abide him. >> they can't stomach him. >> if they must, they must. >> 23% do. >> right now republicans have i think a lot of unfounded optimism with how easy it will be to beat president obama. they want to beat him with somebody they like. >> we'll have to wait and see. thanks very much. that's all for tonight. coming up a cnn documentary, the last heart attack with dr. sanjay gupta. thanks for joining us. >> everywhere you look seems a heart attack is just waiting to happen. more than a million heart attacks a year. that's one just about every 30 seconds. just in the united states. if you haven't had a heart attack yourself, you likely know someone who has. i've got a secret to share, with what we know right now, we could see the last heart attack in america. i've been investigating this for over a year. i've got lessons to share.

things you need to know. things your doctor may not tell you. >> i was lucky i didn't die of a heart attack. >> former president clinton like too many people was busy. and for years he ignored warning signs from his heart. but in 2004, during an exhausting book tour there was something different. >> i had a real tightness in my chest getting off the airplane. it was the only time i had it unrelated to exercise. >> we're outs presbyterian hospital, former president bill clinton is scheduled to undergo surgery. >> i immediately went down to our local hospital and they did a test and said you've got real problems. they hustled me down to colombia

presbyterian and they confirmed the determination that i had serious blockage and needed the surgeries. >> the doctors immediately knew options were limited. the 58-year-old clinton needed to have his chest opened, his heart stopped, and surgery performed. >> there's no medical treatment for reversing the obstructions that had already formed in his blood vessels. >> they had hillary clinton and chelsea there. i felt serene. i felt we dodged the bullet. >> on labor day in 2004, mr. clinton has four blootd vessels bypassed. >> starting this morning around 8:00 he had a relatively routine quadruple bypass operation. we left the operating room around noon and he is recovering normally at this point. right now everything looks

straight forward. >> there was that period when you're just not sure you can come back. that bothered me. that and the pain. >> if it happened to him, could it happen to you? what happened me? i'm a pretty typical guy in his early 40s with a family history of heart disease. so i decided to go on a mission to never have a heart attack. but how? >> when people talk about trying to end heart attacks in the world or in america at least, one of the ways to do that is to take a look inside the heart, see what's happening before someone ever has a problem. and that's what we're going to do here today. you're actually going to look for what in my heart? >> for calcium which is part of the process, the plaques in the heart. if you are -- >> i've never had a problem, but you're looking for it anyways? >> yes. if you're heading for a heart attack in five, ten, 20 years you will already have plaque

it's a lifelong process. >> that's the doctor you may recognize him as author of the south beach diet books. he also invented the coronary calcium scan. that's the test i have done. in case you're wondering, he doesn't make any money from it. we all know plaque is bad. it blocks your blood vessels. blood is formed by cholesterol in the blood, the bad cholesterol. think of it as l for lousy. building up on the walls of your arteries forming plaque that can accumulate slowly over time narrowing the blood vessels like something building up inside a pipe. this their owing in the blood vessels can cause chest pain called angina. it canal cause a heart attack. did you ever wonder how seemingly healthy people can have a heart attack? most heart attacks happen in people with no symptoms and

people whose arteries are less than 50% blocked here's how, cholesterol can cause unstable publs or blisters of plaque to form in your arteries. these can be dangerous. most are covered by a cap. but inflammation and stress can cause the cap to thin and rupture resulting in a clot that blocks the flow of blood to the heart. robbed of oxygen, the heart muscle can't function properly. heart attack. and therein lies the key, he says. we can now found clues before heart trouble getting dangerous even before the first symptoms. well before you get to the stage president clinton was. >> bill clinton arguably had eight years of some of the best health care in the world. after he left office he had significant heart problems. that surprised people. how could it be he could get this level of heart care and

have heart problems. >> he had multivessel disease. he had a lot of plaque. that plaque could have been identified with a heart scan years before. >> i don't want to sound glim, why wasn't it done? you'd assume the white house doctors, the president of the united states they'd be doing that for him? why not? >> it was not the standard of care then. we are past that. >> it turns out he had a coronary scan months after leaving office. but the technology was so new then doctors weren't quite sure what to do with the results. they said i had some calcium build up around my heart that put me basically in the top 1/3 of risks, but no evidence of blockage. for a few months before this happened, often when i would do strenuous exercise there were

