- Hi, I'm Jenna. Welcome back to "Down-to-Earth." I am so excited to share with you that I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. Dr. Esselstyn wrote the book on preventing and reversing heart disease. His work was featured in the documentary "Forks Over Knives," and he has spent his
entire legendary career examining the link between
nutrition and heart disease. I have been such a big
fan for such a long time, and I'm gonna leave this in show at that 'cause it's raining on me right now and I think it's time
that you listen to him. - Welcome back to "Down-to-Earth." (laughing) - How are you doing? How's quarantine treating you? - Like everybody else. - Well, I have a lot of questions for you, and just before we get started, I wanted to thank you
so much for what you do. I said this on the phone, but you've not only kind of
saved so many people's lives, but you've also delivered your message about the power of good nutrition in a way that has always
been respectful and kind, and we've all noticed. So thank you for doing what you do. - Thank you, Jenna. - Doctor, you've always
said that heart disease is a food-borne illness, and poor nutrition is the cause. If we know this to be true, in your opinion, why is it so, so hard for people to eat right still? Why are people so confused? - When you touch poison ivy, it's not gonna be but an hour or two before you really are paying the price. But when you sit down and have a steak, or you have pork, or you have
bacon, or you have cheese, you know, it takes sometimes decades, literally, decades to build
cardiovascular disease. So there's no really immediate
association there at all. And it really doesn't do any
help when the cardiologist, and again, with all due respect to my cardiovascular friends, they really have no training
in nutrition in medical school. They have no training in
nutrition that's substantive in their post-graduate years. So frequently when I
end up seeing patients that have had an unsuccessful bypass, they've had an unsuccessful stent, or they've been told
because they have symptoms they're gonna have to have
one of these procedures or some of the drugs. None of the drugs that cardiology uses, none of the stents, none of the bypasses, have one single solitary thing whatsoever to do with the causation of the illness. When you have the
profession that is treating this disease sort of deny
the reality of the science that has been out there
now for thirty years, showing clearly that if we take patients who are seriously ill with
cardiovascular disease, and we get them to change
the way they're eating and stop eating any foods that are gonna injure
the endothelial cell, then the endothelial cells
will begin to recover. They make enough nitric oxide so we can halt disease progression. And often, we'll see
a significant ailments of disease reversal. Leveling the playing field
is so much better now than it was 30 years ago,
34 years ago when I started. I mean it's, in all fairness, there are cardiologists who
have become aware of this. There are physicians who
have become aware of it, but it's very awkward for
physicians to try to believe in something for which
they were never trained. And also, it's hard to imagine
that there is something that is more magical and more powerful when you're speaking about
Brussels sprouts and broccoli, than you are with somebody
who's invented this drug, which has taken many,
many years to develop, is going to cost a great deal
of money to take regularly. It'll have hideous side-effects, and it doesn't have anything
to do with curing the disease, but it'll help the symptoms. So it's coming. You know, it's really so
embarrassing when you think that half the planet Earth doesn't have cardiovascular disease. If you were a cardiac surgeon
and you were gonna take your, hang out your shingle
in Okinawa, rural China, Central Africa, the Papua
Highlands in New Guinea, the Tarahumara in Northern
Mexico, forget it. You better plan on selling pencils. Why? They don't have any
cardiovascular disease. Why? Because they all thrive on whole food, plant-based nutrition
essentially without oil. - In light of that, a lot of people think that genetics is the cause. Okay, genetics is the cause and pharmacology is the cure, right? - Okay genetics is the cause. Why is it then Okinawa doesn't
have any heart disease, but as soon as they move to the West then they all develop heart disease? - And there have been
studies that have shown this, no doubt.
- Yeah. - Okay, so you're much more, if we're looking at
nature versus nurture-- - Why is it you take
a family where no male has ever lived beyond the age of 50 or 55 because of heart disease, but if you that younger
male who is in his 40's, who hasn't yet, he can absolutely vanquish cardiovascular disease. But we are in such a habit. How many times do you go to a restaurant in this country and go to the menu and find there's no oil? None?
