Bill Clinton: Former President with Heart Problems or Engine 2 Case-in-Point?

Former heartthrob and President Bill Clinton is back in the news after undergoing surgery to insert two stents into arteries around his heart this weekend. When he left the White House in 2000, his cholesterol level was 233, well above the recommended threshold and way, way above the Engine 2 "heart-attack proof" ceiling of 150, which probably led to the President being lampooned on Saturday Night Live for his conflicting loves of McDonald's hamburgers and jogging (see photo above). My own sense is that hamburgers carried the day. CNN has the story and they've managed to tell it without their usual hedging on key facts to appear overly moderate and balanced. (If Wolf Blitzer had gotten hold of it, the lead-in would have been, "Reports tentatively suggest that alleged former President Bill Clinton may have suffered from purported chest pains and has possibly undergone what some are describing as a surgical procedure which may or may not -- depending on your political allegiance -- be designed to address such issues.")

It's precisely these types of health problems and resultant surgeries that led Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn to research whether a change in diet might prevent and reverse heart disease. It will.

Dr. Esselstyn has said the following in a terrific interview about his research into heart problems and diet (kudos to an obsessive, borderline-creepy fan of the blog for the link):

My own feeling is that if you were to summarize where we stand on this epidemic, we have a great many brilliant minds that are focussed on mechanisms, drugs, and procedures, and we've sort of abandoned the capacity of the public to take care of this epidemic on their own. I would like to say right now that perhaps there can be no greater condemnation of 21st century medicine than its refusal to share with the public the causation and cure of its most frightening chronic illnesses.

How in the world can we have someone who's had two or three heart attacks and a couple of bypasses, and not say to them
-- look them in the eye and say "Look. I'm tired of doing these bypasses for you. Why don't you cure yourself? I mean, it's not that these people can't do it, it's just that they don't have the information available. It's extremely difficult to in any way applaud what medicine is doing in this arena because the public just isn't being told what they can do to cure themselves.

Wait a second, you mean the fee-for-service medical practices in this country are leading doctors to overemphasize in-house treatments and surgeries and gloss over the benefits of their patients not eating four or five times a day like Brian Wilson at an IHOP? This is a fascinating interview, especially if you want to know more about the medical bases for, and benefits of, a plant-based vegan dietary regimen. Spoiler alert: They include staving off cancer and extending your life.