For
The Love of Your Heart
Easy Esselstyn Diet Recipes
with Pictures: The
Books
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Background |
The Books |
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Klaus Community Supported Agriculture |
Hundreds of books have been written on heart health with emphasis
of very diverse goals but two basic scenarios stand out: Either you want to
improve the health of your body and heart irrespectively of their health
levels or you want to heal your diseased heart. Both of these strategies
require the same basic lifestyle changes and medical treatments. However,
healing a diseased heart requires some additional special efforts. If you want to improve your heart health then get the basic scientific
information. A Book you have to Read:
Marc Gillinov, M.D. & Steven Nissen, M.D. collected the essential basic
fact on heart health and disease and summarized their pragmatic observations
in this thick but easily readable and understandable book. Based on the
guidelines of professional and government agencies and combined with their
own medical experience they promote a widely accepted heart healthy lifestyle
with 1. No smoking, 2. Five days per week challenging exercise (sweating),
3. Weight reduction to below obesity-level, 4. Blood sugar control, 5. Blood
pressure control to <120/80, and 6. Total cholesterol level control to
<200 mg/dL applying a low dosage (10mg) of a
statin (Crestor) and a Mediterranean
diet (20% fat). Under these conditions it is proven by numerous meta
studies (average outcomes of tens of thousands of observed patients) that
heart health is maintained or will improve. This is the “new” medical
direction in our healthcare system, personally given health care advice based
on the average behavior of all treated patients. The patient, who was
traditionally being diagnosed through comprehensive individual observations
documented in a written patient history, is now being treated as faceless
average person. Well, of cause in average that works fine in 15 minutes long
visits, and is risk-free for the physician but may not be so for some of the
not-so-average patients. If you have atherosclerosis or want to heal your diseased heart follow Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s Advise: In addition to the widely accepted heart healthy lifestyle with 1. No smoking, 2. Five days per week challenging exercise
(sweating), 3. Weight reduction to below obesity-level, 4. Blood sugar
control, 5. Blood pressure control to <120/80, Esselstyn prescribes in 6.
a reduction of the cholesterol levels in the blood using a low dosage (10mg)
of a statin (Crestor) and eating a“10%
Fat Plant-based Diet” without any cholesterol intake from animal products, low-salt content and no plant
oils. Optimal Blood Data are Total Cholesterol below 150 mg/dL and LDL (bad cholesterol) below 85 mg/dL. At risk patients with heart disease should have a LDL
(bad cholesterol) level below 70 mg/dL. Under these
conditions it is proven in controlled individual patients observations that
heart health will improve and it is shown that a diseased heart may heal. The Interview you have to Hear:
Click picture to listen to
interview. Esselstyn and Ornish
performed the first and up to now unrepeated studies on the influence of a
low-fat plant diet on manifestation of atherosclerosis and the healing of
heart disease. Books you have to Read: |
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Caldwell Esselstyn,
MD made clinical studies to show that a strict plant-based diet can reverse heart disease by lowering total cholesterol levels below 150 mg/dL as seen in cultures where heart disease is essentially nonexistent. Total cholesterol levels above 240 mg/dL can be considered as “high risk” for developing heart disease. His plant-based diet is directed at patients with heart disease and aims to reduce the risk of further complications and to heal the diseased heart. For this purpose, his diet does not allow any intake of cholesterol (present in all animal products, but not in plants) and requires a strict reduction of saturated fat intake and natural oil consumption (fish oil, olive oils, avocados, nuts etc.), which foster through triglycerides cholesterol production by the liver (as do excess of calories, alcohol and sugar). He accepts a lowest dose of drugs (statins like Crestor) for further reduction of liver-produced cholesterol and thus does not require any additional means of cholesterol reduction (as required by Ornish). This book has many great family recipes but has little practical guidance how to start with the new cooking. http://www.heartattackproof.com |
Dean Ornish, MD made his clinical studies at
the same time as Esselstyn and stresses that the plant-base diet for
the prevention and healing of heart disease requires further steps for the
natural reduction of liver-produced cholesterol. He rejects use of
cholesterol-reducing medication (like Crestor) but requests stress-reducing
activities including 30 min daily physical exercise, social group therapy,
meditation and Yoga for fostering inner harmony and happiness. On this
account he can allow a fat-reduced diet that includes some cholesterol intake
from animal products like fish, low-fat dairy products and other very-low fat
ready-to-eat frozen meals – as well as fish oil. Most of his books are
somewhat hard to read because of the abundant medical details discussed. The
many recipes provided were refined by well-known chefs but are not geared
towards the novice cook. |
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Is there a real scientifically based controversy? |
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All three books and their four authors agree on the
basic fact of necessary life style improvement – like every other educated
healthcare provider will do. Nissen and Gillinov even agree with Esselstyn on
the essentiality of statin use. However,…(please
