Angioplasty and Bypass Surgery: Our Only Options?

Will Noninvasive Solutions Like Diet and Exercise Work For You?

Got chest pain? Get an angioplasty. Got a lot of chest pain? Get coronary bypass surgery.

That’s what thousands of Americans have done over the past two decades after being told they have heart disease, the country’s number one killer. Bypass surgeries cost about $45,000 each; angioplasties, about $30,000 each. In the U.S. alone, the total cost for the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease with angioplasty and coronary bypass surgery now exceeds $100 billion annually.

But a growing body of research is now finding that angioplasty and bypass are not the only options for people diagnosed with diseased coronary arteries. In fact, for many people they’re probably not even the best option.

Explains Dr. James Kenney, Nutrition Research Specialist at the Pritikin Longevity Center®: While both angioplasty and bypass surgery appear to reduce angina (chest) pain, at least in the short term, “neither does anything to slow, stop, or reverse what causes most heart attacks and strokes – namely, the growth and eventual rupture of atherosclerotic plaques.”

Medications, lifestyle changes

New studies are proving the efficacy of other options, such as medications and lifestyle changes like a heart-healthy diet and exercise. They’re simple, they’re noninvasive, they’re far less costly, and some may even do what angioplasty and bypass have never been able to do – halt heart disease.

New studies

One large study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, followed for four years more than 2,000 patients who were treated 3 to 28 days after a heart attack.(1) Half of the patients received drugs alone, which included aspirin, beta blockers, and other medications. The other half had angioplasty in addition to drug treatment.

After four years, the trial found no benefit to having an angioplasty procedure. Angioplasty performed 3 to 28 days after a heart attack was no better than medications alone at reducing the risk of death, a second heart attack, or heart failure.

Another newly published study, a five-year randomized controlled trial, compared the impact of coronary bypass surgery, angioplasty, and medications alone on patients, average age 60, with stable heart disease. The trial found that death rates over the next five years were not significantly different among the three groups.(2)

So why are bypass surgery and angioplasty so popular? It’s a complicated answer. For starters, they’re profit makers. They help, for example, keep many hospitals in the black.

Secondly, as many physicians point out, patients demand them. “People have this notion that surgery is going to ‘fix’ their arteries,” says Dr. Robert Bauer, physician at Pritikin. “Well, unfortunately, it doesn’t. The disease is still there, and growing.”

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