- None. (laughing) - So what does oil do to
your endothelial cells? It injures them. I just wrote a paper last year in the "International Journal of
Disease Reversal and Prevention." The title was "Is Oil Healthy?" And I review all the animal
studies, the human studies, showing how oil injures
the endothelial cells. - Doctor, it's kind of
hard for people to hear that olive oil is something
that we should avoid. And I'm sure you get this question a lot, which is why you wrote a paper on it. Can you outline your recommendations for, and I know that you've
done this plenty of times, but I'm asking you to do it one more time, your recommendations for
how we all should eat? - First of all, what the
foods that every time they pass our lips we injure
the endothelial cells? Any drop of oil. Olive oil, corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, palm oil, oil in a cracker,
oil in a piece of bread, oil in a salad dressing. Oil injures the endothelial cell. Now, just so that... I'll continue with that,
but I want to just be sure that your audience will probably say, well, what is my credential for being able to say those things? We will compete our results
in reversing heart disease with anybody on the planet. We've written multiple papers about this before we ever wrote the book. And when we eliminate, for patients who are seriously
ill with heart disease, the foods that I've been sharing with you, oil and the rest that
I'm about to comment on, not only did we stop their disease, but we showed that we
were able to reverse it. Okay, eliminate the oil. Also, anything with a mother or a face. Meat, fish, chicken,
fowl, turkey, and eggs. Animal protein injures endothelial cells, as does dairy, milk,
cream, butter, cheese, ice cream, and yogurt, and sugary foods. Diet colas, Pepsi, Coke. I don't like sugary foods. Cakes, pies, cookies, stevia, agave. Too much maple syrup or molasses. We have some maple syrup
in some of our recipes in some of the book, but for patients who have heart disease, I'd like 'em to eliminate that. Take very little amount of it. Also, I don't like nuts, peanut butter, cashew sauce, or avocado, and too much saturated fat, and coffee with caffeine. Decaf, okay. Tea with caffeine, okay, but coffee with caffeine
injures endothelial cells. - Doctor, for people that are
listening to your right now, eat most of those things. Right? I mean, even just nuts. People make nuts like
peanut butter, almonds. I heard almonds are good, right? Even Brazil nuts. Often times Brazil nuts
are cited as something that's good for the heart. You know, it's kind of
overwhelming to hear even... Not the coffee. Don't take away the coffee. You're taking away my coffee, right? I'm sure you get this a lot. It must be difficult having such tight-- - But that all stops when
they suddenly find that, especially the patients who
come with chest pain and angina, and suddenly they find out
in four or five or six days their chest pain is
diminishing and going away. Why? Why am I so tough on nuts? You'll see a number of papers out in the scientific
literature praising nuts. You have to look often
very carefully at how this study was designed, and also where was the money coming from? Because as the late Arnold
Relman has said that, he was formerly the editor of "The New England Journal of Medicine," said you must be extremely
cautious in reading a paper where the authorship has a
relationship with industry. Now, the thing about nuts is interesting. You know, probably if
the truth were known, you can't tell anybody this, but suppose I were to say it was okay to have three walnut halves on you cereal. That's not what people would remember. They'd say, hey, I heard
Esselstyn say that nuts are okay. Huh? So they'll be in the glove compartment, they'll be in the bathroom, they'll be in the bedroom, they'll be in the kitchen, the hallway, the dining room, at the workbench. They're highly addicting. And it's interesting
that I have yet to see in the scientific literature, any group of patients
who are seriously ill with heart disease,
where you give them nuts and peanut butter and cashew sauce, and have their disease
ever halt, or be reversed. - So it's more than just an Omega-3 verses and Omega-6 thing. - Omega-3 and Omega-6 are sort
of an essential fatty acids. You will very likely
never be short on Omega-6. Unlikely to be as short on
Omega-3 if your getting plenty of green leafy vegetables,
chia seeds, or flaxseed meal, but if you do wanna be
sure and you get checked, and you have the Omega-3 check test, and it says you've got,
you can either be optimal, you can be borderline, or low. You could always take a
supplement of Omega-3 algae until you bounce your numbers
up where you're more optimal. - So in theory, if I was
a very healthy individual that's in my 30's and 40's, in theory, I could consume a very
small amount of nuts. That would be healthy, but ultimately the recommendation is-- - Yeah, on page 69 of my
books I don't have anything about patients who are otherwise healthy, against them having nuts. This is for patients for heart disease. - Got it. Would you... I think about my Italian
friends listening to you. So it's like no olive oil,
no mozzarella, no pizza. - No, you can have all kinds of pizza, but you can't have cheese on it, and you can't have olive oil with it. They're delicious pizzas,
vegetable pizzas, sure. - So when people call your
recommendations Draconian, what they're really not
