Hallo, cheerful viewers, and welcome to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television. Today’s program is the first in a two-part series featuring our interview with staff and clients from the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP), a low-cost instructional program that helps people change their lifestyles to prevent and reverse disease through the vegan diet.

In CHIP’s courses, participants learn to decrease their cholesterol, triglyceride and blood-sugar levels by losing weight, lowering their blood pressure, exercising, changing their diets and stopping smoking.

The CHIP program was created by Dr. Hans Diehl. And he’s a Seventh Day Adventist, with a commitment to inform the world about the importance of a positive lifestyle. And so, his mission is to spread it throughout the world. There are CHIP chapters almost in every city, and it's growing by leaps and bounds.

In founding CHIP, Dr. Diehl, who is the director of the Lifestyle Medicine Institute of Loma Linda, California, USA and the clinical director of the Coronary Health Improvement Project, was motivated by the efforts of an epidemiologist in Finland, who had improved the health of people with heart disease and lung cancer in one of the nation’s provinces, and visionary American inventor Nathan Pritikin, who found that many Western diseases stem from eating foods high in cholesterol and saturated fat, especially animal products.

In a Finnish province the death rate of men who were just in their 40s and 50s was abnormally high. Most were succumbing to coronary artery disease. In the 1970’s Dr. Pekka Puska was determined to bring down this group’s mortality rate and was successful using a community-based intervention model. This method of bettering public health deeply impressed Dr. Diehl and became the foundation of CHIP’s format for changing lives.

Nathan Pritikin, an inventor with numerous patents, was told he had coronary artery disease at just the age of 41. Mr. Pritikin refused to be a victim and started examining health data to see if there was a way to resolve his condition. He discovered that those who had a cholesterol level of under 160 milligrams per deciliter almost never had coronary artery disease.

Another fact he discovered was a number of conditions that are prevalent in Western societies, including coronary artery disease, typically do not occur in those who exercise and follow a simple, whole-foods diet, high in unrefined, fiber-rich carbohydrates and very low in fat.

Dr. Diehl learned that Mr. Pritikin used simple changes in clients’ dietary, smoking and exercise habits to dramatically improve conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, gout, arthritis and obesity, which Nathan Pritikin called “diseases of dietary abundance.”

Intrigued by this approach, Dr. Diehl visited the first Pritikin Longevity Center in Santa Barbara, California, USA, where Mr. Pritikin informed him that the Center’s success rate was “about 80%.” Amazed at this percentage, Dr. Diehl did a statistical analysis to determine the precise success rate and found that it was actually even higher. Eighty-three percent of Mr. Pritikin’s formerly hypertensive clients who had been on medication were drug-free and had normal blood-pressure levels.

Dr. Diehl then observed that the Center’s program promoted a fiber-rich diet centered around unrefined grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes. The program also prescribed progressive exercise for its participants. Seeing clients’ rapid, consistent and almost miraculous improvement under the staff’s close medical supervision, he wondered how this lifestyle-change method could be implemented at the community level.

Instead of having people spend thousands of dollars for treatment at a private institute, he thought, perhaps the same results could be obtained at a much lower cost, thus reaching a broader segment of society. For the next few years Dr. Diehl worked as a research fellow at Loma Linda University, USA lectured about the possibility of reversing many of the chronic conditions prevalent in Western societies through lifestyle change, and soon developed a following.

Finally, in 1986, CHIP began when the Creston Valley Hospital in British Columbia, Canada invited him to conduct a four-week program in its community of 5,000 adults. During the program Dr. Diehl delivered 40 hours of instructional lectures to some 400 enthusiastic participants. Since that auspicious beginning, CHIP has graduated over 50,000 participants worldwide. We’ll now hear from the CHIP director for Los Angeles, California, USA, Ed Cabil about the nature and mission of CHIP.

The way we get the message out about the importance of adopting a vegan lifestyle, we go to schools, we go to churches, we go to restaurants, vegan restaurants. And so we put articles in the newspapers, we go to the media to spread the word. And people come, because people are suffering. And we have a message for people who suffer, and that is: Change your lifestyle, exercise, and the lifestyle change will facilitate a reversal of your condition.

What are the main components of the program?

The CHIP program is very simple. There are only actually three components. That includes 16 lectures, three times a week. We have a medical doctor who takes a pre- and post-test for their blood levels: cholesterol, triglyceride. We actually take their blood pressure as well, and their body weight. And so we can tell pretty much if these people are already a candidate for what we call “the metabolic syndrome.” So if they have three of the five risk factors, we provide them the education.

Then we provide them the meals because if you change people to a vegan meal, the food has to taste good. So we provide delicious vegan meals, so they don't miss the meat and the milk and the dairy and the cheese and all the fat and the butter and the cream and the sugar.

And then we provide support. Support means that we continue with an alumni program, following the 30-day CHIP exercise. And we provide restaurant experiences, cooking classes, just great things for people who desire to make a positive change in their health.

