Bob's Red Pill #7 - Heart Disease is Reversible

by Crypto Psi

Heart disease is the number one killer in America. For all the attention cancer gets, it still is less deadly overall than a diseased heart and circulatory system. There is endless confusion over what causes it and how to avoid it. Surely, if a simple, natural cure were found, it would be front-page news all over the world?

There are people alive and thriving today that were once on “death’s door” with severe heart disease, given months to live by their doctors. They currently have no heart disease, have had zero cardiac infarctions since healing, and experience no angina or other symptoms related to impending heart attacks. Furthermore, medical imaging has proven that they have reversed severe blockages to their main heart arteries, in a relatively short period of time.

the evergreen image … I had to, Glen

I’ve met several people who have reversed heart disease. I’m also acquaintances with a few of the doctors and researchers that pioneered the discoveries that led to these incredible results. For me, seeing people live completely heart disease-free or even reversing severe cases is completely normal and natural. You can turn off heart attacks like a light switch.

There’s just one problem: if you want to do this, you have to eat a whole food plant based “vegan” diet free from meat, dairy, fish, and most processed foods including oil (even “heart healthy” olive oil) and sugar. Since most people don’t want to give up these tasty foods, this incredible discovery gets ignored.

What is a Red Pill?

Before we go any further, let’s get the definition of “Red Pill” clear. This is Bob’s Red Pill. Does the term just mean “something cool” or edgy, is it just an aesthetic?

For some, yes. I’d hope that our audience is a little bit more oriented as genuine truth-seekers. The “Matrix” definition of “Red Pill” appears to be a realization that is both:

• completely paradigm-shifting, potentially upsetting and extremely uncomfortable, at least initially (depending on one’s attachment to illusion)

• undeniably true

Assume I’m not lying to you right now, and it becomes abundantly clear that a daily habit of meat, eggs, and cheese (even in moderate amounts) promotes heart disease and leads to heart attacks. Does such a truth make you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? If it were undeniably true, would you personally change your habits, or tell family members who were struggling with heart disease? (more on this later)

the Blue Pill guy is literally eating a steak bro, lol

A lot of “Red Pill” types, especially on the Twitter platform it seems, are attached to the idea that “meat and cholesterol DON’T cause heart disease”. They believe this is the true Red Pill, and the “cholesterol causes disease” line is deeply rooted in Blue Pill territory. This is very strange, considering that the only diet shown to reverse severe heart disease involves completely removing cholesterol from one’s diet.

Let’s do a little test. I’m going to rattle off a few familiar talking points, and while you read them, see how many you either personally believe, or have heard at some point in your health research from an expert or influencer. Here we go:

• Cholesterol does not cause heart disease

• Sugar is the main culprit behind heart disease (Harvard did fraudulent research on heart disease sponsored by the candy/sugar industry, etc. etc.)

• Weston Price proved that it’s all modern diet and not animal foods

• Heart disease is all caused by seed oils!

• Eating cholesterol doesn’t raise cholesterol

• People with low cholesterol have heart attacks all the time

• Anecdote about a grandmother eating steak every day and smoking, living to 100+

• Industry wants you to believe that meat and dairy are the cause (big government, big cereal, big grain industry all conspire to confuse you [but somehow meat/dairy industry are helpless/powerless and never sway research])

• Ancel Keys faked the data in his early research (seven country studies)

• T.C. Campbell’s “The China Study” has been debunked

• Eskimos and Masai tribe don’t have heart disease

• Factory farmed meat/dairy causes heart disease, but grass fed does not.

• America had a “low fat” craze and heart attacks went up

• You need to eat cholesterol, it’s an essential nutrient (for cell walls, hormones etc.)

Many of our Rare Candy fans, friends, and affiliates believe such things. I love and respect these people and enjoy conversing with them dearly on many topics, including diet. Again, the common theme is that the above talking points are the “real Red Pill”, and the idea that getting cholesterol intake to zero and decreasing fat intake is an “outdated” idea.