seeing is that it actually has results attached to them, right? - I don't think they're Draconian at all. When you think about it, they are Draconian in the sense that they're so powerfully curative. When somebody calls it
severe, strict, or Draconian, look at the foods that are in
our diet and nutrition plan. There's not one food that
we're asking people to eat that they haven't already
eaten throughout their lives. The only thing that they're
deciding is they're Draconian is the fact that we are
asking them to simply remove from that diet the foods that
if they continue to eat them will guarantee that they
will become sick, ill, and perish from disease. So our Draconian step is to
take away the killing foods. And I don't think that's Draconian. What happens with our diet, if we were to take our diet to Okinawa, the Okinawans would look at us and say, well, it's about time you guys caught on. We've been doing this for centuries. - True or false, red
meat has the same level of carcinogenicity as cigarettes? - That was the famous saying
that came in October of 2015, The World Health
Organization, imagine that. Representatives from
countries throughout the world agreed that it was time to label red meat as having the same
level of carcinogenicity as smoking cigarettes. What a tremendously powerful statement. - Doctor, what about
people that say that fish and fowl, chicken, are okay? Is that still in the same-- - They don't know the science. - Okay, so it-- - Animal protein. - So if someone's making
the choice for chicken because they think-- - It's a question of whether
you want to be shot or hung. - Wow. (laughing) Neither, please. Okay, and so what if I, let's say I'm listening to you right now, and I'm bought in, I'm bought in, but there's a lot of other information that I'm getting lately. There are trends towards
intermittent fasting, or genetics-related dieting plans, or inflammatory foods. There's a lot of trends that are happening in the world of nutrition. No doubt, you've seen them
throughout your career. How do you feel first
about intermittent fasting? - Well, you can look, if you just wanna get
comfortable about it, you ask yourself what
do the rural Chinese do? What do the Okinawans do? What do those in Central Africa do? Do they all have intermittent fasting? There are gonna be these fads. I don't have a problem
with people who wanna fast. That's not gonna hurt them. It's what they do when they
stop fasting that hurts them. I don't have a problem with that. There are different types of fasting. We have a situation when, let's say I, and this
happens all the time, we've got patients who
come into our program and let's say they come in,
they weigh 250, 300, 350, 400. A month or two ago I had a
patient who weighed 500 pounds. You know, you gotta get to work on that, and that's where we borrowed something from the National Institute of Aging about eight or nine years ago that I think is a very powerful
and very strong addition. And that is you have to
watch it if they're diabetic 'cause you don't want them to
have a hypoglycemic episode, but we'd like those patients to have a total water-only fast two days a week. 24 hours, water only. And that really kind of
kick starts the weight loss along with the plant-based diet itself, and then they don't go
through those awkward moments where you lose weight, they
plateau for a number of months, they get discouraged,
then they get recidivism, and then they end up
gaining the weight back. But if they have a program
where they are successful it really helps them to keep going and really achieve the
goals that they're after. - I'm hearing you, and I
personally am totally bought in to what you're saying, but then if you walk into a supermarket and you go to a frozen food section, there's such a long distance between how we should be eating,
and we're currently eating throughout American society today. And I'm wondering are we
destined to be addicted to unhealthy food when
so much unhealthy food, processed food, fried food,
is around us everyday? I mean, it seems like
such a difficult thing for so many people who, many of whom, are just trying to put food on the table, you know, to walk into a
supermarket to see their choices, and to not choose
somethings that's unhealthy. I'm curious how you feel about compliance. I know you're not a psychologist, but how do you feel about compliance in a world where so many of the choices are so poor and addictive? - When we recently looked
up some 200 patients who had been through our
program for close to four years, and we found that the
compliance and adherence when we looked it up, was about 89.3. That's almost 90%. And a number of physicians who often will attend our seminar just because they wanna feel familiar with it, they're really quite astounded. And often they'll say,
well, Dr. Esselstyn, I've tried your approach, but I really cannot get a
patient to follow this approach. And what we find is that why is it that we're
getting 90% adherence? And I think the answer
to that, quite clearly, is that we're showing the patient respect. How do you show a patient respect? The only way that I know to really show a patient respect is
to give them our time. And personally, with this seminar that I was conducting until the virus hit, once a month we would have
12 or 14 participants, always with their significant other or their spouse in attendance, which rarely happens
at the doctor's office. Because both parties have to
