Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr

Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., a physician, researcher and former surgeon, later concentrated on nutrition and coronary disease. Before medicine, he rowed for the victorious United States eight at the 1956 Olympic Games. Esselstyn trained in surgery at Cleveland Clinic and St George’s Hospital in London, then joined the Cleveland institution in 1968. His duties there included leading its thyroid and parathyroid surgery section, chairing the breast cancer task force, serving as staff president and sitting on the Board of Governors. He published long-term nutritional research on coronary artery disease in 1995. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease reviews that study and presents the approach discussed in it. Cleveland Clinic now offers an Esselstyn Heart Disease Program focused on whole-food plant nutrition. Esselstyn served as president of the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons in 1991 and received the Benjamin Spock Award for Compassion in Medicine in 2005.