Compounding Wisdom
Statins Arrest Heart Disease. Exercise Can Reverse it.
It’s not just theory anymore.
It’s not just theory anymore.
Dr. Kevin Ham, MD
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
I completed the Levi Gran Fondo. 113 miles, 3000m of climbing and 8 hours in the bike saddle. But the most important stat: my average heart rate was just 135 beats per minute (bpm) despite the huge effort. I did take it ‘easier’ just going at zone 2 effort, applying the arterial pressure wash throughout, supercharging my HDL to reverse plaque. I felt great.
One fellow rider asked me, “How do you know you won’t get a hard attack on these hard climbs?” The simple answer. I don’t truly know. But I have 0% low attenuated plaque, my heart flow is improving, so I am doubling down, treating my plaque as Stage 4 heart disease.
Let me tell you, some hills were very challenging. 400m with 10%-16% grade elevation. But I trained on 25% grade in the big, hard ring for years, so mentally, seeing these didn’t faze me at all, and I just befriended them as my therapeutic medicine to reverse my plaque.
In my last newsletter, Does Exercise Reverse Plaque, many readers asked me about those who could not do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
First, HIIT is just relative to your maximum heart rate, which is a rule of thumb: 220 minus your age. So, walk briskly for x period of seconds or minutes where it is hard to talk. That’s HIIT. As your body chemistry changes with your CAST Reversal Diet, increase your HIIT duration and intensity as tolerated. Note that exercise is more of a mental exercise than physical exercise.
And for the most severe cardiac patients, which Dr. Esselstyn treated, who had bypasses, stents, meds and had no more hope, he arrested and reversed their heart disease for at least the next 14 years and beyond. These were effectively “Stage 4” Heart disease patients. It’s quite remarkable. He did not advise or prescribe any exercise. In fact, his patients could barely even walk across the room without angina or claudication. Even shaving was an effort for some.
But the ones who exercised improved a lot, like Dr. Joe Crowe, younger at 44, who reversed his severe LAD blockages in just 32 months. I asked Dr. Esselstyn last month if Dr. Crowe exercised. He said, “Yes, he did.”
While I am 55 and my plaque is 11 years older than Dr. Crowe’s, I do have 33% soft, fibrous plaque, which is reversible. So I put my faith in both Dr. Esselstyn’s 10% low-fat whole-food plant-based (WFPB) diet with no oils, nuts, coconuts, or avocados. But I am doubling down on HIIT based on the evidence and have added a few walnuts per day, with Dr. Esselstyn's cautionary advice not to eat too many nuts, as they can impede endothelial cells in the arterial walls.
As you may know, I had bilateral plaque in the carotid arteries, now all gone. It seems almost miraculous, so I am studying the studies to understand the mechanism of how and what happened for such a remarkable result. I have reviewed the major carotid artery studies on exercise.
Do the Carotid Studies Show Reversal?
“Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, but to weigh and consider."
Francis Bacon
The carotid is the artery that runs up the side of your neck and supplies your brain with blood. It is also where stroke begins. When carotid plaque ruptures, a clot forms, breaks loose, and travels into the cerebral circulation. Carotid plaque starts forming in your 30s, so much younger than your coronary plaque, which starts in childhood.
The carotid is not just a proxy for the rest of the arterial tree. It is the artery that decides whether you can walk or lift your right arm.
It is also the easiest artery in the body to image. 20 minutes of ultrasound—no contrast, no radiation, repeatable as often as you want, and relatively inexpensive. I get mine for $140 USD.
Let’s look at a couple of the carotid trials that matter most.
1. Okada, 2022. The largest meta-analysis we have.
Published in the Journal of Physical Activity and Health in 2022. The most comprehensive review of exercise effects on carotid wall thickness ever assembled.
Patients. 1,370 adults across 26 randomized controlled trials. 32 study groups in total. 24 of the 32 groups enrolled patients with documented disease. Mean ages ranged from the early 20s to mid-70s across studies.
Exercise. Multiple modalities across the 32 groups: aerobic, resistance, combined aerobic plus resistance, high-intensity interval, moderate-intensity continuous, and endurance training. The paper analyzed each separately.
Duration. From 2 to 12 months. Most trials ran 6 months or less.
Control. Usual care. Controls maintained their habitual activity. Sedentary controls were specifically excluded.
Results
Pooled effect of exercise on CIMT: Weighted mean difference −0.02 mm against controls (95% CI −0.03 to −0.01)
Aerobic alone: −0.02 mm (95% CI −0.04 to −0.01). The largest single-modality effect
Resistance alone: −0.01 mm (95% CI −0.02 to −0.00). Smaller, but statistically significant
Duration > 6 months: Reduction of 0.02 mm with no heterogeneity (I² = 0). The effect was clean and consistent
Baseline CIMT < 0.7 mm: No effect (95% CI −0.03 to 0.00). Healthy walls did not change
Baseline CIMT ≥ 0.7 mm: −0.03 mm. The effect was concentrated in patients with measurable disease
Bottom line: Exercise reduces carotid wall thickness in adults, even though minimally. Aerobic exercise produces the largest effect. The effect is concentrated in people who already have disease, and trials longer than 6 months produce the cleanest signal.
20 micrometres across 26 trials is a real effect, but a modest one. It is the average of every kind of exercise at every dose at every duration. My own carotid moved 700 micrometers in 90 days. 35 times the pooled effect. That gap is the question this whole series exists to answer.
2. Ghardashi-Afousi, 2020. The fastest published carotid regression on exercise alone.
Published online in November 2019 in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications, with 2020 final citation. The reason this study matters is its speed: 12 weeks. The closest analog on timeline to my own three-month result.
Patients. 74 sedentary patients with type 2 diabetes were recruited from the Diabetes Clinic at Shariati Hospital in Tehran—mean age 55. Inclusion required fasting blood glucose above 7 mmol/L and HbA1c above 7%. Randomized 1:1 to HIIT or control.
Exercise. High-intensity interval training on a stationary bike. 6 intervals, 4 minutes each, at 85% to 90% of maximum heart rate. 3 minutes of active recovery between intervals at 45% to 50% of maximum heart rate. 3 supervised sessions per week.
Duration: 12 weeks of training, with carotid ultrasound at baseline and follow-up.
Control. Continued usual diabetic care, no exercise prescription, no significant change in CIMT or other vascular measures at 12 weeks.
Results
CIMT in the HIIT group: Decreased from 0.83 mm to 0.71 mm. A 14% absolute reduction in 12 weeks (p < 0.001)
CIMT in controls: Unchanged. 0.84 mm at baseline, 0.85 mm at follow-up
Wnt pathway markers: Serum Dkk-1 and sclerostin both fell significantly in the HIIT arm. These are the molecular inhibitors of Wnt signalling that drive vascular calcification. They went down because the calcification signal went down
VO2 peak: Improved significantly in the HIIT arm. No change in controls
Bottom line: 12 weeks of supervised HIIT produced a 14% absolute reduction in carotid wall thickness in diabetic patients. The mechanism mapped to the Wnt pathway, quieting and calcification suppression
This is 24 minutes of High Intensity and 18 minutes of Interval, so the total time is 42 minutes. At 3 times per week, that is 2 hours 6 minutes. I do 4x this amount. And I had 53% CIMT reduction in 12 weeks.
A short word on the Wnt pathway
This is the first time I have heard of this pathway. Like meeting a new friend! The Wnt pathway is one of the most ancient signalling systems in animal biology. It is named for the Wingless gene first identified in fruit flies and the int-1 gene in mice. Wnt is what tells a cell where it is, what tissue it should become, and when to grow. It builds your skeleton in the womb. It maintains your stem cells. And inside the wall of an adult artery, it is one of the master switches that decides whether vascular smooth muscle cells stay quiet or transform into bone-like cells that lay down calcium.
Wnt signalling works by ligand and receptor, like a hand in glove catching a ball. A Wnt protein binds a Frizzled receptor on the cell surface, partnered with an LRP5 or LRP6 co-receptor. That binding stabilizes a protein called beta-catenin inside the cell. Beta-catenin moves to the nucleus and switches on the genes that drive osteogenic transformation. In the artery wall, those genes turn ordinary smooth muscle cells into calcium-depositing cells. That is the molecular beginning of the calcification you see on a CT scan as a CAC score.
The body has built-in brakes on this pathway. They are called Wnt inhibitors. The two most studied in vascular disease are Dkk-1 (Dickkopf-1) and sclerostin. They are circulating proteins that bind to LRP5 and LRP6 and physically block the Wnt signal from getting through. They keep tissues from over-calcifying.
Here is the counterintuitive part. In healthy biology, more Dkk-1 and sclerostin should mean less calcification. In atherosclerotic disease, the relationship inverts. Diseased arteries chronically express more Dkk-1 and sclerostin precisely because the calcification process is already running and the body is trying, ineffectively, to hold it back. Elevated levels of these inhibitors in the blood are a marker that the disease is active. The brakes are on, but the wheels are still turning.
Ghardashi-Afousi found that 12 weeks of HIIT lowered both Dkk-1 and sclerostin in the blood. That sounds like the brakes coming off. It is actually the opposite. When the calcification signal upstream of Dkk-1 quiets down, the body no longer needs to crank up the brakes. Inhibitor levels fall because the disease they were inhibiting is fading. The same drop in Dkk-1 and sclerostin that would be alarming in a healthy person is, in a diabetic with subclinical atherosclerosis, a signal that the artery is beginning to heal.
HIIT drives this through two mechanisms.
First, the mechanical signal. High-velocity blood flow during interval work shears against the endothelium and tells it to upregulate endothelial nitric oxide synthase. Nitric oxide is one of the master suppressors of vascular smooth muscle cell osteogenic transformation. More nitric oxide means less Wnt activation upstream.
Second, the metabolic signal. HIIT lowers insulin resistance and circulating glucose, which lowers AGEs (advanced glycation end products), which are themselves potent activators of Wnt signaling in vascular tissue. Quieter glucose, quieter Wnt, quieter calcification.
This trial tells me 3-month carotid regression is biologically plausible at the right dose. 14% in 12 weeks. My result was 53% in 12 weeks. Roughly 4 times larger. The mechanism Ghardashi-Afousi identified, Wnt pathway suppression through HIIT-driven shear stress and nitric oxide upregulation, is one of the levers I was running. It was not the only one. I am running 5 levers at once.
How Does Exercise Compare to Statins?
“Statins halt progression of carotid wall thickness. Exercise at the right dose reverses it and combined with the powerful effects of the CAST diet, reverses it synergistically.”
Kevin Ham, MD
If you are reading this with a CAC score and a prescription for a statin, the question you actually want answered is whether exercise comes anywhere near what a drug can do.
The honest answer is that it depends on which drug, in which patient, at which dose. Here is the cleanest comparison the literature offers.
1. Rosuvastatin alone (METEOR, 2007)
Trial: 984 low-risk subjects with mild carotid wall thickening. Randomized to rosuvastatin 40 mg or placebo for 2 years
LDL change on rosuvastatin: Mean baseline 155 mg/dL fell to 78 mg/dL. A 49% reduction
CIMT in rosuvastatin arm: −0.0014 mm/year. Essentially zero. The statin halted progression
CIMT in placebo arm: +0.0131 mm/year. The disease moved forward
Translation: A high-dose statin held the line. It did not regress the wall
2. Statin plus PCSK9 inhibitor (SLICE-CEA, evolocumab on top of statin)
Trial: 52 Asymptomatic high-risk patients, evolocumab 420 mg monthly added to maximally tolerated statin, 12 months
LDL change: 93 mg/dl to 31 mg/dL on combined therapy
Vessel wall volume: No significant difference vs usual care. Lipid-rich necrotic core of plaque significantly reduced
Cost: Approximately $6,000 per year in addition to the statin
Translation: Drugs can produce stabilization of the dangerous character of plaque but not reverse plaque.
3. High-intensity exercise alone (Ghardashi-Afousi, 2020)
Trial: 74 sedentary diabetics, 12 weeks of HIIT, no medication change
LDL change on exercise: Modest. The Pattyn meta-analysis pegs exercise alone at −7.2 mg/dL on average
CIMT change: 0.83 mm to 0.71 mm. A 14% absolute reduction in 12 weeks
Cost: Free
Translation: Exercise at HIIT intensity produced absolute regression that a 2-year course of high-dose rosuvastatin did not produce
This is the headline that should make every cardiologist who reads it jump for joy and become an evangelist for HIIT. High-intensity exercise produces carotid regression at a magnitude that high-dose rosuvastatin alone could not match in 2 years. With a fraction of the LDL movement. Through a different mechanism. PCSK9 inhibitors stacked on a statin can produce arrest of plaque but not meaningful regression, at significant cost. The biology of regression is real and is accessible by multiple paths. Exercise at the right dose is one of them.
What Does Exercise Do to the Blood?
“Exercise is a prescription that enhances the right diet but if your diet is toxic, then exercise accelerates its toxic effects.”
Kevin Ham, MD
If exercise reverses carotid plaque, exercise must be doing something to the blood that affects the plaque. Something measurable. Something a cardiologist could, in principle, find on a lab draw. So I went to the lipid literature, looking for the part of the lipid panel that exercise moves the most. What I found was not what I expected.
A 2024 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine by Pattyn and colleagues pooled 148 randomized controlled trials of exercise interventions on blood lipids. The averages, expressed as the difference exercise alone produces against a non-exercising control on the same baseline diet:
• LDL: −7.2 mg/dL
• Triglycerides: −8.0 mg/dL
• HDL: +2.1 mg/dL
That is the honest magnitude of exercise on the lipid panel. Disappointing. It is not biologically meaningless, especially compounded across decades. But it is small compared with what a statin does. Smaller still compared with what the Esselstyn diet does. Exercise will not move an LDL of 168 to 61. No trial has ever shown that it can. My LDL came down on the diet, not on the bike.
Which leaves a problem. If exercise barely moves the lipid panel, and if the lipid panel is supposedly the upstream driver of plaque, how does exercise reverse plaque at all?
Exercise does not move plaque through the lipid panel. It moves plaque through something the lipid panel does not see.
The Measurement That Actually Matters to Plaque Reversal
“HDL number tells you how much cholesterol is in the blood. Efflux capacity tells you how well it is working. The number on your lipid panel is a passenger count. Efflux is the exhaust engine.”
Kevin Ham, MD
There is a process inside your arteries that you have probably never heard of. It is called reverse cholesterol transport. It is your system for taking cholesterol out of the wall of an artery and sending it to the liver to be excreted in bile. The scientific term for this is Efflux Capacity. It is the disease running in reverse. It is regression, expressed as biology.
Picture a single foam cell, deep in the wall of your carotid artery. A macrophage that swallowed too much oxidized LDL 20 years ago and has been sitting there ever since, swollen, slow, dying by inches. On the surface of that cell are pumps. Two of them, named ABCA1 and ABCG1. Their job is to push cholesterol out of the cell, across the cell membrane, onto a passing HDL particle in the bloodstream. The HDL particle, now loaded, drifts away with its cargo and delivers it to the liver.
Exercise upregulates ABCA1 and ABCG1. More pumps. More efflux. More plaque leaving the wall. The lipid panel does not measure pumps. The lipid panel counts particles. 3 studies in the last 20 years have measured what exercise actually does to the efflux engine itself, and they tell a single, escalating story.
1. Olchawa, 2004. Athletes have more fuel pumps.
Published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology in 2004.
Design. Cross-sectional comparison of 18 endurance athletes (cyclists and runners) versus 18 age and sex-matched sedentary controls. Mean age 32. All non-smokers, all on no medications, all with normal lipid panels.
What was measured. HDL particle subspecies (pre-beta-1, alpha-1, alpha-2 by 2D gel electrophoresis), LCAT activity, CETP activity, and macrophage cholesterol efflux capacity using J774 cell assay.
Results
Pre-beta-1 HDL: +46% in athletes (p < 0.001). This is the HDL subspecies that actually picks up cholesterol from ABCA1
LCAT activity: +23% in athletes. The enzyme that locks cholesterol onto HDL so it cannot fall back off
Cholesterol efflux capacity: Significantly higher in athletes from macrophages loaded in vitro
Total HDL: Higher, but only by about 15%. Far less than the functional measurements
The athletes did not just have more HDL. They had HDL that worked. The same number on a lab report can mean two completely different things in the body, depending on whether the engine is running.
2. Sarzynski, 2022. The engine builds in 12 weeks.
Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in 2022.
Patients. 61 healthy young men, mean age 24, randomized to 12 weeks of moderate intensity exercise or sedentary control.
Exercise. Treadmill running, 4 to 5 sessions per week, 30 to 45 minutes per session, at 65% to 80% of VO2 max. Heart rate is monitored at every session.
Control. Maintained a sedentary lifestyle. No change in efflux capacity or HDL composition at 12 weeks.
Results
Total cholesterol efflux capacity: +10.6% (p < 0.05)
ABCA1-mediated efflux capacity: +13.5% (p < 0.01). The engine specifically
Total HDL concentration: Barely changed. The number on the lipid panel did not move
HDL particle profile: Shifted toward smaller, denser particles, the more functionally active subspecies
The implication is one most cardiologists have not internalized. You can be working hard on exercise, watching your lipid panel and seeing nothing move, and meanwhile the efflux engine inside the panel is becoming dramatically more powerful. The lab report cannot see what you are building.
3. Rohatgi, 2014. The efflux engine predicts whether you live or die.
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2014. The most cited paper in the cholesterol efflux capacity literature.
Patients. 2,924 adults from the Dallas Heart Study, a population-based cohort of Dallas County residents. Mean age 42, 51% women, multi-ethnic. None had known cardiovascular disease at baseline.
What was measured. Cholesterol efflux capacity at baseline using a validated cell-based assay, alongside the standard lipid panel.
Follow up. Median 9.4 years. The primary endpoint was incident cardiovascular events: myocardial infarction, stroke, coronary revascularization, and cardiovascular death.
Results
Highest quartile vs lowest quartile of efflux capacity: 67% reduction in cardiovascular events (HR 0.33, 95% CI 0.19 to 0.55)
Independent of HDL concentration: Yes. The relationship persisted after adjustment for HDL-C
Independent of LDL: Yes
Independent of all traditional risk factors: Yes. After adjustment for age, sex, race, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, LDL, HDL, and family history
Two-thirds fewer heart attacks and strokes, predicted by a measurement your cardiologist almost certainly has not run, cholesterol efflux that exercise raises by more than 10% in 12 weeks, which the standard lipid panel cannot see.
I believe this is where an important component of my 3-month carotid result came from. The lipid panel moved through diet but the HIIT efflux engine moved cholesterol efflux enormously. I cannot prove it, because nobody is running serial efflux capacity assays on me, but the biology fits the result, and the trial data fits the biology.
A Question You Should Ask Yourself
For yourself. For someone you love. Answer them in the quietness of your day.
If the most aggressive drugs for lowering cholesterol cannot reverse your plaque, what will?
Taking a pill will slow down the progression, but not reverse it. Even though my friend Rob was on a statin since age 34 (LDL ~80-90), he still died of a sudden heart attack at 58 years. He had no other risk factors or symptoms.
For Someone You Love
There is someone in your life building plaque. Most are. You thought of them. Send this to them. Your loved ones just need the information to act and a guide to help them.
Keep going. The race is long, the road is beautiful, and the body was built to heal.
Grace, strength and love to you.
MORE READINGS YOU’LL ENJOY
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The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Meaning
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
Appendix
The summary of the referred exercise studies:
1. Okada Y, et al. Effect of exercise on carotid artery intima media thickness in adults: a systematic review and meta analysis. J Phys Act Health. 2022;19:855 to 867.
26 randomized trials, 1,370 participants. Pooled weighted mean difference of −0.02 mm. Aerobic produced the largest effect. Subgroup analysis showed effect doubled in trials lasting more than 6 months in patients with disease at baseline.
2. Ghardashi-Afousi A, et al. Improved carotid intima media thickness induced by high intensity interval training associated with decreased serum Dkk 1 and sclerostin in type 2 diabetes. J Diabetes Complications. 2020;34(1):107469.
74 sedentary diabetics, 12 weeks of HIIT (6 intervals of 4 minutes at 85% to 90% maximum heart rate, 3 sessions per week). CIMT fell 14% absolute. Wnt pathway markers Dkk-1 and sclerostin both fell. The fastest published carotid regression on exercise alone.
3. Crouse JR, et al. Effect of rosuvastatin on progression of carotid intima media thickness in low risk individuals with subclinical atherosclerosis: the METEOR trial. JAMA. 2007;297:1344 to 1353.
984 low-risk subjects, 2 years of rosuvastatin 40 mg vs placebo. LDL fell 49% (155 to 78 mg/dL). CIMT essentially flat at −0.0014 mm/year on statin vs +0.0131 mm/year on placebo. Statin halted progression but did not produce regression.
4. Pattyn N, et al. The effect of exercise training on blood lipids: a systematic review and meta analysis. Sports Med. 2024;54:1 to 28.
148 RCTs. Exercise alone effects on lipids: LDL −7.2 mg/dL, TG −8.0 mg/dL, HDL +2.1 mg/dL. The honest baseline magnitude of exercise on the standard lipid panel.
5. Olchawa B, et al. Physical fitness and reverse cholesterol transport. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 2004;24:1087 to 1091.
18 endurance athletes vs 18 sedentary controls. Athletes had +46% pre-beta-1 HDL, +23% LCAT activity, and significantly higher macrophage cholesterol efflux capacity. The functional HDL measurements were 2 to 3 times more elevated than the simple HDL concentration.
6. Sarzynski MA, et al. Moderate and high intensity exercise improves lipoprotein profile and cholesterol efflux capacity in healthy young men. J Am Heart Assoc. 2022;11:e023386.
61 young men, 12 weeks of moderate intensity treadmill running 4 to 5 days per week. ABCA1-mediated efflux capacity rose 13.5%. Total HDL barely changed. Function moved before concentration did.
7. Rohatgi A, et al. HDL cholesterol efflux capacity and incident cardiovascular events. N Engl J Med. 2014;371:2383 to 2393.
Dallas Heart Study, 2,924 adults, median 9.4 year follow up. Highest quartile of efflux capacity had 67% fewer cardiovascular events than lowest quartile. Independent of HDL concentration, LDL, and every traditional risk factor.
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Does Exercise Reverse Plaque?
Is there a threshold?
Is there a threshold?
Dr. Kevin Ham, MD
“And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.”
Hebrews 12:1-2
I just launched a video of why you should start drinking 50 ml of pomegranate juice each day. I know we hear a lot of things, but I repeat so more people are reminded and my hope is they move to action. If I could stop one heart from aching…
Let me know in the comments of this video if you are drinking pomegranate or not and make sure you subscribe so that you are notified of each video in my channel. https://www.youtube.com/@DrKevinHam
Also watch my Thursday video. It will show you why half the people who are seemingly healthy can have a sudden heart attack. If you are over 50, there is a 91% chance you have plaque in your heart arteries. Also let me know in the comments here whether you knew this or not and if you will get a Calcium CT Heart scan. I’m curious. I’ve had medical doctors ask me for personal consults, which is humbling and my heart goes out to everyone who wants to reverse their diseases.
I am flying to San Francisco today to ride in the Levi Gran Fondo. I’m going to ride a true century mile ride (160 km) with 14,000 ft of elevation (3000 m). I’m excited to meet up with my good friend Michael Woods, who just retired from pro cycling and who can also run a 4 minute mile. He wishes to be the world’s fittest man and is running Ironmans, skiing, biking, running and swimming.
After thinking how I reversed my carotid plaque from May 9, 2025 (Started WFPB Esselstyn diet) to August 19, 2025, when my carotid ultrasound showed that all my plaque was gone and CIMT reduced 53%, I have been trying to understand the mechanism and biochemical pathways this occurred. I have been so focused on diet, that I wondered how much my 3000 km of cycling played a role. I did three Gran Fondo (120+ km) rides last year. Then after my September fondo, I basically stopped riding. My coronary plaque did not really reverse after that, although blood flow improved remarkably. So that has made me curious.
My thought is that high intensity riding accelerated my plaque reversal. So this year I am doubling down and riding four Gran Fondos and running a half marathon. I don’t like running at all but since I am turning 56 years old, I want my bones to be strong and need some impact exercises besides cycling. I also plan to start strength training after my Sept fondo this year and build more muscle so I can retain it as I age. Then I will focus on fasting and less intense exercises for fall and winter months. This is a natural seasonal pattern imho.
So I did a deep dive on exercise studies and plaque. It was so much research that I have to divide it into four parts. Here is the first part looking at the various trials to answer my first question: Is there a threshold intensity and amount of exercise that reverses plaque independently? After this I plan to do a deep dive on fasting and then on multi-modal strategies to reduce plaque, like I am doing:
Dietary x HIIT exercise x Fasting. I call it my Trinity Reversal Flywheel Synergy.
Why High Intensity Interval Exercise?
“Can exercise reverse atherosclerosis?”
Kevin Ham, MD
I have been cycling since 2008 and more seriously since 2014. I can ride with the best and have ridden with my pro team during their rest days on the Tour de France. Riding between Michael Woods and Chris Froome, also a good friend and winner of the Tour de France four times, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life.
Yet I found out that I have severe atherosclerosis. If intense exercise reversed plaque, then shouldn’t my arteries have been healing while I cycled? Why were they so clogged? 77%, 55%, 45% etc.
I even thought initially that because of my intense cycling, maybe it caused my plaque. But I’ve determined that the cause is mostly dietary. When I changed my diet, my plaque reversed. This is what Dr. Esselstyn revealed through his patients, who were ‘end-stage’ heart disease, barely able to walk without getting chest pain or short of breath. But before my dietary changes, I was riding up the Alp mountains in France, Italy and Switzerland. 100,000 m of riding my bike up mountains a year for years! That’s pretty high intensity.
But when my biochemistry became optimal by a complete focused diet that eliminated all added oils and dietary cholesterol, I believe exercise accelerated Reverse Cholesterol Transport (read this article I wrote) in my plaques.
I continually think from first principles and then study how the biochemical pathways work in the body. My degree in Biochemistry and Medicine is delighted to learn with great curiosity and interest and translate this complex biochemical language into something you can relate to so you can be empowered to restore your own health and those around you.
Does studying medicine for four years allow you to heal disease?
Four years of medical school made me a doctor, but if you studied your disease and educated yourself, I believe within a month, you would have enough wisdom and knowledge to start healing yourself. I am spending my spare moments for this very reason. To empower you with health wisdom to reverse disease. We were not taught this in medicine. We were taught to diagnose and manage and sometimes treat disease. Many diseases we do not know or ponder the true cause. Let’s look at some exercise studies to see what’s better: exercise or diet?
What is HIIT?
“I think of my high intensity exercise as a prescriptive pressure wash of my arteries to activate eNOS and nitric oxide, medicine for my blood vessels and to mobilize my HDL to be more functional and activate Reverse Cholesterol Transport, which is one of the greatest health secrets.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Just a note here to describe what HIIT is. It is high intensity, when you exercise at a high intensity such that you cannot speak, huffing and puffing, when your heart rate is more than 80% of your maximum heart rate. A simple measure of your max hr would be 220- your age. So if you are 50 years old, your max hr = 220-50 = 170. I’m 56, but my max hr which should be 220-56=164, is actually 195 beats per min (bpm). So I try to 195*80%=156 bpm. I used to average this hr for 4 hours on my Gran Fondos. Average! After I found out I have blocked arteries, I try to limit my heart rate to 160 bpm and hover between 130-150 bpm, which is what we call zone 2 or tempo training.
So that is the HI in high intensity. Then you must consider the second ‘I” which is Interval. So you have to pace or decide for how long you do this high intensity. There are studies that do 4x4 which is 4 minutes of high intensity repeated four times. In between the repetitions (reps) of high intensity, there is an interval of rest. You need to recover before the next round of HI effort. You’ll know when you are ready when you can breathe comfortably and speak easily. At 150 bpm, I can go 4-6 hours with HIIT. At 130 bpm, I could go even longer. Pretty extreme. So all the HIIT studies are very easy for me as I like to ride 2-4 hours to clear my mind, exercise my eyes. It’s my meditation and hobby.
Top Exercise Studies
“How can we thank all these scientists who pursue their curiosity and passion to discover life’s secrets. I feel so blessed for each scientist. Thank you from the depths of my heart!”
Kevin Ham, MD
1. Vesterbekkmo, 2023.
The first randomized trial of coronary plaque regression from exercise alone.
Published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology in 2023, the CENIT trial randomized sixty patients who had recently undergone PCI to either six months of high intensity interval training or usual care. Serial intravascular ultrasound at baseline and six months to measure plaque. The HIIT (high intensity interval training) group showed a between group difference in normalized total atheroma volume of twelve cubic millimeters against controls. Slight regression like cholesterol lowering drugs.
This study was the first randomized trial to show that exercise alone, without additional dietary or pharmacological change, can regress coronary atheroma in humans.
The effect was small in absolute terms. It was also statistically robust, mechanistically coherent, and the first crack in the dogma that only drugs regress plaque.
2. Hambrecht, 1993.
The 2,200 kilocalorie threshold.
Published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 1993 by Rainer Hambrecht and the Heidelberg group, this is the dose response study that quietly defined the exercise prescription for reversal for the next thirty years. Sixty two patients with coronary artery disease were tracked for a year with repeat angiography. The patients were stratified by weekly leisure time physical activity expressed in kilocalories expended.
Below 1500 kilocalories (kcal) a week, lesions progressed.
Above 2200 kcal a week, lesions regressed.
There was a clean dose response, and a clean threshold. 2200 kcal a week translates to about five to six hours of moderate aerobic exercise.Three times what the current American Heart Association baseline recommends. Twice what the average American cardiac rehab program prescribes.
My cycling volume runs at ~8000 kcal a week during the season. More than three times Hambrecht's regression threshold. No wonder I cannot find anyone who has matched the degree and speed of my carotid reversal. I’m an extreme outlier.
But this shows the world what is possible, just like a World Record does. Just like once the 4 minute mile was run by Roger Bannister, runners believed it was possible. I long for many people to break my reversal record for carotid plaques and CIMT of 53% reduction in just three months. I will show by first principles why such reversal is possible, much like a fractured bone healing in just 3 months. This is the basis of my CAST protocol. This is the miraculous healing power within us and in nature and in foods and blood.
3. Ornish, 1990 and 1998.
The Lifestyle Heart Trial.
Published in The Lancet in 1990 with five year follow up in JAMA in 1998, Dean Ornish’s Lifestyle Heart Trial is the most cited reversal experiment in the literature. Forty eight patients with angiographically proven coronary disease, randomized to either a comprehensive lifestyle program or usual care. The lifestyle arm got a ten percent fat vegetarian diet, moderate aerobic exercise, stress management, and group support. Quantitative angiography at baseline, one year, and five years.
At one year, the experimental group showed an average stenosis regression, with eighty two percent of patients improving. The control group on usual care showed progression. By five years, the experimental arm had deepened its regression, and the control arm had accumulated two and a half times the cardiac events.
Two things to notice. First, the exercise component was only three hours per week, and the diet did most of the work. Second, the angiographic changes were small in absolute terms. Mean stenosis fell from roughly forty percent to thirty seven percent at one year.
Meaningful, but modest.
4. Schuler and Niebauer, 1992 and 1997.
The Heidelberg secondary prevention trial.
Published in Circulation in 1992, with six year follow up in 1997, this trial randomized 113 men with stable angina to either a one year intensive low fat diet and exercise program or usual care. Serial angiography at baseline and one and six years.
At one year, 32% of the intervention group showed regression compared with 17% of controls. Progression was 45% versus 48%.
Six years later, the numbers held. Three times the maintenance dose, lower regression rates, but the disease stayed arrested.
The early work suggested that the induction dose of exercise is higher than the maintenance dose, a finding that matches what every endurance athlete in their sixties has figured out empirically.
5. Madssen, 2014.
Twelve weeks to the necrotic core.
Published in the American Journal of Cardiology in 2014, this twelve week trial in 36 post PCI patients used grayscale and radiofrequency intravascular ultrasound to measure plaque composition before and after a short course of aerobic exercise training.
The finding that matters: plaque burden fell by 10.7 percent in treated lesions, and necrotic core volume fell by roughly three percent.
Twelve weeks. That is the shortest regression signal anywhere in the coronary literature. It is the answer to the question every patient asks when they begin. How long until something changes? Three months of real work.
Five coronary trials. Different populations. Different protocols. Different imaging modalities. All pointing at the same finding. Exercise regresses coronary plaque when the dose crosses a threshold that looks something like 2000 kcal a week, sustained over three to twelve months.
What the Trials Say
Exercise reverses plaque. The regression threshold is roughly 2200 kcal per week, which translates to five to six hours of moderate aerobic activity. The modality that matters most is aerobic. The effect is concentrated in people who already have disease. The effect shows up in as little as twelve weeks on imaging.
If that is all you take from this week, it is enough. If you are a man between forty and sixty five with a new CAC score, and a cardiologist who told you to take a statin and walk more, here is what the literature now shows beyond reasonable dispute. The walking is not wrong. The dose is insufficient to reverse plaque. Three hours a week of leisure exercise sits below the regression threshold. Six hours of real aerobic work crosses it.
But that is the trial literature.
I have some ideas for those of you who may find this intensity of exercise difficult.
Focus on reducing your inflammation, oxidation, glycation and LDL lower and exercise will work on helping phase 1 of Reverse Cholesterol Transport via HDL efflux capacity, which means to transport cholesterol out of the plaque.
Even the best statins and PCSK9 cholesterol lowering drugs only reverse plaque by 1%, which is essentially arrest rather than reversal. Even with PCSK9 + statins reducing LDL to 34 mg/dL, reversal does not seem to increase. This means you just need to lower LDL below a certain threshold, which I will cover in Part 3 of this Exercise series.
My own reversal result sits in a place the trial literature does not describe.
“The educated soul can be healthy through its lifestyle, set by its heart and its mind. Heartset and Mindset.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Next week, Part 2: How Much Can Exercise Reduce Plaque?
On Exercise Reversing Plaque.
Arterial plaque reversal can be easier to see, what we call a lead indicator in the carotid neck arteries. That’s what was revealed in my 3 month carotid arterial plaque reversal.
The five published exercise case studies that come closest to mine but none of them come close to my reversal. Why?
My Trinity Reversal Flywheel is running every lever I can find at the same time and explains why three months is not miraculous.
Your Questions
“The educated soul can be healthy through its lifestyle, set by its heart and its mind. Heartset and Mindset.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Questions worth sitting with
1. How many hours a week do you move hard enough that talking hurts?
If the honest answer is under five, you are below the floor where your exercise reverses your plaque meaningfully. Work up towards this as you change your biochemistry.
2. Can you move, hard, for 5 minutes today and repeat each day?
The first 5 minutes are the only 5 minutes that feel impossible. The biology responds to what you do, not what you know.
For Someone You Love
There is someone in your life running their nine steps poorly right now. You thought of them. Send this to them. Your loved ones just need the information to act and a guide to help them.
Keep going. The race is long, the road is beautiful, and the body was built to heal.
Grace, strength and love to you.
MORE READINGS YOU’LL ENJOY
Health
Watch: The 2 Foods That Reverse Heart Plaque (Half a Million Views)
Reversing My 77% Heart Plaques
Stats Say You Likely Have Heart Plaque
The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Meaning
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life. ham.com
Subscribe to my YouTube channel @DrKevinHam for videos on how I reversed my clogged arteries in 3 months, the top foods that clear your arteries, and the first principles of health that can save your life. Like, share and subscribe — it could save the life of someone you love.
Reverse Cholesterol Transport
Through Diet, Movement and Fasting
Through Diet, Movement and Fasting
Dr. Kevin Ham, MD
Endothelium is the Life of Blood
“The highway of life is from the heart into the blood into the liver.”
Kevin Ham, MD
I’m attending the last TED conference in Vancouver this week, and it is so inspirational. I wanted to meet Reed Hastings, the Founder of Netflix. Made my day when I saw him. I was standing to his right as a lady spoke to him on his left. He turned to me and smiled, stuck out his hand, and kindly embraced my right hand. He said, “Hi Kevin,” with a sweet smile and tender voice. He is such a kind gentleman, and I will never forget his attention, his smile and humility. He felt like a kindred spirit. No wonder Netflix has flourished under his guidance.
Then I was blown away by Mark Rober, a YouTube superstar with 75 million subscribers. He had a dream of making a $60 million educational program to provide to teachers for free. As he showed how he taught science to kids through experiments, making things fun, and hiding lessons in play, I wondered how I could do this for health education?
And Ann Patchett, who inspires everyone to be a reader of books. Wow, her TED talk melted my heart. In that moment, all the plaques of my coronaries were laid low like valleys in humble adoration to her heart for all people to read.
And of Amy Cuddy. I had a class with her while at Harvard Business School 18 years ago. I knew of her rise as one of the most-viewed TED Talks, thanks to her power pose. But I did not know how much professional bullying she had experienced due to it. I was in tears for most of her talk. I was so glad to give her a warm, empathetic embrace. I pray and wish to help her. I know she will rise again, like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon.
I can go on about the endless emotions and wonder as I listened to Susan Burton provide homes for women who leave the prisons with no place to call home. Or Gabriella Dieguez, who has resurrected the lost voice of buried women composers. Or Gabriela Moynihan, who donated her left kidney at age 21. Or Azusa Murakami, who spends a year producing bubbles to show the beauty of life through the ethereal and temporal nature of our being and moments of life. I dream of organizing a conference like this, just for health, by wisdom that heals the body, soul, and spirit. It is a quiet seed planted in the vessels of my heart in the mountains of plaque, that faith shall remove and place them into the sea of blood that is impeded by the voluminous heights that oppose life, my own doing of decades of not living right, not eating right, as body, soul and spirit urge. I have heeded the warning signs and will live each moment in gratefulness and humble myself under the hand of God and people to do that which is planted in my heart.
May you be blessed by the hearts of others who yearn to make you and themselves whole and united, in peace and harmony, though the outer being be afflicted and the inner being assaulted.
I wish I could just start and be of heart and inspire and teach as they have at TED in my YouTube videos (youtube.com/@drkevinham) and in this newsletter, but I currently lack the full wisdom and creativity, not to mention the time. I have had so many people send their thanks and encouragement to keep providing valuable information as I learn and live it. To strive for excellence, yet have compassion and empathy as we journey together on our heart journey to heal together as best we can.
I will continue to pour my heart into figuring things out for myself and accomplish the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself!” so I can do so for you and everyone who suffers from these chronic, deadly diseases.
As you know, I reversed my carotid arterial plaque in just three months. I thought surely someone else in the world has done this, but I have yet to find any RCT or case study, for that matter. I’m continually searching for a better, faster way to heal arteries (coronaries, carotids (done), aortic, cerebral, femoral (easy), mesenteric (easy), retinal (I think it’s done, but will have to see when I get my next eye shot, last one three years ago, but supposed to be monthly)).
But my coronary arteries have not reversed… Yet. The obstruction volume was essentially the same, but I could see the plaque remodelling in shape, and my FFR (think of it like blood flow) past my most severe obstruction has improved from 75% to 80%, which is significant.
But why had my carotid plaque reversed and not my coronary heart arteries?
That question sent me down a deep scientific rabbit hole in my spare moments over the last 7 months. I prayed and asked for wisdom. Then, I found the ancient pathway that was actually discovered over 50 years ago, a 9-step biological pathway that I had never heard of before, yet once I found it, I started to understand it was already well known, yet only by special interest groups. Why wasn’t this mainstream when heart disease is the #1 global killer?
Reverse Cholesterol Transport, RCT. The same acronym we use for randomized controlled trials.
As I was listening to Peter Steinberger at TED, the creator of Open Claw, and how he had created it by thinking “a big Holy S**t” idea. As Peter described his Open Claw moment, one also came to me just minutes later. He said he hadn’t coded a single line, but had just prompted the AI to create the first versions of Open Claw when it became a team of autonomous, self-coding AI agents. He made it open source and clawed its way into everything to solve problems.
I thought, what could be a bigger problem than our world’s biggest disease killers, causing death and suffering to so many tens of millions each year? Mimi and Dave, whom we had just met at TED, have to leave tomorrow to be with her ailing 96-year-old father. God bless you, Mimi, and your dad.
I had a vision of how to help cure our top diseases. I saw a vision of the TED stage, and in its place was a different set of talks, talks by both healers and patients of wisdom that truly heal. The body, the mind and the spirit.
RCT
“Life is taught to be driven forward, but if you wish to live fully and openly, your direction should be in reverse.”
Kevin Ham, MD
The man who first described the process of Reverse Cholesterol Transport (RCT) was John Glomset, a Norwegian-American biochemist at the University of Washington. In 1968, Glomset published the hypothesis that HDL particles were not passive markers of cardiovascular health but active cholesterol collectors, gathering cholesterol from peripheral tissues, including arterial walls and returning it to the liver for permanent disposal.
He named it Reverse Cholesterol Transport (RCT) because it runs in the direction opposite to the process that causes arterial disease. Cholesterol enters arterial walls through LDL. Glomset said it also has to come out through a specific pathway, or plaque accumulates regardless of how well you manage the inflow. He already surmised the cure for heart disease with this insight.
His colleagues largely ignored him. Glomset’s hypothesis sat dormant for nearly two decades before Alan Tall at Columbia and Daniel Rader at Penn built the modern molecular framework on his foundation. Glomset was right in 1968.
Medicine took fifty years to act on it.
Almost everyone is focused on the first step: slowing or halting arterial disease by lowering LDL cholesterol. Hardly anyone focuses on reversing cholesterol transport (RCT) out of arterial plaque. Why not? It seems so ‘bloody’ obvious to me. Hidden in plain sight. It’s like I was finally let in on one of the world’s greatest medical secrets.
Then I saw an even bigger vision.
I only had one body to experiment on, but what if patients like me were motivated to test different foods and lifestyle measures to see who could reverse plaque better and faster?
What if we did an open source model like Open Claw or Wikipedia, by the people and for the people?
Why don’t we RCT (randomize controlled trials) RCT (reverse cholesterol transport)?
ACT
“Reverse Cholesterol Transport is a 9-step pathway but its players seem like strangers from a strange land we must befriend. How can we understand this new language? It must be translated into a language and visuals we can easily understand and act upon. Then I had it, acronyms that remind us of what they do. ACT.”
Kevin Ham, MD
The nine steps are grouped into three master phases, which spell ACT. Each phase has three sub-steps. Understanding the architecture makes the nine steps memorable and actionable.
Activate (Phase I): Driven by diet, reverses cholesterol transport from the arterial wall into the bloodstream.
Carry (Phase II): Driven by exercise, it moves the cholesterol from the blood to the liver.
Take out (Phase III): Driven by fasting and fibre to take out the cholesterol through the intestines.
Each step has an exact science and precise levers you can pull.
This week, we will focus on Phase I: Activate, and its first three steps, which spell: AMP.
Awaken Cholesterol Efflux (Step 1)
Mobilize ApoA-I (Step 2)
Prime LCAT (Step 3)
Step 1: Awaken Cholesterol Efflux
The Emergency Exit That Nobody Knows Is Armed
“The gate is ancient. Your only job is to stop blocking it. Every plant-based meal is the key to unlocking it while every gram of saturated fat keeps it locked.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Inside every foam cell embedded in your arterial plaque is a protein called ABCA1 (a Binding Cassette A1) on its outer membrane. ABCA1 is a molecular emergency exit. When it opens, it pumps cholesterol out of the cell and onto passing HDL particles in the bloodstream. The foam cell has been reaching for a rope for years. The question is whether you are giving it one.
The lock on this exit is a nuclear receptor called LXR (liver X receptor).
Every vegetable and legume you eat contains phytosterols that bind LXR and activate it directly, a mechanism confirmed across multiple published trials.
