Special: What to Feed Your Heart

0:00Through 25 seasons, 4 ,561 episodes, I believe The Oprah Winfrey Show is one of the greatest classrooms in the world. I really never thought of it that way. The aha moments, the breakthroughs, the connections, the occasional ugly cry. I miss him so terribly. I miss him every single minute. The LOLs. The moments that mattered. The eye-opening life lessons. Never allow them to take you somewhere else. I'm bringing them back. It's time to open the vault. I've personally chosen these classic episodes to share with you again. Every single person you ever will meet shares that common desire. They want to know, do you see me?

0:47Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you? You are listening to The Oprah Winfrey Show, the podcast. We got such a huge response after the recent show we did about active women in their 30s and 40s having heart attacks. Huge! Many of you were shocked to learn that it's estimated that one out of every two women will die of heart disease. Today what I wanted to do was to see how you may be able to prevent and reverse heart disease, plus gain more energy and lose weight, too. Dr. Dean Ornish is here to show us how. He is the number one expert in the country on this. But first, we heard from women who say they saw that show just in time.

1:35I got an email. I could feel that when I was doing the show. I was doing the show, and I'm thinking, I know that there are millions of people who are watching, and some of those people are going to have a heart attack today. I could feel that. Well, I got an email from a 39-year-old mom, 39 years old, in South Carolina, who said she had been ignoring a pain in her arm. Nora Korak wrote, Dear Oprah, your show saved my life. When I saw it, I recognized that I had the warning signs. I went to the doctor. He told me I was on the verge of having a heart attack. Another email came from a 40-year-old mom in Florida, 40 years old, who didn't know why she was sweating and anxious.

2:11So Janet McCarter wrote that after seeing our show on heart disease, she went to the hospital. She says, Thank God I did, because the doctor told me I had an abnormal EKG and was a hair away from having a heart attack. Who knows what would have happened had I not seen that show. And this is 31-year-old Lori from New York, 31 years old, who says that show saved her life. I was having my birthday party for my daughter, and I started feeling this pain right under my left shoulder blade. A kink or a knot, and it didn't get better. And then it started down into my elbow, and I felt this pain in my jaw and under, up in here in my throat.

2:51And it was very painful. It was like gripping, like it was in your bone. Then I just got the palpitations, this racing of my heart. It felt like I got off a tread machine. At age 31, I mean, you're not thinking heart attack. I'm thinking, well, I went to my local YMCA. I probably pulled a muscle. Heart disease is killing women. So I was watching the show, and there was a girl who was in her early 30s, and she had the same exact symptoms as I had. The pain started radiating down my arm. I knew immediately my blood just ran cold. We left for the emergency room directly after the show was over. When we got to the emergency room, they pretty much treated it as if, you know, it's someone who's pulled a muscle.

3:36And I said, you know, look, I saw the Oprah Winfrey show today and I want my heart tested. Simple as that. I have three kids at home. I want to get back to them. I pushed, I got the EKG, and the cardiologist decided that definitely I'd had a heart attack. I had a 40 to 50 percent chance of dying. I definitely felt like the show saved my life. I had to vow that I would never smoke again. I had to vow that I would eat the right things. Before my heart attack, I would have guessed I was pretty healthy. We were going to the gym two to three times a week. Before my heart attack, I was smoking about a pack and a half a day.

4:15For breakfast, I usually had a couple cups of coffee, and I was out the door for the day, no time to eat. Looking back on our diet, it was scary. We were eating a lot of high-fat, high-cholesterol foods that just simply aren't good for you. On the average week, we got takeout probably three times a week. We ordered pizza and chicken wings. We had hot dogs. I'm a terrible sweet fanatic, and I love cake and donuts. It's a new beginning. It's a new beginning for myself and for my family. We're going to get on a regimen to eat better, and then the rest of life we can just enjoy it. So today we're going to show Laurie and millions of you who are concerned about how to make your heart healthier.

4:58For over 20 years, Dr. Dean Ornish has been making headlines as the first doctor to prove, to prove now that heart disease can really be reversed by changing your lifestyle. He is the author of five best-selling books, including Reversing Heart Disease, Eat More, Weigh Less, and Love and Survival. Dr. Ornish says that millions of people have made their hearts healthier on his plan, and his chefs even gave the White House and Air Force One some menu makeover. They were eating too many hot dogs on there, weren't they? Dr. Ornish says that for many people, avoiding heart disease, avoiding it, is as simple as making two or three changes.

