Is Vegetaritan diet superior to the Paleo diet

I have been reading and seeing articles and T.V. spots about Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, he wrote the book "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease", Dr. Esselstyn is a leading proponent in the field of plant based diets. The doctor says Cardiovascular disease need never exist--it is a food borne illness, change your food and you change your life. Dr. Esselstyn was a surgeon for a number of years at the Cleveland Clinic, he also served as President of the Staff and also was a member of the Board of Governors, he is 80 years old, very fit, and apparently no heart problems.

The Doctor says to not eat any meat, eggs, dairy and very little oil--he says these animal-based foods contain fats, which, he says contribute to coronary artery disease. He says to eat as many vegetables as you like, 3 fruits/day (no more because of the high sugar content), you can eat a variety of legumes, and whole grains such as whole wheat pasta and brown rice, almond or rice milk.

He claims that you can get adequate protein from whole grains and legumes, about the only supplements he recommends is Vit. D and perhaps B12. If you go to this link, it outlines his dietary recommendations, [www.heartattackproof.com]

This is the opposite of what many on here tout as the good diet which is the Paleo diet, which many say to eat, meat, eggs, fats. I don't know, Dr. Esselstyn has cases to back up what he is saying---former President Clinton is on a similar diet after having heart surgery and is feeling good and all of his tests are great.

Who is correct, the people that have been posting seem to still be having problems, the diets and all the supplements are not helping enough, some are trying the vegetarian diet, I don't know how they are faring, perhaps they will let us know.

Liz



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2014 04:04AM by Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: According to CNN and US News, most any diet is better than the Paleo, particularly the DASH diet:

Gordon

[health.usnews.com]

[www.cnn.com]

I recall attending a seminar offered many years ago to HC professionals at the Cleveland Clinic featuring Dr. Esselstyn. Dr. Esselstyn was then and is now very well-known for taking critically ill heart patients--too ill for heart surgical interventions and restoring their health and heart function through his very restrictive eating plan. One can't argue with that success. Here in the Cleveland area, Dr. Esselstyn is legend.

Most knowledgeable practitioners who advise vegetarian and vegan eating plans also monitor the patient for essential nutrients that may not be in abundance as is typical with vegetarian eating...ie, B vitamin deficiencies. My FM MD has always said that the majority of new patients she sees who are vegetarians are woefully deficient in vitamin B 12 and since many don't have enough protein intake to support making new cells, they tend to be 'ailing' patients which is why they pay out of pocket to see her. Restoring the body's ability to methylate properly is a huge challenge....and will be covered in my Methylation Dysfunction report which is nearing its final draft stage.

Paleo style eating seems to work well for some afibbers but not for everyone and many do well on modified Paleo style eating. The major advantage of Paleo is that it eliminates grains and dairy which seem to be common culprits in those with sensitivities to grain components and the dairy protein casein which tend to manifest as gut symptoms and silent inflammation. Inflammation is a cause of arrhythmia.

With all of the added food contamination threats from GMO foods and non-organic foods that deliver large doses of fungicide and pesticide residues and other environmental toxins the body has to try to detox, choosing a dietary plan that is both safe and healthy for your biochemical uniqueness has become a definite challenge. As Doris Rapp, MD, says: We live in a toxic world. The most important factor is to "Eat Clean."

Bill Clinton was famous for his donut stops along his jogging path and frequent trips to McDonald's. His heart outcome was predictable.


Jackie

The key to a good effect from any diet, in my view, is a broad based range of nutrient sources of HIGH quality and nutritional content. The veggie only mantra is okay for a while and will bring many benefits to someone previously eating a terrible reckless version of the SAD ( standard American diet), but will not bring any addition benefit and, in fact, typically lacks beneficial features of a well rounded 'paleo-like' diet or one that is founded on high quality and quantity of organic veggies, is gluten free, and some select low glycemic fruits plus a high quality organic grass fed beef, range fed organic chicken and Omega 3 rich cold water fish plus some nuts and good quality fats like virgin coconut oils and true extra virgin cold pressed olive oils, avocado oils etc.

SO many people the functional medicine docs I work with that have been pure vegan or veggie for many years look far too thin and lack good muscle quality in their older years and have a number of frank nutritional deficiencies unless serious effort on a daily or weekly basis is made to compensate for the limitations of a pure vegan/ veggie diet.