Exercise shear stress above 80 percent of maximum heart rate triggers nitric oxide synthesis through eNOS that opens the gate from outside.
Saturated fat suppresses LXR and keeps ABCA1 shut.
This is the most critical step of the 9-step Reverse Cholesterol Transport pathway. Without it, the engine doesn’t start.
WHAT BLOCKS IT:
Saturated fat: directly suppresses LXR and prevents ABCA1 expression in macrophages
Oxidized LDL: drives continued cholesterol uptake faster than efflux can remove it
Hyperglycemia: glycates apoA-I and impairs the ABCA1 cholesterol loading interaction
WHAT ACCELERATES IT:
Plant phytosterols: LXR activation confirmed in published trials; every plant-based meal signals ABCA1 to open
High-intensity exercise above 80% max HR: shear stress activates eNOS and endothelial nitric oxide, activating ABCA1
Fasting and AMPK activation: Fasting activates AMPK, which stabilizes ABCA1 at the macrophage cell surface
Step 2: Mobilize ApoAI
“You cannot collect what you never sent to collect. Every reverse cholesterol transport system begins with the decision to dispatch the vehicle. Your liver makes that decision. Those shuttles are ApoA1. Your diet and exercise power it.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Brouillette et al., Biochim Biophys Acta 2001, Fig. 1
Your liver manufactures apolipoprotein A-I continuously and dispatches it into the bloodstream as a nearly lipid-free particle. ApoA-I is the empty truck. It carries no cargo. It circulates, seeking a foam cell with an open ABCA1 gate so it can accept a first load of cholesterol and initiate the reverse cholesterol transport cascade.
An open exit door means nothing if no truck is waiting outside. Think of apoA-I as a delivery fleet. Dispatching more trucks means more pickups completed per hour. Fewer trucks means packages pile up on the doorstep even when the door is wide open. Your liver is the fulfillment center. Your daily choices are the dispatcher.
WHAT BLOCKS IT:
Processed diet and liver dysfunction: reduces hepatic apoA-I synthesis; fewer trucks dispatched
Smoking: directly oxidizes and degrades the apoA-I protein structure in circulation
Chronic systemic inflammation: serum amyloid A displaces apoA-I on HDL particles and degrades their function
WHAT ACCELERATES IT:
Whole food plant-based diet: increases hepatic apoA-I synthesis at the source
Fasting: upregulates apoA-I production and reduces apoA-I catabolism
Regular aerobic exercise: increases the rate apoA-I cycles through arterial tissue each day
Step 3: Prime LCAT
The Garbage Compactor That Makes the Truck Useful
“Capacity is not determined by how many vehicles you have. It is determined by how much each vehicle can carry. Protect the compactor and every truck becomes a freight train.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Glomset, J Lipid Res 1968, Fig. 1
The LCAT esterification reaction: free cholesterol on HDL surface is converted to cholesterol ester and moves to the hydrophobic core, expanding particle from a flat disc (nascent HDL) to HDL3 sphere to HDL2 sphere.
A nascent HDL particle is tiny and flat, like a small coin, and fills up quickly at the surface. This is where LCAT enters. Lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) is an enzyme traveling on the HDL surface. It converts loose surface cholesterol into cholesterol ester and packs it into the particle core, freeing the surface for another full load. LCAT is activated by apoA-I and is the enzyme responsible for HDL maturation; this mechanism is well established in the published biochemistry literature.
Without LCAT running, the truck fills up after a few houses. With it running, the same truck covers fifty houses per run. But apoA-I must be structurally intact to activate LCAT. Oxidative stress from processed foods and chronic inflammation damage apoA-I and silence the compactor entirely, which is why HDL particles can be numerous in the blood yet functionally impaired.
WHAT BLOCKS IT:
Oxidative damage to apoA-I: from processed food, smoking, and chronic inflammation; prevents LCAT activation
Serum amyloid A: displaces apoA-I from the HDL particle surface during acute phase responses
Low HDL phospholipid content: insufficient phospholipid substrate for the LCAT transesterification reaction
WHAT ACCELERATES IT:
Pomegranate juice 50ml once or twice daily: (after meals, then walk) activates PON1 antioxidant enzyme on HDL, protecting apoA-I from oxidation; confirmed in Aviram et al. studies
Algae-derived EPA and DHA: incorporate into HDL membrane phospholipids, improving fluidity and LCAT activation efficiency
Aged garlic extract 2,000mg: reduces systemic inflammation and oxidative stress that damages apoA-I structure
Some steps are running well. Some are blocked. The question is which ones, and which levers to pull first.
Like waves of water on rock, daily compounding with many small correct decisions is what running all nine steps feels like. The direction is clear. The biology is responding. Give the cleanup crew the conditions they need to do their job of healing.
Seems complicated yet its so beautiful and simple. A well orchestrated system that heals when we give it the right lifestyle conditions to operate smoothly, like it was meant to be.
Your Questions
“The educated soul can be healthy through its lifestyle, set by its heart and its mind. Heartset and Mindset.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Questions worth sitting with
For yourself. For someone you love. Answer them in the quietness of your day.
1. Awaken: What did you eat today and did it open the ABCA1 gate or close it?
Every gram of saturated fat you consume suppresses LXR and closes the exit hatch on your foam cells. Every legume and vegetable activated it. Look at your last three meals and name one specific change to tomorrow’s first meal that arms the gate.
2. Mobilize: When will you help ApoA1?
Whole food, plant-based diet. Eat greens, move them through exercise and rest (fast) to boost their production.
3. Prime: How will you reduce oxidation today?
Compact your garbage cholesterol trucks (HDL) by activating PON1 and LCAT. Pomegranate juice. Get some at your organic health food store. Just 50 ml a day or twice a day, at the end of your meals and then walk for 15 minutes.
For Someone You Love
There is someone in your life running their nine steps poorly right now. You thought of them. Send this to them. The system is universal in human biology. The endothelium that repaired my carotid arteries responds to the same signals as the endothelium in our coronary arteries. Your loved ones just need the information to act and a guide to help them.
MORE READINGS YOU’LL ENJOY
Health
Watch: The 2 Foods That Reverse Heart Plaque (Half a Million Views)
Reversing My 77% Heart Plaques
Stats Say You Likely Have Heart Plaque
The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Meaning
The Courage to Your Magnum Opus
APPENDIX
The published research underlying the nine-step reverse cholesterol transport framework
Reverse Cholesterol Transport: Foundational Science
Glomset JA. The plasma lecithins:cholesterol acyltransferase reaction. Journal of Lipid Research. 1968;9(2):155-167. [Foundational paper naming reverse cholesterol transport and describing the LCAT-driven HDL maturation mechanism.]
Tall AR. Plasma high density lipoproteins: metabolism and relationship to atherogenesis. Journal of Clinical Investigation. 1990;86(2):379-384.
Oram JF, Heinecke JW. ATP-binding cassette transporter A1: a cell cholesterol exporter that protects against cardiovascular disease. Physiological Reviews. 2005;85(4):1343-1372. [Comprehensive review of ABCA1 biology.]
LXR Signaling, ABCA1 and Plant Phytosterols
Tontonoz P, Mangelsdorf DJ. Liver X receptor signaling pathways in cardiovascular disease. Molecular Endocrinology. 2003;17(6):985-993. [LXR as master regulator of ABCA1 and cholesterol efflux.]
Repa JJ, Mangelsdorf DJ. The liver X receptor gene team: potential new players in atherosclerosis. Nature Medicine. 2002;8(11):1243-1248.
Cholesterol Efflux Capacity and Cardiovascular Outcomes
Khera AV, Cuchel M, de la Llera-Moya M, et al. Cholesterol efflux capacity, high-density lipoprotein function, and atherosclerosis. New England Journal of Medicine. 2011;364(2):127-135. [Key Rader group study showing CEC predicts CV events independently of HDL-C level.]
Rohatgi A, Khera A, Berry JD, et al. HDL cholesterol efflux capacity and incident cardiovascular events. New England Journal of Medicine. 2014;371(25):2383-2393. [Prospective confirmation: highest CEC quartile had 67% fewer events.]
CETP Inhibitor Trial Failures
Barter PJ, Caulfield M, Eriksson M, et al. Effects of torcetrapib in patients at high risk for coronary events. New England Journal of Medicine. 2007;357(21):2109-2122. [Torcetrapib increased mortality despite raising HDL-C.]
Schwartz GG, Olsson AG, Abt M, et al. Effects of dalcetrapib in patients with a recent acute coronary syndrome. New England Journal of Medicine. 2012;367(22):2089-2099. [Dalcetrapib: no benefit.]
Lincoff AM, Nicholls SJ, Riesmeyer JS, et al. Evacetrapib and cardiovascular outcomes in high-risk vascular disease. New England Journal of Medicine. 2017;376(20):1933-1942. [Evacetrapib: no benefit despite substantial HDL-C increase.]
Esselstyn Protocol and Plaque Regression
Esselstyn CB Jr, Gendy G, Doyle J, Golubic M, Roizen MF. A way to reverse CAD? Journal of Family Practice. 2014;63(7):356-364. [198 patients; 177 compliant had 1 event vs 62 in non-compliant group.]
Esselstyn CB Jr. Resolving the Coronary Artery Disease Epidemic Through Plant-Based Nutrition. Preventive Cardiology. 2001;4(4):171-177.
FXR, FGF19, and the Bile Acid-CYP7A1 Axis
Inagaki T, Choi M, Moschetta A, et al. Fibroblast growth factor 15 functions as an enterohepatic signal to regulate bile acid homeostasis. Cell Metabolism. 2005;2(4):217-225. [Established the FXR-FGF15/19-CYP7A1 feedback axis.]
Lefebvre P, Cariou B, Lien F, Kuipers F, Staels B. Role of bile acids and bile acid receptors in metabolic regulation. Physiological Reviews. 2009;89(1):147-191
Soluble Fiber and Bile Acid Elimination
Anderson JW, Baird P, Davis RH Jr, et al. Health benefits of dietary fiber. Nutrition Reviews. 2009;67(4):188-205. [Comprehensive review of soluble fiber mechanisms including bile acid binding.]
Ripsin CM, Keenan JM, Jacobs DR Jr, et al. Oat products and lipid lowering: a meta-analysis. JAMA. 1992;267(24):3317-3325. [Confirmed oat beta-glucan bile acid binding and LDL reduction in randomized trials.]
Gibb RD, McRorie JW Jr, Russell DA, Hasselblad V, D’Alessio DA. Psyllium fiber improves glycemic control proportional to loss of glycemic control: a meta-analysis of data in euglycemic subjects, patients at risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, and patients being treated for type 2 diabetes mellitus. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2015;102(6):1604-1614.
Pomegranate and PON1 Protection of HDL
Aviram M, Rosenblat M, Gaitini D, et al. Pomegranate juice consumption for 3 years by patients with carotid artery stenosis reduces common carotid intima-media thickness, blood pressure and LDL oxidation. Clinical Nutrition. 2004;23(3):423-433.
Aviram M, Dornfeld L, Rosenblat M, et al. Pomegranate juice consumption reduces oxidative stress, atherogenic modifications to LDL, and platelet aggregation: studies in humans and in atherosclerotic apolipoprotein E-deficient mice. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2000;71(5):1062-1076.
Exercise, eNOS, and Endothelial Nitric Oxide
Hambrecht R, Wolf A, Gielen S, et al. Effect of exercise on coronary endothelial function in patients with coronary artery disease. New England Journal of Medicine. 2000;342(7):454-460. [Exercise increases endothelial NO production and improves coronary flow.]
Niebauer J, Cooke JP. Cardiovascular effects of exercise: role of endothelial shear stress. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. 1996;28(7):1652-1660.
SR-B1 and Hepatic Cholesterol Delivery
Acton S, Rigotti A, Landschulz KT, et al. Identification of scavenger receptor SR-BI as a high density lipoprotein receptor. Science. 1996;271(5248):518-520. [Original identification of SR-B1 as the hepatic HDL receptor.]
Krieger M. Charting the fate of the "good cholesterol": identification and characterization of the high-density lipoprotein receptor SR-BI. Annual Review of Biochemistry. 1999;68:523-558.
Appendix compiled for educational purposes. Full citations available at ham.com.
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life. ham.com
Subscribe to my YouTube channel @DrKevinHam for videos on how I reversed my clogged arteries in 3 months, the top foods that clear your arteries, and the first principles of health that can save your life. Like, share and subscribe — it could save the life of someone you love.
Most Everyone Has Plaque
It may be the biggest secret in the world
It may be the biggest secret in the world
Dr. Kevin Ham, MD
The Way of Life
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”
Leviticus 17:11
Would you subject yourself to chemotherapy if you found out you had one cancer cell? How about 100 cancer cells? 1000? A million cancer cells? How about a billion cancer cells? Cancer becomes detectable typically at a billion cells. Stage 1.
Would you take insulin if you found out you were insulin resistant? How about if you were pre-diabetic? How about if you were a Type II diabetic? The average time from full insulin resistance to a diagnosis of diabetes is 13 years. It takes decades to develop insulin resistance. Once pre-diabetic, the average is ~ five years to diabetes.
How about if I told you that if you are over the age of twenty, there is a 77% likelihood that you have plaque growing in your arteries. If you are over fifty, then you have 91% likelihood. This will grow and grow year by year until it occludes your arteries. That is what the data declares again and again over the past seven decades. The average age of a heart attack in men is 61 and in women, 71. And it is the global #1 killer. 20 million people a year. I’m on this hit list but I am learning how to get myself off this list.
Food for thought. This one is a long one but so important that I’m not editing it to half the usual length I write on the first draft.
The Scan
“The CT Artery Calcium scan declared 505. My first instinct was to blame the extreme cycling up mountains. My second instinct, the physician’s instinct, was to go back further. Much further.”
Kevin Ham, MD
I got the calcium scan because Rob, a close friend, died suddenly of a heart attack at 58. Super fit. Seemingly healthy. No warning anyone had communicated to him. And then gone, with the abruptness that only the cardiovascular system can manage, before any of the conversations that were supposed to happen. I am a physician. I left clinical medicine in 2000 thinking I’d build an Internet company for three to six months. I wanted to do health as philanthropy and make $ on the Internet. It’s been 25 years, but the physician’s mind does not leave, and what it does with grief is turn it into a question. Why Rob? Now it’s why me? And who else? What happened?
A calcium score of 505 means significant atherosclerotic burden. Your coronary arteries have been accumulating calcified plaque for long enough that a CT machine can measure the mineral deposits and assign them a number. A score above 400 places you in the highest risk category. A likely heart attack in the next two to five years. Ominous. The standard response in conventional cardiology is statins, aspirin, and watchful management of a disease that will continue to progress.
My first thought, shocking and surprising, thought it must be my extreme cycling. I had been riding the North Shore mountains aggressively for a decade, up to 7,000 kilometers per year at a significant 100,000m of elevation each year with intensity. I knew the literature on extreme endurance athletes and coronary calcification. I wondered whether I had done this to myself. Rob was also an athlete, climbing the Matterhorn three times. Extreme.
I sat on the ledge of my bathtub at two in the morning as I prayed and pondered my result and my future. I had so many questions that I could not answer. How could this be? Then a revelation.
In my few spare moments, I read scientific and medical research studies. The autopsy studies. Mice studies. Human studies. The food studies. The biochemical pathways. Before I had a hard time remembering the differences between LDL and HDL. Now I feel like they are my close friends. The PDAY data. The Bogalusa Heart Study. I now have a good high level overview of what happens to us over the decades.
Why wasn’t this being taught in medical schools? In books? In the news? Why didn’t I ever hear this?
If I hadn’t been exercising, I would likely not be here right now.
It started when I was a teenager.
The Carefree Teenager
“The risk factors that predict coronary heart disease in adults are the same risk factors that correlate with the extent of atherosclerosis in teenagers. The need for risk factor control during adolescence and young adulthood cannot be overstated.”
Henry C. McGill Jr., MD, PDAY Research Group
I grew up eating fried food. A lot. In my thirties, I became health-aware. I was eating organic. But I loved Korean and American fried chicken, tempura, the crisp oil-saturated foods that felt like pleasure and were, at the cellular level, a sustained assault on the endothelial lining of every vessel in my body.
The autopsy literature is unambiguous about when plaques begin. The Bogalusa Heart Study found fatty streaks in the coronary arteries of half the children between ages two and fifteen. The Korean War autopsies of 1953 found gross coronary atherosclerosis in 77% of soldiers with an average age of 22.1 years. My calcium score of 505 was not the product of five years of cycling up mountains. It was the product of four decades of compounding plaque.
Here is what cycling had actually done: it built collateral vessels. Naturally coronary bypasses. When a coronary artery narrows progressively, the body grows alternative routes. Small vessels enlarge and reroute the blood supply. This is why I could ride at the intensity I rode, why I was in the best aerobic shape of my life at 55, and why my CT showed multi-vessel coronary artery disease simultaneously. The cycling had not caused the disease. It had made me functionally elite despite it.
I had the arteries of a man heading for a cardiac event in the next two to five years. I also had the cardiovascular capacity of a competitive athlete. I rode with the fastest in the city. Both were true at the same time.
The Logic of Choice
“I could stent one vessel and watch the others progress. Or I could address the biological process driving every vessel simultaneously. The stent fixes the pipe. The protocol fixes the entire plumbing system.”
Kevin Ham, MD
A June 17 CT angiogram confirmed multi-vessel disease: 77% obstruction in the D1 coronary artery, 55% in the Ramus Intermedius vessel, significant disease in all vessels. Traditional cardiology had a clear pathway: a stent for the 77% lesion, statins, aspirin, regular monitoring. Standard of care. Evidence-based. And, as I thought about it that night, obviously insufficient.
If I stented the 77% vessel, I would fix one obstruction in a system where multiple vessels were diseased and the underlying biological process was still running. The 55% obstruction would continue toward 70%, the conventional threshold for the next intervention. I was 55 years old. On the conventional trajectory: two stents, then three, then a bypass conversation in my sixties.
I thought about Esselstyn. Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, former Cleveland Clinic surgeon, Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, Olympic gold medalist in rowing, who spent the second half of his career reversing coronary artery disease through diet alone. One of his patients arrived with 100% occlusion of a major coronary artery. At 32 months on the protocol, the angiogram showed complete resolution. The vessel had reopened. He’s a healthy 92 year old still preaching his gospel to reverse heart disease through an oil free whole food plant-based diet. I am very grateful that he has explained why such a simple remedy works. It’s so simple, people will gloss over it. I did so as well, even after listening to his lectures dozens of times. I am rereading his book again with a new lens. How foolish we can be.
I adopted the Esselstyn protocol: whole food plant-based diet, fat held below 25 grams per day, no oils, no animal products.
Then after month one, I added to this foundation dietand layered fasting: 16 to 8 daily, one OMAD (one meal a day) weekly, and two to three days fast monthly.
The HIIT cycling continued, now understood as a targeted delivery of nitric oxide to every coronary endothelial cell with every pedal stroke. My pressure washes for the arteries, once I had established the right biochemical environment for my arteries.
And a synergy stack: Vitamin K2 MK-7 from natto with its nattokinase, fresh garlic, black garlic and aged garlic extract, pomegranate juice, green tea tablets and green tea, 1g of omega-3 fatty acids.
Full Reversal in Just Three Months
“The disease can be stopped and in many patients reversed by a plant-based diet that avoids all oils and significantly reduces fat intake. The body has the capacity to heal if we remove what is harming it.”
Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD, Cleveland Clinic
The carotid ultrasound at three months showed something I had hoped for but had not been certain enough to expect: both carotid arteries were completely clear. Not reduced. Clear. The plaques had resolved bilaterally in just three months. And the CIMT, the intima-media thickness that had read like an 85-year-old when I started, crossed into high-normal for age 55. By month ten, it was mid-normal. A 53% bilateral reduction in carotid arterial wall thickness, confirmed on imaging another three times afterwards, always improving.
My arterial age dropped 30 years in just 3 months.
The coronary picture is different. The D1 stenosis at 79% (slight increase from 77% and likely just measurement difference) on structural CT imaging. But the CT-FFR, the measure of actual blood flow past the obstruction, improved from 0.75 to 0.80. The pipe looks the same. The river is flowing better. Something is changing in the functional architecture of the vessel before the structural regression becomes visible on imaging. But I was still extremely disappointed that the coronary arteries didn’t regress like the carotids. Why not?
I felt delighted at the carotid result. And underneath the delight, the quieter pressure of a much larger question.
Why the Carotids and Not the Coronaries?
“The carotid artery is a straighter, larger vessel with predominantly laminar smooth flow. The coronary artery is a small, curved vessel embedded in contracting myocardium, subjected to cyclical compression 100,000 times daily. These are not the same biological environment. They are not the same plaque.”
Kevin Ham, MD
I wondered about this for months. Both carotid plaques had vanished on imaging in three months. The coronary plaque had not moved structurally, though the FFR had improved from 0.75 to 0.80, from a stentable reading to a low-normal one. Something was changing in the coronary territory. But not the same thing, and not at the same speed.
I had three hypotheses, and I turned each one over in my long therapeutic rides through the North Shore.
Hypothesis one: Vessel geometry and flow mechanics.
The carotid arteries are relatively straight vessels carrying blood upward to the brain in a predominantly slower laminar flow pattern. Laminar flow is protective: it delivers smooth, directional shear stress to the endothelium, which upregulates eNOS and nitric oxide production. The coronary arteries, by contrast, are small, curved vessels with multiple bifurcations and bends, where flow becomes turbulent and oscillatory at every curve. Turbulent flow creates the low-shear-stress environments that damage the endothelium and invite lipid deposition in the first place. The same turbulence that built the plaque may be slowing its reversal. I had to be prescriptive in my HIIT rides up mountains. I do that by throttling my heart rate to 150 bpm. Temporary rises to 170 bpm, I ease off. My Gran Fondo ride of 125 km last June 8 clocked my heart rate at 172 average for the 4 hours and 18 minutes. And I thought I was taking it easy. My heart was working extremely hard. At that time, I did not yet know the full extent of my disease. Now I do.
Hypothesis two: Vessel diameter.
The carotid arteries are substantially larger in diameter than the coronary arteries. A larger vessel means a given plaque volume represents a smaller fraction of the total wall. The reverse cholesterol transport machinery, the HDL particles and macrophage efflux mechanisms that extract cholesterol from the plaque, must work through a smaller absolute lipid burden relative to vessel size in the carotids than in the coronaries. In a small coronary artery, even a modest plaque represents an enormous proportion of the vessel wall. The biology has less room to work.
Hypothesis three: Plaque age.
This was the one that felt right from first principles. The ASAP study establishes that coronary disease develops earlier in life than carotid disease. The carotid territory follows the coronary in the anatomical sequence of progression. If the carotid plaques arrived later, they were younger lesions: softer, more lipid-rich, less fibrotic, less calcified, more biologically mobile. Young plaque reverses the way young bone heals, faster and more completely than older, denser, more mineralized tissue. My coronary plaques have been building since my teens. My carotid plaques began in my forties. Three decades of additional compounding had made the coronary lesions structurally different and much harder to reverse. Joe Crowe’s reversal happened at 44.
And then the calcification data settled it.
My coronary artery calcium score of 505 confirmed what first principles suggested. Two-thirds of my coronary plaque burden is calcified, Stage 5 in the AHA classification, the equivalent of mature rock. These are lesions that began accumulating calcium in my thirties and forties. The outer shell has mineralized. They are not going to dissolve in three months. They may not dissolve in three years. The biology of calcified plaque reversal is not the biology of soft plaque reversal.
But here is what I also concluded: the non-calcified third of my coronary plaque is still Stage 3 to Stage 4, still lipid-rich, still biologically active, still operating by the same rules that cleared my carotid arteries. Smaller vessels, older lesions, more demanding mechanical environment, yes. But the same reverse cholesterol transport mechanisms, the same nitric oxide pathway, the same eNOS upregulation from cycling, the same DDAH protection from pomegranate and EGCG. The biology does not change. Only the timeframe does.
My realistic expectation: 12 to 24 months to clear the non-calcified coronary component. And for the calcified component, not dissolution but stabilization, depleting the lipid core beneath the calcium so that what remains is an inert mineral shell in a vessel that flows freely. Think of it like osteoporosis in reverse: the mineral remains, but the biological danger inside it is gone.
I expect my coronary FFR to continue improving as the soft plaque recedes. The CT angiogram in June 2028 will either confirm this or refute it. I will report my thoughts and metrics weekly, with labs every 6 weeks and CT scans twice a year.
Where Else?
“Atherosclerotic degeneration progresses most rapidly in the abdominal aorta, followed by the thoracic aorta, coronary arteries, carotid arteries, ascending aorta, and finally the cerebral arteries. Both sexes develop atherosclerosis in the abdominal aorta in the first decade of life.”
ASAP Study, 3,400 Autopsies, Nature Scientific Reports, 2024
If the carotid plaques resolved in three months, when did they develop? If they developed, what was happening simultaneously in my coronary arteries, which the autopsy literature says accumulate disease earlier in the anatomical sequence? And if both territories carry disease that began when I was a teenager, what is happening right now in the arterial territories I cannot image with a simple ultrasound?
My cerebral vessels: the plaque that could embolize to my brain, the same pathway that put a clot in my father’s middle cerebral artery when he was 78, producing complete right hemiplegia he spent months recovering from. My father recovered 90%. I gave him high-dose green tea EGCG and omega-3 fatty acids from the first week, and the biology of both compounds supports recovery of that magnitude. That was in 2014 so I already knew how to reverse plaque. I didn’t realize how at that time, but now that I delve into the biochemical pathways, now I see.
My mesenteric arteries feeding the intestine. My femoral arteries feeding my legs, where I have never felt claudication because the collateral circulation has not yet reached its limit. My thoracic and abdominal aorta, where atherosclerosis weakens the arterial wall and produces aneurysmal dilatation that kills without warning when the wall gives way. I watched a man die of this in the CT scanner when I was a medical resident on my surgery rotation.
And then my eyes.
The Eyes Don’t See
“Wet macular degeneration. Coronary artery disease. Carotid plaque. All in the same body. All, at their biological root, diseases of the vessel wall. I am treating one disease in many locations simultaneously.”
Kevin Ham, MD
On May 10, 2020, I was diagnosed with wet macular degeneration in my right eye. Wet AMD involves abnormal vessel growth beneath the retina driven by VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) signaling in a hypoxic, ischemic environment. It progresses rapidly. Ophthalmology considers it chronic and irreversible, managed with regular anti-VEGF injections directly into the eye. A major and severe cause of blindness. My prognosis? Most likely blind in years… unless I receive monthly anti-VEGF shots in each eye until I go blind.
I treated it as a retinal disease, which at its biological root it is. But it’s also a vascular disease. The choroidal vessels beneath the retina are subject to the same atherosclerotic and endothelial dysfunction processes as every other vascular territory. A retina deprived of adequate choroidal blood flow becomes hypoxic. Hypoxia drives VEGF. VEGF drives neovascularization.
Since beginning my REVERSAL protocol, my vision has been improving. The mechanism is coherent: if the protocol restores endothelial function and improves choroidal perfusion the way it restored my carotid arteries and improved my coronary FFR, the hypoxic signal diminishes and the neovascularization recedes. I did not have any eye shots at all for three years. I had to get one last December as I was so focused on my heart, but now that I understand better, my protocol treats both, 80% with the same foundational treatment and 20% more specific for the organ.
How many diseases that medicine treats as isolated organ pathologies are actually systemic vascular disease wearing different masks?
What the Autopsies Declare
“Gross evidence of coronary arteriosclerosis was found in 77.3 percent of the hearts examined. These findings indicate that the development of coronary arteriosclerosis is not primarily a disease of old age.”
William F. Enos, Robert H. Holmes, James Beyer, JAMA, 1953. Autopsied 300 American Soldiers, Average age 22
The medical literature has understood the anatomical sequence of this disease for over seventy years, and has communicated it to the public with remarkable silence.
In 1953, pathologist William Enos (love his last name) published autopsies of 300 American soldiers killed in Korea.
Average age: 22.1 years.
Finding: 77.3% had gross evidence of coronary arteriosclerosis.
The paper should have reoriented how medicine thinks and talks about cardiovascular disease. It changed very little.
Gerald Berenson spent 38 years tracking the children of Bogalusa, Louisiana. When cohort members died of accidents, he examined their arteries. Fatty streaks in the aorta: present in every individual.Fatty streaks in the coronary arteries: present in half of the children between the ages of two and fifteen.
Two years old!
The ASAP study, 3,400 autopsies across six arterial territories, confirmed the sequence:
abdominal aorta in the first decade of life,
then thoracic aorta,
then coronary arteries,
then carotid arteries,
then ascending aorta,
then cerebral arteries.
By the sixth decade of life, 42% of individuals have Grade III coronary stenosis and 25% have Grade IV.
Everyone has this disease. Almost no one is told.
Why this Artery, Why this Stage?
The ASAP study did not just document that atherosclerosis is universal. It documented that it follows a fixed anatomical sequence with a precision that looks almost designed. The abdominal aorta before the thoracic. The coronary arteries before the carotid. The carotid before the cerebral. This sequence is not random. Each step follows from the physical mechanics of blood flow operating in that specific vascular territory.
The Six Arterial Territories in Order
1. Abdominal Aorta : First Decade of Life
The abdominal aorta is the first territory because it experiences the greatest oscillatory shear stress in the body. Blood leaving the heart travels as a smooth column through the thoracic aorta, but when it reaches the aortic bifurcation and the origins of the renal and mesenteric branches, the flow becomes turbulent and disturbed. Turbulent flow does not polish the endothelium. It damages it. Lipids accumulate preferentially at the outer walls of branches and at the posterior intimal surface, exactly where the PDAY study found the earliest lesions. It becomes critical when aneurysmal dilatation exceeds 5.5 centimeters, at which point the law of Laplace dictates that wall tension is proportional to radius: the wider the aorta, the more force trying to burst it open. Rupture is catastrophic and nearly always fatal within minutes.
2. Thoracic Aorta : Decades One to Two
The thoracic aorta is large in diameter and exposed to the highest pulse pressure in the body: it receives the full force of every cardiac ejection. The mechanical stress on the intima is enormous. But because the thoracic aorta is also large in diameter, the disease progresses for decades before it becomes flow-limiting. It becomes critical when atherosclerosis weakens the medial layer enough to permit aortic dissection, the catastrophic tearing of the inner aortic wall that allows blood to enter and propagate through the wall itself. Thoracic dissection can shear off the coronary arteries, the carotid arteries, and the spinal arteries simultaneously. It is survivable only with immediate surgery and kills approximately 50% of patients before they reach the hospital. This occurred to our good neighbour’s husband last summer. It’s devastating!
3. Coronary Arteries : Decades Two to Three
The coronary arteries are small vessels with a biologically unique environment: they are compressed with every heartbeat, experiencing systolic compression and diastolic perfusion in a cycle that repeats 100,000 times per day. The bending points, the bifurcations of the left anterior descending artery, the origins of the diagonal branches (that’s me 77% at D1), the curve of the right coronary artery, are where low and oscillatory shear stress creates the endothelial vulnerability that lipid deposition exploits. The LAD is the most commonly and severely affected coronary artery in every autopsy series ever published. It becomes critical at 70% stenosis, where the CT-FFR begins to fall below 0.80 and resting perfusion starts to be impaired. My D1 is at 77%. Below 0.75 the territory is ischemic at rest. My FFR is 0.80, low normal now in a 77% obstruction. Remarkable!
4. Carotid Arteries : Decades Three to Four
The carotid arteries develop disease after the coronary arteries in the anatomical sequence. The relative ease of carotid ultrasound and low cost make the carotids the clinical indicator of systemic arterial age. The disease concentrates at the carotid bifurcation, where the common carotid artery divides into the internal and external carotid arteries. At this bifurcation, the geometry creates a flow separation zone on the outer wall of the internal carotid where shear stress is chronically low, the exact condition that promotes endothelial inflammation and lipid infiltration. Carotid plaques are 70 to 90% lipid-rich, making them the most biologically active and the most responsive to reversal. They become critical when they rupture and embolize upstream, producing embolic stroke, or when they cause critical stenosis above 70% that reduces cerebral perfusion.
5. Cerebral Arteries : Decades Four to Six
The cerebral arteries are the last territory to develop significant disease because they are intracranial vessels with structural properties different from extracranial arteries: thinner walls, no external elastic lamina, and a different smooth muscle architecture. The blood-brain barrier environment also partially shields them from the systemic lipid and inflammatory burden that damages peripheral vessels. But once the upstream disease in the carotid and aortic territories is established, the cerebral arteries receive two simultaneous threats: in-situ plaque formation within the intracranial vessels themselves, and embolic disease traveling from the carotid and aortic territories. It becomes critical when it produces lacunar infarction from small vessel occlusion, or when a cerebral aneurysm at the branching points of the Circle of Willis ruptures, causing subarachnoid hemorrhage, with a mortality rate exceeding 50% in the first 30 days.
6. Femoral and Peripheral Arteries : Decades Four and Beyond
The femoral arteries develop disease later than the coronary and carotid arteries in the sequence, yet in adults they carry more total plaque burden than any other arterial territory: 76% prevalence compared to 45% coronary and 35% carotid in population studies. This paradox exists because the legs have extraordinary collateral vascular capacity that compensates silently for decades. It becomes critical at 60 to 70% stenosis when the collateral reserve is exhausted and claudication appears: ischemic cramping in the calf or thigh with walking that resolves with rest. Beyond that: rest pain, non-healing ulcers, gangrene, and amputation.
The Six Stages of Plaque
Think of this the way oncologists think of cancer staging. Stage 1 breast cancer and Stage 4 breast cancer are different diseases wearing the same name. The staging communicates biological reality, urgency, and probability of reversal in a single number. Atherosclerotic plaque has never been routinely staged for patients. Medicine says coronary artery disease as though that phrase means something specific. It does not.
Stage 1: Fatty Streak
Isolated macrophage foam cells accumulate in the intima. No structural disruption. No fibrous tissue. No lipid core. Lipid is entirely intracellular.
When: Childhood and adolescence. Present in every individual in an industrial diet culture. Bogalusa found it in two-year-olds.
Threshold: None. Fully reversible.
Reversal probability: Near 100% with dietary intervention.
Stage 2: Preatheroma
Extracellular lipid pools begin to form. The arterial wall is thickening but no defined lipid core exists yet. CIMT begins to rise above age-expected norms.
When: Teens through early twenties in high-risk individuals.
Threshold: None, but this is the stage where CIMT imaging first becomes abnormal.
Reversal probability: Very high. The extracellular lipid pools are not yet organized into a necrotic core.
Stage 3: Soft Atheroma
A confluent lipid-rich necrotic core has formed, covered by normal-appearing intima. No fibrous cap yet. This is the stage most vulnerable to rupture because a large lipid core behind a thin or absent cap is structurally unstable.
When: Late twenties through forties. This was my carotid plaque stage. Three months of the REVERSAL protocol cleared it completely.
Threshold: Rupture risk is high despite often modest stenosis. The 2018 SCOT-HEART data showed that low-attenuation plaque volume, the CT signature of this stage, is the strongest single predictor of heart attack, outperforming calcium score, stenosis severity, and every standard risk calculator.
Reversal probability: High. 70 to 90% with aggressive protocol.
Stage 4: Fibroatheroma
A fibrous cap now covers the lipid-rich necrotic core. The plaque has organized into a two-layer architecture: lipid engine underneath, fibrous shield on top. Early calcification may be present.
When: Forties through sixties.
Critical threshold: The fibrous cap can thin and rupture, exposing the lipid core to flowing blood and triggering acute coronary syndrome. Thin-cap fibroatheroma with a cap under 65 microns is the architecture responsible for the majority of fatal heart attacks.
Reversal probability: Partial. The lipid core can regress through RCT (reverse cholesterol transport). The fibrous cap is more resistant to remodeling.
Stage 5: Calcified Plaque
Dense calcium deposition within the necrotic core and fibrous cap. The plaque has mineralized. This is where my coronary disease currently sits, with a CAC score of 505. The calcified component is structurally more stable against rupture, but it is hemodynamically significant when it causes stenosis.
When: Fifties through seventies.
Threshold: Stenosis above 70% with CT-FFR below 0.80 indicates hemodynamically significant flow limitation. My D1 is at 77%, CT-FFR 0.80.
Reversal strategy: deplete the lipid core and macrophage burden inside the calcified scaffold, leaving an inert calcium shell. The calcium does not have to disappear for the threat to be neutralized.
Stage 6: Complicated Lesion
Surface disruption, intraplaque hemorrhage, or superimposed thrombus. This is the plaque that has crossed the threshold into acute coronary syndrome. The fibrous cap has ruptured or eroded. The lipid core is exposed to flowing blood. Platelet aggregation and thrombus formation proceed within minutes. We call this a heart attack.
When: Can occur at any stage but is most common at Stage 3 and Stage 4. Paradoxically, Stage 5 calcified plaques are more structurally stable and less likely to rupture acutely.
Threshold: This is the event. Myocardial territory is lost proportional to the duration and completeness of occlusion.
Reversal probability: The acute event cannot be reversed. But the remaining disease in every other vessel can be. Where you need to stent, bypass.
The most dangerous plaque is not the most calcified. It is the softest, most lipid-rich, least conspicuous lesion in the vessel wall, the one that does not restrict flow enough to cause a stress test abnormality, does not produce a high calcium score, and produces no symptoms until it ruptures.
The Life of the Flesh is in the Blood
“Nitric oxide is the body’s natural cardiovascular wonder drug. Produced by the endothelium, it keeps blood vessels dilated, prevents clotting, and inhibits the inflammation that drives atherosclerosis. Every lifestyle choice either supports or destroys that capacity.”
Louis J. Ignarro, PhD, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1998
I have read Leviticus 17:11 a hundred times. The life of the flesh is in the blood. I always received it as theology: a truth about atonement, about sacrifice. I filed it under faith.
It was not until I sat with my CT angiogram in my hands that I understood what it is also saying at the biological level. The life of every organ, every cell, every tissue depends entirely on the blood reaching it. When the blood stops reaching, the flesh dies.
I had always thought about what was inside the blood: the red cells carrying oxygen, the white cells mounting immunity, the platelets sealing breaches, the hormones and nutrients riding the current. I thought of blood as the delivery truck and the garbage truck simultaneously. What I never thought about was the vessel itself.
The endothelial cell is the single layer of cells lining every blood vessel in the body. One cell thick. Covering more than 7,000 square meters of surface area in an adult. Not passive. Not the walls of the pipes. An active endocrine organ that produces nitric oxide, the master vasodilator and endothelial protector, that senses shear stress from blood flow and responds by remodeling the vessel wall.
When the endothelium is injured, everything downstream of it fails. Heart disease is endothelial disease. Stroke is endothelial disease. Aortic aneurysm, pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, cerebral aneurysm, and very likely wet macular degeneration: all begin, at the biological root, with an endothelium damaged beyond its capacity to repair.
“We have identified a naturally occurring compound that inhibits nitric oxide synthesis in blood vessels. Its concentration in blood is sufficient to tonically suppress nitric oxide production. When it accumulates, vascular tone increases, endothelium-dependent relaxation is impaired, and the stage is set for atherosclerosis.”
Patrick Vallance et al., The Lancet, 1992. First description of ADMA as an endogenous cardiovascular risk factor
The specific mechanism: the amino acid L-arginine, drawn from food, enters the endothelial cell and binds to eNOS, endothelial nitric oxide synthase. eNOS converts arginine to nitric oxide. The nitric oxide dilates the vessel, prevents platelet adhesion, inhibits inflammation, and keeps the arterial surface clean.
There is a molecule called ADMA. Asymmetric Dimethylarginine. It is produced in every cell as a byproduct of normal protein metabolism. ADMA is structurally almost identical to arginine. The only difference is two methyl groups added to the same nitrogen atom on the guanidino end. That difference is invisible to eNOS. The enzyme cannot distinguish arginine from ADMA until it is already bound. When ADMA occupies the eNOS active site, nothing is produced. No nitric oxide. The factory is running. Nothing comes out.
ADMA impersonates the molecule the endothelium needs to protect itself, and in that impersonation, silences the one signal that keeps the arterial wall from becoming the birthplace of plaque.
The rescue enzyme is DDAH, dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase. DDAH breaks down ADMA into citrulline and dimethylamine, clearing more than 80% of circulating ADMA. A meta-analysis of 22 prospective studies found that individuals in the top third of ADMA values had a 42% higher risk of cardiovascular events, 39% higher risk of coronary heart disease, and 60% higher risk of stroke.
What destroys DDAH: the Western diet.
Oxidized LDL directly inactivates DDAH and elevates ADMA simultaneously, a spiraling feedback loop.
High homocysteine down-regulates DDAH production at the genetic level.
Smoking, hyperglycemia, hypertension, and chronic inflammation all independently inactivate DDAH through oxidative mechanisms.
The dietary countermeasure operates on both sides.
Plant foods stock the substrate:
Pumpkin seeds at 5,200 mg of arginine per 100g,
Soybeans at 2,300 mg,
Lentils at 1,900 mg,
Chickpeas at 1,300 mg,
Black beans at 1,000 mg.
On the other side, polyphenol antioxidants protect DDAH from oxidative destruction:
Green tea EGCG,
Pomegranate punicalagins, and
Omega-3 fatty acids.
Every element of the Reversal protocol targets this pathway as well.
When I saw this diagram in a study, I thought, “Eureka!” Blood-retinal barrier injury neovascularization. That was my wet macular degeneration! And on the other side, heart. Same mechanism. Endothelial dysfunction. Increased ADMA.
Now I am sure I can heal my Wet AMD along with my heart disease. And not only I, but everyone who follows me.
The Question for Everyone
“Everyone has this disease. The question is not whether it has started. The question is whether it will be permitted to finish.”
Kevin Ham, MD
This is not only my question. The anatomy does not discriminate. If you are reading this, you almost certainly have this disease in some stage, in some arterial territory, accumulating silently. The question is not whether it has started. The question is which stage, which vessels, and whether the biological machinery of reversal can be activated before the disease reaches the threshold at which it announces itself.
The protocol I am running exists not as a personal experiment but as a proof of concept. If it works in my arteries, and the carotid data says it is working, then it works through mechanisms that are universal in human biology. The endothelium that repaired in my carotid territory responds to the same signals as the endothelium in your coronary arteries, your cerebral vessels, your retinal circulation.
My father is still here. Thank you God. My CT angiograms are scheduled every six months and my target for reversal is June 2028. That is the reckoning.
Water erodes rock. The river does not stop.
Your Questions
“Everyone has this disease. The question is not whether it has started. The question is whether it will be permitted to finish.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Questions worth sitting with
For yourself. For someone you love. Answer them in the quietness of your day.
1. When did you last have imaging of your arteries, not just blood tests?
A lipid panel tells you risk factors. A CAC score or CT angiogram tells you what has already built up in the vessel wall. These are not the same question. Call your physician tomorrow and ask for a coronary artery calcium scan.
2. What did you eat yesterday and what was that food doing to your nitric oxide production?
Every meal either elevates ADMA and silences eNOS, or it provides the arginine and polyphenols that protect DDAH and keep your endothelium producing the signal that keeps your arteries open. There is no neutral meal.
3. Who in your life has this disease right now and does not know it?
You thought of someone while reading this. Forward this to them. Ten seconds. It may matter more than either of you knows.