Who typically attends CHIP’s events?

We have people come from all ranges of life and cultures and ethnic backgrounds, just people who are suffering. People who are suffering are looking for help. They are desperate. And usually the people who come to us are people who have gone to the doctor, and their doctors have told them, "Well, it looks like you are going to be on a lifetime of medication." And so they choose not to be on a lifetime of medication. And so as a result, CHIP is available. And they come.

Mr. Cabil attributes CHIP’s high success rate in constructively transforming lives to the methods it uses to teach the program’s core principles.

There are actually six levels of thinking. And knowledge is the lowest level of thinking. So we have a program designed to take them to the level of comprehension, and then let them be able to apply what we teach them. But the most important thing is that we allow them to analyze and then digest the informational parts of CHIP, and the diet part and the exercise part.

But the total part that we give them is the evaluation, where they make a sound judgment based upon all the facts that they have gathered, from knowledge, from comprehension, from application, from analysis, from synthesis. And so when they reach level six, which is the highest level of thinking, evaluation, they make sound judgments. And as a result of that, they continue to stick with the program. They do not fall apart. They do not revert back to their old habits of eating hamburgers and all that.

I am committed to helping people to live. I lost my wife to breast cancer, 20 years ago. And from that point, I had vowed that I would do everything I could to make sure people live. And I know that health is the thing that lets you know that now is the best time of your life. And so without health, you can’t have a good time.

So I feel good because I see people have a good time. When they come through the CHIP program and they are happy, and when we go on our alumni trips and vacations, I can just see so much joy in there. So I just feel good because I know that I made a difference.

Finally, we asked Mr. Cabil for his view on how CHIP influences the communities it serves.

One of the biggest influences CHIP has had on society as a whole is that it comes out of Loma Linda University. Loma Linda, California is the home of Seventh Day Adventists, and Seventh Day Adventists are the healthiest group of people in the world. There is actually a health study that’s done on Adventists to support that claim.

But most importantly, the world understands that now degenerative diseases can be reversed because of the powerful media presentation of Dr. Oz and Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Neal Barnard, and quite a few others. Because of that, CHIP is local, and they can reach CHIP. And as a result, they can come to a local CHIP chapter, and they can benefit from it. So, the word of mouth now is spreading.

Our thanks Ed Cabil, for providing us an excellent introduction to the Coronary Health Improvement Project and how its program is bettering public health across the globe through promoting the vegan diet and exercise. We are very happy to know that many lives have been saved due to the benevolent work of CHIP staff members like you.

For more information on the Coronary Health Improvement Project, please visit www.CHIPhealth.com

Please join us again next Monday on Healthy Living for the second and final part of our informative series on the Coronary Health Improvement Project, which will feature real-life accounts by people that CHIP has helped to a better, healthier life. Thank you for watching our program. May all beings be forever blessed with vibrant health and inner peace.

Hallo, lively viewers, and welcome to Healthy Living on Supreme Master Television. Today’s program is the final episode in a two-part series featuring our interview with staff and clients from the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP), a low-cost instructional program founded by Dr. Hans Diehl of California, USA that helps people change their lifestyles to prevent and reverse disease through the vegan diet.

In CHIP’s courses, participants learn to decrease their cholesterol, triglyceride and blood-sugar levels by losing weight, lowering their blood pressure, exercising, changing their diets and stopping smoking.

As we learned in part one, CHIP has helped improve the health and well-being of over 50,000 people worldwide who were suffering from heart disease, hypertension and other conditions stemming from diets high in cholesterol and saturated fat, especially meat and dairy products. Dr. Schubert Palmer is a cardiologist serving as a CHIP program lecturer in Los Angeles, California, USA. We asked him to speak about choosing the right foods to eat.

What sort of diet would you recommend to people?

The research is coming in now so much so that we can’t even keep up with reading, but it is validating the fact that the diet that you see advocated in the CHIP program and elsewhere, one that is plant-based, is the best way to go. And the sooner one can move in that direction, the better their health is going to be. A plant-based diet. That is the answer to so many of the chronic degenerative diseases that we’re having in America.

What are some of the problems of consuming eggs and dairy products?

Eggs and dairy products come with a lot of baggage. First of all, the cholesterol in the egg yolk, 250 milligrams of cholesterol. That’s enough cholesterol for the whole week. And then we’ve always been having these scares, for Salmonella poisoning and all of these other things that are popping up.

The other things that are of concern with the dairy products, you'll see reference to in "The China Study," the fact that all animal-based foods come with the little warning labels, "Beware, this may cause cancer." And we know the facts are very straight. "The China Study," by T. Colin Campbell outlines that, and for a scientist like myself, when you look at that book, you have several hundred references to peer-reviewed scientific data that validate this problem.

So dairy products with their fat and cholesterol, it is an issue. The protein from dairy, as in other animal products, is an issue. The infection that can come about is an issue, and the cruelty to the animals is also something that concerns me. It's a big issue.