some hilly areas, when i'd climb those hills i had to stop and take a breath. i didn't take it seriously because every time it happened i just lowered the exercise level, got my breath back and it was never painful. it was just tight. >> if this isn't good for my heart, i don't know what is. >> by the time he felt the first symptoms, that tightness in his chest, president clinton's heart disease was well advanced. it had been decades in the making. >> you don't die with your first plaque. you develop blockages really your whole life for many, many years before it causes a heart attack or stroke. >> and what the doctor told me next should ring a bell of hope for just about anyone who's ever worried about a heart attack, it doesn't have to happen. >> one of the best kept secrets in the country in medicine is that doctors who are practicing aggressive prevention are really seeing heart attacks and strokes

to secure from their practices. it's doable. >> and you're saying we -- with what we know right now we don't have to have anymore heart attacks in this country? >> i'll never say not any, but the great majority, yes, absolutely. >> it's the biggest killer of men and women heart disease in this country. >> it's completely preventable. >> coming up, more tests to gauge my heart attack risk. and can you really tell who's a heart attack waiting to happen? also, can the right diet make you heart attack proof. we'll meet a woman who's betting we'll meet a woman who's betting her life on it. the family thinks i'm out shipping these. smooth move. you used prrity mail flat rate boxes. if it fits, it ships for a low, flat rate. paid for postage online and arranged a free pickup. and i'm gonna track them online, too. nice. between those boxes and this place, i'm totally staying sane this year. do i smell snickerdoodles? maybe. [ timer dings ] got to go. priority mail flat rate shipping at usps.com.

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with a family history of heart disease and a lifetime of bad eating habits, president clinton told me he was a heart attack waiting to happen. but what does someone really look like who's about to have a heart attack? you probably wouldn't think this guy. tom bear, 53, thin, seemingly healthy and one step short of a full blown heart attack. in fact, he's checking into this hospital in lincoln, nebraska, for open heart surgery.

it's an important lesson what you see on the outside doesn't always match the inside. >> in this instance it obviously closed down quite a bit. >> this surgeon shows us the striking images. >> you can see that tight narrowing that limits the amount of blood that can get out. then you have a real tight narrowing up here. that vessel on the side takes off and then another narrowing here. and a pretty tight narrowing there. >> reporter: all the major blood vessels supplying blood to the heart booked. yes, that is the very picture of a heart attack waiting to happen. >> he's at risk for heart attack just because of the amount of plaque he has in there. >> like me, hawaii has a family history of heart disease. what's why four years ago he underwent the coronary calcium scan that we just learned about. his results were not good. >> the score was 111. >> zero is the best.

over 100 means an increased risk of heart attack. even sudden death. >> and you may breathe. go ahead and rest your arms down. going to take me a couple minutes to check these images and make sure we have everything we need. >> bare went through the test again this year and his score was up to 243. the average score for someone his age, five. >> i was doing some exercise about three weeks ago, jogging routine that i do. and made it about .3 of a mile then had the classic symptoms the chest pain and then the pain down the left arm. and shortness of breath. >> as in the case of bill clinton, bare was told he had no options by the time he saw the doctor. within days, he would need bypass surgery. >> in this instance this is sort of what i would consider a medical failure. in other words he got these

narrowings and plaque despite our efforts to prevent it from progressing. and my goal would be as even though i'm a surgeon and treat these end stage things is to not have them get to this point. from a public health standpoint we have to do this. this bypass operation is going to be very expense i have. >> he's not kidding. average cost in the u.s. $112,000. and there are about 450,000 procedures performed every year. total price tag, more than $50 billion. >> our money would be better spent years ahead of this to prevent him from getting to this point. >> prevent ever getting to this

