Vital Sings: Reversing Disease

Premieres: April 27, 2020.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

00:25 Sanjay Gupta:

Imagine receiving a diagnosis and then learning there’s not much you can do to fight your disease. That’s the reality for so many people around the world. But as technology catches up and we learn more about our own biology, the concept of reversing disease may now become a reality. This is Vital Signs. I’m Dr Sanjay Gupta.

Before we begin, I want to be clear on something: today we’re going to be talking about extraordinary cases. These are the exceptions, not the rule.

We don’t want to give anyone false hope, but it is worth exploring the possibilities presented by these unique outcomes.

00:58 And there is a precedent, here. It happened with HIV. A select, very small group of patients, known as ‘elite controllers’ contracted HIV, but then never got sick. Studying these patients taught us about the biology of the virus, and even how to treat it.

Reversals can offer a glimpse into these illnesses like never before, from rare diseases to some of the most common.

10.22 When you think of foodborne illness, what comes to mind? Probably salmonella, E. coli, listeria, but would you ever include heart disease on that list? Dr Caldwell Esselstyn thinks you should.

DR CALDWELL ESSELSTYN, Jr, Author, ‘Prevent and Reverse Hearth Disease’

01:37 Dr Caldwell Esselstyn:

If the truth be known, coronary artery heart disease is nothing more than a toothless paper tiger that need never, ever exist. And if it does exist, it need never progress. This is a completely benign foodborne illness.

01.54 Sanjay Gupta:

Dr Esselstyn has been studying and treating patients with cardiovascular disease at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute for 30 years. But he’s not prescribing drugs or surgeries. For his patients, it’s all about the right food.

02:07 Emer McNamara’s:

This should be good. I should have used the rice cooker.

02.12 Sanjay Gupta:

Jim McNamara is one of those patients.

02.15 After experiencing a stroke ten years ago, Jim underwent five operations to fix his carotid artery and the blockage in his leg.

02.23 Jim McNamara:

When I turned 55, that year things changed drastically for me. I had a stroke.

02:30 Sanjay Gupta:

Frustrated and facing yet another operation, Jim felt he was at rock bottom. Then his wife, Emer, heard about Dr Esselstyn’s programme, which promotes a plant-based diet.

Jim McNamara:

I thought, I can’t do that, and I pictured walking around with a head of broccoli and a handful of alfalfa sprouts, and I can tell you now nothing is further from the truth.

02.52 Dr Esselstyn:

How many times have you ever heard of a person who walked into the emergency room and said ‘my God, help me out, I’m Omega-3 deficient.

03:01 Sanjay Gupta:

Within a week, Jim was sitting in a seminar just like this. Dr Esselstyn holds them once a month for visiting medical professionals and interested patients.

03.11 Jim McNamara:

I remember walking in just thinking ‘wow,’ just overwhelmed. The one thing I do remember about it is… it’s like somebody telling you to quit smoking. You can’t argue with the facts. You see it in black and white.

03.24 Sanjay Gupta:

He goes to the science…

Dr Esselstyn:

High cholesterol will injure DDAH.

03:31 Sanjay Gupta:

Then his wife, Ann, details the diet.

Ann Esselstyn:

So you have this little handful of spinach with heft…

03.39 Sanjay Gupta:

It’s a lot to take in and the biggest question? How realistic is it, to stick to this?

03.45 That’s where previous patients come in. Today, Jim is one of them.

03.50 Jim McNamara:

I guess I’d just like the start off by saying that I am living proof that wholefood plant-based nutrition works.

04:00 I did doubt it, but it’s amazing, when you have a feeling of desperation, how that can trump any doubts that you might have. I mean, I think I was at the point where, what else can I do? I have to give this a shot.

04.13 Sanjay Gupta:

Cardiovascular disease is the leading killer of men and women in the Western world. According to the American Heart Association, nearly 86 million Americans alone live with some kind of cardiovascular disease, but you don’t find those kinds of numbers in other regions of the globe, like central Africa, or rural China.

