enforced varies a lot. and a lot of times religiously oriented schools have a lot of political power. and they use that power to keep government supervision to a minimum. >> jeff toobin, appreciate it. bruce, always good to talk to you. thank you. >> that's it for our special report, "ungodly discipline." thank you for joining us. everywhere you look, it seems a heart attack is just waiting t 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. 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 if his heart. but in 2004, during an exhausting book tour, there was something different. >> i had a real tightness in my chest when getting off the airplane. it is the only time i had it unrelated to exercise. >> we're here outside the hospital and just a couple hours, president bill clinton, former president, is scheduled to undergo surgery. >> so i immediately went down to our local hospital and they did a test. they said you got real problems. they hustled me down to columbia hospital. and they confirmed the

determination that i had serious blockage and needed 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 of already formed in his blood vessels. >> i got hillary and chelsea there. all i remember is it happening fast and everybody who cared about me was scared and i felt rather serene. i thought gosh we dodged the bullet. i didn't have a heart attack. >> on labor day, mr. clinton had four blood vessels bypassed. >> starting this morning around 8:00, he had a relatively routine equal drupe bypass operation. we left the operating room around noon and he is recovering normally at this point. so i think 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 about me? i'm a pretty typical guy in early 40s with a family history of heart disease. i decided to go on a mission to never have i 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 take a look inside the heart, see what is 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? >> yes, for calcium which is part of the process, the plaque in the heart. and if you were -- >> i never had a problem. but you're looking for it anyways? >> yes. and if you're heading for a heart attack in five, ten, 20 years you'll already have plaque. it's a life long process. >> that is dr. arthur agotson.

he is author of the south beach diet books. and he also invened this test i'm having done. he doesn't make any money from it. we all know plaque is bad. blocks your blood vessels. black is formed by ldl cholesterol in the blood, the bad cholesterol. think of it as l for lousy. building up on the walls of your arteries forming plaque. kit accumulate slowly over time, narrowing the blood vessels in your heart. it can cause a heart attack or chest pain. did you ever wonder how seemingly healthy people can have a heart attack? this may surprise you. most heart attacks happen in people with no symptom. and people whose arteries are less than 50% blocked.

cholesterol can cause unstable bubbles or blisters of plaque to form in your arteries. these can be incredibly dangerous. most are covered by a cap but inflammation and stress can cause the cap to rupture resulting in a clot that blocks the flow of blood to the heart. robbed of ork general, the heart muscle can't function properly. heart attack. and there in lies the key. we can now find clues before heart trouble gets dangerous, even before the first symptoms. well before you get to the stage president clinton was. >> bill clinton, former president, arguably had at least eight years of some of the best health care in the world. it was after he left office he had significant heart problems. that surprised a lot of people. how could it be that he could get this level of health care and still have heart problems? >> he had multivessel disease. so he had a lot of plaque.

that plaque certainly could have have been identified years before. >> but why wasn't it done? again, you would assume that the white house doctors, the president of the united states, they've been doing that afor hi. >> it was not the standard of care then. >> i decided to ask bill clinton about that. it turns out he did have a coronary calcium scan just months after leaving office. the technology was so new then, doctors weren't quite sure what to do with the results. >> they said i had some calcium buildup around my heart. that put necessity basically in the top third of risk. but they said there is no effort of blockage because i did so well on the stress test. for a few months before this happened, i noticed whenever -- not every time, but often when i would do rather strenuous exercise, there are hilly towns. i would climb the hills and 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 when you first get plaque. you developage low sclerosis your whole life for many, many years before it causes a heart attack or a stroke. >> and what the doctor told me next should ring a bell of hope for just about anyone who has 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 would are practicing aggressive prevention are really seeing heart attacks and strokes disappear from their

practices. it's doable. >> and you're saying with what we know right now, we don't have to have any more heart attacks in this country? >> i'll never say not any. but a great majority, yes. absolutely. >> it's the biggest killer of men and women. heart disease in this country. >> and 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 is betting her life on it. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of a pain free holiday. ♪ this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills.

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so now your deductible is zero. the other good news ? i held on to your coffee. wow. ♪ nationwide is on your side ( laughing ) it's actually a pretty good day when you consider. that's great. president clinton told me he was a heart attack waiting to happen. but what does someone really look like who is 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.

