Reversing Heart Disease with Diet

[Hepoberman]

http://nutritionstudies.org/reversing-h ... ease-diet/

I spent quite a few years doing my best to ignore Esselstyn's work. Early on, I joined Dr. Williams "Track your plaque group" which touted, "SAT fat is good for you!" (except, even then Dr. Davis admitted E~4's might have to reduce SAF fat!) Dr. Davis even mocked Esselstyn's work. He claimed Esselstyn just kicked out everyone the program didn't work for (not true, but I believed it at the time). I was part of the Paleo movement that ignored accepted nutritional science, for a while. I am well versed in the bullshit idea that our disease is other peoples fault.
Its was so appealing to find out that my family's early death issue was the result of all these food and drug companies trying to kill me. They were lying to me for a profit! My preferences have been artificially skewed to make me sick and them rich! I thought I was making real progress in understanding what I needed to do.

I happen to have retired when I was thirty. I had the time, money and discipline to prove all the details. I hired a lipidologist and began a militaristic march of personal biological exploration.

Fast forward 5 years and tens of thousands of dollars later...

I realize now that I was doing my best to ignore the overwhelming majority of expert opinions to satisfy my own narrative. I no longer need to test, change, rinse and repeat -Its proven. Most people will not be able to independently come to this realization. Its like religion or politics, people get stuck in their belief system and struggle to see the bigger picture. Its also expensive, time consuming, and incredibly difficult to change our lifestyles enough to prove what good science already shows us.

Take the time to read this article. Do not ignore, "With most patients completing a decade of follow-up examinations, disease progression was stopped in all those who kept to the diet. Significantly, disease did not just stop but was actually reversed in approximately 70% of those having follow-up angiograms."

[pguyer807]

I have to say I totally agree with Hep. I too have tweaked and tested. The key to eating carbohydrates is that if high carbs are combined with high fat it is a disaster. The vegan diet should be low fat. I think that is the missing piece for lots of people who say this diet is
not healthy. I never knew saturated fat was linked to high blood sugar. The evil carbohydrate industry. A lot of people are avoiding healthy foods because they are considered high carbohydrate. I believe meat, dairy
industry manipulate the data. If you consider this the high fat high sugar , carbohydrate diets of the vast majority of Americans
add to this a sedentary lifestyle the results are disasterous. Amen. Not meant to be preachy.

[slacker]

Hep and PG - glad to hear that the vegan diet has worked well for you. The Esselstyn study is remarkable for CAD results, following 11 people long term with excellent results. The published Bredesen protocol has similar remarkable results for cognition, following 10 people for a couple of years. Both have great results, very small sample sizes. I agree that nutritional fundamentalism is not helpful.

I have been vegetarian for two decades, slowly moving to veganism with the Esselstyn approach in the last 5 years. My conventional lipids (such as trigs, HDL, and LDL ) improved, but the more sophisticated markers such as LDL particle did not, allegedly due to carb intake. Not to mention that my energy level tanked. My late morning hypoglycemia continued. Personally, I am feeling better after adding more plant fat (olive oil, seeds, and nuts), eggs, and a little medicinal fatty fish to my diet. I am minimizing sugars, refined grains, and dairy. My lipid results are similar with somewhat improved LDL particle, and my hypoglycemic episodes are mostly gone. While I want to avoid cardiac (father died age 69 heart attack) and cognitive decline (brother with AD at age 57), I also want to have a good quality of remaining life, including the energy to work, be active, and connected with those around me.

My husband, of unknown ApoE status, has always had naturally low conventional lipids (his total is usually lower than my LDL levels). He is very active, very energetic, very disciplined, strict vegetarian. He was diagnosed with pre diabetes about 2 years ago. His A1C didn't budge with a low glycemic diet. He decided to follow a vegan diet a la Dr Neal Barnard - no cheese, no eggs, no oil. He increased his exercise level. Changes resulted in excessive weight loss he couldn't afford. His A1C didn't budge. He went back to his typical vegetarian diet, with some added plant fat; his A1C normalized (due to increased exercise??) He continues to be super thin with lots of energy and strength.

All this blah blah blah is meant to re-iterate the hypothesis that the same nutritional approach does not work for everyone, and that many of us do have to tweak and adjust to find the right balance for our unique body. Dr Gundry promotes a mostly plant based diet for vascular disease, but also encourages fish and copious amounts of olive oil, unlike Dr Esselstyn. Although Gundry has not published his results (to my knowledge), they appear to be very good. Several of our tribe work with him with impressive improvements in lipid results.

I salute your journeys and passion for excellent heath.

