#264: A Race for Life: Dr. Ruth Heidrich's Journey from Cancer to a Plant-Based Champion Athlete
Ruth Heinrich was featured in the 2011 documentary, Forks Over Knives
Dr. Ruth Heidrich is a pioneering figure in the plant-based movement and a remarkable breast cancer survivor. In 1982, she adopted a vegan lifestyle following her diagnosis of stage four breast cancer. Her journey is one of resilience and serendipity, as she not only overcame her illness but also became a celebrated marathoner, triathlete, and IRONMAN competitor.
She shares the pivotal moment when she met Dr. John McDougall, who introduced her to the principles of a low-fat, plant-based diet. This dietary shift was not just a temporary change for her; it was a lifeline that contributed significantly to her remarkable recovery and subsequent athletic achievements.
Her accomplishments are astounding—She was voted Runner’s World Magazine’s “Runner of the Year” and is the winner of more than 900 trophies (and counting!), 8 Gold Medals in the U.S.Senior Olympics, and 67 marathons including Boston, New York, & Moscow. Dr. Heidrich attributes much of her longevity and athletic success to her commitment to a vegan lifestyle, emphasizing the importance of proper nutrition and exercise in maintaining health and vitality.
Rip and Ruth also discuss her updated book, A Race for Life, which is celebrating its 24th anniversary. The revised edition includes extensive insights into the latest research and personal anecdotes that illustrate her journey, including her complicated experiences with reconstruction surgeries and implants after her cancer treatments.
Dr. Heidrich exemplifies an indomitable spirit and a compelling can-do attitude, offering insights into how challenges can strengthen rather than define a person. Her philosophy, inspired by Dr. Seuss, reminds us that in the face of adversity, we have the power to choose our response—whether to let it define us, destroy us, or strengthen us.
Ruth is a beacon of hope and inspiration for anyone seeking to optimize their health through a plant-based lifestyle. Her story serves as a powerful reminder of the profound impact that nutrition and a positive mindset can have on our lives.
Episode Highlights
3:21 The Journey Begins: Breast Cancer Survivor
7:51 Celebrating A Race for Life
10:51 Discovering the Power of Diet thanks to Dr. McDougall
15:48 Marriage and Dietary Divides
18:55 Quick Results of a Plant-Based Diet
21:35 The Impact of Her Diagnosis
28:58 Embracing the Ironman Challenge - Could She Really Do It?
34:48 From Diagnosis to Athletic Triumph
42:15 Forks Over Knives Recognition
52:51 Resilience Through Adversity
55:50 Reconstructing a Body and a Life
1:05:06 Looking Ahead: Goals for the Future
1:15:04 Closing Thoughts and Mahalo
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Full Transcript via AI Transcription Service
I'm Rip Esselstyn, and you're listening to the PLANTSTRONG Podcast. Today, we have an opportunity to meet an icon in the plant-based space, Dr. Ruth Heidrich. Ruth went vegan in 1982, long before it was a thing, was able to beat breast cancer, and has become a legendary marathoner, Ironman competitor, and author. You may recall that she was featured in the groundbreaking documentary, Forks Over Knives. Her book, A Race for Life, celebrates its 24th anniversary with updates and anecdotes, and we're going to learn about this extraordinary woman, Dr. Ruth Heidrich, right after a few words from PLANTSTRONG.
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The Journey Begins: Breast Cancer Survivor
[3:22] It's not every day that I get to speak with a living legend in the whole food plant-based space, but today I have a treat for you in the form of Dr. Ruth Heidrich. Hers is a story not just of survival of breast cancer, but also one of inspiration, joy, and serendipity. To her, it's no coincidence that one of the first doctors she came across after her diagnosis with breast cancer was none other than a young Dr. John McDougall. He and his wife, Mary, changed everything for her. And it's no coincidence that after adopting his whole food, plant-based, low-fat diet, Ruth had decades upon decades of athletic success in running, biking, swimming, and Ironman triathlons. She was voted Runner's World Magazine's runner of the year and is the winner of more than 900 trophies and counting eight gold medals in the U.S. Senior Olympics and 67 marathons, including Boston, New York, and Moscow. And while she was always fit and athletic, she attributes her success and longevity to her diet. Let's get to know this ageless wonder, Dr. Ruth Heydrich.
[4:47] All right, Dr. Ruth Heidrich, welcome to the PLANTSTRONG podcast. Thank you. I'm PLANTSTRONG too. Oh, you know, you and I have a lot in common. I know. I can't wait to dive into it, Ruth. And it's almost shameful that we've never met face to face. I can't believe it because you are such an icon in the whole food plant-based movement.
[5:14] Yeah well we came close you uh sent out an invitation a few years ago but i was already on a another uh broadcast at the same time and couldn't make it yeah yeah so ruth where where are you living right now are you in hawaii somewhere oh yeah honolulu downtown so you like oahu huh oh yeah yeah do you have do you have a favorite of the hawaii hawaiian islands oh gosh they're each unique for different reasons i love the volcano on the big island that is to see land being made and the power of a volcano and what it can and cannot do uh that's amazing uh maui of course you've heard about lahaina uh which used to be a beautiful place to to visit right on the shore uh and we do uh.
[6:22] Are you familiar with, you are, because we had you as speaker, the Vegan Society of Hawaii. We do send our speakers to Maui there. So that's. Yeah, no, you were kind enough to have me as your guest speaker maybe two months ago for the Vegan Society of Hawaii. So thank you for that. But if it had been soon, not in person. If it had been in person, you'd have given the same talk on Maui. And kawaii is the garden island so it is just beautiful too well i want you to know that i've been to all the islands that you just named and uh several times each and you're right every one of them has their special qualities i i hiked the napali trail on kawaii beautiful incredible uh obviously i've done the hawaii iron man on the big island of hawaii as have you and i I can't wait to talk about that. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I've been to Maui. God, I think I've been to Maui 10 times for the XTERRA World Championship Triathlon. That's awesome.
