Meaningful health reform needs to provide incentives for physicians and other health professionals to teach their patients healthy ways of living rather than reimbursing primarily drugs and surgical interventions.
— Dean Ornish
Smaller portions of good foods are more satisfying than larger portions of junk foods, especially if you pay attention to what you're eating.
Fear leads to more fear, and trust leads to more trust.
Eating a stick of butter will raise HDL in those who are able to do so, but that does not mean that butter is good for your heart. It isn't.
Telomeres are the ends of our chromosomes that control how long we live. As telomeres become shorter, then cells age and die more quickly. In simple terms, as your telomeres get shorter, your life gets shorter.
When we are angry with someone, we empower the person we hate the most in that moment to make us stressed out or even sick. That's not smart.
'I resolve to eat less food' sounds good in theory, but it's often hard to sustain. And if you believe that it's all willpower, then you're likely to be upset with yourself if you don't succeed.
When we torture people, even if we win the battle, we've already lost the war for hearts and minds. Especially our own.
Preventing cardiovascular disease can help free up critical resources for treating HIV/AIDS and other illnesses.
In 2010, I consulted with President Clinton after his bypass grafts occluded and encouraged him to make healthy lifestyle changes including a whole-foods, plant-based diet low in refined carbohydrates.
If we are going to find sustainable ways of dealing with global warming, we have to base it on love and feeling good, not fear and loathing. If it's fun, then it's sustainable.
Having the BRCA mutation significantly increases the risk of breast cancer, but it is not always the only factor. Lifestyle choices may increase or decrease the risk of breast cancer, but that knowledge is an opportunity to empower ourselves, not to blame.
No one has all the answers, so whatever a woman who has the BRCA mutation chooses to do requires courage and an element of faith. And a lot of love and support.
A little humility goes a long way.
Parents and kids know they should pass up the fries for an apple and exchange the video game for a game of tag - but knowing and doing are certainly different things.
I am as non-accepting of medical quackery and unscientific approaches as anybody else. I've grown up as a card-carrying scientist, and I know the power of science to answer questions, and for many questions I don't know of anything better than scientific approaches to answer them.
Curious patients are more receptive to new ideas, and those who engage their health practitioners in a dialogue are much more likely to adhere to these recommendations.
If you indulge yourself one day, you can eat more healthfully the next. To the degree you move in a healthful direction on the food spectrum, you're likely to feel better, lose weight, and gain health.
As a veteran of the diet wars, I think it's time to call a truce. Rather than hear experts argue, most people want practical information they can use.
Our emotions resonate with each other - for better and for worse.
There is often a simplistic view that HDL is good, so that anything that raises HDL is good for you, and anything that lowers it is bad for you. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Chronic emotional stress shortens your telomeres.
In an era in which war and terrorism - at home and abroad - are often based on racial, religious and ethnic differences, rediscovering the wisdom of love and compassion may help us increase our survival at a time when an increasingly divided country and world so badly need it.
Sometimes, people do the darkest acts in the name of helping protect their loved ones.
When the U.S. claims the right to invade any country unilaterally and then defines a country like Iran or North Korea as 'evil,' then it is a rational response for these countries to develop nuclear weapons as the only military deterrent to invasion. We create what we most fear.
In our experience, when people make comprehensive lifestyle changes, they usually can reduce or discontinue medications such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, anti-hypertensives, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, nitrates, insulin, and so on.
The biological mechanisms that control our health and well-being are much more dynamic - for better and for worse - than most people realize.
What's personally sustainable is globally sustainable.
Lifestyle changes may slow, stop, or even reverse the progression of early-stage prostate cancer.
Let's all be more humble about the evidence behind medical advice but also respect the challenges to providing accessible lifestyle guidance.
No one has a monopoly on truth, and science continues to advance. Yesterday's heresies may be tomorrow's conventional wisdom.
I appreciate the power of a White House bully pulpit - but kids listen and learn primarily from other kids. If your son's friend tells him that the apple is better than the fries, he's more likely to listen.
In general, losing weight is a good thing for those who are overweight, but it's important to lose weight in a way that enhances your health rather than one that may compromise it.
Whether it's by helping us search for health-related information, connecting us with doctors through online portals, or enabling us to store and retrieve our medical records online, the Internet is starting to show the promise it has to transform the way people interact with and improve their own health and wellness.
If you go on a diet and feel constrained, you are more likely to drop it. But if you see your food choices each day as part of a spectrum, then you are more likely to feel free and empowered.
If you're with a close friend, your anger may raise his blood pressure as well as your own, whereas loving feelings may lower blood pressure in both of you.
In a global economy, the Bush doctrine of unilateralism - going it alone - has been disastrous. It's becoming increasingly clear that we're all in this together. Your happiness is my happiness, your suffering is my suffering, your recession is my recession.
Not everything that lowers HDL is bad for you. If you change from a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet to a healthy low-fat, low-cholesterol diet, your HDL levels may stay the same or even decrease because there is less need for it. When you have less garbage, you need fewer garbage trucks to remove it, so your body may make less HDL.
When we forgive someone, it doesn't excuse their actions; it frees us from our own chronic stress and suffering, so it's in our own self-interest.
All divisions are man-made.
If we're not careful, we become that which we most fear.
If we can reach populations in developing countries and help them understand the value of their indigenous diet and lifestyles rather than copying ours, perhaps we can reverse the exponential rise in cardiovascular disease that is plaguing them.
When it's good business to make healthier food, then it becomes sustainable.
One of the reasons I'm excited by what visionary Elon Musk has done with the Tesla is to show that you can reduce global warming and drive a powerful, fun car. A cool car helps make a cooler planet.
When we realize that something as primal as the food that we choose to eat each day makes such an important difference in addressing both global warming and personal health, it empowers us and imbues these choices with meaning. If it's meaningful, then it's sustainable - and a meaningful life is a longer life.
Lifestyle changes may help reduce risk, but no study has shown that lifestyle changes alone can eliminate the risk of breast cancer, especially in those carrying the BRCA mutation.
Just like navigating in the open sea, triangulating the information you collect from media with your doctor's advice and some common sense will help map a sound path to safety.
Educators and school personnel work on the front lines of childhood obesity, but every day they face the challenges of budget cuts, mandated tests, rushed lunch periods, and a decrease in time for physical activity.
Knowledge and engagement are a powerful antidote to forces that often work against our kids being healthy.
An educated patient is empowered; thus, more likely to become healthy.