04:33 Dr Esselstyn, along with his wife, Ann, decided to completely change their own diets to plant-based, which means no meat, fish, dairy or oils. So… what should you eat? Are you ready?

04.46 Dr Esselstyn:

Bok choy, swiss chard, kale, collards, collard greens, beet greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, napa cabbage, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cilantro, parsley, spinach and arugula and asparagus.

04:56 And it is a significant lifestyle change, but remember this: it is a lifestyle change that millions of people across the planet have had through hundreds and hundreds of years.

05.09 Sanjay Gupta:

After successfully converting to the diet himself, Dr Esselstyn began prescribing it to his patients in the 1980s. And what he found was remarkable.

05.18 Dr Esselstyn:

As we’ve shown on multiple occasions, not only can we stop it, we can reverse it.

05.25 Sanjay Gupta:

Critics of this diet maintain that nutrition is just one part of heart health, in addition to exercise and lowering cholesterol.

05:30 Meat, dairy and eggs all remain part of the US Dietary Guidelines for a healthy balanced diet, but Dr Esselstyn points those same critics to the science and the results he’s seen time and time again, over the course of 30 years.

05.45 In one of his own studies, published in 2014, he had a 90% compliance rate with the diet. Of those 177 compliant patients, 99.4% – as in all of them, except for one – had no further major cardiac events.

06:02 Dr Esselstyn:

This seismic revolution, we’re at the cusp of it right now. It’s not going to happen from inventing another pill. It’s not going to come from inventing another procedure.

06.12 Sanjay Gupta:

With all the evidence, you might be wondering why more doctors aren’t pointing their patients in the same direction. Dr Esselstyn believes it comes down to a lack of training.

For Jim McNamara, the support from his family, and particularly his wife, was the key to his success.

06:29 Just six months after starting the diet he was dancing at his daughter’s wedding – something he wasn’t sure he be able to do it all.

06.40 Five years after he first sat in that seminar, Jim’s blood pressure is normal. He’s maintained his weight loss and he can walk from long periods of time with no discomfort. He is completely turned his cardiovascular health around.

0653.Jim McNamara:

I know it works and I know it’s something that everybody can do. There’s no better feeling than driving the boat yourself.

07:00 You’re in control of your health, to a very large degree, and when you see what it’s done for other people, it’s tremendous.

07.11Sanjay Gupta:

Cardiovascular disease is common, but what can we learn from rare diseases?

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. You probably know it better as ALS. It comes from the Greek language and means ‘no muscle nourishment’.

07:29 That’s exactly what happens when someone has ALS: a neurodegenerative disease that impacts nerve cells.

07.32 The brain can no longer communicate with muscles. That leads to extreme weakness and disability. There’s no cure for ALS. Doctors can only manage symptoms for their patients. But for a very small group of patients there has been some improvement, and that’s practically unheard of in ALS.

07.48 So what is it about these patients that made them get a little bit better, and most importantly, what can we learn from them?

08:06 It was a craze that swept the globe: fill a bucket with ice, dump it over your head in film it for all to see on social media. Some, maybe better than others. It was the ALS ice bucket challenge. The goal? To raise money for research on ALS, a devastating, debilitating disease with no cure.

08:28 April McDuff did the ice bucket challenge next to her husband, Mike.

April McDuff: One, two, three!

Sanjay Gupta:

For them, it was personal.

08.41 Mike was diagnosed with the ALS back in October 2012.

08.46 Mike McDuff:

About 2010 I started to get symptoms. What happened was, my arms started to get weak, I was starting to lose muscle tone in my shoulders and my arms and I went to my doctor and at that time I had rheumatoid arthritis, so I was going into Boston for the rheumatoid arthritis.

09:04 And when I went in that day, I said ‘you know, doctor, something’s not right’ and he looked at me, and goes, ‘what is going on?’

09.10 Sanjay Gupta:

ALS is a neurodegenerative disease that disrupts the connection between the brain and the muscles. It leads to weakness in the arms and legs, and often the mouth, causing issues with speech and swallowing.

