"How to Reverse Heart Failure with Diet" It is a hopeful sign of the times when
entire issues of cardiology journals are not just dedicated to nutrition,
but to plant-based diets in particular. Dr. Williams, past president of the
American College of Cardiology, starts out with a quote
attributed to Schopenhauer. "All truth passes through three
stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third,
it is accepted as…" like, well, duh. And the truth for the benefits
of plant-based diets, plant-based nutrition
continues to mount. The evidence, we got; the problem
is the inertia, culture, habit, and widespread marketing of
unhealthy foods.
"Our goal must be to get the data out to the medical
community and the public where it can actually change lives…" That's like my personal life's mission
in four words: get the data out. Based on what we already know in the
existing medical literature, plant-based nutrition clearly represents the single
most important yet underutilized opportunity to reverse the pending
obesity and diabetes-induced epidemic of morbidity and mortality,
meaning disease and death. The issue included your typical
heart disease reversal cases: a 77-year old woman with heart disease
so bad she couldn't walk more than a half-block or go up a single flight
of stairs, severe blockages in all three of her main arteries, and referred
to open heart surgery for a bypass.
She chose, however, instead to
adopt a whole-food plant-based diet, which included all vegetables, fruits,
whole grains, potatoes, beans, legumes, and nuts. Even though she said she
was trying to eat pretty healthy before, within a single month of going plant-
based her symptoms had nearly resolved. And forget about a block, she
was able to walk on a treadmill for up to 50 minutes without chest
discomfort or becoming out of breath. Her cholesterol dropped about a hundred
points from around 220 down to 120, with an LDL under 60. But then, a few months later she must
have started missing her chicken, fish, and low-fat dairy, and went back
to her prior eating habits. And within a few weeks, with no change
in her meds or anything, her chest pain was back, and she went on to have
her chest sawed in half after all.
Then she continued to eat the same diet
that contributed to cause her disease in the first place and went on to
have further disease progression. This one, though, has a happier ending.
It started out the same: a 60-year-old man, severe chest pain
after as little as a half-block. Decided to take control of his health
destiny and switched to a whole food plant-based diet from his "healthy" diet
of skinless chicken, fish, low-fat dairy that had been choking off his heart. And within a few weeks, the same
amazing transformation. From not being able to exercise
at all, to walking a mile, to then being able to jog more than
four miles, completely asymptomatic, off all drugs, no surgery,
off to live happily ever after.
Now, of course, case reports are
just really glorified anecdotes. I mean, what we need is a randomized
controlled trial to prove heart disease can be reversed with lifestyle
changes alone. And guess what? There was one, published literally
30 years ago, proving angiographic reversal of heart disease
in 82% of the patients, opening up arteries without
drugs, without surgery. So these case reports are just to
remind us that hundreds of thousands of Americans continue
to needlessly die every year from what was proven to be a
reversible condition decades ago.
The conventional use of case reports,
though, is to present some novel results in hopes of inspiring trials
to put it to the test. For example, a case report on a plant-
based diet for congestive heart failure. So not just coronary artery disease, but
the heart muscle itself was so weakened it couldn't efficiently pump blood, only
able to eject about 35% of the blood in the main heart chamber with every
beat, whereas normally the heart can pump out at least half; which is
exactly what his heart was able to do just six weeks after switching to
a whole-food plant-based diet, instead of choosing to get
his chest cracked open. The first report of an improvement
in heart failure following adoption of a plant-based diet, but not the last.
A 54-year-old woman, obese, type 2 diabetic, presenting with
swelling ankles due to her heart failure. She switched from her chicken
and fish to whole plant foods. She started out eating healthier and lost
50 pounds, reversed her diabetes— meaning normal blood sugars on
a normal diet without the use of diabetes medications—and
her heart function normalized, from an abysmal ejection fraction
of just 25% up to normal.
Now since it's not a
randomized controlled trial, all we can say is
that her improvements coincided with her adoption of
a whole food plant-based diet. But given the burden of heart failure
as a leading cause of death, how it usually just gets progressively
worse, and the overall evidence to date, a plant-based diet should be
considered as part of heart failure care. And look, we already know it can
reverse her coronary artery disease, and so any heart failure
benefits would just be a bonus. Now, we just need good strategies
for healthcare practitioners to support patients in plant-based eating. Here are some excellent suggestions
to pause and reflect on.
For example, doctors can
use the Plantrician Project's prescription pads and
prescribe a good website or two. While it is certainly true that
many people would be resistant to fundamental dietary changes, look, it is equally true that
millions of intelligent people motivated to preserve their health
are now taking half-way measures that may provide only modest benefit—
choosing leaner cuts of meat, using reduced-fat dairy products.
Most of these people have neither the time nor the training to actually see
what the science shows themselves.
Don't they deserve honest, forthright
advice when their lives are at stake? Those who wish to ignore that advice,
or implement it only partially, are certainly at liberty to do so. I mean, you want to go smoke
cigarettes, go bungie jumping? It's your body, your choice.
It's up to each of us to make our own decisions as to
what to eat and how to live. But we should make these choices
consciously, educating ourselves about the predictable
consequences of our actions..