>> obviously closed down quite a bit. >> the surgeon shows us the striking images on the angiogram of his heart. >> you can see this tight narrowing right there. so that limits the amount of blood that can get out. and then you've got real tight narrowing right up here. that vessel own will on the side takes off and then you have pretty tight narrowing there. >> all the major blood vessels supplying blood to the heart, blocked. 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 that he has in there. like me, bear has a family history of heart disease. that's why four years ago he underwent the coronary calcium scan that we just learned about. as a result, his results were not good. >> the score was 111. >> zero is the best. over 100 means increased risk of

heart attack, even sudden death. >> and you may breathe. rest your arms. it's going to take me a couple minutes to check these and make sure we have everything we need. >> bear went through the test again this year. the score was up to 243. the average score for someone his age, five. >> i was doing some exercise about three weeks ago. i was jogging routine that i do. and made about it three tenth of a mile and had the classic symptoms, chest pain and then the pain down the left arm. and shortness of breath. >> what room is this? >> room four. >> bear was told he had no options by the time he saw the doctor. within days, he would need bypass surgery. in this instance, you know, this is sort of what i would consider a medical failurement in other words, he got these narrowings and plaque despite our efforts to prevent it from progressing.

even though i'm a surgeon and treat these patients is not to have them get to this point. from a public health standpoint, we have to do. this this bypass operation is going to be very expensive. >> he's not kidding. average cost in the u.s., $112,000 and there are about 4 auto th -- 450,000 procedures performed every year. the total pricetag, $50 billion. >> our money would be better spent years ahead of this to prevent it 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. dr. arthur agotson guaranteed he can see trouble coming well before i need surgery if i do the right test. >> this is the lining. >> he is using an ultrasound to look for plaque in the artery leading to my brain. a blockage here can cause stroke. and it would be a sign on any risk for heart attack. >> unless you do the imaging anded at advanced testing, your body needs cholesterol. it actually makes it. it is in the lining of every cell in your body. your liver sends out ldl cholesterol, and when everything works right, the good gets the excess ldl and brings it back to the liver. you also get cholesterol in foods, french fries, meat, 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 that causes heart attacks. >> if you look in the coronary care unit of people that have heart attacks, the cholesterol levels of those who have heart attacks versus those in the industry who have it are essentially the same. >> that is kind of surprising. >> it is quite prevalent and there is cause for concern. you say that's, you know what? you're not looking in the right place. >> that's essentially useless. >> here's what does matter, he 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 blood vessels without sticking. it's the smaller ldl particles that are more likely to lodge into the walls of blood vessels and cause a buildup of plaque. >> if they're small, you can have a lot of little particles

that penetrate the vessel wall more easily. there are a lot of little old ladies in their 80s with very high cholesterol with queeny clean vessels. they have very large cholesterol particles and they don't get into the vessel wall. >> so you have to ask about the size of the particles as well when it comes to bad cholesterol. >> yes. >> 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. >> 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 of my arteries are young or old. >> come to find out, fate has offered. >> and a controversial diet, this 66-year-old woman says she is eating her way to heart health. >> we're never going to end the

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became the stuff of parody. >> this is relief from great britain. intersented by the world. >> they have studied and written about diet and heart disease for decades. >> they asked me if i would work with the chefs that cook for the first family. and then began working with president clinton directly as one of his consulting physicians. the president did like unhealthy foods. we were able to put soyburgers in the white house, for example, and have him get foods that were delicious and nutritious. >> but even with the doctor's help, in 1999, after his annual physical, the white house doctor said the president had put on 18 pounds since the checkup just two years earlier. while diet and exercise can go a long way, most doctors tell you to get to the last heart attack in america, there is more. >> it is public knowledge that he was going through stressful

times during that time. it just goes to show you that information alone is not sufficient. you nid to work on a deeper level. we need to work with the underlying stresses that people are facing, lonliness that people are experiencing. >> we're taking the weight towards the balls of the feet. >> that's why dr.'s prescription for heart patients including yoga. >> the mind will begin to quiet down. >> meditation and group sessions at his institute in california. >> i came to remind to get my cholesterol down with low fat ben and jerry's cherry garcia. >> we now know when president clinton was president, he passed his annual physicals. but his heart disease was still progressing, undetected. i asked his cariologyist why? >> checkups are not a substitute for lifestyle.

