Heart Attack Proof ?

[hazelrah]

Does anyone apart from Dr. Esselstyn believe that it is possible to become "Heart Attack Proof" by adopting appropriate lifestyle changes?

I don't know, but I am convinced that not adopting appropriate lifestyle changes will make you heart attack guaranteed.

Mark

[f1jim]

I agree. Eating a poor diet and not getting a heart attack is infinitely less likely than eating a healthy diet and getting one.
With most Americans dying of heart disease the numbers seem obvious.
f1jim

[patty]

It is very simple as Dr. McDougall shares on his MS online video, the fat goes directly to the cell breaking the brain barrier of the cell. People think the brain of the cell is nucleus, no it is the membrane of the cell, the outer surface. No fat No oil!

This is the Biology of Belief Chapter of Gabor Mate MD "When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection

HE SCIENTIFIC INSIGHTS OF Bruce Lipton, a molecular biologist formerly at Stanford University in California, have profound implications for the understanding of illness, health and healing. In his public talks, as in personal interviews, he likes to throw his audience a scientific curve ball in the form of a question: "What is the brain of the individual cell?" The typical cal answer he receives, as he did from this interviewer, is: "The nucleus, of course." Of course, the nucleus is not the brain of the cell. The brain is our organ of decision making, and it is the brain that acts as our interface with the environment. In the life of the individual cell, not the nucleus us but the cell membrane fulfills the functions analogous to the activities of the brain.

In human embryological development, both the nervous system and the skin stem from the same tissue, the ectoderm. Individual cells use their membrane as both skin and nervous system. Like the skin, the membrane surrounds and protects the internal milieu of the cell. At the same time, it has on its surface the millions of molecular receptors tors that act as the cell's sensory organs: they "see" and "hear" and "feel" and-like the brain-interpret the messages arriving from the cell's external milieu. It also facilitates the exchange of substances and messages with the environment. The cell's "decision making" also takes place in the membrane and not in the nucleus, where the cell's genetic material is located.

As soon as we understand this fundamental biological reality, we are able to see past the popular assumption that genes are all-decisive in human behaviour and health. People may be forgiven for that misbelief. belief. Expressions of near-religious awe from some scientists and politicians and prophecies of dramatic medical advances greeted announcements in 2000 that researchers were close to deciphering the human genome, the genetic blueprint for the human body. "Today we are learning the language in which God created life," then president Bill Clinton said at the White House ceremony marking the truce between two groups of scientists racing to complete the genome."I truly feel this is going to revolutionize medicine because we are going to understand not only what causes disease but what prevents disease," enthused Dr. Stephen Warren, a U.S. medical geneticist and editor of The American Journal of Human Genetics.

The actual results of the genome project are bound to be disappointing. pointing. Although the scientific information uncovered is important for its own sake, very little can be expected from the genome program that will lead to broad health benefits in the near future, if ever.

First, there are many technical problems still to be solved. Our current rent state of knowledge about the genetic makeup of human beings may be likened to using a copy of The Concise Oxf)rd English Dictionary as "the model" from which the plays of William Shakespeare or the novels of Charles Dickens were created. "All" that remains to duplicate their work now is to find the prepositions, grammatical rules and phonetic netic indications, then to figure out how the two authors arrived at their storylines, dialogues and sublime literary devices. "The genome is the biological programming," one of the more thoughtful science reporters wrote, "but evolution has neglected to provide even the punctuation tuation to show where genes stop and start, let alone any helpful notes as to what each gene is meant to do."

Second, contrary to the genetic fundamentalism that currently informs medical thinking and public awareness, genes alone cannot possibly account for the complex psychological characteristics, the behaviours, health or illness of human beings. Genes are merely codes. They act as a set of rules and as a biological template for the synthesis of the proteins that give each particular cell its characteristic structure and functions. They are, as it were, alive and dynamic architectural and mechanical plans. Whether the plan becomes realized depends on far more than the gene itself. Genes exist and function in the context of living organisms. The activities of cells are defined not simply by the genes in their nuclei but by the requirements of the entire organism-and and by the interaction of that organism with the environment in which it must survive. Genes are turned on or (off by the environment. For this reason, son, the greatest influences on human development, health and behaviour are those of the nurturing environment.

