In the movie Forks over Knives, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, and Caldwell Esselsytn, MD, promote the myth that low-fat, plant-based diets confer protection from heart disease. Dr. Esselstyn even flat out guarantees that vegans will never have a heart attack. Ever.
Sadly, plenty of vegans suffer or have died from heart disease, as well as cancer, diabetes and other serious health problems. My dear friend Peter Berg — gifted artist, animal activist and committed vegan — died of a sudden death heart attack at age 42. Peter believed his “kind diet” would not only honor the animals he loved so much but grant him good health and longevity.
The death of my friend Peter will surely be dismissed as “anecdotal evidence,” but nearly all the MDs, NDs, CCNs and other health practitioners I know attest to finding plenty of heart disease among vegan patients and clients.
And last week we learned the sad news of PETA spokesman actor Michael Clarke Duncan, whom PETA said was “enjoying the best health of his life” after adopting a diet high in fruits, vegetables, beans, peanuts, and tofu. Bill Clinton, though certainly thinner since going vegan, is looking poorly and the National Enquirer and similar tabloids all refer to him as “dying.”
We also see cardiovascular problems among meat eaters on the Standard American Diet (SAD) diet, of course. I believe Dr. Esselstyn may well be telling the truth when he says his patients show better health markers after adopting a vegan diet. But the likely reason is not that his patients have eliminated animal products from their diets but because they’ve also thrown out their supersized servings of junk foods full of the sugar, starchy carbs and trans fats that have been well proven to cause heart disease.
What then is the relationship of meat to heart disease? If meat and other animal products full of saturated fat and cholesterol don’t cause it then what effect might meat have? Numerous writers on this website have shown science acquitting meat of charges that it causes heart disease. Many of our members have concluded from this that meat either has no effect on heart disease or that its positive effect comes about from displacing disease-promoting junk foods high in sugar and starchy carbs.
But can meat and animal products actually protect us from heart disease? Yes, given meat’s protective effect on homocysteine levels. Just make that meat grass fed.
Homocysteine first came on the radar in 1969 when Kilmer S. McCully, MD, published the article “Vascular pathology of homocysteinemia: implications for the pathogenesis of arteriosclerosis” in the American Journal of Pathology (56, 111-128). Over the past four decades, homocysteine has not only been studied by Dr. McCully — known as “The Father of the Homocysteine Theory of Heart Disease” — but by many other researchers.
Homocysteinemia is an acquired metabolic abnormality, and Dr. McCully initially proposed it could be prevented easily and inexpensively by taking three B vitamins — B6, B12 and folate. Unfortunately, that solution proved simplistic. Although the data were clear that B6, B12 and folate were an important part of any prevention protocol, some people tested with high homocysteine anyway. The latest research suggests that sulfur deficiency — increasingly common in the modern world and especially common among vegetarians — might be an even more important risk factor.
Last year I reported on a study by Dr. McCully and Yves Ingenbleek, MD, that ran in the August 26, 2011 issue of the journal Nutrition. Its title “Vegetarianism produces subclinical malnutrition, hyperhomocysteinemia and atherogenesis” sounded a strong warning about heart disease risk, and the article itself detailed why subjects on mostly vegan diets can develop morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease unrelated to vitamin B status and Framingham criteria.
The fact that the subjects developed high homocysteine “unrelated to vitamin B status” is matters. Vegans, after all, have long believed they can reduce their homocysteine risk by taking supplemental B12. B6 and folate levels can be adequate in non-junk food vegan diets that emphasize grains and vegetables though the ability to convert B6 to the active form of pyridoxal-5-phosphate — found readymade primarily in animal products — may be compromised, While taking this trio of B vitamins as a heart disease “insurance policy”remains important, the Nutrition article suggested high-quality protein — animal protein — rich in the sulfur containing amino acids methionine and cysteine is also needed. Plant-based proteins will not suffice.
An article published late last year by Dr. Ingenbleek entitled “The Oxidative Stress of Hyperhomocysteinemia Results from Reduced Bioavailability of Sulfur-Containing Reductants” expands upon the issues raised in the Nutrition article.
(The Open Clinical Chemistry Journal, 2011, 4, 34-44) http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tocchemj/articles/V004/34TOCCHEMJ.pdf
It is important to note here that high homocysteine is a major cause of CVD unrelated to classical Framingham criteria,which are high cholesterol, dyslipidemia, sedentary lifestyle, diabetes and smoking. In other words, vegans are at risk for heart disease whether or not they achieve goals of low total and LDL cholesterol thought by Dr. Esselstyn, T. Colin Campbell, PhD, Neal Barnard, MD, and other proponents of veganism to be protective against heart disease. It is also clear that maintaining healthy habits such as getting enough exercise and not smoking may not be protective enough.
🖨️ Print post
My sister and her progeny, all virtuous vegans, really need to read this article but probably won’t. If I sent it to them and they happened to read it they would just dismiss it under some generality.
They know, just know, down to their core that eating plants only is healthy. They get that message in countless media implantings every day for years that completely override any sense of logic or objectivity. And of course it goes without saying they believe themselves to be the most objective and rational beings in the galaxy.
Oh, well. If Bill Clinton (otherwise very smart and plugged in) can be fooled I don’t see why they can’t be.
You might want to get them Lierre Keith’s book The Vegetarian Myth, which covers the full spectrum of issues. And there’s lots free here on this website including our Vegetarian Tour.