know what you're asking for. And then the seminar itself
is six hours in length. These patients come in, they start at nine o'clock in the morning, and we finish about three
o'clock in the afternoon. They're gonna learn all about how they have created their disease, and precisely how we are
going to empower them as the locus of control to
halt and reverse their disease. Why is it six hours? Because in six hours, they're gonna learn all the details of this. They get a very hefty
notebook that is a copy of every PowerPoint slide that I use. They have a copy of several
of our scientific articles, a 44-page handout with
many additional recipes that add to the 240, which
will be in the two books that we provide them. There's a marvelous hour
and a quarter from a woman who has had 33 years acquiring
plant-based nutrition, showing how to deal with
restaurants, travel. And everybody receives a
DVD of the entire seminar so that when they go home,
they get forgetful or rusty, they can flip this on and get
themselves back up to speed. Then we always have two or three local or regional participants who've had a previous successful
experience share their story with those in attendance, who can then say to themselves, listen, if he or she can
do this, I can do this. And then we have an opportunity to answer everybody's questions. We have a plant-based luncheon, and then stay in touch as necessary through email or phone call. But I only, see since these patients come from throughout the United States, 90% are outside the state of Ohio, or from throughout
Canada, or from overseas, I get them once. So I have really got
to make this six hours very imperative and meaningful. And also, to show them
respect I ask my secretary, who will give me two
weeks before the seminar, she will present me with a
list of everybody who's coming, plus their telephone number. And I then will call everyone
of these patients myself beforehand so that I can get
my arms around their story, and at the same time, present
them with an opportunity to ask questions of me. So that coming to the seminar, we already have a strong platform from which we can all move forward. And really, with all due
respect to my fellow physicians who say it's unsuccessful, if you think that you're
gonna get somebody to change their lifestyle
in a 12 or 15 minute office visit without the spouse, not gonna happen. And I must say that where
I think we really throw the whole hook, and I
spend at least an hour on the endothelial cell and
the gas that it produces, nitric oxide, which is the great salvation and protection of all our blood vessels. Can you imagine somebody who's
been with us for six hours, who understands what I've said
about the endothelial cell and nitric oxide, how could
they possibly look me in the eye and say, "Dr. Esselstyn,
Lois and I are gonna "have our 35th wedding anniversary "in a couple of weeks,
and boy am I gonna destroy "my few remaining endothelial cells." What? Not gonna happen. So you provide them with a this message and enough science in the vocabulary that they can grasp and
get their arms around, and I think that's why we
have that degree of success. I'd like to have it be even better. I'd like to have it be 95 to 100%. It's a tough sell because everywhere that these people have been
going through all their lives, anytime they're in an
gathering there's always food, and it's always the food that's gonna destroy endothelial cells. - Doctor, we talked about the things that people should avoid. In the light of knowledge is power, let's try and inspire people. Like, what should we be eating? - I would start with all
these marvelous whole, W-H-O-L-E, whole-grains, whole grain and for your pasta, bread,
rolls, bagels, and so forth. 101 different types of
legumes, lentils, and beans. All these marvelous red, yellow,
and green leafy vegetables, and some sweet potatoes, white
potatoes, and some fruit. And you know, in my book, and the one by my wife and my daughter, "The Prevent and Reverse
Heart Disease Cookbook," and in the books by John
McDougall, and Neal Barnard, I mean, there are hundreds
of wonderful recipes that are available. - You've been advocating for
a plant-based diet since 1984. As I recall, there's a
story that you like to share about being at a dinner for doctors, and they gave you a big steak and you didn't want it anymore. How do you feel about this new
era in plant-based nutrition? Now days, there's a
lot more news about it, there's a lot more adherence. People are kind of waking
up to the idea that eating plant-based,
formerly known as vegan, is the right way to go. How do you feel about this new era? And I'm also curious about how you feel about the labeling plant-based? - I treat vegans for heart disease. Vegans will eat oil. Vegans will eat french fries. Vegans will eat glazed donuts. The terminology whole-food,
plant-based nutrition really encapsules exactly
what we are striving for. There's one thing I wanna be sure, in case some of your
listeners have heart disease, that we've been using for
the last eight or nine years, it's not in the book,
but it's so important, and that is if I have
somebody who has heart disease and they have blockages
in the coronary arteries to their heart, and I ask
them to try to imagine shrinking their brain to
a size that they actually crawl inside that artery, they would see that the
blockage is an absolute cauldron of oxidated inflammation. So we need antioxidants. But no, do not go down
