Personal background

Ornish, a native of Dallas, Texas, is a graduate of Dallas's Hillcrest High School. He holds a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in Humanities from the University of Texas at Austin, where he gave the baccalaureate address. He earned his M.D. from the Baylor College of Medicine, was a Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and completed a medical internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital (1981-1984).

Professional background

Ornish is known for his lifestyle-driven approach to the control of coronary artery disease (CAD) and other chronic diseases. He promotes lifestyle changes including a whole foods, plant-based diet, smoking cessation, moderate exercise, stress management techniques including yoga and meditation, and psychosocial support. He has acknowledged his debt to Swami Satchidananda for helping him develop this holistic perspective on preventive health.

He is the author of six best-selling books, including Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease; Eat More, Weigh Less; Love & Survival and his most recent book The Spectrum.

He has been a physician consultant to former President Bill Clinton since 1993, when Ornish was first asked by Hillary Rodham Clinton to consult with the chefs at The White House, Camp David, and Air Force One to cook more healthfully. In 2010, after the former President's cardiac bypass grafts became clogged, Ornish met with him and encouraged him to follow a mostly plant-based diet, because moderate changes in diet were not sufficient to stop the progression of his heart disease, and he agreed. 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.

Ornish has written a monthly column for Newsweek and Reader's Digest magazines and is currently the Medical Editor of The Huffington Post. A one-hour documentary of his work was broadcast on the PBS science series NOVA. In addition to being featured on Bill Moyers' PBS series Healing & The Mind, his work is featured in a documentary film Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare about transforming the future of healthcare with patient-centered, integrative medicine.

He was interviewed and featured in the mind body medicine documentary, The Connection. Released in 2014.

Awards and honors

Ornish is a member of the boards of directors of the San Francisco Food Bank. Additionally, he is a member of the boards of directors of the U.S. United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the Quincy Jones Foundation. 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 chaired the Google Health Advisory Council from 2007 through 2009.

He has received several awards, including the 1994 Outstanding Young Alumnus Award from the University of Texas, Austin; the University of California, Berkeley, “National Public Health Hero” award; the Jan J. Kellermann Memorial Award for distinguished contribution in the field of cardiovascular disease prevention from the International Academy of Cardiology; a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association; the Beckmann Medal from the German Society for Prevention and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Diseases; the “Pioneer in Integrative Medicine” award from California Pacific Medical Center; the Stanley Wallach Lectureship Award from the American College of Nutrition; the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement; the Linus Pauling Award from the Institute for Functional Medicine; the Glenn Foundation Award for Research in Aging; the Bravewell Collaborative Pioneer of Integrative Medicine award; and the Sheila Kar Health Foundation Humanitarian Award from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles).

He regularly gives keynote speeches on his findings, and has spoken at the White House, the Google Zeitgeist conference, as well as the Institute of Medicine’s first Summit on Integrative Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences.

Ornish was recognized as “one of the most interesting people of 1996” by People magazine; selected as one of the “TIME 100” in integrative medicine; honored as “one of the 125 most extraordinary University of Texas alumni in the past 125 years;” chosen by LIFE magazine as “one of the fifty most influential members of his generation;” and by Forbes magazine as “one of the seven most powerful teachers in the world.”

Controversy

Many of Dean Ornish's statements about good nutrition have been disputed, notably in a Scientific American article titled Why Almost Everything Dean Ornish Says about Nutrition Is Wrong. This article elicited a lengthy critical response from Dean Ornish.

Published works

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Books and monographs

• Ornish, D. Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease, New York: Random House, 1990; Ballantine Books, 1992.
• Ornish D. Eat More, Weigh Less. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993.
• Ornish D. Everyday Cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996.
• Ornish D. Love & Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
• Ornish D. The Spectrum. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.
• Billings J, Scherwitz L, Sullivan R, Ornish D. Group support therapy in the Lifestyle Heart Trial. In: Scheidt S, Allan R, eds. Heart and Mind: The Emergence of Cardiac Psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association; 1996:233-253.
• Ornish D, Hart J. Intensive Risk Factor Modification. In: Hennekens C, Manson J, eds. Clinical Trials in Cardiovascular Disease. Boston: W.B. Saunders, 1998 (companion to Heart Disease, the Braunwald standard cardiology textbook).
• Ornish D. "Intensive Lifestyle Changes in Management of Coronary Heart Disease. In: Braunwald E. Harrison’s Advances in Cardiology. New York: McGraw Hill, 2002.
• Ornish D. “The cost-effectiveness of consumer-driven lifestyle changes in the treatment of cardiac disease.” In: Herzlinger RE. Consumer-Driven Health Care. San Francisco: Wiley & Sons, 2004.
• Scher B, Guarneri EM, Hart JA, Ornish D. Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trials. In: Manson J, Buring JE, Ridker PM, Gaziano JM, eds. Clinical Trials in Cardiovascular Disease, Second Edition. Boston: W.B. Saunders, 2004 (companion to Heart Disease, the Braunwald standard cardiology textbook).
• Ornish D. “Our Genes Are Not Our Fate.” In: Brockman J. This Will Change Everything. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