I did exactly that. When I asked my sister what she thought all she would say (by e-mail) is “I’m not impressed with her technical knowledge.” (She took some undergrad classes in nutrition so she feels she is an expert.) I am afraid that for most people nutrition is in the realm of politics or religion, not science.
On a better note when I found out my vegetarian niece (different sister) was feeding her infant soy-based formula I sent her husband a copy of your book. I think they know better now but I find it scary how easy it is in this day and age for people to feed their kids and themselves poison while at the same time repudiating healthy food.
Think you’re healthy? Get a CAC xray test. This shows actual plaque and where it is.
Scores range from 0 to 1000. My meat- eating heart is a zero. What’s yours?
Good luck to those trying to persuade their vegetarian and vegan friends and family. For many such people, their choice of diet is essentially an ideological or even religious sort of thing. It can be very difficult to persuade such people using facts and logic.
PS: I think that Michael Clarke Duncan fellow may have been “juicing,” and I don’t mean wheatgrass. That can’t have helped.
Isn’t it well-known that we DON’T absorb B-12 supplements very well because the digestive system pretty much tears it up before it can do it’s job? At least, that’s what I understood.
B-12 shots were the only way to get around the digestive tract…unless you just eat meat.
Even sublingual supplements don’t provide enough B-12 to do any good–it would take massive amounts to equal the B-12 in one juicy steak.
The absorption rate of B12 supplements is 1-2%. You do not have to take them sublingually.
They can be just as effective as B12-shots.
You can get 1000mcg or even 5000mcg pills in stores nowadays.
Getting a pills with just a few mcgs won’t suffice, though.
If B12 supplementation didn’t work, all vegans would be highly symptomatic a few years into being vegan. With that, and my having been vegan for 7 years, and my b12 levels actually reaching the upper healthy limit, I’d say you’re a little wrong.
As a long term vegan with great B-12 levels, I use Red Star nutritional yeast as my primary source — other than the old-fashioned way people used to get B-12: from the soil. I buy organic veggies from my CSA and farmers’ market and don’t wash the soil off, so I can get the luscious B-12 that grows in it! And in my understanding, Red Star grows its yeast in a medium of molasses, so the B-12 is actually grown on the yeast rather than being a supplement such as found in milks.
Not true methyl B12 can supply all you need, many whole food plant based vegans blood work indicate great B12 in our clinic and this is not in the false analogue readings from those found in chlorella. This is not a plant based eater problem many meat eaters can show low B12 levels due to a number of reasons. As for the heart disease we now from very recent peer reviewed in field intervention treatment study that the sat fats including extracted oils but more especially in the animal proteins damage endothelial function, we can see in the calcium heart scans. Some info to be found here but much of the content to be found on This website quotes many archaic studies and is a real disservice to some of the great strides in heart disease intervention being made today by those in the trenches activly treating patients and studying bloodwork and publishing research that is being accountable to their peers.
About sulphur containing amino acids reducing homocysteine, what about studies showing life extension by methionine restriction?
Very few people are vegan from birth. Most people come to it later in life, after having consumed meat and dairy for a decade or two, or more. On top of that there are genetic and environmental considerations. Just being vegan doesn’t make you live a healthy lifestyle – you can still be lazy and eat a lot of fat and sugar. Just because one vegan dies of a heart attack doesn’t mean veganism is wrong. Look at per capita’s of meat eater heart attacks versus vegans.
Yes exactly vegan is to general a term there are many unhealthy vegan diets but what what the intervention interns seem to use is a whole food plant based diet low to moderate in fat this has been well documented now in peer reviewed research. The patient example here used to discredit the virtues of the plant based intervention approach would have likely showed massive endothelial damage from the decades of high animal protein and artery injuring foods, in fact the plant based intervention at the late stage of his chronic illness may have actually improved blood work and perhaps added some time to this patients life although it is not mentioned here.
I feel fortunate to have many role models of extremely healthy vegans who have been vegan for decades; one of my friends is 81 and has been vegan for 43 years. He jogs 3 miles a day! I do understand that this diet does not create health for everyone, and I respect choices people must make for their health. However, for the environment, for the animals, and for ethical reasons, I am so glad to be able to make the choice that every creature is equal and deserves to live as much as I do.
I just know too many unhealthy or dead too young vegans, some 7th day Adventists.
And I did very poorly on a vegan diet myself.
How are monocropped fields of grains and greens and almond trees etc good for the environment?
Since when is eating animals not moral when it has been done for millions of years
I have done much reading and from it all; it seems the healthiest way is to get rid of the white flour bread, white flour pasta, sugar, soda, potato chips, white rice, sugary juice; and consume lots of leafy greens, sweet potatoes, pistachios, creamy unsweetened peanut butter, whole grains, whole fruit, unsweetened coconut milk (which is so GOOD!), coconut oil, ; along with some cage-free humane organic eggs, sustainable wild-caught fish, free-range organic game meat (hunting is far LESS cruel & dirty than factory-farms!) & use Stevia extract as our main sweetener.
Combine this with physical activity, good-quality sleep, good books, good jobs, independence, dignity, fairness, freedom, & being nice to people. Do not torture humans or animals. If you must kill; do so quickly, cleanly; and make full use of whatever you kill; no wasteful bratty!
Avoid cigarette,sugar, white flour soda, booze, drugs, cruelty torture of people and animals, dependence, oppression; like the Plague!
Cinnamon & Vitamin D are also good; as is Ginger.
Do not eat weiners, sausage, salami, bacon or other processed meats. Consume lots of fiber & vegetables!
Peter died of Lung Cancer…