From my perspective, these talking points are extremely Blue Pill, without a shadow of doubt in my mind. For one, they aren’t even rare or pushed back against in the slightest. Everyone has been espousing different versions of this rhetoric, for as long as I can remember. This was the cover of Time Magazine a decade ago:

I could go in-depth about how the meta-analysis justifying this article was hilariously corrupt, industry-funded, and methodologically flawed to a ridiculous degree, but many others have already done this, so I’ll continue with my point. Not only has the “cholesterol doesn’t cause heart disease” line gone completely mainstream, but from my perspective, the inverse perspective is almost completely underground. Most people I ask have no idea heart disease is reversible, and even the few who are aware of this research don’t actually eat in such a way to prevent it. In spite of concerns about WEF controlling your diet, veganism is an extremely niche percentage of the overall population, and truly health plant-based diets are an even smaller percentage of this niche. Eating to prevent heart disease is very, very rare in our society.

Furthermore, most of the talking points I listed are either demonstrably false or incredibly distorted. For example, there’s about a hundred years of data showing without a shadow of a doubt that eating cholesterol (like eggs) faithfully raises cholesterol. You can’t be Red Pilled while promoting falsehoods, lol.

Now, I want to take a moment to address that there is nuance regarding this issue, but not nearly enough to justify the “butter sauce on a ribeye is fine every day” diets that I see regularly promoted. While I don’t agree with every point made by plant-based doctors such as Caldwell Esselstyn, Colin Campbell, or Michael Greger, it is undeniable that these guys have a stellar history of actually reversing our number one killer. Let’s focus in on Esselstyn, the author of the paper that showcased the stunning heart scan image I included in the beginning of this piece. Here’s an interview he has linked on his website:

Question: Who develops heart disease?

Answer: Everyone eating the typical western diet. In autopsy studies of our GI’s who died in the Vietnam and Korean wars almost 80% at an average age of 20 years, had disease that could be seen without a microscope. Forty years later in 1999, a study of young persons between the ages of 16-34 years who have died of accidents, homicides and suicides, finds the disease is now ubiquitous.

Question: What is the cause of the disease?

Answer: It is the typical western diet of processed oils, dairy, and meat which destroys the lifejacket of our blood vessels known as our endothelial cells. This cell layer is a one cell thick lining of all of our blood vessels. Endothelial cells manufacture a magical protective molecule of gas called nitric oxide, which protects our blood vessels. It keeps our blood flowing smoothly, it is the strongest dilator (widener), of our blood vessels, it inhibits the formation of blockages (plaques), and t inhibits inflammation.

Question: With such natural protection why do we ever develop heart disease?

Answer: Every western meal of processed vegetable oils, dairy products, and meat (including chicken and fish) injures these endothelial cells. As individuals consume theses damaging products throughout their lives, they have fewer functioning endothelial cells remaining and thus less of the protective nitric oxide. Without enough nitric oxide the plaque blockages build up and grow creating eventually heart disease and strokes.

Question: Can it be stopped or even reversed?

Answer: Yes. First we must look at the lessons learned from cultures where there is a virtual absence of coronary artery heart disease such as rural China, the Papua Highlands of New Guinea, Central Africa, and the Tarahumara Indians of Northern Mexico. Their nutrition is plant based without oil.

Beginning in 1985 I initiated a study of seriously ill coronary artery disease patients. Their nutrition became plant based without oil. Their cholesterol levels plummeted. Their angina disappeared. Their weight dropped. I have reported this study at 5 years, 12 years, and 16 years, in the peer reviewed scientific literature and again beyond 20 years in my book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. In some of the patients we had follow up angiograms (x-rays) of previously blocked arteries demonstrating striking disease reversal, which is a testament to my often quoted statement “The truth be known coronary artery disease is a toothless paper tiger that need never exist and if it does exist, it need never progress.”

The greatest gift to these patients is the increasing recognition that they are the locus of control for their disease – not some pill or procedure. They have made themselves heart attack proof and lose the greatest fear of all heart patients and their families – when will the next heart attack occur?

Uhhh sounds pretty fuckin’ based and redpilled to me! Notice this king is against eating seed oils explicitly, for all you truthers out there. It’s a weak strawman that a plant-based diet automatically includes processed foods.

I also find it fascinating that every time we’ve studied dead young people through autopsies, they already have heart disease. If they hadn’t tragically died young, many of them would surely experience heart attacks in older age. We’ve also discovered Eskimo mummies with advanced atherosclerosis, well before the introduction of any processed foods, seed oils, or isolated sugars. It boggles my mind how people can ignore the pile of evidence that meat and dairy foods aren’t completely benign.