[7:34] Yeah, yeah. And then I did the Waikiki International Triathlon in 1995 and really enjoyed Honolulu.
Celebrating A Race for Life
[7:46] And I went to the North Shore and everything that that island has to offer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Ruth, let's dive in. I want to talk about you. So, if I'm not mistaken, this year, it's the 24th anniversary of a book that you wrote 24 years ago called A Race for Life? Yes, yeah. And it needed an update because so many things have happened since then. Just amazing things, both good and bad. And that's, that's what. Can you show us, show us, show us what the book looks like. A totally new revised edition.
[8:29] That's what, A Race for Life. And then it says a diet and exercise program for super fitness and reversing the aging process. Yep. Yep. Wow. And this really is, I mean, just to kind of set the tone. For this conversation that I'm going to have with you, it really is, it's the amazing story of you and how you survived stage four breast cancer to take on one of the toughest races in the world. You know, it was a combination of curiosity and serendipity. I mean, the odds of this happening are so rare.
[9:09] Not the cancer itself. That was not rare at all, except that I had been a runner for 14 years at that time and considered myself fit and healthy. The last person I would have thought to get breast cancer. But there it was. this big lump. And I even watched the surgery. The surgeon said, no, no, you don't want to do that. I said, yes, I do. I don't believe it could be cancer. So I watched the surgery. What came out was this big around. It was just incredible in size. And they took a frozen section in pathology And it came back, infiltrating ductal carcinoma stage four, because I had been having the bone pain, the lungs problem, all kinds of things. And all of us, you know, my whole world just got dumped overnight. And I was stunned trying to think, what has happened to me? And I had gone on medical leave from work. I was an Air Force logistics officer at Hickam Air Force Base at the time.
[10:28] And because I was off work, I just idly picked up this newspaper and I see a little ad, three lines, women who have breast cancer to participate in diet research study. And I saw the telephone number. It's a local number.
Discovering the Power of Diet
[10:48] And I thought, you know, I know it's not diet. I've had nutrition, university-level nutrition. I knew what a good diet is, you know, skin off the chicken and brown bread and low-fat dairy. So I thought, I'm going to help this person prove that it's not diet. it.
[11:16] I go to the phone, and believe it or not, I get right through to a doctor, John McDougall. Wow. Wow. Who we know and is an absolute legend in these circles. Yep. And he was a very young doctor at the time. I see pictures of him back then. He looked like a a kid compared to now. Of course, now he's in his 70s. And I told him I had just read the ad, and I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer three days ago. And he said, get your medical records. I want to talk to you.
[12:00] So, of course, I do that and walk into his office and Mary's there, his wife and receptionist and helper and all that. So I have my medical records in hand and we hand them to Dr. McDougall. And he's thumbing through all the paperwork. And he said, you know, with a cholesterol of 236, you are at just a higher risk of dying of a heart attack as you are the breast cancer. And I said, wait a minute. Dr. McDougall, I have been a runner for 14 years. I've run marathons. There's no way. I can't have cancer despite the pathology report. And my heart, I have to do marathons? And he said, yes, you can. And besides, you've got borderline high blood pressure. You know, to have all this calamity dumped on me at once, I'm just stunned. Yeah, thanks for all the presents. Yeah, yeah. But I was thinking...
[13:12] He's right. You know, he's a doctor. He knows all this. I better listen. And I don't think I really said, where's the evidence? But I was hesitating a little bit. And I told him, at the time I was working on my PhD, and I was very familiar with journal articles. He showed me the research and opens up a file drawer, and he says, here's the stack of files on the research so far. Again, this is back in 1982. And there are animal studies, and there are epidemiological studies. And you know what the research shows. And this was about the time Colin Campbell was also doing his research on especially casein and cancer. And, of course, with my diet, I told him, you know, my diet, my milk, dairy is so low fat, it's carnation instant powder. And, of course, high concentration of casein, what does that do to estrogen receptors? So with all that information, especially showing me all the countries with high animal oil consumption, high breast cancer, but not only that, colon cancer, prostate cancer.
[14:38] Anyway. Yeah, it correlates directly. It's, yeah, almost a 100% correlation, just the opposite in those countries that don't, you know, like Africa and China, rarely get breast cancer. Of course, you and I know that westernization of the diet has spread bread to the Asian countries and Africa if they can afford it and they'll eat it. So anyway, I walked out of his office two hours later. Confirmed that that's it. I'm doing the diet. And it was amazing what all happened to the good and the bad. The bad was when I got home and told my then husband all about this, his reaction was, what? Give up fish, chicken, milk?
[15:35] You got to be kidding. I said, no, no. He showed me the research. He said, oh, come on. I gave you credit for more intelligence than that.
Marriage and Dietary Divides
[15:44] Oh, what an insult, huh? So he was not on board? Not on board at all. So did that cause a major divide in your marriage or was the marriage already wobbly? And it caused a major divide because I thought, you know, the years that we had been married that he'd come around, but he wouldn't. He said, you've fallen into a cult. And he said, OK, if you're going to do it, I'm not. So I, well, you know, I can do it on my own. I did have the support of both Dr. McDougall and Mary, because any time a question came up, I felt completely free to call them. And they started offering cooking classes.
[16:40] Well, he did come to me with with me for the cooking classes, but. Didn't didn't make any. You know, he and I at the time back in those days, we thought that this diet was just for breast cancer. Never dawned on me that it would be for all these other things. All the all the manifestations of the of chronic Western disease. It was the best diet for his high blood pressure. And prostate, yeah. His doctor told him that diet had nothing to do with his high blood pressure, and he also had ED. Right, right, yeah. But I never dreamt at that time what the significance of that was. It took several years before I realized that this diet is for everything, everybody.
[17:40] I had blood tests after being on the diet for three weeks, got the results, went back to Dr. McDougall's office, and he looked at the 236 high cholesterol down to 129.