MORE READINGS YOU’LL ENJOY
Health
Watch: The 2 Foods That Reverse Heart Plaque (Half a Million Views)
Reversing My 77% Heart Plaques
Stats Say You Likely Have Heart Plaque
The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Wealth
The Power of the Compound Effect
Relentless Iteration to Mastery
Meaning
The Courage to Your Magnum Opus
APPENDIX
The ten studies that anchor the science in this newsletter.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2023.1183586/full
Elevated ADMA, an endogenous inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, drives the onset and progression of diabetic microvascular complications including retinopathy, nephropathy, neuropathy, and cardiomyopathy through endothelial dysfunction, oxidative stress, inflammation, and fibrosis.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2012.00132/full
Examines how vascular aging impairs endothelial function primarily through reduced nitric oxide bioavailability, identifying ADMA accumulation, oxidative stress, enhanced vasoconstrictor activity, and low-grade inflammation as the key mechanisms driving age-related cardiovascular dysfunction.
https://eaglebio.com/eaglebio-biomarker-spotlight-adma/
ADMA is an endogenous molecule detectable in human blood and urine that is structurally homologous to L-arginine and acts as an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthesis,positioning it as a clinically measurable biomarker of endothelial dysfunction and cardiovascular risk.
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life. ham.com
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Strike the Rock
And Let Your Waters Flow
And Let Your Waters Flow.
Dr. Kevin Ham, MD
The Signal
“The gap between what medicine knows and what people are told is where 695,000 Americans die every year. I started a YouTube channel because video was the fastest way to close it.”
Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., MD. Cleveland Clinic.
Three months ago, I started a YouTube channel. My daughter graduated from film school. Talented. She had an eye for it. And I had an artist at my company who understood how to build something visually. So we started shooting.
The idea was simple. Save lives. Help people understand what disease really is and how to reverse it through lifestyle medicine. More specifically, through food and exercise. I wanted to help prevent the number one global killer from doing what it does every single year: killing 20 million people. Not in a war. Not in a pandemic. Quietly. In gyms and kitchens and bedrooms and hospital corridors. People who did not know what was building inside them until the moment it was too late to stop.
Three weeks ago, I had 1,000 subscribers.
And then one video changed everything. Then two, then three videos. Viral. People were sharing it with their loved ones. Another answered prayer.
Within a week, it had 630,000 views and counting. My channel crossed 24,000 subscribers in under two weeks. The comments came in faster than I could read them. And what struck me, what has not stopped striking me, is what people were actually asking. They were not asking about the latest drug trial or the newest surgical technique. They were asking a much simpler question—a much older one.
Watch the channel: youtube.com/@DrKevinHam
Top video: 2 Foods That Dissolve Heart Plaque
How do I stop this from killing me? How do I separate what actually works from the noise? How do I find the signal?
That is what this newsletter is. A signal. Not a wellness guide. Not a supplement list. Here is what it covers:
✓ What the science says about what builds plaque
✓ What stabilizes it before it kills you
✓ What reverses it, documented in peer-reviewed studies
✓ What dramatically reduces the chance of a heart attack, stroke, or sudden cardiac death
✓ And now I am realizing, the principles that reverse heart disease reverse all our modern diseases.
I am a doctor who became a patient. And I am telling you what I wish someone had told Rob, had told me ten years ago.
Before you read further, I want to ask you something.
Is there anyone you know who has heart disease? Who has died of a heart attack? Who has had a stroke? Who has gone blind from vascular disease?
Do you believe that when you turn 50, you will have no plaque or disease in your arteries?
How about at 60? How about at 70? Will you spend the last decades of your life in disease and suffering?
If you even thought yes, then this is for you. Educate yourself. Don’t leave your valuable the health in the hands of others.
Here is what the people watching already know. These are just 3 comments from many:
Just had an endarterectomy. Left side still 50% blocked. Starting pomegranate juice and nattokinase. Thank you Doc. @averagejoe7333
Cleared 20 to 25% of plaque in 3 months. Incredibly inspiring. Focusing on lifestyle now. @SmartWellnessTips
74 years old. Better late than never. God bless your ministry because that is what this is. @princesstoby653
The Vow
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 36:26
I was 14 years old, lying in a hospital bed, genuinely believing I was dying. My immune system had declared war on my own body. The disease was Henoch-Schönlein Purpura, an autoimmune vasculitis in which the immune system attacks the blood vessels, causing them to leak. I was a child, frightened, and in that fear, I made a vow. If God, if the universe, allowed me to survive, I would become a doctor. I would spend my life doing for others what the doctors around me were trying to do for me: finding the cause, naming the disease, fighting back against it.
I survived. I kept the vow.
Then I got busy. The vow faded from my memory as I got busy with business. And for 25 years, I tried to understand medicine, but it was more theory than truth. I stood on the physician's side of the room and believed I understood what it meant to be sick. I did not. Not really.
Then I became a patient.
When I found out that I had a CT calcium score of 505, in the worst 90th percentile for heart attack risk, and that I had coronary plaques in every vessel, I was humbled into the depths of my life—77% stenosis, 55%, 45%, everywhere. The numbers did not feel like numbers. They felt like a verdict.
Before that, the warning shockwaves: on the morning of May 10, 2020, severe wet macular degeneration announced itself in my eyes—first the right, then the left. A straight line is bent. Vision distorted—the unmistakable signature of fluid beneath the retina. I was only 50 years old. Wet AMD is a disease of the 70s and 80s. I was 20 to 30 years too early. Even if I were able to live a long life, I was told, it would likely be in blindness—no cure yet known. I was looking at a future in the dark.
I had literally a heart of stone, in my coronary arteries and in my retina. Also, in my will, blocking my understanding and my purpose. The calcified endothelium, the resistant heart, the stiffened soul: all the same condition. And I had not seen it coming.
All of a Sudden
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”
Psalm 51, written after Nathan said: you are the man
On the morning of February 10, 2025, my friend Rob Thompson, 58, a 35-year Goldman Sachs veteran, got up at dawn, made his favourite black tea, went to his home gym to train, and died on the elliptical. He was supposed to fly to Vancouver that day to see me. We had texted the night before. See you tomorrow. He had no warning, no prior cardiac event, no alarming stress test. Inside his arterial walls, an internal mountain was building, one that he did not know he had to climb, with each effort he toiled upon his heart, until that morning of February 10, on his elliptical, he fell off the cliff inside—all of a sudden.
I want to tell you who Rob was. Rob was one of the most physically disciplined people I knew. He had attempted the Matterhorn twice before. The Matterhorn. A 14,692-foot pyramid of rock and ice on the Swiss-Italian border, one of the most iconic and demanding alpine climbs in the world. To attempt it, you train for months: back-to-back mountain days carrying a 30-pound pack, 3,500 feet of elevation gain on consecutive days, cardiovascular sessions of four to six hours at sustained effort, and rock climbing in boots on technical terrain. You build to a cardiovascular fitness level that puts you in the top fraction of the population. Summit day itself starts at 4 in the morning, in the dark, from the Hörnli Hut at 10,700 feet. You climb for eight to twelve hours. The ascent is 1,200 meters of vertical, with fixed ropes on the upper section, crampons on snow and ice near the top, exposed ridges where a fall means death, and thin air that taxes even elite athletes from the first hour. Your heart rate climbs and stays there. Your legs burn with lactic acid. Your fingers ache on cold rock. The descent, on the same technical terrain, exhausted and in fading light, demands more concentration than the ascent. The mountain has killed over 500 people since its first ascent in 1865. It does not forgive a lapse.
Rob attempted it twice. Both times, the mountain turned him back. Weather. Conditions that could not be negotiated with, the kind of danger that an experienced climber recognizes and respects and retreats from. He went home. He trained harder. He prepared again. And on his third attempt, despite difficult conditions on the upper mountain, Rob Thompson summited the Matterhorn. He told me it was one of the proudest moments of his life.
This was not a man with a hidden weakness. He was brilliant, financially exceptional, and by every external measure, in superb physical condition. A man who had trained his cardiovascular system to perform at 14,000 feet in thin alpine air for twelve hours at a time. And inside his arterial walls, for forty years, a mountain of disease had been building—all of a sudden.
Rob's death reminded me of the vow. Of what I had promised to do with this life if I was allowed to keep it. This newsletter, every video I make, every data point I track in my own body, is the vow made good. It is for Rob. And it is for you.
What Medicine Knows and What Medicine Does
“We require a new yardstick to measure cardiovascular excellence. No longer will the number or quality of interventions and their temporary benefits suffice. Heart disease is a toothless paper tiger that need not exist, and if it does exist, need not progress.”
Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD. Cleveland Clinic, 2000
Here is the indictment. Rob Thompson did not die because science failed him. Rob died because none of it reached him. Not from his cardiologist. Not from his annual physical. Not from a system that tracked his LDL, prescribed him a statin, and sent him back into the world with a clean bill of health.
The gap between what medicine knows and what medicine does is where people die. Heart disease kills approximately 695,000 Americans every year. The Esselstyn protocol was first published in 1995. That is thirty years of documented reversal evidence, and it still is not the standard of care. The number of people who have died in that gap is not a rounding error. It is a generation. They were not Goldman Sachs executives who climbed the Matterhorn. They were John, your neighbour, who mowed his lawn on Saturday and did not wake up on Sunday. John had no reason to believe he was running out of time. No one had told him to look at his arterial wall. They deserved at least the option to take the simple healing remedy, rather than just management and short-term fixes.
This is not a failure of knowledge. It is a failure of transmission. The only way to close the gap is to pass the knowledge directly, person to person, outside the system that has failed to carry it. This is why I am writing this. To inform and educate. And to have people join me in my journey to climb down the mountains in my own blood vessels.
What Has Been Pressed Upon Me
“I saw it and it has been pressed upon me. And I want to press it upon you. These studies, seen over and over again, ingrained in the brain. Imprinted in the heart. Move to action.”
Kevin Ham, MD
I want to press something upon you. Not gently. With the full weight of what I have seen in the imaging, the studies, and the grief of people whose losses were preventable.
Picture a room of 100 people over the age of 50. 91 of those 100 have measurable, visible plaque in their coronary arteries right now. 91 who consider themselves generally healthy, who have been told their cholesterol is fine, 91 who do not know.
And it starts earlier than we want to believe. Korea, 1950. Army pathologist William Enos autopsied 300 soldiers, average age 22, fighting a major war:
77% had visible, gross atherosclerosis in their coronary arteries
5% had 90% or greater obstruction of at least one major coronary artery
Virtually none had symptoms or knew anything was wrong
If the bullets had not killed them, the Western diet would slowly do so decades later.
“The wall is already building. The question is only whether you know it, and what you do next.”
In 2018, researchers found the mean area of ruptured lipid-rich plaque in sudden cardiac death hearts:
0.34 square millimeters.
When I first saw my coronary CT, my low-attenuation plaque was only 0.1 percent. That number sounded reassuring. It was not. Low-attenuation plaque accounts for 70 to 90 percent of all heart attacks that result in sudden death. The SCOT-HEART trial confirmed it beats every other predictor of heart attack, including the calcium score.
5× higher risk of heart attack for patients with low-attenuation plaque burden over 4% of coronary vessel volume. This single measure outperformed every other predictor: risk scores, calcium score, and stenosis severity—all of them.
24 Patients. 12 Years. One Cardiac Event.
“We both agreed. It is so simple. Anybody can do it. Just that. No one has the mindset to do so. Not to save even their own lives, or the lives of people around them.”
Kevin Ham, MD, reflecting on his call with Dr. Esselstyn at age 92
In 1985, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn recruited 24 patients at the Cleveland Clinic, all with severe coronary artery disease, five of them told they had less than a year to live. No exercise protocol. No sleep program. No meditation. Just a low-fat, whole food, plant-based diet for 12 years.
The result: essentially one subsequent cardiac event among adherent patients. Among the six who returned to standard care, 13 new cardiac events occurred. Thirteen. Against one. In end-stage patients who could barely walk to the end of the block.
His oldest patient was Stanley. Eighty-seven years old. His cardiologist had told him he needed bypass surgery. The surgery might kill him. He was referred to Dr. Esselstyn not in hope, but because of the absence of alternatives. He was a grandfather. He had things he still wanted to do. Stanley started the diet. Within days, he felt better. One day, he called and said, "I just wanted to thank you. I never thought I would live to be 100.
He called every year after that. This year he called at 103. He is now 11 years older than the doctor who saved his life. What do you say to a man who gave you a life you were not supposed to have? Stanley says: I just wanted you to know I am still here. And Esselstyn says: I know, Stanley. I know.
I spoke to Dr. Esselstyn on a Zoom call two weeks ago. He looked at me and said something I have not stopped thinking about since: Can you get plaque from broccoli? From arugula? From beans? You cannot. The disease comes from what we feed the endothelium. Feed it whole plants, and it heals itself. Nobody in medicine argues with the data. They just do not change what they prescribe.
I cannot unsee the images from his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. That book is the foundation of my protocol. It is the manual I wish I had been given the day of my diagnosis. I hope to one day thank him in person for reversing my extensive plaque and for helping others do the same. I pray he lives a long and blessed life. I am so grateful to him. And to God. And to my family. Blessed beyond measure.
Dr. Joe Crowe: complete reversal of 100% LAD occlusion at 32 months on the Esselstyn WFPB protocol. Before and after angiogram. Cleveland Clinic. Esselstyn CB Jr. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. 2007.
Why It Did Not Tip
“The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire. There is a simple way to package information that, under the right circumstances, can make it irresistible. All you have to do is find it.”
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point. 2000
Here is the question that keeps me awake. William Enos published his autopsy findings on Korea in JAMA in 1953. Irrefutable data. The most respected journal in medicine. And nothing changed. Caldwell Esselstyn published his 12-year reversal data in 1999: one cardiac event among adherent patients versus thirteen among those who returned to standard care. Diet alone. And nothing changed.
Why did it take a doctor posting videos online to move 600,000 people in a week when peer-reviewed data could not move the cardiology establishment in seventy years? Because data is not sticky. Story is. Data is processed in the part of the brain that manages information. Story is processed in the part that manages identity. When you read that 91 percent of people over 50 have plaque, your brain files it. When you read about a 58-year-old man who got up at dawn, made his favourite tea, and fell off the cliff inside on his elliptical, your brain does not file it. It flinches. That flinch is the beginning of change. The Korea data had no face. Esselstyn's data did not have a YouTube channel. I am posting videos with my daughter and a gifted artist, telling you what happened to my arterial wall and what I did about it. Not more rigorous than the JAMA study. But stickier. And sticky is what saves lives.
This newsletter and these videos do not describe the tipping point. They are the tipping point. And I pray that you see that it is not only in others around you. But that it is in you. I made this grave error for 25 years. But now I know. And now you do too.
Strike the Rock
“I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.”
Exodus 17:6
There is a moment in Exodus I keep returning to. The people are in the wilderness, catastrophically thirsty, no water in sight. Moses strikes a rock with his staff. Water pours out. The people drink. They live. What strikes me is not the miracle. It is the object. Not a river. A rock. The hardest thing. The most unyielding thing. And out of the rock, water.
I thought about this when I looked at my carotid images. What I had inside my arterial wall was not soft tissue. It was plaque that had hardened, visible on ultrasound, that a close physician friend described as among the worst he had seen in a 55-year-old man. When the arterial wall becomes rock, the blood cannot flow freely. The organs that depend on that flow begin to fail. The water of life is inside you. The question is whether the rock will yield it. Mine did.
The Rock Inside: What Calcification Is
“Your arteries are not passively accumulating calcium the way a kettle accumulates scale. They are actively building bone, running the same molecular program that builds your skeleton, reprogrammed by inflammation.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Atherosclerosis begins as an insult to the endothelium. LDL particles penetrate, oxidize, trigger foam cells, and build a necrotic core under a fibrous cap. When that cap tears, the clotting cascade activates instantly. This is a heart attack. Not a gradual blockage. A rupture. Calcification enters later, reprogramming smooth muscle cells into osteoblasts that deposit the same mineral as bone. Microcalcifications within the cap are volatile — stress concentrators that can trigger rupture without warning. Macrocalcifications deep in the plaque act as a stabilizing splint. This is why a rising calcium score can coexist with falling cardiac risk. They describe different stages of the same process.
The Fracture That Heals Stronger
“Before I saw my results, I thought of a broken bone. A fracture heals in six weeks, strengthens over twelve, and at the fracture point becomes even stronger than the bone that never broke. What if arterial plaque is a fracture that has never been given the conditions to heal?”
Kevin Ham, MD
The fracture point of a healed bone becomes measurably stronger than the surrounding tissue. What if arterial plaque is a fracture that has never been given the conditions to heal? Osteoclast-like cells have been detected in heavily calcified lesions. Remove the conditions driving osteoblastic transformation, and the wall can resume functioning as an arterial wall. 51 studies. 9,000+ patients. The evidence for plaque regression is now robust. The question is no longer whether it happens. It is whether you create the conditions.
And here is what reversal looks like. My carotid plaque. Gone. Remodeled. In three months. Bilateral carotid IMT of 1.8 mm and 1.6 mm with visible plaque on both sides, dropping to 0.84 mm and 0.86 mm with no visible plaque detectable on ultrasound. My CT-FFR on a dominant D1 diagonal with 77 percent stenosis: improved from 0.75 to 0.80, crossing from ischemic into the normal range. LDL: 61, a 64 percent reduction. ApoB: 45. The word my physician friends used: Unbelievable!
The six types of atherosclerotic plaque and their progression. My plaque is in stages 4 to 6. The later the stage, the more difficult to reverse. But not impossible. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, November 2018.
The Fracture That Heals Stronger
“Before I saw my results, I thought of a broken bone. A fracture heals in six weeks, strengthens over twelve, and at the fracture point becomes even stronger than the bone that never broke. What if arterial plaque is a fracture that has never been given the conditions to heal?”
Kevin Ham, MD
The fracture point of a healed bone becomes measurably stronger than the surrounding tissue. What if arterial plaque is a fracture that has never been given the conditions to heal? Osteoclast-like cells have been detected in heavily calcified lesions. Remove the conditions driving osteoblastic transformation and the wall can begin to function as arterial wall again. 51 studies. 9,000+ patients. The evidence for plaque regression is now robust. The question is no longer whether it happens. It is whether you create the conditions.
And here is what reversal looks like. My carotid plaque. Gone. Remodeled. In three months. Bilateral carotid IMT of 1.8 mm and 1.6 mm with visible plaque on both sides, dropping to 0.84 mm and 0.86 mm with no visible plaque detectable on ultrasound. My CT-FFR on a dominant D1 diagonal with 77 percent stenosis: improved from 0.75 to 0.80, crossing from ischemic into the normal range. LDL: 61, a 64 percent reduction. ApoB: 45. The word my physician friends used: Unbelievable!
Before: RT CCA . Longitudinal . Baseline
Before: LT CCA . Longitudinal . Baseline
After: Plaque remodeling and reversal. B-mode ultrasound imaging of the carotid artery. Kevin Ham, MD, 2025. Three months on the CAST protocol: WFPB diet, high-intensity cycling, structured fasting, targeted supplementation.
The CAST Protocol
“Cast by removing the causes. Add the healers. Support and strengthen. Track and measure. Stop the damage, add what heals, strengthen the blood vessels, and track the results.”
Kevin Ham, MD
Four moves, in order. One sentence: stop the damage by removing the causes, add what heals, strengthen the blood vessels, and track the results.
C: Cast by Removing the Causes. Like a cast on a broken bone. Fractured arteries. Fractured endothelium. Fractured retina. Fractured health. Before any healing element can work, you must first stop the damage: processed food, oxidized lipids, sedentary life, and chronic stress. Cast it first, hold it still, and let the body begin its work.
A: Add the Healers. Healing foods that generate nitric oxide and reverse endothelial dysfunction. High-intensity exercise that drives macrophages toward the anti-inflammatory M2 phenotype. Fasting that activates autophagy and resets the immune system. These are not supplements to an otherwise unchanged life. They are the intervention.
S: Support and Strengthen. Build the three pillars as permanent lifestyle habits:
Diet. The Esselstyn whole food plant-based protocol. Total fat below 25 grams daily. No oils. No animal products. Greens six times a day, chewed thoroughly so the nitrates convert to nitric oxide, the molecule that protects your endothelium around the clock. Nattokinase at 6,000 FU. Aged garlic at 2,000 milligrams. Pomegranate juice. Curcumin. Spirulina. Algae-sourced EPA and DHA. Balsamic vinegar. A medicine cabinet made of food.
Exercise. HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training. Out-of-breath pace for 30 seconds to four minutes, then recover for 4 minutes. Repeat 1 to 4 times. Walk fast, jog, run, cycle, swim, squats, or jump rope. Whatever gets your heart rate up and blood flowing with good sheer force. This is nitric oxide-producing, artery-protecting exercise. Think of it as a good pressure wash for your arteries. High-intensity aerobic effort quiets the inflammatory fire inside the arterial wall. This is one of the most powerful prescriptions I have ever written.
Fasting. I fast to activate what 300,000 years of evolutionary biology encoded in every cell. Autophagy dismantles damaged cellular machinery. Extended fasting triggers hematopoietic stem cell activation, which gives rise to immune system precursors. My protocol: daily 16:8, one OMAD day per week, one extended fast of two to three days per month. Not asceticism. Seasonality. The ancient rhythm, reclaimed deliberately.
T: Track and Measure. Carotid IMT, CT-FFR, and coronary CT angiogram every six months. Lipid profile and metabolic profile every 30 to 45 days until you hit your targets, then every quarter. Without measurement, you are making changes into the void. Every image is a report from the front line.
Diet. Exercise. Fasting. The Ancient Flywheel.
“I am not fasting to lose weight. I am fasting to activate an ancient system of survival in our bodies. Autophagy. Stem cells. Immune cells reset. Regeneration. The power of our famine and feast seasonality.”
Kevin Ham, MD
I finally understand. Once I understood heart disease, I finally understood my eye disease. And almost all of the modern diseases of our civilization today. Including, I believe, an elementary understanding of how to begin dealing with cancer, understood as a metabolic and vascular disease with the same upstream roots.
These three levers, diet, exercise, and fasting, are not a wellness routine. They are a biological intervention targeting the upstream causes of the number one killer on earth. The protocol in the section above tells you what to take. These three pillars tell you how to live.
“The three together are not additive. They are multiplicative. A force multiplier. A flywheel that, once set in motion, compounds on itself.”
One Disease. Many Organs. One Protocol.
“I was surprised all of a sudden with wet macular degeneration. To me they are the same disease, just different organs. I am reversing both, so help me God.”
Kevin Ham, MD
I am the doctor who became the patient. And because I became the patient, I began to see what I could not see from the other side of the room.
I was diagnosed with severe wet macular degeneration in both eyes on the morning of May 10, 2020. I was only 50 years old. It announced itself suddenly: a straight line bent, vision distorted, fluid beneath the retina. Wet AMD is a disease of the 70s and 80s. I was 20 to 30 years too young for this diagnosis. Even if I lived a long life, I was told it would likely be in blindness—no cure yet known. And no one could explain why it had arrived so early. But I could. When I looked at the biology, I saw the same driving mechanism as coronary artery disease: endothelial dysfunction in the microvasculature. The same inflammatory cascade. The same oxidized lipid injury. The same nitric oxide deficiency. The retina was simply the first organ that made the disease visible. My arteries had been telling the same story for years. It is the same disease presenting in a different organ.
Wet macular degeneration. Coronary artery disease. Type 2 diabetes. Hypertension. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And I believe, in due time, certain autoimmune diseases. Cancer is understood as a metabolic disease.
These are not separate diseases coexisting in the same aging body. They are expressions of one underlying condition: chronic metabolic inflammation driving endothelial dysfunction across different organ systems. Medicine treats each in a separate department, with a different specialist, and a different drug. But the root is the same root. And if the root is the same, the protocol that addresses the root addresses them all.
Circumcise Your Heart
“Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your heart.”
Jeremiah 4:4
The command to circumcise the heart runs through Scripture like a surgical instruction. In Ezekiel 36, God promises not merely to command this change but to perform it: I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The surgery is divine. The rock does not yield on its own. It requires an instrument applied from outside the system. The same is true in biology.
The circumcision of the heart is the cutting away of what covers and hardens the living tissue underneath. The removal of the calcified layer of habit and assumption that prevents the blood of grace from flowing freely. In both dimensions, spiritual and biological, the grammar is identical: remove the cause, restore the inhibitors, allow the program of reversal to run. What was rock yields water. What was rigid becomes responsive. What was closed becomes open to flow.
Strike the rock.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 36:26
Your Questions
Questions worth sitting with.
One action. In the next 24 hours, book a CT calcium score or a Carotid IMT ultrasound. Call your doctor today and ask for it by name. That single image will tell you more about your arterial health than every blood test you have ever had.
1. Is there someone in your life whose sudden death you would not recover from? Do they know what is building inside their arterial wall?
Rob Thompson's wife stood at his memorial and said: he had a stress test every day. Every workout, every climb. He passed everyone. And then he died. She asked every person in that room to get a CT calcium score. You can give someone you love the gift that Rob's wife was never able to give Rob. Send them this. Ten seconds
2. If 91 percent of people over 50 have measurable plaque right now, and most of them have never been told, what are the odds that you are the exception?
You are probably not the exception. Neither was Rob. Neither was I. The imaging that would tell you the truth about your arterial wall takes 30 minutes and is available in most cities. The question is not whether you can afford to find out. The question is whether you can afford not to.
3. When is the last time you ate a meal that was designed to heal your endothelium rather than injure it?
Every meal is a vote: either for the endothelium that keeps plaque from starting, or against it. Dr. Esselstyn kept the worst heart patients alive for 12 years with just diet. No surgery. No procedure. No prescription. Just food chosen deliberately. That power is available to you at the next meal.
4. If your body has the biological machinery to reverse this, what is the one thing you are willing to change today to let it begin?
Not everything. Just one thing. Today. I started the whole food plant-based diet on May 9, 2025, the morning after I saw my calcium score of 505. Within three months, my carotid plaque was gone. One meal in the right direction is the beginning of fracture healing. Start there.
Someone You Love
“The greatest single threat to the cardiac health of each individual is his own coronary arteries. And the greatest threat is not that we lack the knowledge to prevent the disease. It is that we lack the will to act on what we already know.”
Paul Dudley White, MD Presidential physician, founder of the American Heart Association, 1956
You thought of someone while reading this. Their name came to you. Maybe it is the person who has never had arterial imaging. Maybe it is the one who was told their cholesterol is fine and sent home with nothing else. Maybe it is you. Rob Thompson passed every stress test he ever took. His LDL was normal. And on February 10, 2025, he died of a process that had been building for forty years inside a wall that no standard test was looking at. The gift Rob's wife never got to give him takes ten seconds to send.
This is my ministry. This is my gospel of your heart.Send this to the person you thought of. Better late than never.
Strike the rock. I pray that the rock yields its waters for you.
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The Power of the Compound Effect
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Meaning
The Courage to Your Magnum Opus
APPENDIX
The ten studies that anchor the science in this newsletter.
1. Esselstyn CB Jr, et al. A Strategy to Arrest and Reverse Coronary Artery Disease: A 5-Year Longitudinal Study. J Fam Pract. 1995;41:560-568.
The foundational study. Severe coronary disease arrested and reversed in human patients through plant-based diet alone. The study medicine still does not know what to do with.
"Heart disease isn't some great mystery. We are empowered to take control of it. Patients are often furious that they were not made aware of this option earlier." — Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD
2. Esselstyn CB Jr. Updating a 12-Year Experience With Arrest and Reversal Therapy for Coronary Heart Disease. Am J Cardiol. 1999;84:339-341.
Twelve-year follow-up of the original 24-patient cohort: one cardiac event among adherent patients versus thirteen among those who returned to standard care.
"Coronary artery disease need not exist, and if it does exist, it need not progress. We have documented not merely the arrest but the reversal of this disease in human beings." — Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD
3. Ihle-Hansen H, et al. Prevalence of Carotid Plaque in a 63 to 65-Year-Old Norwegian Cohort: The ACE 1950 Study. J Am Heart Assoc. 2018;7:e008562.
Carotid ultrasound of 3,683 generally healthy adults: plaque in 87 percent overall, 92 percent of men. The 91 percent figure cited in this newsletter.
"Atherosclerotic carotid plaques were present in 87% of the participants. The carotid plaque score was more strongly associated with incident ischemic stroke than established cardiovascular risk scores." — Ihle-Hansen H, et al.
4. Enos WF, Holmes RH, Beyer J. Coronary disease among United States soldiers killed in action in Korea. JAMA. 1953;158:912-914.
Autopsies of 300 soldiers, average age 22. Gross atherosclerosis in 77.3 percent. The study that should have tipped in 1953 and did not.
"Gross evidence of coronary arteriosclerosis was found in 77.3 percent of 300 American soldiers killed in Korea, average age 22. It is no wonder that at the time of death the process was far advanced." — Enos WF, Holmes RH, Beyer J.
5. Han D, Torii S, et al. Quantitative measurement of lipid rich plaque: correlation of histology in sudden cardiac death. Atherosclerosis. 2018;275:426-433.
Post-mortem CT correlation with histology in sudden cardiac death hearts: mean ruptured lipid-rich plaque area of 0.34 square millimeters. A whisper of tissue. Sufficient to kill.
"Mean lipid-rich plaque area per coronary cross-section in sudden cardiac death hearts: 0.34 square millimeters. A whisper of vulnerable tissue sufficient to kill." — Han D, Torii S, et al.
6. Williams MC, et al. Low-Attenuation Noncalcified Plaque Predicts Myocardial Infarction: SCOT-HEART Trial. Circulation. 2020;141:1452-1462.
1,769 patients followed for nearly five years. Low-attenuation plaque burden outperformed every other predictor of heart attack: better than calcium score, risk scores, and stenosis severity combined.
"An increased burden of low-attenuation plaque is the principal predictor of increased coronary events, above and beyond other established classic markers of cardiovascular risk." — Williams MC, et al.
7. Schurgers LJ, Cranenburg ECM, Vermeer C. Matrix Gla-protein: the calcification inhibitor in need of vitamin K. Thromb Haemost. 2008;100:593-603.
Established Matrix Gla Protein, activated by vitamin K2, as the dominant inhibitor of arterial calcification. High vitamin K intake not only prevents but regresses existing vascular calcium.
"There seems to be no effective alternative mechanism for calcification inhibition in the vasculature. High vitamin K intake not only prevents calcification, but even regresses arterial calcifications." — Leon J. Schurgers, PhD
8. Xu Z, et al. Osteoclastogenesis and Osteoblastogenesis in Vascular Calcification. Front Cardiovasc Med. 2021;8:639740.
Demonstrated that arterial calcification is reversible: osteoclast-like cells can resorb mineral from the arterial wall, establishing the cellular basis for the reversal documented in this newsletter.
"Arterial calcification is a cell-mediated, reversible and actively regulated process. Tilting the balance toward osteoclast-like cells may be a promising therapeutic strategy." — Xu Z, et al.
9. Banach M, et al. Atherosclerotic coronary plaque regression from lipid-lowering therapies: a meta-analysis. Atherosclerosis Plus. 2024.
Meta-analysis of 51 studies and 9,113 patients. Plaque regression is real, reproducible, and documented. The question is no longer whether it happens. It is how aggressively we pursue it.
"The evidence for plaque regression is now robust. The question is no longer whether plaque regresses, but how aggressively we pursue the conditions that allow it." — Banach M, et al.
10. Longo VD, Mattson MP. Fasting: molecular mechanisms and clinical applications. Cell Metab. 2014;19:181-192.
The molecular mechanism review behind the fasting component of the CAST protocol: autophagy, apoptosis of damaged cells, and stem cell activation. The most extensive cellular renewal process available to the human body.
"During prolonged fasting, the body survives by eliminating unnecessary cells. These cells will be replaced when food becomes available. This regeneration process, the most extensive since birth, is a powerful feature of prolonged fasting." — Valter D. Longo, PhD
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
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Reversing the Disease Flywheel
First Principles on Reversing the Biology of Disease
First Principles on Reversing the Biology of Disease
Dr. Kevin Ham, MD
The Architecture of a Cure
“Some people think that the plant-based, whole foods diet is extreme. Half a million people a year will have their chests opened up and a vein taken from their leg and sewn onto their coronary artery. Some people would call that extreme.”
Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., MD. Cleveland Clinic.
I am a physician turned entrepreneur. Twenty-five years of building companies taught me mental models that have nothing to do with balance sheets and everything to do with how complex systems actually work. When my heart scan came back, I did what I always do when I do not know something. I studied. I studied the data, the mechanistic pathways, the constraints and the 80/20 levers. And I applied the same four principles to heart disease that I have used in business. This is the methodology behind my results.
Principle 1: The Flywheel
“The flywheel effect is not the result of one defining action, one grand program, one killer innovation, one solitary lucky break. It comes from the cumulative effect of pushing the flywheel forward, turn after turn, building momentum until a point of breakthrough and beyond.”
Jim Collins. Good to Great.
A flywheel is a rotating mass that stores momentum. In physics, it is the heavy disc on an engine that keeps the crankshaft turning smoothly between combustion strokes. The critical property of a flywheel is this: it resists change in both directions. It is hard to accelerate from rest. But once it is spinning, it is equally hard to stop.
Disease is a flywheel. Not a sudden event. Not bad luck. A self-reinforcing vicious cycle that builds speed over the course of many years, each revolution making the next one faster and harder to interrupt. Endothelial damage invites oxidized LDL. Oxidized LDL triggers inflammation. Inflammation damages the endothelium further. The cycle closes, tightens, and accelerates. This is the vicious flywheel, running in the dark for decades before it announces itself.
Health is also a flywheel, turning in the right direction. A healthy endothelium produces nitric oxide. Nitric oxide blocks LDL oxidation and suppresses the adhesion molecules that recruit inflammatory cells. With less inflammation, the endothelium can repair itself. A repaired endothelium produces more nitric oxide. Each revolution reinforces the next. This is the virtuous flywheel.
The central question of my protocol is not: what supplements should I take? It is: how do I stop the vicious flywheel and start the virtuous one? Because the biology of the flywheel tells you something important. You do not need to fix everything simultaneously. You need sufficient force, applied at the right entry point, and the system will do the rest. Get the flywheel turning in the right direction, and it gains its own momentum.
Principle 2: The Judo Strategy
“The goal of judo is not to defeat your opponent. It is to understand the principles of life itself. Maximum efficiency with minimum effort. Mutual welfare and benefit. Yield to win.”
Jigoro Kano. Founder of Kodokan Judo. 1882.
In judo, strength is irrelevant. The principle is leverage: you use your opponent’s own force against them. When they push, you pull in the same direction, adding your force to theirs, and suddenly their own momentum carries them off balance. Then you use your body as a lever, redirect the energy, and throw them with a fraction of the effort it would take in a direct confrontation. When they pull, you push, and the same geometry applies. The opponent’s strength becomes your weapon.
I apply this to disease with one question: what forces is the disease already using, and how do I redirect them? In atherosclerosis, the immune system recruits macrophages into the arterial wall to clear oxidized LDL. In a chronically inflamed environment, those macrophages become overloaded, switch to a destructive M1 phenotype, and begin releasing enzymes that digest the fibrous cap of existing plaque from within. The very system designed to protect you is now accelerating your destruction.
The judo move is not to suppress the immune system. It is to shift the macrophage phenotype from M1 to M2, from inflammatory to healing, so that the same cells that were building disease begin participating in its reversal. Polyphenols, exercise, and fasting all apply force at this exact switch. You are not fighting your immune system. You are redirecting it. The opposition’s strength becomes your treatment.
Principle 3: The Fractal 80/20
“The 80/20 principle says that a minority of causes, inputs or effort usually leads to a majority of results, outputs or rewards. Taken to its logical conclusion, it means that a great deal of what we do is of low value and a little of what we do is of high value. The more we can concentrate on the high-value activities, the more effective we become.”
Richard Koch. The 80/20 Principle.
Vilfredo Pareto noticed in 1896 that 20 percent of the peapods in his garden produced 80 percent of the peas. The same ratio appeared in land ownership across Italy. Economists found it in income distribution. Engineers found it in software defects. Athletes find it in training adaptation. The specific numbers vary. The underlying principle does not: inputs are not created equal. A small number of causes drive the vast majority of effects.
In medicine, this means that among the hundreds of factors that might contribute to your cardiovascular disease, roughly 20 are responsible for 80 percent of what is happening. The other 80 contribute the remaining 20 percent. If you pursue all of them with equal effort, you are dramatically misallocating your time and energy. The 80/20 principle is not an excuse for laziness. It is a demand for precision. Find the 20 that matter most and address those first.
But here is where it becomes remarkable, and where most people stop too soon: the 80/20 principle is fractal. It repeats inside itself, at every level of magnification, like a coastline that shows the same jagged complexity whether you view it from a satellite or from a clifftop or from your knees in the sand.
Take those top 20 factors, the ones producing 80 percent of your disease. Apply the 80/20 lens to that group alone. Twenty percent of those 20 factors, which is 4 factors, will produce 80 percent of that 80 percent of results. Run the arithmetic: 4 things account for 64 percent of your total disease burden. You have gone from 100 inputs to 4 and captured nearly two-thirds of the problem.
Apply the fractal one more time. Of those 4 high-leverage factors, one accounts for 80 percent of that 64 percent. Which means: one single factor accounts for roughly 51 percent of the total. One thing. Half the problem. If you can identify it and remove it, you have done more than any other single intervention could possibly achieve. This is not a shortcut. It is the highest form of strategic thinking: the relentless reduction of complexity until the single most powerful lever is visible.
In cardiovascular disease, that one thing is endothelial dysfunction. The endothelium is the initiating event. It is the gate that, when compromised, lets the Trojan horse through. It is the surface that, when inflamed, becomes a magnet for plaque formation. It is the organ that, when healthy, produces nitric oxide, which prevents nearly every downstream step in the cascade.
Heal the endothelium, and you have addressed 51 percent of the disease through a single biological mechanism. Every other intervention in my protocol is downstream of this one.
Find the one thing.
In disease: it is the cause. Remove the cause and you remove half the disease.
In health: it is the highest-leverage intervention. Find it and you gain half the results.
The fractal 80/20 is not a formula. It is a philosophy of precision.
Principle 4: The Theory of Constraints
“An hour lost at a bottleneck is an hour lost for the entire system. An hour saved at a non-bottleneck is a mirage. It saves nothing. It changes nothing. Only the constraint matters.”
Eliyahu Goldratt, PhD. The Goal.
Eliyahu Goldratt introduced this framework in manufacturing. Every production system has a bottleneck, a single point that limits the throughput of the entire process more than any other. You can optimize every other step to perfection, but if the bottleneck remains, overall output does not improve. The constraint governs everything. The only productive action is to find it, elevate it, and then look for the next constraint.
In cardiovascular disease, the bottleneck is blood flow. Specifically, its interruption. Heart attacks occur when a clot or a ruptured plaque causes sudden, complete obstruction of a coronary artery. Strokes occur when the same happens in cerebral circulation or when a vessel ruptures. The common thread is not the size of the blockage. It is the stability of the plaque and the thrombogenicity of its contents. A 90 percent stenosis with a thick fibrous cap and a quiescent inflammatory environment may never rupture. A 30 percent stenosis with a thin cap and an activated immune infiltrate can kill you on a Tuesday morning.
The constraint in heart disease is not cholesterol. It is not even stenosis percentage. The constraint is the biology that makes a plaque vulnerable to rupture: inflammation, a thin fibrous cap, a large necrotic core, and the matrix metalloproteinases produced by M1 macrophages that digest the cap from within. Remove that constraint, and you remove the mechanism of the acute event, regardless of what is on your lipid panel.
These four principles are not independent ideas. They are a single system of thought.
The flywheel gives you the architecture of disease and health.
The judo strategy tells you how to redirect the disease’s own forces.
The fractal 80/20 tells you where to apply force first.
The theory of constraints tells you what to remove.
Together, they produced my protocol. And together they produced my results.
“Atherosclerosis is not a lipid storage disease. It is a chronic inflammatory disease of the arterial wall, initiated by injury to the endothelium.”
“Atherosclerosis is not a lipid storage disease. It is a chronic inflammatory disease of the arterial wall, initiated by injury to the endothelium.”
Russell Ross, MD. University of Washington. New England Journal of Medicine, 1999.
Your Blood Vessel Wall is Already Burning
“The lesion of atherosclerosis is the most common cause of death in Western societies. It is also, in principle, preventable. It begins not with cholesterol, but with injury. Remove the injury and you remove the disease.”
Russell Ross. New England Journal of Medicine, 1999.
Most people, when they think about heart disease, think about cholesterol. But cholesterol is an ingredient of plaque, not the cause. Think of the arterial wall as a fortified city. The endothelium is the city wall, the sentinel layer. If the wall is intact, the city is defended. When it is damaged, the Trojan horse gets through.
The man who proved this was Russell Ross, a pathologist at the University of Washington, working in 1973 on what most of his colleagues considered a settled question. Atherosclerosis, the prevailing view held, was essentially a passive process: cholesterol circulating in excess would simply seep through vessel walls and accumulate, like sediment settling at the bottom of a river. Ross did not believe it. He had been studying platelet-derived growth factor and noticed something that did not fit the sediment theory: the arterial lesions he was examining looked less like passive deposits and more like wound responses. The tissue was reacting. The wall was responding to something.
He published what he called the ‘response to injury’ hypothesis in 1973 and expanded it through two subsequent decades of work. The injury he meant was not a cut or a bruise. It was a molecular insult to the endothelium: the inner lining of the blood vessel, a structure so thin it had largely been treated as irrelevant scaffolding. Ross proposed that this single-cell layer was not passive scaffolding at all. It was an active, signalling, immunological frontier. Damage it, and you initiate a cascade that looks far more like chronic inflammation than passive lipid deposition. The medical establishment received this idea with the same generous skepticism it reserves for all ideas that require reconsidering everything. But Ross was right. And the cascade he described is the vicious flywheel.
The Trojan horse is LDL cholesterol. Once inside the damaged wall, LDL can oxidize. Oxidized LDL is a danger signal that summons the immune system. Monocytes flood in and become macrophages, tasked with cleaning up the mess. But in a chronically inflamed environment, they become overwhelmed. They shift to the M1 inflammatory phenotype, releasing cytokines that further damage the endothelium, allowing more LDL through, driving more oxidation, and recruiting more monocytes. The macrophages die, full of lipids, forming foam cells and the necrotic core of the growing plaque. And the cycle accelerates.
This flywheel runs on three pillars, each driving the next. Endothelial damage is where it begins:
saturated fat suppresses eNOS within hours of consumption,
hypertension shears the vessel wall at arterial branch points, and
oxidative stress depletes the antioxidant defences that protect the inner lining.
When the wall fails, LDL slips through. Once inside, in the changed chemical environment of the subendothelial space, it oxidizes. Oxidized LDL is a danger signal. It summons the immune system.
That summoning is the second pillar: chronic inflammation.
Monocytes migrate into the wall and become macrophages, tasked with neutralizing the oxidized LDL. In an acute situation, this works. In a chronic one, it fails catastrophically. The macrophages become overwhelmed, switch to the M1 inflammatory phenotype, and begin releasing cytokines, IL-6, TNF-alpha, and matrix metalloproteinases that dissolve the fibrous cap protecting the growing plaque from the bloodstream. They recruit more monocytes. More monocytes damage the endothelium further. The gate opens wider.
The third pillar is atherogenic lipoproteins, and the most important measure here is not LDL cholesterol but ApoB: one molecule per particle, present on every atherogenic lipoprotein in circulation, a direct count of the Trojan horses circling the arterial wall.
Saturated fat downregulates the hepatic receptors that clear these particles.
Insulin resistance drives the liver to overproduce VLDL.
The oxidized form of these particles, once inside the inflamed wall, is the direct trigger of the foam cell cascade that forms the necrotic core of plaque.
