A Change of Heart: Making the Right Choices to Avoid a Heart Attack

McGREGOR, Texas (KWTX) - The American Heart Association says one in five people who suffer a heart attack will end up in the hospital with another one in the next five years.

When the flow of blood is reduced or stopped, the muscle suffers damage, sometimes minimal and sometimes severe.

One Central Texas man started making some key changes to avoid a heart attack himself. Then he suffered one anyway. But he continued his journey for the sake of his health, and he discovered something along the way to help him truly experience a change of heart.

Russell Battles of McGregor thought he was doing everything right drastically improving his health habits in his forties.

“I changed my diet. I lost 35 pounds. I’d gone from 215 to 170 pounds and I was working out religiously, very disciplined, trying to reverse the years of neglect I’d done to myself,” he said.

His fitness journey began in January 2020, making incredible progress by the next year. But while he was working out on August 9, 2021 he got dizzy and weak, blacked out, and had to go to the hospital. And after all his lifestyle changes he was stunned by what a doctor told him.

“I was in shock, I was in denial. I was in the best shape of my life since high school, and then I had a heart attack,” he told us.

Battles had blockages in the arteries of his heart, and doctors placed stents in those arteries to alleviate the blockages and help with blood flow. After that he started making even more changes, increasing his cardiovascular workouts and running 5Ks. But during one of his races he encountered more problems..

“I’m a half mile into it, and I cant breathe. I go to my cardiologist, and they say, it looks like you have more blockages, this time it’s the widow maker, 80 percent blocked.”

So doctors placed a stent that one too, and they found an additional 40 percent blockage. Not only that, his LDL cholesterol had risen even though he’d been placed on medication to handle it. LDL is what’s known as the “bad cholesterol.” It can accumulate in the blood vessels causing their walls to narrow and restricting the flow of blood.

So how did it happen? What was he doing wrong? And why was it getting worse?

We spoke with Battles in February 2022 about his weight loss journey, and heart attack recovery. At that point, he was still making a fitness a huge part of his life. But soon after he made another vital change he says transformed him.

“I thought well, the only thing I hadn’t changed in my diet was the meat. So in March of 2022, I thought no time like the present, and my, in 90 days my cholesterol started to drop... in 90 days,” Battles said.

So what about his meals now?

He told us, “I eat fruits, vegetables, legumes, and I still eat eggs, cheese, and ice cream.”

Study after study after study link plant-based, or plant-heavy diets with smaller amounts of animal based foods to numerous health benefits particularly when it comes to cardiovascular health. A Stanford study published in JAMA Network open in November compares omnivorous and vegan diets in sets of identical twins over an 8 week period.

“They made really significant changes in a number of nutrients, a number of foods, even the omnivores,” said Christopher Gardner, Twin Study Author, “the LDL cholesterol dropped by 14 milligrams per deciliter, which was more than a 10% drop. They didn’t have high insulin levels to begin with, but they dropped in the vegan group and they lost a little bit of weight, "

That Stanford Study became the subject of a Netflix documentary which unveils additional health benefits. And another study published in the European Heart Journal in May of last year looked at the impact of vegan and vegetarian diets. It shows they can prevent, or slow the progression of atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaques on the inside of your arteries that can thicken and harden over time leading to heart attack.

Chris Rosser at Baylor Scott and White’s Getterman Wellness Center in Waco is the manager overseeing cardiac rehab and pulmonary rehab. He says the impact of a heart attack can be devastating at first.

“They feel like they’re never going to get to back to where they were. They feel like their life as they knew it is over, there’s a lot of grieving going on,” he told us.

Rosser says heart attack recovery is very possible, but people have to make major changes to protect themselves and that’s what the rehab programs focus on: exercise; health education about things like cholesterol, diabetes, and blood pressure; and nutrition including a lot more fruits and vegetables in your diet.

“You need to transition to things that grow out of the ground,” Rosser said, “in addition to the nutrients and lack of preservatives, these foods have a lot of fiber.”

The American Heart Association says fiber helps lower cholesterol. Plus, Rosser says it makes you feel full so you eat less. And antioxidants found in many fruits and veggies also lower the risk of heart disease.

Rosser said, “it’s not that you can’t have meat, you just want to scale back where you’re not having as much.”

And the benefits of all these changes don’t just reduce your risk of another heart attack, but improve quality of life.

“Exercise and movement, and not eating inflammatory foods, the arthritis is reduced and their bodies I guess you could say are younger just by how they feel,” Rosser said.

Russell Battles says he’s thankful he starting taking care of his body. And especially after switching to a vegetarian diet, not only does have more energy and get better rest, but blood tests show battles blood pressure and cholesterol levels are well within healthy range and they’re more consistent. He’s still on medication to regulate his levels but at smaller doses. And doctors told him the blockage in his only remaining heart artery without a stent has actually been reduced, from 40 percent to around 36 or 37 percent.

And here’s something we didn’t see coming. Battles says after only about a year of eating plant based foods, eggs and dairy, he made an visit to the optometrist who checked out his glasses prescription.

“He checked that prescription against my eyes, and wrote me a weaker prescription, so my eyesight’s gotten better after being on the vegetarian diet,” Battles told us.

Battles says the changes were a major commitment but he’ll do everything in his power to avoid another heart attack. He wants to be here for his family as long as he can and he urges other people to take care of themselves too.

Battles said, “the biggest eye opener for me, was when I was laying on the gurney, and they put the paddles on me, and said I’m afraid we’re gong to have to use them. That put life into perspective for me, and how precious it is.”

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