Full Transcript Introduction and Caldwell Esselstynu2019s Background 0:00 All right, everybody, welcome back. 0:02 One of the most exciting interviews we're going to have in this amazing week. 0:06 Reverse Heart Disease Summit. Thank you for being here. 0:09 You will be glad you're here. 0:10 Let me introduce somebody who actually needs no introduction. 0:13 But just in case somebody isn't aware, Doctor Caldwell Esselstyn 0:18 Jr graduated from the Yale University School way back 1956. 0:24 Medical degree, Western Reserve University School of Medicine, 1961. 0:28 A gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1956 for rowing. 0:33 Some just incredible video. 0:35 I've seen, for played by his son Reb, 0:38 Army surgeon in Vietnam awarded a Bronze Star. 0:41 Everybody please salute. 0:43 Doctor Esselstyn, trained as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, 0:48 met Beautiful and Cry, whose grandfather founded 0:52 the Cleveland Clinic and whose father was a famous, 0:56 if I'm correct, breast surgeon, where, Doc Esselstyn 1:00 ultimately rose to be chairman of the Breast Cancer Task Force and head of the 1:05 Thyroid Impaired Thyroid disease Surgical unit at the Cleveland 1:09 Clinic Compassion and Medicine Distinguished Alumnus Award. 1:13 But this is a surgeon who cares about nutrition. 1:16 I mean, there actually are so many became so caring about nutrition that, 1:20 it has been his passion since 1985. 1:23 Clinical research. 1:24 He's been awarded lifetime achievement awards by the Plant 1:28 Physician Project, the American College of Lifestyle Medication 1:31 very highly published and perhaps of all things 1:35 besides his sparkling an amazing wife and author and is his book 1:40 Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, published in 2007. 1:44 A book literally hundreds of my patients 1:47 walk out of my office with copies of it's their homework they have to read. 1:51 I don't know, I could go on and on 1:52 and just introduce you, doc, but shouldn't we just say good morning and hello? 1:57 Thank you. Joe. 1:58 Well, you know, you're a humble man, 2:00 but you deserve all the praise that is showered on you. 2:05 Yeah. 2:05 You should run for president. 2:06 I don't think there's a floor. Guess 2:10 I guess you'd be the oldest candidate, even though we got some pretty old, right? 2:14 Yeah, yeah, I mean, I won't I won't reveal your age, but, it's 2:18 double numbers and it's not 77, and you look and, I have amazing zest. 2:23 So we're here to talk about reversing heart disease naturally. 2:27 And, I mean, tell us a little bit just because it's so interesting. 2:31 I mean, you're, an incredibly compassionate breast surgeon 2:34 and thyroid surgeon. 2:35 Parathyroid surgeon. 2:37 But you cared about blood vessels. 2:39 And how much did Rene Valero, by chance, play into that? 2:44 You know, perhaps the most famous heart surgeon in the world 2:48 at the time for doing bypass surgery? 2:51 Well, I first got to know Rene Vavilala when, 2:57 When he first 2:58 arrived at the Cleveland Clinic, he had been, 3:01 in the private, practice of general surgery for ten years in, 3:05 Argentina when he decided he wanted to expand 3:09 his surgical horizon and learn about cardiothoracic surgery. 3:14 And so he came to the Cleveland Clinic 3:16 to be under the tutelage of John F 3:21 and was at that time the chairman of, 3:23 cardiothoracic surgery at the clinic. 3:26 And it was in July of, 3:30 of 1963 that just happened to coincide. 3:33 I was a that was a rotation that I was taking
Rene Favaloro and the Birth of Coronary Surgery 3:37 and general surgery was in cardiothoracic surgery. 3:40 And it was at the same time that the Fabuloso, 3:43 started his residency at the clinic, in his Radstock surgery. 3:48 So we got to be really quite good friends. 3:50 He was an absolutely delightful, man. 3:53 He had, a wonderful set of, of hands. 3:57 He had a very creative mind, 4:00 and he had all the milk of human kindness. 4:03 And, I was only with him for three months because that was my rotation 4:07 through cardiothoracic. But he stayed 4:10 for the full two year rotation. 4:11 He went back to, Argentina. 4:15 And at that time they, 4:18 said, well, what do you expect us to do with you? 4:20 You went up there and you learned some things 4:22 from Doctor After, and, you're a viewer think you're a big deal. 4:26 Well, that wasn't a very nice reception from him back in his home country. 