5:37And so we're going to talk today about if you already have it, how to reverse it. Right. And you have proven that you can reverse it, not through medication, but through diet, and also if you want to prevent it and you don't already have it. Dr. Ornish says his eating plan is easy to customize depending on if you want to prevent heart disease or if you already have it and you want to reverse it. So if you already have it, if you had a heart attack, it means you have it? Dr. If you have a heart attack, it means you already have it. And as you know, heart and blood vessel diseases kill more men than virtually everything else combined.

6:10And yet if we simply put into practice what we already know, we don't need to wait for a new breakthrough. Heart disease could be as rare as malaria. You know, we think it has to be a new drug or a new laser or something really high-tech and expensive. And people have a hard time believing that these simple choices that we make each day, like what we eat, how we respond to stress, how much exercise we get, whether or not we smoke, the quality of the amount of love and social relationships. And if you smoke, I heard, I read that if you smoke and take birth control pills so that you quadruple your chances.

6:39That's right. And yet if you quit smoking, within a few years your risk is as low as if you never smoked at all. Really? So a lot of this damage, your body has a remarkable capacity to begin healing itself if you give it a break. Because your body is trying to work with you, isn't it? It's trying to help you out every day. It's just working on cleaning out the toxins. It's saying, I'm trying, would you work with me, please? Exactly. Yeah. Right. If three times a day you're eating more fat and cholesterol your body can get rid of, it's got to go somewhere. Right. So the premise of all the things that we're talking about today is really to treat the cause.

7:11Dr. Orny says you need to know your cholesterol levels to determine which plan to follow. Correct. You know, the old thing about an ounce of prevention is really true. It takes less work to prevent disease than to reverse it. Right. So what you can do is, if you don't have heart disease, you can begin by making moderate changes. It's not all or nothing. People often think that the diet I recommend is, you know, really strict and it's either you're on it or you're off it. And that's completely the opposite of what I like. It's a spectrum. So if you're eating 12 cheeseburgers a day, go to 9 cheeseburgers a day.

7:40If that's enough to get your cholesterol down, that may be all you need to do, because there is a genetic variability in how efficiently some people can get rid of the fat and cholesterol in their diet. Okay. What if you're only, you're not eating any cheeseburgers at all, but you still have high cholesterol? Well, then you might want to cut back even further. The goal is to get your total cholesterol below 150, or the what's called the LDL, the bad cholesterol, below, say, 90 or 95. And if your levels are already that low, whatever you're doing is probably fine, at least as far as your heart's concerned.

8:08If they're above that, just begin to progressively cut back on the amount of fat and cholesterol. So that's one of the things we should know. What is our cholesterol? Just like you should know your blood type. That's right. Right. You should definitely know your cholesterol. And it's a simple test. It costs a few dollars. Everybody should know that. Okay. Now, Dr. Ornish's plan is a low-fat, high-fiber diet that puts food into three different categories, foods to choose most often, foods to eat in moderation, and foods to choose least often. Dr. Ornish says that foods to choose most often are the fruits and the vegetables.

8:36Yeah, but you know why? You know, it sounds so boring, you know. Fruits and the vegetables. Am I going to live longer or is it just going to seem longer, you know, if I eat this way? But, you know, part of what... I've done a new thing now because I know when I was having my heart palpitations, Dr. Ornish, because he is, like, the number one guy in the country, so I think I'm open if I can call him. So I did. And he actually, like, returned my calls. Shocking, isn't it? Shocking. And he is the guy that told me, you do not have heart disease. You do not have heart disease. But anyway, since talking to you, I've now...

9:11I used to have, like, a platter of grapes on the kitchen counter, you know, for decorations. But then I would, like, walk by and, like, take a bunch and all the sugar. So now I put tangerines there. So it's an easier thing and just take a couple bites of the tangerine. So I'm eating more fruits because of you. Good. Good. Okay. You also say beans. Right. And certain whole grains and cereals. Well, when you eat...when you go from eating a high-fat, high-animal-protein diet to a low-fat fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, things like that, you're really getting a double benefit, because you're reducing your...