Original reports

• Ornish DM, Gotto AM, Miller RR, et al. Effects of a vegetarian diet and selected yoga techniques in the treatment of coronary heart disease. Clinical Research. 1979;27:720A.
• Ornish DM, Scherwitz LW, Doody RS, Kesten D, McLanahan SM, Brown SE, DePuey G, Sonnemaker R, Haynes C, Lester J, McAllister GK, Hall RJ, Burdine JA, Gotto AM. Effects of stress management training and dietary changes in treating ischemic heart disease. JAMA. 1983;249:54-59.
• Ornish DM, Brown SE, Scherwitz LW, et al. Can lifestyle changes reverse coronary atherosclerosis? The Lifestyle Heart Trial. The Lancet. 1990; 336:129-133. (Reprinted in Yearbook of Medicine and Yearbook of Cardiology (New York: C.V. Mosby, 1991).
• Gould KL, Ornish D, Scherwitz L, Stuart Y, Buchi M, Billings J, Armstrong W, Ports T, Scherwitz L. Changes in myocardial perfusion abnormalities by positron emission tomography after long-term, intense risk factor modification. JAMA. 1995;274:894-901.
• Ornish D, Scherwitz L, Billings J, Brown SE, Gould KL, Merritt TA, Sparler S, Armstrong WT, Ports TA, Kirkeeide RL, Hogeboom C, Brand RJ. Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease Five-year follow-up of the Lifestyle Heart Trial. JAMA. 1998;280:2001-2007.
• Ornish D. Avoiding Revascularization with Lifestyle Changes: The Multicenter Lifestyle Demonstration Project. American Journal of Cardiology. 1998;82:72T-76T.
• Ornish DM, Weidner G, Fair WR, Marlin R, Pettengill EB, Raisin CJ, Dunn-Emke S, Crutchfield L, Jacobs NF, Barnard RJ, Aronson WJ, McCormac P, McKnight DJ, Fein JD, Dnistrian AM, Weinstein J, Ngo TH, Mendell NR, Carroll PR. Intensive lifestyle changes may affect the progression of prostate cancer. Journal of Urology. 2005;174:1065-1070.
• Ornish D, Magbanua MJM, Weidner G, Weinberg V, Kemp C, Green C, et al. Changes in prostate gene expression in men undergoing an intensive nutrition and lifestyle intervention. Proc Nat Acad Sci USA 2008; 105: 8369-8374.
• Ornish D, Lin J, Daubenmier J, Weidner G, Epel E, Kemp C, Magbanua MJM, Marlin R, Yglecias L, Carroll P, Blackburn E. Increased telomerase activity and comprehensive lifestyle changes: a pilot study. The Lancet Oncology. 2008; 9: 1048-57.
• Dod HS, Bhardwaj R, Sajja V, Weidner G, Hobbs GR, Konat GW, Manivannan S, Gharib W, Warden BE, Nanda NC, Beto RJ, Ornish D, Jain AC. Effect of intensive lifestyle changes on endothelial function and on inflammatory markers of atherosclerosis. Am J Cardiol. 2010 Feb 1;105(3):362-7.
• Silberman A, Banthia R, Estay IS, Kemp C, Studley J, Hareras D, Ornish D. The effectiveness and efficacy of an intensive cardiac rehabilitation program in 24 sites. Am J Health Promot. 2010;24:260-266.

Interview

• Moyers, Bill. "Changing Life Habits: A Conversation with Dean Ornish." In: Healing and the Mind. New York: Doubleday, 1993.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]