4:30 So he was so, 4:32 able and so delightful and so treasured 4:35 at the clinic that the clinic asked him to join. 4:38 And he became a full staff member in the Department 4:41 of cardiothoracic surgery in 1965. 4:45 And it was while I was in Vietnam in, 4:48 the spring of 1967, that back in Cleveland, 4:55 that it was further fascinating what happened. 4:59 You give it a little, additional background because at this time, 5:03 nobody was operating on coronary arteries, 5:06 but the clinic was a shrine, 5:09 an absolute shrine for people coming to understand 5:13 what their coronary arteries looked like, because it was just you have 5:17 a bit of absolute serendipity 5:20 that, Mason stones 5:23 in who in 1958 5:25 was the chairman of the Cleveland Clinic catheterization Laboratory at that time, 5:31 they were just doing catheterization for the, 5:36 for looking at valves. 5:38 So they would have this bolus of dye that would go into the ventricle. 5:43 And it was felt that if you ever put dye into the coronary arteries, 5:47 you would kill somebody because, they would not be getting any blood. 5:52 Well, what happened to fortuitously 5:53 was one day in 1958 when Doctor Jones 5:57 was looking at the, image amplifier. 6:01 His associate had the plunger ready to put to inject the dye. 6:06 And so instead of go ahead and exit the dye, 6:10 none of it went into the ventricle. 6:12 It all went into a coronary artery. 6:13 Sounds looked at the. 6:17 The, EKG and it was flatlined. 6:19 So he yelled at the the patient to cough. 6:22 The man coughed and suddenly that brought back sinus rhythm. 6:26 But songs was brilliant. 6:28 He said that if we use much, much, much less dye, 6:31 and if we really, 6:34 decrease the concentration of this, we can do this safely. 6:38 And that's when absolutely everybody was coming 6:42 to the Cleveland Clinic from around the world to get this road map 6:46 of their coronary arteries, for which there was absolutely no therapy, 6:50 there was no surgery, and there was no no medication that would help it. 6:54 So here was fabulous. 6:56 Well, now, we advanced from 1958 back up to 1967. 7:00 He's operating on this patient. 7:02 He's seen the films while he's operating on the patient's heart. 7:06 Suddenly it turns blue. 7:07 He yells at his team, prep the leg. 7:10 They prep the leg, harvest a vein. 7:12 He shows the vein on around this blockage, the heart picks up again. 7:16 Coronary artery surgery is born. 7:19 Yeah. 7:20 And then on this, Mason Stone's just. 7:23 He love fabuloso. 7:25 And he just fed him case after case after case 7:28 after case and really fabulous. 7:31 Was fluent in English. 7:32 He was fluent in Spanish and French and Italian. 7:36 And he was considered as such a leader in surgery 7:40 that any country that he visited to present his data, 7:44 they were so flattered that he could speak, used some kind of common language. 7:50 And I can. 7:50 You ended up if I remember the story, due to construction, 7:54 you ended up sharing a surgical locker with. 7:56 That's exactly what I was going to get. 7:58 Yeah, that's what happened next. 7:59 Because when I got back from Vietnam and was offered a position 8:03 at the Cleveland Clinic Department of General Surgery, 8:06 the surgical locker room was filling up 8:08 so they no longer could put one surgeon to one locker. 8:12 They did it. 8:12 They doubled us up alphabetically. 8:14 And Esselstyn was next to fabulous. 8:16 So for the next two years we were together when what happened was 8:20 the chorus from Argentina was so loud 8:23 to bring Babulal back to Argentina he couldn't resist. 8:27 And he, he went down there and finished his career. 8:30 So you were operating on and for anybody 8:33 listening that says that's a bunch of history. 8:36 You know, we can't really talk about reversing heart disease naturally 8:40 if we can't measure heart disease. 8:42 So hearing what we just heard, which is such a beautiful history 8:45 of coronary angiography, accidentally identified as a, technique 8:51 that could be done safely in most cases and led to bypass surgery, 8:55 ultimately angioplasty with Doctor Grundig and Switzerland, and ultimately 9:00 stenting with many operators around the world, including myself. 9:04 If you didn't have the road map, you couldn't do it now. 9:06 Now we have CT scans, and I think the future of cardiology research 9:11 already is quantitative CT scans, of which perhaps, you know, doctor assistant. 9:16 But we interviewed Matthew Boot off one of the world experts interviewed James men.
