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From:	LaurieInOklahoma (ip68-97-46-37.ok.ok.cox.net)
Subject:	Re: To "LaurieInOklahoma"
Date:	February 27, 2006 at 1:58 pm PST

In Reply to: To posted by Ann on February 23, 2006 at 12:03 pm:

Hi Ann,
My story: In 1981 my father had quadruple coronary bypass surgery. I saw him in the recovery room not long after the surgery and could tell the procedure was no fun at all!! My father-in-law had the same surgery in 1990.
In 1997 I saw Dr. (William) Castelli and Dr. (Dean) Ornish on a Charlie Rose interview program. Castelli said "If we would DO the things we know right now, there would be almost no heart disease in this country".
I needed to lose some weight at the time, and I had gotten away from my exercise program.
So, I bought Dr. Ornish's book, and got religious about my exercise.
My husband started eating the same diet.
By the year 2000, because of various things we had read (both health and ethical reasons), we dropped the dairy and egg whites from Ornish's program, and were eating a diet of (cooked) whole grains, cooked beans, vegetables (mostly cooked), fruits, and sometimes some nuts and seeds, depending on whose advice we were listening to. We had discontinued any refined carbs, junk food of any sort, etc.
You need to know that my father had astonished his doctors by showing up out of breath all the time, and in need of the bypass surgery, with a total, unmedicated cholesterol in the 160s. Some of us are supposed to have cholesterol a LOT lower than that.
So, eating the way I described above, my total cholesterol fell to 112, my LDL ("bad") cholesterol to 59, and my HDL to 40. A month or so after starting the Ornish diet, my total cholesterol had been down to 148; I don't have a record of what it was before that.The REALLY interesting thing is that after doing ETL for a number of months, my LDL fell even more-- to 41! My HDL ("good" cholesterol went up to 51, and my total dropped to 103. Without the rise in good cholesterol, my total would have fallen to 94.
This compares to Dr. Joseph Crowe, a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, who had a heart attack at age 44, otherwise healthy, with a total cholesterol of 156. He wasn't a candidate for bypass surgery or angioplasty, so he went on Dr. Esselstyn's diet, and refused to take any cholesterol-lowering medication. His total cholesterol fell to 89, his LDL to 43, and what is most important, tests showed his diseased artery to be completely healed.

About changing to ETL:

Other than the family history of heart disease, I had never thought of diet as a way to deal with some of my medical problems: MS, diagnosed in 1981, depression, diagnosed in 1985, or bladder problems related to my MS.
But after hearing Dr. McDougall talk about being able to get off of medications, I was getting frustrated with all the pills and medications I was taking, and was looking for a REALLY effective diet.
Much as I like Dr. McDougall as a person, Dr. Fuhrman's description of the power of really optimal nutrition really made sense to me. After 6 months or so on ETL I decided I was ready to try discontinuing some medications.
Unfortunately, at the moment I am coping with some return of the depression, after having tapered off of the antidepressant. For the first several months that went really well, but now I'm dealing with sleep deprivation. So, I've ordered a therapeutic light which may help with the depression, and if not, am considering resuming that medication, perhaps at a lower dose, since that seemed to work fine during the discontinuation.
My neurologist has approved a 4-month trial off of MS medication. That is going beautifully-- no problems at all. I think he will approve a continuation of the experiment...
No change in the bladder problems (many trips to the bathroom, not accidents). There seems to have been permanent damage to my bladder.

On the original diets, my weight had stabilized at about 122. I'm 5'4''.
After changing to ETL, it fell to 108, and now seems to have stabilized around 112 or 113. When we changed to ETL, my husband, who no one ever considered to have had a weight problem, also lost about 10 pounds. He said it made him feel much better, and that various aches and pains he had associated with having more birthdays (he's 54, I'm 53) just disappeared.

We both feel so good about the nutrition we are getting. We're really happy that we eat this way, but we do joke that there are some downsides. We both get colder in the winter now, from slower metabolism. This is supposed to be good for longevity, but it's created a need for long underwear! Also, we rarely eat in restaurants any more, and when we do we have to special order: salads with no dressing (we take our own tasty Fuhrman-recipe dressing), steamed vegetables on rice, so salt, sauce or oil, etc.

Nevertheless, we feel really smart for eating this way, and enjoy the fact that there's no way we'll ever need coronary bypass surgery!

This was much more than you asked for (!!), but perhaps will be of interest. Will be glad to answer any further questions, should you have any remaining...

LaurieInOklahoma

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