The most dangerous heart attack is not caused by the most obstructed artery. This shattered my prior intuition. The most dangerous lesion is a vulnerable plaque: a small to medium deposit with a large necrotic core, a thin fibrous cap, and a crown of activated M1 macrophages digesting the cap from within. When that cap ruptures, the contents contact circulating blood and trigger the explosive thrombosis that produces a heart attack within minutes. The most dangerous plaques are the most inflamed, not the largest.
The disease has been running its program for forty years. The flywheel is already spinning. The question is not whether it has started. The question is whether you will stop it.
“Our genes are not our fate. Even older adults with severe coronary artery disease can begin to reverse it. Not slow it. Reverse it. Within weeks, most patients feel so much better, so quickly, that these new behaviours become sustainable.”
Dean Ornish, MD. Lifestyle Heart Trial. The Lancet, 1990.
The Disease that Reverses
“Joy is a more powerful motivator than fear. In my experience, most people don't want to be told what to stop doing. They want to be told what they can start doing that will make them feel better right away.”
Dean Ornish’ Program for Reversing Heart Disease, 1990.
In the late 1980s, a young physician named Dean Ornish proposed something that the cardiological establishment found almost impolite. He wanted to know whether coronary artery disease could be reversed, not slowed, not stabilized, but actually reversed, through diet, exercise, stress management, and group support alone. No drugs. No surgery. No stents. The proposal drew skepticism that ranged from condescension to amusement. Coronary artery disease was a one-way street. Everyone knew that. Ornish apparently did not.
He ran the Lifestyle Heart Trial anyway. Twenty-eight patients with documented coronary artery disease were randomized to his intensive program. Twenty patients served as controls. Coronary angiography was performed at baseline and at one year, measuring the actual diameter of the coronary arteries, the same vessels in which plaque had been growing for decades. The results, published in The Lancet in 1990, were unambiguous: in the treatment group, arteries had grown wider. In the control group, following standard American Heart Association guidelines, they had continued to narrow. At five years, the divergence had increased. The patients who had reversed their disease most completely were the ones who had followed the protocol most strictly. The lifestyle intervention was dose-dependent, like a drug, except it had no patent and no sales force and required no prescription.
The medical community acknowledged the data and largely declined to change its practice. The mechanisms were not yet understood. The trial was small. The diet was extreme. These were the arguments. What they amounted to was: we believe you, but we are not ready to believe you. What Ornish had found, though neither he nor his contemporaries could fully name it in 1990, was the virtuous flywheel. Apply enough force at the right entry points, and the biology reverses its own direction.
The virtuous flywheel has the same architecture as the vicious one, but the direction of causation reverses. The three pillars now amplify healing instead of disease. I experienced this in three months. My carotid plaque: gone. My LDL is down 64%. My ApoB at 45. My D1 CT-FFR improved from 0.75 to 0.80, moving from functionally significant stenosis into the low-normal range. The virtuous flywheel is turning.
Figure 1. The Virtuous Flywheel of Atherosclerosis Reversal, running clockwise from Endothelial Healing through Lipid Remodeling to Inflammation Resolution. Each master node contains its own three-part sub-cycle.
1. Endothelial Healing. The endothelium does not heal passively. It heals through nitric oxide production, eNOS activation, and endothelial progenitor cell repair. These three mechanisms form their own sub-cycle:
Nitric oxide relaxes the vessel wall and reduces shear-induced injury;
Reduced injury preserves eNOS coupling so it produces more nitric oxide rather than superoxide;
More nitric oxide mobilizes bone-marrow endothelial progenitor cells that replace dead cells and close the breach.
Exercise upregulates eNOS through pulsatile blood flow.
Dietary nitrates from leafy greens feed the oral-gastric pathway, an eNOS-independent route to nitric oxide that works all day as long as you keep eating greens.
Deep sleep pulses growth hormone that drives progenitor cell mobilization overnight.
2. Lipid Remodelling. The right target is not LDL-C but ApoB: the count of every atherogenic particle capable of entering the arterial wall. And the real goal is not merely reducing entry but activating reverse cholesterol transport (RCT): the ABCA1-mediated extraction of cholesterol from foam cells inside the plaque, loaded onto HDL particles, returned to the liver for excretion. This is the mechanism of plaque regression.
Eliminating saturated fat upregulates hepatic LDL receptors.
Exercise activates lipoprotein lipase and improves HDL function.
Intermittent fasting reduces intrahepatic fat and VLDL overproduction.
When efflux exceeds influx, the necrotic core shrinks, and the fibrous cap thickens.
Two upstream drivers of this node are almost never discussed in standard cardiology.
The first is HbA1c. Hyperglycemia glycates LDL particles, and glycated LDL is taken up by macrophages at a far higher rate than native LDL, accelerating foam cell formation regardless of your ApoB count. It also generates advanced glycation end products that cross-link collagen in the arterial wall, stiffening it and making the endothelium less responsive to nitric oxide. Insulin resistance simultaneously drives hepatic VLDL overproduction, directly raising ApoB burden. Target HbA1c for cardiovascular protection is below 5.4%, well below the conventional pre-diabetes threshold of 5.7.
The whole food plant-based diet and
16:8 fasting are the two most powerful interventions.
The post-meal walk serves the same purpose acutely, clearing glucose from circulation before it can glycate anything.
The second overlooked driver is Vitamin K2 (MK-7).
Without sufficient K2, calcium that circulates in the bloodstream deposits into arterial walls and inside existing plaque, hardening the necrotic core and converting soft, potentially reversible plaque into fixed calcified lesions. K2 activates Matrix Gla Protein (MGP), the most potent known inhibitor of vascular calcification, which redirects that calcium back into bone instead. The Rotterdam Study demonstrated that K2 specifically, not K1, significantly reduced cardiovascular mortality and aortic calcification. The natto I already eat as an MK-7 source does double duty: the nattokinase degrades fibrin and the K2 inhibits calcification. These are distinct mechanisms from the same food, and worth tracking separately in any serious protocol.
3. Inflammation Resolution. The CANTOS trial proved that targeting inflammation alone, with no lipid lowering whatsoever, reduced major cardiovascular events by 15%. This is co-primary biology. The judo move is to shift macrophages from the M1 (inflammatory, cap-degrading) phenotype to the M2 (healing, collagen-depositing) phenotype.
Curcumin suppresses NF-kB and drives M2 polarization.
EGCG from high-catechin green tea reduces foam cell formation.
Ellagitannins from pomegranate juice upregulate ABCA1 expression in macrophages, directly increasing their capacity for cholesterol efflux.
Exercise myokines shift the immune environment toward M2.
Intermittent fasting activates autophagy to clear permanently inflamed senescent macrophages that no diet can repolarize.
The direct blood readout of this node is hs-CRP. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein is produced by the liver in response to IL-6, which is secreted by activated M1 macrophages and visceral adipose tissue. It is the most accessible systemic signal of whether your inflammatory node is moving in the right direction. Target is below 1.0 mg/L for optimal cardiovascular protection. Your polyphenol stack, your HIIT sessions, and your fasting protocol all suppress IL-6 at the source, and hs-CRP should track downward as a consequence. I measure it quarterly alongside ApoB and HbA1c as the three primary biomarker proxies for flywheel direction.
“Nitric oxide is arguably the most important molecule in the cardiovascular system. It is the endothelium’s primary defence against virtually every step in the development of atherosclerosis. You want more of it. Almost everything about modern life gives you less.”
Louis J. Ignarro, PhD. Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, 1998.
The Polluted Gas is Your Saviour
“I spent my career studying a gas that everyone assumed was just a pollutant. It turned out to be the most important signaling molecule the body makes. The lesson is: never assume you know what something is before you study it.”
Louis Ignarro, PhD. Nobel Laureate, 1998.
In 1980, before statin drugs were approved in 1987, a pharmacologist named Robert Furchgott was running experiments on strips of rabbit aorta in his laboratory at the State University of New York. He was studying how the blood vessel relaxed in response to acetylcholine, a signalling molecule that, according to the textbooks, should cause smooth muscle to dilate. It did. Except that sometimes it did not. Sometimes it caused contraction instead. Furchgott could not account for the inconsistency, and inconsistency in a careful scientist’s data is not noise to be discarded. It is a signal to be followed.
He eventually traced the discrepancy to a preparation error. When his laboratory assistants accidentally scraped the inner surface of the aorta during dissection, stripping away the single-cell endothelial lining, the acetylcholine caused contraction. When the endothelium was intact, it caused relaxation. The endothelium, he concluded, was producing something: a chemical messenger that told the smooth muscle underneath it to relax and let blood flow freely. He had no idea what it was. He called it EDRF: Endothelium-Derived Relaxing Factor. The name was a placeholder for a mystery.
It took seven more years to solve it. Louis Ignarro in California and Ferid Murad in Texas, working independently and sometimes in competition, converged on the same answer: EDRF was nitric oxide. A gas. A molecule of one nitrogen atom and one oxygen atom. In the brain, it acts as a neurotransmitter, in the immune system, it can kill cancer cells, and in the blood vessels, it can dilate them and prevent platelet aggregation and plaques.
At the time, nitric oxide was known primarily as an atmospheric pollutant and a component of smog. The idea that the human body was producing it deliberately, in the precise inner lining of every blood vessel, and using it to regulate blood flow, prevent clotting, suppress inflammation, and protect the arterial wall from disease, was received as implausible. It was implausible in the way that the best biological discoveries always are: it seemed impossible until the moment it seemed obvious. In 1998, Furchgott, Ignarro, and Murad shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The molecule they had discovered was not a drug. It was a birthright. And most people are running chronically deficient in it because of what they eat.
I sat across from Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. on a Zoom call two weeks ago. 92 years old. Sharp as a blade. He had reversed heart disease in patients so severe they could not shave without triggering angina. His oldest patient, Stanley, came to him at age 87 on his last days of life due to severe heart disease requiring a bypass which would most likely end his life, changed to the Esselstyn diet protocol. Stanley called him at 103 to say thank you. Esselstyn leaned forward into the screen and said four words that reorganized everything I thought I knew about diet: “You need to revive your endothelium. There is an enzyme in the endothelial cells called eNOS, endothelial nitric oxide synthase, that produces nitric oxide. This is the miracle gas that will revive your endothelium.”
The pathway is simpler than any drug. Leafy greens carry dietary nitrates. The bacteria in your mouth convert those nitrates to nitrites. Stomach acid converts nitrites to nitric oxide, the same molecule your endothelium desperately needs, delivered directly to your circulation for hours after every meal. This is why Dr. Esselstyn prescribes greens six times daily, balsamic vinegar to amplify the conversion, and the removal of antiseptic mouthwash and antacids, both of which destroy the biological machinery that runs this pathway. “So your blood vessels are anointed with nitric oxide all day long.” Say YES to NO (nitric oxide). It is the simplest, most powerful cardiovascular intervention available to you today, and it requires no prescription.
“We have been measuring the wrong things. Cholesterol is the fuel. Inflammation is the fire. You can reduce the fuel all you want, but if the fire is still burning, the house still burns down.”
Paul Ridker, MD. Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
My Health Reversal Flywheel
“The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease.”
Thomas Edison, 1903. He was 123 years early.
I want to be specific, because the gap between principle and practice is where most protocols fail. So here is exactly what I do, and why each piece is there.
Diet is the foundation, and I follow Dr. Esselstyn’s whole food plant-based protocol without modification:
No saturated fats, which removes the primary dietary suppressor of eNOS and the main driver of ApoB particle production.
Leafy greens six times daily, boiled briefly and eaten with balsamic vinegar or lemon juice, which fuels the oral-gastric nitrate pathway continuously throughout the day.
50 millilitres of pomegranate juice with each meal, for the ellagitannins that upregulate ABCA1 in macrophages and directly support reverse cholesterol transport.
No antiseptic mouthwash, no antacids, because both destroy the biological machinery, the oral bacteria and gastric acid, that converts dietary nitrates into nitric oxide.
15-30 minute walk after each meal to activate lipoprotein lipase before triglyceride-rich particles can oxidize and reduce post-meal glucose spikes.
Exercise is non-negotiable and irreplaceable. I do HIIT three times weekly at 60 to 80 percent of my maximum heart rate for at least 1 hour. I keep the 4 x 4 minute High Intensity protocol in mind, but I do this for three reps up hills on my bicycle. I often wonder exactly what is happening to the blood flow and my heart blockages every time I go up that hill during these efforts. Theoretically, I know they are helping, but I often wonder.
This is not aesthetics. Pulsatile blood flow during sustained aerobic work is the most potent physiological stimulus for eNOS upregulation that exists. A single bout measurably improves endothelial function within hours. Sustained over months,
it upregulates eNOS expression,
mobilizes endothelial progenitor cells from bone marrow,
produces M2-polarizing myokines, and
improves both LDL receptor activity and
lipoprotein lipase-mediated triglyceride clearance.
No drug achieves this breadth of mechanism simultaneously.
I fast 16 hours daily, eating within an 8-hour window. This is not primarily about weight.
Fasting suppresses mTOR, the molecular driver of the M1 inflammatory macrophage phenotype.
It activates autophagy, the cellular recycling process that clears the senescent, permanently inflamed macrophages that no dietary intervention can repolarize.
It reduces intrahepatic fat, the primary driver of VLDL overproduction, and
reliably lowers fasting triglycerides.
Combined with the dietary protocol, it shifts the entire lipoprotein landscape.
Sleep is my acknowledged weak point, and I am correcting it. During slow-wave sleep, the pituitary releases growth hormone in pulses that drive endothelial progenitor cell mobilization. Every night of disrupted sleep is a night without the repair crew. I optimize for deep sleep duration before any other sleep metric.
My supplement stack is built around mechanism, not marketing. Every item has a specific address in the flywheel:
Nattokinase 6,000 FU: fibrin degradation, microvascular flow, thrombotic risk reduction
Aged garlic extract 2,000mg: most human-trial-validated natural agent for endothelial function and eNOS support
Algae-derived EPA and DHA: ABCA1 upregulation, M2 macrophage polarization, no oxidized fat burden of fish oil
Curcumin: direct NF-κB inhibition, M1-to-M2 macrophage shift
Vitamin C 1 to 3g daily: nitric oxide stabilization, antioxidant protection of eNOS coupling
Spirulina: phycocyanin for eNOS upregulation and anti-inflammatory activity
From natto and green tea
Vitamin K2 as MK-7 (from natto): activates Matrix Gla Protein to block vascular calcification and redirect calcium to bone
High-EGCG green tea tablets: foam cell reduction, eNOS activation, NF-κB suppression
The three biomarkers I track quarterly as flywheel proxies are
ApoB (lipid remodelling node),
hs-CRP (inflammation resolution node), and
HbA1c (upstream metabolic driver of both lipid and inflammation nodes).
Together, they tell you which direction each sub-cycle is turning without waiting for the next imaging study.
The results, in five months of this protocol:
D1 stenosis of 77%: CT-FFR improved from 0.75 to 0.80, moving from functionally significant into the low-normal range.
Bilateral carotid CIMT reduced by 53 percent in the first three months.
All carotid plaque (~20%): gone.
LDL down 64 percent. ApoB at 45. In 12 weeks
My physician friends use the word ‘unbelievable.’ What they mean is: I don’t truly believe it.
Rob Thompson did not have this wisdom. He had a cup of tea on a February morning and an arterial wall that had been accumulating evidence against him for forty years. You have what Rob did not have. I pray you do something with this wisdom for you and your loved ones.
Your Questions
Questions worth sitting with. Answer them honestly.
1. Which flywheel are you on right now?
Not as a metaphor. Mechanically. Is your endothelium being damaged by what you eat and how you sleep, or is it being repaired? Are your macrophages in M1 inflammatory mode or shifting toward M2? The flywheel does not pause while you decide. It is spinning right now, in one direction or the other. The fractal 80/20 says you do not need to fix everything. You need to find your one thing. For most people reading this, that one thing is what they eat for breakfast.
2. What is your number one constraint?
In the theory of constraints, identifying the bottleneck is the entire game. For your cardiovascular health specifically, is it diet, and you know it? Is it sleep, which you have been meaning to address for two years? Is it that you have never had imaging and are operating on assumptions? The constraint you do not name is the one that governs everything. Name it. Then remove it. Everything else is secondary until that one is solved.
3. What is the one action you will take this week that your endothelium will thank you for?
Not a lifestyle overhaul. One thing. Order a CT calcium scan if you have never had one. Replace one saturated-fat meal with leafy greens and balsamic vinegar. Start a post-dinner walk. Ask your doctor for an ApoB measurement at your next appointment. The virtuous flywheel does not require a dramatic first push. It requires a real one. Small, specific, this week.
Someone You Love
There is someone in your life with this right now.
You thought of them somewhere in this story.
Maybe it is you.
Send this to the person you thought of while reading it. Ten seconds. It may matter more than either of you knows.
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APPENDIX
Key Studies in Atherosclerosis, Reversal and Cardiovascular Biology
All studies cited are peer-reviewed publications. Human trial data is prioritized throughout. This appendix reflects the evidentiary basis of the REVERSAL Protocol.
Foundational Science: The Inflammatory Basis of Atherosclerosis
1. Ross R. (1999). Atherosclerosis: an inflammatory disease. New England Journal of Medicine. Established the foundational framework that atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the arterial wall, not a lipid storage disorder.
2. Libby P, Ridker PM, Maseri A. (2002). Inflammation and atherosclerosis. Circulation. Detailed the molecular mechanisms by which inflammatory pathways drive every stage of plaque formation, from initial endothelial activation through vulnerable plaque and rupture.
3. Tabas I. (2010). Macrophage death and defective inflammation resolution in atherosclerosis. Nature Reviews Immunology. Demonstrated that macrophage apoptosis and defective efferocytosis drive the formation of the necrotic core that makes plaques vulnerable to rupture, independent of lipid accumulation.
4. Ridker PM et al. (2017). Antiinflammatory therapy with canakinumab for atherosclerotic disease (CANTOS Trial). New England Journal of Medicine. Proved that targeting IL-1 beta reduced cardiovascular events independent of any lipid lowering, establishing vascular inflammation as a standalone therapeutic target.
Endothelial Biology and Nitric Oxide
5. Lundberg JO, Weitzberg E, Gladwin MT. (2008). The nitrate-nitrite-nitric oxide pathway in physiology and therapeutics. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. Established the oral-gastric dietary nitrate pathway as a clinically significant, eNOS-independent source of nitric oxide directly activated by leafy green vegetable consumption.
6. Fukai T, Ushio-Fukai M. (2011). Superoxide dismutases: role in redox signaling, vascular function and diseases. Antioxidants and Redox Signaling. Explained how oxidative stress uncouples eNOS, converting it from a nitric oxide producer to a superoxide generator that accelerates endothelial injury.
7. Werner N et al. (2003). Intravenous transfusion of endothelial progenitor cells reduces neointima formation after vascular injury. Circulation Research. Demonstrated that endothelial progenitor cells actively repair damaged vessel walls and that exercise is a primary driver of their mobilization from bone marrow.
Diet and Plaque Reversal
8. Ornish D et al. (1998). Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease (Lifestyle Heart Trial). JAMA. Showed measurable angiographic coronary artery disease regression in 82% of participants at one year and continued regression at five years, without lipid-lowering drugs.
9. Esselstyn CB Jr et al. (2014). A way to reverse CAD?. Journal of Family Practice. Found that 99.4% of compliant patients with established, angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease avoided major cardiovascular events over 3.7 years on a whole food plant-based diet.
10. Estruch R et al. (2013). Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a Mediterranean diet (PREDIMED Trial). New England Journal of Medicine. Demonstrated that a Mediterranean dietary pattern significantly reduced major cardiovascular events, particularly stroke, compared to a low-fat control diet.
11. Aviram M et al. (2004). Pomegranate juice consumption for 3 years by patients with carotid artery stenosis. Clinical Nutrition. Showed a 35% reduction in carotid intima-media thickness and significantly reduced LDL oxidation and blood pressure over three years of pomegranate juice consumption in a human trial.
12. Mensink RP, Katan MB. (1992). Effect of dietary fatty acids on serum lipids and lipoproteins. Arteriosclerosis and Thrombosis. Established the quantitative relationship between saturated fatty acid intake and LDL receptor downregulation, explaining the mechanistic link between dietary saturated fat and elevated ApoB particle count.
Exercise and Cardiovascular Reversal
13. Hambrecht R et al. (2004). Percutaneous coronary angioplasty compared with exercise training in patients with stable coronary artery disease. Circulation. Showed in a randomized trial that regular aerobic exercise was superior to PCI in preventing death and recurrent MI at 12 months in patients with stable coronary artery disease.
14. Pedersen BK, Febbraio MA. (2012). Muscles, exercise and obesity: skeletal muscle as a secretory organ. Nature Reviews Endocrinology. Described the myokine system by which contracting skeletal muscle releases anti-inflammatory signals including IL-10 that polarize macrophages toward the M2 healing phenotype.
15. Tall AR. (2008). Cholesterol efflux pathways and other potential mechanisms involved in the link between HDL and antiatherosclerotic effects. Journal of Internal Medicine. Reviewed ABCA1-mediated cholesterol efflux from macrophages as the rate-limiting step in reverse cholesterol transport and plaque regression, establishing why HDL function matters more than HDL-C level.
Fasting, Macrophage Biology and Polyphenols
16. Longo VD, Mattson MP. (2014). Fasting: molecular mechanisms and clinical applications. Cell Metabolism. Summarized the molecular effects of intermittent fasting including mTOR suppression, autophagy induction, and reduction of inflammatory markers relevant to macrophage phenotype and plaque stability.
17. Mantovani A et al. (2004). The chemokine system in diverse forms of macrophage activation and polarization. Trends in Immunology. Established the M1/M2 macrophage polarization framework and the cytokine environments that drive each phenotype, providing the mechanistic basis for dietary and exercise interventions targeting inflammatory macrophage behavior.
Epidemiology and Imaging
18. Enos WF, Holmes RH, Beyer J. (1953). Coronary disease among United States soldiers killed in action in Korea. JAMA. Found gross atherosclerosis in 77% of 300 American combat soldiers with an average age of 22 years, establishing that coronary artery disease begins in youth.
19. Detrano R et al. (2008). Coronary calcium as a predictor of coronary events in four racial or ethnic groups (MESA Study). New England Journal of Medicine. Demonstrated that coronary artery calcium score independently predicted cardiovascular events across diverse populations, validating CT calcium scoring as a primary risk stratification tool.
20. Fuster V et al. (2014). Progression of Early Subclinical Atherosclerosis (PESA) study design. Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Found measurable atherosclerotic plaque in 49.7% of middle-aged adults with no conventional risk factors, demonstrating that standard clinical thresholds vastly underestimate subclinical disease burden.
21. Loree HM et al. (1992). Effects of fibrous cap thickness on peak circumferential stress in model atherosclerotic vessels. Circulation Research. Established the biomechanical basis for why thin-capped, inflamed plaques rupture at low stenosis percentages, explaining why inflammation control is more important than stenosis reduction in preventing acute events.
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
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Sudden Heart Attack
Why normal people suddenly die
Why normal people suddenly die
Kevin Ham, MD
All of a Sudden
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me.”
Psalm 51, written after Nathan said: you are the man
Some of you have heard this story. Many of you have not. For me, I often replay the scenes in my head as I reflect. It’s almost become like a gospel of the heart to me now. There are some stories that we care about more than others, and some that catch our fancy and then pass like the wind. I pray that this story gets caught in your heart, because for me it did, by force, to shake me and tell me to open my eyes and, really, simply ask, “Why?”
On the morning of February 10, 2025, my friend Rob Thompson got up at dawn. It was a beautiful morning. He was excited to come and see me in Vancouver. The sun rose to greet him at home in San Francisco as he made his favourite black tea, part of a Christmas gift basket I sent him every year. I always sent him a gift of healthy teas. Then he went to his home gym to train for his next European mountain summit. He had attempted to summit the Matterhorn twice, abandoning both times due to bad conditions, until he finally reached the summit on his third attempt. He was so proud. He had trained so hard. I could only imagine his grip strength and the intensity of his training.
I once tried rock climbing, which looked so easy as I watched children climb almost effortlessly, like spiders. But I had only gotten halfway, and my hands and my legs were petrified and shaking, and helplessly, I had to let go. I looked at Rob basking in his glory and understood all of the sacrifices he and his family had made for him to reach the peak. I saw the powerful physique of a mountain climber; he looked like a teenager by comparison. He was 58 years old, just three years older than me. A 35-year veteran at Goldman Sachs. He taught me much about life and his philosophy on wealth.
He died on the elliptical that morning. So suddenly it didn’t even look like he had time to break his fall. He was supposed to fly to Vancouver that day to visit me. February 10, 2025. Lunch at Sushi Nori at 12-ish. See you tomorrow, we texted the evening before, excited.
I met Rob in 2011. He had come to meet me as a potential client of Goldman Sachs. We never got to the business of banking. We became good friends instead, over years of conversations that ranged far beyond finance, the kind of friendship that accumulates compound interest quietly over time. A week before he died, Rob had invested a sizable amount in my AI company. We jested that if I had become a client of his, he would not have been able to invest due to conflict. I told him I will become his client in due time. I just believed I would have better returns investing myself, but in my 60s, we will finish what brought us together. We had been talking about what we were going to build together. That was the sentiment between us: that the best was still ahead. That we would work together. That there was time.
Rob had no warning. No prior cardiac event. No alarming stress test. He was brilliant, vigorous, and by every external measure the picture of a man with decades ahead of him. He died of a heart attack, which is to say he died of a process that had been operating inside his arterial walls for forty years with all the discretion of a well-kept secret, accumulating silently, asymptomatically, inexorably, until it declared itself, all of a sudden.
I asked God, “Why? Why now? Why Rob?”
Silence.
Inside every blood vessel you have is a single cell layer called the endothelium. One cell thick. Eight tennis courts of surface area. It produces a molecule called nitric oxide, and that molecule is what stands between a healthy arterial wall and a diseased one. When the endothelium is functioning, LDL cannot oxidize inside its walls, platelets cannot aggregate, inflammation cannot adhere, and plaque cannot start. When the endothelium is suppressed or damaged, all four protections fail simultaneously. This is where the disease begins. Not in the cholesterol number on your lab report. In this one cell layer, in this one molecule, decades before any scan would show anything at all. This is the biology that was operating in Rob, and in my father, and almost certainly in you, right now. The rest of this story is about what I’ve discovered and what that means to not only me, but more importantly, you and your loved ones. This is my gospel of the heart.
“The first clinical presentation of coronary artery disease is sudden death. In 63.5% of those who die suddenly from a cardiac cause, there is no prior diagnosis of heart disease.”
ARIC Study. Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities, 4 US communities, 1987 to 2004
The Heart of ENOS
“These men had been exposed to atherogenic factors for most of their short lives. It is no wonder that at the time of death the process was far advanced. Of 300 American soldiers killed in Korea, average age 22, 77% showed gross evidence of coronary artery disease at autopsy.”
Enos, Holmes and Beyer, JAMA, 1953
When I was in medical school, I read a study which was seared into my heart and my brain. The nature of this disease, as well as what these young soldiers did for the country in which my parents were born and raised. This study changed what cardiology believed about heart disease in the young.
Korea, 1950. An Army pathologist named William Enos is conducting autopsies on 300 soldiers killed in combat. The men are young, with an average age of 22. Too young. This was my parents’ country. My father, from a small village of just 1300 people in the eastern countryside, migrated from the poverty-stricken nation in the 60s through mining, and my mother through nursing. These young men had fought for the freedom of a people they did not know, and so I am here in Canada, grateful and forever indebted not only to my parents but also to all the soldiers who fought in the war. God bless their souls. God bless their parents. I can only imagine…
They were healthy enough to fight a war just three weeks prior. What was going through their young minds, what was in their hearts? I am heartbroken just at the thought of them. There is, by every expectation of mid-century cardiology, nothing interesting to find in their coronary arteries.
Enos opens the first vessel. He sees something that should not be there. He opens another. There it is again. He keeps going, with the methodical patience of a man who understands that what he is looking at must be documented precisely because no one will believe it. 300 autopsies. Gross atherosclerosis in 231 of them. Visible to the naked eye. In the coronary arteries of 22-year-olds?!
The finding was published in JAMA on July 18, 1953. The medical establishment responded as establishments typically do when confronted with data that would require reconsidering everything they believe: they suggested an error. They proposed artifacts of the Korean diet, the cold, and the conditions of the autopsy field. What they could not propose was an alternative explanation for 231 diseased hearts in men whose average age was 22. Because there was none. It was true then.
Every study conducted since has confirmed it. The disease does not wait for age. It does not wait for symptoms. It does not wait for your annual physical to suggest that something might be wrong.
I had seen this study in medical school, and I knew instantly that I would also have coronary plaque, likely lots, for I ate the American or Western diet. I like the acronym for Standard American Diet: SAD.
But that knowledge just passed into the void of my mind. I assumed that if I ate organic, exercised regularly, it would be fine. No deep thought given, and like the Vancouver rain, just dissipated into the sewers of my mind.
William Enos, back in 1953. Enos would become a significant word for me.
Then recently, I saw a few other studies, and I could no longer unsee or erase them. They stuck, just like the plaque that is in almost everyone over the age of 50.
In coronary arteries that measure just 1.5 mm to 6.0 mm:
85% have 0.5 mm plaque
91% have 0.3 mm plaque
Then I found other studies that were even more alarming.
The PESA study (Progression of Early Subclinical Atherosclerosis) followed 4,184 middle-aged employees. all with no conventional risk factors by clinical definition. Researchers imaged every arterial territory in the body. What they found:
49.7% had measurable atherosclerotic plaque in people the system had already cleared
Even in the most pristine subgroup (BP < 120/80, cholesterol < 200), plaque was still present
LDL within the “normal” range was independently associated with plaque presence and extent
The damage begins at 120/80. The prescription starts at 140/90. In between: years of silent endothelial injury.
But what was even more alarming:
Arterial plaque didn’t just affect the middle-aged and older; it started in childhood. The McDonald’s, Tim Hortons, fast food. The SAD diet was truly that. No wonder heart disease is the worldwide #1 killer.
Plaque Reversal
“Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food. Every time we eat, we are choosing either to feed disease or to fight it. The kitchen is the most powerful pharmacy ever built. We simply stopped treating it as one.”
Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, 2007. 20-year Cleveland Clinic study
I had read his book 11 years before I found out I had severe arterial plaque. I too set it aside, but it also resonated and echoed that I had considered trying his, what I thought was a very challenging low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet (WFPB). But I was quickly talked out of it by friends, much too easily. I wish I had followed my intuition back then. Perhaps I would have no plaque at all, as I was only 45 then.
I had always had so many questions for its author, Dr. Esselstyn. I had never thought plaque reversal was possible until I saw the angiograms, before and after, showing how a 100% obstructed LAD had 100% blood flow just 32 months later. Dr. Joe Crowe had had a heart attack at age 44. No risk factors. Exercised. Fit. Normal labs. Normal bp. He was a fellow surgeon working together with Dr. Esselstyn at the renowned Cleveland Clinic, known for its cardiovascular department. Cleveland Clinic pioneered the first coronary bypass surgery. In fact, the doctor who performed it in 1967, Dr. Rene Favarolo, shared a surgical locker with Dr. Esselstyn.
I never felt quite ready to speak with Dr. Esselstyn. Why? I felt my questions would either be too elementary or too foolish. Why not walnuts? Why not olive oil? Why not avocados? I had seen studies that show they reduce LDL. I wanted to understand more before I would ask my plethora of questions. But in the past two weeks, I really wanted to speak with him.
My friend Paulo, a former professional triathlete, had competed together with Dr. Esselstyn’s son, Rip. Paulo connected us by email. I had a great chat with Rip. Wow. He’s built a food line that espouses his father’s low-fat WFPB called Plant Strong. In all the Whole Foods and some Walmarts.
The following week, just a week ago now, I was on a Zoom call with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. Except he wasn’t so junior anymore. 92, fit and sharp, just as he was in all the videos I watched. I devoured so many of his talks. He logically and elegantly laid out how to reverse heart disease in the most severe patients at the Cleveland Clinic. With 70 cardiologists there, he asked them for patients they could no longer treat medically or surgically. In other words, they were hopeless causes at the end of their life. So much so that some could not even endure the exertion of shaving, which could induce angina and a potential heart attack. Most could not walk a few feet without experiencing angina or claudication, pain in the legs due to plaque obstruction in the leg arteries. This was how severe their heart disease was. They also had many co-morbid diseases. The metabolic syndrome. Hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and maxed out on all the meds and already had so many bypasses and stents that their heart vessels were full of metal alloys.
His oldest patient was Stanley, an 87-year-old man who desperately needed a bypass, but the surgery for the bypass could also end his life. He elected to go to Dr. Esselstyn with a faint hope. Within days of starting the Esselstyn diet and WFPD, he was feeling better. By the end of one month, he was hopeful.
He called Dr. Esselstyn. I just wanted to thank you. I never thought I’d live to be 100. He would call each year. This year, he called. 103 years old. Now 11 years older than Dr. Esselstyn.
It was the most hopeful and miraculous story I have heard in medicine in a long time. Direct from Dr. Esselstyn. I knew I was in the presence of a very wise and great healer.
I told him my story. My multi-vessel arteries with severe plaque obstructions. He listened. I told him how I decided on May 9, 2025, after seeing the results of my CT Calcium heart scan, a shocking score of 505, putting me in the worst 90% percentile risk for a heart attack in the next 2 to 5 years, that I recalled his book from a decade prior and decided to start on his diet the very next morning. And in just 3 months, my LDL cholesterol dropped to 61, a 64% reduction, and my apoB 45, a particle measure of the potential for atherogenic lipoprotein, put me in plaque reversal mode. All of my carotid plaque: All gone! Seemingly just melted away. The word my doctor friends use is “Unbelievable.” But what I realized was that they really meant “I don’t believe it.” No curiosity. No interest in applying it to their own heart patients. And no interest in wondering if they might have heart disease.
He smiled and then started to talk. I immediately thought, I have heard this dozens of times in his videos. It almost seemed as if he was on autopilot, rehearsing a script he had told thousands of times. I was about to tell him I knew what he was going to say, but something deep down told me to just listen.
The Endothelium
“The endothelial cell is the ultimate regulator of vascular homeostasis. Its dysfunction is not merely a marker of cardiovascular disease. It is the initiating event.”
Salvador Moncada, FRS B. Esselstyn Jr., MD
Discoverer of endothelial nitric oxide.
Enos. Yes, William Enos, the pathologist. But this word would hold even more significance for you. Not only that, you may have been silently laying down the layers of plaque since your teenage years, but eNOS can also save you. This is the word he would stress. Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase. eNOS. The enzyme that makes this miracle transient gas we call nitric oxide. The discovery of how nitric oxide does this was awarded the Nobel Prize to three scientists I wrote in depth about, and it may be one of the most important things you read this year.
The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide.
The blood vessels have an inner lining called the endothelium. It produces the most wonderful gas called Nitric Oxide. This protects, heals and supports the blood vessel wall in the smooth muscle layer. It is what allows the blood vessel to expand and allow more blood flow.”
Yes, I knew all this. He looked me directly in the eyes, leaning forward. You need to revive your endothelium. How you do that is by eating the following. He started listing off swiss chard, arugula, kale, spinach, and other foods from his whole-food, low-fat, plant-based diet. Then what not to eat. This is where he hit me hard.
No oils. No oils of any kind. Not in a cracker, not in bread, not in any food, no canola oil, sunflower oil, coconut oil, no olive oil. No oil in an animal. No oil in seafood. No oil from eggs or dairy. No oil from avocados, coconut or nuts of any kind. Do you eat oils, Kevin?
I was surprised. I did not expect him to ask me directly. I thought for a second, then declared, “No, sir.” while trying to recall the few times I ‘cheated’, thinking, ‘How could some little oil harm me?’
My patients were so sick that if they had a drop of oil, it could trigger a heart attack. No oils.
I recalled how I respected the famous coach John Wooden, winning 10 NCAA championships in just 12 years. He would get the best graduating high school players in the country. When they came to their first practice, he would get them to take off their shoes and socks and teach them how to put them on properly. Then he said lateness is not tolerated. The bus will leave on time, with or without you.
Dr. Esselstyn was the coach of heart disease. He was my coach and mentor. I had read his book multiple times and watched so many of his videos. But having him teach me to put my socks and shoes on and not show up late for my heart and my food was … well, humbling, and I was deeply grateful.
I decided I would rededicate myself to following his dietary protocol as best as I could. There were still so many questions I wanted to ask him. It was not yet time to ask them.
What damages the endothelium? He went on in his great talk.
Then he said that there was something new. I perked up. He learned that people recovered faster when they ate greens 6 times a day. A handful or cupful in boiled water for 5 and a half minutes. And liberal amounts of balsamic vinegar.
Greens 6 times a day? I had heard this in his videos. Hmmm, I wanted to intermittent fast, that is, not to eat for 18 hours and eat my two big meals at noon and 6. This would break my fast, the breakfast. He went on to explain that it was so important to chew my greens, as the nitrates in them would be converted to nitrites by the bacteria in my mouth. I need to remove mouthwash, fluoride in my toothpaste, and any antacids, as the stomach acid converts the nitrites to nitric oxide. This occurs for hours. So greens 6x per day. All day long, so your blood vessels are anointed with nitric oxide. It made so much sense. The vinegar would enhance the nitric oxide from the food.
I need to do this. I need to sacrifice my intermittent fasting and do this.
In the am, mid morning, lunch (big salad), mid afternoon, dinner (big salad), and he said it would make him really happy if I could have a handful of greens a few hours after dinner.
I thought that was a no-no… to eat too close to bedtime. But he proved it in the worst heart patients. I was not as bad as they were, but I did have a 77% blockage.
I still ride my bike up mountains. No symptoms. My latest CT angiogram showed an 80% FFR, down from 75% five months prior. This is now normal blood flow. Low normal but normal. My carotid plaques were long gone. No more low-attenuated plaque, the dangerous plaque that can burst.
I’m going to do it.
The Ostrich in the Room
“Coronary artery disease need not exist, and if it does exist, it need not progress. With rigorous cholesterol reduction and a plant-based diet, we have documented not merely the arrest but the reversal of this disease in human beings.”
Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD 20+ years of outcomes data. American Journal of Cardiology
What has been silently and slowly building from childhood starts to declare itself on lab tests, on scans starting in your 40s, progressing into your 50s and typically declaring its coming of age debut as a disease in your 60s for men and 70s for women.
It often seems all of a sudden. It was declarative for Rob. It was shocking for me, and I had learned this as a doctor. Yet the brutal reality of what is happening and how long it has been happening is almost hard to believe. Unbelievable.
At Rob’s memorial, an impressive hall for the Freemasons in downtown San Francisco, there were thousands gathered to pay their respects. We stood in line, waiting to sign the book with our heartfelt wishes to Rob and his family. A line full of suits, and you could tell professional, wealthy and their families. This was the impact Rob had. His Goldman clientele, as he managed the wealthiest people on the West Coast, including the epicentre of tech, Silicon Valley.
I saw the self-driving taxis ushering people to the memorial. No driver seen. It was uncanny. It was like I was now living in the age of the Jetsons.
Anita, Rob’s wife, came to the stage, and the room was hushed, waiting for her heart to speak. It was one of the most impactful talks I have listened to. Then she said, “Let’s speak about the elephant in the room. Rob had a stress test every day. Every workout, every climb was more than a stress test, and he passed it every day. He had more energy and fitness than anyone in this room. He had 90% blocked arteries, and he would pass any ECG stress test. He had slightly elevated LDL cholesterol that was brought to the normal range by a statin. There was nothing to indicate that he would die of a heart attack. Many of you may be the same. I ask each of you to go and get a CT calcium heart scan. It will tell you if you have plaque and your risk of a heart attack.”
So my wife and I both got one. You know the story. Wife: score 0. No calcified plaque. Me: score 505. Severe calcified plaque. Later, I found out that it was in every heart vessel and every branch. 77%, 55%, 45%, 29%, 28%, 21%, 20% etc. Everywhere. I could be dead, all of a sudden, riding up the mountain in 1 to 5 years if I had not known. Now I do, and I am reversing my plaque.
The elephant is a powerful analogy. It’s a big thing, but no one is actively talking about it. But I also think there is a world full of ostriches. They don’t want to even think about it, let alone discuss it. The elephant everyone thinks about. But the ostrich buries its head to escape the predator. So many people I speak to don’t want to discuss even the possibility that they might have plaque. But whether you bury your head in the sand, biology follows the laws of health. When these laws are transgressed, that health unravels, slowly but surely. It’s better to know earlier rather than all of a sudden. I am glad I know I have clogged arteries. I was surprised all of a sudden with wet macular degeneration. To me, they are the same disease, just different organs. Same with diabetes, high blood pressure and metabolic diseases. Just different organ systems. I’m reversing both, so help me God.
Here is a picture of how a plaque in the carotid artery in the neck builds up over ten years, from age 45 to 55. A seemingly healthy person. Normal lipids: Cholesterol 165 mg/dL, HDL 71, Triglycerides 64. Normal blood pressure. No symptoms. At 45 years old, he had a small plaque, 1.3 mm. Ten years later, at age 55, he had a type 5 plaque, a thin-cap fibrous plaque indicating a high risk of plaque rupture, that could result in an embolic stroke. His risk of a heart attack due to similar plaque in the heart would be high as well. All of a sudden.
Plaque formation and progression in the carotid artery.
Ultrasound imaging of the left carotid artery in a long-axis during a 10 years period follow-up (1998-2008) in a healthy man from 45 to 55 years of age.
And below are the six types of plaque and their progression. My plaque is in stages 4-6. The later the stage, the more difficult to reverse. I am not sure the calcified plaque can be reversed, but my thought is that if bone can demineralize, what we call osteoporosis, why can’t diseased calcified plaque be demineralized? I have some really good leads on how the body can do this if you set the right healing conditions.
What goes up must come down. What has been building in me for 40 years can reverse in as little as 3 years. I do not know if I can attain the full 100% blood flow that Dr. Joe Crowe experienced in his mid to late forties. I believe I can. Might take longer to break down the more mature plaque.
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging November 2018: 45(Suppl 3):1-11
I think of it like the stages of cancer but applied to plaque. But plaque doesn’t fight back like cancer and if I fight it with everything that has been shown to reverse plaque, I will attack it at all levels. I will find every weak link in the plaque and the pathways for plaque buildup and plaque reversal.
And this is what plaque looks like as it remodels. My carotid plaque remodeled so quickly and disappeared.
Plaque remodeling and reversal. B-mode ultrasound imaging of the carotid artery.
I started a YouTube channel. Not only for me, but also for Rob, and for almost everyone who is willing to fight.
Maybe you’ve seen it. My latest video, The Three Blood Tests that is better than cholesterol, went viral. This then led to an older video going viral. So I went from 0 subscribers to now over 8000. I will likely be ~20,000 by the end of this March. My goal is to educate people. I have found that this gospel of the heart I preach falls short.
So I do what I always do when I don’t know. I study. I study the data, the studies. I think I have figured out the biochemical pathways, the constraints and the 80/20 levers. As I learn the details, I realize how amazingly complex the body is, but also how remarkable. We just need to stop preventing it from healing itself and then find natural remedies to speed it up.
The good news, the gospel, is that this progression to the cliff of death, the top killers, heart attacks and strokes, can be arrested and, more importantly, reversed.
Just like the body can heal a fracture, it can recover from a stroke; your body has the means to reverse plaque.
It’s called Reverse Cholesterol Transport.
I've already proved it in my carotid arteries. In just three months. I haven’t found anything as fast and complete as mine in case studies or randomized controlled trials… yet. Did I set a world record in plaque reversal?