[SusanJ]

Slacker, interesting stuff. I, too, continue to struggle getting A1C down. I've gone higher fat (I know saturated fat is not my friend), then higher carb to counter the LDL increase, and it doesn't matter, my A1C is just stuck. All my inflammatory markers stay low. I've started eating more vegetarian days than not, relying on EVOO, avocado and nuts for satiation. Also, hoping lower animal protein will help in the homocysteine area without having to overdrug myself with B's and choline/betaine, which has brain effects for me. Will be interesting to see if I get any results with this strategy.

So, I totally agree that we're all very much unique in terms of our dietary needs.

[Stavia]

Great discussion. I too am of the opinion that one size doesn't fit all. My approach is to test and tweak and see how you feel, with an open mind, until you find the best personal methodology.

[Julie G]

We repeatedly assert that a one-size-fits all approach will never work for all E4 carriers. I love that you've found something that is working for you, Hep. Please share details of the improvements you've made.

[Hepoberman]

We repeatedly assert that a one-size-fits all approach will never work for all E4 carriers. I love that you've found something that is working for you, Hep. Please share details of the improvements you've made.

My point was quite different than your assertion. I finally proved to myself what most the world has been saying but my stubborness didnt allow me too see. Saturated fat is bad, OK? Its so bad for us ~4's that we have to all but avoid it! Get your TC under 150, its the only way.

I didn't believe Sat fat was all that bad for all too long (conspiracy theories!), I was wrong. What do you guys really think? There is a reason most of the world has come to consensus on this. Has the apoe4.info group reached the a different conclusion?

[Julie G]

I didn't believe Sat fat was all that bad for all too long (conspiracy theories!), I was wrong. What do you guys really think? There is a reason most of the world has come to consensus on this. Has the apoe4.info group reached the a different conclusion?

If you take the time to get to know our community, you'll see that our group is far from monolithic in its conclusions re. saturated fat. I've personally found that I can achieve a lower LDL-P by minimizing SFA. Until we learn more, I'm also of the opinion that this helps reduce my risk against CVD.

My point was quite different than your assertion. I finally proved to myself what most the world has been saying but my stubborness didnt allow me too see. Saturated fat is bad, OK? Its so bad for us ~4's that we have to all but avoid it! Get your TC under 150, its the only way.

Ah, please expound on what you've learned! I mistakenly thought that you were trying to assert that all E4 carriers should be on a low fat vegan diet.

[Stavia]

We repeatedly assert that a one-size-fits all approach will never work for all E4 carriers. I love that you've found something that is working for you, Hep. Please share details of the improvements you've made.

My point was quite different than your assertion. I finally proved to myself what most the world has been saying but my stubborness didnt allow me too see. Saturated fat is bad, OK? Its so bad for us ~4's that we have to all but avoid it! Get your TC under 150, its the only way.

I didn't believe Sat fat was all that bad for all too long (conspiracy theories!), I was wrong. What do you guys really think? There is a reason most of the world has come to consensus on this. Has the apoe4.info group reached the a different conclusion?

Hep, I minimise saturated fat as well. I keep it under 7% of calories and believe me, it's overwhelmingly plant-based in origin. Julie as well. And we both personally eat very little red meat, very seldom. I'm not sure where you get the impression we are all saturated fat friendly (some of the members are, on their interpretation of the evidence, but I do not speak for them).
The only consensus our group has reached is that glycaemic control matters, processed sugar laden foods are bad, and veggies rule.

[Tincup]

I ate a very low fat whole food vegan diet for ~18 years, as per Esselstyn and Ornish. I almost always had TC<150. I was fit, participating in races like a half marathon that gained 7800' elevation and topped out at >14,100'. However, I ended up with insulin resistance. I started checking my blood sugar after meals and did my own OGTT. Results were not stellar. I'm convinced that abnormal insulin as per Kraft's work is a much larger driver than fat. After smoking during my late teens, & early twenties, eating a SAD diet for a number of years, the vegan diet for 18 years, a high sat fat animal LCHF diet for 5 years, I had a first time calcium score of 17 at age 60. At this point, I'm happy with my high fat, mostly but not all vegan, low lectin Gundry program. The inflammatory makers as well as an sdLDL<30 mg/dL is what I focus on.

All this blah blah blah is meant to re-iterate the hypothesis that the same nutritional approach does not work for everyone, and that many of us do have to tweak and adjust to find the right balance for our unique body. Dr Gundry promotes a mostly plant based diet for vascular disease, but also encourages fish and copious amounts of olive oil, unlike Dr Esselstyn. Although Gundry has not published his results (to my knowledge), they appear to be very good. Several of our tribe work with him with impressive improvements in lipid results.

Gundry did publish this poster.