to the health food store and buy a jug of pills
that says antioxidant 'cause it doesn't work,
and it's gonna be harmful. I need them to get their
antioxidants from food. Fair enough, what food? Food that is high in what
we call orac value, O-R-A-C, oxygen radical absorptive capacity. So this means if you're having
raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries
on you morning oat cereal, that is a terrific start. However, nothing,
nothing, nothing can trump the antioxidant value of
green leafy vegetables. So I need these patients to chew, not smoothies, not juicing, to chew a green leafy
vegetable six times a day, after it has first been boiled in water, five and a half to six minutes, or steamed so it's nice and tender. Then you must, must then
anoint it with several drops of a delightful balsamic vinegar. Why? Because it's the acidic
acid in the vinegar that will restore the nitric
oxide synthase enzyme, which is the enzyme contained
within the endothelial cell responsible for making nitric oxide. Now, therefore, you're gonna chew this alongside your breakfast cereal. Again, as a mid-morning snack. Again, with you luncheon sandwich. That's three. Mid-afternoon, four. Dinner time, five. And of course, I adore it when you have that evening snack of kale. What are you doing? All day long you are absolutely bathing horrible oxidative
cauldron of inflammation with nature's most powerful antioxidants. And at the same time, you're helping to restore
the endothelial capacity to make nitric oxide. However, while the second thing that chewing the greens does, chewing the greens will
restore the capacity of your bone marrow to once again make the endothelial progenitor cells. What do they do? They replace our senescent, injured, worn-out endothelial cells. Now, the third thing,
and this is so important, the third thing that
chewing the greens does, when you are chewing the greens, you are chewing a nitrate. As you chew that nitrate,
it is going to mix with the facultative anaerobic bacteria that reside in the crypts
and grooves of your tongue. Those bacteria are going
to reduce those nitrates that you are chewing to nitrites. Now when you swallow the nitrites it is your own gastric acid which is going to further
reduce the nitrites to more nitric oxide. So there you are,
literally, morning to dusk, all day long, you are absolutely
restoring nitric oxide, the very molecule, the deficiency of which gave you this
disease in the first place. Now, there are some caveats here. One: you can't use
mouthwash or antibiotics because they will destroy
the beneficial bacteria in your mouth. And be careful of any antacids because antacids will reduce the amount of acidity in you stomach, and you'll not be able
to convert the nitrites to more nitric oxide. Now, what are the green leafy
vegetables I'm talking about? They are, ready? Bok choy, Swiss chard, kale, collards, collard green, beet greens,
mustard greens, turnip greens, Napa cabbage, Brussels
sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro, parsley, spinach,
and arugula, and asparagus. And the top five are kale,
Swiss chard, spinach, arugula, and beets. And look what it does for your memory. - Next question for you,
currently in the United States by the time that one graduates high school they have the foundation
for heart disease. - Right. - Many out there might
be listening to this and thinking, well, I'm healthy. I don't need to do this, right? Like six times a day,
that sounds kind of crazy. I don't need... Like eating green leafy vegetables, I can get away with a burger
on the weekends, right? Are we all a little bit
unaware of our current state of health and what's happening inside? Like how much... It's kind of, when I
first read that statistic, I thought that was absolutely crazy that there could be-- - This is a very, very,
very sickly country. When public health experts outline the multiple things that people are to do to get their health, you get exercise, very few
Americans getting it regularly. You see lots of it on television, but very few people are getting the appropriate amount of exercise. Sleep, no. As a matter of fact be sure
you want to avoid sleep apnea. Are they getting plenty of socialization? And most importantly of all, are they eating plant-based? I mean, this is why we have an
epidemic of chronic illness. You know, here we are talking
about cardiovascular disease, however, if we look carefully, cardiovascular disease
is not the only disease we're treating with plant-based nutrition. You're getting rid of diabetes, you're getting rid of obesity, you're getting rid of hypertension, you're getting rid of vascular dementia, you're decreasing the likelihood of any kind of Alzheimer's disease. And then, of course,
you're helping yourself be protected from ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis,
allergies, asthma. I mean, the list goes on and on. The heavens have opened up
and given this profession the most powerful tool ever
that we've had in our toolbox. - So people are a lot more
sick than they realize? - Well, obviously, when you think about the progression of this, we said you don't se much in the way of any heart disease
at age seven or eight, but by the time you get autopsied, if you're a late-teenager, or early-20's, you've already got the
foundation of the disease. And, therefore, not a great surprise that by the time people are in their 40's we now start seeing the