point. that is precisely my goal for me and for you, the last heart attack. the doctor has guaranteed he can see trouble coming years in advance well before i need surgery, if i do the right tests. >> so here's where the blood is flowing. and this is the lining. he's using an ultrasound to look for plaque in the carotid artery leading to my brain. a blockage here can cause a stroke and would be a sign i'm at increased risk for a heart attack. >> unless you do the imaging and the advanced testing, you are really playing russian ruelet with your life. >> your body needs cholesterol, actually makes it. it's in the lining of every cell in your body, the liver sends out ldl cholesterol when everything works right the good hdl scavenges the excess ldl and bringing it back to the liver. you get cholesterol in foods, things like meat, french fries, eggs, butter, desserts, ice

cream. your cholesterol number is a good measure of what's in the blood. but here's the problem, it doesn't tell you if it's building up in the walls of your blood vessels forming plaque. it's the plaque na causes heart attacks. >> if you look in the coronary care unit at people that have heart attacks the cholesterol levels of those who have heart attacks versus those many the street that have it is essentially the same. >> that is surprising. you'll hear people exchanging their cholesterol numbers if it's low, they're quite pride, if it's high there's cause for concern. you say you're not looking in the right place. >> that's essentially use lease. >> here's what does matter, the doctor says, the size of your ldl or bad cholesterol particles. larger ldl particles don't pose much of a threat because they pass through the blootd ever blood vessels without sticking. it's is smaller particles that are more likely to stick in the walls of blood vessels and cause

a build up of plaque. >> if they're small, you can have small particles that penetrate the wall easily. there are little old ladies in their 80s with high cholesterol and have squeaky clean vessels. >> so you have to ask about the size of the particles as well when it comes to bad cholesterol. >> that's why the doctor wants a blood sample. >> i don't think anybody likes getting their blood drawn. >> he wants to find out if i have a lot of small ldl particles, a sign i could be prone to building up plaque no matter what my overall cholesterol number is. >> coming up -- >> i was incredibly lucky that something more severe didn't happen. >> lessons from former president clinton. and the pictures don't lie. i learn if my arteries are young or old. >> time to find out what fate has to offer. >> and a controversial diet. this 66-year-old woman say she's

eating her way to heart health. >> we're never going to end the epidemic with stents, with bypasses with drugs because none of it is treating kauization of of it is treating kauization of the illness. ni-i-i-ck. oh... i thought those were put out for me. i did it again. no worries, nick. [ sighs ] say, nick, you must be busy this holiday. oh, yeah, with all the great savings we got going on, it's been crazy. ooh, i got to dash away. customers lining up. ♪ [ male announcer ] this holiday, chevy's giving more. ♪ but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation and self-contained recycling systems... ... and protect land - by reducing our footprint and respecting wildlife. america's natural gas...

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rch spend just a few moments with bill clinton and you'll see he's a changed man. for starters, he's a lot thinner than he was as president.

when his halfhearted exercise routine and his taste for fast food became the stuff of parody. >> you're a mcnugget. just released from great britain so somalia. >> dr. dean onnish has studied and written about diet and heart disease for decades. mrs. clinton asked me if i would work with the chefs that cook for the first family and began working with pitt clinton as one of his consulting physicians. the president did like unhealthy foods. we were able to put soy burgers in the white house and have him get foods they were delicious and nutritious. >> even with the doctor's help, after his physical the white house doctor said the president had put on 18 pounds since a check up two years earlier. >> it all looks good. >> while diet and exercise can go a long way, most doctors will tell you to get to the last heart attack in america there is

more. >> it's public knowledge that he was going through stressful times during that time. it goes to show you that information alone is not sufficient. we need to work at a deeper level. we need to work with the underlying stresses, the loneliness, the isolation that people are experiencing. >> we're taking the weight towards the balls of the feet. >> that's why this doctor's prescription for heart patients includes yoga. >> the mind will begin to quiet down. >> meditation. and group sessions at his institute in california. >> i came to vermont determined to get my cholesterol down. with low fat ben and jerry's cherry garcia. >> we now know when bill clinton was president he passed his annual physicals. but his heart disease was still progressing undetected. i asked his cardiologist why? >> one lesson is check ups are