I have yet to see any evidence that a diet high in meat, dairy, and cholesterol is able to reverse already-progressed heart disease. I mentioned a common saying in the plant-based community earlier, that “the only diet proven to reverse heart disease is whole-food plant-based”. I am aware of one newer study that shows a largely but not fully plant-based Mediterranean diet can slowly reverse arterial plaque over the course of several years. However, for those that are truly diseased who want to fully recover, it seems obvious to just apply some discipline and go plant-based.

Is it all a problem of modernity?

Look, you can never accuse Rare Candy of simping for the modern food system. We’re some of the harshest critics out here bro. Also, I firmly believe that factory farmed animal foods are less wholesome than their traditional counterparts. But is removing factory farmed foods from one’s diet enough to be disease-free?

No. Meat and dairy have intrinsic properties that cause disease (not just heart disease). This includes saturated fat and cholesterol, which are absolutely proven to damage endothelial function. A high-cholesterol meal immediately impairs artery function for several hours after consumption. Most people eat three cholesterol-containing meals daily, meaning their arterial function is nearly always compromised. Now, it is possible to blunt this negative effect by adding plant foods such as avocado or leafy greens to one’s meal, but one can completely avoid the issue in the first place by not eating the cholesterol!

The same goes for seed oils, by the way. Walnut oil impairs endothelial function, while whole walnuts (calorically equal amount) improves function. Whole plant foods can rarely be beat, seeing as they contain a staggering array of phytonutrients that seem to be incredibly protective against disease. This is one reason why I cannot fathom the anti-plant dietary trends.

There’s a famous study in nutritional circles, that I won’t link to, in the spirit of keeping a Bob’s Red Pill tradition alive. In this study, it compared inflammation levels after consuming factory-raised animals versus kangaroo meat (lean wild game). Kangaroo meat was significantly less inflammatory than fatty factory meat … but it was still inflammatory. I have yet to see an honest appraisal by a seed oil critic of the undeniable inflammatory effects of meat and dairy. These findings shouldn’t be remotely controversial. If one of your favorite sources for health wisdom never addresses such truths, consider for a moment that you both might be stuck in a bias/denial loop.

It’s fine to eat whatever you want, but it’s blue-pill by definition to come up with dumb justifications and rationalizations for unhealthy habits. Just own it and do it! I don’t eat fully super-pure plant-based, and I don’t have perfect habits, I merely try and not delude myself about them. I’ll always defend your right to eat anything that makes you happy, but I think we’ve gone way off the deep end of living in denial about our dietary choices.

What about the Masai tribe?

The Masai of eastern Africa are often invoked as an example of a high meat and dairy culture that avoids heart disease. This is an interesting example. As mentioned before, there are nuances on this topic. While Masai largely avoid most serious disease, closer examination shows that they do indeed have advanced atherosclerosis. This is from their absolutely pristine non-modernized diet with tons of exercise every day.

It appears they avoid heart disease somewhat genetically, and have hearts that expand in size as they age. This brings up a few interesting points. First, you’re probably not a Masai warrior who runs 15 miles a day hunting game. Second, even the healthiest animal-based diet leads to atherosclerosis. If you’re an actual truth-seeker, you need to ask yourself: do I want to eat foods that cause such a severe crippling of circulatory function? I’m not an activist for forcing the Masai to give up their traditional ways, so don’t misquote me. All I’m saying is that there’s something to be said about accepting information as it is revealed to you — and avoiding bodily harm to the best of your ability.

Ideological possession doesn’t necessarily have to mean “not true”. Vegans and plant-based eaters can be incredibly passionate and ideological to a fault — ignoring any valid critiques. However, they’re right about healing heart disease. Or think of it this way — it’s clear there was a lot of bullshit science and politics aimed at secondhand tobacco smoke, as our boy Michael Crichton reveals — that being said, inhaling tobacco smoke intuitively isn’t a healthy choice to do every day for the rest of your life, at least by my analysis.

There’s no money in whole food plant-based

Advocates of such a diet generally buy from the bulk bin and produce section, they avoid even vegan processed foods, and most restaurants don’t cater to them whatsoever.

The doctors promulgating this message are going against a multi-billion dollar statin industry, meat and dairy industries, medical schools, and so many other nefarious forces. They complain about censorship and funding issues. Patients who reverse their heart disease constantly remark “how come I’ve never heard of this before?”, which to me indicates this research is clearly being suppressed.

