You mentioned food, genetics, environment, stress and exercise. Unless you can come up with another one, I don't think the list goes "on and on". You can put genetics aside because genes only cause a very small fraction of disease. Degenerative diseases are caused mainly by lifestyle. So that leaves food, environment, stress and exercise.

This thread is about Bush so I would combine environment and stress together. He lived in a stressful environment. His father was president and he himself ran for office several times. This is typical of a type A personality (driven, hard-charging, aggressive). That's what it takes to get to the top.

As far as food, we know he once had a drinking problem. And we know, as a Texan, he was/is a big barbecue guy. That's a no brainer.

That leaves exercise. Didn't the opening post state that he was in three 62 mile bicycle rides? We know he's very competitive. There again we see his type A personality. He's an overachiever and overdoes everything. He takes a pleasurable sport and turns it into stress. Chronic stress leads to elevated stress hormones (cortisol). Higher levels of cortisol leads to insulin resistance and higher levels of insulin (hyperinsulinemia). That, along with poor diet, is how heart disease comes about.

I think it's a pretty good educated guess based on what I know about him.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I believe you are overstepping to make such a statement. There are no facts to stand up to your "good educated guess," and that's about all it is. There are plenty of fit people around here who do 60-mile cycle excursions. Are they all taking a pleasurable sport and turning it into stress? I am astounded by the suppositions in your post, which appear to not be based on true facts about President Bush.

Oh, and I never voted for him.

I know you will come back with numerous points to uphold your suppositions, but ... I stand by my opinion.

Let's look at Warren Buffet. At his favorite restaurant in Omaha he has never been known to eat a green vegetable. He is in his eighties and seems to be doing fine on hamburgers, steaks and cherry coke. When he went to China someone went ahead to teach them how to prepare hamburgers for Warren when he arrived since that was about all he would eat. His buddy Charlie Munger is even older. I do not know what he eats but he still appears to be a functioning genius. Humans are omnivores. J. C. Penney and Conrad Hilton were both overweight and lived well into their nineties. Hilton partied hard, too.

No facts? He served two terms as governor of Texas and two terms as President. Running for office can be a long drawn out stressful process. What kind of person would put himself under that kind of pressure, an easy going laid-back person? Is that your theory?


I don't know all of the "fit people" you're talking about so how would I know if they're turning it into stress? You took my post about one person (Bush) and took it to mean EVERYONE? I don't know everyone. But I do know a lot about Bush. He has been in the public eye for many many years. There was even a movie about his life.


I believe I was using deductive reasoning. I took what I knew about him: 1) He has coronary artery disease. And 2) he is highly competitive/hard charging/aggressive. You don't get to be president by being laid back.

Those are 2 very important facts. Do you deny them?

Once you have those two facts, stress and food is a very good educated guess.

You criticize but have nothing to offer in it's place.

Those are anecdotes. The science of health is not a hard science like math. In math there's usually only one right answer (2+2=4). There's no exception to that. But health is much more difficult because there are always exceptions. However, exceptions don't make the rule. The rule is made by what happens to most people when they do XYZ. For example, overweight people are at higher risk for getting certain diseases like diabetes. And that's determined by doing large long-term studies.

Someone once told me that if you get proper rest, eat healthy , exercise regularly, don't smoke or drink alcoholic beverages, you will get to spend and extra 3 months living in a nursing home.

Basically, then, Bush did everything right but still ended up with some level of coronary heart disease. So of course it's his fault and he should have done more. Or done something different. Or not done a third thing. Bah.

I had an "abnormal" stress test last year and let myself be bullied into a cardiac catheterization, which showed no blockages or narrowing at all. So, (1) the stress test was wrong, and (2) I'm 72 and a carnivore with no heart disease. My cholesterol is high and I don't much care and refuse to take drugs because of it.

There are no absolutes. Thin people develop Type 2 diabetes. Fit people have heart attacks. Not all smokers get lung cancer.

It seems that the analysis, the statistics, the rules and the links can all be picked to support whatever point of view is being advanced by each poster.

the point about carnivorous octogenarians is true but the disturbing thing for us now is that they have not spent as many years eating beef which is full of hormones and anti-biotics as the younger people have been exposed to. that is the only reason i am avoiding so much red meat. not on any religious or philosophical grounds, just protecting myself from the as yet unknown risks of these engineered foods, including some veggies! everything in moderation is a common sense lifestyle to me.

Yep if you don't consider prostate cancer a problem.

What is your point of view and what reliable source do you have to support it?

Note: There's no law against the dairy industry, beef industry, or fast food industry posting information on the internet through third parties. For example, they could hire a doctor, dietition or whomever to set up a website to provide favorable information about their products. And once it's posted it's considered by some to be an "objective point of view."

