Dean Ornish | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1953-07-16)July 16, 1953 (age 71) |
| Education | |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1984–present |
| Known for | Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease Eat More, Weigh Less The Spectrum'[1] |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | Medical doctor, health advocate |
| Website | www |
Dean Michael Ornish (born July 16, 1953) is an American physician and researcher. He is the president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute inSausalito, California, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at theUniversity of California, San Francisco. The author ofDr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease,Eat More, Weigh Less andThe Spectrum, he advocates for diet and lifestyle changes he believes can treat and prevent heart disease.[1][2][3]
Ornish, a native ofDallas, Texas, is a graduate ofDallas'sHillcrest High School. He is ofJewish heritage.[4] He holds aBachelor of Artssumma cum laude in Humanities from theUniversity of Texas at Austin, where he gave the baccalaureate address. He earned hisMD from theBaylor College of Medicine, completed a medical internship and residency atMassachusetts General Hospital (1981–1984),[5] and was a Clinical Fellow in Medicine atHarvard Medical School.
Ornish takes a lifestyle-driven approach to the control ofcoronary artery disease (CAD) and other chronic diseases. He promotes lifestyle changes including a quasiwhole foods,plant-based diet,[6]smoking cessation, moderateexercise, stress management techniques includingyoga andmeditation, and psychosocial support.[3][1] While Ornish promotes aPlant-based diet, he does not advocate for astrictly vegan diet as his program allows for the occasional consumption of other animal products.[7]
His interest invegetarian diets began as a college student when he first met Indian yoga guru and religious teacherSwami Satchidananda Saraswati.[8][9] Satchidananda advocated a vegetarian diet for its health, ecological, and spiritual benefits.[10] He established the first vegetarian health food store in New York City, in 1972.[11] Satchidananda inspired Ornish's dietary research.[12] In 1986, Ornish wrote the foreword of Satchidananda's vegetarian cookbook,The Healthy Vegetarian.[13] Ornish's interactions with Satchidananda eventually led to decades of research beginning in the 1980s on the impact of diet and stress levels on people with heart disease. This research, published in peer-reviewed journals, became the basis of his "Program for Reversing Heart Disease". It combined diet, meditation, exercise and support groups, and in 1993 became the first non-surgical, non-pharmaceutical therapy for heart disease to qualify for insurance reimbursement.[14] With the exception ofchiropractic care, it was the first alternative medical technique, not taught in traditional medical-school curricula, to gain approval by a major insurance carrier.[2][15]
Ornish worked with the Centers forMedicare andMedicaid Services for 16 years to create a new coverage category called intensive cardiac rehabilitation (ICR), which focuses on comprehensive lifestyle changes. In 2010, Medicare began to reimburse costs for Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease, a 72-hour ICR for people who have had heart attacks, chest pain, heart valve repair, coronary artery bypass, heart or lung bypass, or coronary angioplasty orstenting. In addition to the Ornish program, Medicare and Medicaid pay for ICR programs created by thePritikin Longevity Center and by the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine atMassachusetts General Hospital.[1][16]
Ornish has been a physician consultant to former PresidentBill Clinton since 1993, when he was asked byHillary Clinton to consult with the chefs atThe White House,Camp David, andAir Force One. In 2010, after the former President's cardiac bypassgrafts became clogged, Clinton, encouraged by Ornish, followed a mostly plant-based diet.[17]
In 2011,Barack Obama appointed Ornish to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and Public Health.[18]
Ornish has promoted a diet known as the "Ornish diet" to prevent and reverse heart disease. The Ornish diet islacto-ovo vegetarian as it includes non-fat dairy products and egg whites in moderation.[19][20] On the Ornish diet all meat, fish, poultry, fat dairy products, coconuts,margarine, nuts, seeds,avocados, olives, and cooking oils (apart fromcanola oil) are forbidden.[19] The diet is very low in fat with 10 percent of fat from total calories and low in cholesterol. The Ornish diet emphasizes consumption of fruits, legumes, vegetables and whole grains.[20] The diet also recommends the use of fish oil supplements.[20] The Ornish diet is part of Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease which also includes exercise, meditation, stress reduction and yoga.[19]
The Ornish diet has been authorized as a cardiac rehabilitation program byMedicare.[20][21]
Critics have stated that Ornish has not provided sufficient clinical evidence to support his claims and his studies have not been replicated.[19][22] Nutritionists have described the Ornish diet as a high-carbohydrate low-fatfad diet.[23][24] The Ornish diet can lower blood cholesterol but a criticism is that it restricts fish, nuts andolive oil which may protect against heart disease.[24]
NutritionistFredrick J. Stare commented that the Ornish diet is too low in fat for most people to follow and it may result in deficiencies of essential fatty acids.[25] Stare noted that although the diet has been shown to stop the progression of arterial blockage in persons with cardiac disease, the diet is unbalanced and too extreme for most people to stick with long-term.[25] Because of the restricted nature of the Ornish diet it has a high discontinuation rate; theAmerican Heart Association and theU.S. Department of Health have not recommended the diet.[26]
In 2008,The Gale Encyclopedia of Diets noted potential risks of the Ornish diet:
Dr. Ornish’s diet is very low in fat and limits meat and animal product intake to little or none. Many important vitamins and minerals such as zinc and vitamin B12 are acquired from these sources in a normal diet. Without these sources there is a significant possibility of deficiency. Also, because of the very low fat allowance of the diet there is some concern that people on this diet may not get enough vitamin E, which is found mainly in nuts and oil. These are too high in fat to be eaten regularly while on this diet. Dr. Ornish often recommends taking supplements while following his diet, and taking a complete multivitamin may help reduce the risk of a deficiency. Multivitamins and supplements however have their own risks, especially for pregnant or breastfeeding women and individuals with medical issues such as renal disease.[27]
In March 2015,The New York Times published "The Myth of High-Protein Diets", an article by Ornish critical of diets high in animal fats and proteins.[28] Science and health writerMelinda Wenner Moyer responded to Ornish inScientific American; in it, she criticized Ornish's research and dietary recommendations, saying he used what she considered to be misleading statistics. Her article elicited a lengthy response from Ornish, who defended his position by citing a number of research studies, saying that she was mistaken regarding the statistics he had cited, and identifying serious flaws in the studies she said conflicted with his claims. In reply, Moyer wrote another article critical of Ornish's arguments, concluding: "Ornish's diet would probably be an improvement on the current American diet—if people could actually follow it long-term. But his claims about the dangers of saturated fat and red meat go beyond the science and in some cases contradict it."[29]
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