Whole Food Plant Based Diet Found To Reverse Advanced Heart Disease

Below is another excerpt from T. Colin Campbell's new book, "Whole: Rethinking The Science Of Nutrition." He's discussing the much-acclaimed, longterm studies Dr. Esselstyn conducted with heart patients starting in the 1980s:

In 1985, Esselstyn recruited patients with advanced but not immediately life-threatening heart disease for a clinical trial to explore whether heart disease might be reversed using diet. He confirmed the severity of the coronary artery disease with angiograms to be sure that their disease progression was advanced. The only other requirement for admission into the study was a willingness to attempt the dietary changes he proposed: effectively, a WFPB* diet.

Dr. Esselstyn formally reported his findings at 5 and 12 years. In the 8 years prior to the study, his 18 subjects had had 49 coronary episodes (e.g., heart attacks angioplasty, bypass surgery), but during the 12 years after adopting a WFPB diet, there was only one event, involving a patient who strayed from his diet. He has casuallly followed his subjects since then and all but 5 are still alive today, 26 years later. The 5 who passed away did not die of cardiac fauilure, but from other causes. ... And the ones who are still alive are cardiac symptom free. The subjects had 49 cardiovascular events in the 96 months prior to the intervention, and zero cardiovascular events in the roughly 312 months since the intervention began. This life-and-death finding is about as profound as any health benefit I have even known. Nothing else in medicine comes close.

Zero cardiovascular events over 26 years for people who had advanced, symptomatic heart disease, many of whom underwent aggressive treatments including multiple bypass operations. Five were told by their cardiologists they had less than a year to live.

Also:

"After 5 years on Dr. Esselstyn’s plant-based diet, the average total cholesterol levels of his research group dropped from 246 mg/dl to 137 mg/dL (Above 240 mg/dL is considered “high risk,” below 150 mg/dL is the total cholesterol level seen in cultures where heart disease is essentially nonexistent.) This is the most profound drop in cholesterol ever documented in the medical literature in a study of this type."

* WFPB is a Whole Foods Plant Based diet. I'm familiar with Dr. Esselstyn's WFPB diet. It restricts all animal foods (no meat, fish, eggs, cheese and other dairy) and all added fat. It even restricts nuts and avacado for those with established heart disease or those whose total cholesterol is not below 150 mg/dl. So, no oil-based salad dressing, no cooking or baking with oil or fat. These were some very motivated patients.
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High Egg Consumption Linked To Heart Disease And Diabetes

I was just speaking about eggs too. (Men who consumed 2.5 or more eggs per week had an 81% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer compared with men who consumed less than 0.5 eggs per week.)

Here's a new study, a meta-analysis or study of 14 previously conducted studies which results have been pooled. Out online ahead of print:

Egg Consumption And Risk Of Cardiovascular Diseases And Diabetes: A Meta-analysis, Atherosclerosis, May 2013

Those who consumed the most eggs (relative to those who consumed the least) had a:

• 19% increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease (CVD)
• 68% increased risk for developing diabetes
• 83% increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease if they already had diabetes

And there was a dose-response relationship, meaning the more eggs they ate, the greater their risk for both CVD and diabetes. When a dose-response relationship is apparent, it lends more credence to the findings.
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Anger May Raise Risk For Heart Attack

And the angrier you get, the greater the risk:

Relation of Outbursts of Anger and Risk of Acute Myocardial Infarction, American Journal of Cardiology, May 2013

From the abstract:

"We conducted a case-crossover analysis of 3,886 participants from the multicenter Determinants of Myocardial Infarction Onset Study.

The incidence rate of [acute myocardial infarction: AMI] onset was elevated 2.43-fold within 2 hours of an outburst of anger. The association was consistently stronger with increasing anger intensities.

In conclusion, the risk of experiencing AMI was more than twofold greater after outbursts of anger compared with at other times, and greater intensities of anger were associated with greater relative risks."

That 2.43-fold increased risk is an average. The risk ranged:

"The researchers found that with each increment of anger intensity, the risk of heart attack in the next two hours rose. That risk was 1.7 times greater after feeling "moderately angry, so hassled it shows in your voice;" and 2.3 times greater after feeling "very tense, body tense, clenching fists or teeth" and 4.5 times greater after feeling "enraged! lost control, throwing objects, hurting yourself or others.

The most frequent causes of anger outbursts that participants recalled were family issues, conflicts at work and commuting."

As to the mechanism, Dr. James O'Keefe, a cardiologist at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, said:

Anger is an emotion that releases the fight-or-flight-response chemicals epinephrine and norepinephrine. ... Those hormones raise our blood pressure, our pulse, constrict blood vessels, make blood platelets stickier (increasing the risk of blood clots).

"Contrary to the urban myth that it's best to express anger and get it out there, expressing anger takes a toll on your system and there's nothing really cathartic about it."

"(Anger) serves no purpose other than to corrode the short and long-term health of your heart and blood vessels."

Something that can raise the risk for a heart attack by 4.5-fold is pretty powerful. Compare that to the 1.8-fold increased risk for prostate cancer for eating 2.5 eggs a week from yesterday.

I've read that anger can increase the risk for stroke as well. Probably similar mechanisms. It's not just anger either:

"People prone to angry outbursts or more broadly, who are prone to anxiety, depression or other intense emotions should be aware that this is something that impacts their cardiovascular system."
- Donald Edmondson, assistant professor of behavioral medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, New York

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Global Meat And Grain Consumption - Maps (Repost)

I posted these maps in April 2009. The map of breast cancer incidence I posted yesterday bears a troubling resemblance to them. It seems that countries where the most meat is eaten, and the least grain, have the highest incidence of breast cancer. Not scientific of course, but certainly suggestive.

These maps are via the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).







And the breast cancer map:


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T. Colin Campbell: "I Have No Financial Interest In You Believing Me"

From T. Colin Campbell's new book, "Whole: Rethinking The Science Of Nutrition":

"I have no financial interest in you believing me. I don't sell health products, health seminars, or health coaching. I'm seventy nine years old*, I've had a long and rewarding career, and I'm not writing this book to make a buck."

* As of November 2012

He didn't have to say that. He didn't have to draw attention to his financial motives and have the reader question them. It makes me pay that much more attention to what he's saying.
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Breast Cancer Incidence Worldwide In 2008

Source: GLOBOCAN 2008, International Agency for Research on Cancer
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