China Study On Sudden Cardiac Death

In the video I featured last week on Care2, Resuscitating Medicare, I celebrated the news that Medicare was finally reimbursing plant-based diet programs for heart disease reversal, and shared a personal story of how my grandmother’s miraculous recovery from terminal heart disease inspired my own career in lifestyle medicine. It wasn’t until 1990, though, that Dr. Dean Ornish published his landmark study proving you could not just slow heart disease—our number one killer, not just stop heart disease in its tracks, but actually reverse heart disease, open up clogged arteries with a plant-based diet and other lifestyle interventions. Since then, millions upon millions of Americans have died totally unnecessary deaths. If my grandma didn’t have to die like that, no one’s grandma has to die like that. We have the miracle cure, yet hardly anyone knows about it.

Wait a second, though. If we can reverse heart disease without drugs, without surgery, then great! Doesn’t that mean we can eat whatever the heck we want and then, as soon as we start feeling some chest pain, we can get with the program, eat as healthy as we need to and open our arteries back up? Here’s the problem with that plan: sudden cardiac death. Our first symptom may be our last, the subject of today’s NutritionFacts.org video pick featured above.

Having conquered our number one killer, Dr. Ornish moved on to try reversing killer number two, cancer (see my 4-minute video Cancer Reversal Through Diet?). Then he tried his hand at reversing aging, publishing the first study to show dietary changes can boost telomerase enzyme activity, featured in Research Into Reversing Aging. Putting it all together, Ornish published the editorial in the American Journal of Cardiology that I profile in my 3-minute video Convergence of Evidence, describing how living and eating healthy can actually change us on a genetic level, up-regulating disease-preventing genes and down-regulating genes that promote breast cancer, prostate cancer, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Drugs can’t do that, but diet can.

In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.

Image credit: James Heilman, MD / Wikimedia Commons

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Duane B.

10:04AM PST on Feb 14, 2013

Thank you for sharing.

February 14
send a green star

JL A.

8:30AM PDT on Mar 28, 2012

Having something within our own control can be so helpful

March 28
send a green star

heather g.

12:51AM PDT on Mar 28, 2012

Thanks Dr Greger - I made sure I forwarded this to all my friends - including the extra videos on Casein, Cancer, etc

Debbie L.

8:47PM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

Thanks for sharing :)

March 26
send a green star

David U.

4:45PM PDT on Mar 26, 2012

@Carol P, You have my sympathy, It must be hard in the face of overwhelming evidence that consuming meat is unhealthy for the human body you persist in making irrational claims, even resorting to name calling, (poser) really? First of all the China Study has not been debunked it is Accepted peer reviewed science. Along with the hundreds of other studies which show meat consumption as unhealthy. Perhaps you would like to debunk the latest from Harvard which shows that 9.3 percent of deaths in men and 7.6 percent in women could have been prevented at the end of the follow-up if all the participants had consumed less than 0.5 servings per day of red meat per day. Dr Greger is not providing the information on nutrition science to save animals. He is providing information to save you. Unfortunately you probably will never learn and will die from some preventable disease brought on by your food choices, too bad, you are probably a really nice person..

Past Member .

3:41PM PDT on Mar 25, 2012

Carol P

Thank you for the voice of reason.

March 25
send a green star

Patty B.

12:43PM PDT on Mar 25, 2012

What I decided a month ago was to step down from eating meat (flesh) and will limit my diet to vegetables , fruit and grains. I will add eggs and yogurt and cheese . Guess it basically makes me an octo lacto , Plenty of individuals in my area of the country have organic eggs and cheeses from animals raised humanely .

Brenda T.

8:11AM PDT on Mar 25, 2012

Thankyou.

KS G.

5:19AM PDT on Mar 25, 2012

Thanks for the article.

Carol P.

8:17PM PDT on Mar 24, 2012

I thought the the China Study had already been debunked as too full of mistakes and misnomers for it to be considered scientific. But I suppose if you find yourself in a position where you're trying to prove your personal beliefs and the solid scientific studies don't back you up, you'll grasp at any straw that you can.

I do find it sad that a "doctor" repeatedly tries to save the lives of animals by sacrificing the health of humans. Sure, eating only plants may help avoid heart disease, but what about all of the other problems it will eventually cause if you stay on it long enough? There are plenty of doctors out there who used to think a vegan diet was healthy but have reversed their position when they discovered first hand the amount of damage it was doing to their bodies.

I'm still peeved that this poser is still featured on the care2 site. How about leaving his vegan agenda on the vegan websites and keep the information on care2 focused on health rather than his pseudo science?