I watched this interview on CNN last night. I'm sure that this will spark renewed interest in the Esselstyn / Ornish diets. From the sound of it, he's following the Esselstyn "oil-free" plan, which is as close to zero-fat as is possible. He doesn't even endorse Ornish's recommended fish oil supplementation.

Out of curiosity, I looked at the reviews of Esselstyn's book on Amazon, most of which are gushing testimonials.

When Clinton said he "did the research" and learned that "82 percent of those who follow a plant-based diet reverse heart disease", I assume he means that he read Ornish, since I believe that figure is from his study.

Anyway, there's nothing new here, but Clinton is a high-profile convert, and will have some impact.

Ubizmo

He's also likely to drop dead from another heart attack

That would certainly have impact! And if it happens, we'll be told that even his heroic effort to change his diet couldn't undo the harm of decades of abuse.

On the positive side, at least the Esselstyn plan also minimizes exposure to the highly inflammatory seed oils.

Ubizmo

That's close to something I posted on another MB. Dang it, I like 'ol Bill. I wish some major celeb would go Paleo, VLC or even ZC and appear on a major nightly news network. They'd have to be pretty strong star material though, to overcome the institutional resistance to our nutritional philosophy.

I wish that Oprah would try a low-carb diet. My god, the impact that would have. On her and on her horde of sycophants

I don't see any reason why Esselstyn's diet would cause heart attacks. What is it about the diet that is provoking those remarks?

Esselstyn's website says he advocates eating --

NO oils - including fish oil - which we know is an excellent source of omega 3 oils, heart-protective-

He claims saturated fat injures the endothelial lining of the arteries when eaten - I and probably others on this board believe this is an outlandish and unproven claim-

Heavy reliance on wheat & grains - damaging compounds in these affect your gut and Dr William Davis (Heart Scan blog) hypothesizes that wheat affects your LDL cholesterol in a bad way. We know that a carb-heavy diet like this will raise your triglycerides, lower your HDL and make your LDL small and dense.

I mean, this being a LC board, his program goes against the underlying science behind what we are doing

Anyone want to add cites or info or correct me -- fire away!

I'm not too familiar with the diet as I wouldn't pay for the book. From what I understand it is a whole food diet heavy on vegetables and whole grains, with virtually no added oils.

If the SAD diet increased heart disease (and I don't think diet is everything) I would be more likely to blame sugar and O6 laden highly refined vegetable oils, both of which would be low on Esselstyn's diet.

Do you think taking O3 supplements is necessarily beneficial if you're not trying to counteract a huge intake of O6? There's a fair bit of evidence to show high PUFA is bad, period, and being very low fat the diet is low in PUFAs. The reason Esselstyn promotes it so heavily is because of the success he had putting heart patients on it. I think it would be very hard to stay on such a diet -- I don't think I could... but there's not much evidence a low fat vegan diet causes heart attacks, so I wondered why that reaction.

eta: I don't know what diet Clinton is on but he eats fish.

I remember him saying in one of the televised interviews he eats very little fish.. What he means by that he didn't elaborate.

You raise valid points I'm not qualified to attempt to answer but there are others here who probably could. Maybe you don't need the O3 if no O6s; this is the first diet doctor I've ever heard of who advocates eliminating all oils. Where's our vitamin D guy?

I just don't think such a high carb/low (practically no) fat diet is good for heart health or the health of any part of the body, period. If Bill's gonna stick to it, I sure hope it works.

He will most certainly become diabetic if he hasn't already. After a while he'll stop losing weight because his body will be used to what he is eating, then he'll have to eat even less and go into starvation mode, and his immune system will crash.

Two friends of mine ended up in the hospital doing a similar diet.

Funny, just the other day I caught a glimpse of Clinton on TV and thought to myself that wow, Bill is really getting old and looking gaunt. Now I hear about his new diet. I don't know, maybe it's just the weight loss that makes him look worse to me rather than the diet itself. Let's face it, almost anything would be better than his old Krispy Kreme days, but as someone noted, this kind of diet he's on now would be almost impossible for the majority of people to follow.

I just went over to Amazon and found this description of the diet in one of the reviews:

While the science is very compelling, and I believe it is right, the diet itself is extremely hard to follow unless you really love eating beans & vegetables, some fruit, and grains (no white bread or white pasta). The basis of his recommendations are no dairy at all, no meat, no fish, no eggs (not even egg whites), no cheese, no oil of any kind, no high-fat vegetable sources like nuts & avocado. Pretty sparse eating to me.

What's weird is that this is like going back 20 years ago to when the diet dictators were saying all fats were bad. These days, even the nutritionists and dietitians mostly recommend things like nuts and avocados.

This diet will certainly not give him a good lipid profile, as was mentioned previously. Depending on whether or not you believe in the lipid hypothesis, this might be a bad thing.

And I simply don't think such a low-fat diet to be good for you. Fat is one of the essential nutrient, whereas carbohydrates are not. Does it make sense to eliminate a necessary nutrient and focus on the one that is not?

Bill Clinton was on the South Beach diet in the early 2000s when he had a heart attack and coronary bypass surgery. I guess it couldn't reverse all the cheeseburgers he ate while president...

Heart damage is not something you can reverse on a dime no matter what you do. Sadly this no oil diet is more likely to exacerbate the situation (That is if its even getting followed).

And there's nothing wrong with cheeseburgers either! It's the bun and fries that probably went along with them, not to mention probably a big Coke, that caused his problems.

But then we are *all* likely to have problems, as didn't a lot of us eat that way too in out pre-LC days? I mean Barry Groves blamed his colon cancer on the cr*p he had been eating 10-15 years before! If that sort of thing is true then what hope is there? At least for us older folks. Maybe young folks getting a good start on a lifetime of eating will do well.