Open Future Health

President Eisenhower's Heart Attacks

President Eisenhower has the best health care available in 1955. Eisenhower was an ideal patient, but his heart killed him in 1969.

Good News: You don't have to follow the advice given to President Eisenhower. However, you should know what that advice was.

President Eisenhower got the best medical care and advice available in the 1960's. He was an ideal patient.

A Time Before Heart Attacks?

Local FileThe first recorded myocardial infarction (heart attack) was recorded in the USA in 1921. By 1930, there had been 3000 more heart attack deaths.

Dr Paul Dudley White, as a young man at Massachusetts General Hospital, examined 700 men over 60, for a research report. Only four reported any chest pain.

No knowing what we know

Our world is currently in the process of revolutionary change, bigger than the agricultural revolution, and bigger than the industrial revolution. Today is a very exciting time to be alive, especially at our age when we can see for ourselves how much change has happened in the last 70 years.

Local FileEnglish farmers in 1860 understood how to make pigs fat. But English doctors in 1860 didn't know what made people fat. How can that be? Knowledge about how not to be fat was wide-spread in Europe at the same time. Local FileWilliam Banting wrote the first text in English, about how to reduce your weight.

Weight control wasn't a problem in Europe before WWII. They understood the problem. How did we lose that knowledge and spend the next 50 years trying to rediscover the "secret"?

How is it that we know about animal nutrition, but can't apply the same principles to human nutrition? Why did people listen to Local FileDr Ancel Keys, and to Dr Dean Ornish, both of whom were wrong, and ignore Local FileGeorge V Mann who was right?

When Norman Jolliffe designed the Local FileAnti-Coronary Club, he was sure that he understood what was causing Health Disease. For two years it seemed that he was right. Then it all went wrong.

President Eisenhower's Heart Attacks

President Eisenhower suffered his first heart attack in 1955. The most eminent heart specialist in the USA was assigned to his care, Dr Paul Dudley White.

Local FileProf. Ancel Keys, of the University of Minnesota, took the opportunity to tell the nation that everybody should be eating a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. Cholesterol was part of the hardened deposits (plaques) in the artery walls of people with atherosclerosis. Since animal fats, particularly saturated fats contained cholesterol, Keys connected the dots without any experimental evidence to back his assertions.

EisenhowerEisenhower war a heavy smoker, of normal weight, with normal total cholesterol. In that time, smoking was very common and was not seen as a possible problem.

Eisenhower was advised to eat fewer saturated fats and limit Local Filedietary cholesterol. He did exactly as he was told, but his weight increased, and his total cholesterol went up. A military man who prided himself on self-discipline, Eisenhower tried to do better. Once again, the result was worse.

Over the next 13 years, there were 6 more heart attacks.

Eisenhower suffered persistent problems with his digestive system.

He died in 1969 of a heart attack.

By this time, the research community thought they understood what caused heart attacks and how to lessen the risk. They thought that people needed to make several changes in lifestyle, to reduce the incidence of heart disease. You will be familiar with these. They are still commonly recommended. The 1970's version of a "heart safe" programme was a Low-fat diet, more exercise, blood pressure control, to cease smoking, and reduce total cholesterol. The study of this programme was called Local FileThe Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial. Before you click that link, ask yourself how that trial turned out?

At the same time, another group began a study to see if lowering total cholesterol with a drug,"cholestyramine" was effective when combined with a low-fat diet. The result was positive, but insignificantly so. Dr Philip Handler chairperson of the Food and Nutrition Board in 1980 said, "However tenuous the linkage, and however disappointing the various intervention trials, it seemed prudent to propose ..." He goes on to confirm acceptance of the low-fat diet and reduced cholesterol recommendation. He concludes his statement saying, "Resolution of this dilemma turns on a value judgment. The dilemma posed is not a scientific question; it is a question of ethics, morals and politics. Those who argue either position strongly, are expressing their values; they are not making scientific judgments."

For the next thirty years that was the basis for public policy on the recommended diet, and how to reduce the risk of heart disease.

Red Divider Line

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