clinical cardiac events of heart attack and stroke. - Many are worried about
switching to a whole foods, plant-based diet because they're unaware of how to achieve the nutrition required for a child who's growing. Children need more fat. - It's interesting that
when the late Bill Connor went down to Northern Mexico, and he studied the Tarahumara Indians, the Tarahumara Indians
eat the three sisters. Beans, corn, and squash. No nutritional deficiencies. No nutritional deficiencies. They are absolutely champion
athletes and runners. Now, if people sensibly
have a whole-grain cereal in the morning with maybe
a few raisins, a banana, and raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and blackberries, and at lunchtime you can have, in the wintertime you can have a soup in which you put every
conceivable kind of vegetable and greens, they can delicious. And then, of course,
my favorite for supper is beans and rice with all
the various cut up vegetables. Whether peas, and corn, and cut up peppers and chestnuts, and you've
got an absolute feast. And it's a delicious way to eat. And you're not gonna be protein deficient. As a matter of fact, if
your listeners have seen the movie "The Game Changers," you'll never see such
incredible athletic specimens. Muscles bulging everywhere. The strongest man on the planet, the German, Baboumian, plant-based. Yeah. - And you would know about that because you were an Olympic rower. - Thank you. - Next question. You know, now a days, your
business is not just your own. Your family's very involved. It's really incredible to see
your son out there advocating. Your wife. Now that this is kind of, again, moving it forward into this new era, I mean, back in 1984, this
message was a lot harder to get out there than it is now, right? And so where do you see the
current nutrition movement? Are you excited about it? I mean, you just cited
"The Game Changers," that's a new documentary that's
been making a lot of rounds. So how do feel about the
current nutrition movement? The next generation, in light
of all that we know now? - You know, you cannot
even begin to compare the difference 34 years ago with today. I got very excited about this and in 1991 I put together, with what I thought was really a blue ribbon
panel of physicians, and I entitled the conference
The First National Conference on the Elimination of
Coronary Artery Disease. And we had a hundred people, but the speakers were great. We had a couple from Boston, Dr. Ornish was there, Colin Campbell was there, Castelli was there, Dr. Alexander was there, and it was really kind of exciting. And I thought, boy, this
is the way to do it, but nothing happened. Eating is such an ingrained situation, so we had another one. This time in 1997. We had 500 people and it
was really well received. And again, it was kind of slow, but somewhat after that as we
moved into the early-2000's, you know, Ornish came out with his data, we came out with our data. Suddenly it was possible for
this disease to be halted, and excitingly, even reversed. But the thing that was holding it back was that physicians never learned about any of this in medical school. It was very bizarre. But I should share with
you that next month I've been asked to speak
to Harvard Medical School, and this will be my
third visit to Harvard, and there are some very
important people there who I think are beginning to
realize the efficacy of this. Because it's just so hard for physicians to somehow make the
transition to think that that Brussels sprouts and broccoli, which have never been designed by a great pharmaceutical company, they're just simply been designed
by the ground from a seed, would be so powerful as plants. And increasingly, as
there is an awareness, that we should eat to avoid
an injury to the endothelium, this will really help to turn this around. You know, I think what
also is gonna happen is that there's been a
basic covenant of trust since the days of Hippocrates that whenever possible the caregiver, meaning the physician,
will share with the patient what is the causation of the illness. And sadly today in
cardiovascular medicine, that was not being done. But I think increasingly, there
is that developing awareness and that it will begin to happen. We have several now
absolutely stunning examples of an angiogram, which shows
the blockage in the artery, and then as these patients have gone into whole food, plant-based nutrition, and they've had subsequent
follow-up angiograms, you can see that area of
narrowing begin to enlarge. And for those who had older plaques that have now filled up with
scarring and calcification and they won't go away, even those patients, amazingly, develop such strong collateralization, and as well as opening up
much wider all those vessels that are in the heart muscle. Even the older patients
have enormous benefit from this approach. - Doctor, it must be funny kind of going to being interviewed for news
channels, going to events, and always running into your friends. So T. Colin Campbell,
Dr. Ornish, Dr. Gregor. Who are some researchers
and people in the field that you wish we would all kind of know a little bit more about? Whether it's someone
who may not be US based, or any women within the US that have been doing this
type of research for a while? Or are we really just at
the beginning and you know-- - Oh, no, no, no, there's a wonderful, if you just look at the
American College of Cariology, the Nutrition Committee, four years ago I was invited by the American College of
