Gene McDougall has been a rebel all his life, but it wasn't until clogged arteries almost killed him that his feisty personality finally paid off.

Rather than meekly accept the role of victim, he decided to wage an all-out battle to reverse the clogging of his arteries by researching the disease and using himself as a human guinea pig. He made changes in his diet: vitamin supplements, prescription medications, and even his basic lifestyle; all the while keeping a chronological record of those changes for comparison against his blood test and stress test data over the same period. He hoped this would enable him to uncover some cause-and-effect relationships, and he succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

Not only did he reverse the diminishing blood flow to his heart, but now he had a complete record of everything he had done, when he had done it, and at what point the blood tests and stress tests began to show that his efforts were succeeding. Realizing how important this information could be to others, he decided to make his findings available to the public in book form, resulting in the publication of Unclog Your Arteries, How I Beat Atherosclerosis.

This book is a concise, easy-to-follow survival guide describing the author’s own journey back to good health, explaining in everyday, easy to understand language, what you need to know about vitamins and minerals, prescription medications, doctors, stress, exercise, nutrition, weight control, blood tests - even how to stay on top of what could otherwise be a bewildering blizzard of insurance claim paperwork.

If you have had a heart attack or bypass surgery - or even if you have not, but are overweight, have high blood pressure, high blood sugar, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease, or a family history of any of these things, read this book and then keep it on your bookshelf for reference. It just might save your life.

In spite of my insistence that I was okay (it was now three hours after the attack and I felt fine), I was wheeled up to coronary intensive care where I spent the next few days. After that, I was closely monitored on the cardiac floor another six days. I was then sent home to rest three weeks before returning for an angiogram - a procedure involving the insertion of a catheter into an artery and on into the heart. Dye is then injected into the catheter and monitored on a TV screen to see if it runs into any blockages. Rather than resulting in a clean bill of health as I had expected, the angiogram showed the right main artery completely blocked and the other main arteries 75% to 95% blocked. Two weeks later I consented to bypass surgery (quintuple, as it turned out), an option I might not have agreed to if I had known then what I know now.

How had it come to this? Although I was 57 years old, I had stayed in shape by playing two hours of vigorous tennis at least three times a week for the past 15 years, had not smoked for 22 years, almost never touched alcohol and stayed away from salt, sugar and eggs. I did not consider myself overweight, and my blood pressure was normal with medication.

I did not want another heart attack and I certainly did not want any more open-heart surgery, which meant some questions would have to be addressed:

1. What could I do to reduce the stress that I knew had been a key factor in my heart attack?
2. Was I exercising properly?
3. Were my eating habits really as healthy as I had believed?
4. What medications would be best for me?

This project now became my number one priority, and has resulted in my learning more than I ever expected to know about the heart, the body and the enormous power of the human mind and spirit. I feel lucky, not only for having survived the heart attack, but also for having had it in the first place. Why? Because nothing short of such a traumatic event could have finally shocked me into taking a hard look at myself and making the changes that were not only necessary but also long overdue.

I began a journal, posting every change in my medications, diet and lifestyle from that point on - also listing each significant event in the years leading up to the heart attack. This cause-and-effect experiment did not yield immediate results. In fact, a setback occurred in 1990 when my annual stress test revealed an abnormality. A thallium stress test was then ordered, which showed that my grafts were beginning to close after only four years. A thallium stress test is similar to a regular treadmill stress test, except that at peak exertion, thallium is injected into a vein. Exercise is then stopped and the patient lies on a table under a scanning camera. By now the thallium has reached the heart, so the camera can take a series of pictures measuring the percentage of heart muscle not receiving adequate oxygen. If an area of the heart muscle is receiving an insufficient blood supply, it will show up as a dark area or "cold spot". After a few hours, more pictures are taken, and if the blood flow deficit (cold spot) has filled in (or "redistributed"), the muscle cells are not dead and the condition is reversible if blood flow to the area can be increased.

My 60 percent cold spot in February of 1990 was reduced to only 10 percent in December of 1992 - a dramatic improvement in just 34 months. It is not clear whether the improved blood flow is the result of clogged arteries unclogging, new collateral circulation developing, or both - but my heart and I don't care. We're happy.

I have charted each and every significant change I made during this period as new studies in the field were published and I acquired a greater understanding of my own condition. These charts appear later in this report. I cannot be sure precisely which changes had the most effect in this turnaround, or whether some had no effect at all - but I feel that some conclusions, which I will enumerate later, can safely be drawn. One thing I know - I will stick with my current lifestyle and continue my present diet, medications and vitamin therapy because the combination of some or all of those things has restored me to the robust good health that only a few years ago was in serious jeopardy.

I was extremely fortunate that my heart attack caused no significant damage to the heart muscle. It would probably have been fatal if my years of tennis had not caused my body to build a strong life-saving system of collateral circulation. This served as a natural bypass, supplying my heart with the blood it needed when my main artery closed.

In July of 1992, six years after my heart attack and bypass surgery, I won a gold medal in tennis at the Minnesota Senior Olympics, playing three matches in one day for a combined total of four and a half hours. I won the final match when, after splitting the first two sets (both were tie-breakers), my opponent was unable to continue. To me, this was pretty convincing evidence that my heart was getting an ample supply of blood.

Even now, more than a decade after my heart attack and bypass surgery, I play one or two hours of singles tennis several times a week. Although my opponents are usually younger than I am, I get a great deal of satisfaction from knowing that if one of us runs out of gas, it won’t be me.

Now let's get into the four categories identified earlier as problems needing my attention. Since I believe stress was the precipitating factor in my heart attack, we'll start there.

Gene McDougall has survived a rebellious youth, two high school stabbings, two automobile rollover accidents (yes, being a teenager was dangerous even in circa 1945 small-town Minnesota), a four-year hitch in the Navy, 28 months of which was spent as a prisoner on Guam (he says he was held there against his will when the Navy refused to grant his transfer request), four years at the University of Minnesota earning his BA in Journalism, a 31-year ordeal in the corporate jungle (from which he emerged not only unscathed, but with a vice presidency), three spinal surgeries, one heart attack and one quintuple heart bypass operation. Needless to say, his sense of humor has also survived intact.

Since his retirement in 1987, he has been enjoying what he happily describes as the best days of his life. He makes his home in Arlington Heights, a pleasant suburb northwest of Chicago, where he has resided since 1970. He plays a strenuous hour or two of singles tennis three days a week and spends the rest of his time watching television, reading, and pursuing his first love, writing.

He has co-authored one previous book, Cow Pies, A Messy Journey Through The Pasture of Life with his good friend, Nelson Campbell, and he is currently working on a third book - Letters to David Letterman. But he considers Unclog Your Arteries, How I Beat Atherosclerosis to be his crowning achievement, because it has allowed him to show others how to take control of their own health care and live longer, healthier lives.