Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

by Jerry Deutsch, President, Nutritional Research Project

The Nutritional Research Project and Joel Fuhrman, MD are teaming up with top researchers throughout the US to show that chronic disease can be prevented and reversed with the Eat to Live (nutritarian) lifestyle!

We want you to be among the first to know about this groundbreaking research. Rather than focusing on drugs as most researchers are doing, we are examining the power of a high nutrient density diet to reverse obesity, heart disease and cancer! 

These studies are supported by people like you who are interested in the benefits of a healthful lifestyle and want to be part of the solution to most, if not all, of our planetary problems.  The Nutritional Research Project of the National Health Association is the oldest health promoting 501(c)3 nonprofit in the United States, providing healthy lifestyle education and research for over 60 years!  We are thrilled to be working with Dr. Fuhrman to pursue his and your research interests.

The Vitamix Company has given us a wonderful challenge.  Donate today and you will be have a chance to win a reconditioned Vitamix.  These come with the full Vitamix 7 year guarantee.  Every $10 you donate gets you one entry ($100 = 10 entries).  Vitamix will be giving away one vitamix for every $1000 in donations to the NRP through December 31, 2011.   Click here to donate. 

 
OBESITY STUDY

The day after this year's Immersion in Princeton, N.J., Dr. Fuhrman came to North Carolina to meet with researchers from The University of North Carolina and the Director of the Nutrition Research Institute (founded by David Murdoch and located in Kannapolis, North Carolina).  Dr. Fuhrman, the NRP and the NRI have agreed to collaborate on a 2-year obesity study, to discover how successful his high nutrient diet will be when taught to overweight subjects. Although most diets will produce weight loss initially, weight loss is typically not sustained beyond about 6 months.  If we can demonstrate 2 years of statistically significant results we should be on CNN and in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal! 

Please help us bring this study to the next level with a small (or large) donation. Every donation of any size will help.

DHA Study

Our DHA study has received approval from the University of San Diego Institutional Review Board and we will begin recruiting subjects soon.  We are determining blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) in vegans and examining associations with dietary intake.  Perhaps you can help us get the word out?  We need at least 250 subjects who have been vegan for at least 3 years and have not supplemented with DHA during the last 3 years. 

To learn more, read a summary of the study and sign up for email updates. Please support this study with a small (or large) donation. 

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE STUDY

Our Cardiovascular study will be in conjunction with the University of Colorado.  Dr. Fuhrman will be working with cardiologists at the University hospital.  Dr. Fuhrman's nutritional protocol will be utilized with serious cardiac patients.  This study will show that his nutritional intervention can reverse heart disease and is more effective than surgery! 

Please help us bring this study to the next level with a small (or large) donation. Every donation of any size will help.

CANCER PREVENTION STUDY

Dr. Fuhrman has made a loud and clear call for cancer prevention.  We all know someone that has been afflicted with cancer, so awareness is not the problem.  We need a solution now.  The NRP will soon begin a study to support women to avoid breast cancer and live cancer free.  As the national averages are well known, we plan to show that women who follow the ETL lifestyle are far less likely get breast cancer and women already diagnosed with cancer will dramatically enhance their longevity. 

Please help us establish this study and other studies mentioned above with a tax deductible donation.  Your donation of any size will help Dr. Fuhrman and the NRP implement the scientific research to have a huge impact on the world.

Please donate whatever amount you can.  We really appreciate your tax deductible contribution! Remember to donate today and you will have a chance to win a reconditioned Vitamix.  These come with the full Vitamix 7 year guarantee.  Every $10 you donate gets you one entry ($100 = 10 entries).  Vitamix will be giving away one Vitamix for every $1000 in donations to the NRP through December 31, 2011. 

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Our society has been falsely led to believe that only highly technological interventions and drugs are effective at treating disease. In many cases, however, these interventions merely act as band-aids – temporarily relieving symptoms while the disease process continues to progress.

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), a term that refers to angioplasty and stent placement procedures, is already known to have no advantage over optimal medical therapy (OMT); which refers to modest lifestyle changes plus anti-platelet, blood pressure-lowering, and cholesterol-lowering medications) for reducing heart attack incidence or cardiac mortality. This information made headlines in 2007; the COURAGE trial compared PCI plus OMT to OMT alone, and found no advantage associated with PCI procedures. [1] Since that time, literature reviews have confirmed that PCI did not decrease the rate of heart attack or cardiac death compared to OMT. [2]

Considering that PCI only treats a small portion of a blood vessel, but coronary artery disease affects the entire vasculature, this is not a surprising finding. Because of this finding, the indications for PCI evolved. Now, these interventions are indicated only for the purpose of relieving angina (chest pain caused by restricted blood flow to the heart) symptoms in coronary artery disease patients.

