diet benefits?

[Saladay]

Dear all, I thought my story might be of interest to some. 3 yrs ago I collapsed in the gym with some sort of arrhythmia which spontaneously recovered after half an hour. During that episode I never had any chest pain. I was subsequently investigated and by exercise echocardiogram was found to have exercise induced ischaemia though still painless, indicating partial blockage of the coronary arteries. I never had an angiogram as one of the indications for that is that you are symptomatic and although I had suffered the collapse I have never had any chest pain. It was suggested that I should have a stent but I declined, again because I had never had any chest pain. I have an ongoing background of hypertension, so I know my arteries are not in rude health. However, I immediately went on to reasonably high dosed statins (Atorvastatin 5mg twice per day - I found I could tolerate that better than 10mg once a day) as well as bisoprolol to ward off further arrhythmias, and went on to a vegan plus fish diet and achieved very good blood lipid measurements. Two years later I had still had no chest pain (and in fact have never had any), and I was reinvestigated with the same exercise echocardiogram. This time even at maximal exercise stress, there was no sign of ischaemia. This is obviously a great result though I'm under no illusions that everything is back to normal. However it does seem that the combination of the diet and the statins has had the effect of reversing the worst of the damage. Has anyone else had this or a similar experience?

[Chappychap]

"However it does seem that the combination of the diet and the statins has had the effect of reversing the worst of the damage."

This is a tricky one.

On the one hand I'm a big advocate of life style changes for heart disease (atherosclerosis) patients, so I salute your success in changing your diet. I also strongly agree with regularly monitoring our key health metrics, so again very well done on both controlling your lipid levels and familiarising yourself with the blood test results so you can accurately read the results.

However, I'm sceptical that it's possible to reverse heart disease and somehow clear blocked arteries. Furthermore, both the BHF and the NHS are of the same view.

Heart disease is a progressive disease, once you've got it you've got for life and unless you do something different (ie medication or life style changes) it'll just keep getting worse. Furthermore, stents and bypass surgery don't change that reality. Stents can save lives when fitted during a heart attack, and both stents and bypass surgery can give us a second chance to get our lives in order, but they don't actually deliver a cure. However, even though we can't improve our arteries, with a bit of luck and a lot of application, we may be able to slow down the future progress of our heart disease.

I have read some convincing accounts from authoritative sources where patients with heart disease have reduced the calcification within the carotid arteries in their necks. But, reducing measured calcium levels in the arteries of the neck is not the same as reducing stenosis in the arteries of the heart. So on balance I'm with the BHF and NHS and remain sceptical that a "cure" is possible.

One final point. Even though for many people a change of diet and weight loss will be absolutely essential steps towards slowing the progress of their heart disease, I'm not sure I could ever recommend any specific diet. There's just too many variables, from their personal circumstances to their individual DNA, so a diet that works for one person may fail completely with someone else.

All we can do is suggest, here's a diet that (so far at least) seems to be working for me, so perhaps you might consider if it might fit your needs? But so often any discussion of diets descends into partisan trench warfare!

Anyhow, congratulations again on your achievements to date, I wish you many more years of active and healthy life. Good luck!

[Saladay in reply to Chappychap]

Thanks for that full reply. I totally agree that it's a progressive disease and the best that I'm hoping for is to stop it progressing. I also agree that the question of diets is difficult particularly as the question of saturated fats seems to be more complicated than initially thought. In my case my blood lipids do seem to be very sensitive to my diet, which incidentally did result in significant weight loss - I lost 10% of my body weight in six months. There also does seem to be objective evidence of a localised reversal of atheroma in the left anterior descending coronary artery, or perhaps tissue reperfusion in some form has occurred. I think the question of calcification, although often colocated with atheroma is a separate issue and is not necessarily correlated with either a build up or reduction in atheroma. As you say, this is probably very rare, but the evidence is there in my case and there are certainly other cases where localised atheroma has improved. However, as I say I'm under no illusions that my arteries in general are getting better, and for example, my hypertension has not improved over the same period. I also have peripheral arterial disease which has not been reassessed over the period and it will be very interesting to have that done, though again I'm not expecting an improvement.

[MountainGoat52 in reply to Chappychap]

An excellent and comprehensive reply. Clinical intervention is not a cure and never will be. It helps delay the inevitable. My surgeon bypassed the stents in my RCA as that gave an improvement in the time before further intervention would be required.... in my case until I was aged 90. That was good enough for me!

[Heythrop51]

A few years ago all my numbers were wrong and I was pre-diabetic. One very important issue I discovered it raised blood sugars cause irritation and this can cause atherosclerosis ( MichaelJH ) is the expert on this but is recovering from surgery) as the body tries to heal itself. Even if not pre-diabetic or diabetic avoiding sugar spikes by eating sugary breakfast cereals or a bar of chocolate seems sensible together with limiting total carb intake - I was advised 120gm per day.

10mg Atorvastatin is a very low dose. I am on 40mg and many here are on 80mg.