My hypothesis was that, just as a fractured bone heals in 3 months, why can’t plaque reverse in three months? Then I created a three-phase attack leveraging everything I learned from Esselstyn. Diet x Exercise x Fasting. My big weak point: sleep. I will solve that too.
You’ve all seen this by now. My plaque reversal. I believe it will make its rounds around the world as I continue to preach the gospel of your heart. I feel it is part of my calling. Doctor. Patient. Friend. I understand better now. I pray to God that I will understand more.
Your Questions
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”
Jeremiah 1:5
Questions worth sitting with
For yourself. For someone you love. Answer them in the quietness of your day.
1. When did you last have imaging of your arteries, not just blood tests?
A lipid panel tells you what is circulating in your blood. A CAC score or CT angiogram tells you what has already built up inside the vessel wall. These are not the same question. One answer: What are your risk factors? The other answers: what has already happened. Most people have been asked only the first one.
2. Do you know your ApoB?
LDL-cholesterol is a proxy. ApoB is the actual count of atherogenic particles in your blood. It correlates more directly with plaque burden and cardiovascular events than any standard lipid panel number. Most annual physicals never measure it. Ask for it by name at your next appointment.
3. What did you eat yesterday, and what was that food saying to your endothelium?
Not a moral question. A molecular one. Every meal either upregulates eNOS or suppresses it. Either raises postprandial triglycerides or keeps them controlled. Either accelerates the disease or begins to reverse it. You made that decision yesterday. You will make it again in a few hours. The endothelium is listening to every meal.
Someone You Love
“The greatest single threat to the cardiac health of each individual is his own coronary arteries. And the greatest threat is not that we lack the knowledge to prevent the disease. It is that we lack the will to act on what we already know.”
Paul Dudley White, MD Presidential physician, founder of the American Heart Association. 1956, the year coronary disease became the leading cause of death in America
There is someone in your life with this right now.
You thought of them somewhere in this story.
Maybe it is the friend who is 53 and has not had a cardiac scan since his annual physical 5 years ago, which came back fine. That tells him nothing about what is in his vessel wall.
Maybe it is your parent, who has a family history of heart disease that came up briefly at one appointment and was never followed up with imaging.
Maybe it is your son, who lifts weights and believes the body he has built exempts him. The PDAY data do not agree. The wall does not negotiate.
Maybe it is you.
Rob Thompson did not have this wisdom. He had a cup of tea on a February morning, an investment in a company we were going to build together, and an arterial wall that had been accumulating evidence against him for forty years without producing a single symptom he could have acted on. He had been thinking about the future. The disease had been thinking about nothing. It does not think. It does not hesitate. It simply completes the process it began in the vessel wall.
You have what Rob did not have. Send this to the person you thought of while reading it. Ten seconds. It may matter more than either of you knows.
MORE READINGS YOU’LL ENJOY
Health
Reversing My 77% Heart Plaques
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The Healing Power of Food: Nitric Oxide
Wealth
The Power of the Compound Effect
Relentless Iteration to Mastery
Meaning
I pray you unlock your heart to reach the height of your full potential by discovering your calling.
Kevin Ham, MD
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life. ham.com
Subscribe to my YouTube channel @DrKevinHam for videos on how I reversed my clogged arteries in 3 months, the top foods that clear your arteries, and the first principles of health that can save your life. Like, share and subscribe — it could save the life of someone you love.
Reversing High Blood Pressure in a Week
What most doctors don’t know about high blood pressure.
What most doctors don’t know.
The Life-Changing Text Message
Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.
Hippocrates
It was a Sunday afternoon, December 7, 2025, when my phone buzzed. Kim, a 41-year-old male friend, was in Vancouver on business and wanted to catch up. I said, let's have dinner at 123Dough.
Kim was on his way back from Korea and Japan, en route to Toronto. While in Korea, he had a full-body exam, the kind of thorough checkup Koreans routinely get for just $1500. His sisters said it was a good opportunity to get one done and get a baseline. He otherwise looked and felt fine. Completely asymptomatic.
Over dinner, he told me the story that changed his life.
The morning after his exam, at 7:30 am, the Korean doctor called him. Urgently. The doctor was shocked that Kim hadn't already had a heart attack. He told Kim to see a physician immediately upon his return home.
His numbers:
HbA1c: 11.2% (diabetes is diagnosed at 6.5%. This is catastrophically high.)
Fasting blood glucose: over 11 mmol/L (200 mg/dL)
Blood pressure: 160/90 (considered stage 2 hypertension)
High cholesterol. High liver enzymes.
Slightly overweight with a growing abdomen.
I was shocked. I told Kim they must have gotten the blood tests mixed up. An HbA1c of 11.2 at 41? With zero symptoms? That's the kind of number you see in uncontrolled diabetics headed for dialysis, blindness, and amputation.
I said, "Let's go to the drug store right after dinner and get a continuous glucose monitor and verify."
To my surprise, his glucose was over 12 mmol/L and climbing. It was real.
Kim had been reading my newsletter for a year. He had read the science. He read the principles. But it was abstract. It didn’t feel applicable to him (yet). It was an interesting read, but it wasn't personal until now. That's the nature of the Grim Reapers. They wait until you're looking the other way, and then they tap you on the shoulder to either wake you up or invite you to go with them to the other side forever.
It is one thing to read about fire. It is another to get burned by it. The paradigm shifts only when the ground beneath your feet shakes.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I explained to Kim that I had three reversal protocols:
Pro (1 week): aggressive, rapid results
Medium (1 month): substantial but more sustainable
Easier (3 months): gradual, still powerful
Kim quickly chose Pro. He was highly motivated. His doctor in Korea had scared him straight. I told him Pro was based on my first principled thinking, as no one had yet chosen Pro. He would be my first client. I told him it would be hard. Suffer for a week, but results should come very quickly. Unlike anything any doctor or patient has seen. I was comfortable as he was still young, and I knew he had a strong mindset if supported. I suggested we set up a daily chatroom for him to post his daily glucose, weight, and blood pressure, and to note his feelings and symptoms.
The Pro protocol: a low-caloric, low-fat diet. One meal a day. On the 7th day, no meals. And if possible, a 2-3 day fast near the end of the week.
We drove straight to Whole Foods and bought everything he needed for his one daily meal:
Steel-cut oatmeal with chia seeds and ground flaxseed
Salad mix
Lentils and black beans
Natto (2-3 tablespoons)
Blueberries
Half a red grapefruit
50 ml pomegranate juice
Ginger/turmeric drinks
Spirulina
The protocol still included carbs, which is usually a no-no for diabetics, but our goal was specific and strategic: reduce his visceral fat rapidly and make room in his liver for glucose. His liver was so fatty and insulin-resistant that glucose had nowhere to go. It was backing up in his blood like a traffic jam. First, we had to clear the road. Then, we could consider a low-carb diet.
Kim was a pro, and he executed like one. He did a two-day fast in the middle of the week. He wore the glucose monitor and adjusted his meals when he noticed his glucose spiked with grapefruit. He low-carbed his diet himself. His visceral fat essentially melted. I estimated that over 50% visceral fat around his organs would be gone in a week, based on studies I have read.
In just five days:
Fasting glucose dropped from over 12 mmol/L to 5 mmol/L (216+ mg/dL → 90 mg/dL)
Blood pressure plummeted from 160/90 (stage 2 hypertension) to 110/70 (normal and healthy for adult males)
All this in five days. His post-meal glucose still spiked, but this was to be expected, as the insulin resistance hadn't fully resolved.
We transitioned him to the medium protocol for 30 days:
Weight: 144 lbs → 124 lbs (20 lbs lost)
Blood pressure: 105/70 (normal)
Fasting glucose: 4.5 mmol/L (81 mg/dL, perfectly normal)
Blood results: normal across the board
HbA1c: 11.2% → 7.8% in just 30 days
That HbA1c drop is extraordinary. HbA1c measures your average blood glucose over the past 3 months. To move it 3.4 points in one month means his blood sugar environment changed so drastically that even the 90-day average couldn't hide it.
His body was remembering what normal felt like.
Kim didn't take a single medication. No metformin. No insulin. No blood pressure pills. No statins. Just food. Just fasting. Following the protocol.
The body does not forget. It waits. It waits for you to stop poisoning it, and then it begins the work of repair with a speed that humbles the physician and stuns the patient.
Sir William Osler
I lost my dear friend Rob Thompson on February 10, 2025. He was 58. He was supposed to fly from San Francisco to Vancouver to visit me that very day. He died of a heart attack in the morning. I wasn’t able to help Rob. But Kim texted me that Sunday, and I believe that text message saved his life.
This newsletter is about one of the four Grim Reapers, high blood pressure, and the stunning, science-backed fact that it can be reversed in days to weeks without medications. Not managed. Reversed. Kim proved it. The studies prove it. And I want you to know it, so that when the Grim Reaper taps someone you love on the shoulder, you have the answer.
The Silent Invasion
Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.
Sir William Osler
Nearly half of all American adults, 122 million people, have high blood pressure. Here are the numbers from the latest CDC data (NHANES 2021-2023):
By your 60s, 7 out of 10 people you know have hypertension.
In Canada, it's 22.6%.
Worldwide, 1.3 billion people, doubled since 1990.
And yet, only 59% of Americans with hypertension even know they have it. Only 1 in 5 have it under control.
10.8 million people die every year from hypertension-related diseases. It is responsible for 54% of all strokes and 47% of all ischemic heart disease. A mere 2 mmHg reduction in population SBP would prevent 10% of stroke deaths globally.
But here is the statistic that should haunt every physician: 68% of all mortality attributed to high blood pressure occurs in people whose systolic pressure (the upper number) is between 120–140. This is the range most doctors call "borderline" and choose to “watch.”
Kim's blood pressure was 160/90. Rob's was probably in the "borderline" range. Watching is not enough.
What High Blood Pressure Does To You
The physician treats, but nature heals.
Hippocrates
Blood pressure doesn't hurt. That's the trap. It produces no symptoms until it has already done catastrophic damage. The WHO calls it the single most important risk factor for death worldwide. Kim felt perfectly fine at 160/90 with an HbA1c of 11.2. That's the terrifying part.
Your Heart: The muscle thickens to overcome the resistance. Then it stiffens. Then it fails. 69% of first heart attacks occur in people with BP above 140/90. Hypertension is the leading cause of heart failure.
Your Brain: A 20 mmHg increase in SBP doubles your risk of death from stroke. Chronic high pressure damages small cerebral vessels, causing white matter lesions and progressive cognitive decline. Midlife hypertension is now a recognized risk factor for Alzheimer's.
Your Kidneys: Hypertension is the #2 cause of kidney failure. High blood pressure damages the delicate glomerular capillaries, and the kidneys fail to excrete sodium, worsening hypertension. It’s a vicious cycle.
Your Eyes. Your Aorta. Your Limbs. Every vessel in your body takes the beating.
The body does not break all at once. It erodes. Like waves upon a cliff. Silent. Persistent. Until the cliff collapses.
Dr. Kevin Ham
The 5 Root Causes From First Principles
Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie. (The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.)
Blaise Pascal
Blood pressure does not rise randomly. It rises because something has gone wrong at a fundamental level. I found five root causes, each feeding the others in a vicious web:
1. Nitric Oxide Deficiency (Endothelial Dysfunction)
This is the master switch. The endothelium, the single-cell lining of every blood vessel, produces nitric oxide (NO), the molecule that relaxes and dilates your arteries. When NO is depleted, your arteries cannot dilate. Pressure rises.
Why does NO get depleted? Oxidative stress destroys it. The cofactor BH4 gets oxidized, and the very enzyme meant to produce NO (eNOS) starts producing harmful superoxide instead. A vicious cycle. The Western diet, high in salt, fat, and sugar, drives it. Lack of dietary nitrates (beetroot, leafy greens) starves the alternative NO pathway.
2. RAAS Overactivation
The Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System is meant for emergencies: dehydration, blood loss. In essential hypertension, it's chronically stuck in overdrive. Angiotensin II constricts vessels. Aldosterone causes the kidneys to retain sodium and water. Insulin resistance activates RAAS, and RAAS worsens insulin resistance. The Western diet fuels the entire loop.
3. Sympathetic Overdrive : Cortisol and Stress
Chronic stress. Cortisol. Catecholamines. Your body is running a fight-or-flight system that never turns off. Cortisol suppresses nitric oxide production, triggers endothelin-1 (a powerful vasoconstrictor), and activates the RAAS. This has the single strongest association with essential hypertension of any mechanism.
4. Arterial Stiffness : The Thick Walls
Arteries are meant to be elastic. Years of high pressure, inflammation, oxidized LDL, and advanced glycation end products (AGEs) lead to collagen replacing elastin. Smooth muscle cells proliferate. The pipes become rigid. The heart pumps harder. Pressure rises further. Plaque narrows the lumen.
5. Renal Sodium Dysfunction
The kidneys are the final arbiter. ~50% of hypertensives are salt-sensitive. Genetic variants shift the pressure-natriuresis curve — meaning the kidney needs higher pressure to excrete the same amount of sodium. RAAS overactivation, insulin resistance, sympathetic overdrive, and gut microbiome disruption from high-salt diets all compound this.
The Yanomami people of the Amazon, who eat a traditional plant-based diet with minimal sodium, have ZERO age-related rise in blood pressure. An 80-year-old Yanomami has the blood pressure of a 20-year-old Westerner.
The age-related rise in blood pressure is not natural. It is the signature of the Western diet written on our arterial walls.
The Drugs
The person who takes medicine must recover twice, once from the disease and once from the medicine.
Sir William Osler
There are five classes of blood pressure drugs. They all lower the number. None of them fixes the cause. They lower blood pressure an average of −9.1/−5.5 mmHg at recommended doses. And 60% of medicated patients still have uncontrolled blood pressure.
Here's what each class does and what it doesn't:
ACE Inhibitors (Lisinopril, Ramipril) : Block the RAAS cascade. But: persistent cough in 15-20%, hyperkalemia, dangerous in pregnancy. Address only Root Cause #2.
ARBs (Losartan, Valsartan) : Block the angiotensin receptor. Better tolerated. But: still only address Root Cause #2. Your endothelium is still broken. Your arteries are still stiff.
Calcium Channel Blockers (Amlodipine) : Force arteries open by blocking calcium entry into smooth muscle cells. But: swollen ankles, headaches, gum overgrowth. They override the signaling rather than restore it. Address only Root Cause #4 — and only the functional component.
Thiazide Diuretics (Chlorthalidone, HCTZ) : Force kidneys to dump sodium and water. But: deplete potassium (dangerous), raise uric acid (gout), raise blood sugar (can trigger diabetes), increase cholesterol. Address only Root Cause #5.
Beta-Blockers (Metoprolol, Atenolol) : Chemically restrain the heart from beating too fast. But: a 2024 study of 97,639 patients found that beta-blockers as first-line caused MORE cardiac events than any other drug class. Fatigue, weight gain, depression, sexual dysfunction, and cold hands. Address only Root Cause #3.
Every drug addresses one root cause. The body has at least five. That's why the drugs fail in 60% of patients.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Reversal with Lifestyle
One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.
Sir William Osler
Study 1: Water-Only Fasting: The Largest BP Reduction Ever Published
Dr. Alan Goldhamer, TrueNorth Health Center. 174 hypertensive patients. 10-11 days of medically supervised water-only fasting.
Average reduction: −37/−13 mmHg
Severe hypertensives (SBP >180): −60/−17 mmHg
89% normalized to below 140/90
100% discontinued all blood pressure medications
Compare: the average drug lowers BP by 9 mmHg. Fasting lowers it by 37. That's 4x the effect. No pills. No side effects. No refills.
Kim's result: 160/90 → 110/70 in 5 days. A 50/20 mmHg drop. Even greater than the study average.
Study 2: 1,610 Subjects: Buchinger Fasting (2020)
Published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. 10 days average. Hypertensives without meds: −16.7/−8.8 mmHg. Severe cases (>160/100): −24.7/−13.1 mmHg. Two-thirds of medicated patients reduced or stopped their drugs. JAHA Link
Study 3: NEWSTART Lifestyle: 14 Days
114 hypertensive subjects. Whole-food vegan diet + exercise + lifestyle coaching. SBP dropped −19 mmHg in two weeks. 40% achieved SBP below 120. 93% discontinued or decreased medications. Study Link
Study 4: McDougall Program: 7 Days
1,615 participants. Low-fat, starch-based, plant-based diet. Median SBP drop: −8 mmHg in 7 days — despite most antihypertensive medications being stopped at baseline. PMC Link
Study 5: DASH Diet: 2 Weeks
The gold standard dietary trial from the NEJM. Hypertensives: −11/−6 mmHg from diet alone. Effects begin within 2 weeks. No weight change required. Comparable to a typical antihypertensive drug. NEJM Link
Drugs vs. Food
The antifragile loves randomness and uncertainty... certain stressors and volatility make you stronger.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
(fasting is that very stressor; it makes the body stronger)
Top 10 Foods That Lower Blood Pressure
If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.
Hippocrates
These are backed by clinical studies, not hearsay. Six of the ten were in Kim's daily meal:
1. Beetroot juice: Lowers BP within 2-6 hours. Nitrates → nitric oxide → vasodilation. Meta-analysis: −4 to −10 mmHg SBP. (PMC)
2. Ground flaxseed (30g/day): "One of the most potent antihypertensive effects achieved by a dietary intervention." Hypertensives: −15/−7 mmHg. RCT published in Hypertension. (AHA) ✓ Kim's daily meal
3. Hibiscus tea: Matched the drug Captopril in a head-to-head trial. −11% SBP / −12.5% DBP in 4 weeks. (PMC)
4. Leafy greens (spinach, arugula, kale): High in nitrates, potassium, magnesium, calcium. The same NO pathway as beetroot. ✓ Kim's daily salads
5. Pomegranate juice (50-150ml/day): 30% reduction in carotid artery wall thickness. Lowers SBP and DBP within 2 weeks. I drink 50ml daily. ✓ Kim's 50ml daily
6. Dark chocolate / cocoa (high flavanol): Increases NO bioavailability. 15 days → measurable BP reduction in hypertensives.
7. Garlic (aged extract): −5 to −8 mmHg SBP in hypertensives. ACE inhibition + hydrogen sulfide vasodilation.
8. Berries (blueberries, strawberries): Anthocyanins improve endothelial function. The highest intake is linked to the lowest hypertension risk. ✓ Kim's daily blueberries
9. Potassium-rich foods (sweet potatoes, white beans, bananas): Promote sodium excretion. −3 to −5 mmHg SBP. Counters the Western sodium overload. ✓ Kim's lentils and black beans
10. Seeds (pumpkin, chia, flax, hemp): Magnesium, potassium, L-arginine (NO precursor). Multi-pathway support. ✓ Kim's flax & chia seeds
Why Fasting Reverses All 5 Root Causes Simultaneously
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre.
(All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.)
Blaise Pascal (quietly letting the body heal)
This is why fasting produces results 4 times greater than drugs. It doesn't target one pathway. It resets the entire system:
NO Restoration: Fasting reduces oxidative stress → eNOS recouples → NO production resumes → arteries relax
RAAS Reset: Zero sodium intake + reduced insulin → RAAS deactivates → sodium and water excretion normalizes
Sympathetic Downregulation: Parasympathetic activation → cortisol normalizes → heart rate drops → vasoconstriction eases
Vascular Relaxation: No dietary sodium, sugar, or saturated fat → endothelin-1 drops → functional stiffness resolves within days
Renal Recalibration: Kidneys excrete accumulated sodium freely → pressure-natriuresis relationship resets
It's like rebooting a computer that has been running for 40 years without a restart.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Kim's body rebooted in 5 days. His liver began emptying fat. His pancreas began recovering insulin function. His blood vessels relaxed. His kidneys began excreting the sodium they'd been hoarding. Every root cause began resolving simultaneously because we removed the cause, not just masked the symptom.
Save the Life of a Loved One and Friends
Forward my newsletter and YouTube channel to your friends and family.
122 million Americans have high blood pressure. 1.3 billion worldwide. Most don't know. Many are your loved ones.
Based on the data in this newsletter, you may be able to help save someone's life with knowledge alone. It could be your father, your spouse, or your best friend. It could have been Rob. It was Kim because he happened to text me on a Sunday.
You'll find these articles essential reading:
Reversing High Blood Pressure in 2 Weeks! — How I reversed a 71-year-old diabetic's high blood pressure so quickly
Reversing Diabetes in a Month! — How I reversed a 71-year-old's diabetes so quickly
The Diabetes Reversal Flywheel — Emptying the liver to live fully
Life-Changing Question
Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that make him sick.
Hippocrates
What is your blood pressure right now? When was the last time you checked?
Don't wait for the Grim Reaper to reveal himself. Get a blood pressure cuff. Check it this week. If it's above 120/80, start making changes today — not next month, not next year. The studies show that even 7 days of the right diet can begin the reversal. Kim's showed results in 5.
If you are on medications, do not stop them without medical supervision. But know this: the science shows that with the right protocol, the majority of patients can reduce or eliminate their medications.
The body remembers what normal is. You just have to give it the chance to remember.
Next issue:
An Essay on Compounding Wealth
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life. ham.com
Subscribe to my YouTube channel @DrKevinHam for videos on how I reversed my clogged arteries in 3 months, the top foods that clear your arteries, and the first principles of health that can save your life. Like, share and subscribe — it could save the life of someone you love.
The Power of Asks
How asks can lead to life pivotal moments, all at once.
How asks can lead to life pivotal moments, all at once.
4 Small Actions
I dreamed a dream of a life where no disease prevailed, where no hearts ached, where life knew no bounds and the only sounds that echoed were the sounds of glory and praise for life forever and ever.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I often ask “Why?” Why did my friend have to die without notice last year, on February 10, 2025, when he was supposed to catch the early morning flight from San Fran to Vancouver and have lunch with me, celebrate life and enjoy one another’s vitality for life and to do more than what was expected or required of us.
Why? I asked God. Why did my new puppy find her way out of our yard and die? Why such seemingly unreasoning injustice?
I have surmised my own answers after pondering these heartbreaking moments that reverberate throughout my life. Its partner, Grief, following like a diminishing shadow but still ever-present, reminding me of moments we dreamed together, thinking we had much more time together, was suddenly and abruptly cut short.
Then I have many more moments when I ask, “Why not…?” to which answers abruptly emerge with reasons: Not enough time, not enough money, not enough talent, not enough resources, not enough knowledge, not enough focus, parade in rapid succession to lead me to another uneventful day, week and month, and the years pass.
Where did my 55 years go? Why could I not dream more, aspire more, be more, do more, of all that arises in my heart? The chasm between my heart and my actions was as far as the earth is from the sun.
Then a ray of light dawns in the crevices of my clogged arteries, to let light in, and I start to wonder and ponder, “What if I do this?” But the dreams in my heart lay paralyzed, until I have the thought to pray for wisdom and ask, “Lord, grant me wisdom and lead my heart and my hands and feet. Let me ask for wisdom, which comes to all those who ask for Her presence and her many gifts, liberally, without reproach.” I consider this like a law of the universe, having discovered its magical powers in the book of James.
Then I ask, dare I ask, in a quiet whisper that moves from my heart to my hands, to my fingers, to my feet, to ask something that has sprouted within my heart.
I have also discovered another law of the universe, espoused by the Carpenter,
“Ask, and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you.” People overlook or misunderstand this wise law, believing it to be merely a pleasant aphorism. Yet it is a cascading, powerful set of laws that move from thought to discovery to focused action.
Baseball is the sports version of Homer’s Odyssey. The first battle is to adventure from home. The last battle is to return home. This epic repeats over 9 innings. For each of your home runs, there are 3 bases and home. If you do not enter home, you are left stranded on one of the bases of life.
Ask (1st base) Most people remain waiting after “Asking,” impatient to receive the actions one must do to proceed to the next step.
Seek. (2nd base) Very few find because they grow weary of seeking.
Knock (3rd base) Those who stand at the door, knock timidly a few times then, depart before it opens. The door to their dreams remains closed, growing more downtrodden with each shrinking attempt.
Enter (Home base). When the door opens, you must enter prudently but quickly before it shuts.
When you hear stories of success, the preceding battles of unanswered requests, fruitless searches, and endless slammed doors are often told as fleeting footnotes. However, they are the necessary exercises that build resilience and sprout the roots of a determined will, nourished by tears and newfound insights as each ray of light gets hungrily swallowed by rejection and failure.
Then, there comes a time when one receives the precious insight that:
While one must ask for help, one must embrace Faith.
While one may seek to find, one must marry Hope.
While one may incessantly knock on doors, one must embody Love.
Oh My Dear Heart
Wisdom has many daughters. I have embraced three of them. Their names are Faith, Hope and Love.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Do the physical plaques obstructing the blood flow in my arteries and physical heart mirror the obstructions in my emotional and spiritual heart?
What is obstructing the love arising in my heart?
My mind calculates and reasons. With much veracity and logic, I consider my next set of actions, having asked, sought and knocked, with doors opening but my mind shutting them suddenly as it doesn’t make financial sense or is too big a commitment to step into that path, or too scary with too many unknowns, too many uncertainties. Excuses flood in to obstruct this sudden marvel at the door finally opening. I grab ahold of the handle and start to shut the door myself, turning my back on opportunity.
How many doors have I shut myself or not stepped through to embrace this new path?
I decided that I will trust. I will step into that room when the door I asked for opens. How many are able to get to this moment? I recollect all the potentially pivotal moments that passed me by. I have had the courage to step through many doors, but many more I was afraid to step through. Had I trusted and obeyed, how different might my life be?
But I have no regrets. These are lessons, and I can start anew. I can start now… again.
The Wisdom of Ants
Four things on earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise: the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer.
Proverbs 30:24-25
I decided to be the title sponsor this year for the Nearness of You cancer charity concert fundraiser, in honour of the late Grammy-award-winning saxophonist Michael Brecker. It is produced by Michael’s late wife, Susan Brecker, with proceeds supporting cancer research at Columbia University Medical Center, specifically the work of my dear friends, Dr. Azra Raza and Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee. My heart said, “Yes, go for it!” But my mind screamed, “But you have no time, and why not use this for your own dreams?” I battled this great war between my heart and my mind. And, this time, my heart prevailed. I intuited that this path would open the doors of my heart and many other doors… quite quickly.
We booked our flights for a week from February 4th to 11th, and oh, what a journey it was.
We arrived at Azra’s temporary place, the Mamdani’s residence. Azra had just sold her home, and she was “squatting” at her friends’ place. She wanted us to stay with her. The Mamdanis were travelling, and their son, the new mayor of NYC, had moved into his official residence at Gracie Mansion, so I would occupy his room. Wow, that was surreal. As we stepped into the living room, we were introduced to another guest. It was supposed to be just us having dinner with just Azra, but this intriguing guest, who had just flown in from Portland and was supposed to meet Azra an hour before we arrived, had taken a nap that went unheeded, and arrived just 5 minutes before us. Azra asked if he could join us for dinner. Of course, we said yes.
His name was Ryan, and he was the genius who built the majestic ant colony at the American Museum of Natural History. We had just visited in December. It was amazing to see the leaf-cutter ants carry leaves 20x their weight. Ryan likened it to us carrying a 7-foot plank around for miles on end. He told us about how he brought the queen ant from a farm in Africa all the way to NY to make it her home. He described the many types of ants and their species, including a fascinating story about slave ants.
I had always marvelled at the instructions in Proverbs (6:6 and 30:24) to consider the wisdom and ways of the ants. “Consider her ways and be wise”. When I asked him about these two proverbs, he explained them to me very vividly. I had been asking God for such wisdom. Ryan offered to give us a private tour of the ants at the museum with his friend Matthew. What a privilege it was to receive even more wisdom from them. Serendipity is what Azra and I both remarked—that Ryan slept in and missed his date with Azra, so we could meet.
On our tour, we learned that another fellow ant lover is a famous actress whom Azra would love to meet one day. I believe their shared love of ants and the power of serendipity will one day connect and bind them. Who would have known there were so many ant lovers?!
The Heart Surgeons: Fragile Arteries
Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.
Proverbs 22:29
The day of my flight, Azra asked me to call her. I wonder why? She asked if I would like to meet the head of cardiac surgery, but we would need to leave at 8 am. That would be 5 am PST. I said, “Yes!” Azra’s older brother was also a cardiac surgeon at Columbia University.
When I discovered I had major arterial plaques last year, I asked Azra to ask her brother, “Can plaques be reversed?” A simple “No.” “Has he ever seen any possibility?” Another “No.” But I was convinced otherwise because Dr. Esselstyn was also a cardiac surgeon, and his methods and dietary protocol showed otherwise. He had published studies in major medical journals and had written the book, “Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease.” I wondered why so few present-day doctors knew of him, even though he worked at the esteemed Cleveland Clinic.
A deep bow of respect to all doctors for their sacrifices and their hearts for helping people.
Hearing the history of cardiac surgery, surgical residents answering hard questions reminded me of my days as a resident doctor. When I saw the beating heart and the tiny 1.2-6 mm coronary vessels, it dawned on me how little plaque, just a few mm to half a cm, could end someone’s life suddenly. The fragility of life.
I showed Azra’s brother, the cardiac surgeon, the scans showing that I had reversed the plaque in my carotid arteries in just 3 months. He asked how I did it. Diet. But suddenly Azra beckoned me to follow her, so I got up and left before I had the chance to explain exactly how I did it.
Here I was among the most accomplished cardiac surgeons in America. How did this happen? I wondered.
Providential Serendipity
The Invisible Hand plants my feet along a path that opens new worlds with one step. Step after step is a whole new world.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Providential Serendipity. These were the words that imprinted into my heart during my magical week in NY. I felt a guiding hand, which President Washington referred to as the Invisible Hand, leaving His fingerprints along the path of my feet.
Auction Dinner
Most of our paths cross unnoticed but once a while, lightning strikes to fertilize and electrify our hearts to one another.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Azra wanted us to attend a pre-concert dinner auction. As we arrived, I was introduced as ‘Kevin from Canada.’ After dinner, Azra spoke about her mission to cure cancer and how she was finally on the verge of achieving it with her Stentinel. I wholeheartedly believe in her and her vision, and I invested a significant amount to jump-start her seed round.
Then, we went around the room doing introductions. My turn. I told the group how I met Azra and, upon reading her book, “The First Cell”. I was so moved and inspired by her life mission that I had the thought to ask her if she would like to write a book together on preventing cancer. She said to call her and said we should not only write a book together, but how about doing a documentary together, with Dr. Sid Mukherjee, Susan Brecker, the Nearness of You Concerts and the vision of curing cancer. I stepped through that door. In 2024, I arranged for Chris Froome, 4x Tour de France winner to come to Vancouver to lead a charity bikeathon for Azra. So Chris stayed at my place, and about 80 of us rode together with him. Can you imagine? Chris gave me one of his yellow TDF winning jerseys for my birthday the day after. Wow.
The next person said they were one of Azra’s patients in her book. Donna. For 30 years, Azra has been her oncologist. She spoke about how Azra empowered her to make decisions and that she believes empathy and care for her are what have kept her alive. She has travelled from Chicago to New York every two weeks for blood transfusions for the last 18 years to be treated by Azra. We had briefly spoken while getting our food. We connected even then. But after hearing her story, I fell in love with her spirit. She is 88. Azra had mentioned her a few times. We spoke heart to heart afterwards, and I must have hugged her many times out of joy and care. We instantly became close friends. How quickly hearts connect. We met many other wonderful people. It was an inspiring evening.
Providential serendipity visited us yet again.
The Nearness of You Concert
No longer here, I see you everywhere, feel you everywhere, hear you whisper and shout, telling me to go on and not succumb to Grief but dress her up with Compassion and Purpose.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I had invited 16 guests to join me at the concert, dear friends, some of whom I had not seen in decades. It was held at the magnificent Lincoln Centre. Hugh Jackman would be speaking, and James Taylor would be singing. I was seated next to Hugh. I visualized what words I would speak to him if given the opportunity.
“I so wanted to meet your father after I heard you speak about him on a podcast with Tim Ferriss. He seemed like such a great man and had values that I cherish. A devout faith and an ever-encouraging father.”
“I also admire and honour how you held the first charity event for Azra and Sid in your home 16 years ago.”
“I love your movies, especially The Greatest Showman and Les Misérables. Musicals which make my heart sing.”
“I was a huge fan of X-Men and Wolverine growing up, especially of X-Men comic book issues #136-142, Days of Future Past.”
But besides me saying, “Hi, I’m Kevin Ham,” I wouldn't get that chance, as he had to leave for an emergency at home. He did say, “Hi Kevin!” And in those 15 minutes sitting beside him listening to the singers, I again thought, “Providential serendipity.”
Hugh Jackman and me :)
James Taylor came up to the stage and sang the theme song of the concert, Nearness of You. I don’t know what happened, but I suddenly felt the wells of my heart proceed out of my eyes. As each chord he struck drew up the buckets of my inner wellspring while he tenderly sang the lyrics for Michael Brecker, the Grammy award-winning jazz musician, who passed away from leukemia two decades prior but still sings to us through his saxophone in these charity concerts for the research of Dr. Azra Raza and Dr. Sid Mukherjee.
The song, in its raw, powerful authenticity, struck a deep chord in my soul. The echoing question reverberating throughout my entire being was, "Can I do more?" Am I living to my fullest and being bold enough to stand up to such a great monstrous disease, Cancer, yet with the humility to bow the knees of my heart in prayer for wisdom, for strength and courage, not only for myself, but for all those infected by this and for those it lies in wait.
The NY Academy of Science
Providential Serendipity has five fingers to grab a hold of you and me. Just grab her hand and let her lead.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I had invited Nick Dirks, the President and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences, to the concert and briefly spoke with him that evening. He has the look of Einstein, but more distinguished. Azra had introduced my daughter and me to her good friend, as we were curious about music schools in NY, since we love Broadway. She invited her husband and their brilliant son, who teaches Paradise Lost, which is our book to read this year. We connected like lightning in those short two hours, talking about Darwin, AI, cycling, education, philosophy, Paradise Lost, health, music, movies, Broadway, and salsa dancing. That first meeting left a lasting impression.
We met Nick for an early dinner, just before our Hamilton show. We had just filmed part of the documentary with Sid, Susan, Azra and me with a sweet, resilient Broadway dancer fighting cancer. Sid dedicated a toast to two enlightened souls. Man is enlightened by virtue of two attributes: his ability to reason and his fight for emancipation (freedom). The highest level of emancipation is from disease, to be free of disease, and the “Emperor of All Maladies” (Sid’s Pulitzer Winning biography on cancer) is cancer, the concert held to raise awareness and solidarity to find the solutions to this devastating disease.
The Manhattan traffic moved like cars with flat tires. We were 30 minutes late. He graciously texted, ‘No hurry.’
We got out two blocks early from the Uber and started running.
We spoke about the concert. I told the story of how I met Azra. He told us his first meetings with Azra and later Sid. He then spoke about his work at the NY Academy of Science. The prizes they awarded in US, UK and Israel to promising aspiring scientists. $250,000 Blavnik Awards. I had not had the pleasure of meeting the Blavniks, though they were at the concert.
He suggested during our meal that I visit and that I would meet very interesting people and also fascinating projects. I, of course, was interested. He asked if I knew Reid Hoffman. I adored Reid as I often listened to his podcast, Masters of Scale. He founded Paypal and Linkedin. But I loved that he majored in Philosophy. Nick also did. I told Nick I wished I had studied Philosophy as well. Philo = Love. Sophia = Wisdom. The Love of Wisdom. I loved Wisdom, and I ask and seek her daily. I told him I would love to interview Reid one day. He said he would gladly introduce him to me. I was delighted.
As we finished our meal and took a last-minute photo, he quickly said he would love for me to be part of the Board of Governors of the NY Academy of Sciences. I was focused on capturing a photo of us, and his request only partially registered. As my wife and I sat eating dessert, I asked her if I had heard correctly that Nick was asking me to join the Board of Governors. I quickly looked at who was on the Board of Governors. He had mentioned the former President of Yale.
I thought I must have heard incorrectly. I texted Azra that I think Nick asked me to be on the Board. She was overjoyed and told me that the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Edison and Einstein were once members. That it would be a momentous opportunity. I texted Nick right before Hamilton started. ‘I thought you were asking if I’d like to be on the Board of Governors, but it didn’t register until later that that was what you were proposing.’
Hamilton had inspired me so much 8 years ago. Just after I had watched it, I told my wife that I would one day make my own inspiring musical. I wrote the first and second drafts years ago, but have been too busy to make the dream a reality.
I had momentary questions intrude upon the show. “Could it be?” “How?” “Why?” ‘What does this mean?”
I already had so many Providential Serendipities in these few days. I had intuited, when I decided to stay for a week, that many doors would open for me to step through. Each day was expressed in “It was the best of times.” It was the worst [coldest] of times.” It was the coldest Feb in NY. -25 degrees Celsius. But the weather would not freeze our warm, connected hearts and the warm embrace of the Providential Hand.
The next morning, Nick replied, ‘Yes, I was asking you to join the Board of Governors for the New York Academy! It would be a privilege to be able to work with you on exciting projects in areas of interest in science and technology.”
My life reads like a novel. Like a dream. I write to capture the feelings and thoughts of my heart. To remind myself to dream, to be heart, to have Faith, Hope and Love as my guides, following Providential Serendipity. In turn, inspire each of you to dream with Hope, to live with Faith, and to love Love.
Providential Serendipity. Reach out and grab hold of her hand.
Ask and receive. With Faith.
Seek and find. With Hope.
Knock and open. With Love.
My heart is overflowing with these three daughters of Wisdom.
My gratitude and love to:
The Mamdani’s, for allowing us to stay in their private residence.
Ryan, the real Antman, for his love of nature and ever cheerful wisdom.
Donna, the resilient architect with a heart of joy.
Dr. Raza, for opening his hands and his heart to me.
Sid, for enlightening our souls.
Susan, for her beautiful heart
Nick, for his endearing heart and visionary soul.
Azra, for her friendship and love.
The marriage of Providence and Serendipity
Save the Life of a Loved One and Friends
Forward my newsletter and Youtube channel to your friends and family.
Based on statistics, you can help save many of your friends and family from today’s Grim Reapers, the top killer diseases.
You’ll find these articles insightful and helpful as well:
Life-Changing Questions
What is your ask?
What do you seek?
What door shall you knock on?
Who or what shall open unto you?
Just write the first answers that enter your heart.
Grab ahold of Providential Serendipity’s hands and embrace Faith, Hope and Love with all your heart and soul.
Next issue:
Reversing High Blood Pressure in a Week
What Most Doctors Don’t Know
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Stats Say You Likely Have Heart Plaque
Numbers point you to the truth
Numbers point you to the truth
Getting to 100 Years
If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.
A.A. Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh)
We just celebrated my father’s 90th birthday. He grew up for 22 years in a small town in the countryside of Korea, with a population of just under 1400 people. He dreamed of getting an education and making a decent living, so he went to the nearest big town and became a miner. He won the ‘lottery’ by being exported as a miner to Germany in 1965 and then found his way to Toronto, Canada, with $100 borrowed dollars. He quickly found a place for $5 a month and got a job at Ford in London, Ontario.
How grateful and thankful I am to my father for all his hard work, and to both him and my mother for giving me the opportunity to grow up in Canada, get a proper education, and encourage me to be the best I can be. I can never live up to all the sacrifices they made for our families, so I try my very best to pay it forward to my family, my friends, and my colleagues. I have a strong prayer to be a healer and help others heal and grow into the fullness of their human potential.
May my father continue to grow and improve in his twilight years.
As I started my YouTube channel to reach and help more people. I received many comments saying I was AI or that it was unbelievable, with no proof.
It is unbelievable! So I decided to dedicate the next few newsletters to showing my reversal and why I believe this will also reverse the plaque in my heart arteries.
Critical Insights
Many times we are told but we don’t really understand what is truly being said until we fall or fail.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Human nature does not believe what it cannot see. Only those who believe the unseen can make the unseen a miracle from the impossible.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I gained some very critical insights as I watched my son compete in his power-lifting competition. He’s lifting 446 lbs squat, 342 bench and 535 lbs deadlift. To do that, he keeps track of all his calories and macros (carbs, fat, protein). I realized it was almost like a scientific formula. Nutrition, power, muscles. Powerlifts.
Why wouldn’t the biology and physics of arterial health and plaque be the same? I wondered just how many calories and macros I was eating. I downloaded the food app he used. MacroFactor (I’m sure there are many more), and he taught me how to use it. I had the thought that morning, I was eating too much fat on my ‘10% low fat vegan diet’.
I had been looking up the fat content of the previous day’s meal and was shocked to see that I was consuming 60-90g of fat daily instead of Esselstyn’s diet, which allotted: <18g or 10% of calories as fat.
In my first three months, my meals were simple:
Steelcut oatmeal (↓ LDL 10%) with chia seeds and flax seeds (for fibre and omega 3s). Berries. With 2 tbsp of natto (Vit K2 & nattokinase). Spirulina (↓ LDL 10%). (already 28g fat)
Red grapefruit (↓ LDL 5%).
2 Ancient grain sourdough bread, sliced apple/pear, arugula, balsamic vinegar.
Green tea tablet.
50 ml pomegranate juice
Salad, beans, veggies.
Whole wheat chickpea or lentil pasta, beans, tomato sauce, onions, garlic
Or whole wheat ancient grain (einkorn crust) pizza, green peppers, mushrooms, olives, pineapple, low-fat tomato sauce, caramelized onions
About 45g fat, including meals.
But then I started
Doubling my chia (16g fat), flaxseed (16g fat), and natto (16g fat).
Swapped my green tea tablet for 1-2 oat milk matchas (8-16g fat)
Edamame (8g fat)
Just this totalled 64g-72g of fat not even including my meals.
No wonder my LDL went from 61, ApoB 45 in Aug 2025 to LDL 79 and ApoB 70 Jan 8, 2026.
Esselstyn only saw major reversal on his diet when LDL and ApoB were less than 50. I had a reversal in my carotids at LDL 61 and ApoB 45. The key here is that my ApoB was less than 50. If I had continued this, I would have made more progress in my heart vessels. At ApoB 70, it is merely the arrest of plaque. But I want a reversal.
I adjusted my diet to target precisely a 10% low fat vegan diet. <18g fat daily. (see the Appendix).
The 4 Grim Reapers:
You think you are safe but each Grim Reaper visits you with stealth, silence, innocence, but hidden and then all of a sudden reveals himself.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I read a study that said that if you eliminate four diseases from your life, your life expectancy and health rise drastically.
Eliminate heart disease and cancer, and your healthspan improves from ~80 to 89 years.
Eliminate diabetes and hypertension, and your healthspan increases to 97 years.
Only 2.5% of people in a developed nation reach the age of 100. But the healthspan is much lower than the lifespan in today’s age.
I want to address each of these Grim Reapers this month. I have been helping a few of my close friends rapidly reverse their Grim Reapers and run far from them. It’s quite remarkable how quickly the body remembers what normal is when you restore the right conditions. It then quickly forgets what led to progressive disease.
First, Heart Disease or more specifically, heart attacks and strokes. It is quite shocking to me just how prevalent this is. Dr. William Osler, a prominent physician who passed away in 1919, had never seen a heart attack. Isn’t that unfathomable? He practiced and taught at top hospitals in Toronto, founded Johns Hopkins and taught in London.
The first documented case of heart attacks was published in 1912 by Dr. Herrick. Of course, there were heart attacks, but the point is that they were extremely rare. One of my mentors was a young doctor at the biggest hospital in Seoul, Korea, in 1975, and he saw one or two heart attacks a year. Now heart attacks are the #1 killer worldwide. What happened?
