The story behind the famous serial angiograms from Dr. Esselstyn's study (A way to reverse CAD?)

[@milenaseymour446]

I love this doctor! He is a wonderful man and a true Pioneer to the health industry. He helped this man and many reverse their heart disease. I love the whole foods plant based diet !

[@DrDesHarrington]

Pioneer is the word, for sure!

[@FitnessartistTraining]

That only proves that plant based diets and eating whole foods can remarkably change the body for the better! Whoa! Thanks for sharing Dr. Des :)

[@DrDesHarrington]

Yep, they're not just great for preventing disease! That's the power of plants. :)

[@lloydchristmas4547]

Nice to know the story behind the epic coronary angiography. Thanks for the video.

[@DrDesHarrington]

It's a great story, glad you liked it! :D

[@hectorbelmonte2988]

Thanks for sharing this clip. And thank you for hosting a dinner with NUIG students! Thank you!

[@DrDesHarrington]

No prob, happy to do it! :D Ye've got a great thing going there. :)

[@Falafelzebub]

The Real Truth About Health is a great channel. 😊

[@DrDesHarrington]

Yeah they often have great little features like this that give us better insight into the work of some of these great doctors. :)

[@mikeskylark1594]

I'm always bragging with this famous picture, but I didn't know the story behind it... Thanks for clarification, Dr. Des!

[@DrDesHarrington]

Now you can add a bit more depth and personality to the story when bragging about it! :D

[@mikeskylark1594]

@@DrDesHarrington Hehe. True.

[@moominjean]

I’m sharing all your vids, love your content

[@DrDesHarrington]

Wow, thanks so much for the support! Glad you like it! :D

[@adrianbaker1408]

Love this story. Just re read it in his famous book. The subject was only 44 years old maybe that explains this remarkable recovery. Hopefully I can achieve the same level of success, my cholesterol is way too high and I suffer crippling lower back pain. I eat WFPB but my LDL level remains high at around 140. I keep craving fatty foods.

[@DrDesHarrington]

Well good work on putting the conditions in place for the body to heal itself! How long have you been on a WFPB diet? Cravings tend to go away eventually!

[@adrianbaker1408]

@@DrDesHarrington Hi doc. I eat plant based since 2014. But I keep craving these unhealthy fatty foods. Maybe it comes that I came from afar. Heavy smoker and drinker since the teen years, (I am 53) also heavy cannabis user for decades. I quit smoking tobacco in 2016, quit drinking in 2019 and recently I quit cannabis, I hope for good now (I keep relapsing) Now, the increasing back pains are forging me to now grapple this cholesterol problem. I bought a tester so I can keep score. Now I am going to tend to this low fat WFPB diet strictly and get my LDL below 70. I know I have the discipline, I quit a 35 year nicotine addiction cold turkey, never smoked since. Thank you for your kind attention. btw I know the lower back pain comes from high cholesterol, because of Dr Greger. Cheers.

[@DrDesHarrington]

​@@adrianbaker1408 Well if you have the willpower to give up nicotine cold turkey you should certainly be able to handle food cravings! A recurring theme I've seen in smokers is that they'd rather go hungry than without a cigarette, ha. And well done on turning your health around, it's so refreshing to hear an amazing success story like this! :D Ah yes, certainly atherosclerosis of the tiny arteries supplying the spine and dependence of the intervertebral discs on perfusion of oxygen and nutrients makes it exquisitely sensitive to the consequences of dyslipidaemia, inflammation and smoking. You're doing absolutely everything you can to reverse it though, so stick with it and that cholesterol will come down!

[@adrianbaker1408]

@@DrDesHarrington thank you very much Dr. I will provide you an update now and then. Cheers.

[@DrDesHarrington]

@@adrianbaker1408 Good stuff, best of luck! :D

[@chargerfish1]

If i have plaque in my arteries at 28years old is it still soft?

[@DrDesHarrington]

Hello, there is no real way of knowing, but if you have confirmed atherosclerotic plaques this will best be managed by your own cardiologist that found them. I wish you all the best with it!

[@greenpowertemple]

inspiring! plant based diet is amazing to heal!

[@DrDesHarrington]

It's amazing what can happen when you stop injuring your vascular endothelium three times a day!