Early Conferences on Eliminating Heart Disease 9:20 These are people publishing large, you know, 9:23 trials on CT angiography and reversal of plaque. 9:26 And, I think if you were to do it all over again in 1985 9:30 and we had CT angiography for $500, it could have had 9:34 every patient got a pre and post, you know, quantitative measurement. 9:38 But I, I'm humbled. 9:40 I reread your book last night. 9:42 I've read your book many times, but I reread it last night 9:46 and I did not recall the introduction with Colin Campbell, Doctor Colin Campbell 9:50 at Cornell. 9:51 Everybody probably recognize from the China study that at 1991. 9:55 I mean, I'm humbled. 9:56 We're talking here 2023, about reversal of heart disease. 10:00 You had a conference in 1991, the first National Conference 10:05 on the Elimination of Coronary artery disease. 10:09 That's a big, bold moonshot. 10:11 That's a term some of my friends use, a moonshot. 10:14 I mean, where did a thyroid and breast surgeon ultimately 10:17 organize a conference on eliminating heart disease? 10:21 And sadly, we got work to do, which is why we're having this summit. 10:26 Well, just 10:27 by that time, I was beginning to get data. 10:30 And by that time I had also heard of and had met Dean Ornish. 10:35 And, just to me, 10:37 it was so colossal to think that, you know, 10:42 that we had absolutely hard evidence 10:45 that when we could get people to change their nutrition 10:48 to whole food, plant based nutrition and they could halt and reverse 10:51 coronary disease, the world really should know about it. 10:55 But there was nobody, with all due respect, 10:58 there was nobody in cardiology who seemed to have any interest in this 11:02 because Dean was not a cardiologist and I was a general surgeon. 11:06 So I found a, 11:10 actually, it was a small foundation, in memory of my father, 11:13 that we got some funding and we put together this, conference. 11:17 We had about 100 people attend, but we had a really a blue ribbon panel. 11:21 Alexander Leaf was there from Harvard. 11:23 Dean Ornish was there, Colin Campbell was there. 11:26 These are just people that I, that I had read about and, and 11:30 and I called them they were willing to come and be part of the conference. And, 11:35 it was very disappointing to me that that, 11:40 that this didn't light up some fires around the world. 11:43 And so I once again, I thought, I can I'll do this another time. 11:46 So in 1987, this time down in Disney 11:49 with 500, health care workers and physicians and surgeons, 11:53 we had another blue ribbon panel and, it was 11:57 very exciting to, to do this a second time was 12:01 and I said, this is crazy for a general surgeon to be doing this. 12:05 We started conferences and gradually 12:07 after that, it slowly did begin to, to pick up, 12:11 and obviously your book ten years later in 2007, Doctor 12:15 Ornish, his book in 1990, and others, you know, it made it more accessible. 12:19 But people today are listening to your interview and are saying, 12:23 I've never heard of doctor assistant. 12:25 I mean that amazing to you? 12:28 Yeah. 12:28 I mean, yeah, you're probably the most loved social media, 12:32 nutrition physician, in the world, I would, I would actually say that 12:36 that's true, in the plant based world. 12:38 And, I'm glad we're bringing your wisdom. 12:41 So I again, we read your book last night, 1985. 12:45 You get an agreement by some cardiologists and cardiac surgeons at the Cleveland 12:49 Clinic to give you what you called in your book, The Walking Dead. 12:54 Those that couldn't get bypass surgery. 12:56 And by 1985, we did have crude angioplasty, 13:01 but some people weren't candidates. 13:02 And as you said, they couldn't walk to the mailbox without limiting symptoms. 13:07 None of the men had erectile function left in their repertoire. 13:11 And you and and designed a study to look at whole food plant 13:16 based nutrition on symptom status, Pet scans or nuclear scans. 13:22 So, many of them got angiograms before and after. 13:25 I mean, was this all extra time in your life? 13:28 I mean, you were still a surgeon. 13:31 No, I had yeah. 13:32 This is why the study was small. 13:34 It was 24 patients originally, and, 13:37 and because of my, 13:40 surgical obligations, it couldn't really be much larger. 13:44 That was the restraining factor. 13:47 But when I retired from the surgery, in. 13:56 About 21 years ago. 13:58 All right, I was then able to, Yeah, I stopped surgery about when I was, 85.
The 1985 Reversal Study and Patient Results 14:04 I mean, when I was seven. 14:06 Let's try it again. 14:07 I stopped surgery when I was 65. 14:10 Okay. 14:11 And, now. 14:13 And I got rehired by the clinic to work in the Wellness Institute. 14:17 And I put together a, format that I'm still using today, where once a month, 14:24 it used to be in person, but now it's all virtual. 14:26 Once a month, I counsel, 14:30 approximately 20 patients 14:32 who have, cardiovascular disease. 14:35 And, these are patients that are self referred. 14:39 And since I'm a little bit old fashioned and compulsive, 14:44 my secretary will give me their, 14:48 name and phone number 14:49 two weeks before my, monthly seminar. 