not a substitute for lifestyle. >> as president, bill clinton never got any of the advanced imaging like the coronary calcium scan or the ultrasound of his carotid. those are tests that are now more readily available to everyone. clinton was also getting a false sense of assurance from the testing he did have. and it was the year he left office when he had the first simple toms of heart disease. >> in 2001 when chelsea was graduating from stanford, i started running again. i wanted to get in good shape. i thought this is crazy. i couldn't run more than 3/4 without stop angds walking 100 yards and getting my breath back. >> three years later the bypass operation with dr. craig smith. president clinton's heart troubles were not over. when the devastating earthquake struck haiti in 2010, president clinton flew to portauprince to support the relief efforts.

i spent time with him and saw that he looked tired not himself. >> got all pale and weak. i got all these letters from the doctor saying yes, it's normal because fools like you won't do what you're supposed to do. you won't eat like you should. you don't exercise like you should. >> the doctors said it was a mechanical failure of the bypass and he needed stents to open the blocked artery. >> i got so lucky they were able to put those two stents in and fix an artery that was pretty ugly. >> the goal of the treatment and i think it will be achieved is for president clinton to resume his very active lifestyle. this was not a result of either his lifestyle or his diet which has been excellent. >> but dr. dean onnish didn't

see it that way. >> you need to know that your genes are not your fate. i say this not to blame you, but to empower you. and i'm happy to work with you to whatever extent you want to move forward in that way. we met a few days later and hbs he was ready to do it. >> i essentially concluded that i just played russian roulette even though i had changed my diet some and cut down on the caloric total of my ingestion and cut back on how much high cholesterol food i was eating, i still without any scientific basis to support what i did was taken in a lot of extra cholesterol would knowing if my body was disposing of it. that's when i made a decision to really change. >> coming up, president clinton transforms his diet to save his

heart. and what is life like after heart surgery? tom bare's painful recovery and his complications. >> walked about .3 of a mile and it was excruciating. >> also, she said no to surgery and yes to food as medicine. and yes to food as medicine. we'll tell you if it's working.. ♪ how about now? nope. ♪ [ dog barking ] ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] the chevy silverado. ♪ [ male announcer ] with best-in-class 4x4 available v8 fuel economy. finally! ♪ [ male announcer ] from getting there... to getting away from there. chevy runs deep.

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hello and happy thanksgiving weekend. three american college stud students in egypt are now free. the men were arrested monday after throwing molotov cocktails. they have left the police station in cairo and are planning on boarding three separate commercial flights back to dust. black friday turned ugly today at a walmart in north carolina. offdispute police officers used pepper spray before the start of an electronics sale. at another walmart outside of los angeles a shopper used pepper spray on other shoppers to ensure she got her hands on an x box console. police are reviewing videotapes to find the woman. anl rhyss are expecting a record $1.2 brl in sales on one of the internet's biggest shopping days of the year. more news later.

in lincoln, nebraska, tom bare is in surgery. he's in the cardiac intensive care unit. it's the first stop on a slow, painful recovery. >> i'm stiff. i'm sore. i'm tired. he has a life threatening complications. one that will soon have him back many the operating room. >> it's nice to be home. they say you heal ten time faster and you feel 100% better.

i didn't have any idea of how uncomfortable i was going to be just doing little things. like getting out of bed many the morning was the hardest thing to do. >> life after bypass surgery. for tom bare it means it's three weeks before he takes his first walk outside. and gets a painful warning of trouble ahead. >> a little worried back there. my arm's starting to hurt. just trying to catch my breath. >> i spoke to tom bare right before his operation. >> what happened? >> none of the arteries worked. >> did they say that this was a pretty unusual? >> never seen before. >> wow. >> that's not the kind of luck you want. >> no. not at all. so the doctor is going to use veins today. >> serious complications are an unfortunate part of the process for 12% of the people who have bypass surgery.