Hardly anyone who raises plants or animals would ever dispute the primary role of early care in shaping how genetic endowment and potential will unfold. For reasons that have little to do with science, many people have difficulty grasping the same concept when it comes to the development of human beings. This paralysis of thought is all the more ironic, since of all animal species it is the human whose long-term functioning is most profoundly regulated by the early environment.

Given the paucity of evidence for any decisive role of genetic factors tors in most questions of illness and health, why all the hoopla about the genome project? Why the pervasive genetic fundamentalism?

We are social beings, and science, like all disciplines, has its ideological logical and political dimensions. As Hans Selye pointed out, the unacknowledged knowledged assumptions of the scientist will often limit and define what will be discovered. Settling for the view that illnesses, mental physical, are primarily genetic allows us to avoid disturbing questions about the nature of the society in which we live. If "science" enables us to ignore poverty or man-made toxins or a frenetic and stressful social culture as contributors to disease, we can look only to simple answers: pharmacological and biological. Such an approach helps to justify and preserve prevailing social values and structures. It may also be profitable. The value of shares in Celera, the private company participating in the genome project, went up 1,400 per cent between 1999 and 2000.

The genome hype is not only poor science, it is also suspect as theology. ology. In the Book of Genesis creation story, God fashions the universe first, then nature, and only afterwards does He shape humankind from the substance of the earth. He knew, even if Bill Clinton did not, that from their very earliest beginnings humans could never be understood apart from their environment. The milieu of the human organism is the physical and psychoemotional emotional environment that shapes our development and affects our interactions with the world throughout the lifetime.

The milieu of the individual cell is the cell's immediate surroundings, from which it receives messenger substances that originate in nearby cells, in nerve endings controlled trolled from afar and in distant organs that secrete chemicals into the circulatory culatory system. The information substances attach to receptors on the cell surface. Then, in the cell membrane-depending on how receptive the cell is at that moment-effector substances are produced that go to the nucleus, instructing the genes to synthesize particular proteins to carry out specific funetions.These receptor-effector protein complexes-called perception proteins-Bruce Lipton explains, act as the "switches" that integrate grate the function of the cell with its environment:

Although perception proteins are manufactured through molecular genetic mechanisms, activation of the perception process is "controlled" or initiated by environmental signals.... The controlling influence of the environment is underscored in recent studies on stein cells.* Stem cells do not control their own fate. The differentiation of stem cells is based upon the environment the cell finds itself in. For example, three different tissue culture environments can be created. If a stem cell is placed in culture number one, it may become a bone cell. If the same stem cell was put into culture two, it will become a nerve cell, or if placed into culture dish number three, the cell matures as a liver cell. The cell's fate is "controlled" by its interaction with the environment and not by a self-contained genetic program.'

A key point in Dr. Lipton's astute explanation of biological activity is that at any one time, cells-like the entire human organism-can be either in defensive node or growth mode but not both. Our perceptions tions of the environment are stored in cellular memory. When early environmental influences are chronically stressful, the developing nervous ous system and the other organs of the PNI super-system repeatedly receive the electric, hormonal and chemical message that the world is unsafe or even hostile. Those perceptions are programmed in our cells on the molecular level. Early experiences condition the body's stance toward the world and determine the person's unconscious beliefs about herself in relationship to the world. Dr. Lipton calls that process the biology of belief Fortunately, human experience and the ever-unfolding potential of human beings ensure that the biology of belief, though deeply physiologically logically ingrained, is not irreversible.

