Heart disease, peripheral artery disease, hypertension.

 A  $415 million government study -- published three years ago -- claiming a low fat diet does not reduce the  risk of heart disease, failed to distinguish between saturated and unsaturated fats. Furthermore the study did not get a substantial fat reduction among participants.  This study appears to have been a scam to keep heart surgeons in the money. Amazingly the New York Times, rather than note the study's big flaw, wrote an editorial that said the low-fat cure for heart disease was now but another discarded myth, and who knows what the next fad will be.  ......The following letter was published by the New York Times (to their credit) on Feb. 10, '06. .......To the Editor:  Re ''Low-Fat Diet Does Not Cut Health Risks, Study Finds'' (front page, Feb. 8):   In the mid-1990's, when my mother first became a subject of the Women's Health Initiative study, of which the low-fat study was a part, she complained after her first orientation session, ''They make no distinction between lard and olive oil!''  A slim, healthy senior citizen with no medical background, she was already aware, a decade ago, of mounting evidence that all fats are not equal.  But the study's designers paid no attention to this, and we went ahead and paid $415 million to carry it out. It would be highly irresponsible of the American medical community if, as Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society suggests, this were to be the last word. The study was flawed and dated from the get-go.       from:  Gigi Edwards,   Saunderstown, R.I., Feb. 8, 2006

In two articles in the New York Times in January Jane Brody outlines views on improving heart arteries without surgery or angioplasty. Click here for the first article, which looks at the dubious benefits of standard procedures. Click here for the second article which looks at positive results of exercise, diet and stress reduction. She cites a new book by Dr. Michael Ozner, "The Great American Heart Hoax." She cites European studies which found that a "Mediterranean" diet -- low in saturated fats -- reduced heart disease and death from heart problems by more than 50% compared with  such diets as that recommended by the American Heart Association. These studies are telling the truth. The $450 million U.S. government  study (described above) tells a lie that serves the food industry, the heart surgery racket, but not the people who have failing heart arteries. American studies have not been performed -- except for Dean Ornish's 1990 study in the Lancet and Ansel Keys's 1970 study, which American researchers have decided not to follow up on.

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We wish to promote the practice of reversing heart disease, hypertension and peripheral vascular disease involving clogged arteries, by exercise and a diet close to free of saturated fats, also to include cholesterol-lowering drugs when cholesterol does not reduce from diet and exercise.

 The diet should be non-fat dairy, occasional low fat dairy, and mostly fish and fowl for meat, although occasional lean red meat is acceptable. It helps to eat vegetables before meat, when they seem to taste better, lessening the desire to eat a lot of meat. Exercise should be almost every day, and we recommend it be somewhat challenging, with the understanding that you may have to build up to it slowly. Intermittent jogging and walking, or walking on a trail in the hills is better than just walking on the flat, for instance. Swimming several laps without stopping is better than stopping every lap. But we don't mean to rule out less challenging exercise.

The result many doctors now claim can be achieved includes substantial if not total reversal of angina, improved oxygen delivery to tissues, meaning better quality of life in general, and angiograms demonstrating an opening of the arteries.

The medical establishment recognizes that diet and exercise measures can prevent heart disease, but not they can reverse it once a patient has angina and has become a surgery candidate. Dr. Dean Ornish has done a study showing that reversal of clogged arteries can be achieved with diet changes and exercise, but he insisted on an extremely low fat diet, instead of focusing on saturated fats and allowing unsaturated fats. This gave the medical establishment leeway to call his program unrealistic, too much to expect of patients. Some smart doctor should have done a study permitting unsaturated fats, but apparently no one thought of it.

Nevertheless, cardiologists have, in small but increasing numbers over the last two decades, been personally recommending diet changes for people with advancing angina and other arterial symptoms. Ornish's work is now famous and the fact that he got reversal of clogged arteries is contested by few. The Pritikin diet, claiming reversal and more moderate in demands, has been out there for 20 plus years.

Still, confronted with claims that reversal is possible, most doctors say there's no proof, which, indeed, there isn't because they have not done the studies to provide proof.

In fact, mainstream doctors do recommend a reversal program of exercise and diet, but not until after surgery, when the restored blood flow from angioplasty or surgery mask the specific effects of diet and exercise.

One compelling reason to try diet/exercise for reversal of "atherosclerosis" is that benefits, e.g. less angina, better respiration, more energy and stamina, begin in months, sometimes in weeks. Also, it's a lot less expensive and painful than having your chest cut open.

The diet changes we recommend, getting rid of saturated fats, leaves white meat chicken and turkey, almost all fish, and not-fat dairy, which offers desserts that can scracely be distinguished from regular dairy desserts. Eggs, which have cholesteral but no saturated fats, are optional on an occasional basis. We recommend omega-3 fish oil supplements. We would like to add that bingeing on something that is supposedly fat free is probably bad for the arteries because of all the carbohydrates and conversion to fat. (We would like to post an article on the conversion by the body of carbohydrates into fat, in terms of the saturated/unsaturated product and what enters the blood stream).

Will readers please help us with recipes and cooking ideas for meals that are tasty, rich and satisfying, despite the absence of red meat and dairy. As an example, after cooking a chicken, put pan drippings in a bowl and refrigerate it, remove the fat and save the "aspic" for other dishes. The aspic is very rich, and gives chicken dishes a red meat type of flavor.

Too much unsaturated fat is not good, and we would like to hear opinions on that questions.

Obviously we don't recommend smoking cigarettes, but we have experience with smokers getting relief from angina and improvement in the arteries as measured by an angiogram from diet and exercise. If we may offer some free advice on cutting back, try not smoking in the morning, or not smoking all day, until the afternoon. If you exercise in the afternoon, we recommend not smoking until you have exercised. Of course we recommend using the "patch" or whatever it takes to stop, with the same incentive as we offer for diet and exercise: you feel better and have more energy.