Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Serious About Reducing Cholesterol? Do 2 Things.

If someone is serious about reducing cholesterol, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn says to do 2 things:
  1. Stop eating all animal foods (meat, fish, dairy, eggs, butter, cheese).
  2. Stop eating all processed oil (olive, soy, canola, vegetable, coconut), including packaged foods made with oil.
That's it! Try it for 30 days and get your cholesterol checked again. It works.



A snippet from that Clinton video above:
BLITZER: My last question ... How did you lose so much weight? What kind of diet are you on?

CLINTON: Well, the short answer is, I went on essentially a plant-based diet. I live on beans, legumes, vegetables, fruit. ... No dairy, no meat of any kind, no chicken or turkey, and I eat very little fish. Once in a while, I will have a little fish, not often.
Take a look at the coronary artery beginning at 1:47 minutes in:


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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it was Carl Sagan that said "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Maybe Caldwell Esselstyn has it, but I sure did not see it on his cheesy website.

What a hoot that is, 1995 website design, gray haired Dr in a white coat, buy my book on DVD, etc etc.

These are red flags that keep me from looking any further into this guys claims.

Claudia said...

You won't think it's cheesy after you've had a heart attack and all you have left are statins, blood thinners and ACE inhibitors.

Anonymous said...

Bix, thought you'd be interested:

http://www.ajc.com/lifestyle/tim-reader-51-of-1424466.html

Before and after shots of a guy who lost 83 pounds on Esselstyn's diet.

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous

I just checked out Esselstyn's site and saw CSS and flash, both of which were not around in 1995. Nice try though.

Anonymous said...

I think Dr. Esselstyn's suggestions work for some, but not for me. Most of our cholesterol is produced by our own liver and diet helps most folks in only a small way.
Interestingly, some folks benefit most with a LC diet. No one diet seems to benefit everyone.

Claudia said...

An LC diet? Is that low carb? That's the meat diet? How does that work if you're older and diabetes and protein in your urine? I don't mean to be mean or anything but it sounds like a diet for young healthy people.

Philippa said...

I don't doubt that switching to vegan works for some people, but it doesn't make sense to me to focus on reducing cholesterol.

As Anonymous wrote, dietary cholesterol has very little effect on the cholesterol in our bodies.

Besides, total cholesterol has very little to do with anything at all. High triglyceride levels and low HDL cholesterol do correlate with cardiovascular risk, and it's carbohydrate consumption that directly impacts these.

Anonymous said...

Try it you'll like it! Oldie but goodie with a second chance on life here. Never thought I'd see the day I'd be eating rice and potatoes instead of steak and potatoes. never felt better, numbers good, no intention of going back.

Retired but not tired Mike

Bix said...

HDL cholesterol is still a puzzle. It's not always good, depending on the type. I've written about this a few times I think. Maybe somewhere else. It is the pathology state which, in part, determines how HDL acts. By that I mean if someone has diabetes or heart disease or some other inflammatory condition, their HDL is not as health-promoting compared to a healthy person.

High levels of "bad" HDL have been shown to be detrimental because they promote heart disease.

I'll post a study or two.

Bix said...

Good stuff, Mike!