Michael Greger M.D. FACLM December 19th, 2011 Volume 6 Most people hospitalized with heart attacks have cholesterol levels considered “desirable” under the current recommendations. Having a “normal” cholesterol in a society where it’s normal to die of heart disease is not necessarily a good thing. The current official recommendation is to have a total cholesterol under 200.…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM December 20th, 2011 Volume 6 The average “bad” cholesterol (LDL) level in people having heart attacks is in the “near-optimal” range, suggesting that the current guidelines are too lax.Subscribe to VideosDiscussREPUBLISH The level of LDL cholesterol in our blood—our “bad” cholesterol—may be the single most important indicator of heart disease risk, and is,…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM November 29th, 2013 Volume 15 Many of our most common diseases found to be rare, or even nonexistent, among populations eating plant-based diets. This is a list of diseases commonly found here (and in populations that eat and live like the U.S.), but were rare, or even nonexistent, in populations eating diets centered…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM February 24th, 2014 Volume 17 The oxidation of high-fat and cholesterol-rich foods in our stomachs may help explain why eating antioxidant packed foods appears to reduce heart attack and stroke risk. The total antioxidant capacity of our diet may also be protective against stroke, in contradiction to all the pill studies that failed to…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM September 10th, 2014 Volume 20 According to the Director of the famous Framingham Heart Study, the best way to manage cholesterol and heart disease risk is with a more plant-based diet. Why then, don’t more doctors advise their patients to change their diets? Why don’t more doctors practice preventive cardiology? Available time is…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM February 25th, 2015 Volume 23 What was it about the diet on the Greek isle of Crete in the 1950s that made it so healthy? “The Mediterranean Diet is an “in” topic nowadays in both the medical literature and the lay media”: 450 papers published in the medical literature over just the last…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM January 18th, 2016 Volume 28 Fatty streak formation occurs in human fetal arteries and is linked to the pregnant mother’s cholesterol level. The strategy of preventing heart disease risk in childhood has been described as radical, but is the concept really so radical? What would be radical is to adopt this concept and actually do…
The most likely reason most of our loved ones will die is heart disease. It’s still up to each of us to make our own decisions as to what to eat and how to live—but, we should make these choices consciously, educating ourselves about the predictable consequences of our actions. Atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries,…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM December 14th, 2018 Preventing and treating chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and stroke with diet and lifestyle changes is not just safer but may be dramatically more effective. Medical myths and dogmas die hard. Researchers creating a new body of knowledge for prevention and control of heart disease had to…
Michael Greger M.D. FACLM February 1st, 2019 The endothelium is the inner lining of our blood vessels. Laid end-to-end, the endothelial cells from a single human would wrap more than four times around the world. And it’s not just like an inert layer; it’s highly metabolically active. I’ve talked about how sensitive our endothelium is to…