I grew up in Texas, eating meat five times a day, and I liked meat. But I began being a vegetarian when I was 19 because I found that I felt better.
Category Archive: Dean Ornish
We all know we’re going to die one day, but who wants to think about it? What’s sustainable is joy, pleasure and freedom.
I’ve found that if I tell somebody ‘Eat this and don’t do that,’ it’s not only not helpful, it’s counterproductive because even more than being healthy, we want to feel free and in control, and as soon as somebody tells us to do something, there’s a tendency to do just the opposite.
A valid scientific theory is predictive, verifiable, and replicable. To me, that’s beautiful.
An educated patient is empowered; thus, more likely to become healthy.
What matters most is your overall way of eating and living.
With everything that you can imagine at our fingertips, many of the social interactions that help tie people together in a community have faded away. Are communities traditionally built on relationships, trust and familiarity a thing of the past?
When most people think about my work, they think about diet. To me, diet has always been the least interesting part of it.
People who are lonely and depressed are three to 10 times more likely to get sick and die prematurely than those who have a strong sense of love and community. I don’t know any other single factor that affects our health – for better and for worse – to such a strong degree.
The reason I spend so much of my time doing science is that the whole point of science is to help people resolve conflicting claims by saying: ‘Show me the data.’