Cardiology to become a member. Because they wanted me to join
their Nutrition Committee, which I have done. And it's really a glowing group of people who are totally committed
to plant-based nutrition. It is very empowering to
be a part of that group. And it really gives you
a great sense of pride and reassurance that this is eventually going to get there. Because, you know, right
now this poor nation is being drawn into debtor's prison. Now, it's been accelerated
by this virus, obviously, but before then we have Social
Security, which is fine, then we have Medicaid and Medicare. Medicare is an enormous
expense for this nation. What do you think is 45% of Medicare? Cardiology. All the drugs, all the imaging, all the procedures, the
bypasses, the stents. All these things cost
enormous amounts of money, and yet, this is a disease
that doesn't even exist in half the planet. - With all the news
around COVID-19 right now, do you find that people, if we all were eating a lot better, whole foods, plant-based diets, we'd be in a much better position when it would come to
fighting this virus, right? - It's very easy to
state right at the outset that if people have a
strong immune system, they might do much better. I'm convinced that
that's probably the case, but there may be something in the genetics of our immune system that
is different in all of us that we respond differently to the virus. Because there are some
people who literally have had COVID-19, Coronavirus, and they never even knew it. They're testing positive, or they tested with antibodies, knowing that they've had it. Others have smiled and
others it, obviously, is very crippling, and others
it actually kills them. But one of the things
that's been fascinating is that from data when
the SARS virus was around, it was made aware that
somehow the gas nitric oxide was very capable of injuring the virus. And so the Massachusetts General Hospital has taken that information to heart, and they have started two studies. One study where they
are identifying patients with Coronavirus, where
they three times a day have them inhale for 30
minutes nitric oxide. Morning, noon, and late
afternoon, early evening. And they wanna see if they
can shorten the course of the illness in these patients. And the other study they're doing, they're taking healthcare workers who are very susceptible to developing and acquiring this disease
because of their exposure. And they're giving them
inhalations of nitric oxide. 30 minutes when they come to work, 30 minutes when they leave. Then it would be fascinating. And I wrote a little editorial-like piece about nitric oxide and Coronavirus because I feel that if
people will eat in a way that you keep your nitric
oxide levels very, very high, and you do that especially by eating the green leafy vegetables
that I've already mentioned, six times a day for heart disease. Well, it's six times a day to try to... Because if a virus tries
to infect your windpipe or your trachea and your
making plenty of nitric oxide, the hope is that that
will greatly diminish the likelihood that you
will acquire the disease, or if acquired, it may mitigate against the intensity of the disease. - Is this why you're still
doing what you're doing? I mean, I feel like a lot of your friends at this point must be like, you know what? It's time for me to relax. Been there done that. But you're still talking to me right now. You're still running seminars. You're still writing op-eds. Is it because you see such a distance between where we're at
in the United States and where we could be? I mean, what's kind of
driving you at this point to continue to put in
this much time and effort into spreading this message? I mean, listening to you rattle off all of the leafy greens
that we should eat, I mean, you've certainly
said that so many times. Countless times. I actually felt kind of guilty asking you to say that again, right? (laughing) So what's driving you
at this point, Doctor? Because, you know,
you've written the book. You literally wrote the book on preventing and reversing heart disease. How are you... You did so much, why do you
feel this need to continue? - Well, because I think
it's kind of the reason, I guess, I went into
medicine in the first place. Is that maybe you would
be able to help out and I suddenly after a surgical career it became obvious to me that while you can help people one at a time
with something like surgery, when you are able to get information out about changing nutrition
that will vanquish 80% of chronic disease, I mean... When you talk about
getting bang for the buck, I mean, it's so enormous where
if it all worked out right, you would save the planet
as well as saving lives throughout the world. And it's been very exciting
when I've had a chance to travel to Singapore, to China, to Denmark, to Iceland. But I would simply have
to say that I think the, right now, I guess it's because I really visualize in front of us, what I call the seismic
revolution in health. And the seismic revolution in health is never gonna come
about with another pill, another procedure, another operation. The seismic revolution
in health will come about when we in the profession have the will and the grit and the determination to share with the public
what is the lifestyle, and most specifically, what
is the nutritional literacy that will empower them to absolutely annihilate illness and disease.
