(CNN) — Frank Korona lives near the West Virginia-Pennsylvania border with his wife Kathy, in a house that he built with his own hands, on the same property where he grew up.
He served in the Army Special Forces in Vietnam. The Koronas have a long, proud tradition of military service, but their family’s greatest losses have been to heart disease.
“Our family has shrunk tremendously. We’ve lost so many people through death,” Kathy says.
In 1992, Frank’s brother Bob died in his arms, suffering a heart attack on their kitchen floor. Parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins have all died from complications from heart disease, too. The Koronas point them out in a graveyard near their home.
Frank and Kathy have both had heart attacks, and both have stents holding their blood vessels open. The birth of their grandson Caleb led them to try harder to extend their lives. So last year, the couple joined the Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease.
Medicare, the government health insurance program for Americans 65 and older, covers the Ornish program, which teaches a plant-based, meatless diet, meditation and regular exercise. The program was officially declared an intensive cardiac rehab program in 2010, and the first patients started in May 2011.
Categories: Health & Fitness, Life saving measures