The Word Is Finally Coming Out Of Our Doctors' Mouths...

...even in the South. :-)

Local Cardiologist Touts Plant-Based Diet for Optimal Heart Health

by Melanie Kilgore-Hill
Posted: Monday, February 4, 2013 1:56 pm

Dr. David Huneycutt.

In a recent study by the American Heart Association, 2.3 percent of Tennesseans reported having ideal cardiovascular health and 11.2 percent reported having poor cardiovascular health – each worse than the U.S. average. While chess pie, sweet tea and deep fried you-name-it have made the American South a culinary Utopia, our arteries are paying the price.
David Huneycutt, MD, FACC, a cardiovascular disease specialist at TriStar Centennial Heart & Vascular Center, encourages patients to adopt a natural, noticeably un-Southern approach to trimming inches and cutting cholesterol.  Time and again, Huneycutt has seen patients achieve dramatic results by adopting a whole food plant-based diet. A whole food plant-based diet contains plenty of fruits, veggies and unprocessed grains. Drastic? Absolutely. But for patients at high risk for heart disease, drastic diagnoses call for drastic solutions.

Why Plant-based Diets Work
“There is typically some resistance to any dietary advice, and we still tend to want the typical western diet that’s gotten us in trouble,” said Huneycutt, who follows the diet himself. He tells patients to let food be their medicine instead of relying solely on pills to manage their problem.
This change in diet is especially important after someone survives a cardiac event. The less clogged or hardened the arteries, the less stress on the heart while it is recovering and regaining strength. Heart survivors successfully adopting this lifestyle change are often able to manage cholesterol and blood pressure with reduction in daily medication and regain their pre-heart attack strength.
The science is simple. Saturated fats and cholesterol found in animal products and vegetable oils increase cholesterol and often are high in sodium. Cutting fat intake to a very low level is difficult if not impossible when calorically dense foods are in the picture. Concerned about fat? No worries. Huneycutt says the typical whole food plant diet averages a fat intake of 10 to 15 percent – essential fatty acids found naturally in grains and beans.
“The roller coaster of the American diet we’ve been riding for 20 years says you can still eat the same toxic, fatty foods, just do it less and control portion size,” Huneycutt said. “That is extremely challenging, because it’s not aggressive enough, and it’s hard to just cut back on some of these foods. With a plant based diet there’s no need to control portion size.”

~ Courtesy of Nashville MedicalNews