A ground-breaking pioneer in preventive and restorative cardio-vascular medicine and a world class athlete, Dr. Esselstyn will be presenting his revolutionary program backed by the irrefutable results from his landmark 20-year study proving that changes in diet and nutrition can actually cure heart disease.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States for men and women. But, as Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., a former internationally known surgeon, researcher and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic, will explain in his presentation, it can be prevented, reversed, and even abolished. Dr. Esselstyn argues that conventional cardiology has failed patients by developing treatments that focus only on the symptoms of heart disease, not the cause.
Based on the groundbreaking results of his 20-year nutritional study, the results of which are published in his best-selling book Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Dr. Esselstyn will show how we can end the heart disease epidemic in this country forever by changing what we eat. Dr. Esselstyn convincingly argues that a plant-based, oil-free diet can not only prevent and stop the progression of heart disease, but also reverse its effects.
The proof is in the results. The patients in Dr. Esselstyn’s initial study came to him with advanced coronary artery disease. Despite the aggressive treatment they received, among them bypasses and angioplasties, five of the original group were told by their cardiologists they had less than a year to live. Within months on Dr. Esselstyn’s program, their cholesterol levels, angina symptoms, and blood flow improved dramatically. Twelve years later seventeen compliant patients had no further cardiac events. Adherent patients survived beyond twenty years free of symptoms.
If you consider for a minute that before he left the operating room to devote himself to research on diet and heart health, Dr. Esselstyn was an internationally known surgeon and clinician at the Cleveland Clinic, you get a glimpse of the character and integrity of this courageous, compassionate and determined leader.
Dr. Esselstyn’s experiment started at home. He and his wife, Ann Crile Esselstyn, adopted a plant-based diet, cutting out oil, meat, fish, fowl and dairy. “It means a lot to patients to know their doctor is making the same changes they are,” he says. The Esselstyns have followed a plant-based diet for more than 26 years.
Here are just a few of his many accomplishments: Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. from Western Reserve University. In 1956, pulling the No. 6 oar as a member of the victorious United States rowing team, he was awarded a gold medal at the Olympic Games. He was trained as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and at St. George’s Hospital in London. In 1968, as an Army surgeon in Vietnam, he was awarded the Bronze Star.
In 1991, Dr. Esselstyn organized the first National Conference on the Elimination of Coronary Artery Disease, which was held in Tucson, Arizona. In 1997, he chaired a follow-up conference, the Summit on Cholesterol and Coronary Disease, which brought together more than 500 physicians and health-care workers in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. In April, 2005, Dr. Esselstyn became the first recipient of the Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine. He received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Cleveland Clinic Alumni Association in 2009. Dr. Esselstyn received the 2013 Yale University GEORGE H.W. BUSH ’48 LIFETIME OF LEADERSHIP AWARD.
His scientific publications number over 150, In 1995 he published his bench mark long-term nutritional research arresting and reversing coronary artery disease in severely ill patients. That same study was updated at 12 years and reviewed beyond twenty years in his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.
Dr. Esselstyn is featured in the popular plant-based diet documentary Forks over Knives and appeared in the CNN special, “The Last Heart Attack” and other CNN programs. He presently directs the cardiovascular prevention and reversal program at The Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute.
The Esselstyns have four children and ten grandchildren.
Lectures for the 2015 Cruise
1. Keynote Lecture: Making Yourself Heart Attack Proof by Treating the Cause of Coronary Artery Heart Disease, Part 1
2. Keynote Lecture: Making Yourself Heart Attack Proof by Treating the Cause of Coronary Artery Heart Disease, Part 2
3. Q&A: Cruisin’ for Knowledge with Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Campbell and Dr. Greger, Hosted by Sandy Pukel