>> as president, clun clinton never got advanced imaging like the coronary calcium scanned. though are test that's are now more readily available to everyone. and 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 symptoms of heart disease. >> in 2001 when chelsea graduated from stanford. i started running again. i wanted to get in good shape. i thought this is crazy. i couldn't run more than three quarters of a mile without stopping and walking 100 yards and getting my breath back. three years later, the bypass operation with dr. craig smith of president clinton's heart troubles were not over. when the devastating earthquake happens, president flew to

port-au-prince and i saw he was tired and not himself. >> i got pale and weak. and then i got all these letters from the doctor crowd saying, yeah, it's nornlal because you want to do what you're supposed to do. you don't eat like you should and you don't exercise like you should. >> the doctors said it was a medicalal failure of the bypass and he did stents to open the blooked artery. >> i got so lucky that they were able to put those two stents in and fix an artery that was pretty bent and 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 had been excellent. >> but the doctor didn't see it that way. >> i wrote him a letter. the friends that mean the most

to me are the ones who tell me what i need to hear, not necessarily what i want to hear. you need to know that your genes are not your fate. i say this not to blame you but to empower you. i'm happy to work with you to whatever extent you want to move forward in that way. we met a few days later. he said he was ready to do it. >> i essentially converted that i just played russian roulette. even though i had changed my diet some and cut down on the coloric total 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 r taking in a lot of extra cholesterol not knowing whether think body was producing enough of the enzyme to dispose of it. that's when i made a decision to really change. i should have done it after the surgery. >> 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 complications. >> walked about three tenth of a mile and it was excruciating. >> also, she said no to surgery and, yes to food as medicine. we'll tell you if it's working. [ male announcer ] tom's discovering that living healthy can be fun. see? he's taking his vitamins. new one a day vitacraves plus omega-3 dha is a complete multivitamin for adults. plus an excellent source of omega-3 dha in a great tasting gummy. one a day, gummies for grown-ups.

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three american college students are now free in egypt. they were arrested monday after being accused of throwing molotov cocktails during unrest that riddled egypt since last week. they plan onboarding three separate commercial flights back to the u.s. black friday turned ugly today at a walmart in north carolina. off duty police officers used pepper spray to keep anxious shoppers at bay before the start of the electronics sale. and in another walmart outside of los angeles, a shopper used pepper spray on other shoppers to insure she got her hands on x box video game console. unfortunately the plan worked. police are reviewing security tapes to track down the woman. as black friday comes to a close, it's time to take a look ahead to cyber monday. analysts are expecting a record $1.2 billion in sales and one of the internet's biggest shopping days of the year. more news laterment stay tuned to cnn. in lincoln, nebraska,

53-year-old teacher tom bare emerged from 3 1/2 hour bypass surgery. an operation that required his heart to be stopped for more than an hour. he's in the cardiac intensive care unit. it's the first stop on a slow, painful recovery. >> i'm a little stiff, a little sore. a little hoarse, a little tired. other than that, pretty good. >> bare doesn't know it yet, but he's heading for a life threatening complication, one that will soon have him back in the operating room. >> it's nice to be home. they say you heal ten times faster and 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 in 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 started to hurt. that's gone now. now i can't catch my breath. >> i spoke to tom bare right before his operation. >> what happened? >> well, none of the arteries worked. >> did they say this was pretty unusual? >> never seen before. >> wow. that's not the kipd nd of luck want. >> not at all. so the doctor is going to use veins to day. >> 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 one in 20 sever

sten receive stents during that time. >> bill clinton needed to have one his blood vessels reopened six years after his operation. after getting the stents to open up that blocked artery in 2010, former president clinton said he decided to make changes in his diet. this time around, he decided to get much more strict and radical even in his approach. no more meat, no more eggs, no more dairy. almost no oil. the montra is eat nothing that has a mother or a face. talk about the fact that you love to eat. >> you know, i like the stuff i eat. i like the vegetables, fruits, beans, the stuff i eat now i like. i like it. >> do you call yourself a vegan

now? >> i suppose i am if i don't eat dairy or meat or fish, you know. >> so you cut all that out. do you crave it? once in a while, it literally in well over a year now, at thanks giving i had one bite of turkey. >> i mean you're doing this for your health. is that why you're doing this? >> absolutely. >> clinton's dietary guides, dean ornish and this guy at the cleveland clinic. >> apparently he read my book. i never met the man. >> the doctor has written him, though. >> he wrote me a letter saying he thought i was cheating on mine because he was afraid of my protein drink i had some dairy in there. it was hilarious. and i checked. and on one of them he was right. >> you checked it out? >> yeah, i did. >> every month the 77-year-old doctor holds a dhaf long seminar attracting doctors and heart patients from across the country

like sharon kents, a retired private investigator from canton, ohio. she had a heart attack six months earlier after a coronary artery became completely blocked. >> he said for someone who 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 says i can fix you today. i can just take you right down to or and i can operate on you right now. my son was in there. he was ready to wheel me down to the operating room because he is frantic. you know, it's terrifying. >> what kents did next may surprise you. she turned the surge r surgeon down cold. she said, no, to open heart surgery and decided to take a chance -- >> i bought parsnips.