We have seen that stress is the result of an interaction between a stressor and a processing system. That processing apparatus is the human nervous system, operating under the influence of the brain's emotional centres. The biology of belief inculcated in that processing apparatus early in life crucially influences our stress responses throughout our lives. Do we recognize stressors? Do we magnify or minimize potential threats to our well-being? Do we perceive ourselves as alone? As helpless? less? As never needing help? As never deserving help? As being loved? As having to work to deserve love? As hopelessly unlovable? These are unconscious beliefs, embedded at the cellular level. They "control" our behaviours no matter what we may think on the conscious level. They keep us in shut-down defensive modes or allow us to open to growth and to health. We look now at some of these viscerally held perceptions more closely.

Gabor Maté. When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection (Kindle Locations 2851-2855). Kindle Edition.

Aloha, patty

[wade4veg]

So what's an extreme claim? Show me the outlandish claims a plant based leader is making. We talk like this is common and I want to see one. The leaders that I know give the data their claims are based on and explain the mechanisms behind the benefits.
Maybe I live in a cave but I don't see those claims thrown out there in my world.
Give me a website for that kind of outlandish claims. Are we just assuming this type of hype is common?
f1jim

Generally speaking, Caldwell Esselstyn's comments, overall view, and ideas, are backed up by his own study(s)... however, at times he does speak and write in a manner that may carry his theme beyond what his own data shows.

http://www.dresselstyn.com/huffpost.htm

Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
"If the truth be known coronary artery disease is a toothless paper tiger that need never ever exist and if it does exist it need never ever progress."

In his largest study, of some 177 "adherent" participants, there were 18 (10%) who had worse outcomes. That compares to 62% of non-adherent participants who had worse outcomes.

Looking at it another way, 90% of his study participants had either better outcomes or held steady.
Also, it is very likely that those whose outcomes were worse, would have arrived at the worse (negative) outcome sooner had they not been "adherent" to the diet.
I am sensitive to the statements that go a bit over the top, because I have not had the wished for outcome of reversal or halting of my CAD that some proclaim as nearly guaranteed.
Thus far no heart attack, but symptoms are progressing.
Yet having read everything I can get my hands on, I see no other dietary path that offers a superior outcome.
So I continue my dietary efforts to slow the progression of my symptoms and to hopefully avoid a "event".
Daily pain with 45 to 75 minute daily exercise, but as yet, no lost heart muscle from a heart attack.
Seldom any angina during the non-exercise portions of the day...so not that bad yet even though it makes my exercise less than enjoyable. Previously I'd only get some angina during the initial 15 minutes of my exercise, but now it pops up multiple times and lingers in the background during much of the routine. The future is uncertain. Troubling for a individual who not that many years ago would cycle Mt Diablo "twice" during a single day.

So, in short, I endorse the plant based diet with 10% or less fat. I only wish, like so many, that I had begun such a diet while in my 20's or 30's or even 40's. Had I done so, I have confidence I'd not be having my current problems.
BTW, it is not surprising that any diet or medicine or procedure does not work for 100% of the population.
90% success in any field of treatment is amazing.
Usually the figures are flipped. Where 90% fail in areas such as weight loss on most diets.

Can't imagine people not willing to try something that gives a 90% success rate... in avoiding a malady that will affect as many as 50% of Americans. Please be advised, you will not be given a warning you are at risk until your disease process is well under way. ( I was skinny, exercised...running and biking since age 15, had/have low blood pressure, no family history of early (pre-age 75) heart disease--parents lived to 88 and 97 without heart attacks or officially diagnosed specific heart disease), and I had a cholesterol level under 200, including under 175 for the six years leading up to symptoms and diagnosis)

[pundit999]

Wade
How is your cholesterol?
Keeping ldl below 50 has helped me overcome my angina. I took a 10mg lipitor for two years. That reduced my ldl to below 50 while I stayed on this way of eating. My doctor told me he can't get ldl that low with highest dose of statins in his other patients that continue to consume the sad.
I also felt that consuming ground flaxseed helped.
Sorry that your case appears to be an outlier. But I agree with your conclusion that nothing else other than a whole plants only diet exists to treat heart disease.

