"Cavities and Coronaries: Our Choice"
Many of today's lifestyle medicine doctors, myself included,
were greatly influenced by Nathan Pritikin,
the nutrition pioneer who started reversing heart disease
with a plant-based diet and exercise,
opening up arteries without drugs and surgery,
effectively curing our number 1 killer disease.
But where did he come up with the idea?
We tend to think of rural China
as a place with a fraction of our disease rates,
forgetting about Africa.
Pritikin was 43 when he was told by a cardiologist
that he was at great risk of death from a heart attack,
so he began to live on a diet
patterned after the black population of Uganda.
This was a population living off plants
that was essentially FREE from death from heart attacks.
After curing his own heart disease
with a plant based diet
he went on to save the lives of thousands of others.
What was the data that so convinced him?
Last year, the International Journal of Epidemiology
reprinted this landmark article from the 50's
that started out with a shocking statement:
"In the African population of Uganda"
"coronary heart disease is almost non-existent."
Our number one cause of death, almost nonexistent?!
What were they eating?
Plantains and sweet potatoes, other vegetables,
corn, millet, pumpkins, tomatoes
and "green leafy vegetables are taken by all."
And their protein almost exclusively from plant sources,
and they had the cholesterol levels to prove it,
similar to modern-day, plant-eaters.
Apart from the effects of diet
and the blood cholesterol levels
the researchers couldn't figure out any other reasons
for their freedom from heart disease.
50 year old findings just as relevant today.
They showed that dietary intake to be a key,
modifiable, established, and well-recognized risk factor
for heart attacks… "without needing to invoke novel,"
"as yet undiscovered risk factors."
This contrasts with the rather desperate search
in recent decades for even newer
cardiovascular risk factors.
We have the only risk factor we need– cholesterol–
we've had it for 50 years
and we can do something about it.
According to the Editor-in-Chief
of the American Journal of Cardiology,this year,
the only risk factor required
for these atherosclerotic plaques,
our #1 killer, is cholesterol.
Elevated LDL or so called "bad" cholesterol in our blood.
To drop our LDL cholesterol,
we need to drop our intake of three things:
trans fat (found in junk food and animal foods),
saturated fat (found mostly in animal foods),
and dietary cholesterol (found exclusively in animal foods).
The journal actually went back and located
Dr. Shaper, now 97 years old,
and asked him to personally reflect
on this groundbreaking study he performed
more than a half century ago.
It would be cheering to think
that his article actually helped,
and attitudes to diet have been changing in recent years,
however to his "personal surprise and disappointment"
"we still lack a deep commitment"
"to the diet–heart hypothesis,"
"and it is likely that atherosclerosis and its complications"
"will follow us throughout the next half century."
What he discovered, is that heart disease may be a choice.
Like cavities…
If you look at the teeth of people
who lived over 10,000 years
before the invention of the toothbrush,
they pretty much had no cavities.
Didn't brush a day in their lives,
never flossed, no Listerine, no Waterpik…
yet no cavities.
That's because candy bars hadn't been invented yet.
Why do people continue to get cavities
when we know they're preventable through diet?
Simple.
Because the pleasure people derive from dessert
may outweigh the cost and discomfort of the dentist…
And that's fine!
Look! As long as people understand
the consequences of their actions,
as a physician what more can I do?
If you're an adult and decide
the benefits outweigh the risks for you and your family,
then go for it—
I certainly enjoy the occasional indulgence...
(I've got a good dental plan).
But what if instead of the plaque on your teeth,
we're talking about the plaque building up in your arteries?
Another disease that can be prevented,
by changing our diet.
Then what are the consequences for you and your family?
Now we're not just talking about scraping tartar.
Now we're talking life and death.
The most likely reason most of our loved ones will die,
is heart disease.
It's still up to each of us to make our own decisions
as to what to eat and how to live—
but we should make our choices consciously,
educating ourselves about the predictable
consequences of our actions.