You Likely Have Plaque in Your Arteries
Don’t be like the ostrich which buries its head to any thought of danger. Look inside of you and seek the truth.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Look at the study below. Look at the prevalence of plaque in the coronary (heart) arteries at the different ages. Let’s just look at the higher threshold of 0.5mm of plaque. Remember that the coronary arteries are just 3-7 mm and narrow to 1.2 mm.
17% of 13-19 year olds
37% of 20-29 year olds
60% of 30-39 year olds
71% of 40-49 year olds
85% of >50 year olds
I cannot unsee this image as I see people all around me. How do I warn them? That they don’t suffer the same fate that my beloved friend Rob did last Feb 10, 2025?
Recently, my good female friend in her early 70s heeded my advice and got a calcium heart scan, and her score was 100. She thought she was safe, but was shocked by the high amount of calcified plaque in her heart.
A doctor friend in Germany, a decade younger than me, in his 40s, had a calcium score of 100.
My brother had a score of 7. Low at 52 years old, but any score >0 means you have calcified plaque in your arteries, which means you also have soft plaque, which has not yet calcified.
My wife had a score of 0, and I advised her to wait to do a CT angiogram (the scan that shows soft plaque) because her carotid ultrasound was 0.
Your Health:
I’ve just started a YouTube channel to educate others about the first principles of health and our most common diseases.
Subscribe, like and share with your friends and family. I believe that through this, we can save many lives and prevent a lot of suffering through health education.
Why Heart Attacks and Strokes Attack Us
Silent, soft, unseen continuous waves of disease whisper quietly at first but when unheard and unheeded, it announces its presence with a bang. Listen and heed.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Look at my Left Carotid artery. See that plaque inside? It’s about 25% of the artery! This is from August 1, 2024. The ultrasonographer said I had more than usual for my age. I thought, “Yes, I knew I would have plaque.” Concerning. But what could I do? It was because of all the junk food I ate for decades when I was younger. I would just live a healthy life from now on, so it wouldn’t progress. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem until 20-30 years later, and functionally, it didn’t limit me at all. Boy, was I foolish!
We are mistaken when we think that a heart attack or stroke arises suddenly out of the blue, causing death in 25% of first time evidence of plaque in arteries and suffering and disability with ongoing progression for the rest of one’s life.
Silently, stealthily, this plaque has been invading for decades and strikes in the late 40s to 70s. Atherosclerosis is not a sudden ambush, but a continuous infiltration of the vessel wall by the diet and lifestyle we lead. It starts in our early teenage years, or even in childhood, and progresses like the waves that chip away at the rocks. Its onslaught continues unabated, and we don’t see its face until this Grim Reaper decides it's time to reveal himself to you and the world.
As arteries harden, blood vessels have a harder time dilating and expanding. The endothelial cells of blood vessels no longer produce nitric oxide, which expands the blood vessels. This leads to high blood pressure.
More than 50% of Americans have high blood pressure. But this is a relatively easy fix. If you know how.
Reversing My Clogged Neck Arteries
What goes up must come down. What infiltrates us can also be driven out if the natural healing process of the body is enhanced and unimpeded.
Dr. Kevin Ham
This is a cross-section of my left common carotid artery. See the plaque in the middle of the photo? August 1, 2024. A year later, I reversed all this plaque and the thickening in my carotid artery wall, which you can see is marked at L 0.14 cm (1.4 mm), as measured by the Carotid Intima Media Thickness (CIMT) test.
Here is my carotid ultrasound on August 19, 2025. No more plaque! And CIMT is 0.86mm.
25% plaque → 0% plaque
CIMT 1.4mm → 0.86 mm (38% reduction) in 3 months
This is almost miraculous. Why do I say 3 months instead of a year, as the previous ultrasound was a year ago? It’s because I started my reversal protocol on May 9, 2025 (3 months prior to this US), when I discovered I had such a high calcium score.
My doctor friends were very skeptical, and so I repeated my Carotid ultrasound 5 weeks later on September 23, 2025.
Still no visible plaque in both carotids
CIMT 0.86mm → 0.84 mm (2.3% reduction) in 1 month
Most drug studies show a 0.04mm change in a year at best, and that’s considered great for heart disease. The food studies I’ve found are astounding in their ability to reverse plaque in the carotids. I talk about them a lot (read this blog post).
Since my CIMT is normal now, my body doesn’t need to repair and heal it as drastically as it did when it was diseased and full of plaque and inflammation.
Here’s what my full report says:
Note that for my age of 55, a CIMT > 0.837mm is abnormal. I went from 1.4mm (worse than an 85 year old) to high normal for my age. I was so happy to be average.
And still no plaque visualized in both carotid vessels!
Reversal Proof
Human nature is to believe on sight but not on first principles. Only the passage of time with visible evidence can turn doubters into believers. Oh how faith requires miracles sight unseen. That is the power of the human spirit, to see what others do not, believe what others cannot and yet do what is seemingly impossible because of belief. It has been thus all throughout the ages.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Figure 1 Coronary angiograms of the distal left anterior descending artery before (left) and after (right) 32 months of a plant-based diet without cholesterol-lowering medication, showing profound improvement.
I don’t understand why all doctors have not read the esteemed Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr.’s book, Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease. Why isn’t he world famous? He has a book, published his findings in medical journals, has spoken at many conferences, is currently in his 90s, and follows his low-fat vegan diet. He has cured many of his worst patients with his protocol, and many others who have followed his advice. It certainly requires 2-3 years of discipline and consistency.
I wish I had him as my health coach and doctor, but I have the benefit of his documented process and studies as well as his talks, which I have studied extensively. Some things I only start to understand with the passage of time. I learn much of it through my own personal experience and by helping others in their health journey. I feel so fortunate and blessed to have read this book in 2014. I had found it in the sale section of a Bible college bookstore. It was truly an answer to a prayer to God to make me a healer. I was a medical doctor but I didn’t know how to heal today’s killer diseases. But I would forget about this book until the results of my CT Calcium scan revealed I had a lot of calcified heart plaque on May 5, 2025.
One of my goals is to write a book in a few years about my insights and learnings to carry on Dr. Esselstyn’s work. I wish I could speak to him. My good friend Dr. Azra Raza asked me to call her today, as I am flying to NY to attend her charity Jazz concert for cancer. She said she wanted to introduce me to the Head of Surgery and Cardiac Surgery at Columbia University. She wanted to hopefully collaborate with them about my miraculous results and protocols. I am so busy with my AI company, but I’ve learned that health, wealth and meaning are three threads that intertwine in life, and we must advance all three to live our fullest lives. I will let God lead my path and feet.
My Amazing Protocol for my Eye & Heart
Sometimes we have to improvise and pioneer a new path for our own personal journey, as we are each unique special beings travelling our own path.
Dr. Kevin Ham
My recent amazing news is two-fold:
When I first started treatment for macular degeneration, I used to get a shot in each of my eyes every month. Imagine a large needle in both your eyeballs every month! That was me up until three years ago at age 53.
I received my first eye shot in 3 years on Feb 2 and had been thinking, “What if I need only to get eye shots every 3 years from now on...? Or maybe never again?”
While I was waiting for my second eye shot, my eye doctor looked at my eye scans and said I was healing remarkably well and that we should monitor it over the next three months. She asked me what I was doing. I briefly told her my eye protocol. “Ok, see you in 3 months,” she said. What? No eye shot today? She said that I didn’t need it. Wow! I was thrilled.
The new protocol that I had devised to treat both my heart reversal and eye reversal was radical yet simple. I knew how to do my eye protocol, which is a high-fat diet, and my heart protocol, which is a low-fat diet, but how do I do both? I had an idea and implemented it mid January. It’s premature to talk about it, so maybe in 6 months, when I get my next heart scans and eye scans. Please wish me luck.
Reversing Obstructed Heart Blood Flow:
The second great news (see the first one below in the Appendix) for me is that my heart flow past my largest plaque obstruction is now in the normal zone, instead of being risky.
In August 2025, I underwent a CT Heartflow, which uses a contrast dye injected into the veins to visualize my arteries. My FEF (Functional Effective Flow) or FFR was 75%, meaning 75% of the blood flowed past the obstruction. This is quite good considering that the artery is obstructed 77%. It’s why I have no symptoms and can ride up mountains while still placing in the top 10% of 5000 riders in the hilly 122 km Gran Fondo rides I do annually.
I repeated the CT Heartflow on Jan 8, 2026, 4.5 months later, and my FEF increased from 75% to 80% (the yellow vessel, my D1), the lower zone of normal. If I can get 5% more blood flow every 4-5 months, then within a year at 90% blood flow, I will be fantastic.
Anatomical plaque changes in the heart take about 12-18 months and accelerate after 18 months when the body chemistry is right. The carotids are much faster to reverse because they are straighter and larger in diameter.
I imagine it’s like waiting for water to boil. It takes a while to boil, but once it starts, it can boil rapidly. The first year is plaque remodelling. I’ve noticed that most of my calcified plaque is thinner and more spread out, rather than like a big mountain in my previous scans.
My next CT scan will be at month 14, so I should start seeing anatomical changes. I also believe that since my ApoB and LDL were too high for reversal from months 4 to 8, I didn’t make as much progress as I could have had I been more vigilant and thoughtful in implementing the essentials of the protocol. I had thought that if it was good, it would be better to eat more of that particular food. But I was wrong.
I am still learning what each food does and why, and that, like a recipe, timing, quality and quantity of ingredients matter much. The body is biological and adheres to the scientific laws of chemistry, physics, and mathematics. I seek to discover these basic health laws of the body, and of each organ, in this amazing journey I am blessed to be on.
If you wish to reverse most of your diseases, read Esselstyn’s book. I’ve found ways to enhance and accelerate some parts of healing and reversal. I’ve seen remarkable results with the few friends I'm coaching on my Reversal protocols. In due time, I will write about them as I realize that people need to ‘see the proof’ to believe and even then, it’s hard to believe.
Save the Life of a Loved One and Friends
Forward my newsletter and Youtube channel to your friends and family.
Based on statistics, you can help save many of your friends and family from today’s Grim Reapers, the top killer diseases.
You’ll find these articles insightful and helpful as well:
Life-Changing Question
Are the 4 Grim Reapers Silently Progressing in Me?
Don’t just think about it, take the steps to get a baseline and see if you have these 4 Grim Reapers silently invading you, until it’s too late. That way you can take action early, before it is too late. Prevention and proactive is key to today’s chronic (takes a long time) diseases and killers.
Next issue:
Reversing High Blood Pressure in a Week
What Most Doctors Don’t Know
Appendix
I adjusted my diet to target precisely a 10% low fat vegan diet. <18g fat daily.
Fat < 18g/day
Cut chia and flax seed (will only take flax when I have space for my daily fat allotment)
Revert back to green tea tablets (save 8-16g fat of oat milk lattes)
Reduce soy drastically (tofu, edamame) - too much fat
Lower LDL: Added 5g of psyllium husk (10g total) before meals (or after) - lowers LDL 10%
Nitric Oxide: Primarily salads, greens every meal
Antioxidant/antiinflammatory: green tea, pomegranate juice 50ml, ginger/tumeric shots daily
HbA1c 5.0% by March 31 to reduce glycation
Protein: Lentils, black beans (chickpeas sparingly) for protein 85-100g/day.
Fruits: berries, apple and
adjust based on Feb labs
Get my TG 107 back to 47 (norm for me) but I was consuming too much fruit (went overboard)
Healing:
2 meals a day to do Intermittent fasting 18 hours and eat in a 6-7 hour window
Continue weekly one day fast for autophagy and healing
Bloodflow:
Start weight lifting in addition to pullups on weekdays. Start core exercises: situps, wide pushups and squats.
Exercise 4-5 times a week with HIIT 3x/week. I reduced exercise in Oct-Dec as was so busy.
Focus on no sleep debt. My sleep requirements are 6h 47m with 1h+ of deep sleep and 1h+ of REM.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Power of Mind (Part IV)
For Success in Health & Wealth
For Success in Health & Wealth
As you go deeper into the power of your mind, you come to realize that this is where alchemy occurs, at the level of thought, where nothing becomes something in an instant. Sometimes we call this an idea, a dream, a vision. Other times it can be a doomsday thought, destructive, a nightmare. The good news is that we can dictate what thoughts to accept and nurture.
I received some feedback from someone about how reflecting on themselves and the power of their mind (if you haven’t already, read part 1, part 2 and part 3 on the power of the mind) has unlocked new understandings of themselves, the people around them, and the world.
I believe we are at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to unlocking the power of our mind. This is the most marvellous news. We have so much untapped potential. Physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
I see this profoundly as I read the Bible each day.
One person said they knew all that I had written in my newsletter. So I asked, what does Earl Nightingale define success as? I really love his definition of success. I caught her by surprise with the question. I realized that although people say they know and understand, I've come to realize that I do not truly understand. It will take me a lifetime to understand the depths of simple truths and principles.
I just helped my 41-year-old friend rapidly reverse their previously undiagnosed and severe diabetes in just 7 days. It’s even miraculous for me to behold. I sent him a prior newsletter I had written on diabetes. He read it a few months ago but said he didn’t really understand it and didn’t feel it was written for him. Now he understands it much better and feels it was written exactly for him. What changed?
Can we truly understand something if we have experienced it, processed it and delved deeply into it? I am learning that the answer is no. I truly do not understand a thing, even though I think I do. Even if I have learned about it, thought about it, written about it, taught it, and seen it. I have a hard time truly understanding insulin, cholesterol, and blood pressure, even though I kind of understand them and have been able to reverse them in some people. I have many more questions than I have answers. Same with business. Same with people. And ironically, the same with me. Who am I?
Earl’s definition of success?
“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.”
Dr. Maxwell Maltz: Self-Image Renaissance
You can never outperform your self-image.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz
Dr. Maltz earned his M.D. from Columbia University in 1923. During his internship, he helped deliver a baby with a hare lip, and in that moment crystallized his decision to pursue plastic surgery. But more than just restoring people’s appearances, he was also interested in helping them improve their psychological self-image regarding their appearance, identity, and recovery.
Imagine a plane on autopilot always self-correcting to its destination. Dr. Maxwell Maltz discovered the psychological mechanism behind true transformation to a person’s ideal. It didn’t happen from the outside, but from the inside out. He was a plastic surgeon who repaired faces, but he quickly realized that his patients were trying to repair their ‘self-image.’
Some patients were transformed physically but had the same self-image impairment. Despite their nose, ears, scars or features, which they believed were holding them back, were perfectly reconstructed through plastic surgery, their confidence didn’t change. Their relationships didn’t improve, and their anxiety and self-esteem issues persisted—the human paradox: fixing the outside didn’t always fix the inside.
Maltz wondered why a physical improvement doesn’t lead to an internal improvement and fix the person’s confidence and self-image.
Others changed their internal self-image even before their surgery fully healed.
Maltz realized that our subconscious mind acts like a cybernetic guidance system, like a thermostat for our identity, our behaviour, our habits and our health.
If your inner self-image doesn’t match your goals, your subconscious ‘corrects’ you back to the level of your subconscious mind’s self-image.
To help people improve their self-image, he wrote the best-selling book Psycho-Cybernetics in 1960, which has since sold over 35 million copies worldwide and has a large fan base, from Salvador Dali to Jane Fonda. And this was touted as one of Bob Proctor’s Top 5 books to learn and understand yourself and the world around you.
Your Self-Image
Your self-image is your ceiling.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz
Your self-image is the cybernetic system that guides you, an internal steering mechanism that consistently keeps you in tune with your self-image. If you see yourself as bad with money or always behind, your behaviours will align with that identity, even if you are consciously striving to do the opposite (be good with money and be on time).
So your willpower, the power of your will, is limited by your internal self-image, which will put the brakes on your will to self-correct it back to your self-image.
Maltz, instead, taught people how to retrain their self-image, and he proposed that the mind responds to vivid mental rehearsal almost as if it were real experience. He called this the “theatre of your mind”. Repeatedly see and feel yourself acting like the person who already belongs at the level you aspire to.
“Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real and vividly imagined experience.”
If you imagine yourself fully healed, your brain acts as if healing is already underway. Bob Proctor took this concept one step further. He explained how the subconscious mind, which was shaped mainly without your permission and control, can be retrained into your conscious mind through Hill’s belief and autosuggestion, which is repetition and practice.
Try Maltz’s Self-Image Reset:
Write one sentence: “I am the kind of person who _______.” Make this specific and believable.
Close your eyes. Rehearse one scene tomorrow where that identity shows up.
End with one action you will do, even if you don’t yet ‘feel ready.’
Like a pro athlete visualizes and practices shots, passes, and scoring the winning touchdown, both in mind and action, you can do the same for anything you set your mind to.
I realized I would do this when I was asked to speak to a large audience. I would rehearse the speech in my mind many different ways and rearrange the sequence until I felt it was good in my heart. I had already done this in my mind many times, so when it was in person, it seemed like I was ready, for I had practiced it in my mind and in front of a mirror many times beforehand.
And when asked on the spot, even though I wasn’t prepared, I would ask for wisdom from above and then think about a few things I would really like to impart on their hearts and focus on that, because I had also done this so many times with so many people beforehand. Now it was just another opportunity to do so. I advise people to speak honestly from their hearts.
When I look back at myself now versus how shy I was in my high school and university years, I wonder how I became so self-assured and confident, with certain values. I also reflect deeply upon my faults and weaknesses, and the feedback I get from those around me. I deeply consider how important it is for me to adapt and integrate this feedback into my being, and to change my thoughts and actions for those around me.
This next person has helped me take critical feedback and yet be at peace with myself … a lot.
James Allen: The Power of Serenity
“They themselves are makers of themselves.” by virtue of the thoughts, which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.
James Allen
Bob Proctor asked me to write Serenity, the last chapter of James Allen’s most popular book, As a Man Thinketh, for 90 days in a row. He said it would change my life.
I doubt that many people in the world would do this. I am one of the few who have. I wrote it out 100 times in 100 days. I memorized it. I had my leadership team and other teams memorize it and recite it at our quarterly meetings.
It changed my life. It changed my thinking. It changed my heart.
But Serenity is just the 7th and final chapter. I also cherish the first chapter, Thought and Character. I had my leadership team memorize this chapter as well. But what about the middle chapters?
Thought and Character
Effect of Thought on Circumstances
Effect of Thought on Health and the Body
Thought and Purpose
Thought and Achievement
Vision and Ideals
Serenity
I want to share a few of the powerful quotes from each chapter of As a Man Thinketh for you to think about and ponder as this year of 2025 closes. (Please excuse the male gender in his book, written in 1902.
Chapter 1: Thought and Character
“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”
“Man is the master of thought, the moulder of character, and the maker and shaper of condition, environment, and destiny.”
“Such is the conscious master… by discovering within himself the laws of thought…”
Chapter 2: Effect of Thought on Circumstances
“Men do not attract that which they want, but that which they are.”
“Circumstance does not make the man; it reveals him to himself.”
“Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit…”
Chapter 3: Effect of Thought on Health and the Body
“The body is the servant of the mind.”
“Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought.”
“There is no physician like cheerful thought for dissipating the ills of the body…”
Chapter 4: Thought and Purpose
“Until thought is linked with purpose there is no intelligent accomplishment.”
“A man should conceive of a legitimate purpose in his heart, and set out to accomplish it.”
“He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.”
Chapter 5: Thought and Achievement
“All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts.”
“None but himself can alter his condition.”
“A man can only rise, conquer, and achieve by lifting up his thoughts.”
Chapter 6: Vision and Ideals
“The dreamers are the saviours of the world.”
“He who cherishes a beautiful vision… will one day realize it.”
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.”
Chapter 7: Serenity
“Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.”
“A man becomes calm in the measure that he understands himself as a thought evolved being, for such knowledge necessitates the understanding of others as the result of thought, and as he develops a right understanding, and sees more and more clearly the internal relation of things by the action of cause and effect he ceases to fuss and fume and worry and grieve, and remains poised, steadfast, serene.”
“Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power.”
I invite you to read the book, but if not, at least read Chapter 3 on the Effect of Thoughts on Health and the Body.
For the business-minded, you should read Chapters 4-6.
For those going through difficulties, chapters 1, 2, 4, and 7.
Ultimately, when all is said and done, we will seek chapters 3, 4, 6, 7 and maybe 5 (achievement and mastery).
If you have a chance, take the time to quietly read ‘As a Man Thinketh’ (free online). It’s about an hour’s read.
If you have a chance, listen to Bob recite Serenity. Just 4 minutes.
What a powerful book. And Serenity is worthy of writing out 90 days in a row. It defines serenity as, “that exquisite poise of character, which we call serenity, is the last lesson of culture, the fruitage of the soul. It is as precious as wisdom, more to be desired than gold… How insignificant mere money seeking looks in comparison with a serene life…”
May you have serenity, deep thoughts, as you reflect upon the year of 2025 and enter the new year of 2026, full of dreams, visions, ideals, and see the seed of your strong, healthy, purposeful self-image.
Reflection
We are blessed both by our deep misfortunes and by the height of our loves and joys.
Dr. Kevin Ham
This year, I lost a few loved ones, Rob Thompson, my beloved dear puppy Kona, found out I had clogged arteries, which I am healing and discovered how to heal metabolic disease. I had my first eye shot for my retina in three years.
But I have also been greatly blessed by my grieving, by gratitude, and by the comfort of God, my family, my friends, my peers, and my colleagues, as well as by you who have supported me in my own journey through these writings.
I have not only helped reverse my own diseases, but also the diseases of many close to me in almost miraculous fashion. And my businesses have been greatly blessed by opportunities arising from rapid changes and from God-given gifts.
Thank you, everyone, for your support and love. I wish you good health along with purpose and meaning each day, and to embrace each life opportunity, along with life’s storms, to keep on that narrow path of truth, love and peace.
May God bless you greatly. You are beloved. Know that. You are loved. Love back in your own way, with your own gifts, being, and heart.
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
Please forward my newsletter to your friends and family and ask them to sign up.
I’d love to help a lot of people prevent, reverse, heal and ease the suffering of disease.
Life-Changing Question
Who am I really and how can I become who I truly wish to be?
May you spend each thought and word and action to become who you truly wish to be.
Have a Merry Christmas and holidays and Happy New Year!
Next issue:
Power of Mind (Part V).
Why Belief is Essential to Success
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Power of Mind (Part III)
For Success in Health & Wealth
For Success in Health & Wealth
I’ve been thinking about what has led to all of my successes to date. I started thinking about who I was when I was younger. I was extremely shy; I could not look people in the eye. I could not speak to girls. I was self-conscious and always wondering why life was the way it was. I felt trapped. I felt small.
I felt sad a lot and at times, depressed and suicidal.
I thought of many ways of possibly ending my life when I was in elementary school. I thought of what it would be like to be hit by a car, jump off a building, stab myself… But I was too scared of the unknown, the possible pain and the possible shame, as well as what my parents would think and how they would feel.
So how am I now able to speak in front of hundreds of people without trembling? (I used to shake when I had to speak in front of a classroom or group of people.)
I remember the first moment I had a brilliant thought: Try my best to look people in the eye. Try to hold that look for a second, then a few seconds, then try to hold their gaze as long as possible. To my surprise, they looked down first. I started to gain a little more confidence, and pretty soon, I found almost no one could hold my gaze long enough. Were they as insecure as I was?
Then, in my early 20s, I had the nerve to ask a girl to a movie. She said “Yes”. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. I gained more confidence. And with each gain of confidence, I was able to do more.
But what was it? I was slowly beginning to believe I had something within me. But a big breakthrough came when someone I loved supported and believed in me more than I did myself. I felt almost invincible. I was in love. I didn’t think, I felt, and I felt so alive.
And my biggest breakthrough came when I believed in God because I saw the tremendous love God had for me. As I read the Bible, I saw the belief people of faith had in God and what great things they did for others and for God. I wanted to emulate them. David against Goliath. The heart of a lion while tending and caring for his sheep.
Within this meagre body, the heart of a giant developed. I believed I could do anything God allowed me to do. I prayed for wisdom. I thought deeply. I moved with faith, believing it would come to pass.
Then I also came across other ‘mentors’ who taught this. Here are some who have highly influenced me, in addition to the great mentors and leaders in the Bible.
My life now can be summed up in one word: “Believe!”
Earl Nightingale: The Strangest Secret
We become what we think about.
Earl Nightingale
Born in the Great Depression in the early 1930s, amid scarcity and uncertainty following the roaring 1920s, an age of abundance, he was forced to think for himself after his father abandoned the family. Earl watched people fall into despair and be governed by learned helplessness. People lost hope and gave up on their dreams. But he noticed a tiny proportion of people still dreamed and found success, happiness and growth despite such hard times.
He pondered what made these select few people different.
During his time in the Marines on the USS Arizona, which was bombed while in Pearl Harbour, he gained an appreciation for his life, as he wasn’t on board that tragic morning of the bombing. This gave his days more purpose, allowing him to pursue something worthwhile in life. He became obsessed with understanding why some people succeeded in living their dreams while most gave up and conformed to whatever came their way.
After reading all the great thinkers in philosophy, psychology, theology and economics, he had a secret insight—one which became the cornerstone of all his philosophy, life and teaching:
“We become what we think about.”
This turned into a recording, “The Strangest Secret,” a 1956 recording that sold millions of copies and sparked what we now call the personal growth industry. It was the first, and I think the only first spoken recording to earn a Gold Record!
If you think about growth, you grow.
If you think about failure, you fail.
If you think about problems negatively, you become burdened by your problems.
If you think about problems as opportunities, you see and attract opportunities.
Today’s neuroscience confirms his beliefs.
Thoughts activate neural networks, which are mimicked in AI neural networks.
Focus embeds these thoughts into behaviours via dopamine pathways.
Belief alters outcomes; the stronger it persists, the greater its placebo effect.
What is success? How do you achieve your success?
Earl Nightingale’s three great laws:
“We become what we think about.” Your focused thoughts shape and lead to your results.
“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” Success is achieving what you believe to be your ideals and your purpose, rather than just mere goals or achievements. I especially love this definition of success.
“Your world is a living expression of how you are using your mind.” Your external results are just a delayed results of your internal beliefs, values and reflections.
Your life is a result of your dominant thoughts and beliefs.
Change your thoughts, you change your life.
Change your beliefs, you can change your destiny.
Earl became a mentor to many of the great mentors I have listened to incessantly: Jim Rohn, who took in a ‘fatherless’ Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, the master salesman, who mentored Seth Godin. Seth once told me that without Zig, he would have been lost. He listened to Zig on tape cassettes so much that the tapes eventually wore out. Wow, I asked Seth to introduce me to Zig. “He would have loved you, but he has passed away.” I thought that when Seth said Zig was his mentor, that Zig personally mentored me, but Seth had only met him a few times and really was mentored by his books and tapes.
I later met someone who personally knew Zig and served on his Board of Directors. It was surreal.
And then I discovered a man who had been trained and mentored directly by Earl. He left his multi-million-dollar business to learn from Earl and took a huge pay cut to $18,000 a year. Eventually, he became his head of sales. I wanted so much to speak to this man who had learned directly from Earl. And he lived in Toronto, Canada. Bob Proctor, who was featured in the hit film “The Secret”.
Bob Proctor: The Secret - Paradigm Shift
“It’s the decision that starts the change, not the environment.”
“Discipline is the ability to give yourself a command and follow it.”
“Once you make the decision, you only need to manage the decision.”
Bob Proctor
So I signed up for Bob’s masterclass to speak with him. I had a 35-minute phone call with him. We connected immediately. He asked if I had ever been in Toronto, and I said yes, I had a company based there and a daughter who was going to school there. He said that he would love to host me for lunch when I was in town. I was so honoured. Then he said, “Actually, why don’t you come to my house and have lunch here?” I was floored and honoured. I booked a flight to Toronto the following month on my way to Ireland. Then one day before our meeting, his wife said Bob was not well and if we could postpone. I thought I would see him in January or February.
When Bob was young, he was stuck in life, broke, lost and in debt. He dropped out of school. He had no plan, confidence or self-belief. But he met a mentor who gave him a copy of a book that would change his life.
The book was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He read and studied, memorized and implemented the 13 principles of success for the next 60 years, leading him to success beyond his dreams. I shared the first six principles in last week’s newsletter.
Bob told me that once a year, he reads the chapter on Persistence every day for a month—30 days straight—to remind himself of this one principle. He did this for 30 years. Imagine, 30 days * 30 years = 900 times he had read this chapter on Persistence. And he continued this practice for all 13 principles. Imagine how well he knew this book. I had the same thought for both this book and As a Man Thinketh, and many chapters of the Bible, and for some of my favourite poetry.
Earl taught Bob one valuable lesson that he tried to impress upon everyone. Earl often had one page of a book in his bookstand. This seemed so strange to Bob. He asked Earl why he did this. Earl explained that most people read but don’t understand, and even if they do, the insight isn't thought through deeply.
Most importantly, most people don’t really think. Only a few percent of people really deeply think. Bob started to do this with the book Think and Grow Rich. Bob wanted to be the world expert on the book. And I believe he was. When people ask me what my favourite books are, I now think very differently about how to answer this question. There are only a few books I want to be an ‘expert’ on, like Bob was on his Top 5 books.
Find the one thing that captures your heart and get a bookstand that holds that one page, and read it every day until you know it inside out. I have book stands all over my house and printed copies of the pages I want to know, memorize, understand, and apply to my life.
Bob explained how each of us gets programmed with a paradigm, a belief system that is embedded into our subconscious when we are young. It runs on autopilot, it’s habitual, and we need to reprogram consciously. This was a big breakthrough for me to understand how our minds work. I had tried to do this myself as I often thought deeply about my thinking over the decades. Sometimes, just one single thought or belief would change the trajectory of my life. It was like a judo move that turned a weakness or problem into a huge life purpose or mission.
Like my disease at age 14 and my current serious diseases, I view them as God-given missions to help me discover my purpose. I am reversing and healing not only my own diseases, but now others. Before my diseases, I didn’t know how to reverse and heal clogged arteries, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and even cancer, which I am slowly discovering the insights and secrets to prevent and attack this malady of maladies.
What is a paradigm?
“A paradigm is a mental program that controls your behavior — and almost everything you do.”
These paradigms program your:
Self-image
Identity
Confidence
Financial decisions
Health behaviours
Work ethics
Relationships
Resilience
Grit
Emotions
You are limited by the height of your paradigms. Most people have self-limiting paradigms and beliefs,
When I ask people to set a goal of doing one pull-up and explain why this is a great endeavour that 99% of the world cannot do. First, it puts you in the top 1%. Second, it activates all your upper body muscles. It also aligns your spine as you do both pull-ups (palms facing inwards) and chin-ups (palms facing outwards). I grew ½ inch because I do 13-20 pullups daily.
On my call with Bob, he asked me to write out the last chapter of one of his Top 5 books, “As a Man Thinketh.” This chapter is the 7th and final chapter of the book, titled ‘Serenity’. It is the most beautiful chapter. He asked me to write it out 90 days in a row. Wow. I thought that was crazy. He said it would change my life. I challenge each of you to do it. To set aside 30 minutes each day and write it each day by hand in a notebook. Fill the notebook. He said to let him know how it changed my life.
Feb 1, on my father’s 88th birthday, was day 90. I had written it out each day. By day 45, I had memorised most of it just by writing it out. Then I recited it whenever I felt stressed. I had major anger issues. It calmed me greatly. I decided to do it for 10 more days to reach 100 days, then contact Bob.
On Feb 3, I received an email that Bob had passed away. I was shocked. I hadn’t met him yet in person. I had been looking forward to the opportunity to help him with his health, to be mentored by him, and to become great friends. He had been so able. I assumed it was cancer. Then I realised that, when he was not well enough to meet in November, I should have gone to meet him. Perhaps I could have helped extend his life or relieve any suffering he might have had.
Later, my good friends, the Kims, told me they had known Bob for decades, as he visited their glass shop. Wow, I had always believed that there must be someone in my network who could introduce me to anyone I wanted to meet. Had I known ...
Dear Bob, may God bless you for your heart, your thoughts and your mentorship.
Bob’s three laws:
“You don’t get what you want. You get what you ARE.” Your identity of who you believe you are precedes the actual results. Results lag behind your paradigm and beliefs.
“Thoughts become things.” Thoughts → feelings → actions → habits → destiny.
“If you can hold it in your head, you can hold it in your hand.” Your subconscious mind translates your paradigms, your mental images into real-world outcomes.
You must change your inner program (paradigms) before your outer world changes.
You must change your identity before you can change your biology and your life.
His teachings are eternal as they are based on timeless principles.
Change your paradigms and change your life.
Go read, memorise the 13 principles of Think and Grow Rich, and write out Serenity for 90 days.
And let me know how these two change your life in 90 days. I, like Bob, guarantee it will, but as Earl knew, very few people will read this and understand this request and do it.
Think and grow _____. Replace the word ‘rich’ with anything you desire.
Think and grow healthy.
Think and grow wealthy.
Think and grow love.
Think and grow success.
Think and grow your musical talent.
Think and grow your physique.
Think and grow in Wisdom.
Think and grow in God.
I wish to write about two others who made me think deeply and grow, but my plane is about to land in San Francisco. I am thinking deeply about raising money for my AI business. I have a goal. We have a goal, a timeline, and a plan. I fully believe that we will not only raise a lot but also continue to build a very valuable business with amazing AI products in the most amazing way.
Bob’s Top 5 Books
1. Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill
Your thoughts, desires, beliefs, and persistence have the power to create any result you want in life.
2. Psycho-Cybernetics — Dr. Maxwell Maltz
Your self-image is the internal blueprint that determines every action, behaviour, and outcome in your life — change the image, and you change the result.
3. The Science of Getting Rich — Wallace D. Wattles
Wealth and success come from thinking and acting in a certain way — aligned with gratitude, creation, and unwavering belief.
4. As a Man Thinketh — James Allen
Your mind is the master of your character and circumstances — you literally become what you continually think.
5. You Were Born Rich — Bob Proctor
You already possess infinite potential within you — unlocking it requires changing your paradigms and aligning your mind with abundance.
Reflection
Thought is the engine of your soul.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Your thoughts are in a continual state of flux. Bob Proctor calls this your vibration or frequency of thought. You attract others and things at the frequency you are. Are you at a high frequency or a low frequency? Your thoughts are the frequency that others can immediately tune in if they are also at the same frequency.
What are my subconscious thoughts, the program programmed into my soul and mind since I was young, before I was fully aware and conscious?
What are my paradigms of thought in regards to me, others, health, wealth, and other areas of my life?
This is the age old exploration. Not in far away lands or travels, but into the depth of your own soul, your mind, your past, your dormant spirit, which sleeps heavily, unable to open its eyes and ears to truly see and hear as God intended.
I am grateful to God, for inspiring me to think beyond time, way beyond the limits I have materially, physically, to dream, think and be great in thoughts, plans and actions.
I am grateful to my wife, kids, parents, family and friends for supporting and believing in me, fueling my own desire to be great for them and for others.
I am so grateful to Rob Thompson, who gave me extra days, even as he perished earlier this year, as I have discovered the Strangest Secret to Health. I am not only reversing my own diseases, but also rapidly reversing the diseases my close friends have. I have prayed for this wisdom. Thank you Lord.
I am grateful to all the people who have taught us to dream, to believe and to hope that there is a greater life ahead of us and beyond this lifetime.
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
Please forward my newsletter to your friends and family and ask them to sign up.
I’d love to help a lot of people prevent, reverse, heal and ease the suffering of disease.
Life-Changing Question
Who am I right now and what frequency am I vibrating at?
Write it down and let me know. High or low? Fast or slow frequency?
How can you get to 2x, 5x, 10x, 100x higher frequency?
Next week—
Power of Mind (Part IV).
Why Belief is Essential to Success
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Power of Mind (Part II)
For Success in Health & Wealth
For Success in Health & Wealth
Alia Crum: The Power of Expectation
Our mindsets are not just in our heads. They are embodied expectations that shape health and behavior.
Dr. William James
At Stanford Mind & Body Lab, Alia studies what happens physically in the body when we change our mindset, particularly our expectations. Her work reveals that the body obeys the story it anticipates.
In her Milkshake study, Crum gave volunteers the same 380-calorie drink two times:
One time with a label "Indulgent - 620 calories."
The second drink, labelled "Sensible - 140 calories."
Blood tests revealed a 3x drop in ghrelin, the hunger hormone, only after drinking the 'indulgent' shake, even though it was the exact same drink as the second "sensible" shake.
She followed up this insight to medicine and stress, where her studies showed that those who viewed stress as helping or enhancing them, as a tool for growth rather than as a negative or threat, showed better focus, lower cortisol and improved performance even when stressed and under pressure.
A belief, an expectation or a positive benefit communicated well by the parent or physician amplified itself in the person's biology and outcome.
What this means to you is that every food, pill, fast, or exercise has two essential ingredients;
The benefit of the food, pill, fast or exercise
The story, belief and expectation you ascribe to it.
The mind is not a mere bystander in health, but rather the mind is the architect and shaper of health. I am discovering this more and more in my own health, in how I conduct myself in business, and in the outcomes I achieve.
I ask myself: "Do I have a health mindset or a disease mindset?"
Sometimes I find myself believing that I will go blind because I have wet macular degeneration. I realize that while I believe that I can slow its progression, I do not fully believe that I can reverse my eye condition. Would I believe it if I knew someone else who had reversed it?
And what of someone with heart disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure?
Will they make the effort to change their lifestyle if they don't believe their disease is reversible or curable?
And what of someone with cancer? Can cancer be cured?
I believe it can, but its stage, state and type are all very important factors.
Expectation has a multiplier effect on my Reversal Protocol. Expect it will work, and the reversal will be more powerful.
If a complete reversal of my disease is the destination, my Reversal Protocol is the vehicle, but expectation is the driver.
Martin Seligman: Positive Psychology
When it comes to our health, there are essentially four things under our control: the decision not to smoke, a commitment to exercise, the quality of our diet, and our level of optimism. And optimism is at least as beneficial as the others.
Dr. Martin Seligman
When fleas are capped in a bottle by a lid, they jump only to the height of the cap over and over again. Eventually, even after the cap is removed, they will not jump higher to escape the bottle, even though they can jump 150 times their height. They "limit themselves" by setting a self-imposed boundary.
This is called learned helplessness.
In the same way, negative experiences can lead people to self-impose their own limitations, even when many opportunities to jump or grow surround them.
Human trauma, failure and disease can condition people over time to surrender and limit themselves to this learned hopelessness, unable to see possibilities and opportunities.
But Seligman asked himself, "If helplessness can be learned, can hope be learned too?"
This question birthed positive psychology.
His many studies and books show that when people cultivate gratitude, well-being, meaning and optimism, recovery is faster from depression and healing from post-surgery.
Optimists live 10 years longer, have better immune function and experience less inflammation.
He developed the PERMA model used in schools, hospitals and Fortune 500 companies.
Positive emotion
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishment
In his model, you build psychological capital — something more valuable than any currency.
How can I turn inward disease into outward purpose and health?
How can 'despair' be transformed into 'hope'?
To make disease reversal possible, I realized that a Reversal Mindset must precede the Reversal Protocol.
Hope is not just wishful thinking; it is a neurochemical fuel that raises serotonin, strengthens immunity, and leads to healing.
"How you think about your problems, including depression itself, will either relieve depression or aggravate it".
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi : Flow
The best moments in life are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times. They occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Now try to spell or pronounce his surname.
Mihaly grew up in Europe during WWII. He noticed that some people under bombardment weren't just suffering; some were surprisingly serene.
"Why do some thrive even amidst chaos?" He wondered.
It was not in peace or ease, but in challenge and purpose that meaningful work that stretches, grows and transforms is necessary to engage us in FLOW.
This FLOW is the biological signature of meaning.
Flow is that timeless state where challenge breeds with capability, leading to optimal performance. You lose yourself in some meaningful work. That work could be cycling, writing, painting, teaching, or parenting. Time seems to cease or pass much faster.
When athletes are in flow, things seem to move in slow motion. They are "in the zone," also known as Flow state.
When entrepreneurs are in flow, they might produce a big idea or discover something groundbreaking.
Mihaly found that in flow, the brain releases dopamine, endorphins and norepinephrine in perfect harmony, and the prefrontal cortex, that inner critic, remains mute, self-consciousness melts away, and you are "fully in the present".
People in sustained flow have lower cortisol levels, enhanced immune modulation and better heart rate variability, giving you more physical capacity.
Napoleon Hill: Blueprint for Success
Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
Napoleon Hill
Napoleon Hill was not a scientist or psychologist, but he understood how the best entrepreneurs of his time became successful. Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest people in history, gave Napoleon an audacious goal in 1908: to leave everything he was doing, interview the most successful people of his time, and discover their secrets.
For 20 years, Hill studied Edison, Ford, Rockefeller, Graham Bell and distilled the 13 principles of success. He published his bestselling book, "Think and Grow Rich," in 1937, a blueprint for wealth. I've studied and read this book many, many times.
Its first six principles form the basis for success not only in wealth but also in health and in virtually any endeavour of life.
Desire: Clearly define what you want.
Faith: Believe you can achieve your desire.
Autosuggestion: Consciously shape your belief through the repetition of that belief.
Specialized Knowledge: Acquire and organize the specialized knowledge needed to achieve what you want.
Imagination: Picture your success in great detail.
Organized Planning: Create a concrete plan and do it.
In the Bible, Jesus simply says:
Ask, and you shall receive.
Seek, and you shall find.
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
You notice that all of these people pondered and asked essential, pertinent questions. Then they sought answers to find insights. And, finally, they conducted 'experiments' until they unlocked a discovery.
Clarity comes when we know what we ask for or desire. Sometimes it is a clear purpose.
When we visualize goals in detail, the same brain neurons fire as if we were already achieving them, activating the motor cortex, limbic system and dopaminergic reward pathways. This is the power of dreaming.
Dreams can be wonderful and positive, but some turn into nightmares because of the negative beliefs we hold that sabotage them.
Autosuggestion is the purposeful repetition of positive thoughts, beliefs and our desires to sculpt our nervous system, a process called neuroplastic affirmation.
Many experiments show that visualizing oneself taking basketball shots from the foul line is almost as effective as practicing foul shots, but visualizing and practicing foul shots is better than doing either alone. But physical practice skills are retained longer over time.
So doing is more important than just thinking and believing.
Faith without works or show your faith by your works.
Autosuggestion reinforces faith.
But faith in the truest sense must be all-in—100%. Even a 1% doubt can lead to uncertainty and fear, but when faith reaches 100%, you 'know' the outcome and uncertainty and fear can't touch you.
So I often wonder how much of my amazing heart disease reversal so far is due to faith vs lifestyle changes. Placebos have shown that even with 'no medicine', people can heal. Believing in a medicine that actually heals is obvious. My strategy is to develop both a Reversal Mindset and a Reversal Protocol to reverse disease fully.
Reflection
Reversal Mindset is as important as the Reversal Protocol.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Replace the word "Reversal" with "Healing", "Success", "Wealth", or "Health".
Without the mindset and belief, no further steps may be taken.
Knowledge and facts are not enough.
Smoking packages explicitly state that smoking causes cancer.
Smokers still smoke.
The mindset must change. We call this a Paradigm Shift.
Belief shapes biology.
Meaning regulates molecules.
Mindset builds empires.
Faith is medicine.
Fear is poison.
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Life-Changing Question
What is your Health Mindset?
Write it down and let me know. I’m very curious. And I will reply … even though busy.
Next week—
Power of Mind (Part III).
Why Belief is Essential to Success
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Power of Mind (Part I)
For Success in Health & Wealth
For Success in Health & Wealth
William James: Belief as Biology
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
Dr. William James
William James suffered from depression and nearly ended his life, but in that frail moment, a thought dawned in his mind--to act by will and to believe. It is revealing when we read the state of his mind in dark despair, suddenly seeing a bright ray of light and hope.