Good thought but why not take it one step further: Octogenarians were also not exposed to nearly as much fast food as we are today. When they were growing up, there were no fast food restaurants or supermarkets. And during the "lean" years they most likely stuck to basics. Most people were not that well off back then.

There were many immigrants from Europe who were not in the habit of eating red meat and many of them kept the same eating habits throughout their lives. Plus the fact that they walked more and worked harder. Today, lifestyles have changed drastically but many people think they are entitled to live as long as their grandparents because of their genetic inheritance.

I searched "Red Meat" and here's what I found: (If you scroll down you will see the many health issues resulting from red meat consumption.)

Red meat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can come up with more for example accident such as in penetrating trauma and the list goes on from there. Stop deflecting, the OP ask if Bush should now consider a diet like Clinton's and my point is it's not that simple. For example how does anyone on this forum know what caused the blockage? maybe it was a combination of all of the factors, maybe it was pesticides in the vegetables he eats? maybe it was trauma caused a few years back when he almost chocked to death on a pretzel he was eating? I don't know and nether does the OP or you!

I don't believe George Bush likes broccoli anyway.

Should Bush change his diet? If he wants to.

That's because they look like they're 75, U didn't realize it. :D

It's dangerous out there, when you have to forage for food on the floor of the forest every morning. Maybe he died of boredom from eating pine bark.

Yes.....to all of the above.....

..........or worse yet, die at age 60 from terminal lung cancer that spread to the brain and elsewhere after vigorous chemo and the best of surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital and also treatment at Sloan Kettering In New York City.....

Non smoking male. Avid competitive cyclist, cycled all over the world.
Ate a rigid vegetarian diet. Bone thin to the extreme. Successful businessman and owner of a large modern manufacturing plant; college grad. Engineer. Did everything right as far as his health was concerned but still suffered for years before dying at age 60. Entire family is bone thin; the daughter is a vegan; the wife a vegetarian (she has had years of cancer as well, but still alive).

All of that exercise and deprivation didn't help this guy at all.
He also played tennis and other sports........but cycling was his thing.

I do realize this thread began re heart disease, but this friend's lung cancer (even with all the best surgery and treatment), eventually somehow "wrapped around his heart muscle" according to what his wife told me.....

Sometimes I wonder if all the "fumes" he might have breathed in while cycling competitively and for pleasure..........didn't contribute to his lung cancer as he never smoked. So much for eating healthy when the environment might have played a role.

When I've mentioned this before, someone keeps calling it an "anecdote" when it is the God's honest truth.

People who fear death are the ones who constantly weigh every morsel of food that passes their lips rather than just enjoy the life that God gave them for however long that is.........

http://www.laurelofleaves.com/2012/0...s-not-healthy/
This young woman obviously has not lived as long as many of us........
Yet, she still has something worthwhile to say, explaining why she thinks a vegan diet is not healthy.
It's a long blog....so please keep scrolling down.....

He could have had pine mulch for free from my front yard.

Uhl Gibbons. Isn't he the fella that said that even elevator cable was edible? ;)

A 1974 television commercial for Post Grape-Nuts cereal featured Gibbons asking viewers "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible."

Does a plant diet include today's genetically-modified wheat?
 

And now we have William Davis telling us it is the modified wheat and whole grain bread and pasta that is killing us and causing so many cases of celiac disease and IBS and gluten intolerance. Ref: His book, "Wheat Belly - Lose the wheat and lose the weight"

We agree with both what you've said above and also with Manabouttown as far as Bill Clinton looking haggard, (extremely) skeletal, frail and GAUNT.

Since we hadn't seen him in quite a long time, but caught him on t.v. last evening on some local news show.......I have to agree with both of you.

Extreme thinness does not always look so healthy.........no extreme is good.

Moderation in all things.....

All of life itself is a contributing factor for heart disease. Does that mean we should stop thinking about the most obvious common cause of heart disease? The most obvious common cause is DIET, just as the OP has suggested.

I've read several books written by medical doctors/cardiologists and none of them have tried to make it as complicated as you seem to want to do. I think the point of trying to make it sound too complicated is to shut down all discussion of trying to do anything about it, like changing one's diet, exercising and controling stress. Those 3 are the main culprits and if the OP didn't mention all of them it doesn't mean that he doesn't acknowledge them as being important.

Right now I don't know any 90 year old people. If I were to use your line of reasoning, I might think that 90 year olds don't exist. :D

Here's the likely reason you might know one group and not the other: There are many more omnivores than vegans. I was a vegan for over 6 years before I ever met another vegan in person. So, I don't know any 90 year old vegans either. Vegans of any age are very scarce.

Search: How many of us are vegetarian or vegan.