14:52 And I will personally 14:53 call each of the patients so I can get my arms around their story 14:57 and at the same time provide them with an opportunity to ask questions of me. 15:02 So they're coming to the seminar. 15:03 We have a strong platform from which we can all move forward. 15:07 And the seminar itself is five, as 5.5 hours. 15:11 And they're going to learn all about how they created their disease 15:14 and precisely how we are going to empower them 15:17 as the locus of control to halt and reverse their disease. 15:22 All right. 15:23 And, so that's it's been 85. 15:25 You enrolled 24 patients and 15:29 told them, you know, trust me, work with me, work with my wife. 15:33 And it really was all nutrition. 15:35 And although you did play some of them on call this thiamin and lovastatin 15:41 prescription drugs and lower cholesterol, what was talk about what was your 15:45 you know, it's now the norm in cardiology to talk about ultra 15:49 low cholesterol levels as a reversal platform. 15:53 It's controversial in a few segments of the medical world, but it's not the norm. 15:59 The norm is low cholesterol in an adult is an advantage. 16:03 But you saw this so much earlier than everybody else. 16:06 What was the goal? 16:07 Cholesterol and the goal LDL, you know, as you may have seen and maybe the 16:12 some of the presentations I gave, I showed the numbers, 16:15 the cholesterol numbers on that original group, 16:17 they were averaging of the total cholesterol was somewhere around one, 135 16:22 140 and their, LDL was averaging 80, you know, 16:28 and, and their coarser 16:30 HDL was around 37 and 38. 16:34 But, with all due respect to cholesterol, 16:37 when I'm more and more impressed with because, 16:39 for example, coming to my seminar, there will be patients who were discovered 16:44 long before they found me that they simply couldn't take a statin. 16:47 And yet, when they've gone through the program, 16:50 some of the most and you've seen this in the book, 16:53 some of our most profound evidence of disease 16:56 reversal was in patients who simply could not take a stand. 17:00 Or it happened before we ever had stands invented. 17:03 And we had several profound reversals in the leg, for example. 17:07 And, and one of those patients. 17:09 So it was it's really, 17:12 to me, I guess I don't feel that any number has ever caused heart disease. 17:18 What causes heart disease is what is passing through 17:21 people's lips every day. 17:24 That destroys their endothelial capacity to make that magic molecule 17:29 of nitric oxide, which is responsible because of its multiple functions 17:34 for protecting us from making blockages and plaque. 17:38 Right. That's a profound statement. 17:40 And I hope everybody just heard that endothelium, 17:43 the first 60,000 miles of lining of arteries throughout the body. 17:48 I read yesterday that there's 400 miles of arteries in the brain. 17:51 I thought there would have been more than 400 miles in the brain. 17:54 That leaves, you know, tens of thousands of miles and other parts of the body. 17:58 It's universal, and it has to have a lining that makes nitric oxide. 18:03 So I know your program has changed a little bit from 1985. 18:07 In terms of now it's completely no dairy, and such. 18:11 What would what would be. 18:12 Let's get practical for a minute, though. 18:14 I don't want to get too practical. 18:15 I like that we have a real dreamer here who's really brought a dream to reality. 18:19 And, everybody listening can benefit. 18:21 What would a breakfast be like for the for the patient 18:24 that you talked to on a monthly Friday zoom call? 18:28 Now, what's your breakfast looking like? 18:31 Well, I'd like 18:32 them to have, some type of old fashioned oats. 18:36 Old fashioned Quaker Oats 18:38 with perhaps a few raisins. 18:41 Can have a banana. 18:44 And I really, like to have, 18:46 if possible, for different types of fruit 18:50 raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and a little bit of blueberries 18:54 and some flaxseed meal. 18:56 A couple of tablespoons. 18:57 Or it can be, chia seeds. 19:02 And I think to wet it down 19:04 to wet it down as a plant based milk. 19:07 And I think you're pretty famous for adding 19:09 some steamed greens into that oatmeal. 19:12 Oh, no. Well, none will come to that. 19:13 I didn't know you were, Okay. No problem. 19:16 Okay. Beautiful bowl of oatmeal. 19:19 Since I. 19:19 Yeah, since I, have this great fondness for nitric oxide. 19:24 I made it to modifications 19:27 in the program about a decade ago, 19:30 and that was one was a great a see, if we couldn't achieve 19:33 a greater stimulation 19:35 of the endothelial production of nitric oxide, 19:38 which, as we all know, is age dependent, 19:41 that is to say, you don't ever see a heart, a heart attack in an eight year 19:45 old boy or girl because they have nitric oxide coming out of their ears, 19:49 but by the time they're beautifully healthy at 50, they've lost 50% 19:53 of their nitric oxide that they had when they were 25. 19:56 And by the time you're 80 have lost 70%. 19:59 So we try to have a greater 20:01 stimulation of nitric oxide, which I'll mention in a moment. 20:04 And the other important thing we did was to take advantage 20:08 of the newer research that shows 20:11 that mankind has 20:12 an additional method, an additional method of making nitric oxide. 20:17 So here we go.
