Is Heart Disease Reversible?

Besides surgery or medication, is there anything you can do to modify the course of 

CAD? The answer to that is, clearly, yes -- as long as your doctor is on board. Making 

some simple but significant changes in what you eat, how often you exercise, how much 

you weigh, and how you manage stress can help to put the brakes on heart disease.

But can you actually reverse heart disease, not just slow it down? The answer to that 

question is much more controversial. Here are two expert's views.

The studies show that, with significant lifestyle changes, blood flow to the heart and its 

ability to pump normally improve in less than a month, and the frequency of chest pains 

fell by 90% in that time,” a Dr. says. “Within a year on his program, even severely 

blocked arteries in the heart became less blocked, and there was even more reversal 

after five years. That’s compared with the natural history in other patients in our study, in 

which the heart just got worse and worse.”

Those lifestyle measures include exercise -- the Dr. calls for people to walk at least half 

an hour a day, or an hour three times a week. Your cupboards, refrigerator, and dinner 

table will also need a total transformation if you expect to have a chance of 

actually reversing heart disease, not just preventing it or stopping its progression.

“Just making moderate changes in your diet may be enough to prevent heart disease, 

but it won’t be enough to reverse it,” he says.

His plan categorizes foods from 1-5, ranging from most to least healthful. To actually 

reverse heart disease, you have to stay in Category 1.

In essence, that means becoming a vegetarian, filling your plate with fruits and 

vegetables, whole grains, legumes, soy products, non-fat dairy, and egg whites, and 

keeping away from fats, refined sugar, and carbohydrates. “You want to eat foods in their 

natural form as much as possible," he says.

His program also calls for regular yoga, meditation, and stress reduction.

If you have serious heart disease and are extremely motivated, you may be able to make 

such major changes, but they are difficult to sustain, says an MD.

“You have to live a very strict lifestyle, way beyond even the normal heart-healthy life,” 

she says. “And even then, I wouldn’t say you can ‘reverse’ heart disease, because that 

implies you had something and now you don’t. With very strict changes you can regress 

heart lesions, but they shrink -- they don’t go away. You can’t cure heart disease, but you 

can slow its progression.”

She instead emphasizes slowing heart disease, and preventing it in the first place, 

through lifelong efforts to eat heart healthy, get regular physical activity, avoid smoking, 

and maintain a healthy weight.

On the diet side, that means embracing variety. “I don’t think that dietary approaches 

that are highly restrictive are sustainable,” she says. To keep heart disease in check, 

she advises:

Embrace the  new “MyPlate” program (similar to a visual she’s had on her Web site for 

years), in which half your plate is loaded with fruits and vegetables, and the other half is 

evenly divided between lean proteins and high-quality carbs such as brown rice.

• Limit the saturated fat in your diet to less than 7% of calories.
• 
  
• Choose heart-healthy sources of fat, such as salmon and other fish rich in omega-3 
• fatty acids, nuts, and olives.
• 
  

He agrees that for most people who are just looking to either prevent heart disease or 

slow it down, going entirely “Category 1” isn’t needed. “If you need to reverse a life-

threatening illness, you’re well advised to live as much as you can on the healthiest end 

of the spectrum,” he says. “But if you’re just trying to stay healthy, it’s unsustainable to 

say, ‘Never eat certain foods.’ It’s much more sustainable to just move in a healthier 

direction.”

And if you slip up and eat something that’s really not heart-healthy (a bacon 

cheeseburger, say, or a gooey doughnut) -- don’t beat yourself up. “If you indulge one 

day, then eat healthy the next. If you don’t exercise one day, do more the next,” he says.

“Guilt, shame, and anger are toxic to the heart, so forgive yourself and move on.”

Once you start making those changes, you might find that the rewards spur you to make 

more.

“We found that the more people changed their diet and lifestyle, the more they felt better, 

no matter how old or sick they felt,” he says. “The better you feel, the more you want to 

keep doing it. The myth is that a pill is easy and diet and lifestyle changes are hard, but 

the data show that less than half the people prescribed Lipitor still take it after a year. 

Taking a pill to prevent something bad happening is fear-based, and it can be boring. 

But making healthy changes to your life makes you feel good, so you’re not just living 

longer, but better.”

ps- this is only for information, always consult you physician before having any particular food/ medication/exercise/other remedies.

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