"I mean that the fear was so invasive and powerful that if I had not clung to scripture-texts like 'The eternal God is my refuge,' etc., 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden,' etc., 'I am the resurrection and the life,' etc., I think I should have grown really insane."
"...when I have felt like taking a free initiative... suicide seemed the most manly form to put my daring into. Now I will go a step further with my will, not only act with it, but believe as well; believe in my individual reality and creative power."
Something changed in that moment as he used his power of choice to transfer from the path of death to a path of hope. This was the beginning of modern psychology, knighting him as the 'Father of American Psychology.' He established psychology as a formal discipline at Harvard, bridging psychology with philosophy.
"The course of destiny may be altered by individuals.... Again and again, success depends on energy of act, energy again depends on faith that we shall not fail, and that faith in turn [depends] on the faith that we are right — which faith thus verifies itself."
Neuroscience would not catch up to his intuition until a century later, confirming that intention and mindset alter prefrontal activity, dopamine release, and emotional regulation, something he experienced firsthand and taught others. His radical idea that belief or faith is the first medicine underpins every placebo study ever conducted.
What is placebo? It is the power of a positive belief that becomes reality.
But most people believe in a nocebo, the power of a negative belief that becomes their reality.
On May 8, 2025, at 11:00 pm, as I saw the results of my CT Calcium heart scan, a score of 505, my heart stopped. I had severe calcified coronary arteries. I immediately thought, I have to give up biking, which I love so much. I realized I could drop dead with any strenuous exertion. I felt a profound sadness and a sense of relegation in my heart. As I closed my eyes in shock, I prayed.
Like William, a light dawned in me that the Lord will see me through this, that there is hope. In a moment, several things came to light in my heart. I recalled a book I had read over ten years ago, a book I believe was placed in the Regent College Bookstore for me. A health book in a Bible store? "Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure" by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn. I decided I would follow the protocol in the book. The next morning, I started a low-fat vegan diet. 30 months was the time it took for Dr. Esselstyn's star patient to fully reverse his 100% blocked coronary artery to 0%.
In that moment, I believed I was healed. It would just take 30 months or so to see evidence of physical healing, but in my mind, it was already done. The belief that the Lord was with me and would grant me the wisdom to reverse my disease drove my thoughts, words and actions towards healing. Three months later, all the plaque in my neck arteries had completely melted away, almost miraculously. I am sure the same is happening in my heart vessels.
This is the power of belief: rewiring neurons, redirecting inflammatory markers, and the body reversing cholesterol out of my clogged arteries, rewriting my future.
Viktor Frankl: Meaning Overpowers Death
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances
Dr. Viktor Frankl
Dr. Frankl had everything stripped from him: his parents, his wife, his freedom, his dignity and his home. He had nothing left except torture for the unknown future, giving just one small piece of bread for the day, no change of clothes and meaningless work, carrying heavy water aimlessly back and forth with no purpose but to drive despair of life into his very soul.
But he realized he could choose his attitude. He believed this experience in Auschwitz would define him somehow. He watched fellow prisoners die not purely due to hunger, but because of hopelessness and despair. Those who found meaning, a reason to live, a loved one to return to, a purpose beyond reason, found a way to keep surviving somehow.
His book, Man's Search for Meaning, describes his logotherapy, therapy through meaning, because humans are truly motivated not by mere pleasure or power, but by purpose.
Later studies would prove him right. Purpose reduces mortality. In a study from Rush Alzheimer's Center, people with a strong sense of purpose lived 7-10 years longer and inflammatory biomarkers like Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C Reactive Protein (CRP) are lower.
Meaning modulates metabolism.
I thought to myself that night, rather than treating my heart condition like a 'death sentence', this could be my life purpose. To become the doctor who heals himself almost miraculously in a way never done before. I would discover the power of foods, fasting regimens, and high-intensity interval exercise at a level beyond what has been deemed possible. This is what I saw in my mind and heart that late night. I knew people would think I'm crazy, but I am used to that. I would become the doctor who fulfilled the proverb, "Physician, heal thyself."
In every reversal, there is a Frankl moment of meaning: when the data and evidence look terminal, but the story you believe in is eternal and filled with deep purpose.
P.S. My hsCRP is 0.2, amazingly low, as is my IL-6. Paired with my targeted low-fat vegan diet, my body chemistry has completely transformed in the past six months. Now, I have less than 24 months to go. My mind and my body don't quite crave all the foods I was 'addicted' to. I don't miss fried foods even one bit anymore! And that I find truly amazing. I still do miss ice cream and popcorn, but even those cravings have diminished 95%.
Ellen Langer: The Psychology of Story and Possibility
Mindsets are not metaphors. They are biological commands.
Ellen Langer
Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer invited a group of men in their seventies to live for a week in a monastery recreated to look exactly like it was 1959, with black-and-white TVs and vintage radios. They were told not to pretend it was 1959, but to believe it was 1959.
After a week, the men's posture straightened, their vision sharpened, their memory improved, and their grip strength increased. Their bodies became the age they believed they were.
This study, known as the Counterclockwise Experiment, is a landmark in mind-body research.
She did a follow-up study with hotel maids, who were told that their daily cleaning met "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exercise guidelines. Their weight, blood pressure and fat percentage dropped within four weeks, without changing their workload.
Their belief that they were exercised became a physiological reality.
Perception became performance.
Langer tore down the wall between psychology and biology with such experiments and showed that the stories we believe shape our health outcomes as powerfully as genetics and lifestyle.
"Small changes can make large differences, so we should open ourselves to the impossible and embrace the psychology of possibility. The psychology of possibility first requires that we begin with the assumption that we do not know what we can do or become. Rather than starting from the status quo, it argues for a starting point of what we would like to be. From that beginning, we can ask how we might reach that goal and make progress toward it. It's a subtle change in thinking, although not difficult to make once we realize how stuck we are in culture, language, and modes of thought that limit our potential."
For my own Reversal Protocols, Langer shows me that people don't just need the protocols or medicines, but they need to tell themselves a new narrative.
A person with diabetes must believe they are becoming healthy, not avoiding disease.
A leader must see their company growing, not declining.
The story you tell yourself has a huge impact on your outcome.
What health or wealth story are you telling and repeating to yourself?
Watch and listen to your thoughts and your actions.
Carol Dweck: The Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
Becoming is better than being.
Dr. Valter Longo
Carol Dweck had a profound insight when she noticed that some students in the classroom said, "I can't do this," while others said, "I can't do this yet."
The keyword, 'yet', while just one small word, made an enormous difference.
This single word, yet, became the lever between potential and being stagnant.
Her research at Stanford revealed that people who believe ability is developable, ie, a "growth mindset," outperform those who believe it's fixed across education, athletics, relationships, and leadership. The growth mindset individuals persist longer, recover faster, and learn more deeply. They keep learning and growing.
In medicine, a growth mindset translates directly into healing. Patients who believe in improvement and full recovery recover faster after surgery and adhere to treatment plans better.
Are you know-it-alls or learn-it-alls? Focus on learning rather than residing in only what you know.
A growth mindset is the single belief that can transform you and heal you, despite any setbacks or obstacles.
Mindset is medicine. Your neurons, cells and companies all obey this law: If you believe you can grow, you already have.
"Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it's not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives."
In my own Heart Reversal Protocol, I know my heart will become healthy like that of a 40-year-old, even though I am now 55. I already reversed my neck carotid arteries, which had about 20% plaque, and the arterial wall thickness was older than an 85-year-old. Now it is normal for my age, more than a 30-year reversal and absolutely no plaque visible. It started with belief, and I found the protocol to reverse my plaque faster than any study has ever shown.
The best studies with drugs (statins and powerful LDL-lowering PCSK9s), at best, decreased plaque by 0.04 mm in a year. My CIMT reduced from 1.8mm to 0.86mm, a 0.94mm reduction, a 54% reduction in 3 months.
The power of my mind to believe it was possible led me to search for the best-suited and most focused Heart Reversal Protocol. My belief and discovery of the Reversal Protocol fuelled each other, resulting in my amazing healing.
Reflection
Why can’t a person live a healthy lifestyle if s/he has disease? What is the big constraint that limits their mind and their actions?
Dr. Kevin Ham
As many people are asking me for my help in reversing their own diseases, I see two types of people with diseases or health issues.
One type is dependent on keeping their lifestyle unchanged and is willing to take a pill to manage their symptoms. This is the vast majority of people. I understand lifestyle changes are hard. Very hard.
The other type is a small minority who are willing, able and have decided to change their lifestyle. It is this type that I am highly motivated to help, for half the battle is one of their own minds. The mind is empowered to make that decision and commit to it for x number of months or years. In my case, I decided to start with a low-fat vegan diet for three years. It was already decided in my mind, and I committed to it.
My sports cardiologist asked me at month 3, "But can you keep on your diet?"
I thought that was a silly question at that time. He told me many of his athletic patients try to make a lifestyle change in diet, but get frustrated after a few months and get the stent and take the medications. I passed my modified (harder) exercise stress test, so he wasn't concerned about me at that time and told me to follow up in a year.
It's now been six months for me, and I have 2.5 years left of my mental commitment to this diet, but it has now become 90% easier for me. I know what to bring with me when I travel. I bring my steel-cut oatmeal, chia and flax seeds and my handful of supplements (Vit D, nattokinase, Vit C, Spirulina). I know how to prepare oatmeal without a stove by soaking the oats overnight in hot or room-temperature water.
My 65-year-old friend, when asked by another, Why don't you go on Kevin's protocol to reverse your diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol and visceral fat, said, "I can't because I travel too much." While I care for him, I know it is a mindset issue. He already sees the evidence of healing in Fred and me. I reflected deeper, but why? I believe he can't decide and commit because it would mean giving up some of the foods he loves, like yogurt, dairy, cheese, and fats.
He eats for taste and experience. The difference for me is that it is a far secondary issue. I eat to live, and I eat for health. I no longer live to eat for taste like I used to.
Do you eat for health, for taste, or for experience?
This is an age-old question, at the root of all indulgences, starting with Adam and Eve, who ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "It looked good for food, a delight to the eyes, and to make one wise." These are the three temptations we must reflect upon. John frames it as "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life."
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
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I’d love to help a lot of people prevent, reverse, heal and ease the suffering of disease.
Life-Changing Question
Do you eat for health or for taste or for experience?
Ponder this question each time you put something into your mouth. Make the question unforgettable.
Next week—
Power of Mind (Part II).
Why Belief is Essential to Success
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Power of Fasting to Fight Cancer (Part II)
Just 5 Principles for Remarkable Growth and Renewal
You must kill cancer before it kills you.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Killing Cancer.
As Jude starts his third round of chemotherapy, he is eating only one meal a day before his chemo and then two meals after his chemo and a regular targeted ketogenic diet thereafter. The chemo has, each time, wiped out his bone marrow, requiring blood and platelet transfusions.
But each of us is always dealing with cells that can become cancerous, and the body's defence mechanisms are continually working to fix or eliminate damaged cells in our bodies before they become a problem.
Two questions for you to ponder deeply:
How do we prevent cancer before it can find a home?
When cancer exists, how do we kill every last cancer cell before it kills the host?
Cancer 1.0
The traditional strategy has been to target cancer with:
Chemo (bomb) targets fast-growing cells, both cancerous and healthy, at typically very toxic doses, leading to severe side effects.
Radiation (burn) targets the site of cancer, but is also a risk factor for future cancer.
Surgery (slash) removes what is visible.
Cancer 2.0
Change the immune and metabolic terrain: Support healthy cells and kill the cancer cells more specifically.
Immune therapy: Targets the cancer cells directly (but it hasn't been the grand slam we were expecting.)
Metabolic diet and lifestyle: nutrinomics, fasting, and detoxification. Cancer cells rely on glucose and glutamine for energy. It is their Achilles heel. They starve when deprived of both. Fasting, ketogenic diets, and insulin suppression create a metabolic wilderness in which the liver produces fat-derived energy called ketones, which the brain, heart, muscles, and other cells can efficiently use for energy. Normal cells conserve energy, slow down metabolically and prepare themselves for a 'starvation' environment, protecting themselves better than the cancer cells that continue to divide rapidly, but without the full energy supply of glucose and glutamine, leaving them much more vulnerable to the chemo bomb.
Early detection: prevent cancer from forming or detect and deal with the first cancer cell at Stage 0 (Stage 1 ~ a billion cancer cells = 0.5 cm detectable mass)
Cancer 3.0
I have a high interest in integrating and leveraging Cancer 1.0 with Cancer 2.0:
Use chemo strategically to kill the mass of cancer.
Use fasting and detox to make chemo more lethal to cancer but safer for the patient against chemo's toxic side effects, especially bone marrow, the home of the immune system.
Use nutrition and nutrinomics to synergistically attack the cancer cells while protecting healthy ones.
Thomas Seyfried - Revival of Warburg
The origin of cancer is not genetic; it is metabolic.
Dr. Thomas Seyfried
Do you recall that last week we learned about Otto Warburg and the Warburg effect? He believed that cancer was a metabolic disease. That cancer started when cells lost their ability to use oxygen efficiently to make energy. Instead of using normal respiration (which occurs in mitochondria), cancer cells switch to a less efficient, more primitive way of generating energy—fermentation—even when oxygen is available.
Almost a century after Warburg, the world had forgotten his metabolic gospel as the answer to cancer. Most of the scientific and medical world shifted its attention to genetics—the idea that cancer is fundamentally a disease caused by mutations in DNA. Warburg's "metabolic" explanation (cancer as an energy-production problem) was mostly forgotten or considered outdated.
But Thomas Seyfried, while studying epilepsy and metabolic disorders, focused on mitochondria and eventually asked, "What if cancer begins, not in the gene, but in the cell's ability to produce energy?"
He poured into the science and philosophy of Warburg, revisiting an ignored and misunderstood truth.
His mission became to recast cancer as a metabolic disease with a primary cause of mitochondrial dysfunction.
"If you can manage the fermentation metabolism, you can manage the disease."
He demonstrated that when:
The nucleus of a cancer cell, where the DNA resides, was put into a healthy cell; its progeny (aka descendants) were healthy cells rather than expected cancer cells.
But when the cytoplasm of a cancer cell was implanted into a healthy cell, its progeny were cancerous. There was something in the cytoplasm that was a 'cause' of cancer.
Then, he demonstrated that mitochondria were the primary cause and that defective mitochondria led to mutations and to an inability to produce energy even in the presence of oxygen. This leads to the dependence of cancer cells on glucose and glutamine, because glutamine can be converted to glucose. These pathways make cancer cells inflexible, fragile, dependent and vulnerable.
"Cancer cells are vulnerable because they lack metabolic flexibility."
Patients suddenly had tools: diet, fasting, oxygen, and ketones, as scientifically grounded therapies that change the body's metabolic terrain, weakening cancer cells and fortifying healthy cells. His experiments provided deeper insight into the Warburg Effect in cancer and turned it into something that was applicable and empowered patients.
Dr. Dominic D’Agostino
The ketogenic diet is not just a diet, it’s a metabolic therapy.
Dr. Dominic D’Agostino
Dr. D'Agostino worked with the US Navy, endeavouring to answer the question: "How do you keep a diver alive under crushing pressure and low oxygen?"
Under extreme pressure and low oxygen, the divers' brains couldn't properly use glucose for energy anymore. Their brains short-circuited, which triggered seizures and could lead to death.
Instead of glucose, he found ketones, which stabilized neuronal networks, reduced oxidative stress and allowed the brain to operate more efficiently. This is why fasting for four days, leading to high ketone levels in kids who had seizures, led to the arrest of convulsions almost miraculously.
And he found that cancer cells could not adapt to the ketone-rich, glucose-restricted environment.
"Nutritional ketosis can shift our physiology in ways that are profoundly therapeutic."
To enhance the effects of ketones, he experimented with hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT). This wasn't simply an additive weapon, but a synergistic force multiplier.
Cancer thrives in low-oxygen, high-glucose, acidic, inflamed environments. HBOT floods the body with 10-20x more oxygen than breathing alone. This oxygen, under high pressure, dissolves directly into the plasma, tissues, lymph and interstitial fluid.
Since cancer cells cannot use oxygen for energy, they rely on the fermentation of glucose.
When you add high amounts of oxygen into the cancer's environment:
Normal cells thrive
Supercharges mitochondrial ATP energy production in normal cells.
They become stronger.
Cancer cells get strangled (they thrive on hypoxia--low oxygen)
Increases tumour oxygenation.
Decreases tumour acidity.
Reduces hypoxia-driven resistance.
Fermentation becomes less efficient.
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) spike inside the tumour, selectively killing cancer cells.
Repairs tissue damage caused by chemo/radiation to bone marrow (red blood cell and platelet formation), skin, nerves, gut, mouth and blood vessels by:
HBOT is FDA-approved for radiation injury.
Stem cell mobilization.
Angiogenesis (new blood vessels).
Tissue oxygenation.
Wound healing.
Collagen production.
And ketosis deprives cancer of glucose and its sole energy source while fortifying normal cells.
This 1-2 punch, double metabolic trap, sets cancer cells up for the chemotherapy and radiation to annihilate them more effectively,
This is not only targeted therapy but also creating an environment where normal cells can thrive and cancer cells cannot.
Dr. Valter Longo - Architect of Longevity
Longevity is programmed. And fasting is the key to unlocking that program..
Dr. Valter Longo
Valter Longo grew up in southern Italy, among centenarians who lived long not because of medicines, but because of the rhythm and rhyme of life: simple, real food, long walks, fasting days, deep relationships and clean living.
His interest in longevity led him to head to USC in 2000, where he became the world's leading researcher on fasting and longevity. He found a profound biological truth:
Fasting kills damaged or diseased cells and organelles. This is called autophagy (self-eating).
Refeeding activates stem cells.
Longevity is nature, with the body's natural rhythm and dancing to it.
He discovered that cycles of fasting initiate autophagy, reduce inflammation, trigger apoptosis (cell death) in damaged cells, lower IGF-1 (which stimulates cancer growth), and, during refeeding, activate stem cell regeneration.
"When you fast, the body kills off broken cells. When you refeed, stem cells rebuild."
His coined term, "Fast-Mimicking-Diet" (FMD), became the world's scientifically validated protocol for activating regeneration without having to stop eating food with a diet that mimicked fasting, in effect a subtype of a ketogenic diet, with low glucose and low glycine, fully leveraging the Warburg Effect, while feeding patients fighting cancer.
"To live long, you must avoid overfeeding the system."
Longo teaches us to align with biology and nature rather than hack and fight against it.
Dr. Azra Raza, the Fierce Humanitarian
We are losing the war on cancer because we are trying to kill the last cell, not the first.
Dr. Azra Raza
When I read the prologue of her book, The First Cell, my heart was deeply inspired, but my face also flooded with tears for her, for her patients, for her compassionate heart and brilliant mind. Azra's mission is deeply human, deeply spiritual and deeply urgent.
When I look at Azra, I don't see just a doctor, an oncology researcher, but I see a general and a soldier in a war against cancer. A warrior forged in grief. A woman who has given her life to saving others, enduring the suffering that comes with this devastating disease. She not only watched the person she loved most, her husband, Harvey, a fellow oncologist dedicated to fighting cancer, be consumed by the very disease that he fought to cure, but was also, at his request, his doctor, until she laid him to rest with no peace in her heart.
Azra had the mission to cure cancer in her heart since she was young, but entered the arena of oncology through heartbreak. From her initial pediatric patients through caring for her husband, she saw that we are detecting and treating cancer far too late.
Her mission became refined to:
Find the first malignant cell.
Intercept and take care of cancer before suffering begins.
Prevent and ease human suffering.
She has been drawing and storing her patients' blood for over 30 years in her cancer cell tissue repository ("The Cancer Bank"), championing human-centred studies rather than mouse studies, molecular fingerprints, early detection and humane oncology that preserves dignity.
We bonded instantly, both academically and professionally, but also on a spiritual level, with a shared sense of mission to help ease the suffering of our fellow humans. Instead of chemo/radiation/surgery, which she aptly calls bomb/burn/slash, find the first cancer cell, which she has discovered how to do and has developed a device that can both detect and kill this first 'giant' cancer cell, the mother of all cancer cells.
"We must intercept cancer at its earliest, most curable stage."
"Patients deserve better than toxic therapies that come too late."
Azra brought the human soul to medicine, along with the blueprint and method for detecting and preventing cancer at the first cell, to end cancer at its beginning rather than fighting it until the last cell.
"Finding and killing the first cancer cell will change everything."
Together we share a mission bigger than either of us alone:
To make cancer a solvable problem in our lifetime.
To build the tools that find the first malignant cell.
To cure cancer, at the beginning.
I've invested in her startup, and I am also helping her create a documentary to tell our story and proclaim her war on cancer at the first cell.
May God help her and those in this common mission against a disease that arises from its host, causing suffering and death.
Reflection
If disease is only fought by poisons, that becomes the ground in which the seed of the very disease it fights to grow again, should we not change our paradigm and strategy?
Dr. Kevin Ham
I'm a problem-solver, and I love thinking in first principles. If cancer is found early, it is much easier to deal with it. Still, the question we must ponder is, what environment and primary cause led to this cancer in the first place, and how can we ensure the metabolic terrain of our body prevents cancer from ever growing?
When the risk of cancer is 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women, how do we reduce this risk from 33%-50% to near 0%?
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
Please forward my newsletter to your friends and family and ask them to sign up.
I’d love to help a lot of people prevent, reverse, heal and ease the suffering of disease.
Life-Changing Question
What can I do today to reduce my cancer risk by altering my body into a cancer-proof environment?
You are armed with the essential knowledge of the primary cause of cancer and its Achilles heel, but knowledge without action is powerless. Only when that knowledge is discerned and applied to your life does that knowledge become power.
Next week—
Power of Belief.
Why Belief is Essential to Success.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
Power of Nutrition to Fight Cancer (Part I)
Just 5 Principles for Remarkable Growth and Renewal
Detox and Nutrition to “stress” Cancer
Your greatest wealth is health. You only have one body, one mind and one spirit. Take great care.
Dr. Kevin Ham
A Dream to Cure Cancer
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.
Voltaire
I lost my good friend Elliot Koo to Ewing's Sarcoma in 2010, after he fought bravely for two years. In 2008, when he was fighting Cancer, I decided to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer and raise money for Cancer research on his behalf.
My dear mother had just passed away in February 2006 to gall bladder Cancer. Every year, I rode this charity bike ride to remind myself how hard the battle to fight Cancer was, with so many casualties. I rode with my fellow colleagues in cities across Canada, including Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax. I planned to make annual pilgrimages on the bike in cities all over the US and eventually in Europe.
In November 2019, I wrote in my journal two prayers:
That my coworkers don't have to come into the office five days a week, ideally just on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Many were commuting each way for an hour or two each day (even now, I have not implemented a back-to-office policy, as I want to give back all the time lost to commutes by those who have been so loyal and have worked ten years or more.)
I want to help Canadian riders become pro cyclists. I am still unsure where this prayer came from, but little did I know that in the next five years I would become a partner in a pro cycling team, riding around Israel on my bicycle, meeting the President of Israel with fellow cyclists, riding 40% of the Tour de France, up the Alps and the biggest mountains in France and Italy.
This led me to host The Dream to Cure Cancer in 2023, inviting 4x Tour de France champ, Chris Froome, now a great friend, to ride for a charity Cancer ride for my dear friend and mentor Dr. Azra Raza, an oncologist and researcher from Columbia University, right here in my hometown of Vancouver, riding in Belcarra where I dream of helping to build a wellness retreat.
I did not imagine that God would answer my prayers and weave the threads of my heart together in such a way, emergent and so unpredictable and certainly unplannable by me. I am reminded of the verse, "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work with us, to him be glory…"
Repeat: Oh No!
The worst health news one may hear is “You have Cancer.” Perhaps even worse is, “Your Cancer has returned.
Kevin Ham
My friend's son, Jude, just 11 years old, had battled the same Ewing's sarcoma two years ago, and looked to be fine, but two weeks after a trip to Disneyland and Universal--a wish granted by the Make-A-Wish Foundation--he started to have shortness of breath.
They found his right lung filled with fluid and Cancer throughout, both small and large masses. My friend called me in despair, and upon hearing this, I thought that such a relapse was like metastatic disease, as his primary Cancer site was the left rib, partially resected two years earlier. He had survived 14 rounds of toxic chemotherapy, enduring vomiting, hair loss and bone marrow suppression, but so had his Cancer, quietly growing and finding its new home over the past two years.
Two years ago, I purposely visited Calgary to advise them to employ a ketogenic diet to "stress" the Cancer. Jude's mom was a nutritionist. But now, I told them my thoughts that this would be a tough battle, much harder than the one they had thought victorious two years ago. I could hear my friend's voice trembling as he asked questions. I told him I was not an expert on Ewing's and would ask my friend Dr. Azra. She just replied, "So sorry to hear."
This broke my heart. I asked if there were any alternative therapies? I received no text back. The silence told me the answer. Just before their all-paid trip to Disney, my friend had expressed that the love of a father was almost unfathomable, as we were talking about the love of God, who sacrificed his only son for us. He said he could not live if his son's Cancer returned. That sentence reverberated in my heart like an earthquake as I spoke to him on the phone.
For each step in the Flywheel, assign it an objective and the desired result or goal. This is called the OKR. O is Objective, and KR is Key Result. This is what the brilliant John Doerr talks to the entrepreneurs he invested in. Doerr was a giant in the Venture Capital world in Silicon Valley, funding Intel and learning this method from the founder and CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, who describes it in his brilliant book "Only the Paranoid Survive." Doerr went on to mentor two young Stanford Ph.D students who dreamed of creating a great company by building a simple search interface. Google implemented the OKR system as it was simple and scalable as the company grew. This concept is described in the book "Measure What Matters" by Doerr, who states, "We must measure what matters most."
Not Me
“1 in 2 men will get Cancer. I know, but I won’t be that one.”
My thoughts as I read the stats … but how can I be sure?
I was battling my own health disease, but fighting Cancer was a whole different ball game. I had watched so many people die when I did palliative medicine. I decided I would prevent such terminal diseases and moved to preventive medicine. I have been studying human physiology, metabolism, nutrition science, and exercise physiology for the past two decades to understand why diseases occur and how to heal them. My heart since 14 was to cure autoimmune disease, which left me temporarily paralyzed and in severe pain. I wanted to ease the suffering of children like me. But I was not very good with kids, so I went into family medicine.
When Cancer claims 10 million lives a year globally and visits 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women in North America, I know I am on the waitlist. Both my parents had Cancer. Recent genetic testing said that my genetic markers show my risk of pancreatic Cancer is 90% above the norm.
When I used to hear stats on disease and death, I had the tendency to think they included me, but as I got older, I felt more confident that it would be those around me, and I would help them. But when my friend died of a sudden heart attack, resulting in me finding out about my own severe heart disease, I realized I have to reconsider the odds of them including me. Heart disease is still the #1 killer, and Cancer will soon overtake that position.
What about you? When you hear the stats, do you feel the urgency to prevent this unrelenting terror that could reside within you? No longer obeying the laws of life, multiplying and spreading, unable to die. It is a very primitive cell, yet very insidious, as it remains unopposed by its victim's immune system.
Cancer’s Achilles Heel
The prime cause of Cancer is the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal cells by the fermentation of sugar.
Otto Warburg
In 1924, German biochemist Otto Warburg made a startling discovery as he peered down the microscope. Cancer cells, even in the presence of oxygen, did not utilize it to produce energy through their mitochondria (the power producers in our cells). Instead, it used a primitive method to generate energy by fermenting glucose, much like yeast. We refer to this as anaerobic (oxygen-free) respiration. You engage in anaerobic respiration when you are at your extreme limits, such as during intense running. You know at this point, you can't last too much longer. Sprinters optimize for this. I'm at my best when I have to do this, sprinting on the bike, especially on a slight incline.
Warburg called this a defect in respiration; the mitochondrion did not utilize oxygen and was thus extremely inefficient. It could only ferment glucose, producing a fraction of the energy.
This became known as the Warburg Effect.
This concept has been of great interest to me. I was trained by the 1992 Barcelona Olympic gold medalist, Mijung Kim, in Judo. She taught me how to leverage the strength and movement of other, much more powerful opponents against them and add my own strength to theirs to knock them off balance to throw them. I call this the Judo Strategy.
Here was a way to leverage Cancer's weakness against it. Because it could grow indefinitely, it would require a large amount of glucose. This is one of the reasons that when CT scans and MRIs can't detect early Cancer, they will use a more sensitive PET scan with glucose and see Cancer cells that take up this glucose.
Warburg went on to win the 1931 Nobel Prize for discovering how cells use oxygen, and yet his greatest discovery — that Cancer is a metabolic disease — remains cocooned.
He survived Nazi Germany, despite being both Jewish and homosexual. Hitler deemed Warburg's research too valuable to lose and allowed it to continue, as well as his own life. Hitler's own mother had died from Cancer, and his mortal fear of the disease led him to ban smoking and also to issue a quest for his scientists to find a cure for Cancer.
As science and technology advanced, the discovery of DNA led to new hope in unravelling the mysteries of Cancer, primarily believed to be genetic. Genetics became the hot new interest, and metabolics became old news. The mitochondria gave way to DNA.
In 1966, when the world had turned away from his insights, intoxicated by the allure of DNA, he lamented, "Nobody today can say that one does not know what Cancer and its prime cause is. On the contrary, there is no disease whose prime cause is better known."
Still, Warburg whispers to me even now:
"If the respiration of the cells is disturbed, Cancer will inevitably flow."
"Cancer, above all diseases, has countless secondary causes. But there is only one prime cause: the replacement of the respiration of oxygen in normal cells by the fermentation of sugar."
So how do we ensure our cells' respiration is not disturbed? This cellular respiration is disturbed when our mitochondria become dysfunctional.
The world did not see the poetry hidden in his science. Cancer was a cell that could no longer breathe. It regresses to simple anaerobic respiration, even in the presence of oxygen.
Healing the Hopeless - Dr. Max Gerson
The power to heal lies within every human being.
Dr. Max Gerson
While Warburg was protected in Germany, another Jewish doctor, Dr. Max Gerson, had to flee the Nazi regime, taking his insights into Cancer to America. Born in 1881, Gerson was a physician who was crippled by migraines. When drugs did not work, he did what true scientists do when trapped between pain and ignorance: he experimented on himself to find a cure. He started modifying his diet, eliminating animal fats and salts and eating primarily vegetables and fruits. Within weeks, his tormenting headaches vanished.
As he started treating others with his diet, one of his earliest patients had a very difficult case of skin tuberculosis. He applied his diet therapy, and her ulcers healed and her disease improved. Soon, word spread across Germany that he could reverse 'incurable' diseases with food and detoxification alone.
He published his theories with observational rigour and gained the attention of a renowned surgeon, Dr. Ferdinand Sauerbruch, who adopted and refined his approach for tuberculosis of the bone. This gave Dr. Gerson credibility. Sauerbruch said, "Where medicine fails, Gerson's diet often succeeds."
Dr. Gerson was invited to conduct his diet at the Munich University Hospital. Out of 450 "incurable" tuberculosis patients, 446 showed remarkable recovery. Their skin lesions closed, and x-rays confirmed improvement. The secret? Gerson restored their cellular potassium levels and drained excess sodium from their tissues, reversing edema and inflammation.
One of his patients, Helene, the wife of the famous Dr. Albert Schweitzer, was cured of her lung tuberculosis after nine months. Later, Dr. Schweitzer himself came to him at age 75 with severe Diabetes, on high insulin and in just a few weeks was completely off his insulin and lived another 15 years to run his hospital in Africa. Dr. Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952 for his health philanthropy. Another patient recovered completely from their advanced stomach Cancer.
By the late 1920s, people with incurable diseases came to Dr. Gerson; people with end-stage incurable Cancer left as the walking dead. He refused on the grounds that advanced Cancer would be too difficult for his diet therapy and detoxification protocol, but they insisted that there was no other alternative. His first three Cancer patients all dramatically improved. But his next six advanced Cancer patients all failed. This led him to even greater scientific and observational rigour, resulting in much greater success in prolonging and, in some cases, reversing advanced Cancers.
He recognized the work of his contemporary Otto Warburg, who wrote "The Metabolism of Tumors," in 1930.
"Otto Warburg was the first who found the metabolic deviations of malignant tissue from normal tissue and formulated it:
Anaerobic glycolysis ÷ cell respiration
In normal tissue, it is 0.
In embryonic tissue, it is 0.1.
In benign tumours, it is 0.45 - 1.45.
In malignant Cancer, it is up to 12.”
The malignancies in human beings continuously fall back deeper and deeper into fermentation, and so his Cancer therapy was rooted in the goal of restoring the function of the oxidizing systems in the entire body by:
Detoxifying the whole body
Providing ample potassium and decreasing sodium to restore the chemical gradient in the cells and
Adding oxidizing enzymes (from vegetables and supplements).
Gerson concluded, "All degenerative disease begins when normal metabolism is replaced by retention, sodium, water, toxins, and the tissues can no longer excrete."
He emphasized that removing a tumour surgically did not restore health, unless the metabolic terrain was cleansed and restored, much like the soil of our farms today.
"Our hospitals cut out the fruit of disease but never touch the soil."
He banned all salt, including sea salt, soy sauce and baking soda, even for cooking and added potassium to his therapy for Cancer patients.
We now know that the sodium-potassium pump (Na/K) requires ATP to exchange sodium from the outside of the cell to the inside and potassium from the inside to the outside, thereby maintaining the cell's voltage potential. High sodium levels impair this pump, leading to oxidative stress, mitochondrial damage, and inflammation. Low-sodium, high-potassium diets improve mitochondrial biogenesis and autophagy, enhancing the body's natural healing processes. So cells detoxify faster, tissues oxygenate better, and inflammation subsides.
This is seen in people with high blood pressure and heart failure. Could it apply to Cancer cells as he hypothesized? His results speak for themselves.
As medical drugs came to the forefront in the battle against Cancer, Gerson was stripped of his medical license and ordered to no longer treat any Cancer patients. Late in his life, abandoned and unable to practise, he published his magnum opus in 1958, "A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty cases and The Cure of Advanced Cancer by Diet Therapy. A Summary of 30 Years of Clinical Experimentation." Just three of the amazing cases in the book.
Metastatic Melanoma – lymph-node and bone lesions that reportedly regressed after 18 months on the regimen.
Advanced Lung Cancer – X-rays that he claimed cleared within nine months.
Pancreatic Carcinoma – a physician-patient who lived more than five years beyond a six-month prognosis.
Gerson died a year later in 1959 of pneumonia at age 77. His theories and practices helped many 'hopeless' patients as he planted the seeds for modern integrative medicine, using the language of terrain, detoxification, and nutritional healing.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer eulogized Gerson, "I see in him one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine. Many of his basic ideas have been adopted without having his name connected with them. Yet, he has achieved more than seemed possible under adverse conditions. He leaves a legacy which commands attention and which will assure him his due place. Those whom he has cured will now attest to the truth of his ideas."
"One day they will see that I was not an enemy of medicine, but its conscience."
One of his last notes in March 1959, "Too much opposition. Too few helpers. Yet, the body still heals, even as men lose faith."
I had always been curious about Gerson's Therapy with its vegetable juices and coffee enemas. As I recently read his book, exploring the history of Cancer therapy, I felt his heart pierce mine with his passion to help the suffering who had no other alternative, when there was no promising medical chemotherapy yet. Tears streamed from my heart for the heart of this man, who was stripped of honour and yet had done so much. I would award him a Nobel Peace Prize, just as his friend, Dr. Schweitzer, whom Gerson cured of Diabetes, had received and for whom he bestowed the utmost praise.
Many people Gerson cured, who had had no hope, eventually outlived him and attested to his compassion, dedication and scientific mind. His daughter Charlotte carried on his work, establishing a clinic in Mexico and curing many hundreds of advanced Cancers. She passed away at the age of 95.
"The physician's highest calling is to awaken the will to heal."
His last journal entry, "Let future doctors learn from nature, not against her."
Gerson's call to heal has become mine.
Atomic Age of Cancer Therapy
The first chemotherapies were born from World War II, when physicians noticed that soldiers exposed to mustard-gas bombs had very low white blood cell counts. Perhaps this could also destroy the Cancerous cells as well?
In 1947, a great breakthrough in initial Leukemia remissions was achieved using chemical warfare poisons. From this moment on, we fought the disease of death with toxic chemicals. Lives were prolonged, but the side effects of chemotherapy also took their toll, with hair loss, nausea, bone marrow suppression and immune collapse. This has been the standard of care for most Cancers, even 80 years later.
This is also Jude's only hope: two very toxic chemotherapy drugs. When I asked his doctor, "What is his prognosis?" there was a long pause. "We will have to see how his first chemo round is and whether the fluid in his lungs resolves so he can breathe easier. We will reassess then."
I have been advising his parents that the things they can control are his diet, exercise and comfort, and to focus his diet and exercise on three goals:
Foods that weaken the Cancer cells.
Foods that boost the immune system.
Foods that protect his healthy cells.
Jude’s stomach is his biggest constraint, so everything that goes into his mouth must be targeted to do one or more of the above three goals.
Jude just finished his third chemotherapy, and although he has lost a lot of hair, feels a loss of appetite and his bone marrow is suppressed, it is very hard to tell he is undergoing chemotherapy.
In the next issue, I will outline the basis of his strategy. As his chemotherapy is limited to 14 rounds, leveraging the toxic nature of these chemodrugs in addition to diet, exercise and adjuvant and supplementary therapies is of vital importance.
Not even one Cancer cell can remain. Otherwise, a relapse resulting in a 3rd recurrence will be much more difficult than his first fight two years ago and this one now, which once appeared hopeless, but now shines a ray of hope in his heart and his parents' hearts. And I, too, see that sliver of hope dawn, but I am still very weary of this Cancer's stealth actions.
I am still learning, and wish I knew the things I do now, sooner, having learned from my own heart reversal protocol and applying similar principles to a much harder and graver disease in Cancer. I could have helped Elliot more back then. I ask God to give us more wisdom, the gift of healing and understanding.
Reflection
We must pause and ponder when our own body turns against us, greedy for energy, for power, for space, even at the expense of its own life.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Cancer is becoming a pandemic and yet there are no visible ways to stop its progressive march to its growth causing pain and death within more than 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women as it relentlessly assails us. Remove as many of the primary causes and be very diligent in your lifestyle, so that you don’t even have to fight this battle.
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
Please forward my newsletter to your friends and family and ask them to sign up.
I’d love to help a lot of people prevent, reverse, heal and ease the suffering of disease.
Life-Changing Question
What can I do today to reduce my risk of not being the 1 in 2 men or 1 in 3 women who get Cancer.
Please give it serious consideration.
Next week—
The Immunity Revolution.
How a Doctor I know is beating Stage 4 Colon Cancer.
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Another Shock to the Heart
Life is precious and each day is a blessing to consider
Life is precious and each day is a blessing to consider
What would you do if you suddenly found death knocking on your door?
This is a story of my friend, just 48 years old, who experienced this last week.
Sudden Death
Death is inevitable but when Death visits you suddenly, what shall you do?
Dr. Kevin Ham
“Give me a heart of wisdom to know the number of my days,” Moses implores the Lord in the beautiful Psalm 90 attributed to him. I pondered this thought a lot in my life, but it’s tough for me to fathom the exact number of my days. I used to think I could reach 100 years old — the equivalent of 36,500 days. I’ve lived for 55 years, so if I reach 100, I have just over 16,400 days. I’ve lived just over 20,000 days now.
I heard a song that moved me deeply. “Our lives are like the sands of an hourglass.” When the last grain of sand passes to the bottom, our life ends. How many grains of sand number my days? And how many of those days will be in health, without suffering? We call this our health span —the span of days during which we are healthy.
During a recent conference, a good friend said he had been sent my newsletter, The Shock of Death, describing my shock at finding out my coronary arteries were clogged 77% etc. He said his brother had done many of the recommendations at the end of this article.
A few days later, he had back pain, which resolved when he rested. This is a telltale sign of angina, a warning sign of an impending heart attack. The next day, he felt uncomfortable in his chest and back when he exerted himself. He went to sleep at 10:30, but the pain did not relent even when lying down this time. He was having persistent angina, in other words, a heart attack. Luckily, my friend, a doctor working in the ICU in Germany, could assess him that night. He called an ambulance and found out his left anterior descending artery, aptly named the ‘widow maker,’ was clogged 95%! He had a stent put in. Just slightly high LDL cholesterol and blood pressure before this. Nothing too alarming. But his blood pressure was over 250 that morning! I was once again shocked at how fragile life can be, so suddenly. If he had gone to sleep, he might never have woken up.
25% of heart attacks present for the first time as sudden death. My friend had narrowly avoided that fate. Just 48 years old with children. I thanked God for my friend. 7 years younger than me. I had considered myself so fortunate for finding out I had clogged arteries. I had seriously contemplated also getting a stent and going on meds, as my condition was very severe as well. But I chose a different path, relying on God for wisdom, thanking God for my medical education and training to discern how I could navigate my health predicament.
Do I Matter?
Each moment is precious but oftentimes it passes by like the wind, unaccounted with no trace. Oh how I wish to capture it.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I often wonder whether I should spend time writing my newsletter. I look at the analytics and see that such a low % opens and reads it. But I remind myself that, through my writings, I may not only help or save a life now, but also in the future. Just how precious even one life is. It’s not merely about numbers but about the preciousness of even just one life.
I find both my results and Fred’s so miraculous. Are our rapid reversals merely a fluke? I know many people are praying and searching for a protocol like the ones I am developing. I wish to write case studies about Fred and me and submit them to medical journals once we’ve completely reversed our diseases. The more case studies I can add, the more powerful. Then, later, conduct studies on larger cohorts of people. I also long to teach these hidden insights to medical students, the doctors of the future.
I wish we had more lives like in a video game, but we have one shot in this life. A lot of the things I thought were important now seem non-essential. “What would it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul?” echoes in my heart as I live each day. I am so grateful for the little moments in nature, the time spent with my loved ones and friends, colleagues and friends of God.
“Does the work I do matter much?” I ask myself. I became a doctor to help save others from suffering, as I suffered from a disease since I was 14. I pray to God to guide my path
To Live or Die? That is the Question
Each thing we put in our mouth determines the number of our days, whether we prolong it or diminish it. Choose wisely.
Dr. Kevin Ham
In the story of Adam and Eve, they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Though they could eat freely of every other tree, they were commanded not to eat of that tree. As a result, sin and death entered them through that disobedience.
Beside the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the tree of life. If they had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever. I think of the metaphor of these two trees and am reminded of the power of food and fruit. In other parts of the Bible, the books of Ezekiel and Revelation speak of the leaves being for the healing of the nations. These leaves can also include the vegetables we eat.
I prayed and contemplated asking my friend not to get a second stent, which he was scheduled for a couple of days later, and instead follow my protocol. But did I want to be accountable for his life? A stent was simpler than modifying one’s lifestyle. I decided just to give him a call and see how he was doing, and to suggest that, despite him having stents, he should still highly consider my heart reversal protocol so that his stents wouldn’t clog and that he should reduce his risk for the future, as he was still relatively young.
I told him it likely took his heart disease about 30 years to clog 95%, but applying my heart reversal protocol, he could potentially reverse that 30 years of disease in under 3 years, but it would need to be very targeted and committed for that duration—extreme focus and commitment.
Life and well-being or death and suffering? That is the question I ask myself each time I consider putting something in my mouth.
Will this food or drink heal me or damage me? I often want to eat that sugary cookie or drink. That savoury, fat-filled food. That meat. The seafood I love so much. But I refrain when I remind myself of this question.