i always have sweet potatoes on hand. >> using food as medicine. >> these are wonderful. >> like president clinton, she has given up the food she loves like butter and cheese. she is betting her life on the doctor's diet. >> she had a heart attack. >> i know. you know shaurn? >> oh, yeah. >> doctors recommended she have an intervention. she's not doing it. is there a down side. could she be putting herself at risk? >> no, i think that's an excellent question. and hundreds of patients now are going back over 20 years and the recent study about a decade, once they start eating this way, you'll make yourself heart attack proof. we know that if people are eating this way, they are 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 born illness. and we're never going to end the epidemic with stents, with

by-passes, with the drugs. because none of it is treating causation of the illness. >> he has won some allies like terry mason. >> is there anybody who doesn't know what it is? >> chief medical officer at cook county hospital 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. >> but it also 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, look, heart disease is a food born disease. if you follow this diet, a strict diet, very restrictive, but in the exchange you're not going to have a heart attack, what would you say to that? do you agree with that? >> i would say that is an overstatement, an oversimplification and overstatement of really what we're able to do. even though i know there are people who say it. >> without a doubt, he is one of those people. a general surgeon by training, not a cardiologist, 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, new guinea and indians in mexico 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 doctors say can make you heart attack proof. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] everyone deserves the gift of a pain free holiday. ♪ this season, discover aleve. all day pain relief with just two pills.

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mr. president? how are you? >> great. >> since leaving office, bill clinton made his own health and the health of the country his top domestic 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. you were doing a good job. >> i'm being more strict now. >> are you? >> yeah. by the time i have my 65th birthday, i want to weigh what i did when i went home from law school in 1974. that's what i'm working on. >> i like that. so we'll see. >> how much was that? >> i weighed -- i got down to 185. >> all right. >> i got down -- when chelsea was married, i weighed about 192. which is what i weighed when i graduated from high school.

anything under 195 optimum weight. but in the summer of '73 i ran three miles a day at the hottest hour of the day, which i could do back then, in order to make the pounds go off. the first time since i was 13 years old that i weighed 185 pounds. i want to try it one more time. >> president clinton's diet, no meat, no dairy, almost no oil got me thinking how different what he's eating now has compared to what he used to eat. and what most of us still eat. make a habit of high cholesterol meals like this and you can physically see beginnings of heart disease. for starters, your blood looks different. so let's start by looking at what healthy blood looked like after it is spun. you can see there are two components. 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 electrolights. here's what happens to your blood if you follow an unhealthy diet. the top layer is white and cloudy. it's just laiden with heart clogging fat and cholesterol. >> way have some easy to remember adages about how people can decide what they should or should not eat. >> we know they shouldn't eat. that is oil, dairy, meat, fish and chicken. what we want them to eat, we want them to eat all the whole grains, cereal bread and pasta, beans, vegetables, yellow, red, green, and fruit. now what particular vegetables do we want them to have? kale, come lardz, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cally flour and asparagus. >> nothing with a mother, nothing with a face. you can imagine the meat, egg and dairy associations that i is

a terrible idea. >> incorporating lean beef into a healthy diet can help you stick to a healthy diet because it's a food that people enjoy. >> eggs are a source of 13 invite munz a vitamins and minerals. they are the gold standard when it comes to protein. >> dairy fruits are nutrient rich. you get nutrients for every calorie you consume. >> a plant based diet like this runs up against our meat loving culture. >> most americans eat meat. if they don't really see for themselves or their own families why it might be a good idea to cut back, they may not be so inclined to recommend it for their patients. >> even doctors who do see the benefits of this 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 or unwilling to make these changes. and so in my practice, i try to take baby steps one step at a