9:42But beans, they bloat you. Well... You know, you get that kind of bloated bean feeling. I call them beanie babies inside. This too shall pass, over. This too shall pass.

9:57That is very good. Because when you're running on the track, you go, oop, there goes another baby. It doesn't do... It doesn't do much for your social support. But... Yeah. But the fact is, you have little microorganisms in your intestines. Yeah. And as you switch your diet, they change. And during that transition period, you have a lot more bloating. But once you get on it for a few months, then it gets back to you. You don't bloat? No, you don't bloat. Not once you're on it for a few months. It takes time for your... for your gut to adjust to it. Okay. Got it. Okay. Whole wheat pasta. Right.

10:26Brown rice. Oh, so you're eliminating the white stuff, too. Dr. When you go from a typical American diet, you know, it's high in meat and animal protein and fat, to a low-fat, whole foods, plant-based diet, fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans, what we've been talking about, you get a double benefit. You're not only reducing your intake of the disease-promoting substances like cholesterol, saturated fat, oxidants, but you're also getting at least a thousand other substances that are protective, that have anti-cancer, anti-heart disease, even anti-aging properties. So brown stuff, brown stuff, and potatoes.

10:58Potatoes are white stuff. You say potatoes are okay. If you eat it with the other things, because when you go... when you eat a lot of simple sugars, like sugar, white flour, white rice, pasta made out of white flour, you're getting a double whammy. You're getting all these calories that don't fill you up because you've removed the fiber and the bran that ordinarily fill you up, and they get absorbed quickly, so they...so they...your blood sugar zooms up. Your pancreas makes insulin to bring your blood sugar back down, which is good, but the insulin accelerates the conversion of calories into fat.

11:25We're living in a country now where people are afraid of carbohydrates. Well, that's the thing, is people think you should go from simple carbohydrates to pork rinds, you know, on the high-protein diets, which is crazy, because then you're getting... But you lose weight on those high-protein diets. You lose weight because people eat so many simple carbohydrates. There is some advantage. That's what makes them so dangerous, is because they're seductive. People lose weight, but then you mortgage your health. I mean, you can lose weight on chemotherapy, but that doesn't mean it's a very good way to do it.

11:48You know, if you go from simple carbohydrates to whole foods, the ones you mentioned... Well, now, what's a simple carbohydrate? Sugar, white flour, white rice. Those are the white things. The white things. If you stop eating those, and instead of going to, you know, pork rinds and so on and bacon and sausage, you go from the white things to... Brown things. Brown things. You know, whole wheat flour, brown rice, and then fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, in their natural forms, they're loaded in fiber. So they fill you up before you get too many calories. And they slow the absorption of the food, so you don't get that rapid rise in blood sugar that causes the insulin response.

12:21I was going to say, yeah, they do something for insulin. That's right. So you get the benefits that you get on a high-protein diet, but instead of mortgaging your health, you actually enhance your health. Okay. Dr. Ornish's plan also allows you to eat plenty of nonfat yogurt and cheeses, skin milk and egg white. So the basic thing to remember is eliminate the white stuff. The white stuff and the animal stuff. To the degree you can move in that direction, there's a benefit. Okay. Eliminate the white stuff and the animal stuff. Like the meats, the pork grinds, the bacon. If you're going to eat animal stuff, go from meats to chicken to fish to vegetarian.

12:52I told you I could not give up the bird. You don't have to give up the bird because you don't have heart disease. Yeah. Okay. But if you had heart disease, you would have to give up the bird. The reason is, yes, because people who have heart disease in general are not very efficient at getting rid of the fat and cholesterol in their diet. And so even that moderate amount is more than their body can handle. And so if you're eating more than your body can get rid of, it keeps building up in your arteries. The good news is that even if you're on the unlucky end of the spectrum, the inefficient end of the spectrum, In other words, you're not very good at getting rid of the fat and cholesterol that you eat.

