A Heart Attack Saved My Life | Michael Gorham | TEDxIIT

the unexpected is all around us just waiting to pounce sometimes it's good sometimes it's bad sometimes it's both seven years ago I jumped on my bicycle to write some to run some errands I was in a hurry I'm always in a hurry I got only about half a mile into my ride when suddenly I felt something like I've never felt before in fact it felt like somebody had pulled the plug like I had zero energy in my body I struggled off my bike laid down in the grass and tried to figure this out I needed help luckily I had a cell phone in my pocket but I wasn't gonna call 911 serious like that so I called my wife Patti I got voicemail then I figured okay I'll call our nurse friend Cathy at her office I got voicemail again I was fading fast and I figured I had one more call in in me and so I called Cathy on her cell phone she picked up she said what are your symptoms I told her she said Mike hang up and call 911 now you wouldn't believe the number of people in a situation like that that don't want to bother 911 anyone they often go home and take a nap and they die I was like that I called 911 me too luckily Cathy got to me even before the paramedics she took my pulse it was 40 beats per minute now I know there are elite athletes who have heart beats in that range but I was not one of them in fact I was a fat guy who loved and overindulged in the foods that I had grown up with in Texas ribs brisket steak anything that could be barbecued was fair game but I wasn't really in much of a mood to think about food at that time I just felt so uncomfortable that I just wanted to go to sleep in fact I even got irritated by the 911 who said who was trying to engage me to keep me talking and alert until the paramedics came the paramedics finally came took me to Loyola Hospital which only one week before had established a cardiac cath unit time is of the essence when you're having a heart attack within 30 minutes of hitting the front door they had a catheter snaked up through my groin to the artery that was the was was blocked they put they ballooned it open they put a stent in and they told me after I woke up that this was actually a massive heart attack massive in the sense that the artery that feeds the front part of your heart was 100% blocked that's the one that doctors call the Widowmaker the next morning in ICU I'm in bed with my wife who's sitting there and she looks at me and she says Mike when we get out of here we are go both going vegan now you normally you normally would not say that to a Texan but I was in a very diminished state and I said sure whatever and I think she was taking advantage of me the thing that got us moving in this direction was believe it or not a $2 book that she had bought at a used book store type thing at our high school the book was called how to prevent and reverse heart disease and it didn't have anything to do with stents or bypasses or drugs it was all about what we put in our mouths it was written by an unusual guy with an unusual name dr. Caldwell Esselstyn has spent the last 30 years of his life devoted to eradicating heart disease he claims that heart disease is a foodborne illness and that it exists and it doesn't need to exist but it exists only because of the foods that we eat this guy spent his whole career at the Cleveland Clinic he's 81 years old still working there and he still looks like the Olympic roar that he was 60 years ago so what did he tell us to do he said there are four things you need to do first of all don't eat any animals and if you have trouble figuring out what an animal is if something has a face or a mother you don't need it number two don't eat any animal products that is no dairy no eggs number three eat lots of deep well number three sorry it's the most difficult one don't eat any added oil all oils including our sacred olive oil damages the endothelial lining of our arteries and veins number four eat lots of deep green leafy vegetables so how did this work out for me first of all seven years later I'm still alive yes and have not had another cardiac event which was my objective I lost 50 pounds I got off every single one of the five medications that they put you on when you have a heart attack and tell you you'll be on them for the rest of your life I felt more energetic than I had in two decades and the weirdest part of all I fell in love with this plant-based Whole Foods delicious diet there are a number of other things unrelated to heart disease that researchers and scientists and doctors are looking at right now writing articles about writing books about and even though they have quibbles about little things they all believe that a plant-based diet is has incredible results one of the major ones is that you can also reverse not only heart disease you can reverse type 2 diabetes my father died at 65 I think many of us carry around in our brains the idea that the lifespans of our parents somehow set the parameters to our own lives so am I gonna die at 65 well I turned 71 a few months ago so I think I've taken care of that my heart attack was stupid I was stupid the thing that came out of and it took this near-death experience to wake me up the heart attack was unexpected but even more unexpected was this love affair that I had with my new diet I sometimes think about Texas and have good feelings about it but I don't miss the food thank you you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 3,727

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Health, Food, Life Hack

Id: TxI5w6X5byc

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 31 2016