[CFrance]

Originally Posted by AutoBike

Remember Euell Gibbons, the guy that promoted a diet of wild plants and berries? He died at age 64. He died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. I always suspected a pine needle pierced his heart.

Originally Posted by graciegirl

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."

[cuzg8tor]

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"

[senior citizen]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I don't think Clinton looks that great. I think he looks haggard and skeletal, almost frail. Bush, on the other hand, looks healthy and robust, always has. And walking three miles a day? Pfft... That's nothing. Bush could ride circles around him in the fitness routine area.

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.....

[Villages PL]

Originally Posted by Duvalboomer

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!

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.

[Villages PL]

Originally Posted by AutoBike

I don't know one 90 year old vegan, but I knew/know several 90+ year old omnivores.

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.

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)

[Villages PL]

Originally Posted by CFrance

I don't think Clinton looks that great. I think he looks haggard and skeletal, almost frail. Bush, on the other hand, looks healthy and robust, always has. And walking three miles a day? Pfft... That's nothing. Bush could ride circles around him in the fitness routine area.

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.

[Villages PL]

Originally Posted by senior citizen

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.........

A Vegan Diet is 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.....

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.

[Schaumburger]

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.

[Duvalboomer]

Originally Posted by Villages PL

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.

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.

[jimbo2012]

U may want to read more studies?

[jimbo2012]

Double or nothing for $2,000 on diet

[Barefoot]

Originally Posted by AutoBike

You're on. A diet of 25 eggs/day should clog your arteries, right? Not this guy.

And we always hear the "health food folks" tell us that eating eggs isn't good for us. Not so.

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

[Joaniesmom]

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

[jimbo2012]

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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[Cantwaittoarrive]

Originally Posted by Barefoot

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

I agree and I enjoy them all or most days a week