Patient's fatal heart attack turns doctor to Paleo diet

As I drove home I could not get one thing out of my mind.  This gentleman had been to my office to see me just the week before, and I was very encouraging to him about how things were going.  He was in his early 60’s, and suffered from high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obstructive sleep apnea.  The thing is, they were all VERY WELL CONTROLLED! His blood pressure was perfect, his diabetes numbers mirrored that of a non-diabetic patient, and his cholesterol was well below the goals set by multiple cardiovascular studies.  In addition, his cardiologist had convinced him that his meat based diet was the culprit of his seemingly uncontrollable heart disease, and he had adapted a strict vegan diet for well over a year.  In many parts of the country that’s not too hard to believe, but to a Cajun from the land of boudin and pork cracklins, this was quite the feat! So, I asked myself…how could this skinny, well controlled hypertensive, diabetic, vegan Cajun gentleman in his early 60’s have just died from his fourth heart attack?  Something was wrong!

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