sequentially put herself on a Mediterranean diet, then on a plant-based diet which included oil and nuts, and then on Dr Esselstyn’s plant-based diet for four weeks (with no oil, nuts, or avocados) – click here to see a table of her bloodwork on each diet. She also has a very interesting account of two cardiologists who decided to try Dr Esselstyn’s diet on themselves.
One message which should be clear by now is that ALL oil needs to be minimised in people with coronary artery disease (see this 3 min video on olive oil) . Dr Greger has an excellent video explaining how fat (even oils from plants) impairs the endothelium and arterial function resulting in angina:
If you still need convincing, see this article on olive oil as well as this 11 minute video by Dr Klapper.
Cooking without oil is surprisingly easy – see here. However, there is also some good news – vinegar (especially balsamic vinegar) enhances the vasodilator effect of green leafy vegetables – here is an excellent 6 min video about its effectiveness. To tie it all together, here is a simple oil free recipe for a balsamic vinegar salad dressing.
The May 2017 edition of the Journal of Geriatric Cardiology has a whole section on ‘A Plant-based Diet and Cardiovascular Disease’ including articles on strategies for practitioners, type 2 diabetes, and diet in the prevention of chronic disease. While primarily aimed at healthcare professionals, those looking for ‘the evidence’ would probably enjoy it.
Hopefully you are well on your way to being convinced of the power of plant based nutrition. To help you get started, click here to be taken to links for recipes compatible with Dr Esselstyn’s diet. If you’d like help in making the transition, see the video below:
Don’t feel bad it took you a while to realize this – here is the touching story of a cardiologist who realised that he had his own health problem and ended up finding a natural solution.
See here for an overview of Dr Esselstyn’s latest basic recommendations and here for some heart-healthy low fat recipes.
If you need more convincing, see the video below:
Click here for an overview of the rest of my site.