in fact, one in 300 patients need a second operation within two years. and in 20 receive stents during that time. bill clinton needed to have one of his blood vessels reopened six years after his operation. after getting the stents to open up that blocked artery in 2010, former president clinton says he decided to make changes in his diet. this time around he decided to get much more strict radical even in his approach. no more meat, no more eggs, no more dairy. almost no oil the man tra is eat nothing that has a mother or a face. >> talk about the fact that you love to eat. >> i like the stuff -- i like the vegetables, the fruits, the

beans, the stuff i eat now i like. i like it. >> do you call yourself a vegan? >> i suppose i am if i don't eat dairy or meat or fish. >> you cut all that out. >> once in a while literally in well over a year now at thanksgiving i had one bite of turkey. >> you're doing this for your health is that why you're doing it? >> absolutely. >> clinton's dietary guides dean ornish and this guy, at the cleveland clinic. >> he read my book. i've never met the man. >> he has written him. >> he wrote me a letter saying he thought i was cheating on mine. he was afraid in my protein drink i had some dairy in there. it was hilarious. i checked on one of them he was right. i had only done it right. he was right. >> every month the 77-year-old

holds a day long seminar attracting doctors and heart patients from across the country. like sharon kents, a retired private investigators from canton, ohio. she had a heart attack six months earlier after a coronary artery became completely blocked. >> he said for someone that had what you have, the only warning you usually get is death. and at that point, i really knew how lucky i was. >> like a lot of women, she did not experience the classic chest pain. but rather fatigue and a pain in her jaw. >> he said you're going to have to have open heart surgery. he said i can fix you today. i can just take you right down to o.r. and operate on your right now. >> my son was in there and he was ready to wheel me down to the operating room. he was frantic. it's terrifying. >> what he did next may surprise you. she turned the surgeon down cold said no to open heart surgery.

and decided to take a chance. >> i bought some parsnips the other day. always have sweet potatoes on hand. >> using food as medicine. >> i love these. they're wonderful. >> like president clinton kents has given up the food she loves like butter and cheese. she's betting her life on the diet. she had a heart attack -- >> i know. >> you know sharon? >> oh, yeah. >> doctors recommendations she had an intervention. is there a downside? >> no. i think that's an slents question. in hundreds of patients data now going back over 20 years and more recent study about a decade, once they start eating this way, you'll make yourself heart attack proof. >> we know if people are eating this way, they're not going to have a heart attack. >> he thinks heart disease is completely preventable. no matter what sort of family history you have simply by eating right. >> it's a food borne illness.

we're never going to end the epidemic with stents, with bypasses, with drugs because none of it is treating causation of the illness. >> he has won some allies. like dr. terry mason. chief medical officer at cook county hospitals in chicago and the city's former public health commissioner. >> we've eaten ourselves into a problem and we can eat ourselves out of it. >> it puts him squarely against conventional wisdom which considers diet only a part of a heart healthy lifestyle. >> if a doctor were to say to me heart disease is a food born disease if you follow this strict diet, but in exchange you're not going to have a heart attack, what would you say to that? do you agree to that? >> i would say that's an oversimplification and an overstatement of what we're able to do, even though i know there

are people who say it. >> without a doubt, he's a general surgeon by training not a cardiologist and he holds no special degree in nutrition. but during his research he came upon a stunning fact. some cultures around the world like people living in central africa papa ne guinea highlanders have virtually no heart disease. none. so what can we learn from them. coming up, taking a page from the heart healthiest spots on the globe. the diet the doctor says can make you heart attack proof. [ tires screech ] [ crying ] [ applause ] [ laughs ] [ tires screech ] [ male announcer ] your life will have to flash by even faster. autodrive brakes on the cadillac srx activate after rain is detected