[guitarplayer007]

So what's an extreme claim? Show me the outlandish claims a plant based leader is making. We talk like this is common and I want to see one. The leaders that I know give the data their claims are based on and explain the mechanisms behind the benefits.
Maybe I live in a cave but I don't see those claims thrown out there in my world.
Give me a website for that kind of outlandish claims. Are we just assuming this type of hype is common?
f1jim

Generally speaking, Caldwell Esselstyn's comments, overall view, and ideas, are backed up by his own study(s)... however, at times he does speak and write in a manner that may carry his theme beyond what his own data shows.

http://www.dresselstyn.com/huffpost.htm

Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
"If the truth be known coronary artery disease is a toothless paper tiger that need never ever exist and if it does exist it need never ever progress."

In his largest study, of some 177 "adherent" participants, there were 18 (10%) who had worse outcomes. That compares to 62% of non-adherent participants who had worse outcomes.

Looking at it another way, 90% of his study participants had either better outcomes or held steady.
Also, it is very likely that those whose outcomes were worse, would have arrived at the worse (negative) outcome sooner had they not been "adherent" to the diet.
I am sensitive to the statements that go a bit over the top, because I have not had the wished for outcome of reversal or halting of my CAD that some proclaim as nearly guaranteed.
Thus far no heart attack, but symptoms are progressing.
Yet having read everything I can get my hands on, I see no other dietary path that offers a superior outcome.
So I continue my dietary efforts to slow the progression of my symptoms and to hopefully avoid a "event".
Daily pain with 45 to 75 minute daily exercise, but as yet, no lost heart muscle from a heart attack.
Seldom any angina during the non-exercise portions of the day...so not that bad yet even though it makes my exercise less than enjoyable. Previously I'd only get some angina during the initial 15 minutes of my exercise, but now it pops up multiple times and lingers in the background during much of the routine. The future is uncertain. Troubling for a individual who not that many years ago would cycle Mt Diablo "twice" during a single day.

So, in short, I endorse the plant based diet with 10% or less fat. I only wish, like so many, that I had begun such a diet while in my 20's or 30's or even 40's. Had I done so, I have confidence I'd not be having my current problems.
BTW, it is not surprising that any diet or medicine or procedure does not work for 100% of the population.
90% success in any field of treatment is amazing.
Usually the figures are flipped. Where 90% fail in areas such as weight loss on most diets.

Can't imagine people not willing to try something that gives a 90% success rate... in avoiding a malady that will affect as many as 50% of Americans. Please be advised, you will not be given a warning you are at risk until your disease process is well under way. ( I was skinny, exercised...running and biking since age 15, had/have low blood pressure, no family history of early (pre-age 75) heart disease--parents lived to 88 and 97 without heart attacks or officially diagnosed specific heart disease), and I had a cholesterol level under 200, including under 175 for the six years leading up to symptoms and diagnosis)

Do you get your Angina in your chest? I get mine in my face, like a pressure.... I'm scared keep going when I get this pressure

[pundit999]

Do you get your Angina in your chest? I get mine in my face, like a pressure.... I'm scared keep going when I get this pressure

Angina is weird. It manifests in numerous weird ways. And the symptoms vary a lot from person to person.
Often, it is unclear if it is angina.

I used to get a strange feeling in my jaw. And some metallic type of taste in the mouth. Additionally, I used to get pain in my arms when exercising. Also, a burning feeling while exercising in my chest, similar to heartburn. Also, difficulty in exerting myself, the first few minutes of exercise.

Angina is dull pain. If you get a shooting pain it is likely not angina.

For stable patients, the key is that these feelings or symptoms should go away if you take rest or take nitroglycerin.

I am glad all of this in the past for me. I feel very lucky.

[wade4veg]

Wade
How is your cholesterol?
Keeping ldl below 50 has helped me overcome my angina. I took a 10mg lipitor for two years. That reduced my ldl to below 50 while I stayed on this way of eating. My doctor told me he can't get ldl that low with highest dose of statins in his other patients that continue to consume the sad.

My last two LDL results were 34 and 38. That includes a statin along with the diet.
I don't think there is much advantage of taking it even lower.

