 Medicare is in trouble. Where or where could we possibly save some money? Well, according to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease alone costs us a half trillion dollars a year. So no wonder in one of the most exciting developments in lifestyle medicine, last year Medicare officially approved for reimbursement, the Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease, and the Pritikin Program. Hospitals can now get paid for reversing heart disease instead of just queuing people up for their next bypass operation after their last graft got clogged up, too. Now most people have heard of Dean Ornish, but may not be aware of Nathan Pritikin, the original lifestyle medicine pioneer who started reversing heart disease with diet back in the 1970s. In fact, on a personal note, Pritikin is the reason this little freckled fellow went to medical school. I think the spark for many kids to want to become a doctor when they grow up is watching a grandparent get sick or even die, but for me it was my grandma getting better. This is my grandma at her grandson's wedding, 15 years after doctors had abandoned her to die. She'd already had a couple bypass operations that ran out of arteries. There was nothing more they could do. Wheelchair bound, crushing chest pain, and then she heard about Pritikin. If anyone needed heart disease reversal, Pritikin's like a live-in program. You stay for a few weeks, they put you on a plant-based diet, teach you to cook, et cetera. They wheeled her in, and she walked out. I'll never forget that. And for a kid, that's all that matters. You get to play with grandma again. She was given her medical death sentence at age 65. Thanks to a healthy diet, she was able to enjoy another 28 years on this earth with her six grandkids, including me. She's even mentioned in the official Pritikin biography the man who healed America's heart. These were the death's door people said an early administrator like Francis Gregor. Arrived in a wheelchair, Mrs. Gregor had heart disease, angina, claudication. Her condition was so bad, she could no longer walk without great pain in her chest and legs. Within three weeks, though, she was not only out of her wheelchair, but was walking 10 miles a day.