I'm a cardiothoracic surgeon,

and practice that is my specialty all my professional life.

I'm 98 years of age, and I

practiced the cardiothoracic surgery until I was 95.

I have first try to be active by working around my yard,

doing my pruning of my bushes, and I mow my own lawn.

so I try to get a little exercise doing that.

As far as my dietary program is concerned.

I happen to be a vegan. I've been a vegan now for about half my life.

I think that's a healthy form of nutrition

I try to maintain the calm approach to the problems of life and

not worry and fret over problems that come along.

I get a good night's sleep,

and if I feel like it, I take a nap during the day

So I really try to be caught as careful as I can and

preserving what energy I have

I quit work when I was 95

And because of this of course I attracted some publicity from the national geographic

and incidentally the people I've worked with very much wanted me to continue

but I felt I should spend a little more time at home with my family

I could be working right now,

I could do anything that I did then and now 98,

but I picked 95 as an arbitrary time when I would quit.

I have always been inclined to be a vegetarian my folks were farmers and

we had quite a bit of meat available,

but it never appealed to me to eat animal products.

I never did drink milk by the glass

I would use it on my cereal and

Of course my mother and then later on my wife, would use it in cooking

So I was naturally inclined toward a vegetable type of diet

But I was concerned about the adequacy of the nutrition

when I found out that I could get by...by taking a little vitamin B12,

of course I then became entirely vegan,

and I think that it has been a very fine form of nutrition.

It's a little extreme to tell a person who is

using flesh foods and that you're going to take everything entirely away from them

But I have... when I was in practice in medicine,

I would tell the patients that the

vegetable based diet was the healthy way to go

and as much as possible we keep away from the animal products.

It has to be something that the person wants to cooperate in and

people are very sensitive about what they eat

now you can talk to people about exercising,

and you can talk to people about relaxation

and good mental attitude and life things like that and

they will accept that.

But you talk to them about what they're eating and people are very sensitive about that

if... if an individual is willing to listen,

I will try to explain to them on a scientific basis of how I think it's better for them

I read a statement in the Wall Street Journal last year.

I think it was in January of last year that

I thought was quite significant, and it was this,

"That all tastes are acquired except for breast milk."

now this means you see that

if you as a parent

will start your child on a healthy nutrition,

they'll like it.

But an individual let us say, who is old even my age

can change their taste buds

there are a lot of people that take too much salt and

Their food they think is flat unless they have a lot of salt in it,

but if you will diminish the amount of salt gradually

after a while they won't know the difference

and in a matter of three months or so

you can do a great deal to change your taste habits

if you are willing to do it

if a person is willing to go through the change and give himself time

he will enjoy foods that are healthy for him

as you know

cholesterol is the chief problem you have to be concerned about

as far as development coronary occlusion and coronary disease is concerned

if your cholesterol is under a hundred and forty

very very seldom that anybody has a heart attack with a cholesterol of 140

now the factors that Influence your cholesterol are things that we should know about

and one of the factors is the amount of saturated fat

and most animal fat is saturated

Whereas the vegetable fat is unsaturated or mono saturated

so you have to avoid the animal fats.

Now there are those scientists

including Dr. Colin Campbell of Cornell University

that say that animal proteins will also affect your cholesterol,

not just the fat in other words you pour off the cream off your milk and

drink the skim milk even the casein of the milk will raise your cholesterol

and then people say also high intake of sugar will affect your cholesterol

so if you can keep your cholesterol under 140

Your chances of developed coronary disease are very small

exercise is beneficial in reducing cholesterol

But if you're taking in a considerable amount of saturated fat,

you can't exercise enough to lower it as much as it should be lowered

The easiest way to get your cholesterol down is to

watch what you eat

Now you can lower your cholesterol by exercise,

but now I'm talking about no 15 or 20 milligrams something like that,

but if you get on a vegan diet which is low fat

you can drop it much more

when we went abroad

We had an open heart surgery team that

this would be maybe a dozen to two dozen people that would go with team and

do open heart surgery in overseas countries,

but this was back 50 years ago

You see when open heart surgery is first starting out

now there's no no need to do anything like that

now most of the surgery we did when we went abroad

it was for congenital heart disease

that is defects of the heart with which a person is born

holes in the heart and malformations the valves fourth

and the other was valvular heart disease due to rheumatic fever.

We didn't do very many coronary cases when we were overseas

coronary disease is a disease of the

more developed countries.

That's being a little bit discriminatory I presume,

but America, undoubtedly, in my opinion

has been the leader in the development of coronary disease

I mean in development of treatment of heart disease

and I think has also led out in the research of cause disease

We have a lot of information in this country

which is not being applied,

which would greatly reduce the incidence we have of coronary disease.

I don't know whether you've been following the news,

but Mayor Bloomberg of New York as you know

made certain laws

establishing the size of the soft drinks which you can buy and so forth so on

and he has other areas in which he is also enforcing by law. Healthful habits

many people question whether you should have your individual freedom limited by laws,

but there's no question about it

that there are certain things that we could implement in this country

to greatly reduce heart disease

you know The Cleveland Clinic is the world's great center for coronary artery disease

Coronary angiography the study of the coronary arteries

was developed at Cleveland Clinic

and you can't diagnose where the stoppages in your coronary arteries

without coronary angiography

now we have some newer methods,

but that's still sort of the gold standard

and Dr. Esselstyn of The Cleveland Clinic

He says that coronary artery disease does not need to exist

and it doesn't need to progress

and he does it on a low-fat vegan diet.

There have been only two people in the world that I know of

they've demonstrated that they can arrest and reverse coronary artery disease

and they are Dr. Dean Ornish of San Francisco

and Dr. Esselstyn of the Cleveland clinic

and they both did it on a low-fat vegan diet

if you would go on a low fat vegan diet and you exercise,

the chances of developing coronary disease will be very low

get that cholesterol under a hundred and forty

and you can.

My cholesterol is a hundred and seventeen

if I have some pain in my chest, I know it is not the coronary disease,

maybe due to some something in my esophagus

Hiatus Hernia from my stomach or something else,

but it's not coronary disease

because of a hundred and seventeen I'm not going to develop it

Anybody can do those things,

very simple.