If, on eating fatty, animal based foods like chicken, pork or dairy products, enough people would develop severe allergic reactions like some individuals do when eating peanuts or shellfish, humans would automatically shy away from eating such foods. 

But such reactions do not take place –at least not in large numbers- and so, for the past several generations in Western countries as well as more recently in the developing world, eating animal-based foods has become the norm with all the medical complications thereof, especially acquired cardiovascular diseases (CVD). 

Samoa has not escaped this trend, with as a result, we have had to face an ‘epidemic’ of noncommunicable disease (NCD) conditions like heart attacks and strokes for the past several decades. 

In this column, over the years we have frequently drawn attention to these facts. The public at large is becoming more and more aware of this and enough people have survived a heart attack (and been able to tell their horror story), which is leading for many to want to protect themselves against the dreadful complications of the NCD conditions, not only CVD, but also diabetes , high blood pressure and cancer.

Over the past ten years, METI has been promoting the whole food plant based (WFPB) diet as part of its lifestyle medicine approach, which also includes focusing attention on healthy lifestyles involving physical exercise, staying away from tobacco or too much alcohol, control your stress levels and maintain supportive social bonds. 

What people may not be aware of, is that, according to the American Heart Association, for the majority of those that die of heart disease, their first symptom occurs not years before they die, but literally minutes before they die. The first manifestation of heart disease for the majority of individuals––meaning you had no idea you even had heart disease- is a sudden heart attack that in many cases can lead to a premature death. (I personally had a ‘brush’ with such calamity but luckily survived to be able to ‘tell my story’). 

The METI program protects individuals from developing NCD conditions or helps them to reverse these when they have become victim to them. There is a simple blood test that can help those, who want to prevent, control or reverse their NCD condition(s) that allows you to monitor your risk. It is a reliable test that helps guide the individual on their road to health recovery. It is the level of total cholesterol in the blood.  

Scientists, over the years, have studied large population groups (also called ‘cohorts’) to identify what should be the ideal level of blood cholesterol. In areas of the world, where CVD is nearly nonexistent, like in rural China, cholesterol levels are consistently below 150 mg/deciliter. 

This was the finding of a 20 year project that involved Cornell University (USA), Oxford University (UK) and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine, with Professor Colin T. Campbell as the director. Another, long-term cohort study, the Framingham Heart Study, collected and analyzed medical data from several generations of residents of Framingham, Massachusetts, USA. Dr William Castelli, a former director of the study, put it quite bluntly: ‘Over all these years, no one in Framingham who maintained a cholesterol level lower than 150 mg/dL has had a heart attack.’ 

In Samoa, we express cholesterol levels in mmol/liter. A level of 150 mg/dL could be expressed as 3.9 mmol/liter. These are the levels we see at METI when monitoring people that want strictly to follow the WFPB diet. If you are suffering from any of the NCD conditions and you have made up your mind to wanting to reverse these and enjoy many extra years of active life, you can occasionally check your cholesterol level to follow the progress towards regaining your Health. 

In the meantime, we invite you to visit METI’s Healthy Living Clinic at House No. 51 at Motootua (across from the Kokobanana Restaurant) to become acquainted with METI’s whole food plant based diet and Lifestyle Change program and have your cholesterol checked. You can also purchase METI’s WFPB Cookbook written in English and Samoan, which features 50 delicious WFPB recipes. You can contact us at 30550.