Nitric Oxide, Endothelial Health, and the Core Diet 20:19 I need them, Joe, 20:22 to have to chew six times a day. 20:25 Not smoothies, not juicing. 20:27 I need them to choose six times a day. 20:29 A green leafy vegetable that is approximately 20:32 the size of half of their fish after it has first been steamed. 20:36 Five and a half to six minutes, 20:38 when it's then nice and tender, and then they must anoint it 20:42 with several drops of a delightful balsamic or rice vinegar. Why? 20:48 Because research has shown us 20:50 that the acetic acid in those vinegars can restore the nitric oxide 20:54 synthase enzyme, which is contained 20:56 within the endothelial cell and responsible for making nitric oxide. 21:00 So they're going to chew this alongside their breakfast cereal again 21:04 as a mid-morning snack, again 21:06 with their luncheon sandwich that's three mid-afternoon for dinnertime. 21:10 Five. 21:10 And of course, I adore it when they have that evening snack of a regular kale. 21:15 Now, the second benefit that comes from showing the green leafy 21:18 vegetables is it restores the capacity of the bone marrow 21:22 to once again make the end of cereal progenitor cell, 21:24 which is responsible for replacing our sun. 21:27 That's an injured, worn out endothelial cells. Now, 21:32 the third most important benefit when you are chewing 21:35 a green leafy vegetables, you are chewing a green nitrate. 21:39 That green nitrate is going to mix with the facultative 21:42 anaerobic bacteria that reside in the crypts and grooves of your tongue. 21:46 Those bacteria are going to reduce the nitrate to a nitrate. 21:50 And when you swallow the nitrate, it is now your own 21:54 gastric acid, which is going to further reduce the nitrate 21:58 to more nitric oxide, which can enter your nitric oxide pool. 22:03 So think about it. 22:04 What you're doing for minimal expense, 22:07 no hideous side effects all day long. 22:12 Dawn to dusk, morning to night. 22:15 You are absolutely replacing the very molecule nitric oxide, 22:21 the deficiency of which gave you this disease in the first place. 22:24 Now, there is a caveat. 22:27 Toothpaste with fluoride or public drinking water 22:29 with fluoride and mouthwash will injure the beneficial bacteria in your mouth. 22:33 And I do not like and acids because antacids 22:37 will decrease your gastric acidity and you will unable 22:41 to decrease the nitrate to more nitric oxide. 22:45 Now the top six vegetables would be kale, Swiss chard, 22:49 spinach, arugula, beet greens, and beets. 22:52 All right, I hope everybody wrote that down. 22:55 That was such an incredible, beautiful scientific dissertation. 23:00 Nobel Prize winning dissertation, in 1998 regarding nitric oxide. 23:05 And what about, I want to read a quote from your book. 23:08 But, doc, I just don't like oatmeal. 23:11 I can't get off my cheese omelet. 23:13 I gotta read a quote for a minute. 23:15 It goes back to that goal you have. 23:17 But the quote is, and it's two sentences. 23:20 I have an ambitious goal. 23:21 This is Doctor Caldwell assistance words, not Joel Gans work to annihilate 23:26 heart disease, to abolish it once and for all your arteries at the age of 23:29 90, out of work as efficiently as they did is when you were nine. 23:33 My nutritional program is strict and allows no shortcuts. 23:37 I'm uncompromising, I am authoritative, 23:40 but I always tell my patients I am a caring presence. 23:43 I want to see people succeed and if they share my vision, they will. 23:47 End of quote. 23:48 Sort of like Walter Kempner with kale. 23:51 But, for those that are really historians of nutrition and health research, 23:57 I'm sure you know, you, you I mean, you had a lot of contact. 24:00 You still have a lot of contact. 24:02 You're very kind and send me patients, and they all tell me 24:05 they've so enjoyed the conversation they had with you. 24:08 You know, tell me what we don't allow in the Esselstyn heart disease reversal. 24:12 Or it's not just heart disease because it affects, like, disease and sexual 24:16 organ blood flow disease and brain disease. 24:19 But, we don't do anything that injures the endothelium. 24:22 So why don't you share that list with us? 24:25 Well, you know, the the. 24:27 No, the no nos. 24:31 One of the foods 24:31 that every time they pass your lips, you injure the endothelium. 24:36 Any drop of oil, olive oil, corn oil, soybean oil, 24:39 safflower, sunflower oil, coconut oil, palm oil, oil in a cracker. 24:43 Oil in a chip, oil on a piece of bread. 24:46 Oil on a salad dressing. 24:47 Oil is a killer. 24:49 Also, we want nothing that has the mother or face. 24:53 No meat, fish, chicken, fowl, turkey or eggs. 24:55 Also nothing that is dairy milk, cream, butter, cheese, ice cream and yogurt. 25:01 I don't like sugary drinks. 25:02 That call is Pepsi and Coke. 25:04 I don't like sugary foods cakes, pies, cookies, stevia, agave, 25:08 excesses of maple sirup 25:12 and honey. 25:13 And I don't like nuts, peanut butter, nut butters, cashew sauce, avocados. 25:18 And lastly, no coffee with caffeine. Decaf? 25:21 Yes, but coffee with caffeine? 25:22 No for heart. Two things. 25:25 And there's lots of great substitutes. 25:28 I'm drinking dandelion coffee substitute 25:31 right now that some of you may know and decaf coffee, but. 25:35 So avoid anything that injures endothelium and provide 25:38 all the nature's bounty that heals and supports endothelial. 25:44 Well, I mean, yeah, we want them to eat whole grains, 25:47 whole grains for their cereal, bread, pasta rolls and bagels. 