You don't have to be a strict paleo as Jackie noted to greatly benefit from its core principles which include ALL the major pluses of a anti-oxidant and fiber rich vegan/ veggie diet but with the needed good quality protein and fats as well that were never the culprit some vegan zealot researchers seemed to suggest. I was a strict vegetarian for 17 years as well so I know the drill. Feel dramatically better since going more well rounded again some 18 years ago.

The problem with meat was far more the quality and devoid of natural and essential Omega 3 oils, plus far too high temperature cooking that has brought the vast majority of those caveats and downsides of animal based protein consumption that have any validity at all. You can very much have the best of both worlds as our omnivore evolutionary inheritance was based around with just a little knowledge and effort.

Shannon



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2014 01:08PM by Shannon.

The doctor has 20 years of success with his diet and heart patients, his diet apparently has helped diabetic patients as well. We don't know what kind of diet his success stories had in the beginning so it is hard to get a clear picture, we do know that Bill Clinton liked his junk food.

Now, grain and legumes are not good, grain is bad, many people think they are gluten intolerant, probably very few are. Dr E. believes in eating whole grains and legumes and has success. I thought I ate quite well, I do eat meat, veggies, fruit, some eggs, nuts etc. all the things we say are good for us---yet, I get AF, I have been getting AF more often lately, about 1 a month, I get more episodes in the winter, probably not enough vit. D.

We talk about pesticides, toxic environment etc., we will always have that, our bodies do adapt but with it all, Doctor E. has been getting success. I agree with Shannon that is very hard to get all the proper nutrients from a strict vegan diet, coming from someone who was a vegetarian for 17 years and feels better now is a good testimonial. Did you have AF during those 17 years? You no longer have AF that in itself would make one feel better.

Dr. E. looks very thin and not much muscle, I guess only time will tell whose diet is the better. I took the following from the site that I posted in my first post.

"While A Fib is largely independent of nutrition, and is a heart rhythm abnormality, there are some subset of cases which are presumably related to less than optimal heart circulation. While it would be totally inappropriate for me to suggest plant - based nutrition would cure atrial fibrillation, the many ancillary benefits would indicate plant based nutrition would be of value".


Liz

I have been following the Fuhrman program, THe Nutrarian Diet, for two years now and found it relatively easy with time and very effective. He does include grains, but only whole grains that minimize glycemic load, and animal products in minimal amounts. Certainly one doesn't ever go hungry with this program and it put all my test results in ranges I like.

Gordon

[www.drfuhrman.com]

Gordon:

Looks like a much better diet than Dr. Esselstyns', Dr. E's diet is very stringent. But still not too much meat, says meat only a couple of times a week, I do eat some meat everyday, I just have more energy and feel better, of course, I havn't eaten too many beans so I could up the beans and lower my meat consumption. I have been reading lately that one should not eat very much meat and of course sugar (which I knew) There has been quite a few posts on this site saying that meat, eggs, vegetables, olive oil and nuts were the diet one should be consuming, that may not be right (too much meat). If you don't eat much meat, you would need to take B12 and probably more magnesium, there is magnesium in nuts and beans, I would guess not enough.

Liz

Liz: When you cut to the chase Dr. Fughrman's diet is veggies, fresh fruits, nuts, beans & whole grains for 90% of your intake and you get 10% for whatever else you want. He's down on sugar and salt. If you eat out much you get plenty of both of those. Most of the meat proteins needed are also in beans.

He says that whole grains dissolve more slowly and therefore the insulin reaction is much more controllable. I suspect during later Paleo time when grains were discovered they only had whole grains. It's the refining of them that causes the problem. Here's a link to the Nutrarian Program and diabetes reversal:

[www.drfuhrman.com]

Being an ex-fibber I take a lot of supplemental magnesium, taurine and potassium no matter what I eat.

Gordon

All of this sounds like a recipe (pun intended) for insanity. With all the diet books that have come out in my lifetime (I am 64), I truly believe in "everything in moderation," unless, of course, you have a specific disease like diabetes or a condition or allergy (Liz, I also see where "everybody" is all of a sudden allergic to gluten!).

