324 THE CHINA STUDYsurgery he had done, the lumpectomies and mastectomies, he expressed
disgust at the idea of "disfiguring somebody when you know that you
haven't changed their chances for recovery. "
He began to do some soul searching. "What is my epitaph going to
be? Five thousand mastectomies! You've disfigured more women than
anybody else in Ohio!" Dropping the sarcasm, he said with sincerity, "I
think everybody likes to leave the planet thinking that maybe ... maybe
you've helped a little."
Dr. Esselstyn began studying the literature on the diseases he com-
monly treated. He read some of the popular work of Dr. John McDou-
gall, who had just written a best-selling diet and health book called The
McDougall Plan.^3 He read the scientific literature that compared inter-
national disease rates and lifestyle choices, and a study by a University
of Chicago pathologist showing that a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet fed
to nonhuman primates could reverse atherosclerosis. He came to the
realization that the diseases that so often plagued his patients were due
to a diet rich in meat, fat and highly refined foods.
As mentioned in chapter five, he got the idea to treat heart patients
with a low-fat, plant-based diet, and in 1985 went to the head of the
Cleveland Clinic to discuss his study. She said that nobody had ever
shown that heart disease in humans could be reversed by using dietary
treatment. Still, Ess knew he was on the right track and went about qui-
etly conducting his study over the next several years. The study he pub-
lished, of eighteen patients with heart disease, demonstrated the most
dramatic reversal of heart disease in the history of medicine, simply by
using a low-fat, plant-based diet and a minimal amount of cholesterol-
reducing medication.
Esselstyn has become a champion of dietary treatment of disease, and
he has the data to prove his case. But it hasn't been easy. Rather than
recognizing him as a hero, some in the medical establishment would
rather he disappear. Somewhere in this transition from top-ranked,
self-described "macho, hard-ass surgeon" to dietary advocate, he has
become known, behind his back, as Dr. Sprouts.
A DAUNTING TASKWhat's interesting about this story is that a man who had reached the
pinnacle of a highly respected profession dared to try something dif-
ferent, succeeded, and then quickly found himself on the outside of