How To Improve Artery Function
The facts about how you can improve your heart health by making a few changes to your diet.
This excerpt is taken from this full article
Ornish showed that on his plant-based diet and lifestyle program, cardiac patients had a 91 percent reduction in angina attacks. In contrast, control group patients, who instead were told to follow the advice of their personal physicians for diet and lifestyle advice, had a 186 percent increase in reported angina attacks. This “marked reduction in frequency, severity, and duration of angina [chest pain with the plant-based lifestyle intervention]…was sustained at similar levels after 5 years. This long-term reduction in angina is comparable with that achieved following coronary artery bypass surgery or angioplasty,” but without the knife.
But that was back in the 1990s, when Ornish was only studying a few dozen patients at a time. How about a thousand patients put on a healthy lifestyle track with a whole-food, plant-based diet? Within three months, nearly three-quarters of angina patients became angina-free.
Wait a second. The Ornish program involves a number of other healthy lifestyle interventions, such as exercise. How do we know it was the diet? That’s precisely the topic of my Plant-Based Treatment for Angina video.
What would happen if, instead of going on a plant-based diet, you went on a low-carb diet? You don’t want to know. But if you must, check out Low-Carb Diets and Coronary Blood Flow.
For more on green tea, see Tea and Artery Function.
What effects might other foods have? See:
- Eggs and Arterial Function
- Walnuts and Artery Function
- Dark Chocolate and Artery Function
- Coffee and Artery Function
- Fatty Meals May Impair Artery Function
- Olive Oil and Artery Function
- Sodium and Arterial Function: A-Salting Our Endothelium
- Vinegar and Artery Function
- Tea & Artery Function
And don’t miss my overview video: How Not to Die from Heart Disease.
In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.