09:25 Dr Richard Bedlack runs the ALS clinic at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He has devoted his life to this disease, one that has remained a mystery to doctors and scientists for decades.

Dr RICHARD BEDLACK, Founder, Duke ALS Clinic

09.37 Richard Bedlack:

And it was actually during my neurology residency that I saw my first patient with ALS, and of all the things I had seen up until that point, I thought it was the most amazing and most terrible of all the diseases.

It’s literally like an explosion went off in your nervous system. Plus, there was so little known about it back then in the late 90s and most amazing of all, Duke really didn’t have much to offer for it.

10:00 Sanjay Gupta:

Dr Bedlack opened this multidisciplinary clinic in 2001. His goal is to give patients more options. Even put a smile on their faces, despite the circumstances. That’s where the fun outfits come in.

10.14 Richard Bedlack:

So, the clothes can be a great icebreaker. The first thing we can is laugh about a purple jacket with butterflies on it that I have on that day. It often is the first thing that people want to know is ‘what has he got on today?’ ‘Can I get a selfie with him for Facebook?’ you know, that kind of stuff so, it works.

10:30 Sanjay Gupta:

Though more is known about the ALS today than when Dr Bedlack first started, the fact remains that no one has ever beaten the disease. But he thinks maybe there’s a chance to at least get better.

10.44 Richard Bedlack:

My life is a lot like the life of Fox Mulder was on the X-Files. People are constantly sending me weird stuff, like they hear about on the internet, somebody in a chat room said his wife got exposed to something and suddenly she could walk again and she hadn’t walked for 10 years or somebody saw a news clip, in the case of Mike McDuff.

11:06 Sanjay Gupta:

Mike McDuff, the guy in the ice bucket challenge video, saw his health declining. He could barely speak, he couldn’t swallow, eating through a feeding tube. He called his adult children back home to say goodbye.

11.18 He and his wife even picked out a plot at the local cemetery and then one of his friends mentioned a nutritional supplement, called Lunasin.

11:27 Mike McDuff:

And she told me about it. And I had nothing else to lose, and she’s been a good friend, you know, so I said, ‘I’ll try it’.

11.38 It took time, I was very patient, but one thing I noticed: when my wife was giving me the shakes, I noticed in the first month… I couldn’t put my finger on it. I felt a little better, I felt a little more energy and in December I had company over, my wife was making a nice pot roast dinner, and I said ‘you know, hon, can you just give me a little bit of mash potations and gravy? I’m going to see if I can do it’.

12:02 She said ‘are you sure?’ I said, ‘yeah, I want to see what I can do’. So, I was able to get it down. I started her crying, because you know what? Something was working.

12.14 Sanjay Gupta:

Mike’s case is exactly the kind of rare exception to the usual rules of ALS that Dr Bedlack is looking for. He scours the internet and connects with doctors around the world.

12:24 Once he finds a so-called ALS reversal, he verifies it by pulling medical records and speaking with the patient’s doctors. If he’s convinced the person has ALS and not a disease with symptoms that mimic it, he gets to work trying, to crack the case.

12.39 Richard Bedlack:

I’m up to a total of 24 confirmed ALS reversals, now. People that I really have the records, I really believe they have ALS and I really believe they’re dramatically better.

12.49 Sanjay Gupta:

Those 24 cases vary in the treatments used. Mike McDuff is one of them Dr Bedlack started a pilot trial based on the exact regimen Mike followed, enrolling 50 patients.

13:01 Richard Bedlack:

Can you lift the knee at all?

Matt Teasdale: I have tried that.

Sanjay Gupta: One of them is 58-year-old Matthew Teasdale. He’s been on Lunasin for six months – halfway through the trial. It’s too early to know for sure the long-term impact here, but Matt has already seen improvements.

Unidentified woman:

Alright, let’s see your calves jump up. Can you lift your knee? Ok. Wow!

13:26 Sanjay Gupta:

In this video you can see Matt moving his legs – a shocking development.

