Heart Fitness for Life: The Essential Guide for Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease

By Mary P. McGowan and J. McGowan Chopra

Book Overview

In this groundbreaking volume, Dr. Mary McGowan draws on her years of clinical experience in working with real patients to create a proven, livable program for preventing and reversing cardiac disease. Heart Fitness for Life offers a comprehensive and down-to-earth life plan that includes:
* A 20 percent fat diet--which gets results because it is strict enough to make a difference but lenient enough for real people to stick with it
* A selection of delicious and easy low-fat recipes developed by a professional chef--including pizzas, pasta, and desserts
* A detailed investigation into the genetic basis of high blood cholesterol--and what to do about it
* A non-judgmental and supportive approach to cholesterol and blood pressure medications that explains when taking medication is appropriate and even necessary
* An energizing section on making exercise an exciting and fulfilling part of one's life, developed in tandem with an exercise physiologist
* A concrete plan for giving up smoking--that really works
* An analysis of the connection between stress and heart disease, with tested stress-reduction techniques developed by a psychiatrist
And, at the core of Heart Fitness for Life are the stories of nine patients, ordinary men and women, who took on the challenge of fighting heart disease with Dr. McGowan's program--and who have won extraordinary victories

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195129091
• ISBN13: 9780195129090
• Release Date: February 1999
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Living with your heart and mind

This book is one of the best cardiology books i have ever read.It contains good ,sound medical advice in a comprehensive easy-to-read style.It is definitely a must-read for anyone with heart troubles..big or small.

This 1997 resource is invaluable for the inquiring heart..

Heart Fitness for Life's content is much broader than the title indicates. It addresses many basic issues and goes into enough detail to answer questions/concerns from patients and releatives.After having reviewed and read 18 or more books on heart disease, I can say with confidence that McGowan's book is the best without qualification. Heart books date very quickly but Heart Fitness addressed Homocystein issue and genes in concise style that was easy to understand.My only suggestion for the next edition would be to address the "stress" as one of the signficant risk factors. Saplosky's, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" is a useful update on stress related disease and the linkag to our hearts.Dr. Ornish's and Dr. MacDougal's books would make positive companion's to this book and are worth considering. I strongly recommend McGowan's not as the "first" comprehenisive approach to her topic but as the "most current" on the every changing field of caridology.

A guide to controlling or reversing heart disease.

This one of the only books which lives up to the promotion of itself on the cover. It covers the spectrum of treatments for coronary artery disease. It is written in a very interseting and readable form. This is a terrific resource for patients. It offers hope and means to overcome the number killer in the U.S.