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>> mr. president, how are you? >> great. >> since leaving office bill clinton has made his own health and the health of the country his top dmesic priority. i saw it firsthand when he invited me to little rock. >> last time we spoke a few weeks ago you said you were going to be really strict on the diet. >> i'm being more strict now. by the time i have my 65th birthday i want to weigh what i did when i went home from law school in 1973. >> that's a grand ambition. i like that. how much was that, will you tell us? >> i got down to 185. >> all right. >> now i got down when chelsea

was married i weighed 192 which is what i weighed when i graduated from high school. anything under 195 was my optimum weight my whole life in. the summer of '73 we had a sorching hot sum summer and i ran three hours a day at the hottest hour of the day, which i could do back then in order to make the pounds go off. i'm going to try one more time. >> president clinton's diet no meat, no dairy, almost no oil got me thinking how different what he's eating now as compared to what he used to eat. and what most of us still eat. make a habit of high fat, high cholesterol meals like this and you can physically see the beginnings of heart disease. for starters your blood actually looks different. >> so let's start by looking at what healthy blood looks like after it's been spun. this bottom layer represents the

blood cells and this top layer represents the plasma. the plasma is a clear yellow layer that contains mostly water and electrolytes. >> here's what happens to your flood if you follow an unhealthy diet. the top layer is cloudy. it's laden with heart blocking fat and cholesterol. >> you have some easy to remember adages. >> we know what they couldn't eat, oil, dairy, meat, fish and chicken. what do we want them to eat? all the whole grains for the cereal, bread and pasta, beans, vegetables yellow, red, green and fruit. now what particular vegetables do we want them to have? box choi with charred, nap pa cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, parsley, spinach, arugula and carrots. >> nothing with a mother, nothing with a face.

you can manage the meat, egg and dairy association's think that's a terrible idea. >> inkoerpting lean beef into a healthy diet can help you stick to a healthy diet. >> eggs are a source of 13 vitamins and minerals. eggs are the gold standard when it comes to protein. >> dairy foods are very nutrient rich. you get a lot of flew treents for every calorie that you consume. >> a plant-based diets runs up against our meat loving culture. >> most doctors eat meat because most americans eat meat. if they don't see for themselves or their own families why it mike a good idea to cut meat, they may not be so inclined to recommend it for their own patients. >> even doctors who see the benefits of the diet may not recommend it to patients. >> anybody who's able to do that diet can have dramatic success. the problem is that many people

are unable and unwilling to make these changes in. my practice i try to take baby steps one step at a time. >> when it comes to diet it's not all or nothing. >> one of the interesting findsings is more people change their diet in lifestyle, the more they improve. >> i was curious about the science behind the claims. i dug up some peer review journals. they had no attacks, had no coronary events of any sort after five years. and 3/4 of these patients actually saw their blockages get smaller. >> you're not talking about reducing your chance of heart disease. you're talk about potentially reversing heart disease. >> absolutely. the lay wisdom is once you develop these plaques, they're there. you're stuck with them. try not to let them get worse. is that faulty thinking? >> i think it's absolutely faulty thinking. >> here's a picture he likes to

show of a heart patient with a blocked coronary artery. here's that same patient after going on a plant based diet. you see the way the blockage has almost disappeared? sharon survived a heart attack a year ago after a coronary artery became completely blocked. now she's counting on the diet to keep her from having another. >> thankfully your heart muscle function is normal. >> her cardiologist says so far so good with the diet. >> it's a difficult sell. but you know, those who get on to it, have benefitted from it without a question. >> i asked sharon to meet me here in new york city. you know, cooking at home is one thing. but eating on the road, eating on the run, that's quite another. as the old saying goes, if her diet can make it here, it can make it anywhere. >> 46th and broadway, please. hi, sharon, how are you?

you cook at home it's a lot more in your control. what's the most difficult thing when you're on the road? >> what i see here is i see pizza which is not, i'm sure there's oil in it. and that looks like pepperoni. i see pasta. my question would be when i go in do you have whole wheat pasta and then my second question is, can you prepare it without oil? that's a not. that's a not. but they have pasta and they have salad. >> here's another restaurant. i'm going to take some advice from you. you look at a menu like this, tell me what comes to your mind. >> the majority on there, i'm not going to eat. >> you just focussing on salad? >> not really, i could have the peaches, the strawberries. >> is this a restaurant -- >> oh yeah. >> she's a true believer. so is former president bill clinton. nowadays they have a lot of high

powered company. all of these ceos and former ceos are either vegetarians or vegans. coming up, plaque starts in childhood. what some schools are doing now so kids don't get heart disease later. and this doctor tells me if i should be worried. >> sanjay, good too see you. [ indistinct conversations ] nice, huh? yeah. you know what else is nice is all the savings you can get on cruze and traverse over there. oh! that's my beard. [ chuckles ] it's amazing.

