Engineering a Cure

Before Esselstyn, before Ornish, there was Nathan Pritikin. An unlikely candidate to launch a lifestyle medicine revolution, he wasn’t a doctor, wasn’t a dietician. He was an engineer. And so, when he got diagnosed with heart disease in his 40s, he was not satisfied with the medical profession’s fatalism. This was, after all, a time when doctors still preferred Camels.

So, he did his own research. He experimented. He studied the diets of cultures around the world—particularly Uganda—and finally arrived at a plant-based diet, dropping his cholesterol from 280 down to 94, reversing his own heart disease, before going on to do the same for thousands of others, before he tragically lost his 28-year battle with radiation-induced leukemia.

Before he died, though, he directed that his body be autopsied. He wanted to show the world what his diet could do. The autopsy findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Thirty years after his original heart disease diagnosis, considered incurable at the time, his coronary arteries were found to be soft and pliable, and widely patent throughout. “In a man 69 years old, the near absence of atherosclerosis and complete absence of its effects are remarkable.”

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Kerry Skinner.

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Images thanks to: Pritikin Longevity Center, letthemeatmeat, Forks Over Knives, poptech, Gullig, and Dylan Walters via flickr. Images have been modified.