13.31 Matt Teasdale:

The legs died, I say, in January, eight months ago, nine months ago where I could stare at my legs and nothing would happen. Well, I started to be able to push with two feet and one hadn’t moved in six months, so I said, ‘we’re on to something here!’

13:53 Richard Bedlack:

Yeah, I think it’s exciting. I think it’s still too early to tell what it means yet. As we’ve talked about before, sometimes people with ALS do just spontaneously get a little better for a short period of time, but hopefully this is the start of something much bigger.

14.08 Sanjay Gupta:

For patients like Matt Teasdale and Mike McDuff it’s all about quality of life. Mike knows it isn’t a cure for ALS, that Lunasin won’t work for everyone, but maybe there’s something we can learn from his case that could help even one more person.

14:24 He’s experienced the worst of ALS, so no one knows better than him just how important that could be.

14.30 Mike McDuff:

I’m here. I’m alive. I’ve got a better quality of life. My heart goes out to those poor ALS patients, people that can’t do nothing – they can’t talk, they can’t swallow, just so weak.

I know there’s a cure out there, but we have to be very patient. Like I’ve been very patient. I was one of the fortunate ones. It really helped me. And I hope I can help other people, too.

15:00 Sanjay Gupta:

Disease reversals, while rare, can occur under the right circumstances. For one family in the UK, that meant saving their father from diabetes and an amputation.

15.12 64-year-old Geoff Whittington and his two sons, Ian and Anthony, are close, literally. Their homes are only a few miles apart. They have lunch together, they work together. They take bike rides together.

15:28  But it wasn’t always this way. It took a journey to the brink and back to get here.

Ian and Anthony almost lost their dad, and likely would have, if they hadn’t stepped in to do something about it.

15.41 Geoff Whittington:

When I was younger I was never really fit. Would never have called myself fit. I wasn’t great at exercising, I wasn’t great at doing anything, really.

15:50 And although I wasn’t this weight, I wasn’t heavy at the time, I was never really fit. I never enjoyed sport of any kind.

16.00 Sanjay Gupta:

Geoff’s sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, drinking and hours spent on the overnight shift left his body exhausted and out of shape. All those factors contributed to a Type-II diabetes diagnosis in 2003.

16.15 Geoff Whittington:

It didn’t really hit me as anything major. They were assuring me at that time, yeah, with diet I could change it somewhat. I was even told it’s a lifelong complaint and ‘we can look after it, we can manage it’. That’s the big word, ‘we can manage it’.

16:30 Anthony Whittington:

And we didn’t do anything. That’s quite an interesting time, I think. For ten years, we didn’t see any reason to do anything, and neither did he. It was just another pill he was taking, another few pills.

Sanjay Gupta:

After managing his diabetes with medication for 10 years, but not making any other lifestyle changes, Geoff’s condition began to decline. The most noticeable change was in his feet.

16.50 Geoff Whittington:

By that time, then, yeah, I knew this was one of those things that isn’t going to get any better. That certainly wasn’t going to get better.

16.58  Sanjay Gupta:

Ian and Anthony saw their father’s health declining, felt him pulling away, his weight increasing. If his feet continued to decline, he was even facing a foot reputation.

His sons decided to step in. Being filmmakers, they thought making a film to document their journey would help hold everyone accountable.

17:21 Anthony Whittington:

So, it was of November in 2013. I still remember Ian sent me a text saying – cause we’d been talking about it for some time, but he suddenly said to me – ‘why don’t we put a name to it? We’ve been talking about doing something, we’ve been spending a bit of time going round there, but why don’t we call it ‘Fixing Dad’?’

17.40 Anthony Whittington:

When you’re a kid, your dad’s a hero. There’s no one stronger, greater, or braver than your dad.

17.49 Geoff Whittington:

So, when they first came up with it, and they almost asked me if I’d agree to… they said ‘look, we want to try this, dad. Will you promise to do what we ask?’

17.56  And I said ‘if you really want to put yourselves through this, I will, yes. I will do whatever you ask, to most degrees’. And that’s how it started.

