CHIP shape: community-based dietary program attracts a healthy following

Diagnosed with breast cancer at age 47, Ruth Heidrich was devastated. "I wanted to save my life so badly," she says. "I would have done anything to reverse [the disease]."

A founding member of the Vegetarian Society of Hawaii and co-host of her own nutritional radio program, Heidrich, who holds a PhD in health management, is an international speaker on fitness and nutrition. Yet in 1982, this seemingly healthy woman faced a mastectomy.

Heidrich later learned that breast cancer and other illnesses including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis can be caused by the standard American diet, which is high in saturated and hydrogenated fats, high in processed foods, ,and low in fiber, plant-based foods and complex carbohydrates. This unhealthful diet is turning Americans into what a growing field of nutritionists refer to as "victims of nutritional extravagance."

Following her surgery, Heidrich consulted pioneering vegetarian physician John McDougall, MD, and switched to a wholly plant-based diet. "I might not have changed had it not been for my cancer," she admits. "But I found that I loved the taste of whole foods such as brown rice and plain potatoes."

Today, without ever having undergone chemotherapy or radiation treatments, Heidrich, 69, author of A Race for Life and the upcoming Senior Fitness: Empowering Your Golden Years, stands as a monument to health. Cancer free, the six-time Ironman Triathlete and marathon competitor also credits her diet with reversing the progression of both her arthritis and osteoporosis.

Community Solution

In February, Heidrich told her inspirational story on board the CHIP-Shape Wellness Cruise, co-sponsored by Vegetarian Times. Each winter, Hans A. Diehl, a cardiovascular epidemiologist from the Loma Linda, California-based Lifestyle Medicine Institute takes people with an interest in heart health to the high seas for a week of intensive workshops and lectures. Founder of the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP), Diehl has led entire communities on the path to wellness. His mission? To "empower people to enjoy optimum health through education and motivation." CHIP participants include men and women who are overweight or diabetic, or who are battling high cholesterol or heart disease.

Stateside, CHIP's 40-hour educational curriculum, delivered mostly through videotapes over 4 weeks, places participants on a 30-minute daily exercise plan combined with a diet outlined in Diehl's book, Optimal Diet. Diehl advocates a vegan diet of whole grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes that are complex carbohydrates and high in fiber. The diet is naturally low in fat and is cholesterol-free. Diehl says high cholesterol attributed to the standard American diet contributes to strokes, diabetes, memory loss, impotence and heart disease. Western habits such as convenience dieting and sedentary living have made cardiovascular disease the No. 1 killer, he says.

Convincing evidence of the benefits of plant-based diets such as the CHIP regimen emerged from die landmark 1991 Cornell-Oxford China Study. Researchers found very low cholesterol levels among the rural Chinese population, which was consistent with their consumption primarily of plant-based foods. "The current Western model of disease is to say that disease is caused by genes and cured by chemicals," says T. Colin Campbell, PhD, leader of the China Project, author of the upcoming book The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long Term Health and a VT advisory board member. "But we tend to forget or ignore the role that nutrition plays in disease prevention. The most significant thing we can do for our health is just to eat the right foods."

In addition to losing weight, participants of the CHIP program aim for cholesterol levels below 150, which is much more stringent than the American Heart Association's recommendation of 200 or lower. "You don't want a 'normal' cholesterol level," Diehl insists. "A normal level still puts you at risk for heart disease."

A Wide Reach

One of CHIP's ultimate goals is "community transformation," where populations actively pursue health together to create an environment in which to maintain a wholesome lifestyle. CHIP runs programs in more than 100 cities in North America, but nowhere is CHIP's influence stronger than in Rockford, Illinois. Since 1999, CHIP's fan base has grown so devout in Rockford, mostly from word of mouth, that Diehl moved the program's national headquarters there. Rockford now boasts well over 4,500 of the more than 40,000 CHIP graduates in the United States and Canada.

A 2002 study conducted by the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Rockford showed that, on average, people in Rockford lose 9 pounds during their first month on the program. Other studies, such as one published in 1998 in The American Journal of Cardiology and one published in 2002 in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, have reported similar results.