Dean Ornish Quotes

What matters most is your overall way of eating and living.

Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is not.

Meaning is malleable: take it out, you get nihilism and despair. Put it in, you get sacredness and something most special.

Because the biological mechanisms that affect our health and well-being are so dynamic, when people change their diet and lifestyle, they usually feel so much better, so quickly; it reframes the reason for changing from fear of dying to joy of living. Also, the support that patients give each other is a powerful motivator.

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.

Whether you're six or sixty, if you go on a diet and lifestyle program and feel constrained, you're likely to go off it sooner or later. Offering a spectrum of choices is much more effective; then, you feel free and empowered.

People tend to think of breakthroughs in medicine as a new drug, a laser, or a high-tech surgical procedure. They often have a hard time believing that the simple choices that we make in our lifestyle. What we eat, how we respond to stress, whether or not we smoke cigarettes, how much exercise we get, and the quality of our relationships and support can be as powerful as drugs and surgery. And they often are.

Poor health is not caused by something you don't have; it's caused by disturbing something that you already have. Health is not something you need to get, it's something you have already if you don't disturb it.

When I use the word spirituality, I don't necessarily mean religion; I mean whatever it is that helps you feel connected to something that is larger than yourself.

I'm a big admirer of Walter Willett's work. I think he's done some really important research. He and I agree on most things.

One of the reasons my father ... became a dentist was so he could always be home for dinner and spend weekends with his family. At one point he had thought about being a musician, but he said, I'm not going to do that because I'd be on the road all the time and I wouldn't be with my family.

Eating a vegetarian diet, walking (exercising) everyday, and meditating is considered radical. Allowing someone to slice your chest open and graft your leg veins in your heart is considered normal and conservative.

I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol lowering drugs for the rest of their lives.

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.

Science is simply a powerful way of understanding what's real and what isn't, what's true and what's not. It can help us determine what works, what doesn't, for whom, and under what circumstances.

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.'

Think about it: Heart disease and diabetes, which account for more deaths in the U.S. and worldwide than everything else combined, are completely preventable by making comprehensive lifestyle changes. Without drugs or surgery.

The need for love and intimacy is a fundamental human need, as primal as the need for food, water, and air.

I never give up hope.

People don't dislike change, they dislike being changed.

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.

The healing power of love and relationships has been documented in an increasing number of well-designed scientific studies involving hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world.

Stress is not so much what you do, but how you react to what you do.

Real power is not given to us or even created; real power is realized. It comes from realizing an inner sense of peace, self-worth, and happiness.

At a time when 20% of people in the US go to bed hungry each night and almost 50% of the world's population is malnourished, choosing to eat more plant-based foods and less red meat is better for all of us-ourselves, our loved ones, and our planet.