25:50 101 different types of legumes, lentils and beans. 25:53 All those marvelous red, yellow, green leafy vegetables, white 25:58 white potatoes, sweet potatoes and fruit 26:01 and then I and then I mentioned the, the grains six times a day. 26:06 Right. 26:07 And maybe share with, because people are saying sounds tough. 26:11 Although we already, I read that quote about you 26:14 being authority as authoritarian because you do know what you do. 26:17 Well, let's let's draw this chart. What is that? 26:19 What is that? 26:20 What is the tough and the most radical and the most draconian diet on the planet, 26:24 the one that 98% of Americans are eating every day. 26:27 That guarantees 26:29 that they're going to have illness? 26:32 I couldn't agree more. 26:34 And I think it's a it's a real statement. 26:37 You made that for a lot of people changing their diet, as Margaret Mead 26:42 said, is tougher than changing your religion, 26:44 their genes addicted and their families not supportive. 26:47 And you made an honest and strong statement that people embarking 26:52 I anybody listening that took 70 years to clogged arteries 26:57 and think it's going to be easy to go the other direction. 27:00 It's a massive transformative process, but it boils down 27:04 to simple food that you and Ann have done so much. 27:08 I do want to give a shout out we're not done, but I want to give a shout out. 27:12 Very close to your last is your delightful wife and 27:16 and and and your amazing daughter Jane just published another book. 27:20 Be a plant based woman. 27:22 Warrior lives fierce. 27:23 Stay bold, eat delicious. 27:25 All over YouTube and Instagram. 27:27 If anybody wonders if you can have delicious, colorful, 27:32 nourishing food on this program, you need to check out. 27:35 And in Jane's new book, along with the 150 27:39 Just Epic Recipes in your book that, and your subsequent cookbook, too. 27:43 So, so let me this is this is not a Spartan diet. 27:47 This is, incredible diet. Right. 27:49 Let me ask a couple of questions to you here. 27:54 I've, I maintain that 27:56 every patient that you have ever seen for heart disease, every patient 28:00 that I've ever seen for heart disease, any patient who ever has heart disease, 28:04 at one time, their vessels were normal. 28:07 We agree. 28:10 And we have known 28:11 for over 100 years that there are multiple cultures on the planet Earth 28:16 where heart disease is virtually non-existent. 28:19 I also agree, and why is it that it's brilliant 28:24 as we think of ourselves as physicians in this country? 28:27 Since the American Heart Association was formed in 1924, 28:32 the American College of Cardiology in 1949, 28:37 88,000 members, 28:40 brilliant people, all these things 28:43 they're doing today from heart disease, we use carvedilol. 28:46 We use them amlodipine. We whose statins. 28:50 We use all of these drugs and we use stents and bypasses. 28:55 Tell me, Joe, does absolutely any of those things that I've just mentioned 28:59 have one single, solitary thing whatsoever to do with the causation of the illness? 29:04 No, sir. 29:05 We've completely failed the public. 29:07 I couldn't agree with you more. 29:09 What, a hundred years we've known the civilizations that don't have disease. 29:13 Why couldn't we just bring that information to this country and say, look, 29:18 this is it. 29:19 This disease doesn't have to exist. 29:22 Well, you said it strongly. 29:25 And from 1985 on, and, 29:27 you know, fortunately, millions of people have listened and learned.
Foods to Avoid and the Strict Reversal Program 29:31 But you're right. We got billions. 29:33 We got work to do. 29:34 We're going to reach a lot of them with this conversation, which is so meaningful. 29:39 And, tell it maybe in the last couple of minutes. 29:43 I always love a case study. 29:44 Your famous, famous Joe Crow. 29:47 Tell us just a little bit about, you know, that story and what resulted. 29:52 So people listening can actually believe, you know, decades 29:56 ago, this work that's going to work in 2023 to. 30:00 But tell us that, came with the. Yeah. 30:02 When and when, 30:04 Joe Crow is the first chapter 30:06 of my book and, Joe was 30:10 a breast surgeon at the clinic 30:13 and good friend 30:16 in 19. 30:19 96, at age 44, 30:22 he began getting chest pain. 30:25 He was not overweight. 30:26 His cholesterol was 156. 30:29 He had no strong family history. 30:30 He was not diabetic. 30:31 He was not hypertensive. 30:33 And, it was really, rather puzzling. 30:37 So that in October of that year he went to cardiology. 30:41 They gave a full workup and they gave him a green light. 30:43 No, there was nothing they could see that was abnormal. 30:47 A month later, he was finishing his, and he actually had finished surgery 30:52 and was writing post-operative orders when he, 30:56 suddenly the elephant was sitting on his chest. 31:00 He had pain in his jaw. 31:02 Left your shoulder, arm. 31:04 He was having a heart attack. He was whipped down to the cath lab. 31:07 They start the catheterization, cardiac arrest, 31:12 resuscitate, 31:14 finish the catheterization. 31:15 One more cardiac arrest, resuscitate, and then he is discharged. 31:19 After he is stabilized up to the floors and 31:23 discharged four days later. 31:24 But boy, was he depressed. 31:27 And he was depressed because when you looked at the edge of grim, 31:31 the entire lower one third of his left 31:34 anterior descending was on both eating and disease over two longest segment. 