Answer: 2.5 % of Americans are vegan (as of 2012)

Looking haggard, skeletal and frail, or whatever you choose to call it, is what happens to some people when they lose weight in their older years. That's why I advise people not to gain weight in the first place. When a person has a lot of weight on them, their face is full and the skin is stretched out. And when they lose weight the first place they lose it is in their face. (Their face goes from a plum to a prune.) Weight usually comes off from the top down. Life isn't fair: People often have to choose between looking healthy and being healthy. It could likely be one of the reasons why so many diets fail.

The above is what's known as a "straw man" argument. This is when you purposely misrepresent the other person's position. In other words, you create a person that doesn't exist. The person created in the above post, for example, believes in being "bone thin" and "fears death".

Disingenuous posts have no place on this thread, in my opinion.

I am not a vegan, or a vegetarian. I love a good steak, prime rib, pepperoni pizza, Italian beef, etc. But I have a good friend who is a vegetarian, and when we go out we eat it is at vegetarian restaurants in Chicago. I have eaten some delicious meals at these restaurants. I have contemplated going one or two days per week as a vegetarian -- kind of like doing the no meat on Friday's during Lent but year around -- like in the old days that my parents would talk about.

There is an interesting article on AARP.org's web site about President Clinton's vegan diet along with some very good sounding vegan recipes.

Since science still has not determined the causes of heart disease how or why is DIET the most obvious common cause? I've read studies that say low magnesium may be a significant factor in heart disease and there are hundreds of studies that list other factors.

U may want to read more studies?

Double or nothing for $2,000 on diet

I think eggs are one of nature's finest foods, especially if they come from free range hens.

I think Bill Clinton looks really bad lately. Had you all not mentioned his new diet, I would have thought he was very ill.

Was George W. Bush’s stent necessary?
August 9, 2013

The controversy surrounding the proper treatment of stable heart disease was highlighted this week by former President George W. Bush’s decision to have a stent placed, even though he had not had a heart attack and was not experiencing angina (chest pain caused by restricted blood flow to the heart). During an annual exam, his stress test showed an abnormality; then an angiography showed a blockage, and President Bush and his physicians decided to proceed with stenting. Of course, we don’t know all the details of President Bush’s condition, but the situation brings to light an important issue in healthcare in the U.S.: having a stent placed in the absence of symptoms is common in the U.S., but is it good medicine or malpractice?

I have written previously about the COURAGE trial —a large and important study published in 2007, whose conclusion was that angioplasty and stent procedures (percutaneous coronary interventions or PCI) did not offer any survival advantage over medications alone.After five years of follow-up, the group of patients receiving PCI did not have fewer heart attacks or cardiac deaths than the group who received optimal medical therapy (OMT; modest lifestyle changes plus anti-platelet, blood pressure-lowering, and cholesterol-lowering medications).1 Later on, meta-analyses of COURAGE and similar trials have confirmed the lack of advantage of PCI over OMT.2,3Further studies confirmed that PCI also did not provide any advantage over OMT for relief of angina symptoms (read more here).4 In light of this data, 2012 guidelines from the American Heart Association and related health agencies recommend medical therapy and lifestyle changes rather than these interventional or surgical procedures for first-line treatment of most patients with stable ischemic heart disease to reduce the risk of heart attack and death.

So, having an angioplasty or stent procedure does not provide any added protection against heart attacks or cardiac deaths in patients with stable coronary artery disease. But is there any harm in performing these procedures?

With every surgical procedure, there are risks and side effects. These aggressive coronary interventions carry the risk of serious adverse outcomes, such as bleeding complications, heart attack, stroke, and death.5 Stenting is appropriate and can be lifesaving in emergency situations, for immediate clearing of an artery and restoration of blood flow during a heart attack. But as the COURAGE trial has shown, for stable patients, stents do not offer benefit. In addition, stenting is of course more expensive than medications and lifestyle changes, adding to our current health care spending crisis. A cost-effectiveness analysis of the COURAGE trial estimated that PCI added $10,000 to the lifetime cost of treatment without providing any significant gain in lifespan.6Multiply that $10,000 by the number of angioplasty and stent procedures performed in the U.S. every year, which is about 492,000 (the vast majority are non-emergency procedures).7

PCI is not a long-term solution to coronary artery disease. Approximately 21% of stent placements clog up again (called restenosis) within 6 months, and about 60% of arteries treated by angioplasty and stenting eventually will undergo restenosis.8,9 PCI treats only a small portion of a vessel, while atherosclerotic plaque continues to develop at many sites throughout the cardiovascular system. Most often, the most risky and vulnerable plaque areas, likely to cause a heart attack, are not those that are most obstructing and treated with stenting. It is worse because the patient is led to believe they are more protected and often continues the dangerous eating style that was the initial cause of the heart disease; consequently, the heart disease progresses.