However, a recent review of several clinical trials in patients with stable coronary artery disease has revealed that PCI does not lessen angina any more than medical therapy either. [3] The researchers analyzed human trials that compared either angioplasty or stent placement to OMT with respect to angina symptoms. In 5 clinical trials conducted since 2000, 77% of patients were free of angina after PCI, and 75% of patients were free of angina after OMT, suggesting that PCI does not provide enhanced symptom relief compared to OMT. [4]

We must remember that aggressive interventions like angioplasty and stent placement have serious potential adverse outcomes, such as bleeding complications, heart attack, stroke, and death. [5]  Approximately 25% of angioplasties and 21% of stent placements clog up again (called restenosis) within 6 months, and about 60% of arteries treated by angioplasty will undergo restenosis eventually.[6, 7] These data tell us that PCI is not a long-term solution. Diet and lifestyle changes, however, are long-term solutions because they remove the cause of the heart disease. A low-fat, plant-based diet plus exercise and stress management has been shown to reverse atherosclerotic plaque progression. In addition, 74% of the coronary artery disease patients who had angina and made these lifestyle changes were free of angina after only 12 weeks. [8, 9] This is equivalent to the figures cited above for OMT – except of course, without drugs.

Despite the evidence, cardiologists continue to rationalize that angioplasty and stent placements are essential for their patients. The reality is that modern interventional cardiology should be stopped and medical and nutritional cardiology should be the standard of care. Everyone who has heart disease deserves to know that they have safer, noninvasive alternatives to stents and angioplasty.

In spite of the research we already have documenting the dramatic effectiveness of nutritional interventions [8, 10-12] and the futility of angioplasty and stent placement, this obviously still has not been sufficient to change the practices of conventional cardiologists. There are too many economic forces working against it. Nevertheless, for optimal atherosclerosis reversal and angina relief, my clinical experience with hundreds of patients with advanced heart disease, (confirmed by nutritional intervention studies) demonstrates that optimal nutritional therapy (ONT), with a vegetable-based, high-nutrient (nutritarian) diet – focused on vegetables, beans, fresh fruit, seeds and nuts - is dramatically more effective than PCI or OMT. This approach has already been demonstrated to be more effective than other nutritional interventions at lowering cholesterol; if we compare the published effects of dietary interventions on LDL cholesterol levels, a low-fat plant-based diet reduced LDL by 16%, but a nutritarian diet reduced LDL cholesterol by 33%.[13, 14] This data and my results offer more evidence to suggest that a nutritarian diet is ideal and by including more greens, beans, seeds and nuts leads to even more dramatic results and long-term benefits for heart disease patients.

Of course, larger more definitive studies are needed - exactly one of the initial goals of the Nutritional Research Project. Only with better controlled and documented research results can we foster increased awareness and acceptance of the therapeutic effects of a nutritarian diet for heart disease patients.

References:

1. Boden, W.E., et al., Optimal medical therapy with or without PCI for stable coronary disease. N Engl J Med, 2007. 356(15): p. 1503-16.
2. Trikalinos, T.A., et al., Percutaneous coronary interventions for non-acute coronary artery disease: a quantitative 20-year synopsis and a network meta-analysis. Lancet, 2009. 373(9667): p. 911-8.
3. Wijeysundera, H.C., et al., Meta-analysis: effects of percutaneous coronary intervention versus medical therapy on angina relief. Ann Intern Med, 2010. 152(6): p. 370-9.
4. Relief from Angina Symptoms: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Not a Clear Winner. Journal Watch General Medicine, 2010.
5. Angioplasty and stent placement - heart. MedlinePlus.
6. Agostoni, P., et al., Clinical effectiveness of bare-metal stenting compared with balloon angioplasty in total coronary occlusions: insights from a systematic overview of randomized trials in light of the drug-eluting stent era. Am Heart J, 2006. 151(3): p. 682-9.
7. Hanekamp, C., et al., Randomized comparison of balloon angioplasty versus silicon carbon-coated stent implantation for de novo lesions in small coronary arteries. Am J Cardiol, 2004. 93(10): p. 1233-7.
8. Ornish, D., et al., Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial. Lancet, 1990. 336(8708): p. 129-33.
9. Frattaroli, J., et al., Angina pectoris and atherosclerotic risk factors in the multisite cardiac lifestyle intervention program. Am J Cardiol, 2008. 101(7): p. 911-8.
10. Esselstyn, C.B., Jr., et al., A strategy to arrest and reverse coronary artery disease: a 5-year longitudinal study of a single physician's practice. J Fam Pract, 1995. 41(6): p. 560-8.
11. Esselstyn, C.B., Jr., Updating a 12-year experience with arrest and reversal therapy for coronary heart disease (an overdue requiem for palliative cardiology). Am J Cardiol, 1999. 84(3): p. 339-41, A8.
12. Ornish, D., Avoiding revascularization with lifestyle changes: The Multicenter Lifestyle Demonstration Project. Am J Cardiol, 1998. 82(10B): p. 72T-76T.
13. Barnard, N.D., et al., Effectiveness of a low-fat vegetarian diet in altering serum lipids in healthy premenopausal women. Am J Cardiol, 2000. 85(8): p. 969-72.
14. Jenkins, D.J., et al., Effect of a very-high-fiber vegetable, fruit, and nut diet on serum lipids and colonic function. Metabolism, 2001. 50(4): p. 494-503.

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