Around the time of Clinton's surgery, an alternative medicine newsletter to which I subscribe discussed the advisability of this surgery. They said that the public description of Clinton's illness suggested that a non-surgical approach -- diet, exercise, medications -- should be tried first, especially because surgery carries the risk described in this article. Apparently, even with the best of care, surgery may leave you with a mental deficit for periods ranging from days to forever.
Sure "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But in Clinton's case, as in all cases that required CABG (coronary artery bypass graft), the damage has already been done. These coronary arteries have been too atherosclerotic, too stenosed, too much blockage from years of neglect of exercise, from years of dietary indiscretion, splurging on fatty high cholesterol food, from years of chain smoking like a chimney. Certainly, genetic predispostion is also a major factor. In these patients cases, the severity of coronary artery disease necessitates CABG, else they face certain death from a massive myocardial infarction/heart attack. In these patients, the diagnosis is always after the fact and too late. Whenever these patients have chest pain because of cardiac ischemia/lack of blood flow to certain areas of the heart, damage to the myocardium occurs. Over time, this leads to ischemic cardiomyopathy, ventricular hypertrophy, diastolic dysfunction eventually leading to congestive heart failure and damage to the conduction pathway, cascading to life threatening cardiac arrhythmias and dysrhythmia. In these patients with severe coronary artery disease, ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IS NOTHING BUT A CROCK OF BULL as it is too late. The surgeon moto has always been:
With the pill, you can kill
But with stainless steel, you will heal.
Oh, here's another tenet of medicine:
Eat while you can and sleep while you can,
But don't f#@! with the pancreas!!!