[17:57] He shook his head. He said, I can tell you didn't cheat. I said, don't cheat, Dr. McDougall. This is my life. He said, you'd be surprised at how many of my patients cannot do it, or if they start it, they can't stick with it. So that's great. With your low cholesterol and your blood pressure dropping, and I had other signs, the bone pain started disappearing right away. Yeah, the results were quick. In fact, it's so funny when I've been giving talks, one of the first questions people ask is, how soon did the diet start working? And I grin and say, the next morning. They say, what? The next morning? Yes, I have been constipated all my life.
Quick Results of a Plant-Based Diet
[18:49] And doctors had been telling me three or four times a week is normal for some people. Well, that's not true at all. And anyone who is PLANTSTRONG knows that fiber is the answer.
[19:05] Yeah, it makes you poop strong, no doubt about it. Poop strong, that's good. Yeah. Now, Ruth, Dr.
Understanding Low-Fat Diets
[19:16] McDougall didn't just put you on a whole food plant-based diet. He put you on a whole food plant-based low-fat diet. Can you speak to that? Sure. No nuts and seeds, no avocados, no olives.
[19:32] Yes. And so, okay. So meaning that he wanted your total fat consumption to be 10% or less. Is that about right? Right. Yep. Yeah. And did you find that to be difficult or? No, no. No, because I was enjoying the taste of brown rice and squash and broccoli and the papayas and mangoes that we have here, even guavas. So I was really enjoying the diet. And with Mary's, let me show you Dr. McDougall's first book. Wow. Look at this. You see how old it is incredible yeah i know and it's that that needs to go into a museum i know and also oh i i had i made a copy of the announcement in the paper uh women with breast cancer to participate in diet research study called 262 which is a kai lu exchange so i knew it was close by well you know you know ruth and the reason why i want you to talk about that.
[20:47] Whole food plant-based low fat is because you, in your book, you reference the Harvard nurses study, you know, with close to a hundred thousand people, women, and they were not going though on a low fat diet. They were going on whatever diet they were going on. I don't think it was whole food plant-based, but it was more like 30% of their calories coming from fat, which at the time was considered low fat, which really wasn't. And so of course they weren't getting the results that you that you got that my father's patients get that dr mcdougall's patients get ornish clapper all these guys yeah yeah exactly yeah now ruth um,
The Impact of Diagnosis
[21:32] If you don't mind, I want you to know, I read your book. It's absolutely, I can't believe what a great book it is. It is so thorough.
[21:42] I want to, I want to dive into more about your diagnosis. So you went in, you had the, that lump removed, and then I think you went back in and then the doctor said, why'd you wait so long to come in? Right. Yeah. And you're like, what are you talking about? And then what did you say? I just had a mammogram less than six months ago and it was negative. And he said, oh, anyway, it was just. And then he said, he said, I think he said it's because you had dense breast tissue, right? And scar tissue from a previous obvious biopsy. So I'd had a history of other lumps, which they had biopsied, which were not cancer. And of course, I was sure this would be the case with this one, but no. In fact, I was getting second opinions, third opinions. And I think after the fifth one, I was convinced. Of course, what I didn't know at the time was these were oncologists, not pathologists.
[22:55] And the root of the cause was under the microscope, looking at the cells themselves. And also because there were no clear margins on that tumor, it meant it had spread beyond what he took out in the lumpectomy. So I had to have a complete mastectomy. And I owe a debt of gratitude to your grandfather, Dr. Kreil. You know why? Well, you tell me. You tell me. Because they used to take the pectoralis muscle out to be safe. They thought that cancer would spread not only to the bones and the lymph nodes, but also to the muscle.
[23:45] And Dr. Kreil said, no, it doesn't spread to muscle. So stop doing these radical mastectomies and do a modified radical. So I was one of the first patients that benefited from that because we had a reach to recovery group, other cancer patients, and the person that I was paired with had had the radical. And so I knew what she was going through. It was horrible. So I was lucky in that respect.
[24:18] Yeah, no, thank you for bringing him up. Yeah, he he's been quoted by several people as the savior of the the American female breasts for bringing in over from from England, the modified radical mastectomy or better known as the lumpectomy. Yeah, exactly. And at first, there's a big difference between the lumpectomy and the modified radical. A lumpectomy is just the lump itself. The modified radical is all the skin, the nipple that take, they took the skin from the bottom of the inframammary fold, you know, where the bra goes under to the very top, almost up here. Took all that skin off, and then they pull it together, stretching the skin to make the suture closure. And they did tell me of the possibility of reconstruction. After a year, if the skin is stretched enough, they can put an implant under there. And I thought, Oh, because I was, at the time, I had, as I mentioned, been running marathons and wanted to get back to running because I knew that fitness was so important.
[25:45] And when I was in the hospital, I asked the doctor, how soon could I get back to running? And he said, oh, as soon as you feel like it. I said, when am I going to feel like it? He said, oh, two weeks maybe. Maybe I said, no, no way am I going to wait that long so that you waited three days, three, three days. And you talk about how you were out there running and you were just crying tears of joy. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, well, this is before the second surgery. I was in, they brought me into the hospital the night before, and I had my bag with my running shoes, my running singlet and shorts, and no bras. And so I thought, well, I'm going to run as soon as I can. So the next morning, I had so much, let me see.
[26:49] Sequence but i i was doing this run the six mile run at five o'clock in the morning the surgery was scheduled for seven and as i finished the run i come around to the entrance and guess who's just coming to work at the time my surgeon he says what in the world are you doing here and i i said The doctor just had to get one last run before the second surgery. And so at 7 o'clock, when they wheeled me up to the operating room.
[27:28] The surgeon says, give this lady some extra fluid. She's dehydrated. You know, you can't drink anything after midnight and after running and sweating. sweating, and then they couldn't get the needle in to find the vein because I was so dehydrated. It took three people, each level a little higher and better at starting venipuncture, getting into the vein to take the blood and to put in fluids. And so after they got it in and they started the anesthesia, the last thing I remember saying is, see, there's no problem with It's running before surgery.
