From: "Mary" <[log in to unmask]>
> My  (totally non paleo, SAD ) husband had heartburn type pains last week
> and went to the dr, was sent to emergency room and had heart surgery,
> including several bypasses, heart valve replacement, and a repair to the
> ventricular septum.
>
> Anyway, I'd appreciate it if people could write to me privately with diet
> recommendations.

Mary, I am very sorry to hear about your husband's medical troubles. I would
like to share a few experiences and an observation.

My father had an emergency triple bypass about 25 years ago and he is doing
great, in his late seventies now. I got him convinced to try a version of
reduced carb that he can live with, in fact I loaned him Neanderthin (the
old self-published edition). He is a physician and he understood the
principles immediately. We have a history of diabetes and heart disease in
my family, and he thought he was going to end up with type 2 diabetes but he
hasn't, thanks I think to the reduced carb diet.

My mother has had a heart attack recently and she sticks even more to
massive amounts of bread, "Frankenfoods" like fake "butter", pasta, and low
amounts of red meat. Her side of our family also has the familiar litany of
shorter lives, heart disease, and diabetes. All preventable, I believe, with
proper diet (paleo reduced carb.)

Nothing I could do would affect my mother's diet in any way. She thinks I am
killing myself the way I eat, and I think she is.

I think we all have to choose our own path. My kids are into junk food, not
as bad as most of their friends but bad enough. But the stresses and
tensions of trying to impose my will onto the family is too much, at least
for me.

I am sure that you have spoken to your husband about paleo and there is a
reason he hasn't adopted it. He either does not believe in it, or doesn't
want to go on it.

If he is willing, of course, then the paleo approach I would think would be
perfect, especially a reduced or lower carb version that I think a lot of us
follow on this list. But of course he will have to either find a dietician
who agrees, or go completely against the medical and diet establishment,
which most people find difficult to do.

Good luck and I hope he recovers very fast.

--Richard