[@boomerang6130]

@@DrDesHarrington So true! Thank you for sharing this video.

[@DrDesHarrington]

Love these WFPB transformation stories! :D Can you think of any other good ones?

[@chrisnamaste3572]

Weight loss (so many but see Chef AJ), diabetes, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, blood pressure, etc. As is said: "Is there anything that kale can not do?" The answer is it helps from a lesser to a greater degree with so much that the answer almost seems "no." However, Kale definitely won't help when the hatch on the space craft pops open and there is rapid depressurization or when you enter a black hole. But for most everything else it needs to be "put to the test."

[@DrDesHarrington]

@@chrisnamaste3572 Haha, love this! :D Yeah the ones you mentioned, along with CAD are the big ones. Subbed to Chef AJ there, thanks for the tip!

[@Falafelzebub]

This lady used to weigh 436 pounds, and has been losing weight following Chef AJ's plan: kzbin.info/door/gTuVYt2UoejqZt5u2Bqz1Aabout

[@DrDesHarrington]

@@Falafelzebub Wow, now _that's_ a transformation! Thanks for sharing, subbed!

[@kirogurl]

Wait...what....A cardiologist who doesn't trust statins!?!?! That I think says as much about his changes from a plant based diet.

[@DrDesHarrington]

I think Dr. Crowe is a breast surgeon, but nevertheless the point still stands! No need to accept any side-effects at all when we can achieve much better results with WFPBN. :)

[@UsmanAli-si7rz]

Sir can I reverse my Plaque a year ago I had done CT Angio gram it was (Mmoderate stenosis) mean 30 to 60% blockage in LAD at begining of this vein...I do daily walk I m 33 male 5.7" with 66 weight..I Want to reverse it by exercise diet etc. But not with stent operation etc. Plz guide me if possible something better ..Thanks Regards

[@DrDesHarrington]

Hello Usman, you can certainly implement a healthy whole foods, plant-based diet and exercise as part of your treatment, but remember whatever your cardiologist says who has access to all your personal records and investigations is final. If you're going to add in lifestyle changes as a part of your attempt to tackle this, make sure you discuss them with your own medical care team! I wish you all the best with it!

[@Chris-kr7gg]

Question is this angiogram accurate and was any medications used in conjunction.

[@saliksayyar9793]

Why is this not coronary spasm with some irregularity? Was nitro given during the angio? The plant based diet could have improved the propensity to spasm. The narrowed artery is still open and not blocked

[@RedPillVegan]

Hope you’re doing well bro

[@DrDesHarrington]

Hey man, all good yeah, had to take a break from the nutrition world, you know how it is! Normal, intelligent people can turn totally crazy when it comes to discussing this topic and I just got tired of all the negativity. Got kind of semi-doxed a few times as well so I thought I'd better lay low for a while! Concentrating on my music these days. Still vegan as ever, though! 💪

[@Jeffs60]

The artery image from the Esselstyn book is from his colleague Dr. Joe Crowe a general surgeon who at age 44 had a heart attack even though he was slim, a non smoker, not a diabetic, no high blood pressure and had low total cholesterol of 156 mg/dL. So Esselstyn debunked himself because Crowe had all the metrics for preventing heart disease but could not explain why it happened. He changed the Crowe diet to less animal foods but if animal foods caused the problem why did they not raise his cholesterol level high like Esselstyn says they will. Esselstyn was never a real cardiologist and he never reversed anything in any human else he would have awards, honors or a Noble Prize and he has none as related to heart disease or nutrition.

[@tromboneJTS]

You can't base a treatment on a study group of less than 200 or on anecdotal case studies. The angio photos at 4:06 show that the original angiography was taken without proper contrast injection. The major and minor side branches are clearly missing. The images are not comparable for that reason. An angiogram is a 🎥 movie, not a single still image. You can ask any cardiologist.

[@nusaibahibraheem8183]

Well as you said its a movie, and that is true. During the angiogram, they will be looking at the contrast as it moves through the vessels in a video format, they most likely took the best image that will be easy to recognize and used that for a side by side comparison. And yes this is anecdotal, not a study.

[@karlhungus5554]

I've seen those same two angiogram images for years. Is that all he has?