[28:12] The next thing I knew, of course, I'm in the recovery room. And what, Ruth, what were you, so you're, what was going on with your second surgery? What were they doing? Well, that was the modified radical. The first one was just the lumpectomy. Okay. Okay. And that's where you observed it. They put you under local anesthesia and you watch them take out the golf ball size. Yeah. Got it. Got it. And so tell me, and I want to come back because we kind of took a bit of a detour here. You were talking about the reconstruction surgery, which I want to come back
Embracing the Ironman Challenge
[28:49] to in a sec. But so you went, you know, serendipitously, you saw this ad, you hooked up with Dr. John McDougall, started eating whole food plant based.
[29:02] What did he what was his what were his thoughts around you doing chemotherapy and radiation, which I think was recommended? I'm not mistaken. Oh, yeah. He said, the condition of being in my research that I'm doing is that there can only be one variable. If you have chemotherapy and radiation, people will say it was the chemo and radiation that did, not the diet. So he said, because of that, you cannot have any other variable other than the diet. So, yeah, and I do. Thanks for taking me back to that. I remember thinking, oh, oh, gosh, do I? What do I do? Which way do I go? And then I thought, well, I can always do the chemo later. Later so i'm going to start with the diet and if it's not working then i'll do the chemo and radiation and of course you know as i mentioned the bone pain went away the everything just got so much better well and he also told you that Ruth you want to have as much of your immune system.
[30:17] Operating at top at the top level as you can and that you know chemotherapy is going to wipe that out. He did say permanent damage to your immune system. Yeah. And it was another thing I did not want. Well, so, so let me ask you this, help educate myself and the audience here. So you were diagnosed with stage four, what exactly does stage four mean? And what, what, what did they give you as far as your chances for surviving?
[30:51] Stage four means that the cancer had spread and metastasized to different parts of the body. And that's the definition. And of course, I had signs. A chest x-ray showed a small tumor at the bottom of my left lung, which, as it turned out, to kind of jump way ahead, they sent me to specialists in pulmonology. And the first one said, oh gosh, you know, we hate to do a biopsy. It's in a part of the lung that's really hard to get to. Let me refer you to my boss. So it takes a while to get an appointment. So I go to the next level up and he says, you know, there are no changes from the the first x-ray, I wonder, he said, let me pass this on to my boss. So three levels up, pulmonologist, oncologist, and this is six months later. And he said, you know, I think that it has encapsulated that it hasn't changed in the six months since your diagnosis.
[32:08] Let's just watch it and see if it does start to change, then we'll have to do the surgery or chemo or something. But so far, he says, yeah, I think you're going to be okay as far as the immune system and calculating it. Yeah. And did they ever say, okay, Ruth, you've been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and the odds of you surviving the next year are 20%. I mean, do they ever give you anything like that or no?
[32:40] They told me they couldn't tell me anything. Yeah. And that's in the book. We can't tell you if you have weeks, months, years. We just don't know. And I don't think a lot has changed with doctors. My own PCP just three weeks ago said, you can't possibly get enough protein on a vegan diet. I said, oh, yes, I can. No, no. That's a myth.
[33:12] They're missing essential amino acids. And there's a chart in Dr. McDougall's book and also in my cookbook, which I copied, showing all the eight essential amino acids and how if you get enough calories in each of these foods, which is the range of plant foods, you will get the essential amino acids that more than the minimum level. You can build muscle, you can build endurance. You can build everything you need. Yeah, it's really unfortunate, the amount of ignorance that prevails in the medical profession to this day when it is the most powerful tool in there. Okay, let me go back to where we were. So where we were, I believe, was the reconstruction surgery. Yes? No.
[34:10] Okay. All right. Tell me, where are we, Ruth? Yeah.
[34:16] Well, that was a year later to have the implant. But what was happening, a few months after the surgery, the Honolulu Marathon came up again. This was July, And December was my next marathon, which, of course, I entered and I had been training.
From Diagnosis to Athletic Triumph
[34:38] And I crossed the finish line and I'd taken 17 minutes off my last marathon. I thought, wow. And I felt so much energy. It was so energized. You know where Kapi'olani Park is where that marathon ends. The ocean's right there. So I take off my shoes and I go for a swim. And people are, you know, and I said, it's a vegan. Oh, come on. It can't be a vegan diet, a vegan diet and all that. So, and then a few months later, I was, I guess it was about a year later. What year are we in, Ruth? 82. 82. Yeah. And so in 1983, I just happened to be watching some news, ABC Wild World of Sports, and I see this triathlon, 1983.
[35:44] And at that time, it was here. It started right here in Honolulu, Waikiki Beach, for the 2.4-mile swim and around the island for the 112-mile bike. And then you run a marathon. And I thought, my gosh, how do these people do that? And I thought, wait a minute, I know how to swim. I was I was raised in Lanikai, which is right on the beach. In fact, an aside, I was seven years old, playing on the beach one Sunday morning, a little before 8 o'clock, December 7th, 1941. Oh, no. Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor. But it was Kaneohe, where my dad worked.
[36:29] And had the midnight shift. So he was at work. He was an avionics technician at the time, new radar, and saw these planes coming in. And they started bombing Kaneohe. And Bellows was on the other side of where I was in Lanikai. Bellows Field was an active Air Force run, was a Navy at the time. And so these bombs were going on both sides. So that's an interesting bit of history. There are very few people still alive that remember Pearl Harbor, December 7th. So, can you remember as a seven-year-old what you were thinking? Six-year-old. Yeah, 41. In 1941, I was six years old. I didn't know what was happening. I just, I saw all the neighbors coming out of their house and watching these dive bombing and explosions on both sides. It was just an incredibly traumatic scene for everybody. And my father actually didn't come home for 48 hours. They had bombed the roads with access to the base. It was kind of like an island out with water on both sides.
The Triumph of the Ironman
[37:49] And they dropped one bomb there. There, no cars could get on and off the base. So anyway, it was very traumatic.
