The statistics are distressing. Heart disease is our nation's leading cause of death for both men and women, resulting in a heart attack every 34 seconds. Eighty-one million Americans suffer from cardiovascular disease killing one out of every three people or 831,000 each year.

Will you be next? You may not have any symptoms of heart disease, or have been told that your cholesterol is within the "normal" range, yet these measures are not an accurate means of assessing your risk for heart disease. The majority of heart attacks occur in patients whose cholesterol is between "the normal range" of 150-200. In order to be truly protected, we should strive to maintain a total cholesterol level below 150. Heart disease is very rare in those with cholesterol levels this low. 

The bad news is that anyone who has ever eaten the standard American diet has heart disease - but may not know it. Symptoms of heart disease are not felt until blockages are 70% or greater. For example, many diagnostic tools don't detect artery blockage unless the blockage is quite significant. (The heart treadmill test is one example.) Dr. Joel Fuhrman says that "Stress testing only identifies blockages that obstruct greater than eighty-five percent of the vessel lumen. A normal stress test is meaningless and does not mean you do not have significant heart disease or won't shortly have a heart attack."

Heart disease is the "silent killer." Over 50% of heart attacks occur in those patients who have never had any previous signs of heart trouble. Out of these, over 30% are fatal, making their first symptom of heart disease their last. The good news is that diet and lifestyle choices can both prevent and reverse heart disease. Don't despair, we are here to help show you how!

Atherosclerosis (or hardening of the arteries) is a disease caused by years of eating the rich Western diet. Fatty plaque deposits accumulate and coat the inside of the blood vessel walls beginning in early childhood. Fatty cholesterol streaks can be seen in children as young as 3 years of age. By age 10 nearly 100% of children have atherosclerotic plaque formations. These atherosclerotic plaques will continue to form, resulting in serious coronary artery disease by age 30-40. The best way to prevent coronary heart disease is to adopt a whole-food, plant-based diet as soon as solid food is introduced in infancy. More information regarding children and heart disease can be found by clicking on the links at the bottom of this article.

You may already be familiar with the work of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., world famous and renowned author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. Dr. Esselstyn has successfully treated and reversed serious blockages in the coronary arteries of his patients. His groundbreaking results from his 20-year nutritional study "explains, with irrefutable scientific evidence, how we can end the heart disease epidemic in this country forever by changing what we eat."

In the above eight-minute video, Dr. Esselstyn discusses how we can heart attack proof ourselves within three-four weeks just by eating healthy, delicious, nutrient-dense plant foods. Additionally, many patients have experienced significant improvement with their angina (chest pain) within as little as ten days.

This video also addresses how the majority of heart attacks occur. This will really surprise you. When we hear the news of someone who has had a heart attack, we immediately think of them having narrowed blockages in the arteries of their heart. Yet in fact, only small percentages (approximately 10%) of heart attacks are caused from coronary arteries that show significant blockages. This plaque has had time to solidify, and is more stable than the newly formed plaques. Furthermore, the more stable and solid blockages have had many years to form. As a result, "collateral" vessels have had time to grow, which branch off of the main arteries, providing necessary blood flow to that particular area of the heart muscle. The greatest percentage of heart attacks (80-90%) occur when newly formed plaques on the inside of our arteries, rupture; causing a clot to form, blocking the flow of blood. These vulnerable and highly unstable plaques are found throughout our entire vascular system and cannot be detected using diagnostic tools. Since we have over 60 thousand miles of blood vessels in our bodies that contain these fragile plaques, you can see how many opportunities there are for one of them to rupture, causing a fatal clot.  Your cardiologist however, will most likely not discuss this with you. Dr. McDougall says that the reason why they operate on the larger heart vessels is because "they can." The reason why they don't operate on the smaller, undetected plaques, is because "they can't." They cannot operate on unseen, smaller, undetected plaques that have accumulated on the inside of our blood vessels throughout our entire bodies. This is the main reason why bypass surgery and stents do not save lives or prevent future cardiac events. The majority of the disease is still left untreated. 

You will learn in this short video clip how these newly formed plaques rupture, causing an inflammatory response clot to form and how eating a healthy, plant-based diet prevents the caps covering the plaques from rupturing. These caps can easily rupture when eating typical American foods. Dr. Esselstyn states that if we prevent the newly formed plaques from rupturing, we have made ourselves "heart attack proof." This can be done in as little as three-four weeks. Isn't it amazing how whole plant foods have the ability to heal our bodies?

The second short animated video gives us a glimpse inside of a blood vessel, showing how plaque rupture causes an inflammatory response. It too, addresses how vulnerable plaques cause the majority of all heart attacks. 

For more information on reversing heart disease, click on the following links:

(1) Heart Disease Starts in Childhood

(2) Atherosclerosis Begins in Early Childhood

(3) Caldwell Esselstyn MD Ends Coronary Artery Disease

(4) Sheila Lewis Chose Diet Instead of Bypass

(5) Yes! Heart Disease Can be Reversed Using Diet!

(6) Bypass-Angioplasty Procedures Not Effective

(7) Sick Before Their Time: More Kids Diagnosed With Adult Diseases

(8) Nathan Pritikin Shows Heart Disease is Reversible

(9) View Dr. Esselstyn's entire lecture on heart disease here