[@DrDesHarrington]

He has more and features a few of them in this talk. I've linked the original video in the description in case you're interested! Of course serial angiograms are impressive, but the real impact is seen in the resolution of symptoms, the avoidance of drugs and surgery and individual patient stories, but there is something very impressive about an image like this!

[@karlhungus5554]

Thanks for letting me know about the link to the original video. I need to be better about looking in the description. There's so much noise on the Internet about diet, I'm not sure who or what to trust. Lately, people have been posting KZbin videos about their quitting the vegan diet and switching to diets that include varying amounts of animal foods. Some go to the Paleo diet, some switch to a ketogenic diet, and others get even more extreme by going to the carnivore diet -- in some cases, eating only beef and water. Personally, I have no desire to follow a ketogenic or carnivore diet. I dislike the taste of vegetables, but still eat a little. I love fruit (of course, it's sweet), starches, and some grains. I still eat some animal foods, though I'm eating less. But, I'm not convinced it's necessary. Wishing you well.

[@DrDesHarrington]

@@karlhungus5554 Well I still think its better to have lots of noise with good information in there somewhere than no good information at all, so overall it's a good thing! The current discussion around ex-vegans and push-back against veganism including these extreme diets and other manifestations of counter-culture is going to be a necessary part of the evolution of plant-exclusive diets towards gaining widespread acceptance. There have been many stumbling blocks overcome already, this is just another one! If you're looking for a handy way of getting more of the healthiest veggies in but don't know how to prepare them or like the taste of them, check out my green smoothie video! :D kzbin.info/www/bejne/ambTm36Dl6-cbbc

[@karlhungus5554]

I appreciate your taking the interest and time to respond, as well as including the link to your green smoothie video -- which I just watched and enjoyed. I've gone through periods of juicing and blending, but never stuck with it. About 4-6 weeks ago, after a long period without them, I made another green smoothie. In the following hours, I made a few trips to the bathroom, as it really upset my GI tract. It was pretty bad. I'd used a lot of greens, so perhaps that was the issue. I've made them before without incident, but it had been a while. Perhaps my GI flora had shifted and needs time to shift again. I really liked juicing, but, as you noted in your other video, that was a lot of sugar.

[@DrDesHarrington]

@@karlhungus5554 No bother at all! Yes for sure these things can take some building up to, and you could be on to something with the intestinal microbiome being more adapted towards a more unhealthful diet. GI issues and the microbiome I think are actually a major part of this ex-vegan stuff that's going on now, and it's all going to take a bit of figuring. GojiMan is leading the way on this stuff and I think he's going to have a huge role to play in the nutrition commentariat over the next few years. I highly recommend you check his channel out if you haven't already!

[@tromboneJTS]

The distal LAD is not "the widowmaker"

[@boxorfurnace]

So, why are we only seeing a couple of these pictures? If this diet is so amazing, why aren’t there HUNDREDS or thousands of pictures like this? One story and a couple of pictures aren’t PROOF! This is, at best, anecdotal evidence.

[@delwoodkelp8590]

You seem to have ignored the fact that nearly ALL the subjects in both of Dr. Esselstyn's studies were also taking statins in addition to the dietary changes. If you want to duplicate his results, then you'd better be on a statin at the same time.

[@DrDesHarrington]

Yes, we desperately need more nutrition interventional trials, they are just so hard to do though given all the barriers with funding and blinding and everything else! :/

[@TONY-bv3fk]

But not ALL were on statins.

[@ellfra2]

This n=1 story demonstrates the benefits of getting off the so-called Standard American Diet, it does not prove the superiority of so-called plant based diets over say a primarily omnivore or even carnivore diet that gets rid of the same toxic crap - and please don't go on about cholesterol, only a small amount comes from diet and the liver adjusts production according to need. If you 'need' higher cholesterol, there may be some other root cause. For background, see the work of Dr Stephanie Seneff which is way better researched than most of the hokey vegan moralising that pretends to be science.

[@HeidiSue60]

Have you checked the myriad scientific studies that back the teachings of Esselstyn, McDougall, Bernard, and others? Don't call their teachings "hokey vegan moralizing" until you read the research on which they base their teachings and come up with equal research refuting it. You won't find it. These guys are men of science who recommend a diet that cures and improves many conditions, not anecdotal but with empirical studies as their foundation, and they've been doing it for decades.