[37:57] Now, to get back to Iron Man, and because the traffic was so bad in 83, they did move it to the big island where traffic was a lot better. Anyway, I thought, I know how to swim, because as a six-year-old, I knew how to swim and dive and all that. And I have no rusty bike in the garage I can bike maybe I can do that oh come on lady you're a cancer patient you're, I'm 49 years old. You know, you're an old lady. There's no way you can do an Ironman. And the thought kept niggling at me. Maybe you can. Maybe you, no, I can't. Maybe you can. So there was a half marathon in 1983.
[38:52] And I entered that. And, you know, it's just a half distance, half a 1.2 mile swim. And it was at Parioi, the same base that had been attacked. And I saw the hangar where the bombs had fallen, and they still had remnants of the damage there and all that. So it's kind of a sentimental thing as well. And I got a first place in my age group, which qualified me for Kona. And so I thought, wow, this diet is incredible. I can train harder. I recover faster.
[39:31] And so I just redoubled my efforts and training and put my entry in for Kona, of course, got in. And it was just... And so how did Kona go for you in 1983? Did you finish? But that wasn't kona that was the half i know i mean but didn't you go to kona though you qualified for 84 okay 84 was my first kona in fact you know how baseball cards always have men on them man came up to me after one of my talks and he said we need a woman on a baseball card, There you are. There I am. Vegan Ironman triathlete. And on the back, the credentials featured in the documentary Forks Over Knives, which was a biggie, winner of 900 trophies. You can see behind me. You see that golden shoe right there? That was Runner's World, Runner of the Year. Runner's World? Wow. Runner's World, yeah. Yeah, it's a size 14 Nike. Good, good. We like a big gold shoe. Yeah. Ruth, and that's something we haven't talked about, but you were such a wonderfully featured person.
[40:55] Uh athlete and cancer survivor in forks over knives and we know that that came out in 2011 and did probably more to move the needle as far as getting people to look at a whole food plant-based diet than than any any book or any film before since yeah in fact uh we're going to be the vegan in the Society of Hawaii, our June meeting is going to be showing Forks Over Knives. I told our president, Lorraine Sakaguchi, you know, it's been so long since people have seen it. Every once in a while, someone will recognize me. In fact, I was in Lowe's. I think you have Lowe's all over. And at the checkout line, and this man is walking towards me and pointing. He said, I said, you're the one that's in Forks Overnight. I said, oh, my God, you recognize me after all these years? He said, listen, my wife and I watched it seven years ago, and we changed right then and there. She is going to be so excited when I get home and tell her that I met you, and here's her baseball card. Ruth, do you get up every morning and put on that headband? It seems to be such a part of your whole repertoire. Yeah.
Life After Forks Over Knives
[42:15] It's a sweat band.
[42:19] Yeah. Yeah. When I used to sweat. But it's almost like a trademark for me. Plus, it keeps my hair up. Yeah, I cut it. The last time I had a haircut was in 1995 when I was in the hospital and a friend, another athlete was a beauty shop operator. And she said, let me come to the hospital and and do your hair for you. And that was back in the 90s last time. But I'm losing a lot of hair. And that's one of the side effects of what I was going to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely want you to. But I love the headband because or the hairband, whatever you want to call it, sweatband, because it so reminds me of my mother. And she always wears that. The first thing in the morning she puts on, puts it on to take her hair back. Yeah. I'm a fan. I'm a fan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. OK, so where where do you want to go in telling your story at this point? Because you talked you just talked about the the the Ironman triathlon in 84. Yeah. Yeah, well, let me tell you about, do you know who Kenneth Cooper is? Absolutely, absolutely.
[43:42] Okay, this is the book that started me running. And I was planning on starting with that going all the way back to 1968 when I happened to see the word aerobics and had never heard of it before. And out of curiosity, I read the most effective physical fitness plan ever. Oh, I got to read that. I was about to, I was at a newsstand about to board a long flight from San Francisco to Honolulu, needed something to read. So I read through this, you know, it didn't take long because a lot of the, there are tables in there. So I thumbed through those and decided, okay, okay, I'm going to start running. The next morning, I went out for a run before work. I ran to the end of my block, came back, and got in the car and measured the distance. It's a half mile down, half mile back. And I ran a whole mile.
[44:47] So that was pretty exciting for me. And I did it the next morning and the next morning and the next morning. It was like some people take to running and some don't. Boy, I sure did. I loved it. So that's what started it all. Tell me, did you get strange looks from people that saw a woman running? Oh, back. Yeah, in 68, 69, 70. Yeah, if you were thought running. running uh if it's a male you know you're running from the police or a female running to catch a bus or whatever people just it was usually early in the morning you know semi dark and and and.
[45:34] How many, if you had to guesstimate, how many races between running races and triathlons have you competed in over the course of your life? And swim races. Yes, swimming. I had their races and the Hawaii Bicycling League had their races. I entered them all. all and so it's been well i remember when i was 64 my goal was to do 64 races as i'd been going up entering all these races and winning you know how could you not not do it so much fun so rewarding and i get to talk to people after the race see vegan diet you know for how many years now saying that and so you did 64 races in one year yeah yeah every weekend in fact one weekend i did three races there was a friday night uh sun run at one of the local colleges a short one and then Saturday no Sunday morning there was a 10k run at 7 a.m no it's 5k at 7 a.m and at eight o'clock there was a triathlon and I thought uh.
[47:00] How am I going to? I want to do it. I want to do it. I talked to the race director of the triathlon and I said, Sharon, I'm going to do the 5k at Ala Moana Park and then get in the car after I cross the finish line and drive to the start of the triathlon.
[47:17] I hope I can make it. I think I can. If I finish the 5k in 20 minutes, I should be okay. She said, don't worry. I'll hold the start Martin, do you get it? How nice. So I did make it. I got another first place. The Honolulu Advertiser, our local newspaper, has the sports column with all the race results. And here's the column, one column of the results of the Ala Moana 5K race, and right next to it, the results for the triathlon. And you see my name almost lined up like that next to each other. I've still got that clipping. And I get a telephone call from the sports director, editor, and he said, I can't believe what I'm just reading.