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the former president once told me he likes to see results. he's helped with relief efforts after the tsunami in asia and the earthquake in haiti. he's worked on getting affordable aids drugs to africa. he and his foundation are now seeing results closer to home like at the northeast elementary magnet school in danville, illinois. >> on your mark, get set, go. >> at northeast magnet students have phys ed every day. more than one in five schools in the united states don't require p.e. at all. fresh fruits and vegetables are on the menu every day. no more fried foods. no more french fries. fruits and vegetables at every school lunch, again, that seems like that should just be the way

it is. >> it shows you how far we've gotten. there were so many people -- schools that were serving lunches that didn't have fruits and vegetables because they contracted with firms to provide them and they were trying to save money. and kids were happy to eat pizza and french fries or whatever. >> right. >> and when we started this, i think i told you years ago, i didn't know how much of a dent we could make in this. changing the culture is hard. it's turning a ship around before it hits the iceberg. i think we're beginning to turn it around. >> does anybody know what a cardiologist is? >> this doctor is also focused on improving the eating habits of young people. >> i think you guys should open a restaurant. did you learn how do do this here? >> he started a foundation working with students in philadelphia on healthy eating. >> wow.

>> efforts like these come at a time when obesity and diabetes, both risk factors for heart disease are at all time highs. and in the next 20 years, the american heart association predicts 33 million more americans will have heart disease. unless we change. >> we're very concerned because we are seeing the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease increasing. >> would you call yourself healthy now? >> well, i think i'm healthier than i was. i lost 27 pounds. all my blood tests are good. all my vital signs are good. and i feel good and i actually have believe it or not more energy. i seem to need less sleep. >> most people find they feel so much better so quick ly it refrains the reason from making these changes from fear of dying to joy of living. joy is what's sustainable. >> left leg up. >> a year in her diet, a year

after her heart attack, sharon says she feels great. simply walking tired her out 12 months ago. sharon, you think this helps you live long her. >> i hope so. i hope i get to see you retire. >> i have a feeling that's a very long time. which i hope you do. >> i hope i do, too. i think -- well you know what? if i don't live longer, i know i'm going to live more of a quality life. >> and sharon is doing it using food as medicine. for tom bare it was a tougher road. he required surgery. >> i was told i was going to feel like a million dollars and that hasn't happened yet. i'm still waiting for that. that pay off. i'm told that i'm good for another 40 years or so and i'm hoping that's the case, but with my history, i'm going to have to

watch it. >> so what about me? i have a family history am i heart attack proof? a couple weeks ago i met up with the doctor to get a full workout, to gauge my likelihood of having a heart attack. >> sanjay, good to see you. >> time to see what fate has to offer me. >> we had some good news when we did the imaging. you had no plaque on the coronary arteries in the calcium score. that your carotids were like a spring chicken, very young. >> someone made a comment to me this is a four-year guarantee. >> yes. >> would you agree with that? >> yes. i'd extend it to five to seven years. >> based on what you've already seen before we go over there five to seven years if i'm feeling chest pains probably not a heart attack. more good news. looking at my ldl the bad cholesterol, the doctor tells me they're mostly large particles

the kind that don't build up as plaque in the blood vessels. >> putting my whole picture together, what can you tell me? >> you're at low risk for future heart attack even though there's some family history. and clearly your lifestyle that you maintain your weight, that you do the exercise has helped to decrease your risk. >> if diet and exercise can make someone like melo risk for a heart attack even with a strong family history, that's encouraging. >> i don't think there's any question that not only should we be past our last heart attack, but the vast majority of people even my age, if they're prepared to change their diet, and exercise a little more, could actually reverse a lot of their blockage. >> heart disease could be as rare asth malaria today if we p