13:23If you reduce your intake enough, which is what we found in our research, you can actually in most cases reverse it. You say you've seen results in seven days. We found that your blood flow to your brain improves in just a week or two. Really? You think more clearly. You have more energy. So you could remember where you put your keys. That's right. We're talking with Dr. Dean Ornish about what to feed your heart to reverse or prevent heart disease. There are two different plans. The number one killer of women, we just heard how 31-year-old Lori was shocked when her back pain turned out to be a heart attack.

13:57And now she wants to know how she can reverse her heart disease. So we sent one of Dr. Ornish's registered dietitians, because you have a whole clinic, don't you? We do. It's a non-profit research institute. Okay. So he has dietitians, and so they went to her house to help her get started. I've really begun to enjoy yogurt. I can have it for a snack. I can bring it to work. This particular yogurt does have quite a bit of sugar to it. It has 42 grams of sugar, which is about the same amount that you would find in a can of soda. Sugar can increase your triglycerides, which can cause problems for your heart.

14:33An alternative might be choosing the nonfat plain yogurt and adding your own fruit to it. Another thing I really enjoy, I like to sit and snack on olives. I don't know if that's good for me or not, but I really do like them. Olives do contain a lot of saturated fat. They do. Even though we think of olives and olive oil as being healthier alternatives, they do still contain a saturated fat, which will increase your own blood levels of the bad cholesterol. An alternative for you might be using capers, especially in cooking. Capers can give that same zingy flavor that olives can provide. Sometimes I grab one of these frozen dinners for lunch.

15:11I don't know though. The labels can be really confusing. Look for both the total fat and looking down at also the saturated fats. There's only one gram of saturated fat which is a good choice. On this one it does have a little bit of hydrogenated soybean oil and hydrogenated means that it could contain some trans fatty acids which are just as bad as saturated fat in increasing your total level of cholesterol in your blood. One of the things I've really always enjoyed is bagels. I don't know. I'm hoping they're still good for me because I don't want to give them up. Well, these bagels are refined carbohydrates.

15:49They're made from white flour, and they essentially have very little fiber in them. I would recommend the whole wheat bagel, if possible, cut back on your portion size. They're also so incredibly dense that a bagel is equivalent to almost three to four slices of bread. The refined carbohydrates can increase your insulin levels, which again indirectly can cause problems for your heart. So it's really important to avoid white bread, white rice, white pasta. There are many whole grain alternatives to that. You're looking for at least three grams of fiber. Five is optimal. The fiber that you find in breads and grains is really important for your heart.

16:31I love fresh fruit and I love almost every vegetable out there. I recommend blueberries and other berries for their antioxidant activities, which can prevent scarring in the arteries. If I follow all these regimens and if I eat the right foods, what are my chances of reversing the effects of my heart disease? The more changes that you make towards a lower-fat diet, more of a plant-based diet, we can actually reverse your heart disease, which is really good news. Wow, that's wonderful. Do you feel good about it? Do you feel motivated? Wonderful. You do? It's been wonderful. Yeah. I enjoy all the foods.

17:08I just...it's a real good life change. Really? Real happy. And having had a heart attack is a big motivation. Definitely. Were you surprised that this could happen to your wife? Very surprised. I knew something, and you were talking about that instinct feeling. I knew something was wrong, so we took the day off, and she saw your promo for your show, and that...that did it. If she would have gone to the hospital last Sunday, she wouldn't have forced the doctor to do a test. That's right. And they wanted to tell her that there was... she's too young. Her heart's fine. Just like the woman on the show.

17:38They say, oh, no, no, no, you have to keep pushing, because one of the things I have learned, you have to be your own advocate. Definitely. Because people will just tell you it's a pull muscle and stress and send you own home. That's right. I looked at the tech and I said, I'm sorry. I know you said that you don't think it's my heart, but I insist I need an EKG, because I have three small children at home and I want to be there for them, you know. They're too young. Wow. So they did the test. Well, Dr. Ornish says that a single meal high in fat, Laura, you'll be interested to hear this, can cause your arteries to constrict and spasm.

18:12So, oh, wow. That doesn't mean you should never eat a single meal. If you have heart disease, though, you'd be better off not doing that, because it makes your arteries constrict. It makes your blood clot faster. So it used to be a smoker. So does the nicotine in cigarettes. I went to my mother's house one time. I had dinner at my mother's house. You had soul food dinner. I know we were talking with soul food, Sonny. There was so much fat at that dinner, like they had so much fat, macaroni and cheese, fried catfish, fried chicken, fried pies, that a big lump just came on my head. My body just said, enough already with the fried foods, really.