Meat and dairy industry are the most socialized aspect of American life. The US government consistently bails out the dairy industry like General Motors. There is undeniable “capture” from animal agriculture industries in our science and culture. The Time Magazine piece about butter shown above is textbook propaganda.

There’s 1.4 billion pounds of cheese hidden in caves by the government. We can’t sell enough to cover dwindling demand, so the government uses taxpayer money to keep the market artificially pumped. This is, of course, insane, in an era where you can’t buy a few organic veggies for less than ten dollars.

There’s also the common technique of animal ag industry promoting “pastured” meat and dairy, knowing that most customers will revert back to the easy and cheap option at the end of the day. As I’ve constantly stressed, the true “pasture meat eggs and dairy consumer 100% of the time” guy is incredibly rare. The vast majority of meat and dairy is factory farmed, and the vast majority of people eat these foods uncritically (or worse, eat them knowing how garbage they are).

Yet all I hear about from “based” nutrition experts is how the only culprits are the sugar/candy and processed food industries. This is such a hilarious blue-pilled blindspot to me. While processed foods clearly cause disease, including heart disease, I would bet my life that removing these foods completely from the universe wouldn’t solve heart disease.

I don’t want to drag people down who eat keto, grass-fed, or whatever kind of niche diet. It takes discipline to make such changes, and I’m absolutely convinced it’s healthier to eat in this way than Standard American. If you want to keep eating animal foods and avoid heart disease as best as possible, I’d focus on cutting back and avoiding the meat-starch combo. There are numerous examples of non-vegan but plant-centric cultures who have very low disease rates, they generally consume less than 10% of their calories from all animal foods combined. The average American, even a healthy American, would very likely drastically overestimate what “10% of calories from animal foods” looks like on a plate.

“I don’t care, I want to eat whatever, I don’t care about longevity”

Sure, that’s fine. If that’s how you really feel. Often, when discussing this stuff with nutrition-minded critics of plant-based diets, this will be their final response. Which always makes me wonder, why are you into nutrition, lol? Again, it seems like more people are concerned about scientifically justifying potentially bad health habits, than actually being scientific — and more fundamentally, truth-seeking!

It’s always a young person who says they don’t care about when they die. I’ve seen the fear in a man’s eyes when he’s 50 or 60, has had a massive heart attack, survived it, but his doctor says chances of death within 5 years are very high. Oftentimes, this guy’s daughter hasn’t graduated school, gotten married, or had kids yet. He doesn’t want to miss this stuff with an early self-imposed death.

My own dad died from heart disease in his mid-60s. He didn’t eat a horrible diet and played several games of racquetball a day, a pretty cardio-intensive sport. He suffered a massive heart attack, survived it, bought a juicer to start making some changes, and died a week later from another attack. I was already plant-based for years at this point, his passing wasn’t my origin story. But I find it funny that we would always argue back and forth about the health/disease stuff (he loved to debate), but the moment he had an authentic health scare, he was ready to make some serious changes. If he had gone plant-based a few years earlier, he wouldn’t have missed the birth of his grandsons (my nephews).

As a quick aside — death is a natural part of life blah blah blah. I’m not materialist and I believe in much more after humans expire. Yet again, is our greatest potential dying at 65 years old from a heart we clogged ourselves? From a strictly spiritual angle, I would claim “no”. Although life is already miraculous, permeated with love and family, imagine what it could be if we had a few more decades of thriving on Earth!

Men’s Health

The next BRP is focused on men’s health, and will be released in conjunction with the return of Rehmannia Dean Thomas to the podcast. Women will be barred from listening to it, sorry.

I want to tie in to the next BRP with a connection to the heart disease issue. It is commonly known that men over a certain age suffer from erectile dysfunction. A common side effect of men healing heart disease through plant-based diets is completely curing their erectile problems. This is because all vascular disease is basically the same, and our sexual organs are ruled by vascular flow. If you’re in your mid-life phase and begin to experience sexual issues, you’d be wise to start shifting your diet to a more heart-healthy one, as you’re likely being given a leading indicator of a more serious problem.

I know this installment will be a bit controversial and convince absolutely no one of anything. Yet I fail to see why. It is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that eating a properly planned plant-based diet can reverse even extreme manifestations of heart disease. But I’m sure eating meat and dairy didn’t cause it to begin with. Whatever!

To your Health!

-Psi

PS - listen to our T. Colin Campbell episode on Rare Candy, it was criminally underrated and underplayed, considering the legendary nature of the guest.