[48:10] You did both of these races, got a first place in both. How'd you do it? So he interviewed me, and there was a nice write-up in that. That's that's absolutely extraordinary Ruth i know yeah serendipity again you know so now Ruth i i also want you to tell the story because i think it's it's really um indicative of your can-do attitude and never say never say die you know never say quit you were out biking and you you got hit by a truck and you broke your pelvis. So you even won a wheelchair race. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I had been, well, those are two separate incidents.
[48:59] Yeah. The first one was eight weeks before my first Kona Ironman was when I was on the Big Island. You remember the course and there's the airport and the end of the bike, you're coming back towards Kona. And I had just passed the airport on this training ride eight weeks before I had gone over to the Big Island to test out the course and check it out and do the whole bike race. And I passed the airport. I remember that. The next thing I know, I'm in the hospital.
[49:39] And I said, what happened? Where am I? Where's my bike? And the nurse there started chuckling. She said, you've been asking that same question for hours. And one of the technicians came in to take some more blood. And she said, you even asked her, what happened with your bike? Well, it was 10 o'clock at night. And I had had a concussion. And I was training with a buddy, Teresa. And she was behind me, maybe 400 feet, and saw this truck clip me. And just I went down hard and was knocked out unconscious. And so they called 911. An ambulance picked me up and took me to the hospital. And that was in the morning.
[50:40] Well, late morning. And that was, you talk about can-do recovery. The attending ER doc at the time is Frank Farron. Frank Farron was a longtime medical race director. Does that name ring a bell? Frank Farron? It doesn't to me, no. Yeah, he was. So he was attending ER doc, and when he came to see me, I told him, I'm entered in the Ironman. I have got to heal fast enough to do it. And he said, well, with that broken pelvis, there's no way you're going to recover in time. time, and I'm thinking to myself, he doesn't know the value of this diet that I'm on. And I know the recovery, what it's like, what I can do. Eight weeks, I think I can do it. But I didn't tell him. At first I did.
[51:41] You know, just plan on doing it next year and let yourself recover. And so I'll I'll show you. So I got home a few days later, back on Oahu, and started walking, recovering.
[52:01] And I had a stationary bike. And I got on the bike. And the first minute was extremely painful. So I get off and think, well, it's too soon to bike. And the next day, I go for two minutes. and it started to hurt. So I quit. And it was that gradual recovery, active recovery, which I think was so important because one of these days I'm going to feel no pain and I want to know which day that is. So every day and the same with the swim, you know, having to kick and swim. And he said, no kicking, no swimming. So what I did was just swim upper body, you know, it's like you put the floats
Resilience Through Adversity
[52:47] in between your thighs and it keeps you elevated and you can swim. So I did the Waikiki rough water swim in September, which was not long after that.
[53:00] And I was still on crutches. In fact, one of my finish line pictures. I saw it. Yeah. On crutches. Yeah. Because I couldn't do any weight bearing at that point. And so I just recovered as fast as I could and got to Kona and I'm at the start and I'm thinking well I'm here I'm just gonna see what I can do how far I can go and I don't have to finish I have nothing to prove I just want to be here and see what I can do so the gun goes off for the the start and i i make this swim under the cutoff you know two hours 15 minutes yeah and.
[53:49] Get on the bike. And it was somewhat painful. I remember the final hill coming up and thinking, well, okay, I did the swim and the bike. So if I can't do the run, I'm happy. I did what I could and far more than was predicted. And so I thought, well, I'm just going to run. At the time, the Keioho was five miles from the start in Kailua-Kona. That was a transition from the bike to the run. And so I thought, well, I'll just run to Kailua-Kona and stop there because that's where the start was. And so I got there and I thought, oh, I can go up to the start of the Queen Keomana Highway up that hill and then I'll stop. And so i kept going and going and going and finally i come all the way around approaching the finish line and guess who's standing there dr frank and he's shaking his head saying if i hadn't seen it i would not believe it that is incorrect said see the diet is so important.
[55:07] Wow well okay so Ruth incredible you're you have such an indomitable spirit it's crazy uh you want to get back to the you want to get back to the reconstruction.
[55:20] Okay. It's one of the main changes in this new edition of A Race for Life. There are several. Let me go back to one of the positive ones. There was some research. It started on men with prostate cancer, and they found out that myokines can suppress cancer growth, Petri dishes,
Reconstructing a Body and a Life
[55:44] cancer cells, myokines, which are produced by exercising the skeletal muscles. You know what the skeletal muscles, the main ones are the legs running. And so I thought, you know, that probably applies to breast cancer as well as prostate cancer. Same cause, the diet and hormones overstimulation of prostate and the breast. And so I thought, you know, the 14 years that I was running before being diagnosed, I was exercising my skeletal muscles every day and producing those myokines, which I think, even though the cancer was that big, it could have killed me by then had I not been a runner.
[56:37] It was an aha moment. moment, I'll bet you the fact that I was a runner made me survive as well as I did, not even know that I had cancer and that it could have killed me long before it was discovered that big.
[56:58] It's something that people need to know. Exercise skeletal muscles produces myokines, which suppress cancer growth. Well, and you have a whole, and just to piggyback on that, you have a whole chapter in the new book on angiogenesis versus the myokines. And it's very, it's a really, really cool concept that I don't think many people know about. Yeah, that's right. Right. Angiogenesis, the cancer cell's tumor produces its own blood supply. And that starts immediately. So it can skip the axillary nodes. And they do that. One of the tests for staging breast cancer is the axillary nodes. And they say if just one's positive, then it has spread. it.
