Renowned US plant-based cardiologist Kim Williams struggled out of the south side of Chicago to hold several prestigious positions in his field, including serving as President of the American College of Cardiology in 2015. A professional-level tennis player in his youth, today he serves as Chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville.

In the very early days, though, he walked a tough road. In a recent interview with Plantrician Project leader Scott Stoll, he opened up about his early beginnings.

“I had a single mom who worked hard but was a smoker, and I developed a sensitivity to cigarette smoke pretty early. It’s worse now than ever. I will get a nosebleed and a cough of blood if I smell anybody smoking.

“I used to think it was psychosomatic until I saw the blood. That’s not psychosomatic, right? I ended up with three cases of pneumonia, and one of those pneumonias, I was admitted to a south side of Chicago hospital.

“I knew that I wanted to get back to school so I didn’t get held back, and I needed that penicillin. I was worried that I was going to get worse and that they were going to start those intramuscular things that I’d had a couple of times; I didn’t want those. I wanted the oral stuff.

Inner city hospitals

“They were given, but they were always behind. They were always overwhelmed in these inner-city hospitals. I decided, and I was in eighth grade, that I was going to be a doctor. By the end of ninth grade I realized I really wanted to be a doctor.

“I wiggled my way out of the south side of Chicago and food insecurity and housing insecurity into the University of Chicago. It took a little bit to go from the Chicago public schools to UFC. There was a little bit of a gap, but I did well in the preliminary courses.

“By the second, third, and fourth years, I was doing really well. Meanwhile, I was learning to play tennis, and tennis was just a fabulous thing for me because it would calm me down. If I played six hours trying to make that tennis team, I actually ended up being able to sit and read Plato’s Republic and the politics of Aristotle.

“The two of them went hand in hand. Your brain is turned on by your athletics; I certainly was that way. Ultimately, I got into medical school a lot easier. Medical school was tougher, but I’d had four years of life in the mines at the University of Chicago.

“I worked really hard. I was ready to go into paediatrics on the south side of Chicago, and then something took over. When I listened to a heart, I knew exactly what it was – I could diagnose stuff. I didn’t know why, but it happens, and people will gravitate to one thing if it’s easier for them to learn and they enjoy it – if you can find that combination, that’s what you should do.

“I did my paediatrics rotation, but I decided I didn’t like sick kids. They need someone who can absorb all of that sadness. Paediatricians are very special people to deal with, particularly ICU. I was fine in well baby clinic but that is a tough specialty, really tough.

“I did what I think has been the right thing since I realised that heart disease has been the leading killer of Americans since 1918, and I had the proclivity for learning it faster than I learned anything else, well, maybe nuclear physics. Oh yeah, so I ended up being a nuclear cardiologist by the way, because nuclear physics and cardiology were the easiest for me to learn. That’s what I ended up doing.

“As it turned out, some years later and after doing a few things, I had my cholesterol levels done, and my LDL cholesterol was off the charts.

The Dean Ornish diet

 “I had already heard about Dean Ornish’s diet from one of my association’s cardiologist colleagues, Tazewell Banks. He was always pushing plant-based nutrition for our society, particularly for African Americans, and so I went on a plant-based diet that day. I measured it a few weeks later and my LDL had dropped from 170 down to 90.

“If I had taken a drug, I’d have been so proud. My diet was data-driven. It was the American Heart Association diet – you know, whole food plant-based plus some dairy plus chicken and fish, no skin, not fried.

“That’s not a healthy diet at all. If it has animal products, it’s going to hurt you.  There are mutants on this planet, and I’m saying that in the most complimentary way, such as PCSK9 deficient people who can eat all of that stuff, and maybe they’ll get some inflammation, but they’re not going to get a high LDL cholesterol.

“I was not one of those people, and I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you, frankly, as an African American male over 60, if my LDL had not been controlled with diet or some kind of intervention.

“That really steered me toward nutritional cardiology. The world opened up because I realised that my nuclear lab was all about diagnosing a disease that was already present so I could give the information to somebody who could then mop up the floor.

“I was measuring how much water was accumulating on the floor and the quality of that water. Why not turn off the faucet?  I still love cardiac imaging. I still love nuclear physics, but the fact of the matter is we can do so much better by doing preventive cardiology.  We need to pay a lot more attention to prevention, and if we do, our whole country will benefit.” Dr Williams transitioned to a whole food plant-based diet in 2003.