President Bush needed aggressive nutritional counseling and potentially life-saving nutritional information. It sounds like he was not properly informed of these studies documenting the ineffectiveness of PCI and the value of the proper dietary intervention. If not, I consider that malpractice. Every potential candidate for angioplasty (PCI) should know that their disease can be effectively reversed via superior nutrition and that surgical interventions are not protective against future events. Remember too, that almost half of all those on optimal medical therapy for high cholesterol and high blood pressure, still ultimately suffer heart attacks. Was President Bush informed about Dr. Ornish’s Lifestyle Heart Trial, which scientifically documented that lifestyle changes alone can reverse coronary artery disease? Even President Clinton could have shared his experience and expertise, since he worsened after his PCI and is doing well after ado pting a healthy vegan diet. Who knows what happened, but it seems unlikely given the media reports. It sounds like President Bush was misinformed about PCI by his doctors and given the false impression this procedure was life-extending and lifesaving. Certainly the media reports are giving this impression to the American people that this procedure was necessary for him.


Every day patients are counseled to undergo these unnecessary and potentially dangerous procedures by their cardiologists. Instead, an arterial blockage should be seen as a wake-up call, a motivating factor to pursue optimal health via superior nutrition and exercise. Optimal medical therapy is not enough; heart disease is preventable and reversible with optimal nutritional therapy, which produces dramatically more effective results than PCI or OMT and dramatic protection against future cardiac events. In my clinical experience with hundreds of patients with advanced heart disease, I have seen dramatic and consistent reversal of heart disease, relief of angina symptoms, and future freedom from heart disease in those who have chosen to follow my Nutritarian eating style. President Bush and his doctors had an opportunity to be a public example to educate and motivate other Americans to change their dangerous ways. I hope in the future President Bus h has the opportunity to make a lifesaving decision based on accurate information, before it is too late.

To your good health,

Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

Read stories of heart disease reversal with a Nutritarian diet.

References
Boden WE, O'Rourke RA, Teo KK, et al: Optimal medical therapy with or without PCI for stable coronary disease. N Engl J Med 2007;356:1503-1516.
Trikalinos TA, Alsheikh-Ali AA, Tatsioni A, et al: Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet 2009;373:911-918.
Stergiopoulos K, Brown DL: Initial coronary stent implantation with medical therapy vs medical therapy alone for stable coronary artery disease: meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Arch Intern Med 2012;172:312-319.
Relief from Angina Symptoms: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Not a Clear Winner. 2010. Journal Watch General Medicine. Accessed July 1, 2010.
Angioplasty and stent placement - heart. MedlinePlus. Medical Encyclopedia: MedlinePlus ... 007473.htm. Accessed July 1, 2010.
Weintraub WS, Boden WE, Zhang Z, et al: Cost-effectiveness of percutaneous coronary intervention in optimally treated stable coronary patients. Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes 2008;1:12-20.
Go AS, Mozaffarian D, Roger VL, et al: Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics--2013 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association. Circulation 2013;127:e6-e245.
Agostoni P, Valgimigli M, Biondi-Zoccai GG, et al: Clinical effectiveness of bare-metal stenting compared with balloon angioplasty in total coronary occlusions: insights from a systematic overview of randomized trials in light of the drug-eluting stent era. Am Heart J 2006;151:682-689.
Hanekamp C, Koolen J, Bonnier H, et al: Randomized comparison of balloon angioplasty versus silicon carbon-coated stent implantation for de novo lesions in small coronary arteries. Am J Cardiol 2004;93:1233-1237.
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I agree and I enjoy them all or most days a week

:agree:

:agree::agree:

"The AARP recently highlighted Clinton's typical daily menu saying, "For Bill Clinton, breakfast is almost always an almond-milk smoothie, blended with fresh berries, nondairy protein powder and a chunk of ice. Lunch is usually some combo of green salad and beans. He snacks on nuts — "those are good fats" — or hummus with raw vegetables, while dinner often includes quinoa, the Incan super-grain, or sometimes a veggie burger."

NEVER!

Most deficiencies are caused by poor diet. So we're back to diet.

It's strange that you mention all those hundreds of studies that no one seems to have heard of. Can you at least document a few of them with links or book titles?

Having differing diets could mean anything. Some ate jelly donuts, some ate cream filled donuts, while others ate plain donuts? In what significant way were their diets different?

The last time we talked about this I mentioned the fact that Dr. Dean Ornish has stated, in one of his books, that some people have more cholesterol receptors than others. In that case, if everyone eats a high protein, high fat, high cholesterol diet, those who have lots of receptors may avoid getting heart disease and those who have too few will likely develop heart disease. But there are many other degenerative diseases caused by a high protein, high fat, high cholesterol diet. So you likely raise your risk for one thing or another by eating such a diet.