David Becker, Temple cardiologist and longtime Inquirer contributor, has died at 66

David Becker, 66, a Temple University cardiologist who persuaded generations of patients to try a heart-healthy diet and exercise before resorting to medication, died of brain cancer Sunday, Aug. 20.

For nearly two decades, he volunteered his evenings to teach more than 2,000 patients how to put that advice into practice. He called his self-designed curriculum “Change of Heart.”

Dr. Becker also shared his medical insights as a longtime Inquirer contributor. His expert columns distilled complicated topics into clear, everyday language without diluting the science. After his diagnosis with glioblastoma in late 2019, he continued to write from his new perspective as a patient, educating readers about such topics as the anxiety of being scanned for tumors.

He urged his cardiology patients to adopt healthier lifestyles without scolding them or overloading them with jargon, said Patti Morris, a dietitian who helped teach the evening courses. He did it with warmth and compassion.

“His real gift was that he never talked down to anybody, not dumbing it down,” she said. “It wasn’t too high, it wasn’t too low. People understood.”

Asked to describe why Dr. Becker was so effective, colleague David M. Rodgers started to say he was “nice,” then backtracked.

“Nice isn’t the right word,” said Rodgers, of Temple Chestnut Hill Cardiology, in Flourtown. “His patients loved him because he took care of them. He was genuine. He was honest. He was inherently good.”

The director of the preventive medicine program at Temple’s Heart and Vascular Institute, Dr. Becker also had a knack for teaching nurses and young doctors-in-training, repeatedly winning a “Golden Apple” teaching award at Chestnut Hill Hospital, Morris said.

After he stopped practicing medicine in 2022 because of cancer, Dr. Becker received hundreds of letters from patients who said they were still following his advice, said his wife, Sherri, a registered nurse and adjunct professor at Gwynedd Mercy University.

» READ MORE: When the doctor has cancer: David Becker on how he copes with the anxiety of MRI scans

In addition to medicine, Dr. Becker’s other main passion was family. He was always making time for his four children’s music recitals and sporting events. When they were adults, he often flew wherever they lived to join them in running half-marathons and other road races, said daughter Emily Becker-Haimes.

“He would get us over the finish line,” she said.

Raised in West Orange, N.J., Dr. Becker attended Johns Hopkins University as an undergraduate and went to medical school at Rutgers University. He then completed a residency at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he met his wife, followed by a fellowship at Rhode Island Hospital.

He treated patients at the cardiology practice for 32 years and created the Change of Heart program in 1994. He obtained grants to cover expenses for the evening classes, such as building a kitchen so patients could learn to cook heart-healthy meals. After 17 years of teaching in person, mostly at Chestnut Hill Hospital and what was then called Abington Memorial Hospital, he and colleagues recorded video lessons for wellness programs used by area companies and institutions.

In 2006, Dr. Becker put his healthy lifestyle message to the test of science, enrolling 75 of his patients in a 12-week study. Some were randomly assigned to be treated with traditional cholesterol-lowering statins, while others underwent an intensive program of exercise and committed to a vegetable-rich Mediterranean diet, coupled with daily doses of fish oil capsules and a supplement called red yeast rice.

The two regimens appeared equally effective, as both groups lowered their LDL “bad” cholesterol levels by more than 40%, Dr. Becker and his colleague reported. One patient in the healthy-lifestyle group proclaimed his results “astounding” in an Inquirer article at the time, saying he had continued with the regimen four months later.

Yet Dr. Becker did not treat his patients with a one-size-fits-all approach, his colleague Rodgers said. If a patient seemed likely to benefit from statins or other drugs, Dr. Becker prescribed them. And in recent years, when studies cast doubt on certain types of fish-oil supplements, Dr. Becker stopped recommending them.

“He would think about every patient and what to do,” Rodgers said. “He would try to do the right thing for the right patient.”

Dr. Becker followed his own advice on diet and exercise, competing 10 times in the Broad Street Run. He told friends and family that lifestyle helped him live for nearly four years after his brain-cancer diagnosis, longer than many such patients.

When he was treated at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, Dr. Becker’s physicians marveled at how “well vascularized” his brain appeared, his daughter Emily said.

After undergoing surgery, he was eager to resume his exercise, walking hospital hallways faster than his providers wanted.

“The nurses were like, ‘Slow down, Dr. Becker!’” she recalled.

Dr. Becker wrote about his frustration with that cautious oversight, referring to his stay in a rehab hospital as “Brain Jail.”

In addition to his wife and daughter Emily, Dr. Becker is survived by a son, Jeffrey; daughters Carolyn and Chloe; parents Ina and Ned, three siblings, and three grandchildren.

Donations in Dr. Becker’s name may be made to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, at Penn Medicine Development, 3535 Market St., Suite 750, Philadelphia, Pa. 19104 or the American Heart Association, at Box 840692, Dallas, Texas 75284-0692.