[57:51] But what we think happens, and one of the radiologists told me, if you picture the breast as a volcano, and you've got lymph nodes all around, and if it's an interior part of the breast, the upper, lower, medial quadrant, that it drains into the mediastinal lymph nodes, which are in the middle of the chest, around the ribs, in the center. And they never thought to test those. They only test axillary. So I thought, that's an interesting thing that still exists. They only test axillary. And may maybe make a wrong prognosis, because if it's negative, it doesn't mean it hasn't spread. And Dr. McDougall told me it starts spreading right away. way. Yeah. Lymph node is no way to diagnose the stage. Gotcha. Okay. So, um.
[58:52] When a year later, and I had enough skin because every day I'd stretch, stretch the skin, stretch the skin. And finally, the plastic surgeon said, OK, we've got enough skin for an implant. And so I could hardly wait. I remember in the hospital the night before thinking, you know, they make purple marks on where they're going to put the implant. In the inframammary fold that I mentioned before, right below the breast, and they were going to reconstruct a nipple. And I thought, oh, I can finally be normal again. And so that's chapter 18 in my book, Reconstructing a Body and a Life, How Wonderful Those Implants Were. Well, back in 2014, I was running and I tripped and fell and ruptured the saline implant and broke my arm. Can I stop you for a sec? When did you get those implants? What year? The first several. You have to change them out every few years. They're not one and done. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. But when did you when did when did you get your first ones? Was it 1980?
[1:00:13] When was it? Three. OK, OK. Yeah. Diagnosed 82. The skin grew enough in 83. And these were the polyurethane. They didn't have silicone then. And so over the years, the 90s, they were developing more realistic breast implants, silicone. Cone and in 2014 um i'm just so curious so what do they do do they make an incision and then take out the the pre-existing one and then put in new ones is that what happens yeah okay yeah okay uh.
[1:00:51] With the broken arm and the ruptured implant, naturally, it was an ambulance that took me to the hospital. I saw the plastic surgeon, and he said, well, let's just replace the other one with these new Allergan textured implants. They don't encapsulate like is a complication, a common one. and you'll love them. And I said, okay, let's do it.
The Journey of Breast Implants
[1:01:24] And so I had these new silicone implants. And right about that time, I was starting to have symptoms. And I thought, you know, balance problems, proprioception, I kept bumping. This was very gradual in the start that just gradually got worse and worse. And I thought, what's going on? Well, I checked with my PCP. Oh, it's your age. These things happen as you age. Your hair loss, your balance, you know, all these things, old age. And so I thought, well, okay, let's see.
[1:02:06] It never occurred to me that breast implants could be a problem.
[1:02:12] Until I was visiting in Canada. Picked up, they're so far ahead of us in several ways, better diet, but they're getting worse. Anyway, I picked up a newspaper, again, curiosity, serendipity. I opened the page. What do I see? Breast implant illness, a nightmare. And I said, oh, that's silly. They wouldn't put these in if they weren't safe. My gosh, that's crazy. And so I said, well, I'm curious. I'm just going to read the symptoms, go down the list, check, check, check, check. I thought, oh my God, that's what's caused the problems I've been having. I run to the phone and I get through to the reporter who wrote the story. And I said, yeah, she said, yes, I have it. And you've got to get those implants out right away. It's going to get worse. And she said, call my surgeon. And she gave me his name and number. I get to talk to him and I tell him, I've got breast implant illness. I've had these in for several years and the symptoms are terrible. He said, yes, let's get you into surgery as soon as possible. Give me your MSN. I said, oh, what's that? Oh, oh.
[1:03:37] He said, you're not Canadian. I said, no, I'm a visitor. And he said, I can't do the surgery then. I said, I'll pay whatever it costs. I'll pay, please. He said, it would invalidate my malpractice insurance. I can't do your surgery. I suggest you get back to Hawaii and have it done there. So I get on the phone again, call for a reservation, and actually got on. I had to pay first class to get a seat because it was almost full the next morning. And so I get back to Honolulu and immediately call the plastic surgeon. And I met a lot of resistance there. He said, oh, no, it's your age. You know, that same old trope, it's your age. Well, we know, you know, I've got to recommend Michael Greger's book, How Not to Age. Oh, yeah. Have you read it? Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, my gosh. It's so revelatory. There is so much good information in there. And I've been taking advantage of that. And so it's. Yeah, I had Michael on the on the podcast to talk about the book when it first came out. Yeah. And I signed up on the book club too. That was fun. Yeah. So tell me.
Looking Ahead: Goals for the Future
[1:05:07] Ruth, how old are you today? Eighty nine and a half. Eighty nine and a half. I love it. As we get older, we bring in the half just like we did when we were younger. And and so you're you're just about the same age as my mother. Excuse me. Close enough to say almost 90. Yeah. Yeah. You sure are. So what can I ask you this? So as you're turning the corner to 90, what are your goals for the next 20 years?
[1:05:41] I need to be working hard on recovering from the damage, the balance. I have had physical therapy for almost every part of the body, starting with the balance, starting with, oh. Oh, one of the symptoms is joint damage because what happens is your immune system detects the silicone and the heavy metals. The heavy metals that are leaked are lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, all these bad, bad actors in the implants to make the silicone powder solid. Solid you know silicone comes as a powder yeah or silicon and to make it silicone you have to add all these things and they tested them yeah they put them on dogs and just watch the dogs can you imagine silicone implants on dogs and for two years no changes that they could detect and of course in the laboratories that are temperatures are in the 60s and uh.
[1:06:56] Outside, your temperature can be 70, 80, plus you've got the movement over the implants. And, oh, by the way, they cut the pectoralis muscle. You know, the pectoralis is a muscle like that that covers the chest. It goes from the top to the bottom like a big fan. Well, they cut part of it in the middle because you need to make room. For now, they're doing the submuscular implants. plants. So they cut, and nobody told me this at the time, and this is in my book. These are the questions I should have asked. And one of them is, do you cut my pectoralis muscle?
