• Heart disease reversal (quick start guide)
• Resources
• Success stories

Welcome to our heart health pages, a patient guide to preventing, treating and reversing coronary heart disease with a whole foods, plant-based diet. Artery disease (atherosclerosis) is a whole-body disease, and the information here applies equally to diseased arteries elsewhere in the body.

A whole foods, plant-based diet is a powerful therapy because it works through multiple mechanisms to reduce heart risk factors, including many that cannot be treated with pharmaceuticals. The side effects are enhanced health, well-being and improvements in diabetes, brain health and kidney function – ‘what’s good for the heart is good for the whole body’. A comprehensive lifestyle medicine approach, including physical activity and stress management, is recommended for the best results.

It is never too late to benefit from nutrition and lifestyle. If you already have advanced heart disease, genetic high cholesterol, diabetes or kidney disease, then you have even more to gain from the full breadth of effect of whole foods, plant-based nutrition and lifestyle. Read on or skip to the Quick Start guide to learn more.

“Some people think the ‘plant-based, whole foods diet’ is extreme. Half a million people a year will have their chests opened up and a vein taken from their leg and sewn onto their coronary artery. Some people would call that extreme”
– Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr.

Cardiovascular risk factors

Cardiovascular risk factors include all the causes of inflammatory cholesterol plaque buildup. The current treatment paradigm centres on identifying high-risk patients and treating risk factors with pharmaceuticals. This approach is moderately effective in high-risk patients but is fundamentally flawed. It considers only a limited core of risk factors, primarily those with effective drugs, and fails to address the causes of elevated risk factors, particularly the patient’s diet. More on Cardiovascular Risk Factors

 

Endothelial Health

The endothelial cells that line our arteries play a key role in regulating blood flow and maintaining artery health. Healthy endothelial cells can produce more nitric oxide (NO), a chemical messenger that enhances blood flow. (A Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of NO). Endothelial cells are in direct contact with the bloodstream and are sensitive to what we eat. Every meal has the potential to harm or enhance endothelial cell function. We can support and enhance our endothelial cells with whole foods, plant-based nutrition. More on Endothelium

 

Atherosclerosis and the Coronary Artery Calcium Score

Atherosclerosis is the process of cholesterol accumulation and inflammation that leads to plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart and other organs. A whole-foods, plant-based diet can reduce plaque formation and even cause existing plaque to regress (shrink). A coronary artery calcium scan is a non-invasive way to measure the total amount of plaque in the heart arteries, but it measures only old, calcified plaque. More on Atherosclerosis and the Coronary Artery Calcium Score

 

 

“Normal” blood cholesterol levels in Australia are not normal or supportive of good health. These “normal” levels result in an enormous burden of heart disease and a population in which almost everyone has artery disease by age 65. The national goal of less than 5.5 is well up into the zone in which artery disease develops. The medical profession knows this and the official safe level for cholesterol following a heart attack is less than 3.8 approximately (the target being LDL<1.8). So, we have the situation where you can be reassured by your doctor that your cholesterol level of 5 is OK, suffer a heart attack later that day, and be told the next morning that your cholesterol needs to be less than 4 to prevent further heart attacks. A whole foods plant based diet can lower your cholesterol to a safe level without the inconvenience of having to have a heart attack first. More on Normal Cholesterol

 

Changing to a whole foods plant based diet results in dramatic falls in blood cholesterol levels. The medical myth that diet has little effect on cholesterol stems from the fact that the current cholesterol lowering diet recommended in Australia is not effective. A diet rich in animal “protein” foods, with or without vegetable oil, will always raise cholesterol. In general, animal products raise blood cholesterol and whole plant foods lower blood cholesterol. More on Diet and Cholesterol

 

Blood cholesterol is complex. Your blood test results will include measurements of some of the individual lipoproteins, HDL and LDL. But there are further levels of complexity that should make us wary dismissing the risks of elevated blood cholesterol on the basis of “good cholesterol” levels and ratios. More on HDL and LDL

 

Cholesterol lowering drugs and heart surgery are quick fixes for a complex diet related disease. The drugs only target fasting cholesterol, which although important, is only one part of the cholesterol-diet problem. Stents and surgery are seldom life saving and carry considerable risks. More on Drugs and Surgery

 

Atherosclerosis is a whole body disease affecting every artery. Therefore any organ can potentially be compromised by impaired blood supply. A partially blocked artery may cause symptoms such leg muscle pain on exertion. A sudden complete blockage may result in a stroke. Diseased small vessels can cause dementia and kidney failure. Even in the absence of artery narrowing, an unhealthy artery may be unable dilate, resulting in erectile dysfunction. More on The Canary and Other Organs

Resources

Books

Esselstyn, C. B. (2007). Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure. New York: Avery.
Dr Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. MD, author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, carried out the longest and one of the most successful trials of curing heart disease with diet. He describes heart disease as a toothless paper tiger that need never exist. Have a look at a free Excerpt from Chapter One of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.