time. >> and dean says when it comes to diet, it's not all or nothing. >> one of the interesting findings in our studies was that the more people change their diet and lifestyle, the more they improve. in direct proportion. >> i was curious about the science hend his claims. so i dug p some of the peer review journals. they're small, a handful of patients, but the results are impressive. patients on the cholesterol lowering medication had no heart attacks, had no coronary events of any sort after five years. and three quarters of the patients actually saw their blockages get smaller. you're not talking about just reducing your chance of heart disease. you're talking about potentially reversing heart disease? >> oh, absolutely. >> the late wisdom is once you develop these plaques, they're there. you're stuck with them. is athat faulty thinking? >> i think as absolutely faulty thinking. >> here's a picture he lukz to show of a heart patient with a blocked coronary artery. and here's that same patient

after going on a plant based diet. you see the way the blockage almost disappeared? sharon kent survived a heart attack a yir 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 those who get on to it have benefitted from it. >> i asked sharon kents to meet me here in new york city. cook t cooking at home is one thing, but on the road is another. if you can make a diet here, you can make it anywhere. 46 rnlg and broadway please. >> sharon? how are you? >> when you cook at home, it's a lot more under your control. what is 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 is oil in it. and pizza and that looks like pepperoni. when i look up here, i see pasta. >> right. >> so 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? and that's a no. but they have pasta and they have salad. >> all right. so hires a restaurant. i'm going to take 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. >> so you just poke us on the salads? >> not really. i can have the baby spinach leaves minus the chicken. i can have peaches, strawberries, forget the walnuts. >> is this a restaurant that you would come in and eat? >> if i was hungry, you bet. >> you would eat a meal here? >> you bet i could. >> kents is a true believer and so is former president clinton. and nowadays, they have a lot of high powered company. all of these ceos are

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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 physical education every day. one in five schools in the united states don't require pe 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. that should be just the way it is. >> to show how far we have

gotten, there were so many people, schools, that were serving lunches that didn't have fruits and vegetables because they contracted with firms who provide them and 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 if we could -- how much of a dent we can make in this. changing a culture is hard. it's turning a ship around before it hits the iceberg. but i think we're beginning to turn it around. >> does anybody know what a cardiologist is? >> dr. arthur agotson is focused on improving the eating habits of young people. >> i really think you should own a restaurant. the south beach diet author 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. >> and we're very concerned because we are seeing the risk factors associated with card cardiovascular disease increasing. >> you would call yourself healthy now? >> i'm healthier than i was. i lost 20 pounds. all my blood tests are good. all my vital signs are good. and i feel good. i actually have, believe it or not, more energy on less sleep. >> once you begin making the changes, most people find they feel so much better so quickly, it refranz the reason for making the changes from fear of dying to joy of living. joy is what is sustainable. >> left leg up and bend it at the knee. reach back with your right hand. >> a year into her diet, a year after her heart attack, kent says she feels great, simply walking tired her out 12 months

ago. you think this will make you live longer? >> boy, i hope so. i hope i get to see you retire. >> i have a feeling that's going to be in a very long time. i hope you do. >> i hope i do, too. yeah, 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 kents 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 i -- it hasn't happened yet. so i'm still waiting for that payoff. 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? so a couple weeks ago i met up with the doctor to get a full workup, to gauge my likelihood of actually having a heart attack. >> good to see you. >> time to see what fate has to offer. >> we did good news. you had no plaque in your arteries and the calcium score. your arteries were like a spring chicken. very young. >> i like that. >> someone made a comment to me, this is sort of a four-year guarantee. >> yes. would you agree? >> yes. i extend it to five to seven years. >> five to seven years. >> based on what you've already seen, before we even go over this, five to seven years if i'm feeling chest pain, it's probably not a heart attack? >> right. >> 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 now, the imaging, all

my laboratory tests, what can you tell me? >> you're at low risk for future heart attack even though there is family history. and clearly your lifestyle that you maintain your weight, you do the exercise has helped to decrease your risk. if diet and exercise can make someone like me low risk for a heart attack, eating with a strong family history, that's encouragi encouraging. >> i don't think is any question that not only did we pass our last heart attack, but the vast majority of people, even my age, if they're prepared to chachg their die it and exercise a little more could reverse a lot of their blockage. >> heart disease could be as rare asthma layera today if we simply put into practice what we know. >> it is possible to keep everybody from having a heart attack. >> with? >> with education. >> with? >> with knowledge and information. now the question becomes, are people going to