[1:07:38] And is this going to have any effect on my swimming? Well, logically, of course. And so that's, I had the The surgery to have them out, the surgeon said, before I went, as I was going flat, he said, I saw the remnant of the pectoralis that they cut. I tried to stretch it to connect it to the sternum where it originally inserted, but it wouldn't stretch. So I have this lump right here, which is the middle part of the pectoralis muscle. Muscle and uh as try to try as i hard as i can to be strong it's uh there's a disability can't yeah Ruth tell me between the three sports swimming biking and running is there one that you love more than the others running yeah you you were first a runner and always a runner you You love them. That's great. Yeah. One of the symptoms that was really scary in 2018 was I was having trouble running and it was very gradual. I told you about tripping and falling and falling.
[1:08:58] It was like, you know, plyometrics is your ability to bounce. I was losing that. And when you run, you have to get airborne. And I noticed one day, my gosh, yet I can't pick up my feet. And it's more like a shuffle. And I thought, what's going on? This was just before. And then in 2019, when Dr. Terbert, Canada again, knew what was happening in the United States with implants and how many women were getting them. And he knew in Canada how dangerous they were. And he had been doing research. He was a rheumatologist at the University of Alberta in Canada. On his own dime, he flew and asked for a briefing with the FDA.
[1:09:53] And that link is in my book where you can watch what he showed the FDA, that damage that's done, the silicone, and how you can't get it out of your body and all these heavy metals. And it was just uh and in fact right about that time um i just was watching the evening news which i usually do while i'm eating supper a no-no but i do it's the only time i the only time i watch television is the five o'clock news both local and national following what all's happening name anyway uh in 2019 the same year that i flew back from canada the same year i got this out i saw uh abc news uh breaking news breast implants recalled and banned uh from causing all this damage i thought finally yes it's out there and i thought oh i switched channels to cbs and And the timing, again, amazing, was the same news report, slightly modified, but same thing, recalled, banned, and bad news. And so I thought, well, the last one, NBC, and sure, Rick, can you believe, you know, caught that one too.
[1:11:19] And that was 2019. 19. And do you know how many doctors know about this? Just like in diet, they don't know about breast implant illness. And it's still controversial because plastic surgeons say, oh yeah, it can happen, but it's rare. Well, it's not rare at all. It's just the symptoms are so subtle. And women who are not vegan, who don't have a good diet, aren't, They're going to be worse off. Which is the vast majority of us right now. Yeah, that's a major development. So in Chapter 18, Reconstructing a Body and a Life, a new whole part, Part 2, Destroying a Body and a Life. My killer breasts. You've heard that expression. I've heard men say, she's got killer breasts, meaning good things. You know, we've got this obsession about women and their breasts. Well, mine tried to kill me the first time with cancer and they tried again with the implants.
[1:12:33] But they're not going to succeed. Ruth, I am going to just say that it's incredible how you have been. You've been through the ringer. You are, you know, you, you are a warrior hanging in there. I want to let everybody know that your book, it's really, it's what we've talked about. It's three lifestyle changes. The first is whole food, plant-based low fat for those that require that. The second is fitness training that you have been doing since 1960s. And you just epitomize somebody that loves movement of your body in any way shape or form whether it's with crutches or in a wheelchair or on your two feet uh and then of course the thing that really defines you Ruthis your your can-do attitude uh which you say is the third the third element i want to read this quote Ruth because i and it's in your book and it's and i I think it epitomizes your philosophy that you borrowed from Dr. Seuss.
[1:13:43] And it's when something bad happens to you, you have three choices. You can either let it define you, you can let it destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you. I'm a warrior who now wears those battle scars proudly. It almost brought me to tears. Rip? Yeah. So true. Excuse me. Oh, yeah. Emotional moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I believe that. And it's it's not easy. It is. It takes being a warrior because you it's so easy to give up. But yeah. What's the alternative? No, exactly. Exactly. Well, Ruth, you.
[1:14:34] You are a race for life. You have, what a life you have led up until almost 90 years old. And I am so glad that we ran into each other a couple months ago and that you agreed to be part of the PLANTSTRONG podcast because you're an icon and your story, for those that don't know it, people really need to know it because there's so many great takeaways. Yeah.
Closing Thoughts and Mahalo
[1:15:04] And different types of stories, things that you'd never think would happen. Again, the serendipity, just incredible. The odds of someone having the same things happen to them are infinitesimal. You know, just reading something in the paper about breast research, breast cancer research, or reading in the paper about breast implant illness, which all this stuff is new.
[1:15:37] Well, and tell me, in Hawaii, what do you say to somebody to say thank you? Is it mahalo? Is it aloha? What do you say? Mahalo is thank you. Mahalo. Aloha is love. And it's hello. It's goodbye. bye, it's a greeting that is very positive. Wow. Well.
[1:16:05] Very much. Well, mahalo for being on the PLANTSTRONG podcast. Can you give me a virtual fist bump? Yeah, there. I can't see your fist. There you go. There's the camera. Yeah, I was going to punch you in the face. Yeah. All right, Ruth. Ruth, stay strong. Stay strong. My muscle. Oh, yeah. Oh, compared to you. I'm working on it. I know you are. I know you are. All right. Bye. Bye. Thank you so much. Ruth's book, A Race for Life, A Diet and Exercise Program for Super Fitness and Reversing the Aging Process, along with several other books, is available right now. And I'll be sure to link up to that in today's show notes. I love her can-do attitude. And let's face it, she has been dealt some unlucky cards. But because of her diet and lifestyle, Ruth continues to be a force for good, continuously advocating for all of us to live a life of adventure like she has. And at 90 years old, I think it's fair to say she's just getting started.
[1:17:28] The PLANTSTRONG podcast team includes Carrie Barrett, Laurie Kortowich, and Ami Mackey. If you like what you hear do us a favor and share the show with your friends and loved ones you can always leave a five-star rating and review on apple podcast or spotify and while you're there make sure to hit that follow button so that you never miss an episode as always this and every episode is dedicated to my parents dr coble b esselstyn jr and anne cryo esselstyn thanks so much for listening.
[1:18:05] Music.