31:38 But you just can't ram in stand after stent after stent, 31:42 and it was too far down the artery to have a bypass. 31:45 So he was, really pretty depressed about the fact. 31:49 And two weeks after his heart attack and I had him 31:52 with his wife out for supper. 31:55 Joe, come on, you've been eating this horrible Western diet. 31:59 You got the typical Western disease. 32:01 We've got ten years of data. 32:02 Why don't you think about giving it a shot? 32:05 Going with plant based. And he said, well, 32:08 I guess I will, 32:09 because he said, they couldn't offer me anything else. 32:12 And, I'm not going to take those statin drugs. 32:14 I just, refuse. 32:15 There's just too many side effects. 32:18 I said, fine, that's your call. 32:20 He became the absolute personification 32:23 of commitment to whole food, plant based nutrition. 32:26 And over the next two and a half years, his total cholesterol plummeted. 32:29 His LDL went from 98 to 38. 32:33 And then he had another 32:36 angiogram. 32:38 And in the surgical office areas, our doors are about three doors apart. 32:42 So at noontime on the day that I knew earlier 32:44 that morning he'd had his follow up angiogram. 32:49 I walked over noontime, 32:51 walked in and knocked on his door, walked in. 32:53 There he was, sitting in my behind his desk. 32:55 Joe, I understand you had the follow up angiogram. 32:59 Would you mind sharing with me? 33:01 How did it go? 33:02 So he got up from his desk, came, put his arms around me and said, 33:06 I think we're doing okay. And I 33:08 took a look at his angiogram, and it was, 33:11 the disease was gone, 33:14 and that was really pretty, exciting. 33:18 That was, early on in this business, and it, it really 33:23 it followed up what we'd found earlier that we now have about 5 or 6 33:28 angiogram pictures of profound reversal, which are quite, exciting, quite stunning. 33:33 But Joe was was really at the forefront. 33:36 And in, in helping us get that information. 33:40 And as your publications have shown before, you might see in an angiogram 33:45 visual reversal of plaque, 33:48 symptoms may resolve, sexual function may improve, 33:51 and stress tests may document massive improvement in blood flow. 33:55 So we have the technology and you've proven it works. 33:59 And your colleague Doctor Ornish has proven using technology it works. 34:03 But sometimes it's four weeks later. 34:05 They're just feeling so much better, there's no doubt. 34:08 Oh, I think, you know, I think you make a key point. 34:10 And I'd like to stress, 34:11 because we have in our book and maybe you've seen that the Pet scan 34:16 and the Pet scan is beginning to reverse literally in three weeks. 34:21 Yeah. 34:21 And how did that happen? And, 34:24 I was very curious about this. 34:26 And so I talked to, I asked Rodriguez, 34:29 who is chairman at the Cleveland Clinic, 34:33 Department of, Cardiovascular Pathology, who does dissects, 34:37 200 hearts a year from the deceased. 34:41 And I asked them, I said, how often do you ever see 34:46 plaque develop in the coronary artery? 34:50 Once it has dived into the muscle? 34:55 His answer 34:57 never. 34:59 Never. Maybe rarely. 35:01 Very rarely in a patient, a severe diabetic. 35:03 But other than that, not there. 35:06 Now, I had the answer. 35:08 How did we know that in three weeks you have. 35:10 We haven't gotten rid of the plaque? That doesn't happen. 35:13 Why does the reperfusion occur in that? 35:16 Short of time? 35:17 Because 35:19 when we are first seeing those patients, 35:22 their endothelial cells are so beaten up. 35:25 There are trainwreck and they're hardly making any nitric oxide. 35:29 And the endothelium has become your enemy. 35:32 It is now making two molecules of vaso 35:35 constriction, endothelial and surround by saying 35:38 and endothelial cells from boxing that had taken that entire coronary 35:43 vascular tree that since are muscular and it's all crimped pinched.
Case Study: Joe Crow and Angiographic Reversal 35:48 And so as soon as they really make this dramatic change 35:52 and they're no longer eating anything that's going to hurt their endothelium, 35:56 but it starts to recover, they begin making nitric oxide 35:59 the great vessel dilator, and they no longer are making 36:03 and go to and from box and the vessel constrictor. 36:06 So suddenly what happens is within three weeks or for four, 36:11 six, 8 or 10 days, they used to walk 2 or 2 blocks before they got chest pain. 36:16 Now they have to walk 4 to 6 blocks before they get any chest pain. 36:21 That's so dramatic and so exciting. 36:23 And that's my conclusion. 36:24 And I also, one other thing I would like to mention, is that 36:28 I am almost of the opinion now. 36:32 That practically anybody 36:34 who has been asked to have stents or bypass 36:39 should be given an opportunity first, 36:43 possible food plant based nutrition 36:46 to make this dramatic change, because we have seen patients 36:49 with both with two of their major coronary arteries 36:52 100% blocked and their third 70% block 36:56 literally living on those collaterals, they can hardly walk across a living room. 37:00 We've seen them absolutely turn it around. 37:03 I don't mean open up the 100% box, 37:05 but open up enough circulation so that they don't. 37:09 There's no need for them to have surgery or bypass. 37:13 And I mean, very controversial statement. 