You should not eat a meal that required the food you’re eating to first get estrogens and growth hormones and antibiotics pumped into the animals, and then, to have them just slaughtered. It is wasteful, inhumane, and a terrible way for a civilization as advanced as we are.

We’ll now meet two participants who will discuss the physical and emotional benefits that may be gained from CHIP training. Miriam Morris of California, USA was overweight and didn’t know how to improve her condition before turning to CHIP for help.

Can you tell us about your life before CHIP?

I was a person who didn’t like to cook. So I would buy things that were already prepared. So, that was my eating style. And I gained a tremendous amount of weight as a result of that, because it was very, very bad for my body. For a good two to three years, I was 60 pounds overweight.

And can you tell us about your CHIP experience?

Even though I’ve always known that you should eat healthy, that somehow it’s going to translate into, you’re going to feel better and look better, that is not really internalized when you are in a pinch, like when you have a craving for something you shouldn’t have. With CHIP, I have been able to find out, not only what we are eating, but where the food comes from. And because of that, I have been able to make some pretty decent choices. And the choice that I came to is that it’s best for me to be a vegan.

So, where’s the food coming from?

Well, the thing that scared me the most is the fact that I am not in control of how chickens and cows are fed, how they’re looked after medically, a host of other things. And all this is out of my control. And I didn’t like the information I was hearing, such as I am eating antibiotics, as well as the chicken or the cows. And these animals are sick and we shouldn’t be eating them.

What do you think about Dr. Hans Diehl?

Oh, I think he’s wonderful. I mean the CHIP program has really been quite a life changer for me. Because of the information that I was given through the CHIP program, I can make better choices. The choices that I make now are informed choices. They are not choices that I made out of fear: “Well, if I eat this, I am going to get fat, or if I eat this, such and such a thing will happen.”

No, after having gone through the CHIP program twice, I do know that I am making the choice and it’s not out of fear because those kinds of emotional choices don’t last. You have to have a commitment that is rooted deeply in understanding what you’re eating, where it’s coming from, and why you shouldn’t eat that product.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our viewers?

I also wanted to add that I used to suffer from depression a great deal. And I no longer suffer from depression since I’ve become a vegan. And I suspect that it’s tied to that.

Dr. Rema Johnson is also from California, USA. She decided to take better care of her body as she grew older and consulted CHIP for guidance and training.

I am a doctor of psychology. I am also a registered nurse retired from the United States Army as a lieutenant colonel.

Can you tell us how you got involved in the CHIP program?

I became a Seventh Day Adventist when I went to the Adventist High School in Montego Bay, Jamaica And since I became an Adventist, I’ve always heard that it’s better not to eat pork. But I never knew that it was basically anything from the animal kingdom. But as I got older, I started reading more and learning more, and just got more interested in taking care of my body. And as I got more interested in taking care of my body, I also realized that it’s not just pork that is the problem, it’s all animal fats. And so, I began watching what I ate, watching animal fats.

And then I realized that when the human body ages, all systems change, they slow down, and in order to keep them running well, the plant-based diet plus exercise is good to help the systems to work and function for a longer time without any major illnesses.

And so, are you a graduate of the CHIP program?

I attended the Glendale Hospital program, that is a part of CHIP. I attended the Glendale program two years in a row. When I started it in 2009, I was weighing 180 pounds. And the following year when I went back, I had lost 40 pounds. And then, I am hoping when I go next time, I will lose an additional 20 pounds. Because I used to be quite big, but now I am 140 pounds, because I am on the plant-based diet, and I run seven miles a day.

Wow! Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

I’m 74.

That’s very impressive.

Thank you. The Lord is good.

Can you talk about how it affected you emotionally?

Yes. It affected me totally, physically and emotionally. And emotionally was very important because as one gets older, your emotions change, because your body systems change. A lot of older people get depression. I used to get depression or not sleeping well, or craving food, or thinking that food is the only answer to my problems.

But since I have changed my lifestyle, I depend on God more. I realize that my body is not so much the physical piece that’s out there, but it’s a temple of God. And He says if I allow him to come in and dwell within me, He will heal me, He will be my all in all. So I don’t get all upset because of a trial. Because I know God is leading somewhere and I just turn it over to Him. So emotionally, I think I have grown a lot.

Beautiful. (Thank you.)

Our appreciation Dr. Schubert Palmer, for discussing the wholesome plant-based diet from a physician’s perspective and Ms. Miriam Morris, and Dr. Rema Johnson for speaking with us about your experiences with the CHIP program. May you all continue to enjoy the very best of health and vitality in the future.

For more information on the Coronary Health Improvement Project, please visit www.CHIPhealth.com

Thank you for watching this week’s edition of Healthy Living and the final part of our series on the Coronary Health Improvement Project. May all beings be blessed each day with inner peace through God’s grace.