18.11 Sanjay Gupta:

In the UK there are roughly 3.5 million people living with diabetes, and an estimated 0.5 million or more that are undiagnosed. 90% of those cases are Type-II, like Geoff, largely influenced by lifestyle factors like diet and lack of exercise.

18:26  And like diabetes trends worldwide, it is expected to increase in the UK, adding another one million people by the year 2025. For their dad, Ian and Anthony set three goals in nutrition, fitness, and mindset.

Geoff fought them along the way, but began to see results.

18.48 Geoff Whttington:

The problem I had with the foot was that I couldn’t do a lot of running. By that time, by the time I lost a lot of weight, I could at least get around on it again,

18.56 but putting pressure down through it, through the pedals, I could manage. That’s when I started the cycling and it wasn’t very long before I enjoyed it, and I think even now, if I could run, I think I would still prefer cycling. It’s fantastic.

19.10 Sanjay Gupta:

The ultimate goal was riding a 100 mile bike race through London.

19.15 Ian Whittington:

Without the cycling he never would have made it, because that gave him something to almost replace the junk food he was on and the other foods he was on. It gave him the same rush, the same feeling of excitement, he could just go out for his bike ride.

19:31 Sanjay Gupta:

Still, the goal of a hundred mile race through London seemed out of reach to Geoff. It was almost derailed completely when they received devastating news during an MRI scan to check the progress of his health.

Ian Whittington:

 

When your whole world hangs on fixing dad, there’s one word you can’t afford to hear.

19.54 The results of the pancreas and the liver were brilliant, but we did find he kidney cancer. Very small tumours. While he was in the MRI scanner we found that out, which was a bit of a shock at the time because we had put so much into this project, we were already a long way along the road and it was a very personal thing for all of us, and to actually be there when they found that was suddenly like, could this be the end of it?

20.18 Geoff Whittington:

And I was thinking, you know, that’s it, all this has been for nothing. All we’ve done so far is actually for nothing.

20:24 I did the operation, obviously, and realised they got it, they got it out and it was cured and that made me realise that there I was, so terrified of this disease, this cancer and it wasn’t going to be the thing that kills me.

The thing that was going to kill me was this thing I’ve been living with all my life, for the last 15 years.

20.44 Sanjay Gupta:

Geoff underwent a successful operation to remove the tumour, refocused, and then got back on his bike. Soon, it was race time.

20.56  Ian Whittington:

You’re amazing, dad!

Geoff crossed the finish line like a new man.

Geoff Whittington:

Absolutely brilliant!

21.09 Sanjay Gupta:

Today he’s still cycling, keeping the weight off and is more fit than he’s ever been in his life. Most of all, his blood sugar levels are normal. Circulation has returned to his diabetic foot and the ulcers have healed.

21:23 It appears he and his sons are reversing the course of this Type-II diabetes, together.

21.29 Anthony Whittington:

Our relationship’s closer. We have terrible battles, still, but now he’s working with us and we’ve got this project going, so it’s a bit close for comfort, sometimes, but we all… we have a deeper level of relationship, definitely, so I think we spend a lot more time together and we understand each other. Before we were [inaudible] we really got a [crosstalk]

21:49  Ian Whittington:

We’ve been through a lot in the last few years. It’s made us all so much closer, and that’s only because of the project, really. Otherwise, who knows where he might be now? We’d probably be sitting here regretting it.

22.02 Geoff Whittington:

I just love them to bits, and I’ll do anything for them, now, and I think I’ll probably always would have done, but what they’ve done for me, I could never thank them enough for. It literally has saved my life.

22.16 Sanjay Gupta:

Geoff, Anthony and Ian are now sharing their experiences with other families battling diabetes.

22:22  They even have a trip planned to the United States, and are in talks with the American Diabetes Association to mentor other families and also share Geoff’s love of cycling.

22.31 Look, whether it’s a high-tech treatment or lifestyle changes like diet and exercise, combined with support from doctors and loved ones, it does seem that there’s more hope than ever after a diagnosis.

22:43 For Vital Signs, I’m Dr Sanjay Gupta.

END