Dean Ornish

Dr. Dean Ornish 2007

Dean Michael Ornish, M.D., (born July 16, 1953) is president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, as well as Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.^[1]

Ornish, a native of Dallas, Texas, is a graduate of Hillcrest High School of the Dallas Independent School District. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and earned his M.D. from the Baylor College of Medicine. He served a medical internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Career

Ornish is widely known for his lifestyle-driven approach to the control of coronary artery disease (CAD). Dr. Ornish and colleagues showed that a lifestyle regimen featuring Yoga, meditation, a low-fat vegan diet, smoking cessation, and regular exercise could not only stop the progression of CAD, but could actually reverse it. He has acknowledged his debt to Swami Satchidananda for helping him develop this holistic perspective on preventive health.

This result was demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial known as the Lifestyle Heart Trial, with data published in the Lancet in 1990, which recruited test subjects with pre-existing coronary artery disease.^[2][3] Not only did patients assigned to the above regimen fare better with respect to cardiac events than those who followed standard medical advice, their coronary atherosclerosis was somewhat reversed, as evidenced by decreased stenosis (narrowing) of the coronary arteries after one year of treatment. Most patients in the control group, by contrast, had narrower coronary arteries at the end of the trial than the start. Other doctors claim similar results with similar methods, for example: Caldwell Esselstyn,^[4] and K. Lance Gould.^[5]

This discovery was notable because it had seemed physiologically implausible, and it suggested cheaper and safer therapies against cardiovascular disease than invasive procedures such as coronary artery bypass surgery.

In 2010 after cardiac surgery, former U.S. president Bill Clinton mostly adopted the plant-based diet recommended by Caldwell Esselstyn, Dean Ornish and T. Colin Campbell.^[6] In contrast to Esselstyn, Ornish recommends the consumption of fish oil supplements and does not follow a strict vegetarian diet, allowing for the consumption of occasional animal products.^[7]

Accolades

Ornish is also a member of the boards of directors of the U.S. United Nations High Commission on Refugees, the Quincy Jones Foundation, and the San Francisco Food Bank. He is an advisory board member of HealthCorps. He was appointed to The White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy and elected to the California Academy of Medicine. He has received several awards, including the 1994 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from the University of Texas, Austin, the Jan J. Kellermann Memorial Award for distinguished contribution in the field of cardiovascular disease prevention from the International Academy of Cardiology, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement, a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association, and the Beckmann Medal from the German Society for Prevention and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Diseases. He was recognized as “one of the most interesting people of 1996” by People magazine, featured in the “TIME 100” issue on alternative medicine, and chosen by LIFE magazine as “one of the 50 most influential members of his generation.”

Works

• Ornish, Dean, Fletcher, Janet, Fullsac, Jean Marc, Roe, Janet. Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish, 150 Easy, Low-Fat High Flavor Recipes. Harper Collins, U.S. (1996) ISBN 0-06-017314-9
• Ornish, Dean. Love & Survival - 8 Pathways to Intimacy and Health. Harper Collins, 1998. ISBN 0-06-093020-9.
• Ornish, Dean. Dr. Dean Ornish's Programme for Reversing Heart Disease, Ivy Books, 1996. ISBN 0-8041-1038-7.
• Ornish, D., et al. Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial. Lancet (21 Jul. 1990) 336(8708):129-33.
• Ornish, D., Scherwitz, L. W., Doody, R. S., Kesten, D., McLanahan, S. M.; Brown, S. E.; et al. Effects of stress management training and dietary changes in treating ischemic heart disease. JAMA (1983) 249: 54.
• Ornish, D., Scherwitz, L. W., Billings, J. H., Brown, S. E., Gould, K. L., Merritt, T. A., et al. Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease. JAMA (1983) 280: 2001.
• Ornish, Dean. Eat More, Weigh Less. Collins, 2001.
• Dunn-Emke, S., Weidner, G., Pettengill, E., Marlin, R. O., Chi, C. and Ornish, D. Nutritional adequacy of a very low-fat vegan diet. J Am Diet Assoc. (2005) 105: 1350.
• Ornish, D. Intensive lifestyle changes in management of coronary heart disease. In: Harrison's Advances in Cardiology. Edited by E. Braunwald. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002
• Sumner, Michael D.; Weidner, Gerdi; Merritt-Worden, Terri; Studley, Joli; Ornish, Dean. Adherence to a multicomponent lifestyle modification program. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation (Sep./Oct. 2005) 25(5):291.
• Ornish, Dean. High-fiber diet and colorectal adenomas. New England Journal of Medicine (7 Sep. 2000) 343(10):736-738.
• Ornish, Dean, Brown, Shirley Elizabeth, Kottke, Bruce A., Shea, Steven, Barth, Jacques D., Bryan, Gregory K., Hokanson, John E., Austin, Melissa A., Ginsberg, Henry N., Tall, Alan R., Deckelbaum, Richard J., Hunninghake, Donald B., Criqui, Michael H., Heiss, Gerardo, Sox, Harold C. Treatment of and screening for hyperlipidemia. New England Journal of Medicine (7 Oct.1993) 329(15):1124-1128.
• Gould, K. Lance, Ornish, Dean MD, Scherwitz, Larry, Brown, Shirley, Edens, R. Patterson, Hess, Mary Jane, Mullani, Nizar, Bolomey, Leonard, Dobbs, Frank, Armstrong, William T., Merritt, Terri, Ports, Thomas, Sparler, Stephen, Billings, James. Changes in myocardial perfusion abnormalities by positron emission tomography after long-term, intense risk factor modification. JAMA (20 Sep. 1995) 274(11):894-901.
• Ornish, Dean. The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health. Ballantine Books, 2008. ISBN 0345496310. ISBN 978-0345496317.

See also

• John A. McDougall
• Neal D. Barnard
• T. Colin Campbell
• Vegan nutrition

References

1. ^ "Preventive Medicine Research Institute". 2009. http://www.pmri.org/. Retrieved 2009-06-12. 
2. ^ Lancet. 1990 Jul 21;336(8708):129-33.
3. ^ Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary heart disease? The Lifestyle Heart Trial.. U.S. National Library of Medicine; PubMed. PMID 1973470. 
4. ^ Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease
5. ^ Patient Publications: Weatherhead PET Imaging Center for Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease
6. ^ Sherwell, Philip. "Bill Clinton's new diet: nothing but beans, vegetables and fruit to combat heart disease", The Daily Telegraph, October 3, 2010.
7. ^ Caldwell Esselstyn and Dean Ornish Explain Healthy Way for Bill Clinton's Dramatic Weight Loss. CNN. September 22, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoHt9cSWJVI&feature=player_embedded. 

External links

• Dr. Ornish at WebMD
• Lecture on the rise of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease at the 2006 TED Conference
• TED: Dean Ornish on healing
• Preventive Medicine Research Institute
• CNN Video - Caldwell Esselstyn and Dean Ornish Explain Healthy Way for Bill Clinton's Dramatic Weight Loss, September 22, 2010
• Dr. Ornish at Sharecare

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Name	Ornish, Dean
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Date of birth	July 16, 1953
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