18:51So I'm telling you, like some people's Sunday dinners can constrict their whole body, not just a few arteries. Dr. Ornish tells us why hydrogenated fats can be more damaging to your heart. Yeah, they increase the shelf life of food, which is why manufacturers use them, but they decrease your shelf life. That's the problem. Oh. Because they get converted into cholesterol and they build up plaque in your arteries. If a thing says low in cholesterol, because as you said, it's so confusing. If it says low in cholesterol, what does that mean? It means that it's low in cholesterol, but it could still be high in fat.

19:23So like, for example, a bottle of oil is 100 % fat. It's liquid fat, but it has no cholesterol. So you have to...so they try to fool you. You know, they try to say, and some of the foods may be fat-free, but then they have tons of sugar in them. Right. And how does sugar affect your heart? Sugar gets absorbed quickly. It causes your body to make insulin. And the insulin lowers your blood sugar, but it causes you to gain weight because it converts calories into triglycerides, which is both how your body stores fat and what clogs up your arteries. Which is also why, if you are a diabetic, your chances of heart disease are increased.

19:55Dr. Greatly increased. And did you know that diabetes in 30-year-olds has gone up 70 % in the last 10 years? Yeah. Dr. Seven-oh. 70%. So this is a real cultural time bomb that we're dealing with now because of the way our eating habits have been changing. Wow. Lori says she uses margarine or olive oil instead of butter. What is the healthiest choice? Dr. Well, margarine's better for you than butter, but it's better even to avoid margarine, because margarine is really high in fat, too. Now, some of the newer margarines are... have what are called plant sterols that can lower your cholesterol. They cost more, but they're...if you really want to eat margarine, try to get those.

20:27Isn't olive oil okay? If you're trying to prevent disease, it's fine. But if you're trying to reverse disease, it's not. Because, first of all, from a weight...if you're trying to lose weight... Right. I can't tell you how many people say, oh, the olive oil is good for me. They pour it on their food, they dip their bread in it, they pour it on their salad dressing. One tablespoon of any oil, including olive oil, as you know, has 14 grams of fat. Right. One scoop of premium ice cream has about 14, 16, 17 grams of fat. So you put two tablespoons of olive oil on your salad, let's say, it's like putting two scoops of ice cream on there from a weight standpoint.

20:58People, you know, gain a lot of weight. The simplest way to lose weight is to reduce the amount of oil in your diet, okay? Now olive oil has lower saturated fat than ice cream, but it still is about 14 % saturated fat. So olive oil is good if you're trying to prevent, not if you're trying to reverse. Exactly. Okay. And they're two separate plans. Correct. As I said before, there's a whole book that you have on reversing heart disease. That's right. But I don't need that because I don't have it. That's right. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. We heard the dietician mention blueberries. Dr. Orna says that blueberries, bananas, garlic, and tomatoes are especially good for your heart.

21:32There are a lot of foods like that that are called functional foods. It's not just what you exclude in your diet, it's what you include that have protective effects. And blueberries, for example, can help prevent heart disease. They have antioxidants, can help prevent cancer. They can actually increase memory in some recent studies. Bananas are high in potassium, which can stabilize the rhythm of your heart. One of the best things that people can do is take three grams a day of fish oil. Fish oil comes...I know it doesn't sound very appealing, but fish oil comes in one-gram capsules in many, like, pharmacies and health food stores.

22:01Three grams a day can reduce sudden cardiac death by 50 to 80 percent. So if people don't remember anything else from this show, tell them to start taking three grams a day of fish oil. I think you're telling them right now. Thank you. Because it can also reduce your incidence of breast cancer in women, prostate cancer in men, arthritis, and lower your triglycerides. A lot of good stuff from that. I know. I thank you. You sent me a year's supply. We're talking to Dr. Dean Ornish about his groundbreaking program for treating heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. This is Sharon, a 38-year-old working mother of four who recently learned that her blood pressure was so high she needed medication.