Cardiovascular Cure Review

100,000 miles of blood vessels course through your body—over six billion inches of vital pipelines, all lined with a delicate one-cell-deep tissue called the endothelium. Dr. John Cooke is obsessed with the endothelium, and this excellent book makes his interest contagious.

"You're only as old as your endothelium," says Cooke. That's because a healthy endothelium acts like Teflon to smooth blood flow, and helps blood vessels dilate and constrict more flexibly. A healthy endothelium also produces more nitric oxide (NO), which recent Nobel-Prize-winning research shows is a natural heart medicine. (Nitroglycerin pills, commonly used to treat angina pain, are the artificial substitute for natural NO.) "We know now," says Cooke, "that the endothelium exerts tremendous control over blood flow. It is, in essence, a silver lining, since when it's healthy it produces its own form of heart medicine."

But the endothelium easily becomes unhealthy, which leads to atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries. What makes it unhealthy? High cholesterol levels. Smoking. Overweight. Diabetes. Stress. Lack of exercise. When the endothelium becomes unhealthy, it produces less NO. Then this lining becomes more like Velcro than Teflon, and bits of cholesterol become embedded in the blood vessel walls. Your immune system sends white blood cells to clean out the cholesterol, creating pimple-like plaques and scars on the blood vessel wall. The plaques rupture, creating clots. Soon, you're vulnerable to heart attacks, brain attacks (strokes) or debilitating pains in the arms and legs, depending on where in your body the endothelial damage occurs.

To say the endothelium is easily impaired is an understatement. "Just one fast food meal can make your endothelial cells sick," says Cooke. He cites a study by Robert Vogel at SUNY that showed blood flow in the brachial artery was only half of normal, two hours after a burger and fries. But fortunately, this rapid decline can be balanced by rapid recovery. Dr. Cooke spends most of his book outlining his diet and exercise recommendations, which he has found successful in starting to reverse endothelial damage in as little as two weeks. [NB: I don't mean to imply that you should follow Cooke's advice for only two weeks. His suggestions are for permanent lifestyle change—but results begin to be apparent in just a few weeks.]

The crux of The Cardiovascular Cure's advice revolves around diet and exercise, though medication, for more serious risks, is included. Surgery is mentioned only briefly; Cooke believes that most of America's 900,000 annual angioplasties are unwarranted, especially since this balloon-inflation process rips the endothelium and severely damages the blood vessels as it attempts to clean them out. When lifestyle changes can begin to improve health in as little as two weeks, it's logical to avoid surgery except when a patient is already in a life-threatening crisis.

Cooke's recommended diet is a combination of the DASH diet and a traditional Mediterranean diet. It includes 7-9 daily servings of fruits and vegetables, plus whole grains, nuts, Omega-3 fatty acids (from fish or flax seed), plant protein (especially soy) and limited animal protein. As such, it is, in my opinion, simply the diet we should all be eating in any event. To help you turn Cooke's advice into lifelong habits, his book includes over five-dozen recipes, most of them simple and appetizing.

[I'll digress here to share Cooke's recipe for chocolate pudding made with tofu. This sounded so bizarre I tried it when my husband was out of town—despite his history of willingly participating in my cooking experiments. It turned out so well I've made it for company, who never knew it contained tofu! The Recipe: Break up 6 ounces of high-quality dark chocolate, and melt in the microwave. While the chocolate cools to lukewarm, beat 8 ounces of silken tofu in a large bowl until creamy and smooth. Mix in one teaspoon vanilla extract and the melted chocolate, then pour the pudding into four small bowls. Chill for two hours, then garnish with raspberries and mint leaves. Let sit at room temperature 15-30 minutes before serving.]

The Cardiovascular Cure is wonderfully readable, thanks to the writing skills of Judith Zimmer, an experienced science writer who partnered with Cooke in creating this book. Clear structure makes complex topics slide into our brains. The section on atherosclerosis risks, for instance, is logically divided into those you can do something about (diet, smoking, etc.) and those you can't (genes, gender, age). An earlier section reviews all the factors that may impair your endothelial health in a clear three-part format: "You may have [this factor]"… "You may need [this solution]"… "Why". Later, Cooke & Zimmer offer a quiz for you to rate your individual risk factors, then divide their prescriptive advice into four chapters corresponding to different quiz scores.

The last two-dozen pages of the book are titled "Information for Your Doctor." This book contains cutting-edge information based on recent discoveries, largely in the last decade. Overworked doctors may not yet be up to speed on all of this—and may look askance at a patient who wants to follow Cooke's advice. This section "speaks doctor," providing extra background and references on many of the approaches and supplements Cooke recommends.

The Cardiovascular Cure's title may falsely lead people to believe this book is only for those with heart disease. In fact, everyone with blood vessels should read this book (hint: this means you!). Unless you are one of the very few Americans who already eat an exemplary diet, your blood vessels are undergoing daily damage that will inexorably lead to heart attack, stroke or at the very least high blood pressure. These are not inevitable consequences of age! Once you've read John Cooke and Judith Zimmer's excellent book, you'll know why you need to change your ways—and you'll have a clear guide to doing so.

Email us your comments or your own review of this book.

Review © 2003 Cynthia Harriman.
All nutritional information on this website is as accurate as current research allows—though complex issues are often simplified to make important points clear. GoodFoodBooks.com humbly invites all professionals to email us with their ideas for improving the accuracy of our information while still leaving it clear enough to help normal people.