Reversing Heart Disease… or a Commerical?
Published 8.19.2025: I listened to a second vegan seminar after The Truth About Weight Loss. It was entitled Reversing Heart Disease. However, unlike the first seminar, it was basically a commercial for products and services offered by various presenters. I didn't realize that at first. The seminar didn't permit you to copy slides and mostly I had to take notes.
I began doing that… when I realized that several of the presentations were just glorified commercials. This was a new to me. I've never voluntarily chosen to sit (there is no charge) in a seminar that's a commercial. The end result is that I will cover the seminar in this single post. I will not report on the commercials, and I will probably give short shrift to the other presentations. Bottom line: to reverse heart disease, EAT MORE PLANTS. There I saved you untold minutes.
Dr Joel Kahn, who is a vegan cardiologist, was the host. Apparently Dr Kahn is looking to increase his patient load. He had a non-doctor cohost, well a non-MD cohost, whom I'm not going to introduce, nor am I going to recap her presentation. Kahn claims that heart disease is never cured, you can only mitigate it with lifestyle change. That actually fits with my observation about people with cardiologists… once you darken their door, you are never free of them.
Kahn's recommendations are to eat a plant based diet, get some exercise and some sleep. Nothing really groundbreaking there.
The first red flag I recognized was that Ocean Robbins was giving the next talk. I try not to be overtly political here… but the Robbins might be a MAHA supporter and I just can't with that. He also didn't say anything too stupid, but I've already given him more coverage than he deserves given his political wont.
Then it was Joel Fuhrman's turn, and he gave his usual spiel about his nutritarian diet. I have read several books of his, and to be fair, his teachings haven't changed much— except that he is far more willing to add nuts and seeds to his diet. He doesn't use oil per say, but his overall eating pattern is still higher fat than it used to be. He's still anti-salt, saying you can get enough from the plants that you eat. He advocates for a vegan diet now, despite acknowledging that eating animals can be healthy.
I've mentioned Joel Fuhrman and his teachings a few times now, it's not clear that I will recap his book that I read. I think I've made it clear how he feels, and his message doesn't really change. Eat plants, not too much. His idea is that if you are eating the correct nutrients then you will naturally eat less. Not sure I actually buy that. In any event, I don't know that I have anything new to write about him and his beliefs.
Next up is a commercial for Prolon, which I will not be covering. Ironically, I am both reading Valter Longo's book, The Longevity Diet, as well as listening to interviews of him online. I think he has a lot of interesting things to say, but he was not part of this seminar, and the dude the company sent seemingly was only interested in pushing the commercial.
Not sure if I should go on here, I really decided fairly early on that I was wasting my time. I was a lot more selective day two and beyond, but I think this next observation will be my last. The cohost of the seminar gave a talk on day two. Apparently she was part of the raw food movement (morons, the lot of them) and now she follows a plant based keto diet, and does the whole thing where she monitors her blood glucose.
It takes her forever to get to describing the diet, which apparently includes intermittent fasting. I didn't know that "keto" required fasting, but the keto diet isn't anything that I've ever been interested in. She ends with a whole range of people who are not eligible for this way of eating… including anyone with high blood pressure.
And with that, I'm out. I cannot recommend this seminar, nor any of the talks within it. Not sure what Dr. Fuhrman thought he was getting into— and I suspect that's why he is vetting the presenters in his cancer seminar which is sponsored by the same people. If that turns out to be better I might recap those talks. My guess though: if you want to avoid cancer, EAT ONLY PLANTS.
Actually, as I look through my notes, not all the talks were horrific, but my notes generally were, and in many cases I'd heard all the facts before (such as the Caldwell Esselstyn talk). And in a couple cases I fell asleep during the presentation… maybe I should just leave it there and move on…
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any type of medical professional. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!
I began doing that… when I realized that several of the presentations were just glorified commercials. This was a new to me. I've never voluntarily chosen to sit (there is no charge) in a seminar that's a commercial. The end result is that I will cover the seminar in this single post. I will not report on the commercials, and I will probably give short shrift to the other presentations. Bottom line: to reverse heart disease, EAT MORE PLANTS. There I saved you untold minutes.
Dr Joel Kahn, who is a vegan cardiologist, was the host. Apparently Dr Kahn is looking to increase his patient load. He had a non-doctor cohost, well a non-MD cohost, whom I'm not going to introduce, nor am I going to recap her presentation. Kahn claims that heart disease is never cured, you can only mitigate it with lifestyle change. That actually fits with my observation about people with cardiologists… once you darken their door, you are never free of them.
Kahn's recommendations are to eat a plant based diet, get some exercise and some sleep. Nothing really groundbreaking there.
The first red flag I recognized was that Ocean Robbins was giving the next talk. I try not to be overtly political here… but the Robbins might be a MAHA supporter and I just can't with that. He also didn't say anything too stupid, but I've already given him more coverage than he deserves given his political wont.
Then it was Joel Fuhrman's turn, and he gave his usual spiel about his nutritarian diet. I have read several books of his, and to be fair, his teachings haven't changed much— except that he is far more willing to add nuts and seeds to his diet. He doesn't use oil per say, but his overall eating pattern is still higher fat than it used to be. He's still anti-salt, saying you can get enough from the plants that you eat. He advocates for a vegan diet now, despite acknowledging that eating animals can be healthy.
I've mentioned Joel Fuhrman and his teachings a few times now, it's not clear that I will recap his book that I read. I think I've made it clear how he feels, and his message doesn't really change. Eat plants, not too much. His idea is that if you are eating the correct nutrients then you will naturally eat less. Not sure I actually buy that. In any event, I don't know that I have anything new to write about him and his beliefs.
Next up is a commercial for Prolon, which I will not be covering. Ironically, I am both reading Valter Longo's book, The Longevity Diet, as well as listening to interviews of him online. I think he has a lot of interesting things to say, but he was not part of this seminar, and the dude the company sent seemingly was only interested in pushing the commercial.
Not sure if I should go on here, I really decided fairly early on that I was wasting my time. I was a lot more selective day two and beyond, but I think this next observation will be my last. The cohost of the seminar gave a talk on day two. Apparently she was part of the raw food movement (morons, the lot of them) and now she follows a plant based keto diet, and does the whole thing where she monitors her blood glucose.
It takes her forever to get to describing the diet, which apparently includes intermittent fasting. I didn't know that "keto" required fasting, but the keto diet isn't anything that I've ever been interested in. She ends with a whole range of people who are not eligible for this way of eating… including anyone with high blood pressure.
And with that, I'm out. I cannot recommend this seminar, nor any of the talks within it. Not sure what Dr. Fuhrman thought he was getting into— and I suspect that's why he is vetting the presenters in his cancer seminar which is sponsored by the same people. If that turns out to be better I might recap those talks. My guess though: if you want to avoid cancer, EAT ONLY PLANTS.
Actually, as I look through my notes, not all the talks were horrific, but my notes generally were, and in many cases I'd heard all the facts before (such as the Caldwell Esselstyn talk). And in a couple cases I fell asleep during the presentation… maybe I should just leave it there and move on…
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT any type of medical professional. Do NOT take medical advice from me!!