[wade4veg]

Do you get your Angina in your chest? I get mine in my face, like a pressure.... I'm scared keep going when I get this pressure

I get it in my chest and also in my arms. It can be scary, but I've been continuing my biking and hiking of hills for almost 5 years with the symptoms. At certain points when it peaks or changes in nature, I'll ease up until it gets back into my normal angina zone of mild discomfort.. however I don't stop.

But don't take my example of what you should follow. I imagine that most doctors would tell their patients to stop until the pain goes away...then resume the exercise.
Its just that I've been doing this for years and feel somewhat safe in my practice of keeping to a lower level of discomfort.
But who knows, someday I may have a heart attack while exercising through my angina.

You do have to watch out for ventricular fibrillation. That is where the overworked heart can be put under too much strain without adequate blood flow and can just stop beating normally. Usually when that happens the person dies.
I know of a person I communicate with who lived through such a event...but only be sheer luck.
He was 300 meters from the end of a half marathon... and not feeling his normal angina.
Then his heart just stopped beating normally... Spectators quickly began CPR and rushed to alert the medical team at the nearby finnish line. They came quickly and started his heart beating again. Then he was rushed to a nearby hospital and put into a induced coma while they chilled his body with ice.
Woke up a couple days later and still had his brain intact.
Had his heart stopped anywhere else, without a medical team nearby, he'd be dead or at least brain dead.

But don't focus on that incident... Most heart attacks are not that type.
They are STEMI or NSTEMI.... Still they can kill if they happen in the most crucial artery... like the LAD

I don't recall you mentioning exactly where your narrowing or blockage(s) are. Or what other tests you have had.
Actually angina is better than not having angina and getting a small blockage, that doesn't produce pain, yet can kill you instantly. More than half of all fatal heart attacks happen in arteries that are only partially blocked and give off no advance angina or warnings.

[pundit999]

Wade
How is your cholesterol?
Keeping ldl below 50 has helped me overcome my angina. I took a 10mg lipitor for two years. That reduced my ldl to below 50 while I stayed on this way of eating. My doctor told me he can't get ldl that low with highest dose of statins in his other patients that continue to consume the sad.

My last two HDL results were 34 and 38. That includes a statin along with the diet.
I don't think there is much advantage of taking it even lower.

I assume you meant LDL and not HDL?

[Poison Ivy]

Pundit, how old are you? Same question to you Wade..

[wade4veg]

Wade
How is your cholesterol?
Keeping ldl below 50 has helped me overcome my angina. I took a 10mg lipitor for two years. That reduced my ldl to below 50 while I stayed on this way of eating. My doctor told me he can't get ldl that low with highest dose of statins in his other patients that continue to consume the sad.

My last two HDL results were 34 and 38. That includes a statin along with the diet.
I don't think there is much advantage of taking it even lower.

I assume you meant LDL and not HDL?

Yes, thanks for the correction...I fixed it.
BTW, my HDL stays above 50. Could be higher, but when the TC is only 103 to 107, then its tough to make room for a full HDL of 60
Last couple tests..

Cholesterol 103, 107 mg/dL
Triglyceride 77, 85 mg/dL
HDL 53, 52 mg/dL
LDL 35, 38 mg/dL

[wade4veg]

Pundit, how old are you? Same question to you Wade..

Just hit 67...
BMI about 19.0 to 19.3
Typical BP... from 95 to 115 systolic
HR, about 54 to 60

Occupation- State Licensed Phrenologist.

[pundit999]

Pundit, how old are you? Same question to you Wade..

I am 54. Started eating this way when I was 49.

Wade your numbers are excellent. Strange that you still have angina. It does take time for some people. It took me full four years before I could say for sure that angina went away.

The main thing is avoiding heart attacks. Even if your blockages are not reversing, a plaque bursting is hopefully unlikely with such low ldl and high hdl.

[Poison Ivy]

Thanks Wade and Pundit. I agree with what pundit said. I wonder why you are still getting chest pain. Your numbers and diet are excellent. Anxiety, fear, and panic can cause similar feelings. Are you sure it is always coming from your heart? Any disease or illness can provoke anxiety.