Alkaline Diet: “It changed my whole metabolism” Clinton says
Former president Bill Clinton, years after being known as “the McDonalds hamburger eating president” now says he has turned his back on fast food fare. Citing concerns about cholesterol buildup in a recently installed stint, the former president decided to go on a diet that was based the work of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, the author of “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” and Dr. Dean Ornish, the author or “The Spectrum”.
Clinton Slims Up
President Clinton’s diet came to light in an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, who noticed that Clinton had lost a lot of weight, and was looking a lot healthier. When asked by Blitzer, Clinton astounded viewers by revealed that he had lost 24 pounds on a vegan diet composed largely of beans, legumes, vegetables and fruits. The former president says he starts his day with a protein shake made with almond milk, and occasionally eats fish, but nothing else. Clinton says his diet “changed my whole metabolism” and now says he weighs as much as he did in high school!
The former president is no stranger to health and fitness. During his years in the White House, Clinton could be seen jogging every day along with a horde of secret service personnel. After he left the presidency, he could be seen jogging outside of his Chappaqua, NY home. The change in the president’s diet makes one thing perfectly clear: You can’t outrun heart disease and obesity!
While the former president never mentions the word alkaline when describing his diet, the foods he says he eats all have an alkaline pH, the foods he avoids, dairy and meat, are very acidic. It is no coincidence that foods we regard as healthy; such as raw fruits and vegetables, have higher alkalinity than foods that are not considered healthy, such as burgers and milkshakes.
Highly Respected Medical Authorities
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, one of the authors credited by the president with his healthy new diet, wrote a book called “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” after conducting a 20 year study on the use of diet and nutrition to prevent and cure heart disease. Dr. Esselstyn’s study followed a group of cardiac patients with advanced coronary disease, five of whom had been given less than a year to live by their cardiologists. None of the people in the study were expected by their doctors to live very long.
Everyone in the group saw dramatic improvements in their health in the first few months of the diet. From the original group, 17 adhered strictly to Dr. Esselstyn’s diet for the full 20 years of the study. All of them survived the full 20 years of the study, and had no further cardiac events for the first 12 years of the study.
Dr. Dean Ornish is the founder and president of the prestigious nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Calif. The program developed by Dr. Ornish for reversing heart disease is based on diet and lifestyle changes, and it is so effective that it is approved by Medicare for Intensive Cardiac Rehabilitation (ICR). The Ornish program is approved by Medicare for patients that have experienced one or more of the following serious problems:
- An acute myocardial infarction within the preceding 12 months
- A coronary artery bypass surgery
- Current stable angina pectoris
- Heart valve repair or replacement
- Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or coronary stenting
- A heart or heart-lung transplant