37:16 I actually agree with you. 37:17 I counsel patients as, active clinician on exactly that option they have. 37:23 But it takes the approach that I read the quote from your book. 37:27 They have to go all in. 37:28 You can't we even you can't avoid bypass by putting your toe 37:32 in the water of the Esselstyn reversal program. 37:35 You just got to do it and enjoy it. 37:37 And we have you know, you're you're speaking science 37:41 after the multimillion dollar courage trial. 37:44 And then the multi $100 million ischemia randomized study, we know if you 37:49 I tell patient if they discharged you you don't need bypass instance. 37:54 You were well enough to go home and change your diet. 37:57 You know if you're kept in the hospital and I.V. 37:59 nitroglycerin you might actually be unstable enough for 38:02 that would be an unwise decision and wasn't there? 38:05 Oh, I mean, you've got surgery and stents scheduled in two weeks. 38:09 You have the opportunity to heal yourself with nutrition. 38:12 So we're, one of the joys. 38:15 And to help me out with this. 38:17 Wasn't there another study orbiter? 38:20 Yeah. 38:20 The orbiter trial. Right. 38:21 This sham stent trial in England where people felt 38:26 as well with a sham procedure as they did with an actual stent. 38:30 Now, I'm a stent trained cardiologist, and, you know, you and I agree, 38:34 you're having a heart attack 38:35 or you're in the emergency room with serious, unstable symptoms. 38:40 Stents and even bypass can be lifesaving, no doubt, 38:44 but probably it's 5 to 10% of all those 38:48 getting them in 2023 need those procedures 38:52 if they just be willing to follow your program. 38:55 And I know you, you can pull your hair out out of frustration 38:58 because they don't even hear about it. 39:00 They know it's not on the consent form. 39:02 I have considered plant based nitric 39:06 oxide restitution in my garden arteries, and I've chosen to undergo bypass. 39:10 I mean, they're never offered from an ethical standpoint. 39:13 I think it's very, incorrect. 39:15 I think you agree with that, too. Again, 39:19 you know, all you 39:20 can do is change it to one starfish at a time. 39:23 You change what you can change, and, you know, 39:25 look at though I will say, as we come to a closure, 39:28 you went on a crazy adventure in 1985 with your wife. 39:32 You happened to be right. 39:34 I think, on everything. 39:35 I mean, you know, getting ultra low LDL and total cholesterol has been debated. 39:41 But you were doing it, you know, almost 40 years ago. 39:44 And now it's the standard of care. 39:47 You know, we use it with drugs, but we get LDL under 40 all the time now. 39:52 And proven benefit with very little harm. 39:54 But you were doing it with nutrition and maybe with a supplement or with, 39:58 a prescription drug. 39:59 Decades ago, you were talking nitric oxide. 40:02 And as the science developed and, you were talking there 40:06 amazing ability of the human body to heal itself with, 40:09 to your credit, scientific publications along the way to back. 40:12 And so I just want to say thank you for being a pioneer, a revolutionary. 40:18 You're like a medical, you're a medical hippie. 40:21 You're a contrarian. 40:23 I mean, you know, and serving our country and winning a gold medal. 40:26 I mean, all the other, and raising great kids and sort of 40:30 being able to, pick the best life partner you could have picked. 40:33 And, and so, I feel like I'm about to give you an award, but you deserve,
Stents, Bypass, and the Future of Lifestyle Medicine 40:39 you deserve any awards, obviously. 40:41 Oh, yeah. 40:42 I, I have amazing affection for what you and your wife and your team have done. 40:46 So any last parting shot? 40:48 Hundreds of thousands of people that are drinking in such wisdom. 40:54 Well, I think that the, 40:57 Yes, there is a parting shot. 40:58 And that is, I guess, that I have this tremendous, 41:04 Feeling of optimism that we are what we are on 41:08 the edge of what could truly be a seismic revolution in health, 41:13 and that seismic revolution in health is never going to come about, 41:18 with another drug, another stent, another bypass. 41:23 But the seismic revolution in health will come about 41:26 when we're willing to show the public what is the lifestyle 41:31 and most specifically, what is the nutritional literacy 41:35 that will empower them 41:37 as the locus of control to literally annihilate chronic illness? 41:41 Thank you Joe. 41:43 All right. 41:43 Well, powerful, powerful words. 41:46 I share your optimism slower than either of us wanted to see it happen, 41:50 but it's happening. 41:51 And just shout out a website where people can follow up 41:56 and see your beautiful work. 41:59 Well, Doctor esselstyn.com 42:02 my work. All right. 42:04 And I have to say, any of the books, any of the book selling sites 42:08 will have your books and the ones you've done in combination 42:12 with Ann and now and on her own venture with Doctor Jane, of course. 42:17 Rips books and rips new food ventures. 42:20 Their son, Rip Esselstyn. 42:21 That is a legend in his own right for a lot of reasons. 42:26 World records in his 50s for athletic performance. 42:29 My God. 42:30 And I met your other children. The other children? 42:32 I know slackers. 42:33 They're just not necessarily, teaching nitric oxide. 42:37 They're good people. 42:38 All right, a total pleasure. 42:40 Thank you for your time. 42:41 And, we'll catch up soon, I hope. 42:43 Face to face. Thanks, Joe.
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