I think anyone would agree that a diet of fast food would lead to many health issues, but I don't know how anyone has time to study every ingredient and portion in everything they put into their mouth. That in itself would cause enough stress to me to cause health/anxiety issues.

Louise

Louise - it's easy when you eat whole foods raw or lightly cooked that don't require a label to explain added chemicals.

As for allergy to gluten... the food supply has changed considerably when it comes to grains and many people in the US are becoming intolerant to the gliaden protein that can be changed through seed manipulations. It's not prevalent in Europe by comparison. Many people who rely heavily on commercially prepared, processed foods acquire a problem with gluten/gliaden sensitivities but often go undiagnosed. When they go on a strict GF and often dairy free diet, their symptoms disappear. If they resume, they reappear. Usually is enough to convince them to remain GF and avoid the damage the sensitivies cause in the body.

Jackie

Jackie:
Whole grains are what we are talking about, it is the refined flour/sugar that many people are eating that is causing all the gut problems. Doubtful that people who eat whole grains, whole foods have all the problems that you are alluding to, if those people that "think" they have gluten problems would eat whole grains and no sugar, they too would have their symptoms disappear. I realize that there are some people that cannot tolerate any gluten, but doubtful that there are as many as you seem to believe. Yes, you can give many URLs that give credence to your argument and so can I, so where does that leave us, if we don't have personal experience then we draw our conclusions or try out the diet on ourselves.

Liz

Jackie: Regarding undiagnosed gluten problems, if they are undaignosed what real data do we have that there is indeed an association betweeen grains and the symptoms, none I've seen regarding whole grains and gluten issues. Certainly a lot of personal strories but is there anything formal available?

The point Dr. Fuhrman, Liz and I have been trying to make is that there is a big difference between whole grains; i.e., un processed with shell on, and grains in processed food, which invariably are 75% refined grains even though it may say whole grain on the label so a diagnosis of gluten intolerance may be misleading when the real issue is the rate of sugar uptake rates from the type of grains being consumed. I dont think there's any way people who eat out frequently can avoid processed grains.

Here are som University of Chicago statistics on celiac disease, less than 1% of the population, and gluten intolerance, 5% to 10% possibly.

Data
Between 5% and 10% of all people may suffer from a gluten sensitivity of some form.
1 out of every 133 Americans (about 3 million people) have Celiac Disease
97% of Americans estimated to have Celiac Disease are not diagnosed
Celiac Disease has over 300 known symptoms
30% of the US Population is estimated to have the genes necessary for CD
The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that the Gluten Free industries revenues will reach $1.9 Billion by 2012
Gluten free foods are, on average, 242% more expensive then their non-GF counterparts
There are currently 0 drugs available to treat Celiac Disease
People with CD dine out 80% less than they used to before diagnosis and believe less than 10% of eating establishments have a ‘very good’ or ‘good’ understanding of GF diets.
The average cost of a misdiagnosis is $5,000 – $12,000 per person per year.
Celiac disease is a hereditary condition and if you have celiac disease, you can expect that 4 to 12% of your first-degree relatives will also have the condition.
60% of children and 41% of adults diagnosed during the study were asymptomatic

Gordon

"The Doctor says to not eat any meat, eggs, dairy and very little oil--he says these animal-based foods contain fats, which, he says contribute to coronary artery disease."

Whopper!

Fat (saturated animal fat, that is) is the preferred fuel of the heart. Note the historical increase of heart diseases with the replacement of animal fat with synthetic (vegetable) fats and oils.
Any diet that is high in cooked meat is bad.

The true paleolithic diet is so extreme that only the brave or desperate will try it. like me. No heart problems since I quit cooked carbohydrates in 2008; I already knew to eat 80% by calories animal fat, and the rest raw grass-finished beef.

BTW there is no usable protein in beans, or anything else that had roots.

Hi Gordon - sorry not to respond promptly. By undiagnosed gluten problems, I meant that doctors don't often suspect gluten/gliaden as a contributor to symptoms or conditions or make the connection so then the patient is not tested…and remains “undiagnosed.” I'm deep into a Gluten Summit presentation at the moment and when I glean out some helpful notes, I'll be posting.