So far in the past 5 months, I’ve been very disciplined and thought about how I can accelerate my healing, faster than the 32 months case study I’ve read about, a young surgeon who at age 44 had 100% clog in the LAD coronary artery and in 32 months, reversed it to 100% normalcy, documented in Dr. Esselstyn’s study and book “Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease.” It’s quite remarkable. Yet I aim to accelerate this healing. While I am not 100% certain, with God, I believe all things are possible.
Once I reverse my disease, I want to eat a healthier diet and slowly add seafood, then birds and eggs, then creeping things, then occasional grass-fed animals and dairy. This is the order of life in the six days of Creation. First light, then air, water, plants, fruits, sea creatures, birds of the air, creeping things, animals and humans, then rest.
I’ve helped rapidly reverse Fred’s high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes, and he’s lost 20 pounds in 6 weeks, off 4 of 6 medications. In another 6 weeks, he’ll be at a normal BMI and off his remaining two medications.
Now, I pray that I can coach my other friend to reverse his clogged arteries. I’ve learned much from my health ordeal and also from Fred’s. Each person is very unique, but we all have many things in common.
A Second Chance
Prayer is the heart speaking directly to God. Answers come in unexpected ways at times.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I wished my friend a safe recovery, half-wishing I had the courage to ask him to postpone his second stent.
Many hours later, I asked him how he was feeling. He replied, “I really have to do your diet now. I didn’t get the stent.”
“What?” I asked, surprisingly. What happened?
He was on the operating table, and the cardiac surgeon said that it was not as severe an obstruction as they had thought and that he had time to manage it medically. My friend said he had prayed hard about whether to get the stent, but in the end just let things proceed. “He (God) had determined the outcome,” he texted.
Wow, I was thrilled. One less foreign body in his body sounded wonderful, as well as the fact that his 75% obstruction wasn’t as bad as it had appeared five days earlier.
I’ve shone the spotlight on my health journey, then on Fred. And while I am uncertain exactly how I should travel this path that God has set before me, I have a committed friend who will require my guidance. My miraculous reversal, as well as Fred’s, shows people what is possible when you fully 100% commit.
Instead of the sufferings that come with eventual disease, we are enduring such temptations and trials as we try to reverse the many decades of disease that have culminated in our present disease: cause and effect. We pay for the choices we make each day for years and decades. Can we learn the lesson and choose more wisely each day now?
A Life of No Regrets
Did I do my best? That is all I can ask of myself and of God, given what is placed in my heart.
Dr. Kevin Ham
My friend regretfully said many times that he should have known better when he was told his cholesterol was a little high, when his blood pressure seemed to creep higher, and his doctor told him to manage his diet and exercise more. It didn’t seem urgent. But the disease grew ever so slowly and insidiously with time until it showed itself abruptly.
This was the exact same thought I had when I discovered my disease. Why wasn’t I more aware and diligent in preventing the #1 cause of death, heart disease? I even believed, since med school, that I had clogged arteries then.
I thought the same about my eye disease. Many optometrists told me that my retina was thin due to my myopia. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I knew I had a high risk of retinal detachment, so I didn’t look into it more. If I had been more proactive, I could have delayed or even prevented the likelihood of my becoming blind or having a heart attack. Now I believe that I can be even better off than those who have mild heart disease. A full reversal is possible for my heart. But for my eyes …
I realized in 2020 that it was not really a question of whether I would become blind, but of when. That became a very sobering thought. I would one day be blind. So I read and thought more about people who were blind and lived remarkable lives. Helen Keller touches my heart deeply. What a remarkable heart and mind. Her writings move me so deeply. Fanny Crosby and her 90 years of blindness, writing so many hymns of praise and memorizing so much of the Bible, including most of the New Testament, Psalms and Torah. Wow, what life could be like, even blind. They became my hope and inspiration.
Reversal Goals
His stent has a risk of thrombosis or getting obstructed in 5 to 10 years. He can also get new plaques in other arteries.
Immediately after stenting, three major goals:
Prevent clot formation on the new stent (thrombosis)
Prevent new plaque rupture elsewhere (secondary prevention)
Reduce shear stress and inflammation in arteries
To prevent the above, he will be on meds that thin his blood, likely statins and high BP meds.
If he does not change his lifestyle (diet, exercise, rest, stress), his plaques could grow by 5-12% on average each year. His 75% obstruction could progress to full obstruction in as little as 2 to 5 years.
Following my Heart Reversal Protocol, he could reverse his plaque in ~3 years or less. Since he is 7 years younger than I am, I believe he can reverse it faster than I can, if he adheres to it like I have, 100% fully committed, as he will also have the power of medications along with targeted foods, fasting and exercise.
Mechanisms of Plaque Regression:
Lowering LDL <55 mg/dL (1.4 mmol/L) I’m 61 mg/dL
Lowering inflammation (CRP <1.0) I’m at 0.2
Normalizing insulin, fasting glucose: HbA1c <5.4% I’m at 5.3%
Triglycerides <100 mg/dL (1.1 mM) I’m at 61
BP < 115/75 mmHg I’m 105/65
Increasing nitric oxide (endothelial repair) - I’m very diligent about this.
Fasting and autophagy (foam cell clearance) - I’m doing 16:8 fasts with weekly 24-36h fasts. I’m planning to try a 19:5 fast with weekly 24-36h fasts to accelerate healing.
Reflection
The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
Helen Keller
It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.
Fanny Crosby
I have lived a full life, and I am prepared to go, but I asked the Lord to allow me to live so I can see my family grow and mature in the Lord. That is my personal prayer, for my children to know the Lord God intimately and to live their lives fully for Him, glorifying and praising Him.
My personal faith, when I discovered the love of God through Christ who died for me, changed my life forever at the age of 15 years in 1986. God has blessed me so tremendously beyond all that I can think or ask.
I ponder that moment when Count Zinzendorf in Germany looked upon a painting called Ecce Homo, which depicted Christ with a caption that read, ‘Ego pro te haec passus sum; Tu vero quid fecisti pro me’— “This have I suffered for you; now what will you do for me?” At age 17, the Count realized he had done little for Christ and decided to dedicate his life to him.
I ponder that question now and wish longingly to do what the count did.
Ecce Homo by Domenico Feti.
May you ponder the number of your days and ask for a heart of wisdom to know their number and become wiser and more grateful as each grain of sand in your hourglass passes each day.
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
Please forward my newsletter to your friends and family and ask them to sign up.
I’d love to help a lot of people prevent, reverse, heal and ease the suffering of disease.
Life-Changing Question
What have you been procrastinating about that you should start today for your health, especially your lifestyle of diet, exercise, stress, relationships or rest?
Mine is better sleep. I have averaged less than six hours the past four months and last week averaged just over four hours, which was what I averaged in my 20s and 30s and likely a key factor in my eyesight and heart problems.
I decided that I am going to do my best to go to bed by 11 pm and be in the dark until 6:30 am so my eyes get 7.5 hours of rest and hopefully at least 6.5 hours of sleep. I will start researching and developing a protocol for better sleep for the next several months. May God give me wisdom and sweet rest.
Next week—
The Strategy of Breakthrough for Health and Wealth
Just 5 Principles for Remarkable Growth and Renewal.
Recommended Tests
If you are 35 years+, get these test to establish a baseline and risk assessment for heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Calcium CT heart scan
Assess how much calcium in the heart arteries to assess risk of heart attack
Score >100 = moderate risk.
Score of >400 = severe with likelihood of heart attack in 2-5 years.
My calcium score was 505!
If your score is >100, consider getting a CT Angiogram Cleerly to map out your coronary arterial plaque obstructions.
US costs $100-$200 and low dose radiation
Carotid CIMT ultrasound
Assess risk of plaque in the neck arteries to assess risk of stroke. Plaque can rupture and lodge in the cerebral brain arteries
It is also a way to screen for heart disease, as a low cost, with no radiation
I had plaque (~25% blockage with CIMT of 1.8mm) which I reversed in 3 months to 0.84mm and no plaque. Almost miraculous.
Cost ~ $150 USD
Lipid blood tests
HDL, LDL
If LDL is high, then get
Oxidized LDL. This will assess risk as oxidized LDL is what causes damage and plaques in your arteries
Fractionated lipid profile (NMR) so that you can see size and number of your lipoproteins
Triglycerides
Apolipoprotein B (a better measure of risk for heart disease than just LDL)
Lipoprotein a (special type of LDL that is more genetic based and much harder to modify by lifestyle)
Insulin Resistance & Diabetes Risk
HbA1C (to assess risk of diabetes, prediabetes)
Fasting insulin and glucose (assess insulin resistance)
Inflammation
CRP
Homocysteine and
Omega 6: Omega 3 fat ratio
Heavy metals (Iron, Ferritin, Arsenic, lead, mercury)
Hormones
TSH (assess thyroid)
Cortisol (assess stress)
Vitamins & Minerals
Vitamin D (usually low)
Vitamin B12
Magnesium etc
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Power of Fasting (Part II)
Mimicking Fasting - the Ketogenic Diet
Mimicking Fasting - the Ketogenic Diet.
Reverse Disease’s One Way Road
If you’re going the wrong way down a one-way road, it's obvious what you must do. Reverse. So why don’t we do that with our modern ailments?
Dr. Kevin Ham
The fasts I spoke about last week, which resulted in rapid reversals, were almost miraculous. But nowadays, pills and supplements have replaced fasts.
As doctors, we seek to cure, but we often seem to just manage chronic disease, using 'Band-Aids' to improve symptoms and numbers without truly reversing or helping change the lifestyle that led to the disease.
Let me take you down history's lost archives of miraculous remedies and how they are being reimagined for today's prevalent diseases.
As I research and look for cures for my diseases (wet macular degeneration and heart disease) and for those who suffer around me, I am so humbled. I seek no more than the joy of seeing others feel more life and purpose. How many and who will benefit from my writings?
And I am so grateful to all the people mentioned in my writings. I wish I could read all their biographies and writings. They should be awarded Nobel prizes. So, chapeau to the many scientists, doctors, and dietitians who dedicated their lives so that we may benefit for many decades or centuries later.
These Eureka protocols that give remarkable results are drowned out in a sea of much 'noise', making it hard to separate the true signals of cures and rapid reversals. I feel as if God has given me a mission to find these one by one and make them known for those who may be searching for such a remedy for themselves or a loved one.
Curing Seizures Fast
When food is withdrawn, the storm in the brain is stilled.
Dr. Guillaume Guelpa
Many people have heard of the famous Frenchman Louis Pasteur's germ theory, published in 1861, which fueled the medical renaissance. But, in 1911, two other Frenchmen, Dr. Guillaume Guelpa and Dr. Auguste Marie, a couple of quiet neurologists, discovered something extraordinary in the wards of Bicetre Hospital, which were filled with incurable epileptic patients.
These were not just mere cases of minor epilepsy, but severe, uncontrollable and debilitating seizures. The treatments back then were crude or disappointing: bromide salts, prayer, rest cures, which did little to quell the storms shaking both brain and body. Bromide intoxication made patients like zombies, and they were often restrained during seizures. Patients who refused food due to the severity of their symptoms sometimes stopped seizing altogether. Marie proposed testing the fasting patients for several days, using laxatives to cleanse the intestines and then refeeding with a modest vegetarian diet.
The results were astonishing. By the third day, the convulsions ceased. When they ate, the seizures returned.
They tested 21 patients during their four-day fast. 100% improvement! They concluded modestly:
“L’abstinence alimentaire semble modérer les accès d’épilepsie.”
(Food abstinence appears to moderate epileptic attacks.)
They presented a paper in 1911, which was largely dismissed. How could such a severe, incurable disease like epilepsy be cured by not eating? Their breakthrough discovery languished like a seed buried deep, without water or sunlight, just as their names faded into the quiet recesses of history.
The Preacher-Doctor of Battle Creek
In stillness and emptiness, life reorders itself.
Dr. Hugh Conklin
Across the waters, also in 1911, Dr. Hugh Conklin, born in rural Michigan when faith healers, homeopaths and scientific physicians fought to be the trusted experts, was a teacher and lay pastor before he became a doctor. He moved to Battle Creek, home to the burgeoning Kellogg Sanitarium, run by Dr. John Kellogg, who preached widely in America that vegetarianism, hydrotherapy, and fasting were forms of spiritual purification.
Conklin had the same ethos, but applied it specifically to seizures, believing they were caused by autointoxication, a popular theory at that time, which postulated that undigested food fermenting in the colon released toxins that 'short-circuited' the brain. If the intestines were cleared and at rest, the body and brain could cleanse themselves.
His radical remedy?
Supervised water-only fasts for 18 to 25 days, with gentle enemas and prayer.
He treated 1200 patients. 90% of children improved. 50% of adults became seizure-free. But they resumed their seizures when they ate again.
When he passed away quietly in 1933, one physician took notice of his remarkable case studies.
Bridging Faith and Chemistry
We need not starve the patient; we can feed them differently
Dr. Russel Wilder
Wilder had just graduated from the University of Chicago in 1910 and joined the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He was an empiricist, analytical and fascinated by metabolism. He had collaborated with Dr. Banting, who had discovered insulin in Toronto and had a deep interest in diabetes.
He had read Conklin's reports and Guelpa & Marie's forgotten paper. Surely there must be some biochemical mediator occurring in the brain. He recruited volunteers to fast and to have their blood and urine tested. What he discovered astonished him. As glucose levels dropped, levels of B-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) and acetoacetate rose. Instead of using glucose for energy, the body began producing ketones derived from fatty acids, which could cross the blood-brain barrier.
His eureka moment: The ketones that arose during fasting could be mimicked by a diet that emulated the fasted state to maintain ketones in the blood (ketosis).
He coined the term "the ketogenic diet" in 1921, claiming it "reproduces the physiological effects of fasting."
He started clinical trials at Mayo. The protocol:
80% fat
15% protein
5% carbohydrates
Calorie-restricted to maintain ketosis.
The results were dramatic. Children became seizure-free within days. It was reported in the newspapers as the 'miracle diet'. Wilder wasn't fazed by the popularity. He was dogmatic about precision, data, and medical supervision to achieve ketosis and cure seizures. He collaborated with dieticians.
He wondered if ketosis could influence other diseases of metabolism like diabetes, obesity and even schizophrenia?
Ketogenic Medicine
The spoon can sometimes do what the syringe cannot.
Lydia Pauli
Wilder's work on the ketogenic diet reached the ears of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, and Dr. Samuel Livingston eagerly adopted it together with Lydia Pauli, a Swiss-trained dietitian, who designed the meal plans that were both therapeutic and tasty. "Food is the most intimate form of medicine," was her maxim.
Their work at Hopkins inspired dozens of hospitals, and by 1930, America was 60% seizure-free and 90% improved. The ketogenic diet became the standard treatment for pediatric epilepsy.
But in 1938, phenytoin, the first true anti-seizure drug, was discovered. By the 1940s, this drug rapidly replaced the ketogenic diet. When Livingston retired in 1950, he wrote a single line in his final lecture:
“It is regrettable that in medicine, what is forgotten is often what is most needed.”
Resurrecting the Lost Cure
Sometimes the cure is already in the archives.
Jim Abrahams
Like a washed-out and forgotten actor, decades passed, burying the ketogenic diet. In the 1990s, Jim Abrahams, a celebrated movie director and producer of hits like Airplane! and the Naked Gun, was desperate.
His two-year-old son, Charlie, was suffering from relentless drug-resistant epilepsy, seizing hundreds of times a week. They tried every drug and treatment, but nothing worked. The doctors told him there was nothing further they could do and that he should prepare for the worst.
But Abrahams could not sit idly by and watch his son succumb to this debilitating disease.
"If we can invent flying machines and atomic bombs, then there must be a cure for seizures somewhere."
Then, in his frantic search for any miracle, he came across the Ketogenic diet while reading an obscure 1930 neurology piece about its miraculous results. He contacted Johns Hopkins, where Dr. John Freeman was still practicing this therapy. Charlie's seizures ceased completely—a miracle.
Abrahams, determined to help other children, formed the Charlie Foundation in 1994 and then produced a film starring Meryl Streep, First Do No Harm, after the Hippocratic Oath that all physicians take. Over 100 hospitals re-established the ketogenic diet. The Charlie Foundation still advocates the ketogenic diet for epilepsy, autism and cancer.
Regenerating Neurons in the Brain
Every cell has a clock; fasting winds it back to zero.
Dr. Mark Mattson
Growing up with a fascination with nature in the backdrop of Minnesota, exploring forests and rivers, and observing how the cycles of nature —its hunger, hibernation, migration, and feasting —led him to remark, “Everything that lives thrives not on constancy, but on rhythm.”
Earning a Ph.D. While studying neurodegeneration, he joined the National Institute on Aging and became its Chief of Neurosciences. He combined molecular and evolutionary biology to ask, “Why does the brain benefit when we fast?”
His landmark experiments in rodents discovered that when food was restricted on alternate days, neurons increased the production of a molecule that promotes neurogenesis and synaptic plasticity. In other words, their brains became sharper, more exploratory and resistant to stress.
Mattson’s eureka moment came when he examined these neurons under the microscope. The fasting group had dense dendritic neural networks. Hunger wasn’t neurotoxic; it was neurotropic, facilitating neural growth and connections. The brain grew stronger in the face of intermittent stress.
He realized that fasting activates an internal survival circuit. When food is scarce, the brain adapts to enhance focus and memory to aid hunting. When food is plentiful, the brain atrophies. Modern overeating is not just a metabolic problem; it’s slow neurological decay.
Fasting improved mitochondrial efficiency —the powerhouses of the cell —reduced oxidative stress, and induced autophagy —the cellular self-cleaning process. He postulated that fasting would help to protect the neurons in diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and depression. He often fasts for 8 hours daily, sometimes eating just a single plant-based meal in the evening so he can keep his mind clear.
He later joined Johns Hopkins and sparked the modern intermittent fasting movement, inspiring millions to adopt a 16:8-hour (16-hour fasts, eating in an 8-hour window) or a 5:2-day (eat for five days and fast for two days) intermittent fasting (IF) regimen.
He remarks the hidden obvious now:
“The body was never designed for constant feeding. Health is found in the spaces between. The body knows how to heal, our job is to stop interrupting it.”
Time-Restricted Eating’s Marvel
It’s not just what you eat, it’s when you eat.
Dr. Stachin Panda
In a building at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, designed by the spiritual architect Louis Kahn, whose hallways captured the path of the sun, Panda investigated the genes that control the circadian clock, the internal rhythm of the body that synchronizes metabolism, sleep, and hormones. He deleted the core clock genes called Cry1 and Cry2 in mice and watched feeding, temperature and glucose cycles become chaotic. The mice grew obese and diabetic, even without eating more food.
One of his students mistakenly left a group of normal mice with limited access to food to only ten hours each night. Despite identical calorie intake, these mice stayed lean, slept better, and lived longer than those fed liberally.
Panda’s eureka moment came instantly as he saw that “It’s not just what you eat, it’s when you eat!” This time-restricted eating (TRE) could reset circadian rhythm and restore metabolic health. He published his studies, restricting feeding to an 8-10 hour window to avoid fatty liver disease and improve glucose tolerance.
In human trials, he observed much the same effects. Reduced weight, improved sleep quality, and sharper focus. Panda associated this with the oscillation of thousands of genes that switch on or off depending on feeding time. This is called epigenetics, where the expression of genes are altered on or off based on environment. When eating is liberal, those genes lose coherence and metabolism drifts out of rhythm, much like an orchestra without a conductor.
He laments, “Modern life is a 24-hour buffet. Our clocks are starving for darkness.” Fasting is not merely abstaining from food, but about rediscovering time as therapy.
Reflection
The rhythm of life
Sets with darkness and light
Disobey and it cuts like a knife
Adhere and you master time’s bite
When dusk descends, let hunger rest
For rest heals the body best
Dr. Kevin Ham
Without context, I did not really understand why or how the ketogenic diet mimics the powerful benefits of fasting. The low carbs reduce glucose levels and, therefore, insulin levels, so the body needs to produce fat energy in the form of ketones, mimicking fasting ketosis. Since the diet is high in fat, you will need to focus on healthy fats (non-processed and little or no heated oils).
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
What is the big bottleneck of Diabetes? Glucose or Fat?
Dr. Kevin Ham
If you have friends or family, please forward my newsletter to them and ask them to sign up. I’d like to help a lot of people reverse and heal their disease.
Life-Changing Question
Can you eat the same meals but in a shorter time frame?
Try for an 8-hour restricted-time feeding period, giving you a daily 16-hour fast, as Mattson has popularized. As you get better at producing ketones, try moving to a 6-hour feeding period. The resting or fasting interval between eating is almost as important as the foods you eat.
Next week—
The Power of Fasting (Part III)
Fasting to stress cancer
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Power of Fasting (Part I)
Many times not doing is the most powerful thing you can do.
Many times not doing is the most powerful thing you can do.
Fasting Reverses Disease Fast
Is it possible that modern abundance carries its own disease?
Dr. Haakon Strøm, during WWII’s insights
We live with ‘too much’ abundance, but not of a good kind.
Rest would do us much good.
Dr. Kevin Ham
We live in an age of overabundance. During WW2, when food became scarce due to forced food rations and the people of Norway had to eat a modest meal of vegetables, whole grains, fish and some fruit but no meat or dairy, incidence and prevalence of heart disease and stroke plummeted 30%. Many cancer rates also declined significantly. Upon freedom, with an abundance of food, the diseases skyrocketed back to previous highs.
What if we simply stopped overeating or skipped just one meal a day? Almost all of our modern day diseases would cease and disappear like Houdini.
A 382 Day Fast
I just stopped eating, and waited for my body to remember what it was.
Angus Barbieri
In 1965, in the coastal town of Tayport, Scotland, 27-year-old Angus Barbieri was at wits’ end. Weighing 456 pounds and 6 feet tall, his BMI exceeded 65, what is defined as ‘gross morbid obesity.’ Always short of breath, ankles swollen, barely able to stand and walk, he checked himself into Maryfield Hospital in Dundee in June 1965, in despair. Doctors planned a short 2-week fast to kick-start some weight loss.
But after a fortnight, his hunger disappeared, his mood lifted, and his blood tests were improving. He asked his physician, Dr. William Stewart, if he could keep going until he reached his proper weight.
That continued for months until it became the longest recorded therapeutic fast in medical history: 382 days!
Protocol Summary
The Slow Reversal of Disease
The slow, methodical, steadfast pace of the human spirit always wins more than the fast, yet brief pace of the rabbit.
Dr. Kevin Ham
The Weight and Lab Results
His doctors noted no muscle wasting beyond expected norms, likely because his enormous fat reserves provided steady energy and protein sparing through ketosis.
The case stunned the medical community.
The Postgraduate Medical Journal (1973; 49: 203–205) became one of the most cited fasting papers of the century. It proved the human body could sustain itself on stored energy far longer than anyone believed. It inspired later studies in very-low-calorie diets, fasting-mimicking protocols, and modern therapeutic fasting clinics.
Yet the authors added a caution:
“Prolonged fasting should not be attempted without close medical supervision. Nevertheless, this case shows the remarkable adaptability of human metabolism.”
Rapid Decline for Freedom
It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer.
Bobby Sands
In the spring of 1981 in Northern Ireland, inside the cells of the Maze Prison, a small group of men decided to protest their being designated as criminals and demanded they be treated as political prisoners. As a protest, they stopped eating.
Bobby Sands, a 27-year-old thoughtful, red-haired poet and community organizer before his arrest for being part of the Irish Republican Army, stopped eating in protest on March 1, 1981. 66 days without food, he died on May 5, 1981.
The Biology of Starvation
Medical teams monitoring from a distance (the prisoners refused medical intervention) recorded the grim timeline of starvation:
Days 1–10: Glycogen gone, liver begins converting fat to ketones.
Days 10–30: Fat reserves deplete; muscle breakdown begins.
Days 40–60: Organ tissue catabolized; heart, kidneys, and lungs weaken; eyesight fails; hallucinations begin. By Day 40, Sands weighed less than 100 pounds. He could no longer stand.
After Day 60: Multi-organ failure, cardiac arrest, death. By Day 60, his heartbeat was faint; he drifted in and out of consciousness, reciting prayers and writing fragments of poems.
His last entry in his diary read:
“I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul.
Royal Road to Healing: The 21 Day Fast
When the digestive fire rests, the spirit rises.
Otto Buchinger Sr.
Desperate for relief, Buchinger heard about a doctor in Freiburg, Dr. Gusta Riedlin, who treated incurable patients by supervising them by withholding food. Dr. Riedlin greeted him with his customary, “For three weeks, you will eat nothing. Only water, broth and rest. Trust nature.”
On his Freiburg clinic door was his signature phrase, which is still printed in naturopathy textbooks today: “Fasting is an operation without a knife.”
Riedlin told his students that to fast was to practice bravery in small doses. It was the daily rehearsal of death and rebirth, a sacred interruption of appetite, ego, and habit. “In hunger,” he said, “we meet both our weakness and our will.”
The first week was torture. In extreme pain from his disease and layered with hunger and silence, but by the 12th day, the pain in his joints began to ease. By the 18th day, he could walk unaided. On day 19, he began to eat some fruit, then vegetables and then carbs to break his fast. On the 21st, he wrote in his journal, “A miracle born of emptiness.’
He returned home whole and began to measure fasting’s effects with the precision of a naval logbook with blood pressure, pulse, uric acid, and joint swelling. He performed miraculous cures for his patients, including curing pain, high blood pressure, high triglycerides and arthritis. He added structured refeeding after the 3-week-long fast, herbal teas, meditation, and long walks by the lake. Fasting, he declared, must be holistic with whole body, mind and moral renewal.
His clinic on Lake Constance in 1920 expanded as his “Buchinger Method’ became Europe’s most respected therapeutic fast, treating arthritis, hypertension, diabetes, and chronic fatigue. He called it the “royal road to healing.” He lived a healthy life until 88, and his legacy continues to this day.
Autophagy
We live by constant destruction and rebuilding. Life is maintenance. If we forget that, we age not just in body, but in mind.
Dr. Yoshinari Ohsumi
The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi.
In the quiet basement of the University of Tokyo in 1990, peering through a microscope observed starving yeast, and the formation of odd bubbles forming inside them, eventually consuming fragments of the cell, it looked like cellular destruction, but on more careful observation, the cell was dismantling its damaged parts to recycle the amino acids for survival. This was repair through digestion.
He coined the term autophagy from the Greek auto, self, and phagein, to eat.
By 1992, Ohsumi discovered the genes that, when disabled, stopped the self-eating recycling mechanism and named these genes ATG1 to ATG15, the autophagy-related genes, and mapped the cell’s recycling plant —the process by which we renew ourselves at the cellular level.
When insulin and nutrients fall, mTOR, the molecule that commands growth, steps back and allows AMPK, the energy sensor, to step into command.
The cell removes malfunctioning mitochondria, misfolded proteins, and precancerous DNA.
In the liver, autophagy clears fat droplets.
In the brain, it dissolves amyloid tangles.
In the heart, it rejuvenates mitochondria.
In the immune system, it prunes old senescent cells.
Without autophagy, disease accumulates like fat and rust.
With autophagy, the body becomes antifragile, reversing disease, and becoming cleaner, smarter, and younger.
Animal studies show that stimulating autophagy can extend lifespan by 30-40%. Humans with high autophagy markers have lower cancer and neurodegeneration risk.
Long fasts of 48-72 hours can amplify autophagy by 8-10x, initiating stem-cell regeneration and immune renewal.
Even time-restricted feeding (TMF) of 16-18 hours daily activates a mild 1.5- 2x increase in autophagy, enough to clear the day’s cellular clutter before it turns into disease.
Ohsumi gives the quiet but stern warning that modern society, with its constant eating and over stimulation, “denies the cell its natural fasting state. Without emptiness, we drown in our own abundance.”
Renewal does not occur by adding but by subtracting. The body heals not by gaining but by letting go. When Ohsumi was asked for his advice on longevity, it was simply,
“Eat less, move more, and give your cells time to clean their rooms.”
11 Day Fasts - Dr. Alan Goldhamer
If you stop doing the things that cause disease, the body will heal itself.
Dr. Alan Goldhamer
Over in America, in Santa Rosa, California, in 1990, Dr. Alan Goldhamer, trained as a chiropractor, didn’t want to manage disease but instead remove its cause. Goldhamer had studied the early fasting physicians —Tanner with his public 40-day fast in New York and Buchinger with his 21-day fasts —and wanted to test their anecdotes with medical data.
His idea was simple, yet radical: create an inpatient facility for medically supervised water-only fasting. Just water and rest, monitored by physicians, nurses and charts.
The body’s response of over 20,000 who checked themselves in was astonishing!
A hypertensive who entered at 180/110 mmHg left two weeks later at 118/72.
His studies show 174 hypertensive patients who fasted for about 11 days, then refed 6-7 days on a plant diet, saw blood pressure fall 37 mmHg systolic and 13mmHg diastolic.
Severe high blood pressures dropped 60 mmHg systolic and all patients stopped medications.
A second study of 68 people with “borderline” hypertension found a 20/7 mm Hg drop, with 82 percent reaching 120/80 or lower.
Inflammatory markers, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and TNF-alpha, declined sharply. Cholesterol normalized. Insulin sensitivity improved.
Goldhamer’s TrueNorth became the largest fasting database in the world, 20,000 water-only fasts over thirty years.
The cure is simple, the results are simply profound. Goldhamer modestly says,
“We let nature do the work, we just stay out of the way.”
Alternating 24 or 36 Hour Fasts - Dr. Jason Fung
The most powerful medicine for diabetes is not a pill but a fast.
Dr. Kevin Ham
A few decades later in 2018, a brilliant doctor in Toronto Canada, Dr. Jason Fung, put three men who had long-standing severe diabetes on a supervised, alternating 24 to 36-hour fasting protocol with whole-food meals in between.
For half a century, diabetes was considered chronic. Medications were added over the years until insulin was a mainstay, with possible blindness, kidney dialysis or leg amputations.
But these patients proved that all was false.
Patient A: 5 Days to Normal
Age / Profile: 52-year-old, 5-year history of type 2 diabetes; injecting 70 units of insulin daily plus metformin.
Fasting protocol: 24-hour fasts, three times per week, alternating with low-carb whole-food days.
Day 1–3: insulin doses halved; glucose dropped steadily from 14 mmol/L (252 mg/dL) → 7 mmol/L (126 mg/dL).
Day 5: insulin discontinued entirely. No hypoglycemia.
Month 1: fasting blood glucose stable between 5–6 mmol/L (90–108 mg/dL).
Month 3: HbA1c ↓ from 12.0 → 7.5 %; weight ↓ 10 kg (22 lb); waist ↓ 13 cm.
Month 6: off all diabetic meds; energy “better than in twenty years.”
Patient B: 9 Days to Normal
Age / Profile: 60, diabetic for 10 years, on insulin + two oral agents.
Fasting protocol: 36-hour fasts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Week 1: insulin tapered from 60 → 20 units/day; fasting glucose fell from 11 → 6 mmol/L.
Day 9: last insulin injection; continued oral metformin briefly.
Month 2: HbA1c 7.2 → 6.0 %; weight ↓ 11 kg (24 lb); waist ↓ 13 cm.
Month 6: all medication stopped; fasting glucose consistently < 6 mmol/L (108 mg/dL).
Patient C: 18 days to Normal
Age / Profile: 67, 15-year diabetic, on multiple daily injections + statin + ACE inhibitor.
Fasting protocol: 24-hour fasts three times weekly, later extended to 36 hours.
Week 3: insulin stopped after 18 days; oral meds halved.
Month 2: HbA1c 6.8 → 6.2 %; weight ↓ 9 kg (20 lb); waist ↓ 13 cm.
Month 10: still off insulin; blood pressure normalized; HDL ↑ 10 %, triglycerides ↓ 25 %.
Reflection
Empty your heart
Abstain from food and wine
Let the abundance depart
To restore your original design
Dr. Kevin Ham
Life is simple and profound. Reflect upon how the emptiness of the vessel is the most useful part of the vessel. Inside your body is a filling and emptiness. To be full, you must empty.
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
What is the big bottleneck of Diabetes? Glucose or Fat?
Dr. Kevin Ham
If you have friends or family, please forward my newsletter to them and ask them to sign up. I’d like to help many people reverse and heal their disease.
Life-Changing Question
What can you subtract in your diet or your life for 30 days to be whole and full again?
Within the law of multiplication hides the fact that you must subtract to multiply. Not just subtract one thing, but 80% of the things you do, you think, you eat to find the 20% that give you the bulk of your results, the 80%. This is the 80/20 principle and it resides in all facets of life and nature.
Next week—
The Power of Fasting (Part II)
Many times not doing is the most powerful thing you can do.
Subscribe to my Compounding Wisdom newsletter and start transforming your life.
The Diabetes Reversal Flywheel
Emptying the liver to live fully
Emptying the liver to live fully
Low Carb Diets Work But Not the 1st Choice
Sometimes the villain hides in plain sight while we focus on red herrings.
Dr. Kevin Ham
It makes sense to reduce carbs, i.e., glucose, to reverse Diabetes, as high glucose levels lead to high insulin, which then stores the excess glucose as energy (glycogen & fat) in the liver, pancreas, muscles, and adipose (fat) cells.
But where is the biggest bottleneck in Diabetes?
The Biggest Constraint in Diabetes
Unlocking the stored fat in the liver, pancreas, muscles and blood vessels allows the flow of energy in days to weeks.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Let's say that the rain (like refined sugars) is the cause of an accident on the highway. That accident initiates an initial block to traffic flow (stored fat in the liver), and the continued rain leads to more crashes, resulting in even more blocks.
The rain continues, but the many accidents have now blocked the highway to a standstill.
Which is the big bottleneck? The rain or the accidents?
When Diabetes is longstanding, there is multi-organ dysfunction in the liver, pancreas, muscles, and the endothelial cells of the blood vessels in the heart, brain, and legs.
Removing the blockages, ie, the accidents, will allow traffic to flow despite the continued rain.
In the case of Diabetes, we want to first focus on removing the big bottlenecks of fat in the liver, pancreas, muscles and adipose tissue, as well as the potential plaques in the blood vessels (as this can result in life-threatening heart attacks or strokes).
Make sense?
Rapid Reversal of Diabetes
Almost unbelievable reversal in just two weeks is a testament to the healing powers of the body when you let it heal.
Dr. Kevin Ham
That's why Fred had such a profound effect when we focused on removing the visceral fat in the arteries and theorgans. In just 2 weeks, his high blood pressure normalized without need for his two bp meds, his fasting glucose was under 6 mM (108 mg/dL) and insulin sensitivity was great at 16. His LDL cholesterol decreased from 107 mg/dL (2.83 mM) to a remarkably low level of just 34 mg/dL (0.88 mM), which is lower than his HDL at 38. He is now in plaque and fat removal mode. With exercise, he can further lower his LDL while increasing his HDL and rapidly reverse plaque.
Keeping Health vs Reversing Disease
Keeping health is very different from restoring health. It requires a change in your mind and in your lifestyle.
Dr. Kevin Ham
When you are healthy, it is like being wealthy. The first rule, then, is to retain health and retain wealth. You don't have to do anything drastic when you are healthy or wealthy. Maintain a low-risk, low-reward lifestyle.
However, when disease develops, you need to seriously consider changing your lifestyle habits and consult a doctor about medicines or surgery when indicated. Now, the risks are higher, so you must reduce them significantly and seek higher rewards. Regaining lost wealth is far more challenging than maintaining it. This is a key rule for Warren Buffet: Rule #1. Don't lose money (wealth/health).
Rule #2. Don't forget Rule #1. Simple right?
Does diet matter when you are healthy?
As long as the foods are natural and whole, cultures with low disease prevalence have shown that macronutrients don't seem to matter much, whether high or low in carbs, fats, or protein.
But when disease comes, it's cause and effect. The effect is disease. What is the cause? You need to stop what is causing your disease and then allow your body to heal itself. Sometimes you need medicines to help when the disease is more advanced.
I considered a stent, statins and baby aspirin as my coronary artery was blocked 77%. My CT heart flow showed that despite that high degree of blockage, I have a remarkably effective blood flow of 75% and my HIIT exercises must have enabled my blocked arteries to dilate enough as well as form collateral vessels (natural bypasses). I believe that I can reduce this blockage by 50% and possibly even eliminate it completely. We shall see, and by the grace of God, what happens over the next 2-3 years. And my LDL cholesterol reduced by 50% in 5 weeks and by 64% in 3 months, so there was no need for a statin. Additionally, my plaques were all stable (not low-attenuated on CT), and therefore, there was no need for a baby aspirin.
Throughout history, many cultures thrived on high-carb, fruit-rich diets without Diabetes:
Okinawans (Japan): 70% calories from sweet potatoes, fruits, vegetables → slim, long-lived, no diabetes until Western food arrived. Long life and healthspan of 85 years and most centenarians (100 year olds)
Kitavans (Papua New Guinea): diet of starchy tubers, fruits (bananas, papaya, mango), coconuts → no obesity, Diabetes, or heart disease.
Tarahumara (Mexico): corn, beans, squash, fruits → virtually no diabetes until refined foods arrived.
Hadza (Tanzania): half their calories in the rainy season from fruit & honey → still no diabetes thanks to fiber, activity, and absence of processed oils.
Traditional Pacific Islanders: breadfruit, papaya, banana, yam → no diabetes before sugar/flour/oils were introduced.
Once processed foods entered these cultures, they began to develop the diseases prevalent today. Carbs are not the true villain. It's the types of carbs (refined), fats (heated, processed, with a high omega-6 ratio) that lead to metabolic dysfunction. Whole-food carbs (fruit, beans, grains, roots) are healthy.
Reversal Flywheel
Turning a vicious cycle into a virtuous cycle is the eighth wonder of life, reversing worsening disease into improving health.
Dr. Kevin Ham
Fasting: Empties overflowing fat stores in the liver and visceral fat, providing 'clean energy' for healthy cells, and induces autophagy (the process of cleaning up cancerous and diseased cells) to recycle and eliminate metabolic waste throughout the body. The low-fat, low-calorie diet accelerates this liver fat reversal.
Healing Foods: Targeted foods that both clean up metabolic overload (LDL, glucose, fatty acids) as well as heal damaged cells, organs, systems, and restore proper hormonal balance. These healing foods replace the damaging foods you once ate, and the reversal becomes remarkable.
Exercise: Helps clear glucose into muscles and empty stored fat, allowing the body to work and run more efficiently. This allows insulin to do its job when it needs to and return to its resting state most of the time, rather than working all the time without effect (insulin resistance leading to higher glucose and insulin levels all the time = diabetes). More vigorous exercise utilizes glucose more quickly, thereby reducing insulin requirements. This is a key for post-meal exercises.
This creates a powerful, synergistic flywheel that makes you leaner, healthier and fitter. You will feel better, clearer and stronger with each rotation of the flywheel.
3 Month Goal: Reverse Diabetes Completely
Blood vessels start healing right away, just like a cut heals. You put a bandaid on cuts to allow it to heal, so why not put a bandaid on your liver, pancreas and blood vessels.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I believe the metabolic dysfunction that leads to Diabetes can be reversed in as little as a week, but the method to do so is very hard, as it means not eating for a week to unlock and reset your body's metabolism. If you are on drugs, there are dangers of hypoglycemia and too much fat and toxins released from the stored fat into the blood all of a sudden, which can have potential issues.
In a study of end-stage diabetics who needed amputations, a 7-day supervised water fast saved them from amputations ~half the time—quite drastic measures for a drastic consequence of Diabetes.
Another study showed that in just 2 to 7 days, liver fat can decrease by 34%, restore hepatic insulin sensitivity, and reduce fasting insulin levels by 40-60%, resulting in normal liver fat by ~8 weeks. These people were on a low-calorie, low-carb diet. (Kirk et al., Gastroenterology 2009; Taylor 2013, 2019 - "Newcastle Counterpoint program"; Luukkonen et al., PNAS 2020).
For Fred, I proposed a Reversal Protocol that I felt was 'doable'. Before he started, he said he didn't have the willpower or motivation to change anything at all. But when I sat down with him for an hour to explain what we were going to do and why it would work, he decided to try his best for three months and see. As you saw in my last newsletter, he has had remarkable results in just two weeks.
I know this will work for the majority of people because the principles follow the metabolic principles of the body. To date, you've been putting too much of the wrong type of gas (ie: wrong types of foods) into an already full, overflowing gas tank. The excess gas is leaking out and overflowing in your blood and organs.
Core Goals:
Reverse insulin resistance at its root by sequentially depleting fat in those organs and restoring metabolic flexibility.
First, the liver (1st week) - decrease fasting glucose, insulin, liver enzymes.
Then pancreas (1st month) - decrease post-meal glucose
Then muscle (2nd month) - increase insulin sensitivity (HOMA-IR < 1.5)
Core Goal in 1 week:
Rapidly empty liver fat stores and restore liver insulin sensitivity, so that the liver stops over-producing glucose, allowing fasting glucose and fasting insulin to normalize. Need to monitor glucose and medications if hypoglycemia.
Expected 1-week outcomes:
Liver fat: ↓ 25-35%
Fasting glucose: ↓ 15-30 mg/dL (1-2 mM)
Fasting insulin: ↓ 40-50%
Triglycerides: ↓ 10-20%
ALT/AST (liver enzymes): 10-30%
Weight: ↓ 2-3 kg (mostly glycogen, water and some fat)
Month 1 Goals:
↓ 10-20 pounds
Fasting glucose < 6.5 mM; Post meal < 11 mM
HbA1c ↓ 0.5-1%+
LDL ↓ 30%+
TG ↓ 30%+
Meds reduced (Fred had to discontinue 4 of 6 medications due to too low blood pressure)
Reduce Metformin to once per day if fasting glucose < 100 mg/dL. Discontinue if fasting glucose 80-95 mg/dl.
2-week results for Fred:
↓ 11 pound
Fasting glucose < 6.0mM; Post meal < 11 mM
Fasting insulin 7 microIU/ml (great)
Insulin resistance score 16 (<33 is insulin sensitive)
LDL ↓ 107 mg/dL to 34 mg/dL. (decreased 68% in 2 weeks) Wow!!!
4 of 6 meds discontinued (due to too low blood pressure)
Plan to remain on rosuvastatin (may reduce dosage) for cholesterol to keep LDL low for plaque reversal as found visible plaque on carotid artery ultrasound
Plan to remain on metformin for 3 mo until HbA1c is normal (~3 months)
Month 2 Goals:
↓ 15-25 pounds
Fasting glucose < 6 mM; Post meal < 10 mM
HbA1c ↓ 1.5%+
LDL ↓ 40%+
TG ↓ 40%+
Month 3 Goals:
↓ 20-30 pounds+
HbA1c ↓ 2-3% (remission range)
Fasting glucose < 6 mM; Post meal < 9 mM
LDL ↓ 50%+
TG ↓ 50%+
HDL ↑ 10%+
Stop metformin end of month
Reflection
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
Dr. Kevin Ham
I just love this poem so much that I shall imprint it into my heart. My heart aches at all the disease in me and in people around me. Heal our bodies, our minds and our spirits, O Lord.
Ease the Heartache of Loved Ones
What is the big bottleneck of Diabetes? Glucose or Fat?
Dr. Kevin Ham
If you have friends or family, please forward my newsletter to them and ask them to sign up. I want to help a lot of people reverse and heal their disease.
Life-Changing Question
What one ‘bad’ habit that is leading you to disease or remain in disease can you cast away starting today?
Sometimes the best thing you can do in life is to stop something that is causing or will cause you harm.
Examine yourself, your heart, to ponder and discover what the best thing for you to stop is. Sometimes you already know. Sometimes it is as simple as making a decision for yourself to cast it away, like you put waste into the garbage.
Next week—
The Power of Fasting
Many times not doing is the most powerful thing you can do.
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