PLANT-BASED NUTRITION

[Guest guest]

PLANT-BASED NUTRITION JoAnn Guest

Apr 28, 2006 16:54 PDT

 

PLANT-BASED NUTRITION

 

The following remarks by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD were

delivered

September 2, 2000 in Orlando, Florida at the Summit Conference on

Cholesterol and Coronary Risk presented by the Cleveland Clinic

Foundation in cooperation with the Walt Disney World Company.

 

These comments are a reflection of epidemiologic survey information

and

Dr. Esselstyn's 12-year reversal study of patients with severe

coronary

disease.

 

In the longest study of its type, the author has demonstrated

elimination of disease progression in all compliant patients who

maintained a total serum cholesterol less than 150 mg/dl and an LDL

cholesterol less than 80 mg/dl through a plant-based diet.

 

 

Plant-based nutrition provides us with a pathway to escape the

coronary

artery disease epidemic. For persons in central Africa, the Papua

Highlanders of New Guinea, the Tarahumara Indians of northern

Mexico,

and inhabitants of rural China as described in the Cornell China

Study,

coronary disease is essentially non-existent while hypertension,

Western

malignancies, obesity, and adult onset diabetes are rarely

encountered.

 

While I am proud to have been the founder of this conference in

1997, it

has become ever more apparent that these conferences are not the

ultimate answer. This stopgap risk factor and drug oriented

device-driven approach is not designed to conquer this epidemic.

This

strategy is laden with expense, morbidity, mortality, and temporary

benefits which rapidly erode with time.

 

We must focus on the toxic food environment for otherwise our

children

and young adults will become the next unsuspecting victims.

 

We have a crises of leadership in our public and private

institutions

with an emphasis on prevention. Their advice to the public of 30%

fat in

the diet guarantees disease development and progression.

 

This level advocated by the National Research Council, the American

Heart Association, the National Cholesterol Education Program, and

the

National Institutes of Health has been shown scientifically to

worsen

the disease.

For them to sanctify this diet as healthy for the American public,

is

egregiously inaccurate.

 

Like trying to fit Cinderella's slipper on one of her sister's - it

simply doesn't work.

 

By way of contrast, the American Cancer Society prefers 20% dietary

fat,

while the World Health Organization advocates 15%.

 

In 1987 Dr. Scott Grundy proclaimed that with a blood pressure of

110/70

and a total cholesterol of under 150 mg/dl, 90% of heart attacks

could

be avoided. Sadly, no public or private institution detailed for the

public the plant-based diet that could achieve those goals.

 

The United States Department of Agriculture has a sorrowful record

of

caving to the special interests of industry as does the U.S.

Congress.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines committee has over half its members with

ties to industry, while the chairman of the health and human

services

department wears a milk mustache.

 

For those institutions to decide America's nutritive needs is surely

putting the fox in the hen house.

 

A slogan has arisen from these groups stating there are no strictly

good

foods or bad foods. This is sheer nonsense. Coronary disease has no

building blocks from the plant-based diet.

 

Meat, cheese, milk, butter, ice cream, eggs, fried foods, oils, and

margarine are the lethal atherosclerotic lynchpins. Vogel

demonstrated

endothelial damage in young persons within hours of eating such

foods.

 

English children under 10 years of age have been found by ultrasound

to

be losing arterial elasticity and distensibility The Bogalusa, PDAY,

Korean, and Vietnam data reveal coronary artery disease is

ubiquitous in

our young.

 

We require a new yardstick to measure cardiovascular excellence in

our

institutions. No longer will the number or quality of interventions

and

their temporary benefits suffice.

 

There is ample evidence-based research to support efforts geared to

prevention. We must ask how many patients have achieved successful

arrest and reversal and avoided new coronary and cardiovascular

events

through preventive lifestyle changes? Some will argue that their

patients might not follow a plant-based diet. This, I increasingly

find,

is a totally negative and self-serving speculation.

 

Our experience is that patients rejoice that they are now empowered

to

abolish their disease progression and are often furious that they

were

not made aware of this option earlier. They clearly recognize that

the

locus of control for this disease is vested with them. While this

conference will continue updating us with mechanisms of disease,

that

information alone will never shut down atherosclerotic development.

 

The truth be known, we don't need new information to end this

epidemic.

The evidence is in! As practicing physicians, dietitians,

nutritionists,

nurses, and researchers, you are an essential part of the vanguard

to

disseminate the facts to patients, the public, and the government.

 

As leaders, we must have the courage and a renewed moral compass to

provide the public with accurate information to abolish and prevent

atherosclerosis. We must seek leaders and institutions that are not

frayed or compromised by ties to industry or politics to deliver

this

message. It must be science and not the messenger which dictates

public

policy.

 

 

 

 

JoAnn Guest

mrsjo-

www.geocities.com/mrsjoguest/Diets