wisewords
OF HEALTH A conversation with Dr. Dean Ornish on lifestyle changes that foster well-being
THE JOY by April Thompson F
or more than 30 years, renowned medical doctor Dean Ornish has led pioneering clinical research proving that making simple changes in the way we eat and live can radically transform our health. He directed the first randomized, controlled trials dem- onstrating that lifestyle changes may halt or reverse the progression of even severe coronary heart disease, as well as early-stage prostate cancer. In collabo- ration with Nobel Laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., Ornish also showed that healthy lifestyle changes can increase telomerase, and thus lengthen telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that control how long we live. Ornish is the founder and president
of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, Califor- nia, and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Fran- cisco. He is the author of six bestselling books, including Eat More, Weigh Less and most recently, The Spectrum.
What sparked your interest in preventive medicine?
I got interested in doing this work when I was learning how to do bypass surgery as a medical student. We’d cut people open, bypass their blocked arteries and tell them they were cured; then they‘d go home and continue to do the same things that caused the problem in the
first place—smoke, overeat, drink too much, work too hard and so on. More often than not, their bypasses would get clogged up again, and we’d cut them open again and bypass the bypass, sometimes multiple times. That became a metaphor for an incomplete approach for me. Sometimes you need to use drugs and surgery in a crisis, but ultimately, you must address the under- lying cause.
What is the concept behind The Spectrum and how does it differ from other lifestyle programs?
The problem with most lifestyle-ori- ented health programs is that they are restrictive, all-or-nothing, fear-based approaches. If you go on a diet or exercise program, sooner or later you’re going to go off of it. Then people feel like they’ve failed; it makes it hard to maintain.
Sustainable changes, on the other hand, are based on joy, pleasure and freedom. In our research, we found that the more you change your lifestyle, the more you improve and the better you feel. The better you feel, the more likely you are to continue these changes. The Spectrum is not a diet; it’s an
overall way of living. If you overindulge one day, you then eat healthier the next.
natural awakenings January 2011 39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72