Meanwhile, do you recall reading the postfrom 2011 titled...
Dangerous Grains – The Gluten Sensitivity Conundrum
[www.afibbers.org]

Jackie

LIz,

I was a vegetarian during my younger years when AFIB is much less common to manifest anyway, I have a strong familiar AFIB issue that effected members of my mother's side ( she died when she was just 45 so we don't know if she would have developed AF too but her older sister, and mother did. Plus my father had AFIB and died from a stroke, as does my sister whose story Ive recounted a number of times before.

So it would very a real stretch to relate my getting AFIB to either having been a vegetarian all those years just before the AFIB first appeared or that is was due to no longer being a veggie. It likely had little to do with the genesis of my AFIB in any event.

I felt better switching from veggie to a more well rounded diet still filled with lots of good organic veggies and such etc back in the mid to late 1990s before AFIB had really gotten severe and when I was only having a few short episodes a year and it was really no big deal at that point anyway. This was all far before the more intensive progression took place and more than a decade before my first ablation that I noticed a bit improvement is stamina, muscle tone and generally feeling more alert after graduating to a more healthy and well balanced organic nutrient richer diet.

Shannon

Shannon:

I do eat some meat, I too feel better eating meat, especially when I do some heavy physical work. There are Nutrition doctors that are saying that a more vegetarian diet is more heart healthy. But, I agree with you, I think we need meat which is the best protein, in my estimation.

I also believe in genetics, you have a lot of family with AF, my mother had AF, she apparently got episodes of AF in her late seventies, I also have an aunt that had AF. My mother died at the age of 92 and only the last year of her life did she get weak and needed some help, so that wasn't so bad. I had Graves disease in my late 50s, got nuked and put on synthroid, I was over medicated and got AF, very few episodes in the beginning.

Off Topic:

I understand that you now live in Orlando, my granddaughter, her husband and my great grandson live in Orlando, Mark, my granddaughters husband has a business called Push, he does computer design work. They also started a fast food restaurant which they have a lot of vegetarian foods on the menu; They have falafa, a lentil salad, salads etc. My granddaughters father is the cook and runs the restaurant. If you are ever in the area, maybe you might try it out, it is call Hubbly Bubbly.

Liz

I'm very late to this thread, and obviously everyone's situation and body chemistry is different, but as someone with pretty serious gluten/wheat sensitivity, I've experimented with many diets and paleo has worked best for me.

There's tons of misinformation about what "paleo" is, if you search online you see people touting eating steak at every meal, wrapping everything in bacon, and eating all kinds of "paleo" desserts using potato flour, etc.

These are just people trying to sell you books and make money off of paleo.

Studies show that people who eat paleo consume more veggies then people on a vegetarian diet. The difference is that vegetarians eat a good number of carbs and beans/legumes, whereas paleo people replace those empty carbs with nutrient dense protein.

Please check out the "Latest in Paleo" podcast. It started as a paleo podcast, but it has evolved into a "natural food" podcast, and is the least biased resource I've found on how to eat naturally.

If you

1) Don't eat refined sugar
2) Don't use processed seed oils
3) Don't eat refined wheat/carbs

IMO, that's the "baseline" of a paleo diet. Personally, I add

1) Only eating naturally raised/fed animal protein
2) 2/3rds of your plate are veggies
3) Trying to focus on nutrient rich animal protein like hearts, liver, bone marrow stew
4) Focusing on nutrient rich foods (berries, kale, seaweed, avocados)

To my approach.

If you can get in this groove, what you'll find is that since you're eating nothing but nutrient rich foods, you need to eat less, and hence you'll naturally lose weight. If you eat healthy fats like coconut oil and avocado, then you'll also eat less because fat is what makes us feel full (this is why "low fat" diets often perform poorly, because you're always hungry)

Just some random thoughts. Hope this helps. There's so much misinformation about paleo, it's a shame, because the core of it is extremely solid. It's worth noting that the Mediterranean diet is very close to paleo, and it's often rated one of the best.

Just like all of us with afib know, sometimes you really need to dig to find the "real" information on particular topics.

Great summary Erich,

Very glad to see you emphasize the balance in what Paleo eating implies. This is the way to do it in my view as well.

Shannon