watch).. Go to Public Radio and listen to the interview:
Click picture to listen to
the interview. Excerpt from the interview: Nissen: You know what really struck me is
that I went to the Internet one day and you type in “heart disease” and you
get all kinds of information, and the vast majority of it is dead wrong
scientifically. It’s
terrible. We have people now out on the talk show circuit telling you that
their diet is going to make you heart-attack-proof. That some ultra low-fat diet will melt away
the plaques in your coronary arteries, and they’re convincing otherwise
thoughtful people to not take the medications that they need and to have this magical faith that some wacky diet is going to make
them all better. We
knew that it was the right time to write a book that’s based not on myth, but
on fact. We acted like a jury – two of us would sit there and weigh the
evidence, look at the science and then come to a conclusion. There are things
in there where we tell you science doesn’t have the answer yet. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/steven-nissen-m-d-marc-gillinov-m-d/ So why retreating
to verbal polemic? In their book “Heart 411” they do not have a
chapter or even a discussion on or mentioning of HEALING a diseased heart. In
writing (in their book p 52) they only mention Esselstyn’s and Ornish’s diets
as being challenging to follow and producing unfavorable side-effect of
lowering the HDL (good) level. Such an effect is not observed or reported by
Esselstyn and Ornish neither in their books nor in their publications. One
basic reason for their avoidance of HEALING might be that scientific patient
studies of diet effects on any physiological phenomenon (including heart
disease) are nearly impossible to control at a level required for analyzing a
causality between study goals and outcomes since patients rarely adhere to
the study rules, have a diverse and varying physiology as well as history
regarding health, socioeconomically conditions, and self-control. Esselstyn
and Ornish made their first and up to now unrepeated scientific studies with
controlled patient groups (Private Practice or locked up into a rented hotel
for weeks and not allowed to eat anything else than prepared in the hotel
kitchen under detailed specifications); and then they used scientific and
medical imaging tools to verify their observations and published them in
peer-reviewed medical journals (Esselstyn, 1995, 1998; Ornish, 1998),
publications the Heart 411 writers obviously do not find worthy to mention
under their book’s sub-title motto: The ONLY (emphasis by authors) guide to
heart health you’ll ever need. Their omission points to a characteristic
conflict (Esselstyn, 2001) between devoted scientific observation done at the
individual patient level and the averaging conclusion drawn from meta studies
of thousands of patients. Whereas the later provides valid general behavior
guidelines, the former provides valid individual solutions. The reconciling
experiment is obvious: While staying on statins what will happen to the blood
values after following a 10%-fat Esselstyn diet for over one year and then
switching to a 20%-fat Mediterranean diet? My first experiences with breaking
the Esselstyn rules a few times for a few days in 2011 might foreshadow the results
(see chart on the Stories page of this website). Since summer 2013 this
challenge is on. All three books provide very important
facts on cause and treatment of atherosclerosis and heart disease, which are
unfortunately not taught to everyone in public schools or to future
professionals in medical schools. However, as pointed out on Feb 29, 2012 in
this episode of the Travis Smiley show, some first positive changes in our
healthcare system (emphasizing cost savings through preventive care based on
average behavior of all patients and closer guidance of the individual
behavior of at risk patients through targets administrative follow up) are
being now forthcoming and may have a general impact not only on the
maintenance of heart health but also on the healing of heart disease. Scientific
References (click on PubMed
link for article/abstract display): ·
Ornish D, Brown SE, Billings JH, Scherwitz LW, Armstrong WT, Ports TA, McLanahan
SM, Kirkeeide RL, Gould KL, Brand RJ, Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lancet, 1990, 129 – 133. DOI: 10.1016/0140-6736(90)91656-U [PubMed] Esselstyn CB, Presidential address: Beyond surgery. American Association of Endocrine Surgeons. Surgery. 1991 Dec;110(6):923-7 [PubMed] A strategy to arrest and reverse coronary artery disease: a 5-year longitudinal study of a single physician’s practice. J Fam Pract[PubMed] ·
Esselstyn CB Jr. Foreword:
changing the treatment paradigm for coronary artery disease. Am J Cardiol. 1998;82(10B):2T–4T. ·
. Intensive
lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease. JAMA [PubMed] ·
[PubMed] ·
[PubMed] Books (many other different editions are published at various dates)
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Other Materials
[PubMed]
[PubMed]
Web Materials [Web]
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Offerings you should
carefully Read or Subscribe to: And yes, there are other physicians and
cardiologist out there who advertise facts scaring uneducated consumers
(deadly bananas) and then selling their knowledge in all kinds of dubious
ways through political oriented media.
Hosted by newsmax.com (the organization
claiming to be the #1 conservative news agency online
with Bill O’Reilly, Dick Morris, Ed Koch, David Limbaugh) you
get sold simple e-mail reports on freely available or common sense knowledge
as well as their “proprietary” “revolutionary” remedy pills for approximately
$50 per item. |
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Comments: Write to heart@youworldtree.com and we
will add your contribution here. |
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