This is his website: Dr Esselstyn’s Prevent & Reverse Heart Disease Program – click on the Video tab to see a links to more videos that present his work, some of which are listed below.

Videos

• Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease with Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D. (1 hour 8 min video – 2018)
• Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr. MD, Treating the Cause to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease – (47 min. video) This presentation by Dr Esselstyn provides an in-depth understanding of the science behind preventing and reversing heart disease with a low-fat whole food plant-based diet.
• TEDxCambridge – Caldwell Esselstyn on making heart attacks history – (14 min. video) This is a shorter version of Esselstyn’s presentation, explaining the diet and heart disease link in a 14 minute TEDx talk.
• Dr Esselstyn at Medina Ohio  – (1 hour 55 min. video) Dr Caldwell Esselstyn talks for more than an hour about how to prevent and reverse heart disease. In the last part of the presentation his wife Ann Esselstyn gives a quick lesson on how to prepare plant perfect meals.
• Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD: How to Reverse Heart Disease, Part 1 – (5 min. video) and Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD: How to Reverse Heart Disease, Part 2 (10 min. video)
• Dr. Robert Ostfeld – A Plant-Based Diet and Heart Failure: Case Report & Literature Review (55 min video interview)
• Dr Kim Williams – Fat, Sugar and Animal Protein – What’s the Harm? – (1hr 8 min video)
• Nutrition and Heart Disease: How to Prevent Against Heart Disease by Kim Williams, M.D., MACC, FAHA – (1hr 28 min video)
• Dr. John McDougall Interviews Dr. Kim Allan Williams, Webinar 05/02/19 – (1hr 15 min video)
• Dr Kim Williams: Exposes the True Cause of Heart Disease – (5 min. video)
• The Last Heart Attack – A Groundbreaking CNN Report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta (13 min video) NB Link no longer works to original full length CNN documentary so it has been removed.
• Dr. John McDougall Medical Message About Atherosclerosis  (3 min. video)
• Watch the film: Forks Over Knives

• Greens, Greens, Greens! How to eat them 6 times a day! – (15 min. video) Jane Esselstyn
• More Greens, More with Dr. Esselstyn, More Answers! – (29 min. video) Jane Esselstyn

Dr Michael Greger videos on heart disease:

Web resources

• Dr Esselstyn’s FAQ page – answers all those questions about nuts, seeds, leafy greens and warfarin, etc.
• Heart Disease & Atherosclerosis – John McDougall, MD, includes links to numerous newsletter articles
• Abolishing Heart Disease – Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr, MD

Podcasts

• How to Create a Successful Plant-Based, Diet-Driven, Heart Disease Reversal Program in a Cardiology Setting – An Interview with Kim Williams, MD, Past President, American College of Cardiology (50 min. audio)
• Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn on Ending the War Against Our Hearts – Howard Jacobson podcast (1 hr 33 min audio)
• Eradicating Lifestyle Disease with Cardiologist Robert Ostfeld, MD – Rich Roll podcast (2 hr audio)
• Is Butter Really Back? Heart to Heart with Cardiologist Joel Kahn – Rich Roll podcast (1 hr 40 min audio)

Peer-reviewed articles

• Esselstyn C. B., Gendy, G., Doyle, J., Golubic, M., & Roizen, M. F.
  (2014). A way to reverse CAD? Journal of Family Practice, 63(7), 356-364b.
• Esselstyn C. B., & Golubic, M. (2014). The nutritional reversal of cardiovascular disease: Fact or fiction? Three case reports. Experimental & Clinical Cardiology, 20(7), 1901-1908.
• Esselstyn, C. B. (2010). Is the present therapy for coronary artery disease the radical mastectomy of the twenty-first century? American Journal of Cardiology, 106(6), 902-904.
• Esselstyn, C. B. (1999). Updating a 12-year experience with arrest and reversal therapy for coronary heart disease (an overdue requiem for palliative cardiology). American Journal of Cardiology, 84(3), 339-341, A338.
• Ornish, D., Brown, S. E., Scherwitz, L. W., . . . Gould, K. L. (1990). Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial. Lancet, 336(8708), 129-133.
• Ornish, D., Scherwitz, L. W., Billings, J. H., . . . Brand, R. J. (1998). Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease. JAMA, 280(23), 2001-2007.
• Tuso, P. J., Stoll, S. R., & Li, W. W. (2014). A Plant-Based Diet, Atherogenesis, and Coronary Artery Disease Prevention. The Permanente Journal, 19(1).